Plastic & Prairie Dogs
Dwarf-Crested Iris, Our Backyard, May 2024
Closing the Cover of The Humane Gardener
Did you find anything new or inspiring to you in The Humane Gardener? One of the stories that stood out to me the most was Charlotte Adelman’s. I admire her work to ban pesticides in public areas like the library, as well as gas-powered leaf blowers in the off-season. Curious to know more about her, I discovered that she and her late husband, Bernard L. Schwartz donated money to create a nature preserve in Colorado, safeguarding habitat for the black-tailed prairie dog, a keystone species. In a 2002 interview with the Chicago Reader, Adelman and her husband discussed why they changed their landscaping, sharing these thoughts:
They say the future of local butterflies depends on local gardens. If everyone planted a small prairie garden in the backyard, the butterflies who depend on them would have a fighting chance.
— Charlotte Adelman
(The prairie) is particularly unique to America. If people want to be patriotic—they usually put flags in front and all that—they should support and help restore prairies.
— Bernard L. Schwartz
SPRING MIGRATION
To help migrating birds, turn off your lights or close your blinds and curtains at night. Learn more about the spring migration through the Midwest — did you see/hear more birds recently?
I’ll be thinking of these two, and the other humane gardeners in the book, as I try to do better for the plants and creatures in my own yard.
Wildlife Signs & Certifications for Your Backyard
Xerces Society Pollinator Habitat and Leave the Leaves
National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat
Channeling My Inner Prairie Dog
I haven’t spent much time in front of the computer lately. Sitting here with the windows closed, the bathroom fan humming, and the street sweeper passing outside, it’s hard to hear the birds. That wasn’t the case while I was digging through 5.5 cubic yards of Purple Cow raised bed mix a week ago. During past yard work, I’d often pop my bluetooth headphones on and listen to an audiobook (I got through all of Harry Potter that way). But these days I find it more comforting to listen to the chattering birds, at least when they aren’t drowned out by the army of leaf blower-wielding landscaping crews in our neighborhood.
Why was I digging through 5.5 cubic yards of raised bed mix like a prairie dog?* I wonder what passerby and neighbors could have thought. Did I lose a ring? Drop an earbud? Could gold and treasure be buried in there?
Plastic, foil, tile, and wire found in the raised bed mix
I was pulling out trash. Plastic bag bits. Plastic mesh. Foil. Coated wire. Hard plastics. Yellow. Green. Red. Blue. A rainbow of junk.
Could some of this be material that was designed to be compostable, but it didn’t quite break down yet? Maybe. But I don’t think that’s the case for most of it.
When I called the landscaping company I ordered it from, they comped me another cubic yard for my trouble and said they would follow up with Purple Cow. Initially I went back and forth on whether or not I even wanted to use it. We know plastic is everywhere, releases chemicals, and becomes microplastics and then nanoplastics we can’t see. Plastics are in our food regardless, but at this point I had to wonder if we were being stupid to even try to grow our own food. (Though one of the benefits of growing our own vegetables is actually putting less plastic into the world in the future.)
Lucas decided to post on three subreddits to see what thoughts we’d get:
Raised beds filled just in time for vegetable arrival — hopefully next year we’ll do our own seed starting
The consensus — it’s basically impossible to avoid in commercial compost. (Whether or not it should be avoidable in commercial compost is another matter.) Even in compost you make yourself, it’s difficult because of the blown debris that gathers in leaves you may throw in. So we decided to move forward, picking it out the best we could. Like the prairie dog, we got to digging. (Learn more about how cool prairie dogs are!)
It took ages, and we’re still finding trash as we dig through the filled raised beds. But this is the world we live in now, and the best we can do is try to clean it up when we can, and add less plastic to it as we go. (My challenge to myself this year is to remember my travel mug, a reusable leftovers container, produce bags, and grocery totes when going out! I haven’t been perfect at it, but I’m doing so much better than I used to.)
*Like Meeka, I got a bit of soil on my face. Unlike Meeka, I did not eat whatever I could find along the way.
ONLINE BOOK CLUB MEETUP
If you are interested in an online book club meetup, please choose which times work best for you: May Book Club Form
MADISON AREA BOOK CLUB MEETUP
Tuesday, May 28th at 9:00 am
Colectivo, Monroe St.
If Colectivo is too busy, or just because we want to, we can walk over to Wingra. Please note future book club meetings may be at other times/days of the week, depending on everyone’s availability.
May’s Book: A Precautionary Tale
Philip Ackerman-Leist has a knack not just for explaining the events in Mals, but evoking the people involved. Several chapters in, I feel like I’ve been in the room with Gunther, Uli, and the Gluderer family. I’m admittedly a bit behind, but I promise to finish in time for book club meetups. Don’t feel like you have to complete the book in time, however! I know we can have a great conversation regardless.
If you would like to read the book but have yet to pick it up, the paperback is currently 30% off at Barnes & Noble. For those in the Madison area, we’ll have an in-person meetup this month. For everyone else, we’ll do a video call if there’s enough interest. I hope to see you in one or the other!
Until next time,
Leigh
P.S. I still don’t know what the mystery bird was.
P.P.S. The United States Poet Laureate, Ada Limón, will be in Madison on Thursday for Poetry and the Natural World. Read more about her signature project or take a few minutes to enjoy her poem:
