SolMow Customers Grow Much More than Grass

Growing food at home or in community gardens has increased 17% in the past five years, bringing the total of U.S. households growing edibles to 42 million, according to the National Gardening Association. That means 35% of American households are engaged in food gardening!

It’s no coincidence that many Solar Mowing customers are in this group. Who wants a gasoline mower chugging around the eggplants and tomatoes planned for tonight’s dinner?

Using emission-free mowing keeps the air cleaner, and growing food organically keeps these home gardens free of pesticides and herbicides. Here’s a photo gallery of the organic edible gardens of several Solar Mowing customers — and two photos from my own wee plots.

Grown at Home...had to add netting to keep the bunnies out.    But the squash plants look healthy.    I’ve been pleased with them.

Customer Chris installed a 3’6″ x 6’6″ raised bed in her backyard with the help of Grown at Home. Besides the squash, basil, and tomatoes seen here, she has peppers growing in a box on her deck. “We had beans in the garden, too, but the bunnies ate them,” says Chris. “I’ve since installed netting with smaller holes.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Potatoes (red, white, and blues), radishes, turnips, carrots, and broccoli are among the many plants in Jen’s backyard garden. Jen surrounded the bed with chicken wire and bird netting. A tarp at the bottom keeps weeds under control.

Jen'sSideYard

In her side yard, Jen grows herbs, tomatoes, peppers, squash, melons, and eggplant. Raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, currants, figs, and peaches grow elsewhere on this quarter acre. “The garden/farm provides our family of four with 90% of our vegetables and berries,” says Jen. “What is left over, we freeze or can for the winter.” A sign on the fence says that Jen’s property is certified by the National Wildlife Federation as a wildlife habitat.

 

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Garlic, basil, peppers, and tomatoes are among the offerings in Elisa’s garden. She built the raised beds from a kit.

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Cucumbers are ready to pick in Elisa’s garden.

 

springtime lettuce

Compared to these plots, my own garden offers scant nourishment. Staples include springtime lettuce followed by …

 

 

 

First springtime lettuce, then blueberries….

… summer blueberries and strawberries. I pick basil and parsley from warm spring to cool fall, and a five-year-old pot of bay leaf grows indoors (except when taken out a few months in summer), providing year-round spice.

 

If you have a garden you’d like showcased in a later post (even if you’re not a SolMow customer!), please send photos here. And if you’ve thought about starting your own food garden, here’s a good guide to help you break ground. Not all planting needs to happen in the spring. In the DC area, late July and early August is a good time to plant carrots, kale, radishes, turnips, and more for an early autumn harvest. Here’s a local planting timetable for many vegetables in our area.

 

Grasscycling and Haymaking

Some of our urban and suburban homesteads are getting downright countrified. Here and elsewhere, folks in increasing numbers are raising chickens and growing more of their own food. And so the question has come up: Can grass clippings be used to make hay? That’s hay as in food for chickens, rabbits, horses, and other animals. Not the “hay” that is the thing we must make while the sun shines, whatever that is.

Homer'sScythe

Winslow Homer’s The Veteran in a New Field

The answer, in short, is no. Hay is dried grass, but the only way to make it from our urb/suburb landscapes is to let our lawns grow realllly long (like a foot high) and cut it with hedge clippers or a scythe as Homer’s veteran does in the artwork, at left, or as Frost does in the poem, below. Not terribly practical — even before you spread it out and let it dry for weeks. (A lawn mower — gas or electric — cuts it in too many small pieces.)

While not good for making hay, grass clippings can serve us well if we just let them lie. Mulching plugs in Solar Mowing’s machines finely chop the clippings and distribute them evenly across the lawn. Made up mostly of water, these clippings quickly break down and return key nutrients (nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus) to the soil.

Grasscycling, as it’s called, helps keep our lawns healthy. Here in the urb/suburb, cut grass serves as a valuable natural fertilizer, but as a source of hay? Nay.

Mowing

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound—
And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,
Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,
Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers
(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.
The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.

Robert Frost, 1913

We’re Not Ready for Roundup Ready II

Farmers put the first Roundup Ready seeds in the ground in 1996. Genetically engineered to tolerate glyphosate, the herbicide in Monsanto’s Roundup, the seeds — soybeans, then corn and now alfalfa, cotton, sugarbeets, and other crops — grew despite applications of Roundup, which killed everything else around them.

