Organic Gardening News and Advice

Organic Agriculture Loans at Kiva

2011-12-04T15:57:00.001-05:00

I just wrote the good folks at Kiva an email about the dearth of organic and green projects available to loan money to.

I've been a member for a few months but have only made two loans because I've only found two where the borrower promised to use organic methods on the small farm. In each case, it was organic fertilizer, which is great, but only part of the picture.

I realize that these small farmers cannot afford organic certification. But they also cannot afford the petrochemicals used in industrial agriculture, and are therefore, probably, de facto organic.

I would like to see you work with your field partners to increase the organic projects, and green projects in general, available on your site. There are currently no green projects at all, and that is a shame.

Anyone who can afford to make a few microloans (current repayment rate is 98.93%) should check it out and maybe we can get Kiva to put more emphasis on green projects. You won't make any money on these loans, but you'll most likely get all your money back, and then you can make more loans to people who really need them!

Here's the guy I'm hoping will get funded next.

Hugelkultur - creating fertile soil with composting wood

2011-11-18T14:11:00.001-05:00

John Robb of Global Guerrillas has an interesting post on Reclaiming Dead Soil through Hugelkultur which is a process of composting wood into a raised bed. Best to start with already rotting wood, as fresh wood consumes nitrogen early in the rotting process, so if your wood has not really started to rot, you should throw a lot of grass clippings in the process.

Personally, I throw everything (including, occasionally, sawdust and wood scraps) into my compost pile, and then layer the compost with composted horse manure on the raised beds in the spring before planting. Next year I'm going to break down and roto-till, because I need to get better control of the overall weed situation, and after tilling, I can lay out some material to keep the weeds down (I'm disabled and lazy and weeding is just too much work). I'm thinking that this Hugelkultur idea might be good for around the border, creating a barrier and a nice way to grow clover, which provides nitrogen and something for the rabbits to eat before they find their way into the garden.

Hugelkultur beds do take years to mature, so get started soon!

This all reminds me of Mort Mather's old saying that the soil is a bank, and you can't make withdrawals until you've made deposits.

An Awful Year for the Garden

2011-09-25T14:49:00.002-04:00

We had a very late and heavy show melt this year, which gave me an excuse to not get out there in the mud in the spring, so the garden got a late start. And then it rained like hell for a while, so it stayed soaking wet out there until we had about three weeks of no rain at all, at which point the whole garden dried up. I should have watered more, but we were busy with other things, like a little vacation we really needed, so only some things (tomatoes and peppers) really got enough water. Silly me--plants need water!

Then, of course, we had a hurricane followed by a tropical storm and upstate NY saw more water than it had in a hundred years (the new normal with global warming), so the garden was literally underwater and only the things in the high raised beds actually survived to tell the tale. The squash--especially the pumpkins and zuchini--fared especially poorly, while the tomatoes did OK, we got some peppers (the Thai peppers did well), and the radicchio is beautiful! And there's a section where I let some Jerusalem Artichokes take over--they seem to love all this water. Can't wait to dig up those roots!

Fortunately, not everyone is as lazy as I am when it comes to growing food. Yesterday at the Cooperstown farmer's market, I bought some baby bok choy and some mizuna greens from the nice man from Gaia's Breath Farm who said it was a funny year for them. Some things did well, and others did not. His mizuna greens certainly did well; they're delicious! Our friends Dave and Sonia at Nectar Hills Farm had a very good year, as their veggie farm land is high up and well drained. Of course, their organic land is mostly covered in grass, which their cows eat, making for some very delicious New York grass-fed beef.

And Ellen White Weir's place over in Cooperstown is doing great. She grows all her own flowers which she uses in her natural skin care products like lavender skin care treatment and calendula flower salves. Ellen also runs a New York Nature Camp for Kids that no amount of water could disrupt!

Meanwhile, it's time to plant next year's garlic here at the Supak place (my family thinks it's great that I'm growing garlic, as my Great Grampa Supak was a garlic farmer in Ontario, California way back in the day. I'm adding manure to the raised garlic bed (very important to grow garlic in a raised bed because it keeps the bulb up out of the floodwaters) today, and I'll be planting the garlic soon. You know, because I'm really lazy...

Organic Weed Control - Best Tip Ever

2011-05-17T13:52:00.000-04:00

My long time gardening friend Mort Mather has the best organic weed control tip ever in his blog today. Long time readers who know this technique should go ahead and read anyway, as he's updated it a bit. For those of you unfamiliar with Mort, don't miss The Garden Spot, a long time feature at Supak.com.

Meanwhile, it's still wet and muddy here, which has set me back a few weeks. I did manage to get peas, arugula, and lettuce in before this latest stretch of never ending clouds and rain, so it's not awful yet (a lot of locals up here say to wait till Memorial Day to plant any frost-sensitive plants anyway). And I've put out the two-inch layer of composted horse manure on the tomato spot, so the rain is helping fertilize that area, and I can use the Mort method of weed control there.

So, not all is lost yet. Still, I hope this isn't a glimpse of the summer to come, in which long stretches of wet, cool weather bring on another epidemic of tomato blight.

New York Natural Skin Care Products

2011-04-08T12:02:00.000-04:00

The mud is almost dry enough to get out there and start working some horse manure into the soil. We used to go to Nectar Hills Farm to bag our own manure, but I'm a lazy gardener and have found an honor wagon selling bags of nice, dry horse manure for $2 a bag. Big bags. It's great! So, we'll be doing that manure thing soon. I'm late on getting the peas in, but I've learned to be leary of that late freeze, so...

Got a new web site client from down the road in Cooperstown, NY. Ellen White Weir runs a natural skin care products company called Goldpetals (picture of the Goldpetals barn, right). She makes salves, creams, sprays and botanical oils infused with golden calendula flowers. She also runs the Goldpetals Nature Camp for Kids, Plant Walks & Talks, Art Shows, and other events for nature lovers. The whole operation is ultra organic: check it out!

I bet this happens all the time

2011-02-12T13:28:00.001-05:00

How much organic fraud goes undetected? Considering the premium on the price of organic food, I'm really surprised we don't hear more of this going on, and not just from China.

in reference to:

"After years of ringing the alarm bell about fraudulent Chinese organic production, the nation’s preeminent organic farming watchdog, The Cornucopia Institute, applauded the federal government’s current approach to enforcement and its transparency. On February 11, The Department of Agriculture (USDA) publicly released evidence of attempted fraud by a Chinese organic agricultural marketer."
- USDA Uncovers Plot to Import Fake Chinese Organic Food | Cornucopia Institute (view on Google Sidewiki)

Manure Futures

2010-12-08T19:25:00.001-05:00

This is an interesting article on the future of manure as fertilizer.

I would like to see a web site that listed local sources of manure so farmers could easily and less expensively use organic fertilizer.

We have a local "honor wagon" that has bags of dried horse manure for a couple of bucks per large bag. Great deal for me, and the people are making a little money off of something they need to get rid of anyway. If there was a manure site it could list these honor wagons too.

in reference to:

"So precious was manure that Chinese farmers stored it in burglarproof containers."
- Why Farmers Are Flocking to Manure | Cornucopia Institute (view on Google Sidewiki)

Best Practices for Your Area

2010-09-13T08:27:00.000-04:00

All gardening is local. Duh. So, if you want to be a great gardener, one of the best ways to start is to do what your neighbor does. This list of gardening blogs is broken down by state, so you can see what the gardeners in your area are doing, and make it work for you. If you're in a cold climate, you'll find the parent blog, Cold Climate Gardening, worth the subscription.

One of the things I found by reading local gardening blogs is types of plants that do well in this area, like black seeded Simpson lettuce and some blight-resistant heirloom tomatoes. From Cold Climate Gardening, I've been learning the names of flowers, since before I moved here to the land of rain, I wouldn't water it if I couldn't eat it. And if I didn't water it, I didn't care what it was called.

Mort Mather's Garden Spot

2010-09-04T14:41:00.000-04:00

Back in 1996, I was contacted by Mort Mather about publishing his organic gardening articles on line. I was just in there cleaning up some things and I got to reading some of the articles. What a treasure! Anyone interested in organic gardening should check out the Garden Spot and read some of Mort's informative articles.

Mort likes to say that the soil is your bank, and you won't be able to make withdrawals unless you make deposits. Of course, the best kind of deposit is compost. This time of year I find myself grabbing bags of cut grass and leaves to add to the pile, so I'll have plenty of compost to add to raised beds in the spring.

"The land is our bank. Making deposits is a high priority."

Mort's also a big fan of worms, as are all of us organic gardeners. This article has a great conversation with a non-organic gardener about the importance of worms in your garden.

In short, Mort's idea is that healthy soil creates healthy plants which are naturally pest and drought resistant. For more on growing healthy plants in healthy soil, spend a little time in the Garden Spot or with Mort's book, Gardening for Independence.

Getting organic matter into the soil

2010-08-03T11:15:00.000-04:00

I've started organic gardening, but my soil isn't very good. I have found multiple ways of getting organic matter into my soil, but my garden is huge 50' x 150'. In your opinion what would be the best way to get organic matter into my soil. I have a compost pile, but it is not big enough to support the entire garden. Should I grow a cover crop? Should I layer the garden with green sand fertilizer, manure then hay? My soil has a lot of clay. I have been putting hay and grass around my plants during this season. Any help is appreciated.

Yes, and yes. Manure, hay (although many people don't like hay because of field grass seeds, I just pull them when they sprout), and compost are all good steps. Get a big delivery of manure and hay, and spread them evenly in layers, hay on top for the winter. But you mention cover crops and that might even be better. Just yesterday I read this article at Cornucopia, which says:

Forage legumes, such as alfalfa and clover in crop rotations can: supply nitrogen for grain crops; increase soil organic matter; improve soil structure and tilth; and
reduce weed pressure.

While you're probably not doing grain crops, the idea is the same. If you need organic matter in your soil, which we all do every year, then grow some right there on the spot! Be sure to read up on the specifics, like when to turn the cover crop under. I've never done cover crops, but I suppose that once you turn them, you'll still need manure and mulch to overwinter the site (depending on the harshness of your winter).

I use peat moss to organic up this very limey and clay-like soil here in upstate NY. That may be an expensive proposition for something of your scale, but it works very well. Grass clippings are good too!

Good luck and let me know what you decide!

Time to start hording hay and manure

2010-08-02T10:49:00.000-04:00

The only ripe tomatoes I've gotten this year are the cherry kind and I'm already thinking about winter. Maybe it was the 48 degree night we had last week, or maybe it's the old joke from a few posts ago that we have two seasons up here, the 4th of July and winter, but I'm already thinking about bedding this baby down for the winter with layers of manure and hay.

Maybe the fact that I once again planted some things too close together is making me with I had more raised beds, and the winter manure and hay is going to help me make a couple more before the snow gets here. If I could do them now, I could get some fall collard greens, maybe some spinach and peas if the deer don't get them.

Whatever the reason, I've definitely got manure and hay on the mind. The tractor just came through the fields behind us, shooting hay bales into the wagon like the rolled up shirts shot out of cannons (like the ones that killed Maude Flanders, you Simpsons fans). Nothing like the site of a bunch of baled up hay to make me want to un-bale it and protect some fine garden soil.

I still have some green sand fertilizer, too, which must be scattered on the ground under the manure layer, which goes under the hay layer, which will go under the snow layer, where it will all lie, protected from the cold, composting away under there for months while I shiver and wonder if I put enough manure down.

For now, I'm content to just wait for the tomatoes I missed so much last year (blight). But when those babies start turning red, I'm going to be turning compost and manure, layering the open spots, planting some fall greens on top, and stock-piling hay to cover it all up with for the winter.

Like Music, Gardening Makes Better Students

2010-07-07T20:19:00.001-04:00

What a great story. Nothing helps the planet more than people growing their own food, so teaching youngsters about it makes sense for their future. And learning first hand about science and work is great!

in reference to:

"Pupils should be encouraged to grow vegetables and tend flowerbeds because gardening boosts a child’s development and improve standards in other subjects."
- Gardening ‘Can Boost Literacy and Numeracy’ | Cornucopia Institute (view on Google Sidewiki)

Another Fact about Organic Agriculture that Will Be Ignored

2010-07-03T11:12:00.001-04:00

I've been seeing a lot of studies lately that prove organic is better. This one is especially interesting because pesticides are the worst of the worst when it comes to spraying. Linked to cancers, ADHD, Parkinson's, and many other diseases, pesticides harm agricultural workers and consumers, especially consumers who are children. We all suffer from the petroleum-based agriculture that big business forces on us, and the resultant environmental and health consequences.

As someone who enjoys a relatively pest-free garden even though I hardly work at it at all, this story is vindication. I do plant wild flower and clover borders to attract beneficial insects. I do make sure my soil is healthy so my plants aren't stressed into becoming bug magnets. But that's about it. Evenness, the big point of this article, takes care of the rest!

in reference to:

""Almost all the studies that have been done have looked at the number of species in an ecosystem," says Crowder. "Very few studies have looked at the relative abundance. We think our study is really one of the first to highlight that evenness is also important.""
- Organic farms win at potato pest control : Nature News (view on Google Sidewiki)

Heard a new joke about the weather up here

2010-06-27T12:34:00.000-04:00

A warm day today as the 4th approaches reminds me of a joke I heard recently about the weather up here, which has turned me into a year-around cold weather gardener now (lots of greens and peas, although I still try to grow peppers):

They say we have two seasons up here: winter and the 4th of July.

I can certify my own produce

2010-06-14T14:08:00.001-04:00

The NY Times reports more problems with organic certification from China (surprise, surprise), this time a case of conflict of interest by the Organic Crop Improvement Association, which used employees of a Chinese government agency to inspect state controlled farms.

As demand for organic food rises, and supplies become more questionable (China, the Bush administration, corrupt corporations, farmers who just lie to get higher prices), the answer is in our own backyards. My organic seeds come from reputable organic companies like Seeds of Change and Johnny's. My soil has never been treated with fumigants (not since I've been living here anyway) or herbicides. My fertilizer is manure from organically fed horses and cows. My plants are never sprayed with synthetic pesticides. In short, my produce is certified organic by the best inspector of all: me.

Home gardening has been growing in popularity very quickly in the last few years. Demand for gardening products is way up. Seed stores often have trouble keeping seeds in stock. People just don't trust the corporate dominated system to deliver organic food, so they're doing it themselves.

A great side effect of this phenomenon (there's even an organic garden at the White House now) is the savings in fuel used to grow and transport food, savings in petroleum used to create pesticides, savings in greenhouse gas emissions from all of the above activity, reduction of emissions by composting instead of throwing food waste in landfills, and a whole host of other beneficial aspects to organic gardening.

