^CityGardening

A Monthly Newsletter for Toronto Gardeners  

Culturing Lawns, Countering Pests, Diseases, Weeds

But long, hot dog days of summer make for a gardening slowdown

            Monday, August 6^th is Simcoe Day named after our first Lieutenant Governor.  Those of the gardening fraternity might have fonder recollections of his wife.  One of the first amateur botanists and noted diarist to live here, her many observations of what are now valued garden flowers still fascinate over two centuries after she first penned them.  And for those with less than fond appreciation of Toronto’s squirrels, she also recorded her favourite dish was settlers’ black squirrel stew … now to practical gardening

            Good news indeed for lawns: Levels of infestation were down this spring for European chafer and Japanese beetles, the adult forms of the notorious white grubs.  Consequently, it is expected that these pests will be much less of a problem from now through fall.  Discourage them further by not mowing the lawn below 2-inches high.  Allowing it to dry out between waterings, but not wilting or browning, is another proven cultural control.  Some success has been claimed with inoculation of a parasitic nematode that lays eggs on the grubs, so killing them.  These microscopic worms are sold here under the name of Lawn Guardian and must be watered into the grass.  They are harmless to other forms of life but some reports advise that it takes some months to entirely eliminate their grub prey.

            Other than mowing, lawns will benefit from an application of fertilizer late this month as cooler night temperature encourages growth.  If you desire a non-chemical regime for your garden, be wary of brand claiming to be “Natural,” “Organic,” or with similar wording on the bag.  It pays to read the fine print.  Many, if not most, also contain synthetic chemicals to boost their effect.  

            Very little else requires fertilizing, blandishments of manufacturers notwithstanding.  In fact, feeding woody plants and perennials  at this time may prevent them from preparing for winter.  The result can be anything up to and including heavy loss of valued specimens.  Annuals and houseplants are possible exceptions.  Even here a light hand for the next couple of months is advisable.

            Roses, perennials and many annuals will benefit from continued dead heading.  This encourages constant bloom, removes possible sources of disease and prevents self-seeding.  This latter is a most undesirable trait in, for example, summer phlox.  Allowed to go to seed, valued and expensive named varieties will disappear beneath the weedy growth of the original pink phlox, also highly prone to powdery mildew at this time of year, as are bergamot and lilacs.  Several proprietary brands of chemicals may control this if applied early enough.  Natural garden proponents often recommend a banking soda spray.  Resistant varieties are frequently advised in reference books, hardly of help when the problem is here and now.  Weekly weeding should continue.  Much nonsense from Thoreau’s time to the present has been written on these garden invaders.  Root them out and consign to the composter.

            Having a garden party but not time to weed clean and generally have everything spic and span?  An easy way out is to mow the lawn, then use a turf edger, the tool with a crescent-shaped blade at the business end, to trim around every bed and along paths and driveways.  Sweep up the trimmings and behold, a magnificent garden.  Most of your guests couldn’t tell a weed from a weigela.  Any true gardeners present will be too polite to comment.

New Daylily Disease Detected

            The Asian daylily rust, Puccinia hemerocallidis, was detected late last year in the southern United States.  It is probably only a matter of time before it spreads further north to invade Canada.  It is also said to possibly infect Hostas, although “that evidence is questionable,” says Jennifer Llewllyn, an Ontario government nursery crops specialist in Guelph.

She says that “the fungus causes typical, raised yellow-orange to rust-brown pustules on the underside of the leaf.  The lesion may be nothing more than a fleck on more resistant varieties.”  Llewllyn gives no indication of any effective control.  Other rusts, such as that of hollyhocks, is best checked by removing and destroying all leaves and other parts which show the fungus and possible spraying with a chemical fungicide.

            Unfortunately, some highly desirable varieties are susceptible, including the very popular dwarf form Stella D’Oro.  Other known to be also singled out for attack by P. hemerocallidis include attribution, Colonel Scarborough, Crystal Tide, Double Buttercup, Gertude Condon, Imperial Guard, Joan Senior, Pardon Me and Starstruck.

            For more information as well as pictures, visit www.aphis.usda.gov/npb/daylily.html or www.doacs.state.fl.us/~pi/enpp/pathology/daylirust.html.  As said, although it has not been detected in Canada yet, any outbreaks should be reported to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency at 1-800-442-2342.  At present, daylily rust has been confirmed as being present only in Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee.

2, 4-D Cleared by EPA

            In an attempt to dispel the controversy that continues to rage over the widely used selective herbicide 2,4-D, Landscape Ontario, a professional association, recently forwarded to its members research by the Industry Task Force II on 2,4-D Research Data: Endocrine Disruptors.  It makes for fascinating reading:

            In July 1998, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a draft list of chemicals for their endocrine disruption High Throughput Screening (HTPS) demonstration studies, in accordance with the Food Quality Protection Act (FOPA) mandate to test chemicals for endocrine effect.

