Get Rich Off Global Warming: Plant Your Lawn in Fruit and Veggies

Very, very soon - months, not years from now - 90 percent of the produce in the grocery store is going to disappear because California has run out of water.

The little produce an equally parched Mexico manages to export is likely to cost 10 or 100 times what it costs now.

You wanna pay $50 for a tomato?  Or charge $50 for the ones you grow yourself?

Global Warming is likely to bring multiple F5 tornadoes to Kentucky in spring, along with tree-killing ice storms in February, heat waves in August and forest fires in fall, but we will remain much better off in food-growing than the deserts of the West.

Think Progress:

Almonds get a lot of the attention when it comes to California’s agriculture and water, but the state is responsible for a dizzying diversity of produce. Eaten a salad recently? Odds are the lettuce, carrots, and celery came from California. Have a soft spot for stone fruit? California produces 84 percent of the country’s fresh peaches and 94 percent of the country’s fresh plums. It produces 99 percent of the artichokes grown in the United States, and 94 percent of the broccoli. As spring begins to creep in, almost half of asparagus will come from California.

“California is running through its water supply because, for complicated historical and climatological reasons, it has taken on the burden of feeding the rest of the country,” Steven Johnson wrote in Medium, pointing out that California’s water problems are actually a national problem — for better or for worse, the trillions of gallons of water California agriculture uses annually is the price we all pay for supermarket produce aisles stocked with fruits and vegetables.

Up to this point, feats of engineering and underground aquifers have made the drought somewhat bearable for California’s farmers. But if dry conditions become the new normal, how much longer can — and should — California’s fields feed the country? And if they can no longer do so, what should the rest of the country do?

 Read the whole terrifying thing.

Yep, Roundup Causes Cancer. Monsanto is Literally Killing Your Children

Thinking about getting rid of those spring weeds in your yard before they get well-established? Go with plain white vinegar.

Think Progress:

The most popular weed-killer in the United States — and possibly the world — “probably” causes cancer, according to a new report from the World Health Organization (WHO).

Published Thursday in the journal The Lancet Oncology, the report focuses on a chemical called glyphosate, invented by Monsanto back in 1974 as a broad-spectrum herbicide. It’s the active ingredient in Roundup, a popular product used mostly in commercial agriculture production. Roundup is particularly good for genetically modified crops, which can be bred to resist damage from the product while it kills the weeds surrounding it.

In the U.S., glyphosate is not considered carcinogenic. The Environmental Protection Agency’s current position is that “there is inadequate evidence to state whether or not glyphosate has the potential to cause cancer from a lifetime exposure in drinking water.” In the wake of Thursday’s report, however, the EPA said it “would consider” the U.N. agency’s findings.

The new report, crafted by the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), puts glyphosate at the second-highest level of the agency’s classifications for cancer. There are four classifications for things that could cause cancer: known carcinogens, probable or possible carcinogens, not classifiable, and probably not carcinogenic. It noted that glyphosate has been detected in the blood and urine of agricultural workers, indicating that it is absorbed by the human body.

The next week,  EPA announced it would regulate glyphosphate.  That doesn't mean Roundup is safe; it means the EPA will spend the next 20 years writing rules that will reduce the amount of glyphosphate in Roundup to the exact amount that is still lethal to children and other living things, but is cut enough to give Monsanto justification to piss and moan and bitch about Big Gubmint killing free enterprise and JERBS.

And the week after that:

An employee of Monsanto admitted there is a department to discredit any scientist opposed to them.

 The Roundup Hit Squad.

Get Your Seeds From Coops, Not Corporations

It's getting harder every year to find seeds that are not genetically modified to put real farmers out of business and turn a giant profit for Monsanto.

But in some countries, farmers are doing it for themselves.

Truthout:

In the face of overwhelming competition skewed by the rules of free trade, farmers in El Salvador have managed to beat the agricultural giants like Monsanto and Dupont to supply local corn seed to thousands of family farmers. Local seed has consistently outperformed the transnational product, and farmers helped develop El Salvador’s own domestic seed supply–all while outsmarting the heavy hand of free trade.

 Here in the States, try Seed Savers to find untreated, heirloom, non-GMO seeds.

85 Fucking Degrees 10 Days Before Last Frost Date: Get Used to It

Like I keep sayin': climate change/global warming does not mean always hotter weather, as we discovered this record-setting winter.  It means fucked-up weather.