Now I have to go find a way to keep the chipmunks from digging up my cilantro seeds (which I grew myself last year). Seems they know organic when they eat it!

in reference to:

"Now serious questions about certification in China have been raised by the United States Agriculture Department. The agency, which uses private groups to conduct most organic inspections worldwide, has banned a leading American inspector from operating in China because of a conflict of interest that strikes at the heart of the organics’ guarantee. The federal agency also plans to send an audit team to China this year to broadly review the certification process."
- U.S. Drops Organic Food Inspector in China - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

NYT story features our friends and jerky meat suppliers

2010-06-10T17:52:00.002-04:00

Our friends Dave and Sonia run Nectar Hills Farm just down the road from us, near Cooperstown, NY. We are members of their CSA, and we make our beef jerky from their grass-fed meat. They also grow terrific produce, have a wild ramp forrest (which is amazing), harvest honey, and many other things (pork, chickens, eggs, ducks, etc.).

They are mentioned in this story about local meat being sold in NY City, at green-markets, farmers markets, and the like. Yes, the meat costs more, but, as we like to say, grass-fed meats are better for you, the animal, and the planet.

There are two photos from Nectar Hills Farm in this story, and even more on their website.

in reference to: Local Meat Is Becoming Easier to Find - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

We were promised transparency

2010-06-08T13:45:00.001-04:00

With all the news lately that organic is indeed better for you (and especially better for the planet, including healthy soil working as a carbon sink), it is especially important that this government (the first lady of which is making important strides for organics, local, and fighting childhood obesity) make its oversight of the organic certification process as transparent as possible.

Furthermore, it is essential that the National Organic Standards Board include members who are not representatives of corporate agribusinesses. If we really want people to eat more local food, we need to work to decentralize the food system, and small, local producers should be represented on the board.

The fact that the Obama administration has continued the Bush practice of keeping the nominees to the board secret is simply unacceptable, and further fuels the theory that corporations rule the world. After all, look where government trust of these money-grubbing machines has gotten us.

Eight years of foxes in hen houses has left us with a lot of dead chickens (or pelicans). Especially when it comes to our food--the number one factor in determining our health--we need to be open and fair about regulating what should be a guarantee that our food is healthy and organic.

in reference to:

"“During the Bush administration we saw crass politics, at its worst, in play during the NOSB appointment process,” said Will Fantle, Codirector of The Cornucopia Institute."
- Watchdog Calls on USDA to Boost Transparency in Organic Governance | Cornucopia Institute (view on Google Sidewiki)

Organic Gardening in Hawaii

2010-05-13T13:32:00.001-04:00

Our friend Cherie runs a Hawaii bed and breakfast on Maui and writes a Maui Hawaii Blog where she talks story about all the great stuff she does in Hawaii (like running her volunteer on vacation in Hawaii program). If you love Hawaii, you should subscribe to her blog.

In her latest post on organic gardening in Hawaii, Cherie offers up some hints for any organic gardener, and she posted some pictures of luscious fruits we cold weather gardeners are lucky to see in a supermarket!

Times are tough for the organic coffee farmers

2010-04-26T11:14:00.000-04:00

As you probably know if you read this blog regularly, we know some organic farmers and we do our best to help them thrive. But times are tough, especially for people selling products that are more expensive than conventionally grown. As one of our financially challenged friends likes to point out, it's just too damn expensive to do the right thing when it comes to food. Arguing with him that their are hidden costs to cheap food that we all pay for later doesn't phase him, as it just doesn't matter because he can't afford to eat organic unless he grows it himself.

This has led me to the conclusion that the burden on those who can afford to eat and drink organically is higher than on people who cannot afford it. People who can afford it, in fact, have more of an ethical obligation to go organic, which will increase demand for organic products, thereby increasing supply and lowering the price for everyone. The affluent shoppers must sustain the sustainable so that we can increase the supply of sustainable food and products.

To wit: organic Kona coffee. This isn't just coffee... It's heaven in a cup. Seriously, anyone who really loves coffee should give Kona Comfort a try. I've been drinking the coffee from this farm through two owners. The new owners, Mike and Ric, bought the organic Kona coffee farm right before the recession hit, and they're having a tough time making ends meet. Competing with the big guys is hard enough, but then there are the inevitable other set backs that come with commercial agriculture operations, all which have led to tough times for these great guys who are busting their butts doing the right thing.

So, all you affluent readers (I know some of you are doing OK and can afford some of this coffee), go to the Kona Comfort Organic Coffee website and sign up for the automated shipments of organic Kona coffee. You will be seriously glad you did, and you'll be helping to sustain sustainable domestic coffee production. And what could be more fair trade than buying directly from the farmer?

Still not convinced? Just check out these reasons to order this particular gourmet organic Kona coffee:

‣ Our coffee beans all come from our own land, all unmixed with questionable crops from other farms.
‣ Each bag is processed here under our direct control, no secondary party management!
‣ We operate the farm ourselves, twelve months of the year: we are not absentee.
‣ We use traditional fermentation (with mountain rainwater no chlorine) followed by natural sun drying.
‣ Your coffee (before roasting) is cured AND kept protected in a climate controlled room,
when you order, then we fresh roast and ship it right out to you for your best enjoyment.
‣ Each person here is dedicated to and educated in strict organic practices, our compliance is certified.
‣ We don't "send out" our coffee for any step, it's never exposed to questionable handling by third parties.

I've had coffee from all over the world, and I'm not kidding when I say this is the the best... Seriously ONO coffee. Da Kine, bra. And these are good people who deserve a serious shot at success with this great product. Help 'em out.

Organic Caterer in Los Angeles

2010-04-13T10:37:00.000-04:00

One of my internet marketing clients, Culinary Delight Catering in Los Angeles, has started an organic catering option for her clients which has quickly become quite popular.

Here's the statement from their website:

By offering organic food to our customers, we feel like we're helping everyone do the right thing. Organic food is better for our customers' health, and it's better for the environment. Organic food has been found to be more nutritious, and it is grown or raised without any of the harmful petro-chemicals that are found in high doses on conventionally grown food. Pesticides and herbicide residues stay on food, even after washing, and can cause serious harm to your health. Chemical fertilizers destroy soil tilth and depend on an oil-based economy that is not sustainable. By using organic food for your catered meals, you are voting with your dollars to change the way food is produced.

When I was working on their new organic page, I did some research and found that there are a lot of caterers who have gone organic, many of whom are strictly organic. The one thing that's still hard to find is grass-fed beef, but things are getting better, and grass-fed will catch on just as organic has.

In the mean time, it's heartwarming to see so many food service operations offering organic or at least an organic option. In these hard times where most people are trying to find ways to cut back, it's a bit of a surprise to see demand for organic catering, which has even taken Culinary Delight by surprise. They're making organic cupcakes like crazy!

To make it clear to their clients that they can't always get everything organic (supply is still sometimes a problem), here's the list of things they can almost always supply organically:

sugars
butter
eggs
milk
sour cream
cream cheese
flavorings
fresh fruits
fresh vegetables
chicken
some cuts of beef

They're working on adding more to the list, as long as there is demand for it. So all you Los Angelinos out there who have control over who you choose for catering or craft services, make sure you ask for organic, and tell Emma we sent you!

Suspended Animation

2010-04-08T11:58:00.000-04:00

Going into my second year in upstate NY--where it still gets cold, just not so much anymore--and I'm amazed again at what can survive the winter and just start growing again like all that snow and degrees owed (only got down to -9 once this winter) never happened.

Out there this morning planting peas in earnest (the St. Patty's day peas were a crap out), I came across radicchio, collards, spinach, carrots, and miner's lettuce, all doing just fine, thank you, as if they had been in suspended animation and just, spring, came back to life.

I left the baby carrots to their own spot, but while hoeing a row for peas, adult carrots kept popping out of the ground from a spot I'd forgotten about. I threw the mangled ones up into the woods for the deer, and the rest will be food for us thanks to that free winter storage.

This phenomenon hitherto unknown to this southerner leads me to the assumption that I should be saving myself a lot of work and muddy boots by planting a bunch of cold-tolerant plants late in the fall, so they're just old enough when the warm blanket of snow covers them as they hibernate. I'm starting to see how my lazy Yankee gardener friends think now.

This tactic would allow me to spend my time more wisely in the spring. Because of my disability--lack of back bone cartilage--I only get a little time in the garden each day or I pay severely. So, I could spend more time turning compost and mixing it with horse/steer manure and peat moss to pile on the raised beds before the warm weather plants go in. I could spend more time in the woods harvesting ramps and making sure they're properly cared for so we don't deplete them. I could spend more time sitting in the chair sipping coffee listening to woodpeckers laugh and whatever birds those are that sound like they're playing Marco Polo.

The Long Ant War

2010-04-04T13:18:00.000-04:00

My friend back in California is still waging war with the invading ants, who apparently are of the sugartee--a militant sect of sugar eating ants that wage guerrilla warfare in a territorial battle for southern California. My friend was asking about aspartame, the sugar substitute in Equal, which kills ants when they eat it. Since I know he doesn't want anything even potentially dangerous around his kid, I shied him away from the faux sugar and pointed him toward some new tactical weapons in the looong war.

Once I threw some chunks of fat (we were battling the fatatee--a meat eating sect in So Cal) into the corners of my property, which I then blocked off with a thick standing infantry of diatomacious earth, after making sure that civilian children could not access the area. This classic misdirection move, followed by a pincer attack of fat bait laced with borax surrounded by diatomacious earth with howitzers of ant chalk laying down circles of indirect fire support in the gaps in our front line.

They tried to flank us near the barbeque, but I sprayed them with cedar oil there and they beat an angry retreat into the neighbor's yard, where they were probably met with synthetic chemical warfare, which is against the Geneva conventions of insect warfare, to which we are a signatory.

Damn ants. Out there doing their job and taking hell for it...

Grass-fed Cows Save The Earth

2010-03-25T17:02:00.000-04:00

Since we sell grass-fed beef jerky, we like to plug any story we hear about how much better grass-fed beef is. It's usually about how the grass is better food for cows, which make the cows better food for you. So, we have this saying:

Grass-fed beef is better for you, the animals, and the planet.

What you don't usually hear is how grass-fed beef is better for the planet. We like to tout the fact that these animals are not eating corn, so you can subtract all the petroleum and other resources that get used to feed cows corn. But this story about how cows help the soil caught my eye.

Grass is a perennial. If cattle and other ruminants are rotated across pastures full of it, the animals' grazing will cut the blades, spurring new growth, while their trampling helps work manure and other decaying organic matter into the soil, turning it into rich humus. And healthy soil keeps carbon dioxide underground and out of the atmosphere.

So there you have it. How grass-fed beef can save the planet!

The article goes on to mention that yes, grass-fed cows create more methane than the corn-fed animals, but that that is more than offset by the CO2 sequestration taking place in the fields. And they're not even taking the petroleum out of the equation. So, grass-fed is actually much better for the planet than corn fed.

Bush Administration Ignored Organic Laws

2010-03-21T12:06:00.000-04:00

I'm shocked, shocked to discover that Bush was the head of a giant criminal organization. In this case, it seems we were all being ripped off, paying for organic that probably wasn't.

New Management at USDA Reforms, Strengthens National Organic Program

WASHINGTON, DC: After an extensive audit and investigation of alleged improprieties at the USDA’s National Organic Program, the agency’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) made public their formal report, dated March 9, substantiating the allegations of prominent organic industry watchdog groups — that under the Bush administration, the USDA did an inadequate job of enforcing federal organic law.

Since 2002, when the USDA adopted the federal organic regulations, the agency has been plagued by underfunding and a number of scandals and complaints about its cozy relationship with agribusiness interests and lobbyists.

While I'm happy to hear that things are getting better under the Obama administration, one way to avoid putting your trust in a corporatocracy is to know and support your local farmers. Join a CSA. Buy produce at your local farmer's market. I'm sure that even un-certified local growers are more organic than some of the big companies that helped keep George W Bush in the White House for 8 years.

This is, of course, par for the course for the Bush administration. They had foxes guarding the hen houses in all departments of the Executive branch. I'm sure we'll be finding out all kinds of ways that the American people were duped, ripped-off, lied to, harmed, and even killed in order to boost the bottom line of some international conglomerate.

Oh, wait. We already have, haven't we? That was the whole Bush raison d'être.

Break the Tradition... Un-corned Beef!

2010-03-17T12:17:00.000-04:00

Tradition has it that up here at 42.77 north latitude you don't plant anything less hardy than a collard until after Memorial Day. But there is, of course, a contrary tradition of planting peas on St. Patrick's day, which I shall now be doing, at least in the places where the snow has melted and where I can get without waste-high mud boots.

There is also this tradition of eating corned-beef, which we will be reversing by eating un-corned beef, meaning we didn't get a brisket to put in brine, and the beef we eat now is grass-fed. So, no corned beef in anyway whatsoever today.

I will, however, still be drinking a Guinness this evening. Some traditions are worth keeping.

Weeds Genetically Engineer Themselves to Resist Roundup

2010-03-03T16:41:00.001-05:00

Monsanto deserves its critics. They genetically engineered plants to resist Roundup, and now the weeds are doing the same to keep up. Way to go Monsanto...

in reference to:

"Scientists said on Friday they have confirmed expanding weed resistance to a key ingredient in Monsanto's (MON.N)widely used Roundup herbicide, a troubling development for farmers and fresh fodder for Monsanto critics."
- UPDATE 1-More US weeds found resisting Monsanto Roundup | Reuters (view on Google Sidewiki)

From the Grass-fed Duh Files

2010-02-19T15:32:00.000-05:00

OK, I shouldn't be so harsh when people discover that grass-fed beef is better for you and the planet, especially when they're playing up the angle that rotating fields of grass-fed beef actually improves degraded soil. But it is a sort of duh. Just look at the fertile plains of North America that the settlers found under roaming buffalo that had built the prairie over eons of rotation through those fields. And look at those fields now... barren big agri wastelands polluted with petroleum-based farming known as synthetic chemical subsidized agri-business. And then look at the feed lots where thousands of animals are concentrated into environmental grass lands.

Then look at this:

Case rested.

Natural Pest Control Product

2010-02-15T10:01:00.000-05:00

The question I get most often is how to get rid of bugs. The answer, for the garden at least, is to make sure your soil is healthy, which will make sure your plants are healthy (other factors do apply, like sun, temperature, water...), which will make the plants more able to resist bugs. Stressed out plants are bug magnets, since bugs are just doing their job by helping weed out the weaklings.

