Last week, a court in California ruled in favor of High Mowing Organic Seeds in their suit against the USDA regarding the premature deregulation of Monsanto's genetically modified (GMO) sugar beets.
Last week, on September 22, 2009, the 9th Circuit Court in California ruled in favor of High Mowing Organic Seeds in their suit against the USDA regarding the premature deregulation of Monsanto's genetically modified (GMO) sugar beets. High Mowing was joined in the suit by the Center for Food Safety (CFS), Organic Seed Alliance and the Sierra Club and were represented by attorneys from CFS and Earth Justice.
As Tom says, "This ruling means that the USDA will likely require much more thorough research and a full Environmental Impact Study prior to allowing more GE crops to be released. It may also result in a moratorium on any more GMO sugar beets getting planted. The USDA has a lot of work to do, but is recently making great progress. I hope that this lawsuit will confirm for them that people really care about our food system and keeping it safe and healthy."
For some background on the issue, and why Tom and his company took this case to court, read this letter.
Here at Gardener's Supply we extend our congratulations and thanks to Tom Stearns, the staff at High Mowing Seeds, and the many others who are working to protect the present and future health of our food supply and the environment.
P.S. We carry seeds from High Mowing in our stores and recommend them highly. When it comes time to buy your seeds next spring, consider giving High Mowing your business! Here's their Safe Seed Pledge.
Earlier this summer I potted up a miniature bog garden in a bowl and it thrived! Even the dried sphagnum peat moss grew.
Check Venus fly traps and pitcher plants for aphids before bringing indoors.
Planted in early June, the bog garden is lush and healthy in September.
North American pitcher plants (Sarracenia) stop growing during the winter. Pitchers may naturally turn brown.
Earlier this summer I potted up a miniature bog garden in a bowl and it thrived! Even the dried sphagnum peat moss grew. Some of the plants in it are not winter hardy here in Vermont, though, so I’m getting ready to bring it inside for the winter.
Following my own advice to thoroughly inspect plants before bringing them back indoors, I discovered aphids colonizing the Venus fly trap. These tiny insects aren’t large enough to trigger the traps and get caught. They do damage and ruin the traps, though, by sucking the juice out of them and injecting a substance that deforms the traps, making them useless. It’s a bit tedious, but I dipped a cotton swab in rubbing alcohol and swiped every surface of the fly trap “leaves” to kill the aphids. I’ll check it again in a day or two to find any that I may have missed. As an added precaution, I’m spraying the pitcher plants with rubbing alcohol, too. Aphids love the tender new growth and are harder to see in the center of these plants.
Some of the plants in the bowl, such as the tropical sundews and papyrus, will grow all winter, but the temperate Venus fly traps and pitcher plants stop growing or become dormant until spring. To keep all the plants happy, I’ll put the bowl in a sunny south-facing window for a couple of months, then move it into the cool basement under grow lights from December through February. As the days lengthen in March, the plants can come back into the warm, sunny window, then outdoors by late April. At that point, I'll cut back the old, yellowed stems in anticipation of a flush of new growth.
Carnivorous and other bog plants fascinate me and many are truly beautiful. As a bonus, they do help control flies, daddy-long-legs, and hornets on our deck in the summer. Inside, they feed on fruit flies in the kitchen and fungus gnats in my houseplants year round. Finally, houseplants that really earn their keep!
-Ann Whitman
Green Goods Supervisor, Gardener's Supply
Before bringing them back inside, inspect houseplants carefully for hitchhiking pests they may have picked up.
Before bringing them back inside, inspect houseplants carefully for hitchhiking pests they may have picked up.
Temperatures are dipping into the low 50s to upper 40s nearly every night now and the
weatherman has uttered the F word. “Expect scattered frost in the cold mountain hollows,” he said this week. Yes, summer is winding down and the outdoor vacation for houseplants is over!
Before I bring my begonias, orchids, caladiums, and other tropical plants back inside for the winter, they need a thorough inspection. I'm looking for unwelcome pests that can — and will — proliferate and spread inside the house. During the winter, houseplants don't get as much sunshine, airflow or humidity as they do outside, so they grow less vigorously, making them more susceptible to pests and disease. And the natural predators that may have kept some pests under control during the summer aren't present when the plants come inside.
The houseplant hitchhikers I commonly find are slugs, snails and earwigs. These usually hide under the leaves, and in nooks and crannies, just under the surface of the soil, or at the bottom of the root ball near the pot's drainage holes. I look for slime trails, brush all plant debris out of the pot and scrape the soil surface lightly to uncover any hidden critters. If the plant isn't too large, I also tip it gently out its pot to check the root ball. Sometimes earthworms sneak into potted plants and I remove these, too. I don't know why, but I've found over the years that potted plants don't seem to grow as well with earthworms. Could be that their tunneling is too disruptive to the roots in such a small volume of soil.