Joe Romm at Think Progress:

The National Climate Assessment is the definitive statement of current and future impacts of carbon pollution on the United States. And the picture it paints is stark: Inaction will devastate much of the arable land of the nation’s breadbasket — and ruin a livable climate for most Americans.

“Americans face choices” explains the Congressionally-mandated report by 300 leading climate scientists and experts, which was reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences. We’re already seeing serious climate impacts — such as more extreme heat waves, droughts, and deluges — and additional impacts are “now unavoidable.” But just how bad future climate change is “will still largely be determined by choices society makes about emissions.”

SNIP

One reason we can be confident in the report’s projections of the future is that the same scientists warned decades ago that we would start to see increases in heatwaves, droughts and deluges by now — and we have:

The global warming of the past 50 years is primarily due to human activities, predominantly the burning of fossil fuels….
Over the last 50 years, much of the United States has seen an increase in prolonged periods of excessively high temperatures, more heavy downpours, and in some regions, more severe droughts.

The study notes, “Evidence indicates that the human influence on climate has already roughly doubled the probability of extreme heat events such as the record-breaking summer heat experienced in 2011 in Texas and Oklahoma.” At the same time, “In some regions, prolonged periods of high temperatures associated with droughts contribute to conditions that lead to larger wildfires and longer fire seasons.”

Don't come crying to me when weeks of triple-digit temperatures, months-long drought and massive flooding kill your garden this summer and lettuce goes for $100 a bag; tell it to the assholes with the "Friend of Coal" license plates.

Are You Growing Terrorist Tomatoes?

Between the ludicrous and destructive War On Drugs and the frantic desire of local law enforcement to find an excuse to use the expensive toys they got from Homeland Security, you can't plant a few veggies without incurring the wrath of The Man.

Digby:

 Imagine if they'd had some oregano growing in the basement:

Adlynn and Robert Harte sued this week to get more information about why sheriff's deputies searched their home in the upscale Kansas City suburb of Leawood last April 20 as part of Operation Constant Gardener — a sweep conducted by agencies in Kansas and Missouri that netted marijuana plants, processed marijuana, guns, growing paraphernalia and cash from several other locations.

April 20 long has been used by marijuana enthusiasts to celebrate the illegal drug and more recently by law enforcement for raids and crackdowns. But the Hartes' attorney, Cheryl Pilate, said she suspects the couple's 1,825-square-foot split level was targeted because they had bought hydroponic equipment to grow a small number of tomatoes and squash plants in their basement.

"With little or no other evidence of any illegal activity, law enforcement officers make the assumption that shoppers at the store are potential marijuana growers, even though the stores are most commonly frequented by backyard gardeners who grow organically or start seedlings indoors," the couple's lawsuit says.

SNIP

The suit filed in Johnson County District Court said the couple and their two children — a 7-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son — were "shocked and frightened" when deputies armed with assault rifles and wearing bulletproof vests pounded on the door of their home around 7:30 a.m. last April 20.

"It was just like on the cops TV shows," Robert Harte told The Associated Press. "It was like 'Zero Dark Thirty' ready to storm the compound."

SNIP 

When law enforcement arrived, the family had just six plants — three tomato plants, one melon plant and two butternut squash plants — growing in the basement, Harte said.

God bless America.

These people are former CIA employees and don't seem inclined to let this go. They don't say what kind of work they used to do for the agency, but it's always interesting to see how the police and national security apparatus employees feel when their government behaves toward them as if constitutional principles and moral values only apply in certain circumstances. They don't like it. In fact, nobody does.

Hopefully they'll follow through with their suit. It will be interesting to see if a judge or jury concur that buying hydroponic equipment is adequate probably cause to roust people in their homes.

Kentucky Encouraging Kids to Garden

I'll be damned. The how-to booklet for the kids on this program actually does not toe the Monsanto line. It doesn't promote organic principles and techniques either, but I'll take a small victory where I can get it.

From the AP:

The Kentucky Department of Agriculture usually deals with bigger farmers but has joined with the Governor's Office of Agricultural Policy to work with some younger potential growers. First lady Jane Beshear and Agriculture Commissioner James Comer have launched a program to show young people how they can plant their own gardens and grow food, even on a patio.

Comer says "A Kid's Guide to Gardening" also teaches the importance of learning the source of food.

