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By Ben Sutherly
| Tuesday, May 13, 2008, 04:42 PM
I’ve never really minded dandelions all that much, which probably explains why my yard quickly takes on a “wild and woolly” look the day after I mow it, in contrast to the well-manicured lawns of many of my neighbors.
But why resign yourself to having a jungle in your backyard, even if you loathe using chemicals? A reader of this blog back in January remarked she’d like to know about local companies she could turn to that don’t use conventional lawn pesticides, adding she didn’t want to fall into that “green lawn” trap.
At her suggestion, I made some phone calls, and found Miami Valley yards have begun “going green” as their owners seek lawn care options they perceive as better for the environment, pets and children.
Mark Grunkemeyer, owner of Buckeye Ecocare, said about 50 of the 6,000 lawns serviced by his Centerville company are on a strict organic program. That is up from virtually none a couple of years ago.
Some property owners are mindful of any potential harm to children, pets and the environment from lawn chemicals, much as they were during a short-lived organic lawn care boom in the early 1990s.
“What we do in our backyards goes straight to the Ohio River. We should be good neighbors,” said Marvin Duren, a Vietnam veteran who said he was influenced by the effects of the defoliant Agent Orange.
Duren’s company, Marvin’s Organic Gardens near Lebanon, has about 25 first-time organic lawn care customers this year — four times what the company had a year ago.
Sales of corn gluten, a pre-emergent used in early spring to suppress weeds, were up 4 percent from a year ago despite a big price hike.
Good results from an organic lawn care program typically take three to five years, said Ken Cline, manager of Deal’s Landscape Inc. of Beavercreek, whose organic lawn care division has had 40 estimates this spring, double last year’s. “Organic is not a quick fix, that’s for sure,” Cline said.
Organics made up 5 percent of all turf pesticide purchases by lawn care operators in 2007, according to Lawn & Landscape magazine.
Those products will have to improve and become more competitively priced to be a bigger part of the lawn care business, Grunkemeyer said.
“We’ve created a marketplace where people are not willing to pay for a service that doesn’t deliver a perfect lawn,” he said. “We’ve spoiled ourselves.”
Here are a few basic tips for organic lawn-care:
• Raise the deck of your mower about half an inch between mowings until you’re cutting only the tips of the grass, leaving 3 inches to 4.5 inches. This will help grass shade out weeds.
• Make sure your blades are sharp so they don’t rip the grass.
• Test your soil to see what nutrients, insect and weed control are needed.
• Don’t bag grass clippings.
• Do your homework on product claims. “People seem to think ‘organic’ means it’s safer for the environment and the person, and that’s not necessarily true,” said Tom Delaney of the Professional Landcare Network.
• Aerification, or the process of removing small plugs of soil, can be used to improve soil health, though local lawn-care business owners differ on how often to use it.
• Make sure your lawn is adequately watered.
• Products: Milky Spore (kills grubs); horticultural vinegar (spot-treating weeds); corn gluten (pre-emergent seed suppressant)
Source: Local companies that provide organic lawn-care services.
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By Ben Sutherly
| Saturday, May 10, 2008, 10:47 PM
Have you started going out into your backyard for eggs instead of the grocery store? If so, you’re not alone.
Mt. Healthy Hatcheries near Cincinnati is reporting demand for baby chicks is up nearly 50 percent from a year ago; demand fueled not just by farm types, but by hobbyists.
Rob O’Hara, Mt. Healthy’s president, attributes the growing demand to higher food prices and a slowing economy, as well as fading concerns about avian influenza, which had hurt sales for several years.
Mt. Healthy ships by mail many of the 4 million chicks it hatches each season.
Siegel’s Covington Country Store in Miami County has 700 chicks on order from Mt. Healthy, and “I think I could have ordered twice that many if the hatchery had been able to keep up,” Kathy Siegel said. Customers “want to know where their food comes from.”
Do you have a backyard flock or know someone who does? If so, I’d love to hear from you for an upcoming story.
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By Ben Sutherly
| Wednesday, May 7, 2008, 05:17 PM
Llamas and alpacas are getting a little respect as part of a bill signed Wednesday by Gov. Ted Strickland.
House Bill 352 classifies llamas and alpacas as livestock in laws dealing with financial assistance to livestock exhibitions, concentrated animal feeding facilities, licensure of
livestock dealers and registration of livestock brands.
Supporters say the bill addresses a widespread perception that llamas and alpacas are “exotic” animals, often viewed as hobbies instead of a way to make a living. That can make it more difficult for prospective alpaca owners to finance purchases of the animals through banks.
The reclassification of llamas and alpacas means the animals will be subject to more testing for disease by the Ohio Department of Agriculture.
Ohio has more alpacas than any other state, with 18 percent of the U.S. population.
What do you think? Do you put alpacas and llamas in the same league as cattle, hogs and chickens, or do you tend to think of them as “exotic” animals?
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By Ben Sutherly
| Monday, May 5, 2008, 11:08 PM
Folks have been out in Ohio forests and wood lots hunting for wild mushrooms, continuing a great spring tradition here in Ohio.
Maybe this doesn’t speak too well of my observational abilities, but I’ve always had a tough time spotting mushrooms (I’ll blame it on wearing corrective lenses since age 8). But my hawk-eyed dad is a whiz at it.
While wild mushrooms aren’t psychodelic, they certainly seem to cast a spell over hunters. One district forester with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources once told me, “I think it’s the anticipation of finding something.” When a wild mushroom is found, “everyone gets down on their hands and knees and starts looking for more. It’s almost like you’re prospecting for gold or something. Everyone seems to get a thrill out of finding a dozen or so mushrooms under a tree.”
