triumphs and setbacks

I'm torn between the feeling of tremendous accomplishment and tremendous disappointment this year where the yard and the garden are concerned.

I'm pretty sure I've stated on the forum before that I'm committed to the organic philosophy where my garden and yard are concerned. In short: no pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizers. Everything is done the way God designed nature to do it itself.

First is the good news that makes me feel like I've accomplished something. We've come a long way. The guy who owned this house before me didn't share the organic philosophy. He sprayed weedkiller and pesticides everywhere, and bombed the yard with Miracle Gro and other chemical fertilizers. When we moved in, there was a token layer of top soil, the earth was compacted and painful to walk on in your bare feet, and there was virtually no grass. There were entire chunks of the yard where literally nothing was growing, and when I dug the ground with a shovel, I never found a single earthworm. (You kind of need them for healthy soil.)

Today, through the efforts of reseeding the lawn piece by piece and fertilizing with compost (plus some Milorganite, an organic fertilizer produced by the city of Milwaukee from its sewage), we have a lustrous green lawn in the back yard. You can walk on it and treat your toes to a trip across a spongy green carpet. There are flowers blooming everywhere, and some of the parts of the yard that never supported anything are bursting with life. (The back quarter of our yard is an area I haven't planted anything in at all. I'm giving it a sabbath rest and letting it regenerate on its own. All I do is pull up maple seedlings since I don't want it turning into woods.)

Every time I dig into the earth with a shovel, I find earthworms. They're everywhere again. We had a flea problem last year that I eradicated with beneficial nematodes, an organism that also kills lawn grubs and termite colonies without harming people, pets or the lawn. I actually want to get some more of them to make sure the termites we had in the back corner of our yard really are all gone.

Plus I see lots of ladybugs. Ladybugs, to the uninitiated, are one of the nicest insects God ever created. They eat other insects that we consider pests, such as aphids and ants. A garden with ladybugs is a garden that has a happy gardener.

Best of all, my daughters enjoy gardening with me. Now 4½ years old, Eowyn helped me plant sunflowers, corn, tomatoes, pumpkins, beans, morning glories and ornamental maize this spring before she got bored and went inside. She also has helped me turn the soil, stir the compost and dig holes where I don't want them. Ruth, being only 19 months old, has not been quite as big a help, but she's enjoyed digging holes, planting some sunflowers in the wrong spot, and pretending the turn the earth with the spade fork.

Overall, it's a good situation, and I couldn't be happier.

Except for one thing: There's a good chance our soil has some hazardous contaminants, including lead. A gardener down the street had his soil tested and found that it is so contaminated it is unsafe for children to play in, let alone to grow food in.

Things were looking so up, and now potentially to have some idiot rob us of some of the triumphs of gardening is just ... well, it really stinks.

We were fortunate in that we were able to rent a garden plot not far from the house for only $10 a year, and in time to plant some vegetables. The plot's even bigger than what I was able to squeeze out of our yard, but it's not as convenient as going out into the yard to pick lettuce, tomatoes or beans right before a meal. It's also a site that has never been farmed before, so the soil has less organic material than the garden I've been using for the last four years -- and therefore will not grow the food as effortlessly as I was hoping to get this year.

I'm sure that eventually life will clean our yard of any impurities and make it safe to grow food in -- if in fact it is contaminated, which we haven't established for certain yet -- but that probably won't be in my lifetime. Certainly not while we own the house.