I guess just because it's not allowed in "organic" ag doesn't mean it's not organic. I mean it isn't synthetic

One of the church gardens I help with has used it. They thought organic on the package label meant it met the standards for organic gardening (organic food).

They wanted to produce organic quality food but were tricked into using human waste instead.

Just makes me sad. Any lie is OK if someone is getting rich.

Johnny

Just to be clear I'm not ok with it either. There is a lot of arguments out there that it is safe. I won't use it for food at all.

I just wrote a letter to the USDA asking them to explain the contradiction.

Dawn,

I was talking to a friend the other day who works at one of the chain "organic" food stores. He said he routinely sees organic produce stacked on the bottom of shipments and stored that way too. The water from the conventional grown food runs freely over the organic food rendering it considerably less than organic. He has had skin breakouts from that same water. He has to handle it all to stock the shelves and even washing often doesn't help the reaction to the chemicals.

Makes me so sad.

Johnny

PS - I'm reading the article now.

I am wondering which country I should move to. SO disgusted...

Our whole country will resemble the Love Canal some day. Our descendants deserve better.

Dawn,

I have to differ with you on "where the problem lies." GREED and poor governance is where the problem lies. IMHO

Johnny

Our whole country probably already resembles Love Canal more than we'd like to admit. When they do blood tests for chemical exposure in people, measuring residues of all kinds of chemicals including pesticides, they often find dozens of kinds of residues in one person's blood sample. It is horrifying to think about. How does the average person get all this in their bloodstream? I'm guessing in multiple ways that include through the air we breathe, the water we drink and in which we bathe, and the food we eat. It is disgusting. Everything is contaminated and you cannot escape it. It isn't just a problem in the USA---it is worldwide. We're poisoning the world and ourselves. I do not believe there is any such thing as clean air or clean water any more.

In most places you are not allowed to do anything with gray water except send it down the same sewage system as black water, yet they can recycle sludge to use on food crops. Go figure that one.

As fresh water becomes more and more scarce we will have to find ways to dispose of human waste without using potable water to flush. I believe we must find a better way although I am not willing to use the composting toilets that now exist. I believe there are many places where gray water could be run through reed beds and used for irrigation purposes, especially if fewer dangerous chemicals were a part of that gray water in the first place. When we have an abundance of something we tend to waste it, but once it becomes scarce, we find a better way.

I read something the other day about a proposal in Oklahoma to NOT increase fresh water use in 2060 over what was used in 2010 Water for 2060. If we achieve that, we have to make some drastic changes in the amount of water we waste.

This may seem off topic, but I think it is all part of the same problem.

soonergrandmom,

Not at all off topic. Creating a sustainable habitation system IS the topic.

The Ogallala Aquifer is starting to produce salty water because we have pumped most of the good (sweet) water from it already. Just a hundred years of pumping to use up millions of years of deposited water.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer

Johnny

I remember walking in the woods with my mother when I was little. She would pick some water cress and we would eat it. Not now!

We used to eat frogs legs. A whole family was admitted to hospital in Central Oklahoma for eating frogs legs a few years ago.

Sad really.

Carol, I know! And if you think about it for too long, it will make you crazy.

We had so many terrible drought years here in the early 2000s that I quickly learned not to waste water and not to overwater for sure. Water was rare and it was very expensive and I couldn't afford to waste a single drop. Prior to that, drought had been relatively rare in my life as a gardener, except for the Drought of 1980 in Texas which stood as the benchwork for the driest/hottest year ever in my garden until 2011 came along.

I do not dryland garden, but I do irrigate as little as I possibly can get away with doing. If we are having a very dry year, it just doesn't make sense for me to water like crazy and produce tons of new foliage that then demands a steady flow of water to keep it happy. Instead, I am hard on my plants and try to make them survive and produce on whatever moisture they get without much irrigation.

It all is related. Soil health and water health matter, and I believe the health of the food we grow in this world directly relates to the health of the water, soil and air. Everything we do is connected and our results are affected what other people are doing as well. For example, I can have the most amazing garden in the world one day, and have a garden dying the next day if someone around me is not careful with herbicides and drift from their herbicides hits my garden. That is extremely frustrating, and my garden gets hit really hard some times, and multiple times some years. There is nothing the gardener can do to prevent it, and you're just at the mercy of anyone using herbicides within a mile or so of your house, especially if they're doing it on a windy day. I wish people would remember when they are spraying chemicals of any sort that their air is everyone else's too. With the high degree of concern about the Zika virus, I bet we'll see communities spraying like crazy for mosquitoes, and the pesticides they use will kill more insects than just the mosquitoes.

