GMO Kick: Part 2

Genetically Modified Organisms won’t feed the world because as I’ve pointed out, they’re killing the world. They’re creating superweeds and tumors, but killing insects, which we would absolutely have to have if we ever woke up and went back to our old ways, (find out why they’re important here) and they’re killing diversity in crops, animals and in the end they will be killing us in a way where it will be impossible to deny the reason behind it. And just for my own curiosity, I did a quick search to see what the trends were for some diseases and conditions. Autism, obesity, stillbirths, diabetes, depression are all things with growing numbers on or within a few years after 1990. It may be a coincidence, I didn’t spend too much time on it, just a quick glance at a few graphs, but it’s not a good sign. Sadly, there are people and it would seem that the majority of the people who even know about GMOs think that they’re helpful and it is what will save the world from dying of hunger. Africa seems like the poster child for world hunger, so I did some digging to see what they’re current situation is.There is a lot of conflicting statements In July 2011, there was this article and it says that most parts of Africa have resisted GMOs since the very beginning and Monsanto has been bullying them into trying them. Ethiopia tried to grow flour once, but refused to try it ever again. Ethiopia is accepting cotton, but with precaution we’re not seeing anywhere in America, and all other GMO products are illegal EVEN IN A CRISIS. The problem for them “is its unpredictability. There is no guarantee as to what is going to happen. What if it kills insects which are very important? Gene’s has evolutionary characteristics. So what if it changes the original characteristics permanently after years?” But even if they’re in one of the poorest countries in the world, they’re still pushing for the right to have to know what they’re eating. It’s amazing. This article goes on and on about how GMOs are not the solution to Africa’s problems. They know what GMOs have done to the farmers in India and what the health effects supposedly are.

I want to point out one more thing. I’ve struggled my whole life not to be this overly pessimistic, conspiracy theorist person that people always laugh at and gets called crazy. There were times when I heard someone say something about it being a conspiracy and I could actually see it being true. It seemed so black and white. Maybe I am crazy. I’ll let you decide, but this problem to me is black and white when I see who is and who is not eating this stuff.

Now, I’m looking from the point of view of the company and people who are trying to sell the stuff, so try not take what I’m saying the wrong way. The primary people who are buying GMOs are usually considered to be poor, unhealthy and considered a burden on the rest of the society. There are several articles I’ve read throughout my research for this post that suggest that elites are more knowledgeable about the difference between organic and non-organic then they’re letting on. Here are the links:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/food-politics-white-house_b_543798.html

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/09/report-monsanto-man-mitt-romney-eats-organic

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/10/09/ge-food-supporters-insist-organic-foods.aspx

And then we have this: Up until 5:40 or so there isn’t a whole lot happening. They’re just chasing around Bill Gates, but after that is a little interesting. Also, the audio was a little hard for me to understand what they were saying, but they’re talking about the doomsday seedvault.  And definitely stick around till around 8 minutes. And then you can think about all that you know about Bill Gates and what he promotes and it might give you a bit of a different perspective.

Luffa Sponges DIY

Luffa pads/ Loopha sponges/whatever you call them can be found in just about every corner of the great Interweb, most of them fairly cheap. But I’m here to tell you that you can grow them yourself, for almost free. It’s pretty amazing actually.

There are a couple of things you should know about growing luffas. One, patience, which is needed for growing most things, is a must. It takes a while for the seeds to germinated, for the things to grow, but once they do they really, really do.

Two, it’s a vine. It needs a trellis.

Three, I’m no luffa growing expert, so I’ll leave the rest to someone else.

I do fancy myself somewhat of an expert in luffa harvesting and I have the amazingly soft hands to prove it.

You can tell when they’re ready to be picked because they have a yellowish color instead of green and the skin feels loose and soft. It took us a good few months before we got to this point and when we did they were pretty large.

Almost ready luffas.

Once your darlings are ready to be picked, carefully twist or cut it off the vine.

The next steps will only get messier. Seeds and sap will be flying, so do this outside or in the kitchen.

Step 1- take your luffa and bang it on the edge of the table. This will knock some of the seeds loose.

Step 2- at the opposite end from the vine there is a weak spot in the skin, dig your thumb into and pull that piece of skin off. This will make it easier to get the rest of the skin off. It’s very sappy.

Step 3- cut the luffa into sections. Depending on how long it is, you may be able to get two or three sections from it.

Step 4- Next you’ll shake the seeds from the luffa. You’ll probably want to do this into a bowl. This part is a bit time consuming at least. Again, banging it against something helps make the seeds come out.

Step 5- Take your seedless luffas and soak them in water for a couple of hours.

Next, take each luffa put a spot of soap on it and hand scrub the rest of the sap off. When you can squeeze the water from the luffa against the sink without any soapy type residue that usually means you got the sap off.

Once you’ve got that done, let the luffas dry out for a couple of days.

And that’s it. You got yourself some new luffas and some amazingly soft hands.

If you want some seeds, check out my mom’s etsy page.

And if you don’t want to do all the work but still want luffa sponges then you may check her page out because have the sponges for sale as well.

Want more ideas? Check out my DIY page.

Getting Connected 3: Birds and Spiders

As I said last time, I’m pretty much terrified of spiders. I knew that they were important in keeping the bug population down, but it wasn’t until my mom got her garden that it hit me. They really are important.

