Browsing Green Goats Maryland, and VirginiaEach time I am called to a site for an estimate I have compassion for the environment. I often wonder if the environment could talk what would it say to me. I hope it would be good things.
Since as a small child learning about phosphates in laundry detergent to now as an adult learning about glyphosates I have to have compassion for the environment. Some people would say that is silly thinking or call me a tree hugger. Either way, I’m responsible for my environment.
We are born with compassion. If you watch a young child and their interactions with each other or with small animals you can see the light in their eyes, that light of compassion for another human or animal. I take it one step further and say we must have compassion for the environment.
Here I go aging myself.
As a child there was a commercial of an Indian riding the prairie and he comes to the edge and all of a sudden the scene changes he is looking out over a city and it is filled with trash everywhere as in a landfill. The Indian sitting on that horse was so majestic and had compassion for his environment and then you see what the next generation has done. A very sad state of affairs. The final scene of the commercial was the Indian crying for the environment. That is compassion.
I was called for an estimate for the goats and in the conversation I mentioned I was a Master Gardner. The client was so happy to ask me about his roses. One of his roses looked like it was dying it was one of two things. Either he had developed the disease rose rosette or that rose bush had been sprayed by glyphosates. He assured me he didn’t use such a thing. That’s what it looks like to me. I told him to prune the rose bush back but to put the trimmings in a trash bag and seal it up and take to the landfill. I said give the bush a few weeks and see what happens. Presto! The bush started putting out new shoots. I knew then it wasn’t rose rosette. Come to find out his neighbor had been spraying his yard with glyphosates and the drift lifted to his yard.
I was mad for that client.
Where is the compassion for your neighbor and the environment. We must extend beyond the end of our noses and realize we control what is happening in our yards. If we spray, it is lifted to everything around us. Don’t let anyone tell you spraying doesn’t travel.
Here is the definition of compassion from the dictionary:
Sympathetic concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. To me that includes the environment and how we treat it. If we don’t have compassion for the environment our neighbors suffer! A synonym for compassion is KINDNESS. Think about what we are doing not showing kindness towards each other and our environment when we continue to think it is okay to spray herbicides.
I’m called on a regular basis about Japanese knotweed taking over a clients property. They would think it foe.
On the other hand.
Some of the most important health benefits of Japanese knotweed include its ability to prevent and treat cognitive disorders, improve heart health, lower your risk of cancer, reduce gastrointestinal distress, lower blood pressure, maintain proper insulin levels, and many other unique benefits, people that take it as an herb would think it is friend.
I’m hired by the foe clients. Japanese knotweed is extremely invasive to the environment. It chokes out everything in it’s path and is a weed that spreads rapidly.
“Spraying isn’t cool”. Mary Bowen
Japanese knotweed can grow up to 10cm per day, and because of this rapacious growth, it has been known to cause damage to building structures by targeting weak points, such as cracks in masonry, and attempting to grow through them. To destroy Japanese knotweed on site, hiring goats will clear out the invasion by eating the plant to the ground, this would be your first phase of the project. The next phase is you must dig out and remove as much root as possible, then repeatedly destroy the regrowth.
Japanese knotweed produces seeds. It is extremely unlikely that they would germinate in the wild. New plants can grow from the nodes of pieces of green stem, in soil or water. Machinery such as strimmers or flails will spread it in this way. Hiring goats will eliminate the spread of seeds because the goats eat all of the plant. Goats do not spread seeds of invasive plants they eat because of their digestive system and how it functions. They will eat the invasive plants, digest them, and when spreading their manure it will not pass back into the environment. A win/win eco-friendly way of cleaning up the environment.
Goats will trample their manure into the ground providing much needed nutrients for the eco-system to flourish and bring back the pollinators that have been pushed out of the environment from the invasive growth of the Japanese knotweed.
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I am concerned about the decline in pollinator health and am working to protect bees and other pollinators from herbicide risks.
Here are two reasons that they are at risk:
- Poor nutrition (e.g., due to loss of foraging habitat and increased reliance on supplemental diets).
- Pesticide/Herbicide exposure.
There you have it. Two of the key factors in the decline in pollinators happens right in our own backyards. Since I was a child and my science teacher gave a talk about the health of our habitat I’ve want to do the best I could to protect the environment.
Many types of plants, including fruit and vegetable crops, depend on animals for pollination. In addition to honey bees, many other types of animals pollinate crops and wildflowers, including:
- Wild bees.
- Ants.
- Beetles.
- Wasps.
- Lizards.
- Birds.
- Bats.
- Butterflies.
We as humans rely on pollinators so we can EAT! At will use of pesticides/herbicides is a serious issue that we can do something about immediately. We don’t need a committee to gather to tell us how to fix the problem, we ourselves have the power within ourselves to do something. We are responsible for the environment all we have to do is STOP using pesticides/herbicides at will, period. It’s just that simple.
Every year as my business grows larger and larger the number one concern of my clients is spraying, they don’t want to spray. That is a good thing to hear. Why are we spraying? Unwanted vegetation comes back if left alone. What I tell people is that the goats are the first phase of your project. They are not the end all be all. Even spraying is not the end all be all when it comes to managing unwanted vegetation. Unwanted vegetation still grows back if the area is left alone.
There is no perfect way to clean up unwanted vegetation but the bottom line is what are we doing to save the environment and save the pollinators? Pollinators are VITAL! We must do everything we can to protect them and encourage their habitat to grow. One of the many advantages to hiring goats is that their manure is trampled into the ground and it is a natural fertilizer. Sign up for my newsletter to stay in touch with tips on how to clean up the environment naturally
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The plume of the Invasive non-native Phragmites is a perennial wetland plant that has quickly spread robbing the fish, plants and wildlife of nutrients and space and causing a fire hazard.
It may appear that the plume-topped Phragmites is just another pretty face but it is not. Phragmites are bad news for Maryland, Virginia and Washington DC local marshes. It can grow to be over 15 feet tall and will crowd out all other plants (native and non-native). Our eco-system can’t sustain a plant of this vigor. Recognizing Phragmites early in its invasion increases the opportunity for successful eradication dramatically. Continue Reading
Goats eat Kudzu!
Environmental Problems
Kudzu has a massive effect on the local environment in the areas it invades. Kudzu spreads both horizontally and vertically, covering all other plants in a tick mat of leaves and stems, which blocks light from reaching them. Very few plants can grow under such low light conditions, and usually the weight of the kudzu alone can be a barrier to growth. For this reason, diversity in plant species is extremely limited in a region invaded by Kudzu. The decrease in plant species also has a negative effect on the diversity of native wildlife. The elimination of native trees and brushes deprives native plant eaters of food, and thus causes a huge gap in the region’s food chain. Continue Reading