In addition to ashes and elms, mushrooms tend to pop up around tulip poplars, probably because the soil those trees grow in also suits mushrooms. You might also find them in old apple orchards, along railroad tracks and in low-lying areas by streams. They also tend to grow in the same spot.
Several Miami Valley parks allow mushroom hunting with a permit, while nature preserves generally do not. Those seeking mushrooms on private property should obtain permission from landowners before doing so.
I’m curious to know if you’ve been finding mushrooms locally this year. (I won’t waste my breath asking where you find them.) Do you ever hunt for them in Michigan on Memorial Day weekend? Any suggestions for cooking wild mushrooms? (A mushroom called the false morel can make some people sick. To avoid ingesting the wrong mushrooms, those new to hunting should be accompanied by someone who knows which mushrooms are edible.)
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By Ben Sutherly
| Sunday, May 4, 2008, 02:07 PM
Several years ago, my dad and his three brothers reached a crossroads in their farming business: they needed more room to store their farm machinery.
As a history buff, I wasn’t too keen on their idea of putting up a prefabricated metal building on their farm on State Route 41 between Troy and Springfield where I live. I understood the need for more storage, but knew such a building would detract the appearance of the farmstead whose buildings date between the 1850s and the early 20th century.
So it was a relief when Dad decided instead to hire an Amish crew from Indiana to renovate the oldest and largest of the barns on the farm into a free-span building capable of holding modern farm equipment. The Amish, which made the two-hour trip one way every day by van, removed the old hay loft, fitted the barn with trusses, then cut off the lower portion of the old hand-hewn posts so that far more equipment could be stored in the barn.
Note the new trusses attached to the older (darker) beams; you can see where a vertical beam was lopped off so that the barn could house larger pieces of equipment, including the “bean header” in the foreground (a “bean header” is an implement mounted on the front of a combine that’s used to harvest soybeans).
Now the barn from that outside appears unchanged, and Dad and the uncles didn’t add to their property taxes by putting up a modern pole building.
Admittedly, from a historic preservation perspective, this solution was less than ideal, as it did compromise the barn’s integrity. Yet much of the workmanship that went into this barn, which dates back to at least 1858, can still be seen. And adaptation and resourcefulness are certainly virtues that have a long history on the American farm. Besides, when you consider how many old barns fall victim to neglect and development each year, it seems to me that one has to find some measure of satisfaction in seeing an old barn being put to good use again.
In today’s Dayton Daily News, I wrote about an old barn near Wapakoneta that was moved to Colorado to be used as a $720,000 home. I’m interested in your feedback on that article, and what your thoughts are on reusing what old barns remain here in the Miami Valley.
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By Ben Sutherly
| Thursday, May 1, 2008, 11:01 PM
Contributions to animal-rights groups, who increasingly are having a say over how farm animals are raised, caught my attention this past week. Consider these figures from 2006 and how they compare to 2005, the most recent years for which data were available:
Humane Society of the United States: $130.2 million, up 9 percent
Massachusetts SPCA: $46.9 million, down 5 percent
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals: $30.2 million, up 17 percent
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine: $7 million, unchanged
PCRM Foundation: $6.1 million, unchanged
Friends of Animals: $5.6 million, up 12 percent
Foundation to Support Animal Protection: $5.1 million, up 18 percent
Farm Sanctuary: $4.5 million, unchanged
Animal Legal Defense Fund: $3.8 million, down 5 percent
Compassion in World Farming: $3 million, up 114 percent
Do you think groups like these should have more say over how livestock are raised, or do you think they already have undue influence?
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By Ben Sutherly
| Thursday, May 1, 2008, 11:13 AM
Random musings on hauling rock:
I spent part of this past weekend picking up rocks in the fields out at my family’s farms in Miami County’s Elizabeth Twp. as we continue spring planting. In recent years, hauling rock — a rather mindless but relaxing job — has had me thinking. It seems I could convince some of my city-slicker friends to pick up rock by telling them they could get a tan while finding rocks for landscaping, much as Tom Sawyer convinced his friends that they couldn’t pass up a chance to whitewash a fence.
Out on the farm, we pick up rocks the size of a fist or larger to keep them from damaging the farm equipment. We dump them in the corners of fields, and some big piles have built up over many decades. (I have to admit the sight of huge boulders dumped in a ditch is a pretty cool one.) A lot of farmers don’t pick up rocks anymore, especially those who have switched to no-till practices. (We no-till soybeans, but still raise corn the old-fashioned way.) Other farms are farming more acres and simply don’t have the hours for such a time-intensive chore.
The job has gotten a lot more pleasant just in the 32 years I’ve been alive. When I was very young, my cousins and I used to sit on the front bucket of a noisy tractor and fetched the rocks we spotted, with the occasional obligatory throwing of a dirt clod at each other. Today, we use John Deere Gators, bringing out the tractor only for the biggest rocks.
I was struck by a neighbor’s perspective on rocks seven years ago when I wrote an article on how we view rocks. She had seen the stone pile on her old farmstead east of Troy depleted in the five years since her family had moved there.
“To the people who were living here at the time, it represented a great deal of effort,” she said of the stone pile, speaking on condition of anonymity lest she attract more stone snatchers. “To me, a present homeowner, it represents history.”
A local landscaper summed it up well: “Rocks in the past, when we were more of an agricultural society, were looked at as more of a nuisance. Now that we’re more of a suburban society, people look at them as a thing of beauty.”
What’s your take on rocks?
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‘tis a gift to be simple…
Plant a vegetable garden. Use your land for food.