Squash beetles and cucumber beetles are destroying squash and cucumber plants in my mom’s beloved garden. I’d like to point out that my mom hasn’t used any pesticides since she got her garden. She uses other plants and nature’s method aka the natural ecosystem to keep pests in check. She got several vegetables from those plants before they died, but they still died before their time so it’s still irritating and she would appreciate it if it would stop happening.  Spiders she has noticed, she’s slightly unnerved by them too, seem to play a role in keeping plant life suckers at bay.

Because they use a web to catch their prey, spiders aren’t too choosy about what they eat, so they end up getting some of the good guys too.

Surprisingly I couldn’t find that much information about their role in the ecosystem that was a huge book or dissertation of some sort.  Or wikipedia, which certainly isn’t a source to be relied on. So with that being the case I’ll add birds to this post.

Birds are great and I totally love the hummingbird feeder that I made. We watch the hummingbirds while we eat and we have the most enjoyable time. If birds serve no other ecological purpose then I think they should get a fair amount of credit for bring delight into the world. How much worse off would humanity be if we didn’t have these amazing creatures to keep some people’s soul so harmonious? How much lonelier would we feel?

In any case luckily I don’t have to listen people’s opinions on how illogical that is because they do, in fact, have practical purposes.

Like most smaller creatures, birds are sensitive to their environment and therefore, help us to know when there is a problem. They help pollinate, control insect and rodent populations the natural way. Birds eat up to 98% of budworms and up to 40% of all non-outbreak insect species in eastern forests. These services have been valued at as much as $5000/year/square mile of forest (Robinson, 1997). Research in agricultural settings confirms what many farmers already know-birds help control agricultural pests. In orchards, birds seek out and destroy up to 98% of over-wintering codling moth larvae, a major pest of apples worldwide.

http://www.epa.gov/owow/birds/basics.html

On farms, birds are especially important. Cow manure contains seven essential enzymes necessary for bird digestion. On a real farm, a natural farm (the only natural thing we can do nowadays because we bred chickens and cows so much they became dependent on humans and most would die without us) the relationship between birds and herbivores, in this case chickens and cows, is essential because birds eat bugs. Bugs and parasites that come to eat the manure, are already in the manure and that bother the cows themselves.

Birds feed on other birds as is usually the case with predators. Reptiles, large cats if in the wild and small cats in community type settings.

Getting Connected 2: Producers

Producers are at the very bottom of the food chain. They produce their own food, hence the word producer, by processing sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into sugar/glucose. The process is called photosynthesis. For this reason, they are the most essential thing on the planet. Without these humble life sustainers, there would be no other living thing on Earth. Everything we put in our mouth, in some form, came from a plant. Even totally carnivorous animals, such as lions, need plants because their prey are plant eaters.

Food isn’t the only reason why plants are vital. They act as filters for our soil, water and air. They give us air by converting the carbon dioxide that we breathe out into oxygen so we can breathe it back in. We couldn’t even breath with these things. They give us shelter. About 90 percent of homes today are made from wood whether for just the structure or the whole thing. Trees, even dead ones, can be homes for up to 1,000 different insect species. Small animals also make their homes in these trees.

http://continuingeducation.construction.com/article.php?L=5&C=645&P=1

Around one-fourth of our prescription medicine has some kind of plant origin. Native Americans used up to 2,000 plants species for medicine.

Ingredients for cosmetics often come from plants. As we also know corn has become an ingredient for everything. Aloe vera and jojaba are common ingredients in cosmetics as well.

Anytime humans are involved in any part of nature bad things happen.  Exotic species is a good example of this. Sometimes the species are introduced on purpose to help balance out the overpopulation of something else. This always ends badly. Sometimes they’re brought over by people who are traveling by boat or something. The rats that traveled by way of ship and brought the black plague with them is an example of this. Sometimes they’re introduced by idiots. Like the people who buy those exotic snakes and then they realize, like all living things, that snakes grow and then they release them into the wild. Even exotic species of plants are an overwhelming problem. Native species often don’t have the necessary strengths needed to compete with the exotic species so they’re overrun by them.

Habitat loss is the main problem. Animals and insects who mostly depend on plants for habitat, so if we cut it all down where are they supposed to go? It drives me nuts when people complain about animals in their yards or in their house because it’s like where else are they supposed to go? We’ve ruined just about every place they could go.

Recreational hobbies are a destructive force when it comes plant life. Bulldozing down the trees, digging up the grass to build a structure, even a small one, demolishes some kind of plant life. There is no way around it. Even something as insignificant as a blade of grass is important. Everything from football stadiums to a tennis court to the extra roads needed to get to that place will have an effect on the environment.

Why is grass so important? You’d be surprise. I know that I was when I learned that on a hot day a lawn of grass is 30 degrees cooler than asphalt and 14 degrees cooler than bare soil. Like other plants, it filters drain off, reduces erosion, absorbs noise, traps allergens and 2,500 square feet of lawn absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and releases enough oxygen daily for a family of four to survive.

http://www.floridalawn.com/greengrass.html

It is also the main component of the diet for grazing animals, which we tend to like to eat. We may want to keep something around to feed them.

The bottom line is producers are essential. We should do more to protect them. Our survival depends on it.

