David King Speaking at Whole Foods Market, Venice CA

International Seed Day

 

 

As I sat down to write this, I learned that the Farm Bill has been approved by the Senate Committee and will be brought to a vote in the Senate Floor. I have yet to see what was a part of the finalized bill, but I am hoping that the Gillibrand Amendment was a part of the bill. That amendment, proposed by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, would have required that five percent of annual funding for the AFRI program (Agriculture Food & Research Initiative) be used for making sure that farmers have access to locally adapted seeds and breeds, by focusing on public cultivar and bred development, and removing the hurdles that have hindered USDA's progress toward this goal.

This initiative was in the 2008 Farm Bill, but the United Sates Department of Agriculture (USDA) has succeeded in putting up roadblocks to avoid dealing with anything like open pollinated, farmer bred seeds, even though all of America's successful agriculture is based on just such seeds.

Remember that the seeds most gardeners cherish are not seeds bred by trained scientists and research facilities. Most of the seeds gardeners love and trust were bred by folks without degrees and often times even without education. They grew food in their own gardens for their families and prided their crops on much the same criteria we still do today: does it taste good? Is it suited to my climate? Does it succumb to disease or insects? And does it produce under adverse conditions?

Sadly, our modern seed production has little effort put to taste and nothing about adverse conditions. Food is bred to be shipped, ripen on the way to the market, last until the grocer has sold all of it and ease of picking for a picking machine. Not exactly qualities we admire in our gardens. But that's what we got when we began to allow professionals to do the breeding. Thank God we stepped out of our slumber in time, while there are still lots of varieties still left (although if you've seen the National Geographic July 2011 chart on our lost diversity, you have been staggered by what has been lost).

All was not lost. After all, Native Seed/SEARCH in Tucson, AZ has been saving the genetic diversity of the Southwestern Native tribes for a number of years and Bill McDorman and his wife, Belle Starr, have been offering classes in seed stewardship (and seed library stewardship); Seed Savers Exchange is probably the largest and most vibrant of our American seed saving organizations and now seed libraries are suddenly the rage across an awakening nation. And the work of the Organic Seed Alliance helps position our current culture to seed a more local and diverse agriculture. More people are aware of the value and importance of seeds – especially seeds that are not controlled and cannot be controlled by corporations.

It would be fitting for the Farm Bill to leave committee today with Gillibrand Amendment in place because, today, I learned, is International Seed Day. April 26^th was chosen as the day because it was April 26^th, 2004 that Paul Bremer, the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in IRAQ, issued and signed Order 81, which prohibits Iraqi farmers from reusing seeds harvested from new varieties registered under the law. Thank the powers that be, Order 81 could not be successfully implemented due to the instability inside IRAQ. It may go down in history as one of the quirks of fate that denied Monsanto and other industrial ag firms their biggest victory of the new century.

Next year, I would love to see International Seed Day take on a lot more meaning and become a holiday that is recognized by gardeners and farmers everywhere. Time to celebrate the Percy Schmeiser's, the pioneer seed savers and people like Bill and Belle. Time to chose to eat a meal and consciously chew each bite thinking about the history of the seeds that nourish us still to this day – the same way our ancestors before us survived without the plenty we have today and it was those seeds that persisted through the drought or the flood or the war or the dust. They were sustained by these seeds; gifts from a grandmother to a son, from an old hand to a young one – over centuries, each generation in turn perfecting them a little more, whether consciously or not. WE were given this largess. WE must pass it on no matter what our government or society says.

In a large sense, we are like prophets of old that know where the richness of society really lies and know what must be done to save it – to pass it on to our children. So today, April 26, chew each bite one extra time with memory of the history you eat and resolve that we will not be the generation that fails our children.

david

Safe Pesticides – Safe for Whom?

There is a column making its way through my friends on Facebook declaring vinegar to be a 'safe pesticide.' I dislike the term 'safe pesticide' as it is often nothing more than an oxymoron.

The suffix of '-cide' is taken from Latin meaning 'to cut down, kill.' The more genericterms pesticide or biocide include more specific killers, like herbicide (weed killers), insecticides (specifically insect killers), fungicides and a bunch of others.

A compound doesn't get to be called a '-cide' unless it kills something, so the idea of a 'safe' pesticide is relative – 'safe' for whom? Obviously, it's not 'safe' for the thing it kills. And, in our chemical soup world, many folks seem to have become accepting that it's quite alright to eat food that is deadly for some species to eat.  But the concept of a 'safe' pesticides tugs at a conscious mind as something beyond reason.

At a recent panel discussion for gardeners in Santa Monica, I was horrified to hear an organic farmer promoting the use of nicotine as a general insecticide. His first offering was to a woman who wanted to rid her milkweed of aphids. She was growing the milkweed to promote monarch butterfly populations. As one who is called 'post-modern organic,' I was flabbergasted that she was even thinking of an insecticide at all! After all, if she's hoping to give the plant up to an insect, why would she be disturbed if a few aphids got in on the act? Her indignation towards me was very hostile as she vehemently declaring  he aphids were killing her plants. (In her defense, I was tired and hungry and when I'm tired and hungry, my diplomacy can be, um, 'challenged.')

Even rested and well-fed, call me naïve, but I think she's crazy. A plant that gets attacked by aphids is a weak plant to begin with - we can think of aphids as being Mother Nature's way of taking a plant out of the gene pool because it's not a good contender for passing on genetic material. So, if aphids kill her plants, I would postulate the plant was too weak to begin with. Still, why she has aphids does not beg the question as to why she wants to use a pesticide to kill them, but of course, I'm the one who thinks spraying a plant with poison so it will live long enough for human consumption is nuts.  And what kind of blinders does a person wear who can't figure why anything that kills aphids wouldn't also kill the Monarchs?  It continues to flabbergast me. 

All that aside, the final straw is that nicotine will kill EVERYTHING it touches as long as it's wet. It will kill the aphids. It will kill the Monarchs in all stages of their growth. It will kill honey bees and it will kill things in the soil if it is applied properly (pesticides are to be applied to the 'drip point' – this is standard practice and it means you spray until the solution begins to drip off the plant) and all those drippings fall into the soil and continue to kill until they are sufficiently diluted. This part of pesticide application is never talked about and we act as though it doesn't happen. But it does happen whether or not we study it.

So now to this 'safe' pesticide of vinegar. Safe? First of all, do not buy the hype. If it kills, it has a drawback, somewhere, somehow. And before I can say it's safe, I want to know what that drawback is because I don't want to have a surprise later on. Vinegar's main method of killing is by changing the pH to deadly levels for organisms - plants and or fauna depending on how it's used.  

Vinegar, just like nicotine, will kill or damage whatever it touches as long as it is still moist, still very acidic. 

I was very excited about vinegar about four years ago, using it as an herbicide on a noxious weed, False Garlic, Nothoscordum bivalve. False Garlic is a particular evil weed. The little white flowers dispense copious amounts of bubils, baby bulbs. They sprout on the surface of the soil. As the little leaves begin to reach skyward, the root springs out and begins to pull the plant under the soil. The more leaves on the surface, the deeper that bulb has been pulled under ground and, worse yet, the more baby bulbs have formed around it. When a gardener removes this plant at this stage, it might well be essential to remove close to a square foot of soil as well in order to insure none of the baby bulbs are left behind to torment you.

Nothoscordum bivalve, False Garlic

As an aside, False Garlic is obviously  a member of the Lily family by the way it looks, like onions and true garlic.  Apart from no edible bulb, the giveaway on a mature plant is that it smells like a spoiled garlic - it doesn't smell yummy.  It stinks.  

Seizing upon the lie of a 'safe' herbicide,  I elected to use vinegar on this difficult plant. I was pouring one to two cups of vinegar per plant because this species has a waxy covering which prevents the uptake of vinegar by most cells. It was necessary to get enough vinegar to percolate deep enough into the soil with enough strength to find the roots where there would be a better chance of being absorbed by the plant. I was having some success. But one day, as soon as I poured the vinegar onto a plant, two earthworms came up out of the ground writhing to their deaths in front of me. That's when I realized that the term 'safe' pesticide meant safe for me, but not for other creatures. It's also when I formulated my idea that pesticides always have unintended consequences.

It is my intention that humans begin to look at all the different '-cides' with more scrutiny. While we still do battle with perennial weeds that frustrate most of my attempts to get them gone,we have been able to achieve zero insecticide usage at The Learning Garden by having something in bloom throughout the growing season – and we often leave some of each crop to flower to help with that. Those flowers are often allowed to go to seed because we save seeds here as well. But in addition, no vegetable garden should be grown without some flowers blooming nearby. We also have several spots where we grow California Native plants to encourage more insects. 