Occasionally, though, the bugs go crazy and attack everything. In that case, you need an organic and natural pest killer. Our friend Jackie (who makes great Hawaiian perfumes and body butters) recently started Natural Pest Free, which sells cedar-oil-based natural pest control products.

CEDAR OIL for more than a 1000 years is and has been a proven method of pest control that emphasizes simple, inexpensive, 100% organic practices that cause no harm to people or the environment. CEDAR OIL focuses on building a barrier of entry on the perimeter of your property, so bugs stay out of your yard, which means they stay out of your home. At Natural Pest Free we are dedicated to reducing the health risk and environmental impacts of pesticides and promoting organic alternatives to homeowners across America, one home at a time.

I'm a big fan of the natural barrier plan. I surround my garden with rows of clover, which rabbits and deer love. They'll stop and eat the clover and be happy with it, never making it deep into the garden where the expensive goodies are. Occasionally there's a deer (like our regular visitor, Scarface, shown here), who gets deep into the garden where he's learned to love pea shoots (who doesn't). In that case I use hot pepper waxes, another barrier--one that sends scarface running for the nearest water.

So, a cedar oil barrier makes sense for keeping the bugs out. I suggest using it sparingly, mostly when there's a serious infestation of something you really need to stop. Remember, when you're gardening, most bugs are beneficial, so you don't want to just keep all bugs out.

But in your home is another matter. This is a great product for use as an in-home pesticide.

...control of Head lice, Mosquitoes, Flies, Fleas, No-See-Um, Chiggers, Ticks, Chinch Bugs, Grub Worms, Mites, Mole Crickets, Earwigs, Slugs, Snails, Caterpillars, Beetles, June Bugs, May Bugs, Root Maggots, Army Worms, Weevils, Wire Worms, Ants and Termites.

Way to go Jackie! I'm proud to be affiliated with such a fine product!

Cold Climate Composting

2010-02-02T12:58:00.000-05:00

As my friend Mort Mather says, the soil is your bank. You can't make withdrawals unless you make deposits. I get composting straw and manure from Nectar Hills Farm (where we also get the beef for our grass-fed gourmet beef jerky), which I mix with my kitchen waste to create compost that I then deposit into the soil bank so I can make fresh veggie withdrawals. Mort and I are both lazy gardeners, meaning we like to let nature do as much of the work as possible, and we just help her along.

Last winter, though, my compost pile (which, by the way, lowers my carbon footprint considerably, since that food waste won't decompose anaerobically in the landfill) froze solid, like a big block of ice. It was my first real winter after years of living in substantially warmer climates. This year, I was ready for these sub-zero temperatures. With a couple of bags of hay, some very dry, aged horse manure, and a lot of snow for insulation, I have built a very insulated compost pile.

Since I'm lazy, the pile is up against the foundation of the house, right at the bottom of the back stairs. I don't want to have to put on the snow shoes to compost all winter. This way, the compost is only exposed on three sides. On two of those sides, I've stacked flakes from the hay bales, creating a kind of straw bale shelter for the pile. The front is open, but held up about 18 inches with some chicken wire fencing, which I have now piled snow up against for insulation. The top of the pile is covered with snow, which I poured hot water down to create a cylindrical hole down to the top of the pile.

Now, when I want to compost, I just pour some fresh hot water down the hole to melt any new snow that accumulated, then I dump my compost bucket down the hole, layer some manure on top of that, and then a couple of handfulls of hay (or the cedar shreds I take out of our turtle cage when I clean it, which has turtle manure) down the hole. Come spring (or another thaw like we had a week ago) there will be a bunch of cylinders of frozen compost sticking up on the top of the pile. I'll be sure to take a picture of that scene.

But underneath all that lies the compost pile proper, where my probes have proven that composting is taking place, worms are thriving (future turtle food), and aerobic decomposition is reducing our carbon output. But the best part, of course, is that come spring, when I build some new raised beds, I'll have plenty of currency saved up for the soil bank!

Of course, if you have a little money to spend, I imagine a black plastic composter would use insulating and solar power to keep your pile going year around, unless you're above the arctic circle.

Ant Wars!

2010-01-24T12:32:00.000-05:00

A very good friend of mine from my stagehand days recently bought a house--a fixer upper in ant country--and asked for some help on that front.

Ants go where the food is, so first, make sure there's nothing for them to eat. This is most important! Cut off their supplies!

Now the battle can begin!

Put out the ant baits you can buy anywhere, but put them outside near their homes. I used to use those metal stakes that go in the ground. They work for a while, but eventually they learn to avoid them, so you have to keep changing brands. This is the artillery to soften them up a little.

Find where they're coming through the wall. Unless they're under the house, or living in the house somewhere, they're coming in through a crack, usually around a cable inlet hole or window. Caulk. You want to seal the holes anyway, for energy efficiency.

Now you're going to have to launch an attack on their fort. Follow their trail back to the home. If you don't care about growing anything in that spot for a while, pour a bunch of vinegar down the hole. Get the 10% vinegar if you can find it, but 5% is OK. If you dig the area up after wards and compost the soil with some grass clippings and food waste, it will balance out the pH and you can use the soil again.

If you do want to grow something there immediately, you can get some Diatomaceous Earth--not the kind for pools, but the finer kind used to kill bugs--you can pile it on the mound and in a radius of a foot or so, more if it's big. The powder is so fine it clogs the breathing pores in their skin. Be sure not to breathe the stuff, as it will do the same to your lungs. They will die trying to get out. In fact, they will build a bridge of dead ants and crawl over them, so you have to keep going there, raking the area free of dead any bridges, and reapply as needed. Watch for places where they try to tunnel out, and apply there to. Obviously, you're going to have to be patient and vigilant. Kind of like democracy.

If you really want to have some pyrotechnic fun, I suggest gasoline of kerosene. Not exactly organic, but you're going to let it soak in and then light it up. Careful. I suggest some sort of fuse so you can stand back when the fire geyser spews flaming ants into the sky.

If they're really bad, there is an ant chalk that is technically illegal, but they sell it in Chinatown. It has a neurotoxin in it, so use gloves, and make sure the kid can't get near it. It's not technically organic, although a lot of people say it is. The active ingredients are Cypermethrin and Deltamethrin, which are both common, very weak insecticides which break down quickly (but are really bad for fish, so don't use near water). They are both Pyrethroids, synthetic chemicals that very closely resemble pyrethrins, which come from flowers. This is what a lot of ant sprays have in them, but I hate sprays as a lot of it gets in the air that way. Besides, they stink for days after you spray them.

Draw chalk lines where the ants are coming into the house, on concrete it works well, you have to press hard to make sure it gets into the stucco. They will not come back for a long time once they get a taste of that stuff.

Finally, learn to live with a few of them. Too many and there's obviously a food source available, so again, make sure every thing's sealed up. Battle them back as much as possible, but there will always be scouts. Kill them when you see them, but no need to freak. They're actually pretty clean, an amazing evolutionary engineering wonder. The colony acts like a single brain (I often call it the ant brain).

And they're just doing their (very important) job....

Community Supported Agriculture

2010-01-09T17:59:00.000-05:00

This is an interesting post on Grist: It takes a community to sustain a small farm. It doesn't mention CSAs, community supported agriculture, where local residents purchase "shares" of a farm, which guarantees delivery of a set amount of food over a period of time, usually a year. But it does address the issues small, local farms face, considering that agribusiness has been putting the little guys--from farmers to butchers to truck drivers and grocers--out of business for a long time now.

Our local and organic grass-fed highlander beef (very lean), which we use for our Happy Hobo Grass-fed Beef Jerky, is from Nectar Hills Farm, which recently started an upstate New York CSA of their own, mostly for meat (they also have lamb, pork, poultry, eggs, and cheese), but also other things from the farm, like incredible organic produce during the season and organic red bamboo honey (which we also use in the beef jerky).

Nectar Hills Farm also has a new farm picture gallery, if you'd like to see some pictures of a small organic farm in upstate New York.

CSAs aren't new. You can find one near you on the Local Harvest's CSA finder. They're a great way to help your local farmer. It gets them money when they need it, and it gets you a discount on farm-fresh local and organic products on a regular basis. This food is better for you, better for the animals, and better for the environment. It is money you won't spend keeping big agri-business in business.

Our New Year's resolution is to stop eating corn-fed and factory farmed beef. You don't have to be that drastic about it, but once you research grass-fed beef in your area, you'll find an array of delicious meats that are essentially solar powered, instead of oil and corn powered, like the concentrated feed lots of industrial meat production.

Robin's Best Grass-fed Beef Jerky Ever!

2009-12-18T11:30:00.000-05:00

If you're lucky enough to be up here in the walk-in freezer that is upstate New York this weekend, you'll want to swing by the Cooperstown Farmer's Market, the last of the year, for the best Happy Hobo grass-fed beef jerky Robin's ever made.

The grass-fed Highlander's top round that this batch of jerky is made from is, as we're told, as good as they get, having spent the whole summer eating grass from the fields of Nectar Hills Farm here in central New York's leatherstocking region. When the cows have been out in the fields eating grass all summer, they fatten up and become especially delicious.

Of course, Robin thinks it's cute that I say every batch of jerky is the best. But I'm serious. She's perfected the recipe, the cows are particularly delicious this time of year. And we've switched to organic tamari to replace the soy sauce (we're making a special batch with no wheat, which soy sauce contains, for some relatives who can't eat wheat). At this point, the only wheat left in the recipe is the trace amount in the organic Worcestershire sauce, so to make a wheat-free jerky, we just leave that out.

Starting this winter, we're going to begin experimenting with other flavors of jerky. We're thinking Teriyaki, tropical, and a few others. Suggestions are certainly welcome!

We're also going to experiment with organic dog treats, but don't tell your dog yet; we want to get it just right first.

If you can't make it to the Cooperstown Farmer's Market Saturday morning, you can order our grass-fed beef jerky at the Nectar Hills Farm website.

White House Hoops

2009-12-16T13:16:00.001-05:00

Good looking and inexpensive hoop houses are the focus of this White House Blog post by Sam Kass, assistant chef and Food Initiative Coordinator for the WH.

Glad to see they're growing all my favorites, especially mustard greens! I wish I'd had the time to put in some hoops over my greens. Too busy of a year-end for us to get out there and do much.

I'm looking forward to seeing what lives through being mulched, buried under a blanket of snow for a few months, and then uncovered in the spring. I know the spinach plants will start up again, but I also mulched some small mustard, collards, mizuna, and miner's leaf lettuce.

So, I'll just think of not having hoops out there as an experiment into what survives the winter up here in zone 5... If you mulch it, will it come back?

in reference to: Planting the Winter Garden | The White House (view on Google Sidewiki)

White Hoop House

2009-12-08T12:30:00.001-05:00

I put up some plastic last year and made a little hoop house to protect winter greens. It was hastily built just in time for a surprise snow storm around Halloween.

This year, I just picked the greens down as low as I could, and mulched them with old straw over a layer of very dry, aged horse manure. I know the spinach will come back in the spring, and I suppose the mustard, mizuna, collards, kale, onions, radishes, and other cold hearty vegies will survive as well.

If not, whatever dies will compost under all that straw, which is now under a few inches of snow. It stays pretty warm under that white blanket--warm enough for things to decompose if not actually live.

This spring, or late winter, if I have any money, I plan to build a slightly larger hoop house, something I can actually walk into instead of crawling under (I have a bad back), and that will get me started much earlier.

In the mean time, I'm going to look into these little hoops at the White House, as maybe they'll make a good low-cost alternative to the big one, and I'll just have to figure out a way to get under there more easily.

in reference to: Our Blog : 12/07/09 - The White House extends its growing season : Slow Food USA (view on Google Sidewiki)

New New York Grass Fed Beef Pictures

2009-11-21T14:45:00.000-05:00

No, that's not a Futurama reference. I just posted some new pictures to her site that Sonia Sola took of her Nectar Hills Farm, where she raises New York grass fed beef. She took a bunch of great shots on one of our recent sunny (!) November days (which I'm told is rare for November up here, usually the dreariest month). As you can see, these cows (and horses) look really happy to be out in the sun getting fat for the winter.

Sonia tells us that she and Dave are working out the details for a CSA (community supported agriculture) that they will be offering soon. Nectar Hills Farm sells grass-fed free-range beef, pork, and other meats, plus farm-fresh eggs, honey, cider, and produce. You can find out about CSAs in your area at Local Harvest.

If you're bored, I recommend checking out the Nectar Hills Farm Links page, which has all kinds of fun links, like the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy and the Josephine Porter Institute for Applied Biodynamics. Fun stuff!

Would You Eat a Monkey?

2009-11-11T15:41:00.000-05:00

As I learned growing up on a small farm in Arkansas, pigs are smart. Not just dog smart, but really smart. Like, the pigs would learn tricks so fast that they would help the dogs learn. I had pigs that would jump through hoops, roll over, play dead, and even speak on command. It broke my heart when one got sick, and I spent days hand scooping corn mash with molasses into its mouth and spraying the sores on its skin with some sort of medicine with purple dye in it.

Of course, I was a kid more obsessed with beer and girls than ethics, but later in life, after studying bio-ethics and getting a philosophy degree, the smart pigs haunted me. Eventually, when I got old enough to worry about my cholesterol and whether I was doing the right things, I really started to feel bad about eating pork. The more I learned about factory farming, the worse I felt. I never thought I would say it, but I started losing my taste cravings for bacon (I used to joke that a pile of crap would taste good with bacon and cheese on it).

Then I learned about Michael Pollan. I heard him make the argument that pigs are at least as smart as dogs (in reality, new research shows that pigs are much smarter than dogs), and you wouldn't eat your dog, so why would you eat pork?

As ethical arguments go, that's a damn good one.

After that, I was convinced. A few months later was the Chinese New Year, starting the year of the pig. I convinced my fellow prosciutto loving wife Robin to quit with me. And we've been pork free for almost three years now. Even our son has joined the cause.

Since we moved to upstate NY, we found Nectar Hills Farm where they treat their animals with respect. The pigs are free range and appear happy. To be honest, they look delicious. But I'm still not eating them. However, if you can get past the intelligence problem (I've also stopped eating octopus due to research that shows how intelligent they are), then you should at least consider only eating free-range pork. The evils of factory farming are impossible to deny, from the treatment of the animal to the effects on the environment (see the chapter on massive pig shit geysers in Senator Al Franken's Book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them).

