Why It's Important to Know

Regardless of your political bent, there isn't a person in the world who should be using RoundUp weed killer (this means if you have gardeners that you should tell them as well). At this time in our history, not knowing is just not an option anymore. That I am still seeing neighbors and parents buying this product at Home Depots and the like, completely baffles me.
Naturally, there is a great deal more here to digest; and if it interests you in anyway you won't want to miss Food, Inc.--available on Netflix as a watch instantly or as a DVD http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Food_Inc./70108783?trkid=2361637.

Here's to being a conscientious consumer:

The World According To Monsanto - FULL LENGTH

EARTH WEEK: DAY FIVE

The pedigree of honey does not concern the bee; a clover, any time, to him is aristocracy.
~Emily Dickinson

Celebrating Bees


"One-third of the world's food supply depends on bees for pollination. Every year in California alone, honeybees pollinate more than 100 crops worth more than $6 billion, including vegetables, nuts (notably almonds), fruit and wildflowers. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is the phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or from a colony of European honeybees, Apis mellifera, suddenly disappear.

To produce their own drug-free queens, a few Marin County beekeepers are breeding queens that are able to detect a hive infested with mites and other pathogens, kill and remove the damaged brood, and thus protect the rest of the hive from infection. Also, University of California researchers are selectively breeding bees that hoard pollen, as this trait enables these bees to maintain their nutritional requirements over the winter and concomitantly protects them from succumbing to CCD.

To learn more about bees and CCD watch PBS' Silence of the Bees: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/silence-of-the-bees/video-podcast/69/ and for bee-friendly gardening, visit the farm at the College of Marin's Indian Valley campus. Bethallyn Black, the farm manager, working with Steve Smart, a local organic bee grower, is installing five beehives, each with an organic queen bee and pheromone to attract feral male drones from untreated hives. These hives will not be sprayed with toxic chemicals for pathogens, such as mites. The goal is to breed queens with feral males in the midst of myriad flowers and vegetables attractive to bees on this productive organic farm. The mix of pollens available in the farm's garden will provide the building blocks for the best bee diet and most robust bees. It's hoped this type of endeavor will inspire beekeepers in other parts of the country and world to raise bees without the use of pesticides, herbicides or other unnatural or harmful substances, so that bee populations will begin to be restored to their former health." Full Marin IJ article click here

Creating a Bee Friendly Garden

Bees are all about pollen. If you want to support the many different varieties of bees which range through your yard, plant some things which will feed them.

The good news here is that bee-friendly plants are easy to grow. Scatter a variety through your yard, ensuring a good supply of pollen through the warm months. Bees prefer flowers that are blue, purple, or yellow.

Clover is a great choice. Bees love it, and clover makes attractive and robust ground cover. There are organic varieties available.

Other bee-yummy plants: sage, salvia, oregano, lavender, ironweed, yarrow, yellow hyssop, alfalfa, honeywort, dragonhead, echinacea, bee balm (guess where the name comes from?), buttercup, goldenrod, and English thyme.

Flowering trees are also attractive to bees. Try tulip poplars, tupelos, oranges, and sourwoods. Don’t forget that bees need sources of shallow water.

Unless you have particular bee allergies, don’t be afraid of attracting pollinators to your property. The “bees” that give most people trouble — yellowjackets, wasps, and hornets — aren’t really bees at all, and won’t be attracted by bee-friendly plants.

Local San Rafael Honey Contact:

Bill Pappy
willbpappy@hotmail.com
415 499 1099

Infecting Ahmedabad: Kiran Bir Sethi Teaches Kids to Take Charge (TEDIndia)

TED WARNING: Only go to this site if you have at least 10 minutes (you'll want at least an hour) to watch one of the hundreds of empowering talks. http://www.ted.com/talks

Each year, the world's leading thinkers and doers gather in for an event many describe as the highlight of their year. Attendees have called it "The ultimate brain spa," "Davos for optimists" and "A four-day journey into the future, in the company of those creating it." This event is called TED and it is truly a transformational conference like no other.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design -- three broad subject areas that are, collectively, shaping our future. And in fact, the event is broader still, showcasing ideas that matter in any discipline. The format is fast paced: 50+ talks over the course of four days (to say nothing of the morning and evening events). This immersive environment allows attendees and speakers from vastly different fields to cross-fertilize and draw inspiration from unlikely places. This is the magic of TED.

Attendance at TED is by invitation only, and the attendees -- CEOs, scientists, designers, intellectuals -- are as extraordinary as the speakers

http://www.ted.com/talks

It's hard to not think of Montessori in this 'infectious' talk by Kiran Bir Sethi.

The Careful Valentine

Green Tip: Buy Local, Sustainable Flowers for Valentine’s Day!

• For Valentine’s, brighten up someone’s day! Give them the gift of local flowers.
• Most of the cut flowers that we find at grocery stores are flown in from miles away, creating a giant carbon footprint.
• When we buy locally from farmers and growers in the Bay area, we reduce the negative environmental impact of importing flowers.
• Next time you go to your local florist or farmers market, ask them what flowers are local, or better yet, make your own bouquet from your surroundings.
  

Local flower resource: www.marinflora.com

A Few Sobering Facts About Valentines Day (From Green Muze's Valerie Williams) Full Article click here

Flowers, considered an expression of love, have an ugly side most consumers don’t know about. There are an estimated 40,000 flower workers in Ecuador, and more than 100,000 in Colombia, working to grow, harvest, and package flowers and carnations for North Americans. Flower workers are routinely prevented from organizing unions, experience sexual harassment, forced pregnancy testing, and numerous health and safety violations according to the International Labor Rights Forum.