Garden Stepping Stones DIY

I do believe this will be my last garden related post for the time being. Sooner or later I’ll put photos of my mom’s garden up, but I probably won’t do that until next week.

Things you need:

Molds (one bag makes 13 or so 8×8 molds, so however many you want to make)

Sand Topped Quickcrete

A Bucket to mix in- we started out with a paint bucket and moved to a wheel barrel. (Make sure if you use something that you’ll need again to wash it out.

Something to mix with- we used with a shovel. (Again, make sure you wash this)

Creative medium- we used everything from glass to marbles to rocks to plastic. Most of the glass was broken at a thrift store so they gave it to us. The marble were given to us by a friend. Some rocks came from our yard or another friend. We did buy a couple of glass and plastic pieces from a thrift store, but we didn’t buy anything new. Don’t use metal, it will eventually rust.

If you decide that you want to make the patio you’ll need:

Sand-for our 10×10 block we need 20 bags of sand

Gravel-10 bags

Select an area, however big you want it. Mark it off and dig down four inches. Make sure that the area is as level as possible. Add your bags of gravel. They should be about one inch deep. Then add a few bags of sand. We needed 16. Lay out your stepping stones. Then cover the stones with sand. Take a broom (one that you don’t care if it gets ruined) and move the sand in between all the cracks. This is pretty hard work, so be prepared. Every few sweeps, spray it down with water. When it’s pretty spread out, you can continue to spray the sand in between the cracks.

Step 1- One bag of concrete makes 13 8×8 stepping stones. We got our molds from Hobby Lobby and some from the internet. I’ve also heard that you can use pizza boxs. Just reinforce the inside corners with tape and spray pam all over the inside so that the concrete will come out. Slowly mix water in with the dry mix. Keep mixing until there isn’t any dry left.

Step 2- Keep interchanging between adding water and mixing. You want it to be mushy, but not soupy.

Step 3- Shovel a couple of scoops into your mold and tap the mold so that the concrete smooths out. When it is completely smooth it should almost fill up the mold.

Step 4- Step 3 completed. Now just add which ever creative materials you wish. The world is your oyster! Let the concrete set in the molds for a week. After that week take them out. Wait another week before putting any weight on them.

Most of our stones are kind of random, but we did attempt to make some pictures. In the front row, the white with a blue clump in the middle I made. It’s supposed to be an eyeball. The purple spiral with a green head is also mine and it was supposed to a snail. The one to the right of the eyeball is a tree. I don’t remember who made that, but it sure is cute.

There is a lot of colors and patterns that I like. After the first 10×10 block, we started running out of ideas so one weekend when our family visited us, we enlisted their help. Some of these throughout the pictures are there. The grapes in the right middle was made my grandma. She’s a creative genius. It’s too bad I wasn’t passed some of these genes.

That wanna-be spiral with a blob as a head was supposed to be my first snail. Obviously it didn’t turn out well.

I like this group too.

I really like that tree.

Some of these have no rhyme or reason, but they are all beautiful in their own way. None are left plain, but not all of them have color. Some have indentions.

In the beginning we each did our own stones with our names and hand prints in them. The family unit would have, of course, not been complete with out the cats stones. You can’t see them very well because rocks have filled the holes, but their paw prints are in theirs, too. This one is Mr. T and Mystique’s.

Melody and Harmony’s stone.

Cheerio’s.

Small-space Gardening

Having enough space for a garden is common in a small town in the south, but it’s very rare in the bigger cities. Farms, gardens and other local produce producers are such a huge asset and it would be a shame for people to miss out because of where they live. Gardening is one of the best ways to make sure you’re getting a good quality product and it would be a shame for people to miss out because of where they live.

While it isn’t impossible to garden in a small space, there are limitation and things you should consider before starting a garden. Choose wisely. When you don’t have a lot of space don’t grow plants that take up lots of space, have a long growing season or you don’t love to eat! Grow vegetables that are hard to find and not usually on the supermarket shelves, and select varieties for superior taste rather than crop size.

Choose plants suited to your small space. Some plants need more shade, some need more sun. ‘Dwarf’ varieties are ideal for small spaces because they produce a lot in a little space. Herbs are among the easiest categories of food plants to grow. And because fresh herbs can be rather expensive, these easy growers are cost-effective in a small-space garden. For individual advice, watch your gardening area for a full day and calculate how many hours of direct sunlight it gets, then read seed catalogs or visit a local garden center and ask for advice for your climate.

Grow fewer vegetables of each type. In a large garden 20 celery plants can be grown, in a small space garden you may want to grow only half a dozen, and in a balcony garden two or three plants will provide fresh stalks for cutting. In courtyards and against a warm wall you can often get planting long before the soil in a traditional garden has warmed enough for planting out and seed sowing.

Succession planting. Plant a few at a time, this avoids surpluses of produce and ensures that three is always something ready to eat in the garden.  Growing a few seeds in a propagator or on a windowsill means that you can jump-start the season. Avoid planting all the seeds at once so they won’t be ready all at once. Fold over the top of the seed packet and store in a cool, dry, dark place, the back of a kitchen cabinet is just fine. The seedling plants can then be introduced into the garden when they are a few inches high to grow to maturity.