Recently, I had been debating around the edges with questions like eating wild pigs (which are very bad for the environment, especially in places like Hawaii) and I'm still not sure about that. Possibly. But I don't think I would eat a monkey that was messing up an ecosystem somewhere, so...

These are tough questions. We all have to come down where we decide. For me, it's a question of how smart an animal will I eat? For now, I'll stick to the oblivious seafood (but only the good stuff per the Monterey Bay Aquariums Guide to Sustainable Seafood), idiot chickens and other birds, and the only slightly smarter cows (but we're moving to only grass-fed beef as much as we can afford). The environmental choices are actually pretty easy: eat free-range, organic, grass-fed, pasture raised, keep it as local as you can, and stay away from factory farmed as much as possible.

Choosing what you eat based on the intelligence of the food? Well, I'll just have to keep thinking about that, and adjusting along the way. It's the least I can do for a species that looks, based on this new research, to be at least as smart as dolphins.

As Dr. Lawrence Schook said in yesterday's NYT article, "Pigs like to lie around, they like to drink if given the chance, they’ll smoke and watch TV." When I'm coming up with rules to live by, this one comes up near the top: I just can't eat anybody who would sit around with me watching a movie (Animal Farm?) drinking beer, and puffing on a good cigar.

Photographs of Nectar Hills Farm by Robin Supak.

What the? Oh, go to...

2009-10-13T15:13:00.000-04:00

You call that a summer? I find myself talking to this place. I'm not sure it's because I'm losing it due to my disability and financial situation, or what, but when the weather does something fun up here in central New York state, I want to say, hey, wait. That doesn't count as summer. That was like spring with a few warm days. Now the leaves are falling fast, like some cruel foreshadowing to what is, I kid you not, a prediction for this Friday.

Snow.

This whole cold thing is new to me. Last year, we moved in too late to have a real garden. This year, I get to go out there and see pepper plants that never really had a chance to produce more than a few token reminders of heat, now all post-frost droopy, just waiting for me to get out there and compost them.

I just don't have the energy, partly due to some bad pain days lately, but also because I'm an inherently lazy gardener, and I figure the winter will lay all the dead stuff flat and compost it under the snow anyway. If anything, I should throw some straw and leaves on there.

I'm getting damn good at growing the cold lovers: collards, mustard greens, kale, spinach, some lettuce--all doing great. I'd forgotten how much I like mustard greens--very spicy! Almost makes up for the lack of jalapenos...

We stopped on the side of the road and bought some bags of aged horse manure ($2 for a big bag from an honor cart--stuff the money in the hand-cut slot on the top of a plastic Folgers container), and I've layered it on top of some spots where I'm going to put peppers and other nitrogen hogs (my kingdom for a home grown tomato) next year. So, the soil bank deposit has been made, or at least part of it. I'll be putting more compost and manure out in the next few days, and then again in the spring.

I also have some clover seed I've scattered here and there, that I will turn in in the spring as a green manure. Clover's a good cover crop, and it keeps the rabbits busy so they'll stay away from the radicchio that's almost done. Or so the theory goes.

Kind of like that theory that it gets warm and sunny in the summer...

A Shiny Thing from A Reader!

2009-09-17T11:05:00.000-04:00

Thanks for the shiny thing, reader, whoever you are. We just love recognition (never mind that that means to "think again"), especially when there's something ribbon-like involved. In the early days of the web, when we were some of the only people on line giving out organic gardening advice, peddling Mort Mather's Organic Gardening Essays to whomever would listen, we would get awards on a regular basis. Now? Not so much.

So thanks, reader! It was almost as nice a present to wake up to as the organic Kona coffee my Hawaii coffee farming friend Michael keeps sending! If anyone else wants to do something nice for us, let me know! If you can't afford to help us pay the rent by supporting our advertisers (buy a poster, man, they're cheap and cool), then find a place to submit us! Put a link on your site (this little linking logo works really well for that), or your facebook, get a Supak.com tattoo, or something!

These little gifts mean a lot more to us right now, a very stressful time for us. So, seriously, thanks. A little "thinking again" goes a long way.

It's About to Get Cold So I Think Hawaii

2009-09-09T11:04:00.000-04:00

In this summer that wasn't, we've had some 60 degree mornings. But today, with a little breeze reminding me that Canada is right over there and the first frost is right around the corner, 60 degrees seemed a little cooler than the surprise 60 in the middle of July.

Yesterday I'm out there thinning collard seedlings* that are growing where I should be picking tomatoes, and bringing in handfuls of yellow squash, zucchini, green beans, carrots, radishes and whatnot, thinking, no tomatoes, but not so bad. And then, as if to remind me that the cold is on the way, I get this picture in my email from my Innkeeper friend Cherie, who runs the Hale Hookipa Maui bed and breakfast.

That's quite a haul, all from one day she tells me... Well, put my little pile of squash in perspective, will you! Cherie also runs this volunteer on vacation in Hawaii site, and a great Maui blog. If you like tropical gardening (she also has great flowers), check it out. Or better yet, check in for a week. Maui is a gardener's paradise. But beware, in the depths of winter in upcountry, you might wake up to a cool 55 degree morning!

* Planted from the seeds from the greens I let overwinter last year, in an attempt to make them even more cold hardy. I will let some of these go over winter again, to seed in the spring, for seeds for next fall's crop. I never really learned this technique, it just seems to work well, and my theory is that anything that can stay alive over winter here deserves to be propagated. At least that way, if we keep having summers that weren't, I'll have some cold hardy greens to grow any time of year!

Rural Blight

2009-08-24T15:59:00.000-04:00

During the 20 odd years that I lived in Los Angeles, most of it was spent living in a pretty urban area (the Valley, Hollywood, Santa Clarita), and I experienced urban blight every day. The boarded up buildings, structures in desperate need of repair (that always reminded me of the Robyn Hitchcock song My Favorite Buildings), graffitied surfaces everywhere (and not the cool kind of graffiti, which I don't mind so much, just the gang tag kind), and general filth and grime everywhere. It's one of the things I certainly don't miss since moving to the country.

So it was with great surprise that I woke up the other morning, poured my cup of organic Kona coffee, and went for my walk-through to see how much radicchio and pea sprouts the rabbits had dined on before the hot pepper spray sent them running for water (I just love imagining that, since, for Robin's sake, I'm suppressing the urge to shoot the little buggers), and low and behold, I found the dreaded rural blight, growing all over my tomato plants like some kind of brush fire that had made it's way into a neighborhood.

It happened overnight, like the graffiti that wound up on a wall near our place in LA. But I couldn't just paint over this blight. This is the dreaded tomato blight that has decimated tomato gardens all over New England this summer that wasn't.

We thought we had avoided it, as it got warm and drier over the last couple of weeks... Bam! Hurricane comes up the coast, cold front comes down from Canada, and one night of cool, wet conditions, and there it was. It literally happened overnight. There may have been some signs the day before, but they weren't that noticeable, and I was being very wary.

I've ordered some copper spray for the big plant next to the house, that volunteered from the compost. It's only showing small signs, and I've been pulling off any leaf with even a speck on it. Maybe the spray will help. Or, maybe, tomorrow, I'll be pulling it up and shoving it in a plastic bag, like some murder victim on Law and Order. Bagging up all the plants yesterday looked like a battlefield...

We had a lot of tomatoes. Almost all started from seed. Many heirlooms. Much pain. Almost like losing a pet.

We have several bowls full of green tomatoes that we're going to make a nice relish with, but damn.... seriously, We're going through the seven stages of grief here.

One way to beat a short summer: speed!

2009-08-20T18:17:00.000-04:00

Clem, the chef at the not-far-from-Cooperstown restaurant The Rose and Kettle, told me a little joke the other day, when I picked some nerf-football sized zucchini off his plant (he's busy in the kitchen this time of year--Glimmerglass Opera season--and, yes, only one plant):

Clem: They say you should lock your car doors up here in the summer.
Me: Really? I thought no one ever locked their doors up here.
Clem: Well, in the summer, if you leave it open, someone might put a zucchini in it!

They got a late start this summer that almost wasn't, but boy do they make up for it in speed. I was right to plant so few plants (we have two). I guess that's the nature of squash. I have about 5 pumpkin plants that we use mostly for the blossoms (lightly breaded and fried), but it's amazing to me that between now and the end of October, a whole damn pumpkin will appear, grow to size, and ripen.

Doing the Right Thing

2009-08-15T11:21:00.000-04:00

Sometimes people suggest that we should just buy corn-fed beef to make our beef jerky cheaper. While we are looking for ways to lower costs in order to make grass-fed jerky less expensive, we have a saying: you're either doing the right thing, or you're not. Corn fed beef is not the right thing. Corn finished, sure, better. But grass-fed beef is solar powered; there are not pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, or other petroleum based agricultural ingredients in a field of grass. The resulting meat has a smaller carbon footprint, and has done less damage to the planet in many ways, including pollution.

This is why I'm an organic gardener. I want to be ethical toward the planet. It's why I stopped eating pork: it's one of the biggest industrial farming nightmares because pig shit is impossible to deal with on a large scale. Small scale pig farmers argue that they've solved that problem by, well, being small (which allows nature to deal with the waste), and maybe they have a point. But I have another ethical guide of my own to follow, which is that I don't want to eat animals that are more intelligent than a dog. That means no pigs, and no Octopus.

We have a lot of friends who share our basic ethical positions, like the grass fed beef farm down the road, the gourmet grocery in Cherry Valley, and even older friends back in Hawaii (where we lived for a year) like this organic Kona coffee farm, and Cherie Attix who has put her money and effort where her ethics are and created a new web site and discount program for her Maui bed and breakfast (where she has a wonderful organic tropical fruit garden) that encourages and rewards volunteer vacations in Hawaii. Volunteer while you're on vacation in Hawaii, and you'll get a 5% discount off your stay at her historic Inn, and she'll donate another 5% to the organization for which you volunteer. Most of the volunteer programs are environmental in nature, like eradicating invasive species and planting native ones.

So keep in mind that wherever you are, and wherever you travel, you can take a little extra time, a little extra money and save us all in the long run by doing the right thing. Buy your garden vegetable plants from a local nursery and you'll help support your local economy and help stop the spread of the late blight. Buy local and organic food and help your health and the planet's. When you camp somewhere, pack out what you pack in. When you go on vacation somewhere, volunteer while you're there. Volunteer to help your own community. Just do something that's right. It's really a lot easier than the corporate interests want you to think.

Oh, that's what those poles are for...

2009-08-14T16:23:00.000-04:00

I thought the poles at my local Farmer's Museum (in Cooperstown, NY) were way too tall for any pole bean I ever saw. I'm looking forward to finding out how New Yorker's used hops in 1840! I thought there was only one thing to use them for. And I'm going for a frosty one now!

Food, Inc.

2009-08-09T11:48:00.000-04:00

Peppers Need Sun

2009-07-15T15:50:00.000-04:00

Well, duh. Every plant needs sun, of course, but peppers need lots of it. I never really thought about it that much, growing in a place where the water has to be delivered in little drips, through tubes that I had to bury or the water would get too hot. Apparently it's not uncommon up here in Zone Five to get very wet springs--in this case wet and cold. And peppers just don't like it. The peas and the lettuce are happy and productive (and delicious), but even the early jalapeno variety of pepper just could not get a handle on it. Not enough sun.

At first I thought it was the cold (nights often in the low 40's even in July, for Chrissake), and I had some plants in starter trays that I would bring in at night or in the rain. But even on cloudy days with no rain the slugs were out and hungry, and there goes a pepper plant... and another...

Ah, the learning curve.

We've had a few days of sun in a row, and the nights look like they're going to stay above 50 for a while now, so maybe at least these "cool weather jalapenos" (oxymoron?) will have a chance.

Even with the decimation, life finds a way. Lots of water, I've discovered, means lots of weeds (even with all the early weed killing I do using the lazy man's weeding method in early spring). But it also means nice soft soil, plenty of growth in wild berries and other foragables. Oh, and now plenty of insects! It was great when the lightning bugs were going at it every night, but now I'm seeing more results of wetness: mosquitoes and other hungry bugs eying the vegies. Having the birds around is helping keep the numbers lower than they would otherwise be, so good thing I've been feeding them all winter.

My empathetic agnostic friend has a great insect game he plays while gardening that he wrote about in his latest post, What is Heaven Like?

The heaven I have found is a place where everyone loves everyone. Other than that it is pretty much just like life here on earth. I envision a party with friends and at this party there is a game that we can play. We step into this closet or put on a virtual reality suit and we are “born” into this life. Just like with games as we know them here on earth we can play the game over and over and each time we get better at it. Before stepping into the game we can think about how we will play it. We may give ourself certain goals and pick a time and place to be born. Our friends on the other side can come into our game and be characters helping us, challenging us or testing us.

Here is an example of how it works.

I am an organic gardener and one of the things that takes up a fair amount of my time is chasing stripped cucumber beetles (CBs) on my squash plants. I have decided that the cucumber beetles are some of my friends from the party. They were hanging around the punch bowl watching me and…

CB 1 Let’s play hide and seek with Mort in the squash patch.

CB2 I’m game. Let’s make a side bet on who lasts the longest.

CB3 I know what I’m going to do. When he spots me I’m going to drop off the leaf.

CB1 Yeah, that works pretty well where he has mulch but he can spot you on the ground.

CB 2 I’m going to fly.

CB 4 How are you going to fly out of a blossom?

CB2 I’ll be on a leaf and keep my eye out for him.

CB 4 If I know you, you’ll be in a blossom screwing and when he comes along you will be oblivious. Your lady friend will probably start running and you won’t even get off her.

CB2 I guess you’re right. I’m not going to waste a life just hanging out. Maybe I’ll get lucky and he won’t see me.

This dialogue goes on as I mercilessly move down the row of squash plants picking off CBs, chasing those who drop onto the mulch and tunnel in, who drop and play dead or who drop and run. The blossoms will frequently have several mating couples making me think of a luridly painted yellow motel. Sometimes they will see me coming and watch me ready to fly if I move toward them. These I have learned to catch with a swift grab but others fly immediately and escape. This heaven I have invented helps me get through a job that might otherwise frustrate me perhaps to the point of anger. Instead of anger I am feeling playful and forgiving.

I've always wondered about you north easterners. But, hey, whatever gets you through the ~~night~~ beatles...

Less weeds means more work?