Flowers are one of the top pesticide-intensive agricultural crops. The Green Book estimates if all the roses purchased for Valentine’s Day in the USA were organically grown, it would prevent the use of 22,700 pounds of pesticides. A joint report between US Labor Education in the Americans and the International Labor Rights Fund found flower companies in Ecuador use more than 30 different chemicals, in addition to fertilizers, in the production of their cut flowers. The report also indicated flower workers experience higher-than-average rates of premature births, congenital malformations and miscarriages. This is in addition to inordinately high incidents of headaches, asthma attacks, frequent colds, vomiting and weight loss. In some areas more than 50% of flower workers have symptoms of pesticide poisoning.

In every area where industrial flower growing takes place, the environmental impact is evidenced through loss of animal and plant species, water resources running out and high levels of deadly chemicals leaching into local water and the surrounding land. In addition to worker’s health concerns and the environmental impact of purchasing non-organic flowers, greenhouse gases produced from the transportation of cut flowers need to be taken into consideration as part of the environmental costs of purchasing flowers for Valentine’s Day. UPS, a North American courier and freight company, shipped more than 14.8 million stems of fresh cut flowers to North America from various South American countries in 2005. From Kenya to Holland to Columbia, the flower industry is having deadly repercussions for the environment.

Green Tip: Community Supported/Shared Agriculture (CSA)

How can a school community come together to learn about the importance of local, organic food and support our local farms?
What if, instead of getting a news magazine every week, you got a big box of produce from a farmer down the road, a box of fruits and vegetables picked that very morning, bursting with flavor and nutrition? That's what you get when you subscribe to a CSA. To find out more about how a CSA is all about community, health, ecology, families learning, and the seasons, please keep reading!
What is a CSA
A CSA is also known as "subscription farming." You buy a subscription from a local farmer just like you buy a subscription to Time or Newsweek. But instead of receiving a magazine each week, bi-weekly, or monthly, you receive a "share" of fresh, locally grown or raised fruit and/or vegetables. Some farmers also offer CSA subscriptions for farm-fresh eggs, and/or meats.
While new in name, Community Supported Agriculture hearkens back to an earlier time -when people knew where their food came from, ate in harmony with the seasons, and enjoyed a delicious, healthy diet of pure, fresh foods.

CSA is about Community and Ecology
CSA subscribers don't so much "buy" food from particular farms as become "members" of those farms. CSAs provide more than just food, they offer ways for eaters to become involved in the ecological and human community that supports the farm. The Earth is a living Being and the actions of every individual have an effect on the whole. The soil is the basis of all human life and the quality of its care and health affect not only the people who eat the food today, but also those who will depend on the soil in the future. Even though less than 1% of our population is engaged in farming, the proper tending of the environment is the concern and responsibility of every individual. It is in the consumer's interest that farmers are supported so that they can grow the highest quality, most nutritious food while preserving the highest environmental quality and soil health.

CSA is about Health
Healthy soil means healthy food. When no herbicides, pesticides, or artificial fertilizers are used, ground water pollution and toxic residues on food are avoided. CSA gives consumers the chance to choose how their food is grown. Eating locally grown, freshly harvested food is the basis of a healthy diet and is recommended by health-care professionals. CSA offers the opportunity for you to reconnect with rhythms of nature by eating produce when it is in season. People who join CSAs find a meaningful way to reunite with the Earth and a community and discover a kind of spiritual nourishment which they have been missing.

CSA is about Seasons
"In season" is what CSAs are all about. The grocery store knows no seasons. It is disconnected from Nature. Sure, you can buy tomatoes in January-but who wants to eat cardboard tomatoes? That sorry tomato was picked green 2000 miles away and weeks ago, then blasted with ethylene gas to make it turn red just before it landed in the produce section of your store. What we have gained in convenience, we have lost in flavor, freshness, nutritional value, and human connection-to each other and to the land.
Changing your diet to eat with the seasons is something that happens naturally when a larger portion of your food begins to come from a garden

CSA is about Families and Fun
Families with children are welcome at CSA gardens. A number of CSAs host local school groups for nature study or art classes in the garden. CSAs are about strengthening a sense of community. Most CSAs have a newsletter to let people know what's going on in the garden, share recipes, and announce things of common interest or concern and social events.

CSA is about Learning
CSAs also act as training centers for young people who wish to learn the skills of farming and management of CSA operations. These "hands-on" trainings are called "apprenticeships." In addition, CSA members often volunteer their time to work in the garden so that they may informally learn about horticulture or other gardening skills.

*Excerpts above from www.illinoisfarmdirect.org and www.biodynamics.com

More Information
Books about CSAs:
Farms of Tomorrow Revisted: Community Supported Farms – Farm Supported Communities by Trauger Groh and Steven McFadden
Sharing the Harvest: A Citizen’s Guide to Community Supported Agriculture by Elizabeth Henderson

Films:
The film, The Real Dirt on Farmer John, documents the resurrection of a family farm through its conversion to a CSA model.

Looking for recipes to enjoy some of these fresh and occasional unfamiliar vegetables?
www.eatwell.com

Resources
www.biodynamics.com
www.fullbellyfarm.com
www.marinsunfarms.com
www.greenlivingtips.com

Post by Cleary Vaughan-Lee