Turning over an old leaf...

Today's rain won't hurt, but it may not be enough to really help the plants very much. At least the temperature isn't in the 90's. That, I think, is better for most plants and animals.

Today I finally ordered a mulching kit for the mower deck on our tractor. The idea is to make the clippings, and the autumn leaves, cut small enough to decompose readily and feed the soil.  Bagging the clippings makes the  place look neater but reduces nutrient recycling and we never fertilize except occasionally in the flower beds. I hate raking and have been going back and forth and round and round about how to get maximum results with a minimum expenditure of elbow grease and time. The fact that I suffer from mild perfectionist tendencies doesn't help. Left to her own devcices, Nature tends toward messiness.

oak leaves on the tree

Photo by J. Harrington

To be candid, a book I'm reading, The Nature of Oaks, is convincing me that it's unlikely I'll have a yard that is both healthy for pollinators and other critters and simultaneously looks the way I'd like, neat and clean and spiffy. I'm much more a hunter-gatherer than a gardener. If I have to choose, I pick natural, healthy, functional for plants and animals, and taking limited time so I can spend more time fishing, foraging and photographing. The front yard has been turning into an attractive mix of violets, creeping Charlie and wild strawberries that I don't want buried under oak leaves. We'll see if we can work out a system of mowing / mulching, raking / hauling, and bagging that serves both aesthetic and ecological purposes. At least we don't have to mow or mulch by hand.

Mowing

By Robert Frost

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,

And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.

What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;

Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,

Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound—

And that was why it whispered and did not speak.

It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,

Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:

Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak

To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,

Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers

(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.

The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.

My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.

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