Fast forward to today, and the once-doomed weeds are beginning to turn up their collective noses at Roundup — and live! What’s a chemical company to do?

RoundupCreate a superweed killer, that’s what! Dow Chemical’s Enlist Duo is a mix of glyphosate and 2,4-D, an ingredient in Agent Orange, a herbicide widely used in the Vietnam War and linked to hormone and reproductive disruptions, kidney and liver damage, and cancer.

Genetically modified (GM) crops would need to be further tinkered with, of course, so they can withstand doses of 2,4-D. (The only way to avoid GM foods is to read labels carefully — and choose organic foods, which are usually GM-free.)

The good news: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has yet to approve Enlist Duo, and the agency is accepting public comments through Monday, June 30. Weigh in here.

The most commonly used herbicide in the U.S., glyphosate has been showing up in breast milk, urine, and drinking water supplies. Scientific studies have linked exposure to birth defects and cancers.

Its widespread use is also killing milkweed, causing “significant ongoing harm” to monarch butterflies, says the Natural Resources Defense Council. The group has petitioned the EPA to review glyphosate and limit its use.

Enlist Duo is harmful and unsustainable, and it’s not the way forward. That’s the message I gave EPA. For two more days, you can add your message here

 

New Study Links Gas-powered Mowers to Breast Cancer

There it was in black and white. A new study, perhaps the first of its kind, listed potential breast carcinogens, and near the top of the list were chemicals found in exhaust from gas-powered lawn equipment.

The peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives found that “gasoline and chemicals formed by combustion (e.g., benzene and butadiene) are among the largest sources of mammary carcinogens in the environment,” and that exposure to these chemicals comes from “vehicles, lawn equipment, tobacco smoke, and charred or burned food.”

SCBeach2

Dear friend and breast cancer survivor, Susan, savors a Lake Michigan sunset.

That environmental factors play a large role in causing cancer is not in dispute. In Molecular Biology of the Cell (2002), referenced on the National Institutes of Health website, it is estimated that “80-90% of cancers should be avoidable, or at least postponable,” if certain environmental factors are avoided.

Indeed, the authors of the breast cancer study offer steps women can take to reduce their exposure to cancer-causing chemicals. One such step is to “use electric rather gas-powered lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and weed whackers.” (Though as pointed out in an earlier post, the pollution avoided is personal only; charging your electric equipment with kilowatts from coal still pollutes.)

To the two key reasons to use Solar Mowing — to reduce air and noise pollution — you can add a third: to protect your breasts and the breasts of the women you love.

 

Waking Up to No Wind Energy

It was a punch to the gut — the email on January 31, 2014, from Clean Currents, my wind energy provider, stating that “effective immediately,” we would be “returned to utility service,” which in my case means coal — as it does throughout much of the Mid-Atlantic.

We’ve purchased wind energy for our home for the past six years. Not only does my business rely on this wind energy to supplement the solar energy collected by my trucks’ panels, but I have grown to feel that it is my right to buy renewable energy. Thinking that it might be taken away made me feel, weirdly, violated.

Just two weeks earlier, toxic chemicals used at coal plants spilled into West Virginia’s Elk River, poisoning the water supply of hundreds of thousands — the latest in a string of coal/oil/natural gas-related calamities. I didn’t want to go back to fossil fuels.

EElogoAs it turned out, I didn’t have to. Within hours, I knew I had other wind options, and in a matter of days, I had signed up with Chevy Chase-based Ethical Electric. (Check out their rates, but here are other local options: Washington Gas Energy Services [highly reputable affiliate of Washington Gas] and Groundswell [offers collective purchase of clean energy].)

WGESLogoAnd don’t think buying renewables is risky business that could leave you powerless. Wind customers still receive their electricity through PEPCO, BGE, or whatever local utility is in the area — and like with the Clean Currents situation, you’d be covered. The problem was that Clean Currents, a relatively small company with less-than-cavernous pockets, couldn’t cover the hugely inflated prices during last winter’s polar vortex. Likewise, smaller coal-fired power companies went offline.