Growing in containers is a great option. Even if you don’t have any soil you can still grow a few choice vegetables. There are many striking plants that make attractive and productive container plants.

Make sure the container is big enough for the plants root development.

Remember that plants in containers and with limited soil use up available nutrients more quickly, and shallower soil can’t hold as much water as the ground can. Make sure to regularly supplement your soil with organic compost, kelp meal, bone meal or organic cottonseed meal to give plants the nutrients they need to thrive. Also keep an eye on water. It’s important that plants receive the water they need, and also that containers drain well so plant roots don’t drown. Over- and underwatering have similar symptoms. The best way to make sure you’re providing proper water is to put your finger about 1 inch into the soil. If soil is moist, don’t water. If it’s dry, do.

Intercropping or interplanting is an ideal technique in the small garden. It involves planting two different vegetables, one fast maturing and the other slow maturing, in the same space. Radishes planted with celery can be harvested before the celery takes up space. Lettuce can frequently be placed between slower crops.

Plant the slow maturing veggies first, and then fill between with the fast maturing crop. By the time you have harvested the speedy veggies, the slower crop will have begun to fill out the spaces left by the earlier, harvested crop. Feeding the second crop with a liquid fertilizer of mulch with compost gives it a boost after the fast-maturing vegetables have been harvested.

Additonal Resources:

http://www.mastergardenproducts.com/gardenerscorner/smallspacevegetablegardening.htm

http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/small-space-gardening-zm0z12fmzsto.aspx?page=4 This site has a lot of great, specific information.

http://www.gardeningchannel.com/how-to-grow-a-small-space-vegetable-garden/

http://www.motherearthnews.com/natural-home-living/small-space-gardening-zb0z1203zglo.aspx#ixzz1wUAAH4i2

http://ohmyapt.apartmentratings.com/gardening.html

For small spaces, you basically have two options. Container plants and trellises. For container plants you want to be careful to make sure that their root system isn’t one that needs tons of room. Here is a list of plants that have fairly shallow root systems:

Beets

Carrots

Lettuce

Peppers

Scallions

Tomatoes

Herbs

Potatoes

Green Beans / Runner Beans

Turnips

Peppers and Chilli’s

Blueberry

Green Onions.

Strawberries

Parsley

Basil

Radish

Cabbage

Here are some container ideas:

http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2010/06/14/12-savvy-small-space-urban-gardening-designs-ideas/ has lots of ideas for small space gardening. There aren’t instructions for everything, it all looks pretty straightforward.

http://www.restoredstyle.com/vertical-gardening-by-randy-raburn/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RestoredStyle+%28restored+style%29 This doesn’t say what kind of materials he is using, but I believe it’s wooly pockets. I would think that for some of these ideas you could use shoe organizers.

http://www.brooklynlimestone.com/2012/04/diy-vertical-herb-garden_03.html#.T4gz8xz-tmw – I’m showing this idea because of the wall. You could go the more eco-friendly route and instead of buying new terracotta planters use some of the ideas from yesterday or come up with your own genius plan.

http://www.squidoo.com/garden-crafts-projects – I like this idea too. You’ll have to scroll a while to find it on the site.

The key is to make sure that whatever you choose will work well in the environment you have. Make sure you do plenty of research before deciding.

Trellises are the other option. For this you want plants that grow on vines or have a tendency to grow up such as:

Zucchini (or Courgette)

Tomatoes

Peas

Cucumbers

Egg plant

Pole beans

Gourds

Melons

Squash

Grapes

http://ecosalon.com/homesteading-chicken-coop-urban-gardening-bee-keeping/

http://www.kvpermaculture.org/blog/permaculture/bike-wheel-trellis-hard-luffa/ – love this idea! No DIY, but it doesn’t look too hard.

No DIY, but it talks about how to grow on a trellis. http://www.patiogardentips.com/vertical-gardening-on-the-patio/

http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Organic-Vertical-Planter/

This guy has a lot of cool ideas for planters and he also talks about how to grow on balcony space and how to arrange everything.

So there you have it. Some ideas and tips for small-space gardening. Yesterday, also had some some ideas for vertical gardening, so don’t forget to check it out. Happy Gardening!

Garden Planter DIY

Planters, besides the plants obviously, are the essence of a garden. They help define the garden. If you guys are thinking the same thing I was when I started this little search then you’re probably thinking that there isn’t much exciting things to say about a bunch of terracotta planters. While terracotta plants are nice and it may be some people’s thing, it’s simple and minimalistic which I’m typically a fan of, but this is just one thing that I feel like gives me a chance to be creative and I want to take advantage of it. The world is our oyster people and it can be a free oyster.

That being said, all of these are meant to be upcycled ideas. The garden is meant to be a natural place and I think a rather eclectic place.  I picked ideas that were made out common things that can be found in dumpsters, in parking lots (I’ll let you know where they are usually common) without having to pay a dime. I didn’t make any of these myself, I’ll give credit where it’s due and if they require more than one step then I’ll make sure there is a tutorial to go with them.

