"The tragic reality is that very few sustainable systems are designed or applied by those who hold power, and the reason for this is obvious and simple: to let people arrange their own food, energy and shelter is to lose economic and political control over them. We should cease to look to power structures, hierarchical systems, or governments to help us, and devise ways to help ourselves." - Bill Mollison

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Sod Buster

I grew up watching westerns, any spaghetti westerns with Clint Eastwood. An older John Wayne also had me enthralled with tales of gunfights and arduous cattle drives. The one thing that most of the westerns had in common was that it was not cool to be either a farmer (sod buster) or a sheep rancher. As a child I always wanted to be one of the gunslingers of days gone by, but alas, I have become a sod buster and chicken rancher (wrangler) instead... and proud of it.


We (I), perhaps foolishly, decided at the last minute to expand the gardens, and so sod busting has been my spare time hobby of late. I needed a sunnier location for tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants to grow and will hopefully have it ready in time for the June planting of those three. This "needing more room" seems to be a yearly occurrence for me.


One of the benefits of removing tons of sod is the great mulch pile it will create. By the time I'm finished we should be set on that front for at least a couple years.


Unfortunately, I did disturb numerous "Carabus nemoralis" or European ground beetles hiding in the grass. If you come across any of these guys, leave them be as they are a most excellent nocturnal predator of cutworms, maggots, and other garden pests.


I also ran into these not so beneficial little crickets, but had not the heart to harm little Jiminy and let him live to sing another day.

4 comments:

Silke Powers said...

Ha, I post of alligators and snakes and you of bugs. Sort of make me smile. Daniel is constantly making our garden bigger - on a much smaller city-scale though. His goal is to do away with the grass altogether in the next few years and have it all filled with produce and flowers. I'm all for it - don't like mowing grass... :) Silke

Mr. H. said...

That is really great Silke, I can not think of a better way to take care of a lawn. One can always admire others lawns, produce and flowers are much more fulfilling in every sense.

If I am lucky this summer we will have some wolf and bear pictures to share...we sometimes see one or both while huckleberry picking or hiking.

Mike

Lisa Carroll-Lee said...

Wow, that is one huge pile of sod! I spent the better part of 2 days breaking some sod for an area about 10X10. Also broke my back; did not break my spirit. :)

Mr. H. said...

AccidentalHW,

It is definately hard on ones back, legs, arms ect. I'm about 3/4 done though and the end is in site.

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