GroundswellLogoThe beauty of all this: We have a choice. Deregulation throughout the Mid-Atlantic and elsewhere has opened up the energy market to competitive — and renewable — suppliers.

Choose wisely, friends.

Good Government

GreenBizTransBkgrdThe two men sat across the dining room table from me and asked what time of day I buy gasoline for my truck when air quality is poor. They asked how much water and what kind of soap I use when washing my equipment. My answers — late in the day IF I must buy gasoline on code alert days and little water and biodegradable soap some of which flow into the rain garden adjacent to my driveway — were met with approving nods. These men were not members of Friends of the Earth or a neighborhood association. They were Montgomery County officials, looking over my equipment and my application to be a county certified “green business.”

To those of us running green businesses, the certification is a stamp of approval from local government, which shares our values for environmental stewardship, conservation of energy and water, carbon and waste reduction, recycling, and environmentally responsible purchasing.

Consumers seeking to hire green businesses can go the county website and search its directory. For local business owners wanting to green their operations, the Program offers resources to help them.

“Grass clippings that land in the street need to be blown up onto the grass,” Doug Weisburger, Program Manager reminded me, “Otherwise, they’ll make their way down storm drains and add to nitrogen pollution of the Bay.”

That’s my County talking.

At exactly 9:50 a.m. on June 20, 2013, Solar Mowing was certified as a “Green Landscape Business,” a distinction that is valid for three years.

The World’s Tallest Grass Grows in My Yard —— Yours, too?

So far, no one’s called me to mow their bamboo, but it could happen. Bamboo, as you may know, is a member of the grass family. A really tall member. And in my backyard (and maybe yours?), some of these tall grasses make their home.

This four-inch tall bamboo shoot needs a swift kick before it hardens and grows tall.

May is Control Bamboo Month as soft shoots, like this one, get the boot.

Bambusa vulgaris, also known as Golden Bamboo, grows along my back fence, forming a wall about 25 feet long and high and four feet deep. The tall stems, or culms, droop in large arcs during rain storms. In heavy snow, the tips of the arching culms get stuck, forming a tunnel that will last until the snow and ice melt. In spring and summer, flocks of birds (starlings and robins mostly) roost in the thick foliage.

All good, except it’s not. Bamboo is extremely invasive. If not for our springtime stomping tradition, the neat green wall would easily overtake our .33 acre.

Hundreds of bamboo shoots spring(!) up each May from a network of underground stems called rhizomes. The shoots are watery and soft and with a slight kick, I can knock them flat. If I don’t catch a shoot in its first few days, however, it hardens and getting rid of it may require a hand saw.

If you think your grass grows fast, consider this: A bamboo shoot can grow more than two inches in a day. Most reach their full height, 15-30 feet, in a single growing season.

Weighed down by snow, bamboo stems, or culms, form a lovely arch.

The evergreen stems, or culms, form a lovely arch after a heavy snow.

Getting rid of bamboo involves lots of digging and even herbicides, so I’ve learned to live with this evergreen wall. I would never advise planting bamboo, but with annual diligence, it can be contained. For more info, including eradication options, check out the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Plant Invaders of Mid-Atlantic Natural Areas.

A Path Runs Through It —— and We Get to Mow It

Meadow. So soothing a word, it should be listed as a synonym for soothing. And while I’ve written in an earlier post that lawns are the meadows in our everyday landscapes, even I know they aren’t real meadows — those self-sustaining habitats jumping with insects, birds, and butterflies, where tall feathery grasses and colorful flowers dance in the wind.

The meadow sits along Jones Bridge Road at Woodend, Audubon Naturalist Society's Woodend Sanctuary. The deer exclosure is on the left.

The meadow, along Jones Bridge Road at Audubon Naturalist Society’s Woodend Sanctuary, was starting to green up when the path was first cut on April 27. Part of the deer exclosure is on the left.

The difference is clear when every ten days or so, we visit a real — albeit baby — meadow at Woodend, the Audubon Naturalist Society’s (ANS) 40-acre Sanctuary in Chevy Chase, MD, to mow the path meandering through it.

“Years ago, before the extreme pressure of deer and invasive plants, our meadows were chock full of a wide variety of plants and the birds, butterflies, and other insects that relied on them for food and shelter,” says Lisa Alexander, ANS’s executive director. “Today, as we work to increase the variety of native plant species in the meadow, we eagerly hope for the return of bird and insect diversity, too.”