Tires. Sometimes you can find these on the side on the road, but usually they’re too battered to use, but sometimes you can find a decent tire on the side of the road. Although, businesses are supposed to dispose of these properly, I have found one in a dumpster. If all else fails, there are used tire stores. We have one in town and it sells them for $8 or you may be able to go to a mechanic, tell them what your needing and why and they may give to you for free or at a price.

http://www.recapturedcharm.com/2010/06/ever-tire-of-flowers.html

http://media-cache2.pinterest.com/upload/252553491573770707_AqqWNaYO.jpg

http://www.craftylittlegnome.com/2011/08/how-to-make-inside-out-tire-planters.html

http://www.studiogblog.com/plants-natives/kitchen/diy-recycled-tire-garden-planters/

Shipping Pallets. They’re everywhere. Take a walk behind any store or in an alley behind strip mall or something and you can find them. If all else fails, walk in and ask for one.

http://lifeonthebalcony.com/how-to-turn-a-pallet-into-a-garden/

http://themicrogardener.com/20-creative-ways-to-upcycle-pallets-in-your-garden/

This site has tons of ideas for pallets in a garden. Sometimes you can find the DIY’s by clicking the picture and sometimes there is a link.

Shoes. These aren’t technically everywhere, but they’re not hard to find. I’ve also found these behind store alleys, thrift store, apartment and dorm dumpsters. Your closet?

http://mydamagedpostcard.blogspot.com/2011/05/upcycled-boot-planter.html Has steps that could be used for the rest of these.

I find the fact that they’re using cacti as plants for these shoes ironic and somewhat symbolic.

http://www.greendiary.com/entry/hot-stilettos-upcycled-into-elegant-flower-planters/  I couldn’t find any DIY’s for this, but http://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/recycled-tupperware-clock#fbIndex1 has the best description I could find.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cuttlefish/4494062162/

http://instagr.am/p/K02FeoSBi_/

Books. I think obsession with books is becoming apparent. They’re very aesthetic.  Ruined books can be found at thrift stores or the discounted section at a book store, especially the dumpsters. Dorm dumpsters may also have them. Please don’t ruin good books to make these, I’ll be heart broken.

http://greenweddingshoes.com/diy-book-planter-with-succulents/

Plastic Bottles. These aren’t always the cutest planters ever, but they can be and plastic almost never decomposes and they’re hard to recycle which makes these the environmentally friendly choice other than not using them to begin with. You can find these everywhere. If you don’t drink pop then they can found in work place, gas station, dorm and other trash cans and dumpsters of places like that.

http://www.gardeningclan.com/hanging-garden-planters-recycled-soda-bottles.html

http://www.rosenbaum.com.br/blog/rosenbaum-responde-ldl-48-horta-vertical/ (This isn’t in English, translate it here. Just copy and paste and it does all the work for you.)

There are many variations of these which you can google plastic bottle planters DIY images and look at them. The planters themselves aren’t that wowing, but the plants just seem to make it work.

Kitchenwares. These can often be found at thrift stores or apartment dumpsters.

http://www.inspirebohemia.com/2011/07/unique-garden-planters-and-displays.html This site has super cute ideas.

http://www.kidzworld.com/article/26877-homemade-mothers-day-gifts

http://urbancomfort.typepad.com/.a/6a01156f70f21e970c014e883874d6970d-popup

http://themicrogardener.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Colander-planter1.jpg

Lighting. Thrift stores would probably be a good place to find these, but any place remodeling would be a good place to ask. You may not be able to find these exact pieces, but that’s still not an excuse to go out and buy it. Be creative and make something your own.

http://www.designsponge.com/2011/04/we-like-it-wild-recycled-fixture-planters.html

http://www.modishblog.com/modish/2010/06/pretty-for-under-twenty.html

There are some planters like this, but I was referring to old light sconces. I saw an awesome example of this, but then I lost it. Kind of like this, but with this

http://blog.build.com/lighting/wall-sconces-under-100 . It’s hard to explain because all of these elements were together that just made it perfect, but oh, well.

So, anyway, I clearly went a little overboard, and while these are not all new ideas, I do hope it got your wheels turning and I think it’s also safe to say that I may have a sickness and may need to be locked up. Don’t worry though, the world is your oyster, so be inspired.

Want more ideas? Check out my DIY page.

Natural Bug Repellents

Yesterday I talked about why having your own garden is a good way to go. In a perfect world evil pests would stay away from these gardens and so would weeds, but I think we all know that this is no perfect world. Pesticides are deadly and even in small doses they can cause cancers, neurological problem and reproductive problems even in people thousands of miles away from the source. If they can harm us then you can bet that the lower and more important parts of the food chains are also being harmed. Bees are also hugely impacted by these poisons. Why should we care about bees? Of the 100 crop species that provide 90 percent of the world’s food, over 70 are pollinated by bees. Some 35 per cent of our diet depends on pollination of crops by bee. And thanks to the pesticides that we and the food industry are using, we are now losing them by the thousands. It is suggested that if all the bees disappeared we would have about four years to live.  I don’t know about you, but that concerns me and you can read more about that here. So below I’ll be listing natural solutions for the real pests.

Crazily enough, most herbs and flavoring plants like lemon and such are bug repellents.