The truth of the matter, the way to really defeat insects, is to invite more insects into the garden rather than try to kill off the ones you don’t like.

Our program to create an environment that encourages beneficial insects to make our garden their home, includes:

1. No insecticides what so ever.
2. Something in bloom all through the growing season.
3. Provide water for insects.
4. Willingness to allow plants to suffer some cosmetic damage.
5. Willingness to let some plants die if they get overwhelmed by insects.

I urge you to consider these options and allow other creatures to co-exist peacefully in your garden - if beneficial insects make your garden their home, you will have a balance in your garden that makes it healthier for you as you avoid all forms of  '-cides' that may have harmful effects we failed to realize.

And I continue to work on getting rid of False Garlic in a more efficient manner that doesn't kill off any of  my earthworms.

david

INTERMEDIATE VICTORY GARDENING!

Offered by The Learning Garden under the auspices of the University of California Extension:

Four classes to really give you the dirt on gardening! Expand your skill level and appreciate the world of plants so much better; introducing a new series of more advanced gardening classes!

The four session class will cover the following topics:

May 20 – Crop rotation; perennial food plants; companion planting How do plants interact with one another? What should follow what? How do I care for my fruit trees? I want to grow asparagus and artichokes, but I am a little intimidated; what do I need to know?

May 27 - Seed saving/vegetable breeding Why should I be concerned about saving seeds? Is it hard to save seeds? How can I tell if it's good seed? Isn't breeding vegetables best left to the professionals?

June 3 – Propagation and grafting and budding What is grafting and why is it important? Can I really have two apples on the same tree? Is grafting 'natural' and not some biotech kind of weirdness? When can I do it?

June 10 – Vermiculture/Composting What if I don't have room for a compost pile, I just have plants in containers on my balcony? Isn't compost a lot of work? How can I really compost in a small garden?

Each class is a stand alone unit so participants may attend all four for a discounted price, or take any combination of the classes – they are designed to be modular units of instruction. These are practical classes with hands on participation in each class. Taught by Gardenmaster David King and Master Gardener Emi Carvel, these classes will hone your gardening skills to new level.

Classes are $20 each; the series of four is discounted to $75. We may have some scholarships available depending on enrollment. A minimum $20 deposit is required to hold your space. You are encouraged to dress for our often cooler days here in The Learning Garden. We will make hot tea and/or coffee on cooler days; bring your own cup as we try to edge closer to zero waste. 

 

Contact David for other options.

Garden Master & Author David King At Santa Monica College on March 27

 

CONTACT:   Bruce Smith                                              FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

                        Public Information Officer                       DATE: March 12, 2012

                        (310) 434-4209                                          www.smc.edu

“SEEDS: LOCAL & GLOBAL” AT SMC MARCH 27

         Santa Monica College is pleased to present a free lecture, “Seeds: Local and Global,” by garden master and author David King on Tuesday, March 27 in Humanities & Social Science Lecture Hall 165 on the main campus, 1900 Pico Blvd.

         King is the founder of the Seed Library of Los Angeles and garden master of TheLearning Garden at Venice High School. An engaging and popular garden speaker, he is also a noted garden blogger and author of the forthcoming book, “Growing Food in Southern California: What to Do and When to Do It.”

         The Seed Library of Los Angeles was established to facilitate the growth of open-pollinated seeds among residents of the Los Angeles basin. The library is building a seed collection and repository, educating members about the practice of seed saving, and creating a local community of seed-saving gardeners

         King’s talk is sponsored by the SMC Global Citizenship Council, SMC Center for Environmental Studies and SMC Club Grow.

         For information, please call 310-434-3911.

A Collection of Seed Catalogs

I have quite a collection of seed catalogs for the current year. I’ll order from some, peruse others and ignore the rest. I choose my catalogs carefully for many reasons.

Most importantly, I want to make certain that they are not listed as dealers for Seminis. Seminis is the seed selling arm of the corporate giant Monsanto and any profit Seminis makes helps to fund Monsanto's omnipresent drive to dominate the seed business. Their drive to obtain monopoly status is well-documented and makes for some depressing reading. You can find the seed companies listed as dealers for Seminis on their home page. There you'll find such home-gardener favorites like 'Burpee Seeds' and supposedly organic stalwarts like 'Gardens Alive.'