When ANS decided to restore this meadow, they sought advice from Larry Weaner, a landscape architect who specializes in native plants, and Dr. Jennifer Murrow, a wildife biologist at the University of Maryland, because meadow-making is more than pulling up some weeds and throwing down some seed.

By our second cut on May 6, the meadow grasses on either side of the path were long and lush.

By our second mowing on May 6, the meadow grasses on either side of the path were long and lush.

“It was decided to use a mini bulldozer to lightly scrape off the top layer of soil and eliminate the dense root mats of invasive plants,” said Alexander. “We’re eager to see if anything sprouts from the seed bank below the layer we scraped off.”

In addition, volunteers, overseen by ANS’s Sanctuary Committee, planted more than 1,600 quart-size pots of grasses and flowers and more than 1,750 plugs (small, young plants). The group also erected a large temporary exclosure in a corner of the meadow, which will show how a meadow grows without deer browsing on it.

“A great deal of effort was devoted to finding plants not only native to our region but also grown from seed collected in our region,” said Marney Bruce, a volunteer on the Sanctuary Committee.

The funds for the project are from an anonymous donor; the soil is in the hands of dozens of (mostly) volunteers.

ANS chose Solar Mowing to mow the path because our machines are lightweight, quiet, and most important, non-polluting, and we are more than willing to help prevent the spread of weeds by wiping down the blade and underside of the mower and picking debris out of the wheel treads before we mow. (That I worked at ANS for eight years as Communications Director also may have had something to do with it. :))

What a treat to have a small part in this wonderful stewardship project. Watch for future posts on ANS’s meadow-making.

Let Clover Come Over

For those homeowners who want to rid their grass of clover, consider this: Before the era of big chemistry that began in the 1950s, grass seed mixes contained white clover seeds. Clover was considered attractive and a critical ingredient for healthy turf!

CloverLawn2CropIt was not until synthetic herbicides came along and killed everything in the grass save the grass that clover, in time, fell out of favor and lumped in with the weeds.

“The thought of white Dutch clover as a lawn weed will come as a distinct shock to old-time gardeners,” wrote Dr. R. Milton Carleton, in his book New Way to Kill Weeds in Your Lawn and Garden (1957). “I can remember the day when lawn mixtures were judged for quality by the percentage of clover seed they contained. The higher this figure, the better the mixture.”

Clover deserves our enlightened love. A legume, it takes nitrogen out of the air and passes this essential nutrient through its roots to the grass around it. And if that’s not enough, it’s also evergreen, drought tolerant, and disease-resistant.

When Solar Mowing cuts lawns (at the ideal height of three inches), most clover flowers are preserved. Train your brain to respect and value these dainty fertilizer factories in your grass. And watch your property become popular with honeybees!

 

 

Burrowing Bees Make Good Neighbors

We tend to think of bees as social insects that live and work in large hives with one fertile female and lots of workers. The truth is that most of the 20,000 species of bees in the world are solitary and live underground. And some of them are camping out in my neighborhood. Yours, too?

BeeNestSingle

Ground-nesting bees are non-aggressive pollinators.

Their burrows resemble anthills, but have larger openings. Each female digs her own nest, and it’s not unusual to find dozens of burrows clustered together. In my neighborhood, two small dry hills with patchy ground cover provide good burrowing habitat.

Ground-nesting bees are active for just a few weeks in spring. They’re excellent pollinators and super laid-back. Most of the bees flying low over the mounds are male, which can’t sting. And even the females are non-aggressive and will only sting in defense.

The young will hatch and remain underground doing their larva-pupa thing until next spring when they emerge as adults; the females will then go off to dig burrows of their own, and the cycle goes on.

The bees prefer to burrow in dry areas with bare patches.

The bees burrow in dry, patchy areas.

If you have ground-nesting bees in your area, consider yourself lucky. Show the mounds to your kids and encourage their interest in and respect for wildlife. If you simply must get rid of the bees, the best way is to keep the area wet. Females will likely abandon their nests to drier ground. Hey, send them my way. We’ve got room in our ‘hood!

For more information on bees, check out this colorful, concise guide.