My grandfather prided himself on a green velvet lawn. His tools
for achieving perfection were a small canvas-seated camp stool and an old table knife.
He’d plop his battered
stool in front of their comfortable North Chicago home and scrutinize his expanse of turf for any tell-tale variation in smooth-bladed
consistency. Spotting a curled, rounded leaf, any hint of a swelling bud, he’d shoot up from his post and uproot the
offending weed with his knife.
The growing season officially arrived when my burly grandpa donned his shorts, grabbed
his sunglasses, straw hat and stool and took up his weed watch.
An executive with Mobile Oil, he’d hardly
qualify as a greenie, but he did shock the neighborhood once when receiving a birthday present -- a truckload of manure dumped
in his driveway.
Grandpa never talked about his work beyond the garden.
Instead, he explained how
thumbing dirt back in the hole he’d dug would keep sunlight from any remaining bits of weed, and that uprooted dandelions
could release their seeds if carelessly left in the sun.
His was “the lazy man’s way,” letting
Mother Nature do the serious work. Healthy grass crowded out the weeds.
He saved money and time by overseeding
the lawn and leaving grass clippings to return their nutrients back into the soil; spreading chemicals just didn’t
work in the long run.
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David Hollingsworth, a landscaper in Clallam County, Wash.
agrees.
“I’ve never seen ‘Weed and Feed’ work,” he said.
“You
put it on and the weeds curl up a bit and that’s it.”
Often, people forget the poor results, then
decide the answer is to apply the chemicals all over again.
As a professional, Hollingsworth is distressed seeing
weed killers, pesticides and chemical fertilizers widely available.
His choice would be restricting their use
to professionals who must continuously update their knowledge to keep their licenses.
“How often do guys
read the directions? I know.” he says. “I’m a guy.
“It says to use two cups to a gallon
of water so, hey, four cups would be that much better.”
The results are disastrous: Pesticides kill good
bugs and bad, threatening the existence of those pollinating all our food crops –- along with birds and other critters
that dine on bugs.
Washed into rivers and streams, pesticides contaminate everything from microscopic organisms
to game fish and shellfish. In the oceans, pesticides create huge “dead zones.”
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“I like to know where my meat comes from, and where
it’s been,” says Hollingsworth, who hunts and fishes to feed his family.
He’s walked away from
would-be clients who wanted him to apply chemicals too close to a stream. Warnings about avoiding tuna or eating fish no more
than three times a week make him cautious.
Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed
capping a vast ocean floor DDT deposit off Southern California— nearly four decades after the pesticide was banned.
The $36 million plan would cap the most contaminated part of some 17 square miles with sand and silt. The cap
won't clean things up, but may reduce health risks to people who eat fish caught off the Palos Verdes coast.
A
new study shows that pesticides -- some already banned for decades -- are still showing up inside most US homes today,
says the May issue of Environmental Science and Technology. Even “Roundup,” an herbicide often considered relatively
benign, is proving lethal.
More studies of more contamination fill in the blanks, providing numbers to substantiate
what my Grandpa knew more than a half century ago: It’s easier, cheaper – and far healthier -- to let Mother Nature
do the work for us.
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