No fiber content today.

Every time the lawn service comes to mow the lawn, our tomato plant wilts. Sometimes the mint wilts and curls as well.

Makes me furious!

We’re living in an apartment. We have no control over the lawn service. Every time the lawn service comes, they not only mow the lawn, they spray. Judging by the odor, they’re using a 2-4-D based herbicide. 2-4-D is a chemical that is toxic to broadleaf plants (anything that’s not a grass), but not toxic to cool season grasses or bermuda grass. Most “lawn weed killers” that you buy in the store contain 2-4-D, and some related compounds. They may also contain additional ingredients for controlling grassy weeds.

Tomatoes are very sensitive to 2-4-D. This sensitivity varies greatly by variety.

2-4-D is quite volatile. Thirty years ago, the 2-4-D formulations were so volatile that 2-4-D based brush killers applied a mile from our farm were causing some of our tomatoes to wilt. We eventually quit growing one variety of tomato because of it’s extreme hypersensitivity to 2-4-D. You simply couldn’t get far enough away from 2-4-D for this hypersensitive variety to be productive.

Today’s 2-4-D formulations have been improved to greatly reduce the volatility. However, the herbicide labels still say not to apply when temperatures are above 90 degrees F (or 95 F depending on the brand and formulation). When they’re applied at high temperatures, the active ingredients vaporize and drift, causing damage to other vegetation.

There is a federal law that says it is illegal to apply pesticide contrary to the instructions on the label. This same law says it is illegal to spray somebody else’s plants or to allow your pesticide to drift onto or contact food plants for which it is not intended. If you have any doubts about the seriousness of this law, just ask a crop duster pilot.

The label on most 2-4-D based herbicides restricts the number of applications per year and the frequency of those applications. Generally this limitation is four or six applications per year with a six or eight week application interval. It varies depending on the product and because I don’t know exactly which product the lawn service is using, I don’t know the details.

Getting tangential here, I sell these things at work. Unlike most of my customers, I actually read the labels. I’ve gotten to the point I won’t tell the customer how much or how strong to mix. I say, “Follow the mixing instructions on the label.” When pushed for mixing details, I say, “We have so many different ones here, I can’t remember the exact formula for all of them. It’s all right on the label.” It’s a futile attempt to encourage my customers to actually read the label. In all fairness, probably half my customers do read the label. It’s the other half that scares me. Maybe it’s time to get out of retail.

Returning to the lawn service and our wilting tomato plant, that lawn service comes to mow the lawn every week or so. Almost every time they’re here, they spray. They’ve been doing this – with a month’s hiatus in April for freezing weather – since we moved in in March. Simple math says they’ve applied well over their season’s limit of 2-4-D and they’re violating frequency rules as well.

It gets better.

When bermuda grass is in the lawn, it’s a desired plant. When it’s in the flower beds and shrubbery areas, it’s a weed. We have a shrubbery area up against our patio where the tomato and mint are. When they’re through spraying the lawn, they come through the shrubbery area spraying the grass in the flower beds with the “weed killer". The very same “weed killer"that they’re applying to the bermuda grass in the lawn. Do they really think it’s going to kill bermuda grass among the shrubbery when it won’t kill bermuda grass in the lawn?

Grass doesn’t change. Chemicals don’t change. The definition of “weed” is a human definition that varies with the location of the plant. Researchers can select and develop herbicides based on differential toxicity to different types of plants. 2-4-D is a selective herbicide in that it is toxic to dicots (broadleaf plants) and not toxic to three-carbon monocots (cool season grasses). 2-4-D is not smart enough to know, understand and follow the human definition of “weed". If you spray 2-4-D on grasses in a shrubbery area, it’s going to harm the broadleaf shrubberies and not hurt the grasses. You can spray and spray and spray that bermuda grass in the shrubbery area with a 2-4-D based weed killer and it’s not going to hurt the grass (until you get up to a 10 or 20 fold extra dose when it starts killing everything).

Our tomato plant might be getting ill from volatile 2-4-D drift when 2-4-D is sprayed – excessively – on the lawn. More likely, our plant is getting a combination of droplet drift and volatile drift when the bermuda in the shrubberies is sprayed with 2-4-D. I can understand volatile drift. I don’t like it, particularly given the excessive application of 2-4-D. I might even accept the volatile drift if the herbicide were being applied following the guidelines – which is isn’t. Of course, if guidelines were being followed, there would be much less volatile drift and it would be much less frequent.

Mint is not nearly as sensitive to volatile drift as tomatoes. Mint is unlikely to show symptoms from volatile drift. This tells me that the food plants on our patio are not only getting volatile drift, but droplet drift. The lawn service is being so careless in their application of herbicide that they are getting droplets of herbicide onto our mint (and if it’s getting on the mint, it’s getting on the tomato.)

Droplet drift, in my mind, is a deadly sin. Droplet drift is unnecessary. With minimal care, droplet drift can be avoided. It takes thinking. It takes caring. It doesn’t take much effort. Spraying in such a way as to get droplets of herbicide onto my food plants is akin – at least in my mind – to deliberately putting that same poison directly into the food on my plate. That lawn service is committing at least four violations of federal law – drift onto food plants and three label violations – to apply herbicide to a weed it won’t even kill.

I’m furious. I’m livid. I’m angry. And, beyond writing this blog, I don’t think there is a damn thing I can do. I’m not an anti-pesticide advocate. I don’t believe organic only farming is the best method. I have no problems using herbicides and pesticides when necessary, in moderation, according to the label directions – and when the pesticide or herbicide is the best available option. I am incensed by overuse, misuse and abuse of herbicides and pesticides. What is happening at our apartment complex is abuse.

I can understand not wanting thistles in the lawn if one goes barefoot. If I had children going barefoot in a lawn, I might spray for thistles. I understand that dandelions mar the look of the perfect lawn, but I don’t have enough problem with dandelions to warrant the use of herbicide to remove them. And clover – grass farmers want clover (legumes of some sort) in their pastures to fix nitrogen and make the grass stronger. I don’t understand why clover is so desirable in pasture (agricultural lawn) and so undesirable in a residential lawn. As far as I’m concerned, clover is just as green as grass and it makes the grass stronger.

We’re keeping the garden going for now, but we don’t know if we can eat anything from it.

Makes me furious!