Aphids, spider mites, mealybugs, thrips and scale insects also frequent summering houseplants. It's often easier to see their damage than the insects themselves. Here's what I look for:
Deformed tender new growth, flowers, and flower buds
Ragged leaf edges and holes
Very fine spider webs under leaves and between stems
O-shaped bumps (scale insects) on and under leaves and stems
Unusually silvery or stippled foliage
Sticky residue on leaves, pots, or the deck floor
If I find pests, I treat the plants outdoors before bringing them in. I use either Bon-Neem Insecticidal Soap or Insect Control Spray. Sometimes they need a repeat treatment, so I try to plan ahead and get everything cleaned up before the first frost. After they come inside, I keep plants spaced so that pests can't easily crawl from one plant to the next and I watch them carefully for the first month. Catching the bugs before they get out of hand makes my winter, and my plants', much more pleasant!
The High Line is an exciting new park that opened this summer in lower Manhattan. Visionary community activists worked for more than 10 years to make it happen
Though New York City is the largest and most densely populated urban area in the U.S., its five boroughs contain 28,000 acres of parks and 2.5 million trees.
These parks are well-loved and well-used by the city’s 8 million residents. In a city where every inch of space seems to be spoken for, adding new green space is cause for celebration.
The High Line is an exciting new park that opened this summer in lower Manhattan. Visionary community activists worked for more than 10 years to make it happen. Built on top of an abandoned, elevated railway, it provides NYC residents with a unique “strolling park”, 30 feet above the hustle and bustle of the city streets.
To learn more and see more about this incredible success story, visit the website of the Friends of the High Line.
Some of my favorite perennials bloom at this time of year and their end-of-the-season finale is well worth the wait.
With its gold flowers and purple leaves, Desdemona ligularia pairs brilliantly with a 7-foot-tall fleece flower (Persicaria polymorpha) in the garden at Muckross castle near Ennis, Ireland.
A pink Japanese anemone offers an alternative to traditional autumn colors.
Helen's flower (Helenium autumnale)
Tall fleece flower (Persicaria polymorpha).
A variety of rudbeckia called Herbstsonne (Autumn Sun) stands more than 6 feet tall — a bold perennial presence.
School starts this week, the county fair's in town, and mums are showing up in front of garden centers and grocery stores. The colors in my garden, and those of my neighbors, reflect the changing seasons. Some of my favorite perennials bloom at this time of year and their end-of-the-season finale is well worth the wait. Plus, the cooler autumn weather keeps them blooming for weeks.
I first saw the school-bus yellow flowers of cutleaf coneflower (Rudbeckia laciniata 'Herbstsonne') peeping over the top of a 6-foot stockade fence on my commute to work. Wow! Butterflies hovered around the tall center cones and drooping yellow petals. A nearly perfect drive-by plant, I found a place for this native perennial in my own garden. It's a big, bold plant that turns heads from mid August through September.
Helenium is another garden standout for late summer and throughout the fall. Most form tidy clumps about 2 to 3 feet high that bloom for months. The 2" gold, yellow, red, rust and bicolor flowers complement fall-blooming coneflowers, goldenrod and asters.
Ligularia is quickly becoming one of my favorite perennials for damp borders. I've always enjoyed The Rocket for its yellow midsummer flower spikes, but some of the Ligularia dentata cultivars really make a splash later in the season. They have large, wavy, toothed leaves 10-20' across and spikes of bright yellow or orange daisy flowers. The cultivar Britt-Marie Crawford has bronze-purple foliage and Desdemona has deep-purple leaves.
Not all fall-bloomers sport autumn colors, however. Shell-pink Japanese anemones thrive in a partly shaded spot, next to tall white David phlox (Phlox paniculata) and rose-pink Hot Lips turtlehead (Chelone). Deeply toothed and divided, purple-black foliage and pipe-cleaner flower spikes of snakeroot (Actaea 'Brunette') add drama. A handful of violet, fall-blooming colchicum bulbs at their feet completes the color-coordinated scene.
-Ann Whitman,
Green Goods Supervisor, Gardener's Supply
The thing about alliums is that there’s only one time of year you can plant them: in the fall. Make plans to get yours into the ground for next year's blooms.
Purple Sensation alliums hover above my early summer perennial border. The blooms last for three weeks.
The bulbs in this picture are Purple Sensation alliums. They bloom in early June, right after the late tulips and right before the first early summer perennials. Over the years the bulbs in this long perennial border have multiplied and when they’re in bloom it’s one of my very favorite times in the garden.
The thing about Purple Sensation is that they’re bulbs and if you want to have these flowers in your garden there’s only one time of year you can plant them: in the fall. Daffodils, tulips and crocuses are easy to find at most garden centers, but alliums are not as readily available. To make sure you have the bulbs in hand when it’s time to plant, the best thing to do is order them now by mail. That way, they’ll show up at your door at proper planting time, and there’s no chance you’ll have to live another year without these beautiful, long-lasting, bee-friendly flowers in your garden.
When you’re placing that order, consider adding one or more of the other fall-planted alliums that I’ve come to know and love. Dutch Gardens has a good selection of alliums, ready for delivery this fall.