The listing of these two draws particular attention. I grew up with Burpee; as a kid, in the long winter months of northeast Kansas, I read and re-read the Burpee catalog end to end, marking it up, folding down corners to mark special notations. Honestly, I spent more time with the Burpee catalog than I did with my homework. My grades in those years can prove it. Conversely, my knowledge of seeds doesn't necessarily prove it, but I got my start there by the fire with the gardens covered in a blanket of snow. W. Atlee Burpee and Company introduced a lot of very good vegetables for home gardeners in the late 1800's and early 1900's. They were one of America's premier breeders of vegetables and flowers. Names we know and love today are part of the Burpee legacy; the Golden Beet was a Burpee creation, Fordhook Giant Chard another – anything called 'Fordhook' is a Burpee introduction, that's the name of their research farm. They did amazing work with marigolds and other plants offered primarily to home gardeners.

On the other hand, Gardens Alive has been suspect in my book for as long as they have been around – which isn't nearly as long as Burpee. Gardens Alive promotes pest solutions that are organic, but their attitude towards pests has been anything but organic. I remember one catalog series that was headed “Declare War On Aphids!” Decidedly a non-organic approach. I know, instinctively that 'declaring war' on Nature in any of Her guises is a futile project. Declaring war on nature is the Monsanto way – the concept is that we thinking human beings can out-bomb the bugs and win.

We can't. Never have. Never will.

Every time Monsanto has been out to fight Nature, it has had unexpected consequences. How about DDT in the 1950's. That was a Monsanto product. How about Agent Orange in Vietnam? Another Monsanto product. Bovine Growth Hormone, which is under suspicion as an initiator of human health problems is a current Monsanto product – it has not been tested by outside organizations (current FDA policy has the manufacturer do their own testing which is – oftentimes – rubber stamped by the agency). In addition, there are the genetically modified seeds produced by Monsanto technology. There are others, but Monsanto is the biggest by far. Their inventory of GM seeds is a catalog of what is planted by American farmers today.

Monsanto claims to be feeding the world with their technology, but such claims are bald-face lies which can be undone with very little research. A recent release of data from a 15 year USDA (gasp! the same USDA Monsanto has bought and paid for!) revealed that 'there was no appreciable yield increase' by using GM seeds!  Then there is the simple fact that Monsanto does not do research to merely create a higher producing seed. It's not on their agenda. Nor do they do research for a more nutritious seed. That has no appeal to them. All of their research has been done to find a plant that will grow when dosed with the weed killer Roundup. The result is that millions of tons of seeds have been sold that ensures the sale of billions of gallons of Roundup. You have, by now of course, deduced who makes Roundup, right? Yes, Monsanto. So Monsanto's only guiding principle is find out what will make Monsanto's stockholders rich. Sick too perhaps, but hey, that's the price of true wealth, right?

The American nursery trade is a 39.6 billion dollar a year industry. With the purchase of Seminis in January of 2005, Monsanto is now estimated to control between 85 and 90 percent of the U.S. nursery market. This includes the pesticide, herbicide and fertilizer markets. By merging with or buying up the competition, dominating genetic technology, and lobbying the government to make saving seeds illegal, this monolith has positioned itself as the largest player in the gardening game.

Monsanto holds over eleven thousand U.S. seed patents. When Americans buy garden seed and supplies, most of the time they are buying from Monsanto regardless of who the retailer is.

(From an article in Countryside magazine.)

So that's why the diatribes against Monsanto. And now, back to my seed catalogs. So the Burpee and Gardens Alive catalogs are thrown out. Johnny's Selected Seeds is also on the Seminis list, but I don't automatically toss it. Why? The employee owned company has signed the safe seed pledge which declares they will not ever sell 'genetically engineered or modified seeds or plants.' So how do they end up being a Seminis dealer?

In Monsanto's drive to become the only seed company in the world, Seminis has purchased many different seed companies and along with those purchases, they got the inventory and patents of those companies. This means, Big Boy tomatoes are now one of many  Seminis/Monsanto products. Profits from Big Boy feed the Monsanto beast. Johnny's gets an exemption from being tossed, but if I find I need to order from Johnny's, I scrutinize my purchases to make certain I'm not buying anything that feeds the beast. Often-times, from Johnny's I am only getting one or two seed varieties that I can't find elsewhere and that's after I've looked far and wide..

My short list of the good guys is, as follows:

BAKERCREEK HEIRLOOM SEEDS; 2278 Baker Creek Road Mansfield, MO 65704; 417.924.8917 What a catalog! Beautiful pictures of the produce – vegetable porn for sure. I have never ordered from them, but I have heard good things about them. Anyone who works this hard in putting out a beautiful seed catalog is working with a great deal of love. Drooling is hardly optional while browsing here.  These are the people who perfected 'veggie porn.'  

