Two lines of electric fence rope, one for deer, one for groundhogs, running through the so-very-healthy grass, perfectly illustrates the nature of the war on weeds. Maybe I should use less militaristic terms, but that’s what comes naturally—guess it’s my cultural upbringing. And it does feel like a battle. On the ground, face to face, against a well-adapted indigenous…opponent. Spraying herbicides would be like an impersonal aerial war, bombing from on high. In this tiny farming, it’s hand pulling and snipping, and using the pulled weeds as mulch to hopefully smother reinforcements that are ready to spring up. Here, letting the grass swamp the fence lines would be bad for the system, draining the battery and reducing the strength of the all-important ZAP!