This yellow allium (Allium flavum) has become another midsummer favorite. I have planted it in my rock garden. Over a 10-day period, the cluster of florets slowly emerge and become an exuberant explosion of color.
Drumstick allium (Allium sphaerocephalon) bloom in early July, a couple weeks after Purple Sensation. They are not as erect and orderly as Purple Sensation but in the right place (where casual is OK) the two-toned, burgundy-green heads are fantastic.
This Everlasting Allium can get "planted" any time during the year. They come in pink and yellow, too!
Despite what you've heard, moss can't kill your lawn. In reality, moss is an opportunist, an early colonizer of terrain that other plants find inhospitable.
Moss thrives in infertile soil and damp, shady conditions.
Thick, healthy turf needs plenty of sun and soil that's rich in organic matter.
“What do you have that gets rid of moss? Moss is killing my lawn,” a customer asked me last week. Concerns about mossy patches in the home turf fall into the FAQ category, especially here in the rainy Northeast, and misconceptions abound.
The truth is, moss doesn’t actually kill lawns. In the natural world, moss is an opportunist, an early colonizer of terrain that other plants find inhospitable. It thrives in infertile and acidic soil, shade, and consistently damp conditions. Moss doesn’t mind compacted soil; it grows on rocks, after all.
Modern turf grasses, on the other hand, are descended from grass species that populate sunny meadows and prairies with deep, rich soils. These are old, organic-rich soils that have been fed for millennia by decaying plants, nitrogen-fixing clover and other legumes, and the dung of grazing animals. Beneficial soil fungi, called mycorrhizae, inhabit the soil and help the roots absorb nutrients. Windswept rains easily percolate down to the deep roots, then move on, leaving the foliage to dry quickly in the breeze.
Moss and grass have very different cultural needs, so my first question, when a customer complains about their mossy lawn, is, “tell me about the growing conditions in your yard.” Nearly every time, they say that their lawn is shady, they’ve never checked the soil pH or fertility, and that they either don’t fertilize at all or they use a chemical fertilizer or weed-and-feed product. Essentially, their home ground is ideal for growing moss and not grass.
The first step in eliminating the moss is to change the conditions that favor its growth over that of the grass. I always recommend starting with a professional soil test for pH and basic nutrients. The test results usually include specific soil additive recommendations, such as the amount of lime needed to raise the soil pH to a certain level. Adding organic matter, aerating the soil, and increasing the sunlight through selective pruning help promote good turf, too.
The next step is choosing the correct turfgrass mix for the area. Some grasses are better suited to partly shady conditions. The healthiest lawns also include a mix of grasses and nitrogen-fixing legumes, like clover. Legumes tend to have deep root systems that help to keep the soil looser and more easily penetrated by rain and oxygen.
The last step is maintenance. Using natural fertilizers that don’t harm the mycorrhizae and other soil organisms is key. Choosing the correct mowing height, keeping mower blades sharp, and watering deeply also promote healthy turf.
For more on establishing and maintaining a healthy lawn, read The Natural Lawn.
-Ann Whitman, Green Goods Supervisor, Gardener's Supply
Profound social transformations are often traced to individuals whose fearless and insistent actions tip the scales.
Gardener’s Supply has been an organic gardening advocate since our first day in business — working to raise awareness about the benefits of gardening organically and providing a range of products and information to help people make the transition.
We have also spoken out about genetically modified foods, the rapid loss of biodiversity, and the environmental hazards of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Companies like our own can play an important role in social change. But profound social transformations are often traced to individuals whose fearless and insistent actions tip the scales.
Dr. June Irwin of Hudson, Quebec, Canada, is one such individual. The story of her tenacity and the profound impact she has had is hitting the world stage at this year's World Film Festival of Montreal, Aug. 27-Sept. 7.
Dr. Irwin, who is a dermatologist, took on the lawn care giant then known as ChemLawn and her case went all the way to the Canadian Supreme Court. In a landmark 9-0 decision, she and her town won the right to ban the application of cosmetic lawn and garden chemicals within town borders. This chemical ban soon spread to the entire province of Quebec, and similar bans are now being proposed in cities and towns throughout the country.
The story is told in an 80-minute documentary film titled A Chemical Reaction, directed by Brett Plymale and narrated by Paul Tukey, founder of the SafeLawns Foundation and author of the book, The Organic Lawn Care Manual.
More Information
Read more about Dr. Irwin’s story and see a trailer of the movie, visit the website.
The Garden Crusader Awards were created by Gardener's Supply to honor individuals who are improving the world through gardening. These enthusiastic men and women are planting trees and flowers, growing food, creating new green spaces, and teaching their friends and neighbors about the rewards of gardening.
To learn more about the people and programs that have received Garden Crusader Awards, see our Garden Crusader page.
Grow What You Eat
Do you grow what you eat? Check out our slideshow of gardeners who've taken the Grow What You Eat pledge. To see captions and full-size images, go to Flickr.
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