Dawn

This is a sad story that I haven't told here and still makes me mad to think about it. A week ago last Saturday, we started to lose water pressure from our city supplied water source. Al called the trouble desk and was told that we had a water main break on the street a block from us. I drove around the neighborhood to see if I could see what was happening. I had to turn around and come home because a street was blocked off because of a felled tree that was across the road. I then walked over to that part of the neighborhood and a lady yelled at me to watch out for the bees. They had hired a fly-by-night tree cutter to come in and trim their trees and take one down. It appeared that they had cut all of the limbs off first then cut the tree leaving a stump that was about 4 feet tall. The trunk of the tree was from one side of the road to the other and the top was in the yard across the street. As the tree went down, one small piece about 4-8 inches wide had come out with the trunk so there was this tall stump with a segment missing from top to bottom and water gushing out of it because the water line underneath was broken.

My son and grandson went over and starting looking at the tree. There were lots of bees and we could see honey comb. A lot of the bees were clustered on the small piece that had come out of the tree. We didn't want the bees to die, so decided it was worth a shot to try and save them. We couldn't find a beehive in our town, but drove to the next town and bought one. By the time we got home with it another concerned neighbor had found another cluster of wood with comb attached with bees and had it waiting for us. By this time, it was dark so we really couldn't tell exactly what we had. Then we learned the WORST news of all. It seems before we arrived on the scene, those jerks had sprayed the bees, along with the honey, with wasp spray to try to kill the bees.

Long story short...we didn't get the queen. The bees that we did managed to get into the hive have mostly stayed there, but we have fewer everyday. So, from the couple of hundred we salvaged, only a few are left and will soon be gone.

So gallons and gallons of water flowed out of the line and down to the lake before the water department could get the water shut off and the line repaired. Hundreds of bees died that shouldn't have, and all of the honey was contaminated with wasp spray. I just keep telling myself that you can't fix stupid, but it still makes me mad and sad.

I guess the only good part of this is that I now have a new beehive and once all the bees are gone, I can paint the outside and have it ready for the next opportunity. I have always wanted bees, but Al is so allergic to stings that I have avoided having a hive knowing that only I would be able to work with it.

soonergrandmom,

You did your best. That is all we can do.

What are you going to grow for your bees? I plan to plant a bunch of clover down by the creek near our new ten acre plot. I think it will reseed itself.

Johnny

Carol, Y'all did all you could. It sure is a shame those guys sprayed the bees with wasp spray. I agree that you can't fix stupid, but you sure wonder how these guys have missed hearing about the plight of the honeybees for umpteen years now.

Johnny, My clover does reseed itself but it hasn't spread very much in five years. Know why? Because the rabbits adore it and eat it right down to the ground every chance they get. When it regrows, they eat it down to the ground again. So, my feeling about clover is that if you want to attract adorable cottontail rabbits, just plant some clover. I love seeing the cottontails hopping around every morning and every evening, so it isn't a problem for me, and the clover isn't in a garden spot, so they can have it if they want it....as if I could keep them out of it anyway.

Dawn

This is an interesting discussion. I am 35 years old and have been hearing about how the environment has been destroyed and the impending end of the world ever since I was old enough to go to school. Earth day, acid rain, the ozone hole, CFCs, 6 pack rings strangling animals, paper versus plastic, mutually assured destruction, Exxon Valdez, too much logging, too much trash, Styrofoam, Ted Danson says the ocean will die in ten years, save the whales, save the rainforests, oat bran is bad, oat bran is good, eggs are bad, eggs are good, etc.

Lately it's been global warming, hockey stick temperature graphs, polar bears, Al Gore, driving pickups and SUVs will kill us and we have to turn the thermostat up 5 degrees so the ocean levels don't rise (remember Jimmy Carter and his sweater?). I've been fed a steady diet of this ever since I was about 6.

Frankly, after all those lies I don't believe anything so called environmentalists tell us anymore. I think they're mostly just a bunch of disaffected communists and Marxists looking for their next revolution or something to live for because their lives are so empty.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not burning Styrofoam or pouring motor oil in the creek. However, I think there are things that are much more important and more importantly truthful.

The director at St. Francis is very interested in honey bees. I hope to take advantage of the existing riparian areas there for clover plots. Those areas are not currently valued by the organization. I think that will change if I can establish some self renewing clover stands.

Suggestions for other bee friendly plants will be appreciated.

osuengineer,

I always value your thought provoking posts. Please elaborate about what you deem more important.