Students from Kerrick Elementary School in Louisville attended the announcement, picking up their copies of the guides and receiving hands-on experience in harvesting and planting.

More information about the initiative, called "Ready, Set, Grow," is available along with the guide here.

Just How Democrats Roll

Zandar:

Republicans, complain all you want to about the President moving his acceptance speech Friday indoors due to storms, what the Democrats did afterwards for Charlotte is outstanding.

All the fancy catered food intended for the VIP suites and club rooms at the stadium – and perhaps even for the president himself – was redistributed Friday to local soup kitchens and shelters, via Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina.

On the menu: thousands of pounds of pecan-fried chicken, baked orzo, fresh crudités, three-bean bake, fresh-cut fruit and something called short rib cobbler.

SNIP 

“It’s really a wonderful order,” said Kay Carter of Second Harvest, which got 7,500 pounds of the food.

“None of this food will go to waste. We contacted every shelter and soup kitchen in town and asked them how much refrigeration capacity they have and how many are they feeding. It will all be gone at the end of the day.”

Second Harvest has a history of redistributing fresh food at a moment’s notice, she said, including leftovers from major golf tournaments.

 This is outstanding, and more people need to know about it.   Spread the word.

If you have a garden, and now have tomatoes and zucchini coming out your ears, pack up your extra and take it to your local soup kitchen, food bank or Second Harvest. Find them here. 

And take along some voter registration forms.

Fighting Frankenfood

The epitome of corporate arrogance is not refusing to pay taxes, not breaking the law with impunity, not purchasing state and national legislatures wholesale. It's suing state governments for trying to protect their citizens' health.

Liz Colville at Wonkette:

Monsanto, that sickening institution behind Agent Orange and strawberries made out of fish and sugar made out of Axe Body Spray,* has claimed and will probably claim until the end of time that you don’t really need to know that your “all-natural” cereal is actually created in a lab. DON’T YOU LIKE IT? Don’t you feel yourself turning into a Transformer? But the state of Vermont is particularly not thrilled about Monsanto’s coquettish behavior, and is trying to pass H. 722, which would require food labels to tell you whether a product is genetically modified, and would prevent that “all-natural” designation from appearing on the packaging of a GMO food, BECAUSE IT ISN’T. The corporation has so much disgusting dirty cash on hand, however, that it has decided to intimidate the people of Vermont — not a timid bunch, mind you — out of proceeding with the bill. The sad thing? It looks like it’s working. Fish strawberries WILL RISE AGAIN.

Alternet writes that Vermont lawmakers are actually “dragging their feet” over the bill because Monsanto is proving, once again, to be a bunch of bullies with enough money to put multiple entire law firms on its cases. One theory is that Vermont will have to “go it alone” in court if it passes the bill, because it will make the state the first in the nation with such a law. Instead of seeing this as HEROIC, certain lawmakers appear to be having second thoughts and are holding public hearings over the bill in what appears to be an effort to stall all the way until the end of the current legislative session in May. In other words, some Monsanto employee has handed over stacks of cash to some influential Vermonters, and it appears to be hushing them up nicely?

Perhaps if California passes its similar Right to Know Act, which is currently in the process of gathering signatures for the November ballot, Vermont would have the courage to be second in the nation? But the website of the bill, Vermont Right to Know GMOs, points out:

50 countries including the European Union, Japan and China already label genetically engineered foods. Vermont should be the leader on this important issue here in the United States.

Also, do not wait for California to do things! You may be waiting a long time, e.g. until the Second Coming of the Dinosaurs!

Because of our peerless legal system, if the bill goes forward, Monsanto will likely succeed in suing the entire state of Vermont and thus exercising its Right to Not Tell, just like it did with the rBGH milk fiasco, in which Monsanto’s lawyers were enticed by wads into arguing that milk producers should not have to declare whether their products contained that particular bovine growth hormone or not (AND WON).

Now, to what degree does this matter? Let this pretty chart from the USDA itself explain:

delicious

[Alternet]

*unverified

Have you started your vegetable garden yet? There's no excuse not to; even in the most urban apartment you can have a tomato plant in a container on your balcony.

Could Your Hometown Feed Itself?

This is so fucking cool.

