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- #1,081
flowerbug
Sustainability Master
an hour and a half of weeding this morning. my body has an built in detector for when i've had enough and i get too hot i also get nauseated so i pretty much have to stop. if i get out there a little earlier tomorrow that would be a good idea. it is too easy to procrastinate some mornings...
with all the recent rains it was muddy but i was able to get things done on the higher part that drains better. mostly digging out thistles and burying crab grass or other weeds which won't resurface. the rest (thistles, grasses or anything else with seed heads) went to the weed pile.
over all these years of weeding here i've probably buried more than ton of weeds (i've not usually measured anything like that, but maybe even a lot more of you think of how heavy the clay is at times). besides capturing the energy from the sun they also have a lot of nutrients from the soil and the dirt clinging to their roots that i'm not always able to knock off - better to not lose it (though by putting them on the weed pile which is in a lower spot i'm filling in it doesn't really get lost, it just gets moved).
eventually some of those nutrients and minerals are harvested and eaten and some are returned via vegetable scraps (and used to be worm composting results). and those were measured a few times when i was carrying those buckets in and out to give me an idea of how much i was getting - it was 20-30lbs a bucket depending upon how full they were and how wet. considering the prices of vegetables and some of the other scraps that went into those buckets they were probably worth quite a bit per pound... i wonder if people even think of their food scraps in those terms but i always kept it in mind... gold, silver and worm castings... (worm castings in space will be worth more than either of those metals... <-- note for future investors...)
and as a followup note if you think that i always think about money, no, it's more like i'm thinking of energy and nutrient flows and also any other valueable things in the system and money is one way of keeping track of values... and values do change...
with all the recent rains it was muddy but i was able to get things done on the higher part that drains better. mostly digging out thistles and burying crab grass or other weeds which won't resurface. the rest (thistles, grasses or anything else with seed heads) went to the weed pile.
over all these years of weeding here i've probably buried more than ton of weeds (i've not usually measured anything like that, but maybe even a lot more of you think of how heavy the clay is at times). besides capturing the energy from the sun they also have a lot of nutrients from the soil and the dirt clinging to their roots that i'm not always able to knock off - better to not lose it (though by putting them on the weed pile which is in a lower spot i'm filling in it doesn't really get lost, it just gets moved).
eventually some of those nutrients and minerals are harvested and eaten and some are returned via vegetable scraps (and used to be worm composting results). and those were measured a few times when i was carrying those buckets in and out to give me an idea of how much i was getting - it was 20-30lbs a bucket depending upon how full they were and how wet. considering the prices of vegetables and some of the other scraps that went into those buckets they were probably worth quite a bit per pound... i wonder if people even think of their food scraps in those terms but i always kept it in mind... gold, silver and worm castings... (worm castings in space will be worth more than either of those metals... <-- note for future investors...)
and as a followup note if you think that i always think about money, no, it's more like i'm thinking of energy and nutrient flows and also any other valueable things in the system and money is one way of keeping track of values... and values do change...
