It used to be that beauty was enough. If the lawn looked good and we had a few shrubs and a few flowers, we could relax, having done our duty to the neighborhood.
Now we have to be water-wise, save the bees and the Monarch Butterflies, and on top of that, we’ve got to have Biodiversity.
I think this is a good trend. Gardens are more than something to look at. They are a piece of Nature and the more diverse they are, the more like Nature they are.[Read More]
Pesticides were never a good idea. They were designed to make money from petroleum, not to benefit the public good. Pesticides, fungicides and herbicides are poisons that were developed to kill life. Not only has this approach poisoned our earth and ourselves, it has failed to control Nature. Our soils are less productive, and weeds and pests have adapted by becoming resistant. Stronger poisons are not the answer.
In the last 20 years, the new “nicotine” pesticides (neonicotinoids) have become the industry standards because they are less toxic to people and animals than the old organophophate pesticides, and that is good. But the neonicotinoids (neonics) are even more toxic to insects; they last 3 months to 5 years; all parts of the plants are poison, and the poison goes into our water.[Read More]
Plants are one of the most successful life forms. In fact, we could say that they are the most successful life form, because plants are self-sufficient. They can live without eating other beings because they can make their own food. Only plants, phytoplankton, algae and cyanobacteria can synthesize food from sunlight, carbon dioxide, minerals and water.
At the same time, plants have a serious limitation: they are rooted to the earth, so they can’t run away from pests and they can’t pursue another plant in order to have sex. But are plants helpless. Oh, no. They have developed chemical warfare and chemical magnetism to protect themselves from predators and attract allies.[Read More]
“You can join the fight to save the honeybees by planting a pollinator-supporting garden.” This is a recommendation made by a Penn. State Master Gardener program. Is this weird? Not at all. The European Parliament has approved creating bee “recovery zones” across the Continent. These recovery zones will provide bees with nectar and pollen in areas that are free from pesticides. Why is it a big deal that honeybee populations around the world are declining? One reason is that one third of the human diet comes from plants that are pollinated by honeybees. Another reason is that honeybees may be the “canary in the coal mine”; just the first to show that there is a problem that hasn’t yet surfaced in other pollinators and other beings.[Read More]
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