the body of the Lord:: weed control

Yes, a post about weed control.

I've been learning that growing without chemicals is a ridiculous amount of work, especially when it comes to weeds. So much easier to spray some raging HERBticides! Except for those pesky health and environmental risks.

So we've been doing several things this week, to get rid of weeds. 1. Hoeing. As in, scraping the hoe across the soil in between the rows of your plants to get the roots of the weeds out. Takes forever, gives blisters. 2. Flaming: wear propane backpack, turn on, hose weeds with flame gun. !! 3. Hand-pulling. Obvious. 4. Tilling: using the tractor to scrape around & mix up the dirt, generally killing everything that's growing. You have do this before you plant anything, of course.

Surprisingly, weeding is one of the things so far (3 weeks in) that I've really like the most. Very satisfying.

why farm? why food?

Wendell Berry, from "The Pleasure of Eating":
I begin with the proposition that eating is an agricultural act.

Eating ends the annual drama of the food economy that begins with planting and birth. Most eaters, however, are no longer aware that this is true. They think of food as an agricultural product, perhaps, but they do not think of themselves as participants in agriculture. They think of themselves as "consumers."

...How does one escape this trap? Only voluntarily, the same way that one went in: by restoring one's consciousness of what is involved in eating; by reclaiming responsibility for one's own part in the food economy.

...Eating with the fullest pleasure -- pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance-- is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend. When I think of the meaning of food, I always remember these lines by the poet William Carlos Williams, which seem to me merely honest:

There is nothing to eat,
seek it where you will,
but the body of the Lord.
The blessed plants
and the sea, yield it
to the imagination
intact.

the body of the Lord:

weed control

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why farm? why food?

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