Phoenix Woman at Firedoglake:

While tooling around on the Internet, I ran across the story of Todmorden, the market town in Yorkshire in the UK that, from a modest guerrilla-gardening start less than four years ago is now well on its way to self-sufficiency in foodstuffs. They’ve set a goal of self-sufficiency by 2018, and they’re already well on their way to that goal.

How do they do it? The ringleaders convinced the city authorities to let them set up community gardens anywhere and everywhere in town — abandoned lots, highway medians, ditches, you name it — and encourage the townsfolk to come and take as much as they wanted. For free. Even in front of the police station:

Outside the police station in the small Victorian mill town of Todmorden, West Yorkshire, there are three large raised flower beds.

If you’d visited a few months ago, you’d have found them overflowing with curly kale, carrot plants, lettuces, spring onions — all manner of vegetables and salad leaves.

Today the beds are bare. Why? Because people have been wandering up to the police station forecourt in broad daylight and digging up the vegetables. And what are the cops doing about this brazen theft from right under their noses? Nothing.

Well, that’s not quite correct.

‘I watch ’em on camera as they come up and pick them,’ says desk officer Janet Scott, with a huge grin. It’s the smile that explains everything.

For the vegetable-swipers are not thieves. The police station carrots — and thousands of vegetables in 70 large beds around the town — are there for the taking. Locals are encouraged to help themselves. A few tomatoes here, a handful of broccoli there. If they’re in season, they’re yours. Free.

So there are (or were) raspberries, apricots and apples on the canal towpath; blackcurrants, redcurrants and strawberries beside the doctor’s surgery; beans and peas outside the college; cherries in the supermarket car park; and mint, rosemary, thyme and fennel by the health centre.

It’s not just veggies and fruits the Tods are raising: They’ve got an egg campaign, other sorts of local livestock, an aquaponic fish-and-veg farm under development, and have inspired several other UK cities and towns to see how much of their own food they can produce.

Kentucky prides itself on broad swaths of green grass beside the highways and in the medians. Not only is this vast public acreage unproductive, it wastes millions of tax dollars in mowing and other maintenance. Why not turn it over to local gardeners to plant in food?

Occupy the medians!

Points to Missouri

Kentucky prisons do have agricultural and horticultural programs for inmates, but nothing this sophisticated.

Bon The Geek at Zandar's place:

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri prisoners have raised more than 50 tons of vegetables and fruit that have been given to food pantries around the state.

The Department of Corrections says this year's harvest was significantly higher than last year's, when the agency donated 29 tons of produce through its Restorative Justice Garden Program.

Under the program, all the seeds and plants are donated to the Corrections Department, which then donates all the resulting food to local pantries.

Everyone wins. Hungry people get a boost, and prisoners get a chance to contribute and do a good thing. This is the type of solution we should be looking for, where we take a resource not being used and give it a purpose that helps everyone involved.

Good job, guys.

If you've ever grown a garden, you know there are few things in this life as rewarding as harvesting your own produce. One of those few things is donating your surplus to your local soup kitchen or food bank.

Hard to imagine a program more likely to encourage personal, social and civic responsibility among inmates.

Restore Your Urban Neighborhood With A Community Garden

You don't need a billion-dollar urban renewal grant to restore a sense of community to your neighborhood; all you need is one person who remembers the exquisite taste of fresh-from-the-garden tomatoes.

And if they can do it in Louisville, you can do it anywhere.

Mary Ruth French saw a part of her childhood in the vacant lots that she and her husband own across the street from their strip mall in the Shawnee neighborhood.

One of the lots originally contained a home that had burned down; the other held two dilapidated homes, several trees and overgrown weeds.

But as French's husband, Anthony, tells it, an idea to put in a community garden struck her during one of the most barren times of the year — taking her back to her childhood growing up in Mays Lick, Ky.

“The garden was an idea she had in the snowstorm of 2008,” he said. “And it was a good one.”

Since then, the land has been cleared and turned into the Shawnee Garden of Principles, which is on Market Street near Amy Avenue. It now includes 15 plots.

A handful of people came out Saturday to weed and clean the garden space as part of Global Youth Service Day, an annual international event in which young people work to improve their communities.

“If you get the community involved with it, it's kind of neat,” said Marytha Johnson, a senior at Central High School who volunteered as a member of the Beta Club. “And if not, it's still a pretty plot to look at.”

Members of the Shawnee Neighborhood Association can adopt a plot, grow flowers and produce, and mingle with their neighbors at the garden, Mary Ruth French said.

