Unlike so many folks, I think of my garden as much more than the little raised beds we have planted and tended to. Our veggie garden is like the Milky Way and our front garden is more like the Universe. Well, sort of. Anyway, the front garden is actually just the front lot of our property and it is filled with all sorts of fascinating bits. Previous owners decorated it with farming rubbish and slowly, the land has reclaimed those spaces. I am continually amazed at the junk art collection we have amassed simply through clearing the invasive plants out of the “garden.” Yesterday, I wandered around with Josh’s big artsy-fartsy camera (Canon EOS 40D, for all you camera snobs) with the telescope variety long-as-my-arm lens which has a nifty little glare-reducing cap. I gotta tell you… with the right camera, we’re all genius photographers. Using that camera makes me very proud of what I have accomplished with my itty bitty Samsung.
Enough about cameras! The point here is that eventually nature overtakes, perhaps not in a Frogs (1972) kind of way but certainly in a picture-above manner. I am very impressed at the resilience of my garden in particular. No doubt it sustained considerable abuse from its former (long ago) owner, who I picture as the-hills-have-eyes type in bib overalls pouring out used oil, tossing old tractor tires, and lugging broken plow blades into the green lush that is our upper lot. In FernGully fashion, I feel sure that the wildlife watched with sad eyes as the trees soaked up the toxins from that farmer’s waste and perhaps plotted revenge (oh, I do hope). And what is left of that farmer? Well, his buildings were long ago lost to kudzu, his land is now divided, and while I cannot speak for the land owners around us — we are trying to undo as much damage as we can.
Soon, we’ll plant a legume ground covering which we will turn under as green manure. We hope to rebuild the soil and allow the natural beauty of our front lot to show through without garbage from previous owners or the choking vines from invasive plants.
My fellow tree huggers (this is a compliment, y’all), I want to know about your experiences with pollution. I want to know the most polluted city you’ve ever been to, how you recycle, the parks you have cleaned up, the most beautiful natural garden you have ever seen, and how you are working to change the world. Do tell. I love your stories. I really, really do.
marky - we do not have community wide recycling where we live. It breaks my heart. So dh and I have 3 cans. One for plastic/glas, one for all paper, boxes (even cereal boxes), and one for general trash that we have to throw out (food scraps mainly) HOPEFULLY..next year I will have a compost and we will cut our trash down to 1 bag or less a week!
WE drive to the recycling plant about every 10 days and recycle all of our other items.
We have begged the township to bring in recycling but they say it costs too much *sigh*. Until they get it here, we will continue to do our own thing!
CrossView - Kudzu is the scariest and prettiest stuff…
Love the art of farming implements!
We have a spot on our property that was used as a landfill that we’re forever working on. =/
Fishing Guy - Lacy: What a great story about your land. you definitely should bring it back to life and get rid of the junk.
The Cotton Wife - Hmmm… this spring we bought a no-till planter. Now we don’t have to break up the land first – it protects the land against erosion AND saves fuel.
Robin - I think the farming junk is cool, especially overgrown. 😆
I beg to differ on saying that anyone with a ‘nicer’ camera takes great pictures. To me, that’s like saying that if you give me the finest paint brushes and canvas and send me to Paris that I am going to paint beautiful portraits. ( I will never paint well! 😆 More like stick figures) The talent is in the brain of the beholder. 😀 You take great pictures, no matter the camera, Lacy. 🙂
Marlene - Dear Lacy,
I dare say that you are going to give a few camera buffs a run for their money. hehehe hehehe lol Love Always
Barb - Welp, we don’t have local recyling here…when we bought this place, luckily there wasn’t too much left here. Only personal accumulations and paint and other cans…which all were hauled to the dump site…where THEY do the separation. This was part of a family farm for over 100 yrs…and the family still runs the farm except our piece and they are truly respectful of the lands! Very little junk lays around in need of repairs,
We, don’t buy store canned goods just my jars which get reused over and over (some are actually becoming blue!) We do burn wood for heat…pollution? sorry….but it’s cheaper than electricity, and warmer. Gargage pick up is once a week…and we get charged cans or no cans! Usually NO cans. One a month, average.
I compost, conserve, and reuse almost everything.
Good enough to be your neighbor?
🙂
Have a great weekend, Lacy!
Barb
Ann - Having only lived in cities, I’d say Denver was probably the worst (at the time), bc of its “Brown Cloud” that collects due to the altitude. We recycle; we also found this local Teacher’s thing that will take almost ANYTHING (bottlecaps, old CDs/DVDs, string, whatEVER) for art projects – it’s just incredible!!