AS LEAVES BEGIN TO FALL
As the leaves begin to fall on your lawn, the common reaction is to remove them as quickly as possible before they smother your grass. Another option has opened up to us which is rapidly gaining popularity taking over the way gardeners remove leaves from a lawn. New high tech lawn mowers now can grind leaves up into very small particles and if the leaf drop is not too heavy, all the leaves can become incorporated into the top layer of growing turf. The tiny particles of leaves break down rapidly providing carbon to feed the microbes in the rhizosphere of your lawn and to bring rich nutrient to feed the roots of the grass. When excessive amounts of leaves fall, this ground- up leaf pulverization method can create an effective mulch to be used to cover a 2 inch layer on existing planting beds. Ground up leaves are also an essential ingredient in any compost pile.
Nature has set up a system for us to follow and everything from the earth needs to be recycled back into the earth. This is the key to sustainability. Once we understand nature’s systems we can accelerate them. In the past we made the mistake of incinerating leaves but through organic gardener advocates we are learning the great value that leaves provide for our soils’ food web. Organic principles are the salvation for this country and our earth.
Going back to organic principles and away from using chemicals is something that only re-education can correct. We need to change our thinking to reflect the natural way to solve our problems and consider what is best for our health and the well being of our earth. Our way of thinking now is the wrong way for this is the way we have been falsely taught. We have unfortunately been brainwashed. Wonder drugs are usually chemical formulations created by large pharmaceutical companies to cure all of our ailments. They end up being prescribed by our doctors. This is where the money is and thus where the activity is. These products are advertised by rich chemical companies which have statically proved the value of their product. We as are the product of our environment and so we are led to believe in this data.
I am not addressing any specific product what I am addressing is a culture that we are embracing. We revere our Doctors and the great education they received. We believe in everything they tell us. But there are two sides to most studies and we need to understand both to come up with a proper decision. Only when you finally have become part of the organic revolution will you understand nature’s side. We just have to look what has happened to our food chain and the resulting poor health in our country. When you understand the natural way, you will look at things differently.
When I think about this tainted informational dilemma we face I always go back to my college days at Cornell where I went to learn Horticulture. I took turf management from Dr. Cornman a very popular professor at Cornell. He took us to the turf fields and showed us experiments that proved that a high nitrogen fertilizer was the most beneficial for grass growth. He then discovered that chemical formulations that used higher nitrogen grew better grass. He was heralded in many publications for his great findings and the superior formulations that he developed for improved turf growth. His students were very proud of him. He was able to make great strides in our industry. The chemical companies paid him for the grant to perform these tests. The rich chemical companies got richer by publicizing these findings to the world and created a greater market for their product. These results resulted in better turf management practices. Everyone loved and admired Professor Dr. Cornman.
I was taught at college how to grow great homeowner lawns. I felt obligated to help my customers grow great lawns also. I admired and loved Dr. Cornham and I was an advocate of his teachings and passed them on to my customers. After all a beautiful lawn was a place where children could play, a dog could romp and one could navigate to other places in the yard. I brainwashed my customers the way my college brainwashed me which is precisely the hand me down cultural problem our country faces.
I became a great advocate for the Scotts famous 4 step program which I now deplore. The heralded program is to apply a chemical pre-emergent for crabgrass control when the Forsythia are in bloom. A high nitrogen chemical fertilizer to get the grass off to a quick start in the spring, a chemical weed killer to kill emerging weeds in the spring. A chemical insecticide to kill grubs, sodwebworm and chinch bugs and a chemical fungicide to control fungus. I was encouraging home owners to pour chemical after chemical into their soils killing our food web and the microbes that work for us day and night. This is the thinking that prevails now in lawn care.
I was never taught the organic way or nature’s way to grow a beautiful lawn. Never once was there a mention in my studies of all of the toxic substances we were adding to our soils or of the tremendous health consequences they were creating for us, our children or our animals. Our learning institutions are influenced by profit instead of health, focusing on cures instead of prevention. This is the world most of us believe in because this is what we are taught to believe.
Statistics show that golfers live a shorter life span than non golfers. Organic alarmist believes it’s all the chemicals that are added to the soil. I never entertained becoming a Golf Course Supertendant although my education qualified me for it. But now that I have learned how successful you can be by growing grass organically I am mystified why most golf courses still follow chemical programs. For me the incentive for organic
golf Courses is economically feasible, morally right and provides for superior grass growth and sustainable turf. I have learned growing plants organically is far superior to growing them in any other way. The key in my mind for a golf course operation is in developing a large compost operation. Top dressing with compost, incorporating compost to compacted soil areas and feeding weekly with compost tea. This to me would produce great turf and would eliminate any health risks. Life is too short and too precious to reduce our short time on earth.
Get the leaves off of our lawn before it smothers our grass is the present call we chant as the leaves fall to the ground. Have the towns pick them up and get rid of them are the demands of residents. The towns look for the cheapest way to do this even if this meant inceneration in the past. Why do we come up with so many bad solutions when they are so many good solutions?
It is important to become an organic gardener. You will learn more from nature than what books can ever teach you. This is why my invention Krautter’s Year Round Organic Vegetable Garden should become a part of every schools curriculum and a part of every school grounds. To view the video click here and spread the message to influential members of your school who can make this happen.
Let’s move our country back to the way we treated our soils before World War 2. This was a time gardeners valued what we put into our soils. A time we did not have the kind of chemicals that was readily available in today’s society to pollute our soils and our water. A time we were dedicated to find natural grown produce to eat and natural ways to grow our plants. Let nature teaches us once again what our ancestors once knew. The great miracles come from the soil in our earth. From a little acorn grows the mighty oak and from a tiny seed develops the most beautiful flower.
This whole scenario reminds me of my favorite story. On a Native American Indian reservation a modern day Chief knowledgeable in the technical advances of our times was asked by his tribe how much wood you think we need to collect for the upcoming winter. He told them to go out and collect wood. After a week they came back to the chief and said do you think we have collected enough wood. He said let me think about it and I will discuss it at early in the morning. He went back home and called the weatherman and asked what kind of a winter he thought we were going to have. The weatherman said it was going to be a cold winter. The next morning he told his tribe to collect more wood. A week later they came back to him again and asked if they had collected enough wood. He again said let me think about it and I will meet with you in the morning to give you my answer. He again called the weatherman and asked him how cold he thought the winter was going to be and the weatherman said I think it is going to be colder than I thought. Going through this ritual for several more times he finally asked the weatherman where he was getting all of this information from. The weatherman said the Indians are gathering wood like crazy this year.