BOTANICALINTERESTS; 660 Compton Street, Broomfield, CO 80020; 720.880.7293. I 'have been dealing with these folks for only a couple of years - I have seen their seeds on seed racks here and there, but I really got to know them for the quantity of seeds they donate to Venice High School and other educational programs. Good seed.  Clean.  Good variety and a good price. Open pollinated and often heirloom!  Great packaging!

BOUNTIFULGARDENS; 18001 Shafer Ranch Road; Willits, CA 95490; 707.459.6410  Organic seed; open-pollinated. A part of the work done by John Jeavons, a proud and active member of the population of organic and open-pollinated gardeners. If you see him, he owes me a laser pointer.

FEDCO; PO Box 520, Waterville, ME 04903 207.873.7333  They are rabidly anti-GMO, though they do carry hybrids in addition to open-pollinated seeds. A wonderful and extensive selection. Someone who writes this beautiful deserves to get some of our money!

PEACEFUL VALLEY FARM SUPPLY; PO Box 2209; Grass Valley, CA 95945; 916.272.4769 I have purchased many seeds (and a lot of other things!) from Peaceful Valley – I love their catalog. They have an excellent selection of cover crop seeds as well as a lot of organic gardening supplies and tools. I have used their catalog to teach organic gardening because they clearly explain their products and how to use them.

NATIVESEED/SEARCH; 526 N. 4th Ave. Tucson, AZ 85705; 520.622.5561 (Fax 520.622.5591) Specializing in the seeds of seeds of south western United States, concentrating on the ancient seeds of the First Nations People from amaranth to watermelon. A worthy cause for your money. And good seed – some amazing varieties found no where else.

PINETREEGARDEN SEEDS; PO Box 300, Rt. 100; New Gloucester, ME 04260; 207.926.3400 Probably the best economy for a home gardener – small packets of very current seed, a very good value. The smaller packets mean a smaller price so a person can order a lot more varieties and experiment. I have been a customer for many years. Please note that this company, even though they have a fabulous model for the home gardener, has not signed the Safe Seed Pledge so one must make certain that anything you order from them, is listed as 'open-pollinated.' If in doubt, find it from someone else. Pinetree should sign the safe seed pledge and let us all breathe easier about supporting their own gardening philosophy and outlook towards the home-gardener. (N.B. Please see the comment section below for Pinetree's refutation of my comments.  I am pleased to have learned I was misrepresenting them.)

SEED SAVERS EXCHANGE; Rt. 3 Box 239; Decorah, Iowa 52101; 563.382.5990 Membership fees $40. Free brochure. Some organic, but ALL open-pollinated. There are two ways to save seeds: one is to collect them all and keep them in a huge building that protects them from everything up to (and including) nuclear holocaust. The other way is to grow 'em. You can find the chance to grow them here. I have been a member for about 10 years and believe in their work; remember a Seed Savers' purchase supports their work and their work is vital to our survival in a post-Monsanto, chemical-deluged agricultural world. They are an essential part of the battle against Monsanto.

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE SEED EXCHANGE; P.O. Box 460, Mineral, VA 23117, 540.894.9480 (Fax: 540.894.9481) A commercial venture that is somewhat similar to Seed Savers Exchange, but really isn't an exchange. They do carry seed saving supplies - nice to have if you are going to save seed.

Transnational corporations can't build communities, they can't celebrate identity. Only we can do that, and we can do it with every seed we plant.  (ibid)

david

A Second Sunday Showcase Event: Three Poets in The Garden!

A Second Sunday Showcase Event!

Our Three Poets, Jill Lurie, Orchid Black and Tatiana Sulovska, will be reading poetry in The Learning Garden, 2:00 to 3:30 PM.  Excellent poets in their own right, having the three of them on one stage is a delight not to be missed.

There is a $15 suggested donation, but no one will be turned away.  Come on out, hear the poetry, delight in the garden and be a part of the community of The Learning Garden.  It will be a gorgeous Southern California afternoon and you'll be so glad you made it out for this event!

Hope to see you there!

david

The Learning Garden, Venice And Walgrove Blvd.  The Garden is on the Northwest corner of the Venice High School campus.   Enter off Walgrove, we are the first gate south of Venice Blvd on Walgrove.