1. Basil- There is hundreds kinds of basil, so take your pick. They all are supposed to keep asparagus beetles, tomato heartworms and thrips away.
2. Bay leaf- dry and fresh works well.  You can put one bay leaf in fifty pounds of wheat berries or organic white flour, Barley, Oatmeal and similar items and it will keep the weevils out of it. If you don’t happen to buy flour in those quantities you can add a bay leaf to a smaller sized container with similar results. Scatter a few leaves on the pantry shelves to repel moths, roaches, earwigs, and mice.
3. Mint- ants, aphids, cucumber beetles, flea beetles, imported cabbage worms, squash bugs, white flies and mice.
4. Pennyroyal- fleas, ants, flies, and mosquitoes. Large amounts of pennyroyal can be toxic to pets and children.
5. Rosemary- mosquitoes, imported cabbage worms, slugs and cats.

http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/home/herbs-deter-flies-naturally.htm

1. Sage- cabbage loopers, carrot flies, flea beetles, imported cabbage worms and tomato heart worms.
2. Thyme- Cabbage loopers and white flies.
3. Garlic- aphids, cowpea curculio, flea beetles, Japanese beetles, Mexican been leaf  beetles, root maggots, spider mites and squash vine borers.
4. Catnip- aphids, corn earworms, cucumber beetles, flea beetles, Japanese beetles, squash bugs and mice.
5.  Oregano- cabbage butterflies and cucumber beetles.
6. Cilantro- aphids, Colorado potato beetles and spider mites.
7.  White Sage- asparagus beetles.
8.  Fennel- aphids, slugs, snails, and spider mites.
9. Dill- aphids, cabbage moths and spider mites.
10. Parsley- Asparagus beetles and carrot flies.

Petunias repel leafhoppers, Mexican bean leaf beetles and squash bugs. Marigolds repel aphids, corn earworms, leaf hoppers, Mexican bean leaf beetles, rabbits, squash bugs, thrips and tomato heartworms. Lavender repels moths, mosquitoes, mice, rabbits, ticks and fleas.

Some vegetables interestingly repel bugs, too.

1. Green Bean – Colorado potato beetles
2. Tomato – asparagus beetles
3.  Lettuce – carrot flies
4. Borage – cabbage worms and tomato heart worms
5. Radish – cowpea curculio, cucumber beetles, harlequin bugs, Mexican bean leaf beetles, squash bugs and stink bugs
6. Onion – bean leaf beetle, cabbage loopers, carrot flies, flea beetles, harlequin bugs, Mexican bean leaf beetles, mice, rabbits, spider mites and squash vine borers
7. Potato – bean leaf beetles
8. Turnip – bean leaf beetles and harlequin bugs

If gardening isn’t your thing, but you still want non-toxic pesticides then you could always make your own non-toxic pest repellents or insecticidal soaps.

• Grind 3 large onions, 1 bunch of garlic and 3 hot peppers. Mix with water and leave overnight in a covered container. In the morning, strain through fine strainer or cheesecloth and add sufficient water to produce approximately one gallon (16 cups) of pesticide.
• Soak 10-15 diced garlic cloves in a pint (2 cups) of mineral oil for 24 hours. Strain and add to a spray bottle.

Annie B. Bond, Care2 Green Living Executive Producer, offers a recipe for all-natural insecticidal soap spray, which uses 1-2 tablespoons of a natural liquid soap such as Dr. Bronner’s Pure-Castile soap in a quart (4 cups) of water. Once this solution is mixed, it can be added to a spray bottle.

Attract Beneficial Predators Such as Ladybugs, Praying Mantises, Dragonflies and Spiders

Another method of natural pest control is attracting ladybugs to your garden. Ladybugs are voracious consumers of aphids and other garden pests. Plants that attract ladybugs include Angelica, Caraway, Cilantro, Coreopsis, Cosmos (particularly white), Dandelions, Dill, Fennel, Geraniums, Tansy and Yarrow. Ladybugs that are purchased at supply stores supposedly carry diseases and parasites that can be released in your yard and disrupt the ecosystem there and also kill the native ladybugs. http://www.treehugger.com/lawn-garden/why-you-shouldnt-buy-ladybugs-natural-pest-control-your-garden.html

There are other insects that can aid in pest control, such as praying mantises and dragonflies. Spiders (which are arachnids rather than insects) are also highly beneficial.

http://jennifercopley.suite101.com/natural-garden-pest-control-a54194#ixzz1vbwpKQvv

Why Garden?

Okay, so I have some maybe good news and maybe bad news depending on who are and how you feel about my enthusiasm. And probably how you feel about gardening. This week and probably part of next week will be dedicated to gardening which is the good news. Or that bad news depending on how you look at it.  If I can motivate just one person to even grow a cherry tomato then I will be okay with that.

Gardening. Funny story. My mom has tried many, many times to start a garden or grow things, but everything kept dying. She owns a daycare and some organization offered the local daycares and centers the opportunity of getting raised beds. It was whole program. They were taught how to garden from this expert guy and he gave them tips specific to this area. They were taught where the best places to garden (Sunlight, shade that kind of thing). They were given seeds that grow well in this area, they were given teaching objects (play vegetables, fruits, puzzles and other teaching materials). It was a cool deal. This program started just as I was getting into the whole environmental thing, so we made a lot of changes all at once. The times before when my mom tried to make our lifestyle better she was met with an army of resistance. I’m a stubborn idiot and my dad isn’t usually on board either. If I had started trying to change our lifestyle myself then my mom probably would have jumped on board without much trouble, but it’s just better that it worked out the way it did.