2009-06-19T12:17:00.000-04:00

Well, different work. Because I use the lazy man's weeding strategy, once things get going in the garden, I only have to weed the few blow-ins occasionally, and that means I get to help out with the fun stuff, like making and bagging our Happy Hobo Grass-fed Beef Jerky. Grass-fed beef is better for you, the animal, and the planet. Our latest batch is mostly the very popular Ommegang Hennepin Ale and Jalapeno Jerky, which is available today at the Nectar Hills Farm Store in Cherry Valley, and tomorrow at the Cooperstown Farmer's Market. You can, of course, purchase our grass-fed beef jerky on-line through the Nectar Hills Farm site for now, until I finish working on the jerky web site. Good thing there aren't too many weeds!

Indeed. Then there's Robin's Biscotti, which is now just one of the deserts by Robin that are available at the Rose and Kettle Restaurant here in Cherry Valley, a great restaurant for Cooperstown folks--only a short drive to the NE of Cooperstown. The organic version of the Biscotti, which are made with eggs from Nectar Hills Farm, are also sold by Sonia at the Cooperstown Farmer's Market tomorrow, and at the Nectar Hills Farm Store in Cherry Valley.

Also starting today, the organic Biscotti and our regular (not quite as spicy as the Beer Jerky) grass-fed beef jerky are available at It's All Good Grocery in Cherry Valley.

See? Damn good thing those weeds are under control!

Gourmet Grass-fed Beef Jerky Now on Sale!

2009-06-02T17:30:00.000-04:00

Oh so many years ago, we got a food dehydrator and Robin started making beef jerky. Over the years, it evolved into this perfect recipe. Just ask anyone who's tasted it: this is gourmet grass-fed beef jerky.

When we moved back east last year, we started hunting around for grass-fed beef that would make the best jerky. And we found it! Nectar Hills Farm grass-fed beef comes from Highlander cattle, which, because their hair keeps them warm, are naturally lower in fat than other breeds. And, because they're grass-fed, the fat they do have is much healthier--higher in Omega 3's, for one thing.

But the taste! It's the perfect beef for Robin's beef jerky recipes, which now include the regular (which is anything but) and the spice beef jerky made with Ommegang Hennepin Ale (a local brew from Cooperstown) and jalapeño! We use as many organic and/or local ingredients as we possibly can. Please, give it a try! You'll love every bite!

Grass-fed Beef from Nectar Hills Farm

2009-05-25T10:16:00.000-04:00

Robin makes the best beef jerky ever. Now that we're moving to grass-fed beef, we've found a new source of delicious top round for our jerky (and sometimes flank steak): Nectar Hills Farm, just a few miles down the road from us. You can buy Robin's jerky at the Cooperstown Farmer's Market on Saturdays, and it will soon be available in several other locations.

Why grass-fed beef? In short, it's better for our health, our environment, and the animal. But from a beef jerky point of view, it just plain tastes better! We highly recommend that if you're looking for grass-fed beef in central New York (say you're on vacation and staying at a Cooperstown vacation rental with a grill), you should contact Sonia, or just stop by her Cherry Valley store while you're over this way (maybe out for a nice dinner at a local gourmet restaurant). Robin's grass-fed beef jerky and hand-made chocolate-dipped organic biscotti are also on sale at the Nectar Hills Farm store.

Another reason we love our new friends Dave and Sonia? They have an awesome pile of not-too-composted manure that includes chicken, horse, and steer manures! It's got a lot of field grass seeds in it, but that's not a big worry. I just spread the manure out, water it, come back in a week and rake--killing thousands of little weeds. Water, wait, and a week later, kill hundreds. Ta Da! No (well, almost no) more weeds!

Busy Building Raised Beds, Making Deposits in the Soil Bank

2009-05-18T11:04:00.000-04:00

My friend and organic gardening Guru Mort Mather likes to say that the soil is like a bank account, you can't withdraw unless you make deposits. So, in case you've all been wondering what the hell I've been up to these last few weeks, there you go.

Our new friends, Sonia and Dave of Nectar Hills Farm (web site coming soon), who sell grass-fed meats have a great pile of composted manure (steer, chicken, lamb, goat...) that we've been shoveling into bags and hauling home, where we mix it into the soil in the new raised beds we've been building. I've been meaning to post about this, but after working all day and doing all the other internet work (ironically, also organic) I have to do, I just never had the energy left. Looking at this picture now, it doesn't seem like much, but I don't have a tiller, so I've been turning over chunks of lawn with a straight hoe, chopping them up and mixing with compost, manure, and peat moss. Due to my arthritis, I have to go slow, and let Robin and Spencer do the heavy work. So, it's slow going.

But as you can see from the picture, it's going well. The soil is very clay-like, and the pH is really high (8), so it takes a lot of work to get the pH and the drainage right. Under every bed is a layer of gravel, topped with sand, topped with soil that is almost all peat at the top inch.

One advantage to slow going (and early starting) is that once a bed is prepared, I don't plant in it right away. I water and wait a week to see what weeds can shoot up through an inch of peat moss, then I hoe them under and rake again, repeating the process, and killing all kinds of weeds before they can get going well enough to sap resources from my veggies. This is Mort's weed control trick that I have used ever since I learned it, because I, like Mort, am essentially a lazy person. I don't want to be pulling weeds this summer that I could have killed now, while they're still just babies.

All the cold hardy plants are in and up already: lots of spinach, greens, lettuce, arugula, peas, radishes, carrots and other cold tolerant veggies. I did put some beans and early spring toms in, and then had to cover them for last night and tonight's frost that may or may not happen (didn't happen last night). For some odd reason, the spinach plant I let our little nephew Luca plant is much bigger than all the rest... Must be the something about the enzymes on his little hands!

It's been a while since I had a garden this size, and I'd forgotten how much work it is! Plus, we've been getting started on a grass-fed beef jerky and various baked goods business (yes, we hope to sell the jerky on-line once we've established a local ~~addicted population~~ following. So, I'm exhausted and, in an odd way, happy that it's too cold to even haul the seed starter trays outside today. I'll just stay here with my cold feet in a heating pad and catch up on all the web work I have to do!

The Facts about HR 875

2009-04-09T16:19:00.000-04:00

I've heard a lot of worried emails about HR 875, and would like to make sure we all have the facts straight on this bill. So, please read this fact sheet on HR 875 from La Vida Locavore.

Readers of the late great Molly Ivins will note that she often would point out to anyone who said Republicans and Democrats are all alike that food policy is one place where there is a stark difference between the parties. Big corporations are not going to like this bill, and it's not going to hurt farmer's markets or organic standards. But this kind of tough bill on food safety is exactly the kind of thing Ivins would have predicted, what with Democrats in charge and all.

There's an organic "recession" garden on the White House lawn, people! We are going in the right direction for a change. Now get out there and put some manure out! Get your soil tested (our results just came back and I had to get some green sand because I don't have enough K in the soil, and the pH is 8). Sign up for those farmer's markets. Trade veggies for grass fed meat! Join a CSA (or start one)!

Too Organic for Republicans

2009-04-02T18:08:00.000-04:00

We moved in here last fall and never really got a good foundation in for the garden. So that's what we're doing now. Since this soil is very clay like (I'm still waiting for the results of my soil test from Cornell), I'm adding a lot of organic matter. But first, since there's a perfect little incline, I'm putting in some terracing (using concrete blocks), back-filled with sand over gravel, so I have great drainage. Hauling composted horse manure from a stable nearby is a lot of fun for Robin, who has to do all the heavy lifting these days.

Reminds me of a cartoon my Uncle Danny drew of Grandpa Turf, saying "What a stroke of luck! Myrt got a job loading concrete blocks!"

So, that's been sucking up our time.

I couldn't resist, though, posting this little story about Republicans worried that Obama's choice for the number two position at USDA is too organic.

Republican lawmakers expressed concern that Merrigan, a Clinton administration official who helped develop USDA rules on what can be sold as organic food, has been too closely associated with organic farming.

What's the matter, GOP? Worried that your chemical company campaign donors won't have enough money to pave your road back to power? Afraid the Monsanto piggy bank is going to dry up? Afraid your anti-green portfolio is going to lose even more value before you can buy that little private island where John Galt lives?

Now that I've had my little laugh, I'm going back outside to shovel my solar powered, mammal generated, composted fertilizer into the new raised beds.

Organic Gardening at The White House

2009-03-20T16:53:00.000-04:00

Digging up grass! Step one to any garden going onto your lawn....

What an amazing sight: the first lady out there digging up the White House lawn to put in an organic victory garden. Digging up grass that's well established is hard work. Of course, I'm waiting for the pictures from after the ground-breaking ceremony. I'm sure the staff got in there and prepared the raised bed soil properly. For an 1100 sq. ft. garden, it takes some work. Unless you're looking to get exercise, like I am, just bring in the damn tiller. Here's the NY Times story on the White House garden. I'll keep an eye out for the follow up. I can't think of anything better for the organic food movement to have happen than the President pulling weeds.

I'm terracing my way up the little hill side now. I prefer it, as I can have better drainage near the terrace walls, and plant a better variety of things in a smaller area. I take my time with a little shovel and a big ice scraper, and I cut the hillside out in a brick, which I flip over and rake level.

But this will be the last time I bust my butt turning that former grass patch. My disability limits me, but I always was a lazy gardener. That's why I like to read Mort Mather's organic gardening articles. Once you're established, no-till is the way to go. I just layer on new compost every year, maybe poke it a little with a pitch fork.

Funny, our seeds and starter trays showed up today, and I've been planting this afternoon, watching birds show up so fat with eggs that they won't fly away when I go out there. I got a chance to think back over the years, all the gardening I've done in different places like the mountains near LA, Hawaii, and now here in Zone 5a. All the years of advocating organic agriculture (my organic gardening web site was one of the first), and here we are, a first lady starting an organic food garden on the White House lawn.

Amazing.

Organic no-till agriculture will save the world!

2009-03-18T16:06:00.001-04:00

A story in the Christian Science Monitor about no-till organic agriculture caught my eye:

New way to farm boosts climate, too

Once I've established my raised or terraced beds (a muddy job that I'm currently devoting a couple of hours a day on--as much as my arthritis will allow), I follow an organic no-till method on a micro-scale. This is my first year up here in zone 5, but the parts of the garden that I didn't make into a cold frame were covered in leaves. This fall, I'll plant a cover crop that I can just knock down, use as mulch, or rake away. I'm a little worried about seeds becoming weeds in my planting area, but I figure using Mort's method of weed control (water, rake, wait, repeat) will help. Plus, I'll be adding manure and compost on top of last years soil, so that will help too.

If a cover crop is too much work, I recommend just covering your whole garden in layers of manure and straw. The worms will do a lot of the "tilling" for you, coming up to get the decomposing organic matter which they eat as they tunnel back down, leaving pathways for water to get deep into the spongy soil they leave behind.

In this article, the guys who developed the tractor attachment discovered the process by accident, as doing this kind of thing on a large scale is a whole different animal than what we small scale home gardeners have been doing for a long time now. As far as reducing one's carbon footprint goes, gardening at home is hard to beat. The only oil used is to get the seeds and manure to my house. No tractors. No trucks full of food. Just a big garden full of fresh vegies waiting for me to go out and pick! And, it forces me to do my garden yoga exercises!

It is good to see these farmers doing their best to help the world, though. The fact that this method stops runoff and topsoil erosion is enough to make me want to support it. The carbon sequestering is a bonus!

Eat Your Organic Vegetables

2009-02-19T10:34:00.000-05:00

My friend Mort Mather grows organic vegetables for his son's southern Maine restaurant. Mort and his wife Barbara do a lot of eating. Who wouldn't? Delicious organic food is central to their lives. And yet they are slim and fit, and will probably live to be a hundred.

In his recent post, How to Lose Weight to his Happy Blog, Mort explains his theory of eating well, and staying fit.

Our theory is that if the body is not getting something it needs, it will send out a signal asking for more food until the deficient nutrient is ingested. Since our body is not specific in its request we just keep eating. Actually we have found that we sometimes crave something that we figure our body needs, but it is safer to just provide the body with complex food regularly.

Complex food includes whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and honey or maple syrup instead of sugar. I'm guessing they avoid high fructose corn syrup.

Investing in an Organic Pest Control System

2009-02-12T15:38:00.000-05:00

This summer, our slightly inclined backyard will become a terraced, raised bed, intensive organic garden, producing enough food to keep our family, and friends, in fresh produce as early as mid-spring, through the summer, and into next winter. The small area I managed to build up when we moved in in August will be quadrupled, or more if you count the pumpkin patch I'm planning. I'm already making arrangements to get a load of manure dumped right onto the snow, as I've seen the local corn farmers doing already.

Of course, this sudden transformation of yard will be a beacon to the local insect population, especially if any of my plants are weakened by cold weather, drought, or nutrient deficiency. I'll try to protect them, plant them at the right time, water if I have to, and make sure I've put enough manure and compost in the soil to keep them healthy. But if you grow it, the bugs will come try to eat it.

So, this winter, I've been investing in a locally integrated and organic pest control system: birds. I've spent about $10 so far on suet and seeds (avoiding thistle, which the finches love, but often pass whole, leading to more weeds to pull). The most numerous species by far are the intelligent state bird of Maine and Massachusetts, the Black-capped Chickadee. They are voracious insect eaters in summer, when I will stop providing suet for their protein source. The Chickadees especially love mosquitoes, which won't really hurt plants, but do hurt the gardener.

Birds are an elegant solution to pest control, but humans, of course, screw up the system. Pesticides are bad news for many reasons, not the least of which is that they harm bird populations. When I was young, I had an organic epiphany when I saw dead lady bugs that would have eaten the aphids we were trying to kill with the stuff that killed the lady bugs. Now I wonder why anyone would want to spray a synthetic, petroleum derived chemical that depletes bird populations in order to kill the bugs that the birds would eat: yet another interminable succession of absurdities.

Other birds that will provide organic pest control in our garden include the American Goldfinch, the slate-colored Juncos, the Blue Jays, the White-breasted Nuthatch, the Northern Cardinals, and various sparrows. I'll still put out some black oil sunflower seeds (maybe even plant some black oil sunflowers) to keep them all hanging around, but if they want some protein, they'll have to eat my bugs.

Think Local, Buy Local

2009-01-28T21:50:00.000-05:00

One of the great things about moving to the central leatherstocking region of New York (we're near Cooperstown) is great, local, fresh food, like the local eggs that we love so much that Robin sent a card to the lady who gathers them. We buy those eggs, and lots of other terrific fresh, local, organic food at It's All Good Grocery in Cherry Valley.

I grew up in rural Arkansas. We had a big garden, a horse, a cow sometimes, pigs most of the time (and seeing how smart they are is a big reason I don't eat pork anymore, but that's another post for another day). Of all the great food we get from Cindy, Terry, and Bill, it's the eggs I love the most. They carry local eggs from several different places, but we really love Coralee's...