Sincerely,

Johnny

Johnny, I have quite a few things that bloom, but I bought some Crimson Clover seed that I thought I would just scatter in my flower bed this year. Even if I never get bees, I can put the hive at my son's farm at some point. I was a little surprised to see a bee tree so close to my house because I get a few honey bees in my garden, but more bumble bees than honey bees.

Hopefully my son can successfully keep bees since he seems to have quite a few around. The scary part about his house is that he lives in an area with commercial farming and they spray from planes. He doesn't farm, or even garden, but he has a gazillion blooming trees and plants.

osuengineer - I hate 'the sky is falling' approach to everything, and believe that globing warming is not 'real' science, but mostly 'political' science, but I do know that there is climate change, shortages of clean water, stupid water laws, and too many trees have been removed. I don't think mono-cropping is good for the earth, and I know that the herbicides and pesticides are having adverse effects on the environment and our health. Since I am twice your age, I have had a lot of years to see the damage being done, and I don't like it. My approach is to not stick my head in the sand and deny what I can see, but to start where I am with what I can change. I can grow healthy food for my family, plant a tree or three, and improve the land where I live. I can also not vote for politicians that support or fail to support issues that they don't study or understand. I think we can make a difference even if it is just in our own yard. I also wish they would just speak the truth, and cut out the nonsense.

Johnny, In my garden, bees love blue flowers and they particularly love herbs in bloom (basil, borage, chamomile (in bloom right now), tansy, lemon balm, catnip, catmint, any kind of real mint, yarrow, rosemary, all sages and their ornamental cousins, the salvias, dill, fennel, etc.). Really, they love anything with small flowers, especially when the small flowers present as big clusters like they do with yarrow and verbena bonariensis. I also use lots of annual flowers, and I like the ones you can grow from seed. I also prefer old-fashioned O-P varieties of flowers because the bees like them. Some modern-day hybrids lack either the pollen or the nectar that little flying creatures need, so I largely avoid the modern-day hybrids. For example, old-fashioned Fig-leaved hollyhock is much more popular with bees in my garden than some of the newer hollyhock varieties with fancier-looking flowers.

I grow most of the flowers on the linked list for the bees (and butterflies and other small flying pollinators):

Somebody's List of Top 30 Flowers for Bees

In late winter/early spring, nothing attracts the bees like my potted citrus plants when they are blooming. I noticed yesterday that the mandarin orange was a (pun intended) beehive of activity.

Dawn

If you want bees and lots of them, just plant some buckwheat and they will come. And it will reseed itself indefinitely. Getting rid of it once it has reseeded is another story!

Johnny,

The short answer to what is most important would be truth. The long answer would have several parts.

First would be, where will you spend eternity? Separated from God or with God in his presence. That is the most important.

Second would be worship the Creator, not his creation. I could go on and on about the Pantheism that seems to be ever increasing these days.

Third would be to value human life above animal or plant life. We are all created in the image of God.

soonergrandmom,

There are actually more trees in the US than there were 100+ years ago. I grew up in northwest Oklahoma where there many many more trees than when the area was settled in the 1890s. Man has contributed to this by stopping the naturally occurring grass fires that had burned millions of acres of prairie. However, that is just a tiny percentage of the increase.

The advances in herbicides and pesticides have helped to increase crop yields and world population considerably in the last century. The climate changes on its own for reasons we do and don't understand. The arrogance of man in thinking that he can change the weather or climate is absurd.

I could go on and on about ridiculous regulations and laws that restrict progress every day. We force people to drive on deteriorated bridges longer than they have to or use detours longer than they should, simply because there is a beetle, muscle or fish that could be impacted. We waste millions and millions of dollars paying people for environmental clearances and permits and slower construction time for bats and birds. If people understood the ridiculous amount of time and money we waste to save cliff and barn swallows there would be a revolt. Especially considering the "habitat" we are "destroying" is a man made bridge.

I guess to sum it all up:

Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.

21 The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

22 “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”

osuengineer,

As usual your post is thought provoking. I have been working in our 12th Street garden all day, so I'm tired. I will have a reply soon.

Again, thanks for all the food for thought.

Johnny

PS - I try to learn something from everyone I meet.

LoneJack Zn 6a, KC,

Thank you. buckwheat is my go to summer cover crop. We will be planting 10 acres of it very soon. I'll take that opportunity to plant the riparian areas.

Johnny

soonergrandmom,

Thank you. You have just written my reply to osuengineer. I couldn't have said it better even with three adult berevages.

Johnny

PS - I'm really excited about rejuvenating the 10 acres we have just assumed responsibility for. It has been under mono crop wheat for many decades.

Johnny