I can’t dance and it’s too wet to plow. I’ve heard that expression many times over the years and never understood it until this April. I can’t dance and it certainly is too wet to plow! So I sit here, surrounded by 90 pounds of seed potatoes, wondering when they’ll begin to rot. Or if my tomato and pepper starts are going to be overly leggy before planting time.
The pea season’s gone, though I may take a shot at a fall planting, mostly to feed the deer and rabbits. I’m feeling some regret for the wildlife around the acre/someday garden. I’m sure they will consume more of our efforts than we will. However, I will harvest something from that ground, be it tomatoes and beans or venison. I’m not much for killing things, especially mammals, but I’m going to take what is offered. (Besides, it’s ridiculous being a bow hunter safety instructor/archery coach who’s never taken a deer!)
While we await the call, “Come help me hook the plow to the tractor.” I’m left with little to do but think about all that can go wrong. I’ve been raiding the public libraries with the hope I’ll catch a clue from some book on gardening! So far, Gene Logsdon has had the most practical advice for dealing with wildlife in the garden, kill it and eat what you can of it. I can’t say that’s cheered me up as the rain pelts down and the “high water” sign goes up on our street. (Even if the acre had been plowed, we’d not be able to work it because of the rains.)
When I’m not reading about farming (gardening an acre is not farming, but working that much ground requires some farming tools so I’m sort of farming.) I think about why anyone would bother farming in the first place. It’s so much easier to just buy groceries.
Thinking has also led me to conclude, at what...
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...asp the thinking of others studying all this “grand design” and our place in it. “Saving the planet” can’t be done. The planet will save itself if it needs saving. Saving myself might be something I can achieve, if I ever figure out whether or not I’m worth saving.
So it’s back to school boy. Only this time the classroom is an acre of ground, the goal is education and understanding, not the control and manipulation I suffered the first 12 years of schooling. Sadly, most of the books I’m reading on this topic are all about controlling me! Still, some miniscule grains of truth sift out of them. Whether I’m smart enough to spot them, comprehend them and pass them along so my family’s future generations might live as well, and as long, as the past ones did remains to be discovered.
We come from the soil. If we don’t understand what soil is we understand nothing else.
Although Leopold’s love of great expanses of wilderness is readily apparent, his book does not cry out in defense of particular tracts of land about to go under the axe or plow, but rather deals with the minutiae, the details, of often unnoticed plants and animals, all the little things that, in our ignorance, we have left out of our managed acreages but which must be present to add up to balanced ecosystems and a sense of quality and wholeness in the landscape.
In the movie “American Meat” the writers discussed the difference between commodity farming and sustainable farming. The film does not give a balanced view between the two types of farming. The future of farming is sustainable farming. As seen in the movie, it is possible to sustain all of the American people while practicing sustainable farming methods.
American Green has entertaining anecdotes, but should be considered more of a light read than as an authoritative work of non-fiction. This book may be enjoyed by environmentalists who want to know more about the impact that lawns have on the environment or for someone who truly is obsessed with his or her lawn and wants to learn about others who share this obsession. Steinberg’s goals may have been lofty, to prove a nationwide obsession, but his arguments and assumptions created a book that cannot be taken seriously.
The human mind is perhaps the greatest object on the earth, animate or inanimate, but without the proper training, the mind is a relatively useless tool. Through the development of formal education systems, humans as a whole have tried to ensure the training of all minds so as to continue prosperity for the world. Most of the time, though, education systems do not realize the harm they are doing to developing minds and the subsequent negative consequences. Among the largest of these inadequate education systems is the American primary schooling system. The American education system is in fact failing; it continues to deplete children of their natural creativity and thirst for knowledge while preaching conformity, which in turn creates an ill-prepared and incompetent public.
According to an article entitled, The Child in the Garden: An Evaluative Review of the Benefits of School Gardens, by Dorothy Blair, “Anonymous prepackaged food arrives at supermarkets from energy-intensive, polluting, and often obesity-promoting industrial food-manufacturing systems.” This is the main reason that I am interested in food based education programs because I am a mother of three school aged children and as a mom it is difficult for me to encourage healthy eating habits when everything is against me. Television commercials are constantly advertising sugary foods, radios promote candy, and grocery stores encourage more candy sales at checkout lines. On top of that they are packaged in a way that is appealing to young children. For example, I was at the grocery store and saw a box of cereal with the characters of Frozen as did my daughter. Since Frozen is my daughter’s favorite movie she wanted me to buy it for her. I looked at the nutrition content and it was just another sugary cereal. As a mother this is a hard decision because I know the only reason she wants it is because of the packaging. If I say no than she becomes upset and if I say yes than I am not providing healthy food choices. This is the
In many areas, the deer have adapted to eat primarily agricultural crops (crops grown by humans). In many parts of the country, a deer’s diet may consist of up to 50% farm-grown corn. Obviously the deer eat some native foods, such as some trees and bushes, particularly buck brush and rose, but along with small amounts of dogwood, chokecherry, plum, red cedar, pine, and many other species of plants. Forbs, particularly sunflowers, are important, however grasses and sedges are used only briefly in spring and fall. White-tailed deer are the largest game animal in North America.