In these hard times, when people are tightening their belts, staying home to eat more meals, I sure hope that small, local organic groceries become more popular. Eating out is so expensive that you could eat all organic, if you cooked at home, for the same money as a dinner out would cost. In these times of concern for sustainability and a green economy, remember that all of those concerns are already being addressed by your local organic, natural, and sustainable grocery.

Sustainable Agriculture in an Obama Administration

2009-01-19T11:02:00.000-05:00

With the selection of Tom Vilsack as Secretary of Agriculture, I expect Monsanto to be well represented in the highest echelons of Obama's administration. But there are a lot of positions left to fill at the USDA, and we can help make sure that at least a few of them are filled by champions of the sustainable food movement.

At Food Democracy Now, you can make a stink by signing their petition to:

...get serious about sustainable change at the USDA. As a result, here at Food Democracy Now! we’ve come up with a list of twelve candidates for Under Secretary positions at the USDA. And we’re calling them the Sustainable Dozen.

Then you can tell your friends through an easy interface with chat, blogs, email, social networking, and bookmarking sites.

As someone who now has been eating from a zone 5 victory garden since August (now cold framed and more of a life support system for suspended animation), my dedication to sustainable food is a matter of record. I've had an organic gardening site at supak.com since 1996. Many of my clients have been, or are, into sustainable agriculture, including a sustainable organic Kona coffee farm on the big island of Hawaii. I've spent my life studying how important this topic is.

If we don't start making our food more sustainable, we will pay a huge price. From crop failures due to monoculture to seed diversity to erosion, pollution, loss of soil tilth, and greenhouse gases due to lack of composting and dependence on fossil fuels, sustainable food is a serious topic that is often denied or short-changed in a very bi-partisan fashion in this country. Industrial agriculture interests are well represented by high paid lobbyists to both political parties, and only a movement like the one that swept Obama into power will make them pay attention to the seriousness of this subject at this time.

So, please, sign the petition, and then tell your friends and readers. If you love to eat as much as I do, you'll do it now!

Organic Garden of Fruit on Maui Hawaii

2008-12-12T12:44:00.001-05:00

When it's cold and snowy here in upstate NY, I like to think about Hawaii to stay warm. I make a nice cup of organic Kona coffee, and I pull up all my Hawaiian friends' blogs, and cozy up around the warm pictures.

In this latest post by my friend Cherie, who runs a Hawaiian Bed and Breakfast on Maui, she mentions feeding her guests from Alaska fresh organic fruit from the garden surrounding her historic Hawaii accommodations. If you book before Christmas, Cherie is offering a snow bird special of 8% off her already inexpensive Maui lodging.

Mmmmm. Snow bird special. Ahhhgggghhhh. (/homer)

Here's a picture of Cherie with her papayas. She also grows organic cherimoyas and lilikoi, or passion fruit. I first met Cherie when we were living on Maui, in the late 90's. Every time I see a picture of her place, I'm amazed at the results of her years of hard work! Can't wait to visit again someday!

Soil Conditioners Could Pose Asbestos Hazard

2008-12-10T16:43:00.000-05:00

When we hear the word "asbestos" we often think back on the controversy of the late 1970’s when it became common knowledge that asbestos was indeed a human health hazard. Asbestos however, is still a relevant hazard today in a number of different capacities. While most asbestos containing products were banned by the Consumer Product Safety Commission and regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, unfortunately it still exists in hundreds of older products as well as in trace amounts in newly manufactured products. Among new products that may still contain asbestos are soil retention enhancers, particularly vermiculite.

Vermiculite is mined from natural deposits across the globe and has a myriad of uses not only for commercial and private gardening, but also as an insulation compound. Vermiculite forms over millions of years due to the weathering of the mineral, biotite. Unfortunately, former biotite deposits are often in close proximity to deposits of diopside, which upon being subjected to the same weathering and age conditions becomes asbestos.

In Libby, MT one particularly mine shipped hundreds of thousands of tons of asbestos-contaminated vermiculite across the country. However, they were not the only manufacturers of vermiculite to ship asbestos with their products. Many other manufacturers were doing the same thing before EPA testing and regulations finally forced them to limit the amount of residual asbestos dust in the vermiculite.

Today, most vermiculite is safe. However, that is not to say it cannot contain asbestos. Vermiculite which is accompanied by a great deal of dust likely has residual asbestos in its contents and should be used with caution. Current EPA regulations ban products which contain 1% or more asbestos. Unfortunately even products containing less that 1% asbestos are still extremely hazardous, particularly when in loose dust form as vermiculite often is manufactured.

It is no surprise then that hundreds of the Libby mine’s employees and residents of the town were diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rare and aggressive cancer that is known only to be caused by asbestos exposure. Options for mesothelioma treatment are limited, so many of these residents were able to secure financial compensation for their families through litigation. Mesothelioma incidence is also known to be high in commercial gardeners and other occupations which deal with large amounts of loose vermiculite.

Fortunately, exposure to asbestos-contaminated vermiculite can be avoided if consumers follow simple precautions. Note the appearance of the vermiculite. If it seems to carry a great deal of residual dust, dispose of it outdoors. Most manufacturers of vermiculite mark their products packaging with "Non Dusty" labels. These refined granules are often slightly more expensive but they are certainly the safest.

References:
Environmental Protection Agency. EPA Asbestos Materials Ban.1989
Consumer Product Safety Commission. Asbestos Consumer Products.

Organic Coffee from Kona Hawaii

2008-11-21T14:58:00.000-05:00

Back in 1998, when we were living on the Hawaiian Island of Maui, I was contacted by an organic Kona coffee farmer about helping him sell his coffee beans. I helped him with his web sites (he also sells organic fertilizer) and sold his coffee for years, until he sold the farm and retired to Oregon a few years ago.

Last month, I got an email from Mike, who bought Dr. Faust's farm and rehabilitated it into a sustainable and USDA certified organic Kona coffee farm. One of the things I did to help Mike get higher search engine rankings for his sites was encourage him to publish his journal from the two year ordeal of rejuvenating an organic Hawaiian coffee farm, which he has done at his Organic Kona Coffee Farming Blog. Going back through the posts, it was fun and exhausting to see how much work it was to restore the coffee trees, establish organic weed controls, install all the processing, drying, sorting, and roasting equipment for the coffee beans. Anyone interested in sustainable and organic agriculture should check it out.

And don't forget to purchase organic Kona coffee beans. Mark Twain said it was the best coffee on earth, and it's hard to disagree with him! I'm just finishing a cup now! It's the only coffee I don't have to put sugar in!

Oh, and be sure to Digg the site, and Digg the Blog too!

Grey Water and Sustainable Organic Gardening

2008-11-13T11:50:00.000-05:00

Organic gardening is a holistic approach to growing plants that takes all aspects of the ecosystem into consideration. Though the phenomenon of using grey water is just starting to catch on with organic gardeners, it use can create even more sustainability through its implementation and regular use.

Organic gardening is an activity that more and more people are getting involved in each year. For some gardeners it is a passion that stretches far beyond just growing fruits and vegetables. Imagine being able to get more out of the water that you use on a daily basis in your kitchen, for instance, and being able to use that water to support your organic growing.

This kind of sustainability is at the core level of the rationale behind organic gardening, so it behooves organic gardeners and growers to consider using gray water in the irrigation of organic gardens.

What is grey water?

Grey water is water that is used in sinks and showers that does not contain solid waste. Although the water has been used once, collection of grey water can be very beneficial and helps to ensure that water is not being wasted. If collected and used properly, grey water can help to conserve water and save money for the organic gardener.

Is it safe for plants?

Grey water can be very beneficial to plants, as long as there are no harsh soaps or chemicals being used in the sinks or bathtubs where the water is being collected. Using natural, biodegradable and organic soaps and cleaners will ensure that you don’t contaminate your produce.

The use of grey water in gardens can be great for plants, as many of the body’s natural oils and dead skin cells help to add more organic material to the water itself, helping to provide additional benefits to the plants without additional work.

How is grey water collected?

Collecting grey water can be done with some minor adjustments to your current plumbing. The water that drains from your sinks or bathtubs is rerouted to a collection tank outside of your home. Generally speaking, sinks are the easiest sources from which you can collect grey water; rerouting the plumbing is far easier from sinks than bath tubs and showers.

The water is moved through pipes to a collection tank, from which you can use the water in your gardening applications. Over time, you will collect a good amount of water that’s full of extra organic material that will benefit your produce and help contribute to the sustainability of your gardening in general.

By-line:

This post was contributed by Kelly Kilpatrick, who writes on the subject of Customized Girl discount coupons. She invites your feedback at kellykilpatrick24 at gmail dot com

The Organic Gardening Guru is Taking Questions

2008-11-12T16:03:00.000-05:00

My friend Mort Mather is taking organic gardening questions, at least for the winter, over at his Happy Blog. Mort was president of the Maine Organic Gardening Association, and grows an awesome garden that supplies his son's southern Maine restaurant.

A Foot of Snow in One Day!

2008-11-03T12:27:00.001-05:00

What the hell was that? A little "welcome to upstate New York" snowstorm caught all but the old-timers off guard up here in the "snow pocket" as I now hear it's called. I was out there in the pouring snow, the wettest snow I ever saw, building a make-shift cold frame around half the garden with what I had laying around (green maple branches are very flexible).

And everything lived! Seriously, this cold frame gardening is a great way to extend the season! I couldn't believe it got down to 22 degrees, stayed below freezing for hours, and yet the spinach, arugula, lettuce, collards, miner's lettuce, and even a few of the peas are still showing signs of life. And it's all so delicious. Obviously, when I've read that cold weather makes these vegies taste better, they weren't kidding!

We went three days with no power. The first night we could sure tell why, when we first thought we heard gun shots in the woods, and we realized it was limbs breaking under the weight of all that snow. I don't envy those power workers out there clearing all those miles of electric lines.

Now that the snow has mostly melted, even the late planted side with only baby kale, spinach and collards still shows signs of life, albeit stunted.

28 Degrees and There's Still Lettuce

2008-10-24T13:50:00.000-04:00

All you old snowbirds will have to forgive my wonder at growing food through frost. We felt a little like we were stealing from mother nature, planting a fall garden on Aug. 15 in zone five. We started having light frosts in September, with each frost getting a little worse. We'd just stretch plastic over the garden as they started to get heavier and lasting longer.

Last night it dropped below freezing before midnight, and it was below freezing until 9 am. We covered, but when I uncovered just before 9, everything was pretty crispy under there.

And yet, here it is at 2 pm, 64 degrees out there, and even a few of the peas (which dont get covered) are hanging in there, though none are showing signs of blooming, and their growth is obviously stunted.

But the lettuce (black seeded simpson) is going crazy, as is the spinach, collards (which could probably live through a blizzard), miner's lettuce, and a few other cold hardy greens. I don't even see many locals with anything growing now, although I'm sure you're out there, sneaking in those last few treats before the tundra takes over!

4 frosts now and everything's fine!

2008-10-18T11:11:00.000-04:00

This morning was the fourth frost we had up here (zone 5, near Cooperstown NY), and all of these cold weather vegies did just fine. The low was 29 degrees, so it wasn't really a hard freeze. Looks like it was only below freezing for a few hours.

The spinach actually seems to like the frosts. It positively glows as it melts away. The collards definitely love the cold. What's left of the peas (that the deer didn't eat) are doing well as well.

So, we're really impressed with the quality of the plants. We got the seed from Johnny's Selected Seeds, an employee owned company in Maine. They have an excellent selection of organic seeds.

I forgot how much I love fall gardens! Every frosty morning I feel like I'm stealing something from nature by not losing any of these plants!

Fall Garden Deer Delicasies

2008-10-17T11:16:00.000-04:00

It is so nice to have a vegetable garden again. After years of living in the concrete jungle of the LA Suburbs, with very little soil, we moved to upstate NY this summer just in time to get this little fall garden in.

The snow peas are a real treat for the deer, who ate half of them before I admitted I was way out of practice on this, and asked the Wizard of Wells, organic gardening writer Mort Mather, what to do. His special deer spray recipie is one gallon of water, two tablespoons of hot sauce, and one tablespoon of biodegradeable soap. Sprayed them on the peas, lost a few more the next night, but that was it. I have a funny image of a little deer running to the nearest water hole with his stinging tongue hanging out!

I'd been sprinkling cayenne pepper on the spinach to keep the rabbits away, and as you can see from the picture, that's been working fine. Also found some stuff called liquid fence, which has petrified eggs--stinks to high heaven--and works well. A little expensive, though (the owners left a bottle), and I don't know if I want to develop a home-made recipe for that!

We also scatter our hair around the perimeter. I urinate around the yard occasionally, and I've hung chimes all around the place. Any other suggestions for keepin' the critters out?

2008-10-03T17:14:00.000-04:00

I have ignored this poor little blog for too long! Until last year, I was working full time as a stage technician in Los Angeles, living in the suburbs with very little land for gardening, and even less time.

A diagnosis of osteoarthritis has put an end my days of heavy lifting, and so, I'm no longer a stage technician. I have to get a lot help with the gardening, but it's good easy exercise, and it helps me to get out and stretch a little.

We moved to the east coast to live more cheaply, and to be near family. I planted a fall garden in the middle of August up here in zone 5, and it's coming along nicely. We'll be eating spinach and lettuce soon, and if we don't get too hard of a frost, we'll be eating collards and snow peas in a few weeks.

My old buddy Mort Mather, an organic gardener and philosopher, has a new web site and blog. My friend Cherie Attix, owner and operator of the Hale Hookipa Inn Maui Bed and Breakfast (which features an awesome organic garden) has started writing a blog as well. She calls it Ho'okipa Aikane, or "home sharing friend." I'm looking forward to reading both of their posts!

Much more to come, including pictures!

2006-03-02T14:44:00.000-05:00

PANNA: Pesticides Linked to Frog Mutations: Here's a big surprise. Pesticides are linked to frog mutations. Wow.

Look, my wife and I are big fans of frogs. We even have a web site with frog posters, books, toys, and other frog related stuff. We think these amphibians are our canaries in the coal mines. These mutations are proving that the pesticides we dump on our farm land and yards are running off into our water supply, which the new big-business controlled Supreme Court will soon make easier to do by changing the reach of the clean water act.

It is quickly becoming clear that the only way to combat these global corporate polluters and suburban lawn junkies is to go organic. Make your yard organic. Encourage organic agriculture by purchasing organic food and products whenever you can. Since our government and big business community care more about short term profit than the long term viability of our land and agriculture, then we have to change things from the ground up. Literally.

