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Well-maintained garden - your insect hotel

You take down the scythe from the tree and mow where needed, the paths in the meadow, the small lawn. Quiet, quiet... you mow high and low grass, the neighbors aren't disturbed, you hear birds. Perhaps you are barefoot and sence the soft moist grass under your feet. The scents - your breaths, the rhythm. The feeling that it's so sharp that the grass cuts without effort. You see the tall grass and know that you can cut it really nicely when the time comes.

The experience that the scythe is just an extension of your body - it's damn unbeatable and that's what we want to offer you!

The swifts whizzing past over your garden on a summer evening in search of insects. They have chosen you - because you feed them with your vision of a well-maintained garden. Your place on Earth. Your meadow where the palette of flowers is adorned by beetles, hoverflies, and bumblebees feasting on the meadow's buffet.

The hedgehog that has chosen you because you invite it. The pile of leaves, the pile of twigs. The big beetles it likes. The dead tree teeming with life - the woodpecker knows. The tree falls, and you watch as it returns to the earth. Years pass, life persists.

Birds outside your window on a sparkling winter day - cozy, lively. They eat organic, of course, because you know how everything is connected. More skylarks on organic fields, more insects for the swallows over those fields. All birds are equally important. Well, almost... we believe one should especially protect those who are struggling, and it's NOT the ones that come to feedings in winter. That's why it's extra important to think bigger - to see the whole picture. That's where we take responsibility - and want to inspire you too to see the bigger picture, to think in multiple steps. For example, the fat ball that the blue tit likes contributes to deforestation somewhere else where species and habitats are threatened.

You mow with the scythe and...

...the grass willingly falls into rows, you create a resource, perfect covering material or grass compost where new soil is formed. Decomposition is life. You have control, you have power, you create or choose to maintain and improve the conditions for life. But you don't have control over everything that happens, you're the CEO of the large company that creates the creative work environment, that allows each individual employee to flourish and feel seen by you even though you've never seen them or know their names. You create the sense of unity. The spirit of progress.

You see how the company is doing, hear the swifts' cries and greet the hedgehog. You see it in the results and the employee analysis, not by talking to each employee and truly understanding that they are happy to be able to provide for their families. There's no one who can name all Swedens nearly 50,000 species of insects, a handful who can somewhat name all our approximately 3,000 plants. But there are many who can name all the birds - the 250 that breed in Sweden. And even more who can name the birds around the corner. Especially the most common ones that come if we bribe them in the winter. You know them - the great tit, the house sparrow, and the blue tit. The more they flatter you, the more you give them. It's nice to be a part of the group that is heard and seen, to feel needed, to eat together. You are their master, you are in control.

But beware that you don't become a small isolated group for mutual admiration. Sure, leadership and middle managers are needed. But it becomes fragile if they consist only of great tits and house sparrows, you also need to hire swifts, skylarks, wheatears, lapwings, barn swallows, and a few more that don't eat seeds. Those who are rather dependent on biodiversity where the seeds are grown and living gardens.

I know a really nerdy biologist who has over 2,000 species ticks on his plot, well actually identified species of all categories on his plot. Mostly different insects, of course. He estimates that double the number already exists on the plot. The ownership structure in his large company is touching unanimously in creating the conditions for life and growth - but the problem is that he doesn't have time to learn the names of all the new employees as the company grows. And of course, it's not the most important thing, sure it's fun to know some species names and the more you know, the more you understand the connections. But it's NOT important. What's important is to create a growing company. A good boss can't do everything and if the company is really big - yes, maybe even global. Well then there's no chance in the world that a CEO can name all the employees. But everyone knows their closest by name, those they depend on. Everything is interconnected. Like in a net - like in an ecosystem.

You have control over your large company but you can destroy everything. You can asphalt, pave, build walls and terrace. Build a plastic pool. You can buy rolled turf and an expensive robotic lawnmower. You can damn well ensure that no dandelion or any other crap will grow except for the grass you bought. You can start taking care of your sole proprietorship which consists only of you, you, you, and you, and a little grass and dead stone, cement, asphalt, and plastic. They push you towards the edge, you see their advertisements - they make money off you, expensive lawnmowers sold as cheap lawnmowers. Foreign and refined garden plants that need special fertilizers but are not liked by your local insects. Lawn fertilizers. Weed killers. Pools. Trimmers... and cosmetics on top of it in the form of a small insect hotel, a birdhouse, and some sprayed seeds for the great tit.

To tear down a house of cards

My name is Janne Wester and I founded Slåttergubben. One of my passionate interests as a child was building houses of cards and towers out of Kapla sticks. After hours of building, what came even more exciting was the destruction. How do you tear down a house of cards?

Well, when the house is finally complete, there's a great weight resting on the foundation. Then you can remove pieces from the lower layers. It's a thrilling feeling! Is it the feeling of having control over the disaster? You choose until everything collapses. Until the top floor falls. Until the stork's nest on the roof is empty. Yes - the stork is a typical example of the top floor in the house of cards. The white-backed woodpecker is another. If we remove enough, they fall, they die out, and disappear. In the case of the stork, which became extinct in Sweden in 1956, it was because pieces were constantly removed, wetlands were drained and culverted away, open water disappeared. Moist meadows turned into fields. Somewhere, a wetland disappeared where the last remaining individual of an insect species, or we can imagine a species of frog, existed. And then everything collapsed. Then the stork disappeared. But before that, there had been fewer and fewer nests down in south Sweden where Storks thrived. They had fewer and fewer chicks.