Anyway, the program fell through. The people in charge didn’t follow through which I wasn’t too surprised about. There seems to be very few people who can follow through and get anything accomplished. I don’t think that is specific to this area, but it sure is annoying. After fighting tooth and nail for it, my mom and her friend got the raised bed part, but I think they’re still waiting on the soil and seeds. Everyone else in the program is still waiting for both last time I heard. One thing my mom has discovered is that the reason she can’t grow anything is because of our soil. It’s mostly clay and rock. So the raised bed has now giving her the ability to actually grow something.

I have never liked the idea of gardening. I tried to stay away from anything that was ‘girly’. That was stupid, but sometimes I’m pretty stupid. Another problem was that I hate the heat and that’s mostly when you have to put the work into gardening. Weeding and heat are not a good combination for me, but that can be lessened with the cloth underneath and killing the grass before setting the bed. A summer or so ago, a friend of a friend’s hired me to water her plants while she was gone. It was so hot like 117 degrees or so and I made it out alive. Faced my distaste and came out the other side with appreciation for one thing and the idea that maybe it really wasn’t so bad. I wasn’t burrowing through our house declaring that we should get a garden or anything, but it was when something in my head kind of clicked.

Throughout the years I have grown to hate the idea of being dependent on the huge corporations and hate all the power that they have over us. With that mindset I have grown to love the idea of getting a garden. With the exception of the materials that are needed to start and the wood or whatever to make the raised bed if you need one, it’s practically free. And it’s definitely a lot cheaper than getting it from the grocery store. It just seems so logical and I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. And even when my mom started the garden, I was glad that she was doing it and I knew that it was something I wanted to do when I moved out, but now I didn’t really wanted anything to do with it now. But recently my mom showed me all the stuff that was growing and it was so cute. It looked like a place filled with hope and pride and such cuteness. So now that I have explained my history with it, I will now go into more detail on why gardening is a good idea.

1. Better Nutrition and Better Taste. This benefit doesn’t take a study to prove it true. We all know the minute we bite into a homegrown tomato that the taste is superior—and can intuit that the nutrition is vastly increased as well. Remember, all fruits and vegetables grown and picked for mass consumption lose much of their nutrition on the way to the market.
2. Stress Reduction. Gardening is therapeutic. According to Eva Shaw, PhD, author of Shovel It: Nature’s Health Plan, gardening reduces stress, lowers blood pressure and helps fight depression. A study done by Kaiser Permanente showed the brainwave activity of a gardener mirrored that of someone praying or meditating. A related study done in the Netherlands compared gardening to reading. It reported that, “Gardening and reading each led to decreases in cortisol during the recovery period, but decreases were significantly stronger in the gardening group. Positive mood was fully restored after gardening, but further deteriorated during reading. These findings provide the first experimental evidence that gardening can promote relief from acute stress.
3. Added Health Benefits. A study at Texas A & M University and hosted by the Horticultural Society of the America revealed that gardeners reported more physical activity, claimed more energy, and rated their overall health higher than non-gardeners. In fact, these studies show that merely looking at a garden or plants can generate changes in such things as blood pressure, heart activity, muscle tension and brain and electrical activity. (I think in my case this was definitely true.) Reporter Carl Hoffman states, “Gardening – as every devotee knows – provides an individual with almost irresistible stimuli, regardless of his or her physical, cognitive or emotional limitations. Even for the sick or disabled, a garden can provide the counterpoint of order and self-empowerment against the feelings of helplessness and loss of control that often accompany serious illness.” Author Eva Shaw, PhD says, “Hospitalized patients’ wounds heal faster and they require fewer pain killers and antidepressants when they are merely looking at a painting of a garden. Imagine the effect a real garden can have”? Finally, another health benefit is found in the area of addiction recovery. According to www.garden-field.com “For those who are dependent on harmful substances, have been through an accident or a traumatic experience, have an illness, or are in a correctional institute – horticulture therapy is said to be one of the most effective methods for recovery.”
4. Keeps Your Brain Healthy. David B. Carr, MD, a geriatrician at Washington University in St. Louis, says, “It has been my experience that those patients (with Alzheimer’s or dementia), doing activities (gardening being one example) do better in the long haul and have a slower rate of decline than those who don’t do anything,” says Carr. “Gardening is one of the non-prescription interventions that has the ability to slow the rate of cognitive decline.”
5. It’s Good For The Planet. One of the greatest benefits of your own garden is that it puts you in touch with the world around you. Suddenly you become much more aware of the seasons—when to plant, when not to plant. What grows easily where you live? What won’t? Is there a chance temperatures will drop below freezing? When will the sun rise and set? Has there been any rain? How much to water? All of these questions come up much more regularly when you need to know to keep your garden happy. And the more in tune we are in nature, the more likely we will be to take care of it. And lastly, everything we grow that is green is helping to reduce our carbon footprint. The crop industry is a nasty one. Our produce is driven thousands of miles to get to our grocery store and they’re usually sprayed with deadly pesticides which aren’t good for the environment, the bee population, animals, or us.
6. Reduced Costs. According to, http://www.healinglandscapes.org/gardens/prisons.html you could save anywhere from $27 to $2,000. (I think the savings may be higher depending on how much produce you needed before as opposed to fast food and such) That is quite a lot of money. Even $27 is almost a whole tank of gas. And whatever you didn’t eat, you could sell which give you more money or you could give away which would give some else a chance to save money and gas.
7. It’s Easy. I have never been interested in learning to cook. I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do about it because even a year ago I wasn’t too keen in eating out all the time, so I knew I would probably have to learn eventually, but how was the question. My plan now is to be vegetarian which leaves out the problem of learning to cook meat and the problem of undercooking it and giving myself some horrible deadly disease. And all of meals can just come from outside after I take a few minutes to go outside and pick it. This won’t always be an option, but it would solve a lot of problems most of the time.
8. It’s Fast. Maybe not at a farm, but in your own personal garden it takes just a few seconds to pick your food after you plant it, of course. I would even go as far as to say that it’s faster than waiting in a fast food line right when everyone else is getting off work.
9. Creates Less Problems. One problem that keeps coming up when talking about organic farms and corporation farms is that organic farms can’t feed the whole world. Whether because it takes more attention, more crops are destroyed by bugs from lack of pesticides, takes more time to grow so there is less food available, it’s too expensive (which having your own garden is practically free) whatever people seem to think this is a problem is, the reality is that organic probably can not feed the world alone. ALONE is the key word. If most people or even more people had their own garden and got the majority or even some of their fruits and veggies from it then there would be a lot less pressure on organic farmers. If not that then there needs to be MORE organic farmers and that would also reduce stress on organic farmers. Commercial farms are HUGE. There are only three MAJOR commercial farms in the U.S. If three farms can feed the world then I’m sure broken up, divided and a bigger number of organic farmers can feed the world too.
10. 10.  One thing that my mom learned about in her class is the therapeutic benefits of gardening. It even helps prisoners. One study in San Francisco showed that 29 percent of prisoners were re-arrested within four months of their release, while only 6 percent of those who partook in a gardening program were re-arrested.” http://www.healinglandscapes.org/gardens/prisons.html In one prison program, the prisoners were given the things needed to have a garden outside of prison in whatever environment (apartment, house etc) they were going to be living in. I’m a huge fan of prison programs like the one where they raise puppies and all that (and no I’m not in support of prisons like the one in Norway that was recently in the news. That’s just ridiculous. I believe in rehabilitation and I don’t think that non-violent offenders should be mixed with violent ones, but it shouldn’t be a vacation.) And this is one is awesome because it helps with living costs and gives them kind of a trade. The reasoning on why this works is that most of the inmates have never known how to take care of anything or how it feels to be taken care of. It lets them know how pride feels or anything and this gives them a chance to experience that.