2006-02-20T19:24:00.000-05:00

If I was eating dinner in a certain southern Maine restaurant right now, not only would I be eating some of the freshest, local, often organic food, I'd be talking to my good friend and organic gardening guru Mort Mather (who's son, Joshua, runs Joshua's Bar and Grill in Wells). Instead, I'll be taking my son to baseball practice this week, where I'll try to avoid the Fox News brainwash victim, who I wish would just read this. But the organic news I wanted to report is more little thing we can all do to increase awareness of, and demand for, organic food.

When you go in a restaurant, like, oh, I don't know, a certain fine dining establishment near Cooperstown New York, ask what they have that's organic or local (or both). Any food service operation should have to answer that question everyday. If you're going to be hiring, oh, just off the top of my head, say, southern California caterers or Hudson Valley caterers, you should ask them to plan your event using as much fresh, local, organic food as they possibly can. Be willing to pay extra. Make sure other dining patrons or party goers hear you when you ask if they have anything organic on the menu.

If more people did this, you'd start seeing the word "organic" on the menu, or catering choices. Even in the ritziest places in Hawaii or California.

2006-02-08T12:42:00.000-05:00

PANNA: Share the Love with Flower Workers

I've been a big supporter of pesticide-free and organic flower production for years. One of my Search Engineering clients, Hana Flowers, an on-line florist in Hawaii, grows pesticide free in Hawaii. Each flower is hand-picked, hand-washed in a bio-degradeable solution, and hand-packed in wet paper before being shipped anywhere in the world.

If you'd like to go even further, I recommend you read this article about flower workers and what you can do to help them. The Pesticide Action Network of North America has a program to help you purchase fair trade chocolate and organically grown flowers.

2005-12-17T16:19:00.000-05:00

Warm up any room for the holidays with a tropical bouquet of Hawaiian flowers. Hana Flowers, of Maui Hawaii, grows pesticide-free flowers which are hand-picked, hand-washed in bio-degradeable soap, and hand-packed in damp paper, then shipped directly to you from Hawaii.

Considering that flowers are usually grown in third world countries, where they - and the workers - are coated in dangerous pesticides, shopping for your holiday flowers from Hana flowers makes sense for your health, the health of floral workers, and the health of the environment. Please vote with your dollars by purchasing these high-quality, earth-friendly tropical flowers for your holiday bouquet.

2005-11-30T19:57:00.000-05:00

If anyone would like to post here on a regular basis, contact me at ssupak at yahoo dot com. Here's an e-mail I got the other day.

Hi, I wanted to let you know about this news story for your organic blog, and how factory farming affects all of us: Fruits, Veggies Now Linked to Most Major Salmonella Cases.

And more generally I wanted to introduce The NewStandard--a national, independent, newspaper with hard news from a progressive standpoint five days a week. They're in an uphill battle for another 380 members and financial stability, so if you like it and you or anyone you know would want to become members, I'd greatly appreciate the help in keeping this important project alive.

Great sites! And happy Thanksgiving!

benjamin melançon
human being
ben at melanconent dot com

Founding Member
People Who Give a Damn

Webworker, beMWeb web site design & digital photography

Interim Co-ordinator, The Fund for Authentic Journalism , Supporting the work of the Narco News Bulletin, And its companion projects, the School of Authentic Journalism and the NarcoSphere

2005-07-22T12:28:00.000-04:00

I often get mail from kids looking for organic farms on which they'd like to work, in order to learn more about organic agriculture. Now they can go to college, because as today's AP headline says, Students Flock to Campus Organic Farms.

Over the past few years, about 200 schools have signed up with farm-to-college programs, which match up local farmers with area universities, according to the Venice, Calif.-based Community Food Security Coalition.

It's not just fruits and vegetables, either. The University of Montana in Missoula spends $425,000 on local meat, dairy and wheat products, about 17 percent of the school's overall food budget. Some of the students are even looking into bio-diesel programs to run their tractors.

I have such hope for the next generation. At my local grocery store the other day, the stock boy, about 18 years old, was putting glass bottles of milk on the shelf. I said I was amazed that they still put milk in glass, and he said he wished they put organic milk in glass, because that's all he'll drink. Wow. I remember the days when I was explaining to everyone why they should eat, and drink, organic. Now, they're bragging about it.

For anyone who still doesn't understand why eating organic is better for you, read today's LA Times story, Dozens of Chemicals Found in Most Americans' Bodies. While your health is certainly a good reason to go organic, you should know that organic agriculture is much better for the planet's health too.

2005-05-26T00:55:00.000-04:00

Pesticides linked to Parkinsons

As I read this story about a link between common garden pesticides and Parkinsons, I wondered why anyone would still use this crap, when organic gardening is so much easier for lazy gardeners like me, and so much better for you and the planet. Odd that the scientests who made this connection simply say to wear protective equipment when you apply pesticides (no mention of going organice), and they story doesn't mention exactly which pesticides they made the connection for.

So, I did a little digging and found the New Scientist Magazine article, where the researches admit that exactly which pesticide or pesticides were causing the Parkinsons had slipped through their regulatory net.

It would be more helpful, he adds, for studies to monitor exposure to individual pesticides as and when they are used, rather than relying on people's memories of their usage.

Just stop using the poisons!

2005-02-16T15:38:00.000-05:00

Friends of the Earth: Press Releases: 2003: New Tax Could Cut Pesticide Use

What are the odds that the Bush Assministration will let anything like this, which would cost the billionaire executives of Monsanto and DuPont some pocket change (assuming people actually start using less of their toxic stuff), anywhere near the Governator's Pen? I can hear the phone conversaton now.

Bush: Arnold?
Gov: W?
Bush: Hey, if you want any chance to become president, you gotta stop this pesticide tax.
Gov: No problem. I promised no new taxes, and all of these kinds of things.

The proposed tax hike on pesticides would fund classes for California farmers on how to reduce the amount of toxic runoff in the state's water supply. This would be a temporary tax paid by urban buyers of all sorts of chemicals, including chlorine for pools. The current 2.1% tax would go to 10% for three years, and then revert to the 2.1%. During this time, farmers who enroll in the classes would recieve rebates, and could actually make money from the program.

You know why this won't happen? Because it makes sense. In the mean time, I encourage everyone to learn what you can online about using less, or no, synthetic chemicals on your yards and gardens. Organic gardeners have no runoff problems.

Also in organic news today (busy day):

Organic greens strengthen the immune system: Danish study. Good eatin'!

2005-01-25T13:42:00.000-05:00

Great southern Maine restaurant serves organic food

Joshua Mather's Restaurant in Wells, southern Maine, known simply as Joshua's, offers organic food whenever possible. His priority is always freshness first, organic or natural second, and local or from Maine third. Much of the organic produce, when in season, comes from Johua's father, Mort Mather. His organic farm near Wells produces a large protion of the fresh, organic vegetables used in the restaurant.

Mort is an author and former President of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. His organic gardening web site is full of his articles on organic gardening.

2004-12-30T23:33:00.000-05:00

Good News on the Sustainable Agriculture front from, uh, yes, I've checked it again, the Bush Agriculture Department.

Kansas is proving ground for federal conservation program

Seems in 2002, Bush signed into law the Conservation Security Program, a "voluntary program that provides financial and technical assistance to promote the conservation and improvement of soil, water, air, energy, plant and animal life, and other conservation purposes on Tribal and private working lands." My only question is, how much did Monstanto pay to have them wait this long?

Still, all my sarcasm and bitterness aside, this is apparently a good program, under which farmers who have been doing the right thing all along can be rewarded for their actions. Proof, I suppose, that even when guided by corporate schills, the beauracracy can churn out a good program every now and then. I'm sure this didn't originate in the White House, anyway.

Of particular interest is the inclusion of rewards for no-till practices, which improve soil tilth and reduce erosion. And, as anyone who has visited my organic gardening site knows, healthy soil makes healthy plants that are disease, drought, and pest resistant.

2004-12-01T16:02:00.000-05:00

Organic Gardening Gifts

We've restocked our organic gardening supplies store with great gardening gifts for the gardener in your family. Wow. You can tell that sentence was written by a specialist in search engine optimization. We hope that on this day of sad environmental news, you'll vote with your dollars. By spending our money wisely, in ways that help the planet, we'll be telling American industry and politicians that no matter which party you're from, or which polluting industry you lobby for, a majority of Americans believe in more environmental protection, not less. By spending your money on environmentally sound products and services, like our organic gardedning products, you send a message by rewarding the companies that produce these environmental products, and punishing the ones who don't.

Perhaps most importantly is getting children involved in sustaianble spending. We recommend getting them started in organic gardening with this Whitney Farms Organic Gardening Starter Kit. Besides teaching them respect for nature and organic gardening techniques they will remember all their lives, children will eat vegetables they grow!

2004-05-26T16:43:00.000-04:00

Anyone who wasn't paying attention to the USDA's organic standards fiasco this week wouldn't have noticed yet another Bush administration flip-flop. This time, the USDA, and Ann Veneman, Armageddon freak, tried to allow some pesticide and antibiotic use in organic food. Today, about 24 hours later, Veneman backed off those changes. It was all probably a ploy so Bush could say he protected the organic standards from attack.

One thing's for sure: John Kerry doesn't flip-flop on the environment. He gets a 92%, an A, from the League of Conservation Voters. George Bush gets an F. The first F they've ever given.

So, all you Kerry voters in California and New York (or any other solidly blue or red state) get your asses to Ohio, where you only have to be a resident for 30 days to vote there.

2004-05-21T16:37:00.000-04:00

The Rose and Kettle Restaurant

If you're looking for a great Cooperstown restaurant to visit after you go to the Baseball Hall of Fame, or on your way to the Glimmerglass Opera, stop by the Rose and Kettle in Cherry Valley. The Rose and Kettle offers fresh, organic, locally raised and grown gourmet food at reasonable prices in upstate New York.

2004-05-11T12:43:00.000-04:00

Many U.S. Residents Carry Toxic Pesticides Above "Safe" Levels; Report: Children, Women, Mexican-Americans Shoulder Heaviest Burden

"None of us choose to have hazardous pesticides in our bodies," said Kristin Schafer, PAN Program Coordinator and lead author of the report. "Yet CDC found pesticides in 100 percent of the people who had both blood and urine tested. The average person in this group carried a toxic cocktail of 13 of the 23 pesticides we analyzed."

2003-10-06T13:00:00.000-04:00

Bush Administration Limits Farmers from Suing Pesticide-makers

"...if a pesticide not only doesn't do what it says it's supposed to do, but also kills your crop, that could cost you a year's income. There has to be some legal recourse, and (this change) could really limit that."—Tom Buis, National Farmers Union

The Bush administration, apparently feeling that donations from the pesticide industry are more important than votes from farmers in states Bush will probably win anyway, has changed a long standing federal position allowing farmers to sue pesticide companies when their products don't do what's advertised.

Erik Olson of the Natural Resources Defense Council says the change immunizes pesticide-makers from legitimate damage claims. The new policy also could bolster pesticide-makers' contention that federal labeling insulates them from suits alleging that their products caused broader health and environmental harm, Olson says.

2003-09-29T11:33:00.000-04:00

Bulgaria is hoping to become Europe's food basket by moving into organic farming.

"More than 80 percent of Bulgaria's farming land is suitable for organic farming."—Nihat Kabil, Bulgarian deputy minister for agriculture and forestry

Ironically, because of the sheer poverty of the Bulgarian people, chemical pesticides and fertilizers just weren't an option after the fall of the Soviet Union. So, for the past 12 years or so, vast tracts of land have remained fallow, while many small farmers have been growing organically. So many, in fact, that sustainable agriculture has become quite a growth industry.

2003-03-08T11:41:00.000-05:00

Organic Food Has More Healthy Compounds

A new study has revealed that, contrary to what the chemical people have been telling us for years, organically grown food is more nutritious. For years I've talked about A Mozafar's study showing that crops using manure as fertilizer were higher in vitamin B. Now a new study shows that blackberries grown sustainably or organically and then frozen contained 50 percent to 58 percent more polyphenolics than conventionally grown crops from neighboring plots. Sustainably grown frozen strawberries contained 19 percent more polyphenolics than conventional fruit. Sustainably grown and organic produce also had more ascorbic acid, which the body converts to vitamin C, Mitchell's team reported in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

2003-02-27T10:39:00.000-05:00

Republican Redneck From Georgia Wrote Language to Dilute Meaning of Organic

Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman says organic food standards could be undermined by a measure passed in Congress that allows farmers who feed animals conventional meal to label the meat organic if reasonably priced organic grain isn't available. She stopped short of endorsing an effort led by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., to repeal the language wrapped by Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., into the $397 billion government-wide spending bill. Still, organic food supporters welcomed her statement. "I think that USDA's statement provides the perfect justification for quietly saying: Let's repeal this," said Bob Scowcroft, head of the Organic Farming Research Foundation in California.

2002-12-21T00:00:00.000-05:00

New Reasons for eating organic

Francesca Lyman of MSNBC writes that a new study claims that a pesticide-free diet significantly lowers the amount of pesticide residues kids are exposed to, DUH.... The study, published on-line here, concluded:

The researchers measured six metabolites that derive from some 39 organophosphorus pesticides, the most commonly used in the United States and also some of the most toxic. They compared a group of 18 organic-eating children with 21 conventional food-eating children all roughly the same age (2-to-5-years-old on average), gender, and of similar family income. The children with primarily organic diets had far lower levels of the metabolites in their bodies.

2002-11-13T19:58:00.000-05:00

Dear CALPIRG supporter,

For the past 20 years, the run-off from the 25,000 farms located in the Central Valley has not been regulated. Waivers, created in 1982, exempted these farms from the California clean water laws because the State assumed that these farms would regulate themselves and that the run-off - which includes toxic pesticides and manure - would not harm the public.

This assumption has been proven dreadfully wrong. Now, over 500 miles of rivers and streams in the Central Valley have been declared unsafe for fishing, swimming and drinking by the U.S. EPA because of this toxic agricultural run-off.

Please take a moment to ask the Central Valley Water Board to regulate agricultural run-off and dairy pollution in California. Follow the link below to go to a web page where you can e-mail the Central Valley Water Board.

http://pirg.org/alerts/route.asp?id=312&id4=ES

BACKGROUND

Agricultural pollution, including pesticide-laden irrigation waters and nitrate run-off, is the largest source of pollution for many of California's waterways. This water pollution extends well beyond our agricultural areas, however, threatening fish supplies and scarce drinking water stores for all Californians. For example, agricultural pesticides and manure-related pollutants, such as E. coli, pathogens, nitrates and salts, have been detected in drinking water sources for at least 46 California counties.