Now you might say there are storks in south Sweden again... and yes, there are but only a few pairs. And the habitats have actually increased in recent years. Wetlands have been restored and recreated. At most, there were actually 5,000 pairs in the 19th century... There's a "stork project" raising storks on broiler chicks and fish to release them. It's nice and increases interest in the stork - but those who run the stork project themselves say that the population of white storks in Sweden in 2021 would slowly die out again if they didn't add new ones every year. Because there simply aren't enough good habitats.

Latvia - an environmental hero!

For me, this first became clear when I traveled to Latvia several times in the nineties. There were a crazy amount of storks here! And it wasn't hard to see why. Ponds at every farm. Many wetland in the landscape. Frogs everywhere! Small living farms, gardens teeming with life because people weren't rich in money but really lived and stayed there. Large sparse meadows with flowers. Small fields. Grazing cows everywhere. Scythes. A damn diversity! I also traveled through fields in Latvia that were bought up by foreign agricultural exploiters, where with large investments they drained, plowed, fertilized, and cultivated grain intensively and rationally - looking more like my surroundings at home. There were the abandoned grass-covered stork nests on roofs and chimneys - those that were empty but still standing. Where you understood that here stood a stork and fed its young with frogs just a couple of years ago. That was probably what really made me see what wasn't visible at home in Sweden. See what was gone - what must have been there just a few generations ago.

Too many pieces have been removed here. The cardhouse has collapsed. Pieces must be added again out in the actual farmland. Not long ago, they were a characteristic bird here, the curlew. Many old people still remember them as common from when they were young. It echoes empty in my ears, I know how a displaying curlew sounds, it's beautiful but they are now completely gone from my part of Sweden.

But with insight also comes opportunities to change. This year (2021), for the first time, a wheatear has nested in our garden - I have built a house of cards from scratch for many years and there came the top floor in form of a wheatear! The swifts and swallows constantly swirl over the large flourishing meadow which 2007 was a sprayed field. They rarely fly over the sprayed fields next to it.

Being rich

It's understandable that we strive to rationalize, to become richer, to combat real poverty. The problem is that we keep removing and removing, large and small houses collapse, but we don't see it. If we can see it, we can also prioritize a little differently and at the same time combat poverty much more effectively and sustainably. A pool costs close to half a million and is said to increase the value of the property.... How much meadow could you get for half a million? Does it also increase the value of the property? How many pools are there in Sweden? Can you have both a pool and a meadow? A scythe, a meadow, and a robotic lawnmower? Well, why not! But almost no one benefits from promoting this - so we don't think about it. And often we reward those who pick - sprayed food for example - for the birds or for us - it doesn't matter. Meat from animals that have only been indoors and haven't grazed bird-rich natural pastures. Cheap fat balls with fat from cows that have eaten soybeans that destroy rainforests and rich savannas in Brazil. Fresh raspberries year-round in cute plastic packaging from vast seas of greenhouses with fertilizers and pesticides that spread at a devastating rate over Portugal and other mediterraninan countries. But we must indulge ourselves with it now that it's available to buy - after all, it's only once a year you make a birthdaycake..... 

What does Slåttergubben sell?

The important thing is not what you buy but what you do - and don't do! But then, how do you run a business if you don't want people to buy but to do - is there anything left to sell?

Yes, there actually is, and selling scythes and bird food in the winter are connected! It's about having a well-maintained garden teeming with life.

• A really good scythe, a quality product that can last for generations without fuel or spare parts.
• Scything courses. Yes, there are pros and cons to it not just being a matter of pressing the start button. You need to learn some, but it's easier than you think, you can attend a physical course or just watch our free videos on YouTube.
• Scything services, in the company we mow valuable meadows for municipalities and county boards. But also for individuals and housing cooperatives. Approximately 50 hectares of meadows are mown and raked by hand under our care annually.
• Advice on what you can do for biodiversity on your plot. But the most important thing is not exactly how you do it. Don't be so hesitant, start doing something. We have 50,000 species of insects only in Sweden, and in cases where it's plants that benefit them, they are primarily wild Swedish plants. Someone will benefit from what you do!
• Meadow seeds, genuine Swedish meadow seeds that we sell, may need to be bought sometimes if you don't already have the luck of having many wild meadow plants knocking on the door. There are many "meadow seed mixtures" out there in the stores that are pure jokes, sometimes not a single Swedish wild plant in them.
• Blade hoes for clearing scrub from fields you want to restore to meadows. You can also use them in cultivation as a spade or hoe.
• And something to eat for the birds in the winter. Organic of course - because we care about the birds. Organic fields are proven to be much richer in insects and birds. But the most important thing to remember is that what the birds need most is a rich supply of insects, habitats, and natural nesting sites. In Sweden, and the countries they migrate through and winter in. They have managed for all these years without peanuts, sunflower seeds, fat balls, etc., in the winter. This is something we do for our own sake - because it's nice.
• Nest boxes for the birds - well, this is not something we consider so important either actually. Birds have managed fine without nest boxes for all these years. It's better if we provide conditions for more natural nesting sites. (But since it's not possible to sell, no one markets it....)
• Insect hotels, no - we actually don't sell those. Insect richness is not something you buy, it's something you choose. By all means - you can build your own! Preferably some stump with a bunch of drilled small holes (main part of the holes 2-4mm) in it. Besides, it's deadwood getting its own life. But otherwise, it's the whole picture that matters for insects!

/Janne Wester