 

So this is just a couple of reasons why I believe everyone should have their own garden. If you have or had a garden, feel free to leave a comment below and share how it’s affected your life.

Deforestation: Part 3

Part one was about the causes, Part two was about the consequences and three is about the solutions.

The quickest solution to deforestation would be to simply stop cutting down trees. Though deforestation rates have slowed a bit in recent years, financial realities make this unlikely to occur.

A more workable solution is to carefully manage forest resources by eliminating clear-cutting to make sure that forest environments remain intact. The cutting that does occur should be balanced by the planting of enough young trees to replace the older ones felled in any given forest. The number of new tree plantations is growing each year, but their total still equals a tiny fraction of the Earth’s forested land.

Like I said earlier, two of the largest exporters of their forests are working with the U.S. to come up with a plan, but is that really enough? If the demand is still going to be then there will still be a problem. Some other country is just going to step in and fill those shoes.

So, what are we to do about it?

Recycle for one. There are limitations for recycling paper, but some is better than none.

Limiting your use of paper is the best thing you can do. Here are some tips.

1. Plant a tree- Pretty straight forward right.
2. Go paperless.
3. Recycle and buy recycled products.
4. Look for Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification on wood and wood products.
5. Eat vegetarian meals as often as possible- meat takes of space and if we eat factory farm meat then they take up twice as much space because instead of eating the grass, we feed them corn and wheat, so we need the additional space for that. If nothing else, eat locally as much as possible.
6. Think before you print. If there is any way that you can reduce the amount of paper that it takes to make your copies than do it. Use both sides, ask if you could split the paper and print the information on the bottom half and top half.
7. Just try to reduce your involvement by not participating in anything that is on the cause of deforestation list.
8. Reduce your use of palm oil. I’ve just recently heard about this, so I can tell you just a little, but I plan to write about it soon. Palm oil comes from the fruits of the palm oil trees. The problem isn’t the oil itself, but the plantations that are needed to process it. They’re located near the Palm oil trees which are in numerous forests and require a great amout of deforestation in order to be located there. When farmers illegally clear land to make way for palm oil plantations, they often end up destroying natural peat-lands that have been storing carbon dioxide for centuries. When disturbed, the peat releases the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which along with factors such as global transportation, means that the palm oil trade is responsible for up to 10% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions. This palm oil is supposedly in one out of ten products located on the supermarket’s shelves. It is also commonly reported as ‘vegetable oil.’ Here is a link to a list of products that use palm oil- http://a-z-animals.com/palm-oil/products/ and https://www.daisysfriends.org/Palm_Oil_Products.html

 

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/deforestation-overview/

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Deforestation/deforestation_update5.php