Incredibly, agricultural pollution - unlike every other source of water pollution in the state - has gone entirely unchecked, with farms and dairies enjoying a perpetual waiver from the requirements of the state and federal clean water laws. In 1999, the California legislature rightly decided to bring an end to these waivers, including those enjoyed by Central Valley farmers and dairymen, on January 1, 2003. Now that the deadline is looming, the Farm Bureau and other agribusiness interests are pressuring the Central Valley Water Quality Control Board to delay meaningful action that would reduce the amount of agricultural pollution dumped into our waters.

And the Regional Board is bending to agribusiness pressure. Instead of taking this historic opportunity to require agriculture to comply with the same clean water laws as everyone else, the Board has proposed yet another waiver - a weak measure that will ensure more of the same: unabated agricultural pollution, contaminated waterways, threatened fish and drinking water supplies.

Please take a moment to urge the Central Valley Board to implement an effective program to control agricultural and dairy pollution and assure compliance with water quality objectives for our waters. Follow the link below to go to a web page where you can e-mail the Central Valley Water Board.

http://pirg.org/alerts/route.asp?id=312&id4=ES

Sincerely,

Wendy Wendlandt
CALPIRG Associate Director
http://www.CALPIRG.org

2002-10-03T16:20:00.000-04:00

Certified Organic

Last week's cover story does a good job looking into organic food, but fails to mention tests that have proven that using manure as fertilizer boosts vitamin B12 in fruits and vegetables (look up A Mozafar). Also, no mention of the fact that because organic frood is usually picked later, when it's more ripe, it tends to be healthier for that reason too. These facts, along with the environmental effects of chemical farming, and the fact that pesticides are found on all produce, but in much higher concentrations on conventionally farmed produce, are enough to make the logical choice to go organic!

2002-08-24T23:21:00.000-04:00

Dr. Pedro Sanchez Teaches African Farmers the Secrets of the Soil

Poor quality soil is the cause of many of the evils that plague poor countries, from hunger and poverty to environmental devastation caused by slash-and-burn farming. Dr. Sanchez, whose work earned him the 2002 World Food Prize, has taught 150,000 small-scale African farmers how to boost yields by improving their soil. He plans to use the $250,000 prize to continue his work.

As many of you probably know, healthy soil is what Mort Mather and I preach at our organic gardening web site. Healthy soil grows healthy plants which are naturally disease, pest, and drought resistant.

2002-07-27T19:02:00.000-04:00

Panel of Advisors faults EPA’s Pesticide Review as Inadequate to Protect Children

“This was so sloppy even the scientific advisory panel couldn’t stomach it. These scientists have basically chucked this back at the EPA and said, ’Not good enough. Do it again.’ This is not an adequate margin of safety and this will not protect children.” -- Jennifer Sass, National Resources Defense Council

The independent panel suggested the EPA concluded 28 pesticides were safe without an adequate review of whether they are particularly harmful when combined. Why doesn't this suprise me? This is my answer to all you people who, before the election, said, "How much damage can Bush really do?" Well, how many people will get cancer when it could be avoided? And this is just one issue! Please tell your friends in swing states to vote for anyone BUT Republicans. This madness must be stopped!

2002-06-27T17:38:00.000-04:00

Caffeine kills slugs and snails

I'll perform tests on my snails to see if just spraying them with coffee, which is also slightly acidic, works. In the mean time, I think these researchers may have stumbled onto a new environmentally friendly pesticide. The only problem will be finding a way to get it onto the slugs, since most people are to lazy to actually hunt them down and spray them. We'll have to develop a coffee trap or something.

2002-06-21T01:42:00.000-04:00

Vacation rentals in Hawaii with organic gardens

If you're heading to Hawaii for a vacation, check out this vacation rental property where the gardens, and the protea farm, are organic!

Maui bed and breakfast

2002-06-13T16:15:00.000-04:00

EPA OKs combining 30 pesticides
Activists complain children, some risks weren’t weighed

This story from the Associated Press points out that although the Environmental Protection Agency has signed off on the safety of all but two of 30 pesticides it studied to see whether they are unreasonably dangerous to human health when combined, the National Resources Defense Council points out that the EPA only tested dietary intake of the pesticide combinations. EPA Assistant Administrator Stephen Johnson said reviewing the cumulative risks of organophosphorus pesticides gave the agency general confidence in the safety of the nation’s food supply. But the NRDC points out that the food supply is only part of the problem.

EPA didn’t study for any of the pesticides other non-dietary routes of exposure like airborne drifts from spraying and the more frequent contact that about 1 million farm kids have with the chemicals.

“When all the facts come in, it will become clear that EPA must take much more aggressive action against these poisons,” said Erik Olson, an NRDC senior attorney in Washington. “Kids are exposed more, and are more vulnerable to the toxic effects of organophosphates.”

Predictably, there was no comment from the poison industry, which had tried three times to have a court bar the findings from being made public.

2002-06-05T18:38:00.000-04:00

EPA asked to ban popular herbicide
Atrazine’s maker rejects claims by environmental group

This AP story (via MSNBC) points out many of the problems with Atrazine, which is banned in banned in France, Germany and Italy. The National Resources Defense Council has petitioned to ban its use in the US.

WASHINGTON, June 4 — An environmental group asked the government Monday to ban the use of atrazine, a weedkiller commonly sprayed on cornfields and lawns. The Natural Resources Defense Council filed a petition asking the EPA to take the chemical off the market, charging its leading manufacturer did not properly disclose that 17 workers had developed prostate cancer. The group also said the chemical had been linked to deformities in frogs.

Furthermore, it seems this one of the interesting little compounds that the EPA tested on human subjects, which they're not supposed to do....

NRDC also said EPA’s risk assessment for atrazine violates the agency’s own policy because it relies partly on “an unlawful and unethical experiment in which human volunteers were intentionally exposed to atrazine.”

Of course, the maker of this nasty little herbicide, Swiss-based Syngenta, the world’s biggest agribusiness, claims it's all bunk, and that their product is perfectly safe. The petition calls for an investigation of Syngenta. New EPA rules regarding its use are expected by late summer. Anyone want to bet on what a Bu$h run EPA will do?

2002-05-28T15:22:00.000-04:00

2002-05-08T12:14:00.000-04:00

Pesticides on Organic Produce?

A Consumers Union study published today in the journal Food Additives and Contaminants revealed that 23% of their samples of organic produce contained trace amounts of pesticides (while 75% of the sample of non-organic produce did). Read a little further and you'll find some interesting facts about this study. First, they used 26,571 samples of non-organic produce, and only 97 samples of organic produce. This is a very small number of organic samples. Second, at least some of the samples of organic produce were sweet bell peppers from Mexico, where pesticide contamination of the soil, water, and air drift, is much higher than in the US. Mexican environmental laws, especially pertaining to pesticides on food, are very lax compared to in the US.

On the first point, that the sample is too small to conclude that this percentage holds up for the entire organic food industry, take a look at the actual sample sizes:

The Agriculture Department data that were examined in the Consumers Union study showed residues on seven of 30 samples of organic fruit, and 22 of 97 samples of organic vegetables, or 23 percent of the total organic produce tested. Nine of 19 samples of organic spinach had pesticide traces, and four of 18 carrot samples. By comparison, pesticides were found on 73 percent of the 26,571 samples of conventional foods that were tested.

What this study suggests to me, besides the fact that most conventional food is covered in pesticides, is that chemical agriculture has so thoroughly contaminated the air, soil, and water that it is impossible to grow food without some trace amounts of harmful chemicals showing up. Not only is this sad and contemptable, but it is also criminal. I would urge organic food growers who find trace amounts of pesticides on their produce to sue the nearby chemical farms responsible for the drift, since the Bush administration will never do anything to hurt the big chemical corporations that financed his Junta.

The idea of suing over drift is not new. It is known as toxic tresspassing. In a related MSNBC story, Tresspassing Toxins, Francesca Lyman writes:

Do you have a right not to be sprayed, out of concern for your property or your health? The answer is yes, according to California tort lawyer Darren S. Enenstein. “You have an inherent right to be protected under the law,” he says, “but you may have to sue for toxic trespass to protect that right.”

The Bush EPA (an oxymoron?) dropped a proposed change that would have cracked down on drift, with better instructions and directions for applicators, after pesticide companies (Monsanto contributed $55,000 in 2000 and 2001 to the Repub National State Elections Committee and nothing to Democrats*) complained that the changes would be too expensive.

Lyman goes on to point out that under federal law, there is little anyone can do if the party spraying the pesticides is following the directions.

Nor do organic farmers marketing produce grown free of chemicals get any special protections. That has proven to be a problem for some farmers who have lost their organic certification. One baby food company was outraged to find its products had been contaminated through no fault of its own.

This is an outrage. If I was manufacturing pesticides and someone was spraying something nearby that made them safe and non-effective, you can bet that I'd have my corporate lawyers all over the party harming my product, not to mention lobbyists crawling around the capitol demanding legislation to make it a crime to mess with my product. But when large corporate farms contaminate the product of organic farmers, where is the justice? Where can organic farmers turn? To an agriculture department run by Monsanto corporate shill Ann Veneman? Maybe to John Ashcroft, who received $10,000 from Monsanto for his failed Senate reelection bid?

One last interesting thing about this study is the way the conglomerate owned news media handles it. On the Consumers Union web site, the headline is: Organic Foods Really DO Have Less Pesticides. At MSNBC (a combination of AP and staff reports) the headline reads: Pesticides found on organic produce. The New York Times did the best job of revealing the truth here, with this headline: Study Finds Far Less Pesticide Residue on Organic Produce. The New York Times also mentions that this study sheds further light on a February 2000 story by John Stossel, a correspondent on the ABC News program "20/20," who "reported that testing had proved that the levels of pesticide residues in conventional produce were similar to those in organic produce, making organic claims a fraud. Though Mr. Stossel retracted his statement — such testing had never been conducted — his report alarmed proponents of organic agriculture and those like Consumers Union who do not oppose the use of synthetic pesticides but want stricter standards." Bravo to the New York Times. The LA Times didn't even run the story.

* Donation information from OpenSecrets.org

2002-05-05T20:22:00.000-04:00

Toxic Fertilizers!

Yep. The chemical fertilizers sold in bags at your basic home and garden stores are loaded with toxic waste! Unbelieveable! CALPIRG's Safe Fertilizers Campaign managed to get this story on page 24 below the fold, and then it just disappeared.

“When it goes into our silo, it's a hazardous waste. When it comes out of the silo, it's no longer regulated. The exact same material. Don't ask me why.” —Dick Camp, President, Bay Zinc Co. Fertilizer Manufacturer

I'll tell you why: money, power, and politics. The loopholes exist because someone can profit from them.

Here's a snip from CALPIRG's page:

Polluters are funneling toxic wastes to fertilizer manufacturers, and the manufacturers have been willing partners in using this waste. Some industries dispose of tons of toxic waste by giving it free to fertilizer manufacturers, or even paying them to take it. This cuts costs for treating, storing, or disposing of hazardous wastes.
* Across the country, 454 farms and fertilizer manufacturers received 271 million pounds of toxic waste from 1990 to 1995. California farms and fertilizer manufacturers received nearly 38 million pounds of that waste, the most of any state.
* A loophole in federal law allows steel mills to send toxic ash to zinc fertilizer manufacturers without testing it for its hazardous properties or tracking where it goes.
* In 1997, an investigative report by the Seattle Times described how a farmer in Washington lost entire crops by unknowingly using toxic waste-derived fertilizers that contained arsenic, beryllium, lead, titanium, chromium, copper and mercury.

California's Assembly AB1313, the Toxic Fertilizer Prevention Act, would protect our health and the environment, as opposed to recent proposed standards which would make it legal for fertilizers to contain unacceptably high and dangerous levels of toxic substances in fertilizer. AB 1313 was held up in committe and dead for the 2001 session. Seems our some of our legislators think it's fine to poison the soil, our food, and our children. The only way to avoid this problem is to go organic!

2002-05-03T18:53:00.000-04:00

Biotech Bias on the Editorial and Opinion Pages of Major United States Newspapers and News Magazines

Imagine that... Another corporate bankrolled marketing campaign put forward as "proof" of the safety of genetically engineered crops. Media outlets owned by corporate conglomerates flood the opinion market with pro-corporate brainwashing about the next wave in corporate grown food. And we all know what food grown by multi-national conglomerates has done for family farms, nutrition, soil tilth, and the environment so far: bankrupt family farms, nutritionally deficient food (compared to organically grown), massive topsoil erosion, and environmental disasters around the globe, not to mention cancer, Parkenson's disease, and many other human conditions which can be traced directly to greedy corporations who put profits ahead of lives. Imagine that....

2002-05-02T17:21:00.000-04:00

From the Sierra Club e-mail newsletter

Farm Bill Aids Polluters, Punishes Family Farmers and the Environment
The gap between large agribusinesses and small family farms is already wide enough. Now the House is close to making it even wider, by approving a farm bill that hands out $73.5 billion in federal subsidies, much of it to massive agribusinesses with shameful environmental records.

The bill does little to help farmers safeguard wetlands, protect clean water, and set aside areas for wildlife habitat. It gives billions of taxpayer dollars to industrial livestock operations to deal with their animal manure. For hog factories, that means dumping liquefied manure into a hole in the ground, causing water pollution, killing fish, and contaminating drinking water. "Industrial livestock production is an environmental disaster," said Sierra Club's Ed Hopkins, "and the federal government shouldn't be funding it."

Here's the Sierra Club's response to the Farm Bill. Click here to join Sierra Club.

2002-04-24T18:21:00.000-04:00

Pesticide-free flowers

As many of you probably know, the fresh-cut flower business is riddled with pesticides. Many of the flowers you have delivered from online flower delivery companies are grown in South America, especially Columbia, and are riddled with pesticides. The workers suffer and die as a result, and this is all subsidized by the unsuspecting public that sends flowers. But we have the answer to this! Order flowers from Hana Flowers! Hana Flowers grows flowers without using pesticides! These tropical flowers and plants are grown in the lush rainforest of eastern Maui, Hawaii, so you're buying US grown flowers and no money goes to pesticide companies!

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EPA OKs combining 30 pesticidesActivists complain children, some risks weren’t weighed

Toxic Fertilizers!

From the Sierra Club e-mail newsletter

Farm Bill Aids Polluters, Punishes Family Farmers and the Environment

EPA OKs combining 30 pesticides
Activists complain children, some risks weren’t weighed