Read the whole thing.

This article tells you everything you need to know about setting up a community garden in your neighborhood.

Change the World on Earth Day: Plant a Garden

Friend of mine went out to the yard a few weeks ago to enjoy some early spring warmth and sunshine. Unfortunately, the lawn company had just sprayed the place with the poisons used to create an unnatural perfection. My friend ended up seriously ill for almost a month. It's unprovable, but there's no doubt it was a reaction to the chemicals poured on the yard.

Honor Earth Day tomorrow by firing your lawn company (yes, even the ones that claim to be "green." If they're spraying anything other than compost tea on your lawn, it's poison. All chemical fertilizers, weed-killer and pest-killers are also made from petroleum sold by mooslin terists.)

Organic lawn care is easier, healthier and far, far, FAR cheaper.

Or make it really easy, healthy and cheap by turning that unproductive grass into delicious, fresh organic vegetables or gorgeous flowers.

If you plant heirloom flowers and vegetables, you need to buy seed only once - save the seeds and plant them again next year. The best source is Seed Savers Exchange.

You don't even need an actual yard. Try container gardening on your porch, balcony or roof.

As I wrote two years ago:

This year, try thinking beyond the usual annual borders and weeded-and-feeded grass carpets.

How about maintenance-free groundcovers that never need to be mowed? Some have tiny flowers or a pleasant scent.

Instead of annuals you have to drive to the garden center to buy and replant every years, flowering perennials are more expensive up front, but once established keep blooming for years. Check the UK Horticulture Department, or your local Cooperative Extension Office, for ideas.

Or try native wildflowers and wildlife habitat gardens through the Salato Wildlife Center's Native Plant Program, or global-warming-fighting native shrubs and trees. Outside Kentucky, your local Cooperative Extension Office can help.

For great alternatives to lawns, plant lists, step-by-step instructions and fabulous photos, try the most popular gardening magazine in the country.

The key, and the first step, is to stop thinking of your yard as something that has to be maintained, and start thinking of it as a place to be enjoyed.

Not to mention saving the planet.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

Cures for the Lawn Ghetto

Mother's Day is the tradtional start of flower-planting season in Kentucky. This year, try thinking beyond the usual annual borders and weeded-and-feeded grass carpets.

How about maintenance-free groundcovers that never need to be mowed? Some have tiny flowers or a pleasant scent.

Instead of annuals you have to drive to the garden center to buy and replant every years, flowering perennials are more expensive up front, but once established keep blooming for years. Check the UK Horticulture Department for ideas.

Or try native wildflowers and wildlife habitat gardens through the Salato Wildlife Center's Native Plant Program, or global-warming-fighting native shrubs and trees.

For great alternative ideas, plant lists, step-by-step instructions and fabulous photos, try the most popular gardening magazine in the country.

The key, and the first step, is to stop thinking of your yard as something that has to be maintained, and start thinking of it as a place to be enjoyed.

In Slate, Tom Vanderbilt writes of suburban "lawn ghettos," starting with a screed against giant multi-colored play equipment but ending with a plea for making lawns a more inviting place for both children and adults to play:

The unused plastic playthings and private playgrounds scattered in the barren yard speak not only to vanishing outdoor play but to a larger cultural disconnect from nature, from one's own environment. But there is a simple solution for this. Instead of buying cheap, potentially toxic plastic water slides and the like, plant a garden. Plant a tree. Plant something. It may not impress your neighbor, but it will last longer, it will look better, and it will have a better effect on the environment than plastic slides.

And there is another benefit. In his book Second Nature, Michael Pollan writes touchingly about a hedge of lilac and forsythia at his childhood home on Long Island, N.Y. To the adult eye, the hedges were simply flush against the fence. But he had his own secret garden, a space between the hedge and the fence. "To a four-year-old, though, the space made by the vaulting branches of a forsythia is as grand as the inside of a cathedral, and there is room enough for a world between a lilac and a wall." He didn't need a plastic playhouse or an obscene mini-McMansion to find space to play.

The natural world, when it is embraced, not only provides the opportunity for play—I imagine many of you, like me, have fond childhood memories of a swing hanging from a tree, or a tree house, or jumping in leaves, or running through the sprinkler as it watered the tomatoes—but connects us all to something larger and more lasting.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.