In the last decade, from the Rockies to New England and the Deep South, rural and suburban areas have been beset by white-tailed deer gnawing shrubbery and crops, spreading disease and causing hundreds of thousands of auto wrecks. But the deer problem has proved even more profound, biologists say. Fast-multiplying herds are altering the ecology of forests, stripping them of native vegetation and eliminating niches for other wildlife. ' 'I don 't want to paint deer as Eastern devils, ' ' said Dr. McShea, a wildlife biologist associated with the National Zoo in Washington, ' 'but this is indicative of what happens when an ecosystem is out of whack. ' ' The damage is worse than anyone expected, he and other scientists say. Higher deer densities have affected growth, survival, and reproduction of many plant species which have aesthetic, economic or ecological value. In some cases, many species of trees have also been shown to have reduced growth as a result of high deer density (Environmental Benefits of Hunting, 1). Deer prefer certain plant species over others and frequently feed on economically valuable tree species. For example, they prefer oak and sugar maple seedlings, as well as acorns, over less palatable species like American Beech and striped maple. Thus, less marketable species are more likely to survive to maturity,
The deer population has seen a dramatic increase since the late 1800s. Before that time, the deer census had been threatened. In the 1900s the deer population rebounded from about 20,000 to more than 1 million. This drastic increase can be attributed to changes in habitat, including reverting abandoned farm fields to forests, and migrations in human population to rural and suburban areas. Both of these progressions created open and forested habitats preferred by deer. In addition, landowners have excluded hunters out of many areas, subsequently, deer populations have increased. “Although the recovery of deer populations from only about 500,000 nationwide in the early 1900s to more than 15 million today is considered a wildlife management
In his 2009 article “The Omnivore’s Delusion”, Blake Hurst takes a stand against the numerous non-farmers who are attempting, and in some cases succeeding, to degrade and ‘clean’ the farming industry. Hurst’s main points of contention are the lack of true knowledge these intellectuals have on the inner workings of today’s farms and their insistent belief that the farmers themselves “…are too stupid to farm sustainably, too cruel to treat their animals well, and too careless to worry about their communities, their health, and their families” (24).
Years ago, killing animals for food was part of the average man’s everyday life. While, now a days, hunting is questioned by many across the world because it is commonly viewed as a recreational activity. Many residents have a problem with the dangers that come with hunting. Not to mention, as time goes on, society seems to feel differently about animals and how they should be treated. One of the biggest debates is the harvest of white tailed deer. All over the United States, white tailed deer thrive because of the few predators that feast upon them and the large forests and habitats that these deer can flourish in. However, as buildings and subdivisions pop up left and right decreasing the white tailed deer natural habitat, the debate grows stronger. The heart of the debate is centered around ethical issues, human and deer conflicts, safety, and the benefits hunting has on the economy.
is the best thing for the population of deer in Alabama, as well as people who live
Transition: We all know that save money is a major benefit for, but that is not all that gardening can do.
Logsdon, Gene. “What if Farming for Profit Really isn't Possible.” The Land Institute. Prairie Writers, 2013. Web. 30 Oct. 2013.
Home gardens offer a wide variety of benefits to the environment and serve a diverse group of people. Home gardening provides a source of fresh produce and free of chemicals, it also gives you complete control over the chemicals and products used during the growing process. A home garden allows you to pick the produce when its ripe, unlike produce at the store is often picked before its fully ripe. The quality and flavor of the freshly picked produce from home is better than the produce that might have unknown chemicals and was likely picked several days or weeks before being sold. The produce retains more nutrients when consumed shortly after being picked, making your home garden vegetables a healthier option. A garden also provides a positive environmental impact. The compost allows you to recycle certain kitchen and yard waste into a nutrient-rich additive for the garden. This provides natural fertilizer for you plants and reduces the wastes you produce. If you choose to avoid or limit chemical use, you reduce pollution from your gardening activities. Besides being good for the environment gardens have environmental gains for us. Gardening help control urban temperatures, If the environmental landscape design is effective it can cool your home in summer and warm it in winter, it can also reduce the energy cost by up to 20%. Gardening, and all the physical activity that goes along with it, leads to a better overall physical health, weight loss, improve you bones, and reduces the risk of having osteoporosis. “In a study of 3,310 older women, researchers from the University of Arkansas found that women involved in yard work and other types of gardening exercises had lower rates of osteoporosis than joggers, swimmers, and women wh...
“ Know your farmer, know your food” goes the slogan by organic farmers to promote the consumption of locally grown food through organic farming. Subsequent to the clear distinction between organic and conventional food, there is an increase in focus towards organic farming. The “silent spring” that represents the seemingly solitary voice of the science writer Rachel Carson, 1962 ushered in the organic farming movement to counter the green revolution industrial-scale use of pesticides and fertilizers back in the 1960s. However the use of the term “organic farming” started with Lord Northbourne (aka Walter James, 4th Baron Northbourne) (Pogash, 2008), which he derived from the concept of “the farm as organism” as, explained in his book titled