            2, 4-d was among the first 168 chemicals that had been selected by the EPA to go through the tier one high volume-screening test.  The 1998 list included chemicals that are in three categories: 1) suspected of endocrine potential; and 2) unknown to have no endocrine effects with adequate reproductive, developmental and other studies.

            2,4-D was placed on the 1998 list in the third category based on two criteria:

1)     Substances known to have no hormonal activity, i.e., negative action to estrogen, androgen and thyroid receptor transactivation assay (EAT negative).

2)     Substances with adequate and extensive in vivo databases, including developmental and reproduction studies.

Unlike alleged endocrine disrupters, 2,4-D in not persistent in the environment, having a half-life of about seven days.  It eventually breaks down to carbon, carbon dioxide and a trace amount of chlorine – all of no toxicological significance.  2, 4-D does not accumulate in the body, does not metabolize and is excreted in the urine uncharged.  In summation, under EPA’s classification of potential endocrine disrupters 2,4-D is a Category 3 compound – a chemical “known to have no endocrine effects.”

      More available from the Industry Task Force II on 2,4-D at: B-26 Cedar Point Villas, Swansboro, NC 28584; visit www.24d.org, call (252) 393-3428, fax (252) 393-6327; information line for U.S. and Canada 1-800-345-5109.

Supreme Court Decision Encourages Environmental Activists

Legal eagles excited over proposed new bans of ‘cosmetic’ pesticides

            “Without question, many consumers have the impression that the use of pesticides on our landscapes do nothing more than ’cosmetic,’ and that our landscape do not warrant the use of these products to keep them healthy and vibrant.  We must do a better job of communicating to the public that this is not the case,” Ken Pavely, Healthy Lawns Information Coordinator, Horticultural Review, May 2001.

            “Years ago, we started this process by looking at phasing out pesticides on all public property.  We are about 90 to 95 per cent of the way there on public property.  Now we’re taking the next logical step in light of the decision of the Supreme Court that municipalities have the authority to regulate, restrict pesticides use.”  Toronto Councillor Joe Milhevc, chairman of the city’s Board of Health, proposing to ban the ‘cosmetic’ use of pesticides in Toronto as well as their sale, July 2001.

“If I were a gardener or a homeowner I would be pretty concerned about this ruling.  It’s about the ability of Canadians to make decisions themselves about what they want to do on their own personal property,” Kimberly Bates, executive director of the Urban Pest Management Council.

“We see this as a double victory for democracy and the environment.  Municipalities can now decide if this is something they want to do,” Peggy Land, an Ottawa-based environment activists.

It simply irritates green activists to their core that many people, maybe most, have a penchant for order and think green grass is aesthetically pleasing.  It’s a sign of human intelligence and achievement.  Neat, tended and orderly ground space is evidence of human beings enjoying themselves.”  Terence Corcoran, National Post, May 25^th, 2001.

“We’re thrilled.  We’ve had municipalities across Canada just waiting with their fingers crossed for this decision.” Angela Rickman, Sierra Club of Canada.

There are around 7,000 pesticides approved for use in this country by health Canada.  In 1991, residents of Hudson, near Montreal, decided they wanted a by-law banning their use.  Chemlawn and Spraytech, two companies engaged in keeping residential and commercial properties free of pests, diseases and weeds, challenged this by-law.

It has taken a decade to fight the matter all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada.  The pesticide company’s arguments were in vain.  Municipalities now have the legal right, it would seem, to ban the use of pesticides for ‘cosmetic’ purposes, if not for agricultural use.

Even Councillor Milevc admits though, that it is dubious if Toronto has the right to ban the sale of pesticides.  Certainly any such attempt would face prolonged legal challenges, if nothing else.  And in the end all would most likely be for nought.

Halifax, Nova Scotia, has successfully passed a law to ban the use of pesticides but not the sale of them.  The result?  Sales in the city have remained the same, according to pesticide manufacturers earlier this year.

Another Toronto Councillor, Michael Prue, has pointed out that fifty years ago, if gardeners wanted a weed-free lawn, they dug out dandelions and the like with knives.  Not all residents of Toronto, some 10 per cent of Canada’s population, are so enthused as a politician in regressing a half century.  Still, this has been advocated as such an alternative in the past pages of City Gardening.

Undoubtedly, enthusiastic councillors under very vocal pressure from environmental activists, a considerable proportion of the populace pass will simply ignore such legislation.  Many will do so because they functionally illiterate and cannot read a product label, much less a by-law.  The same unfortunately is true of at least some garden centre operators and their staff.  Despite not holding a provincial spray operator’s permit, they spray pests on their plants.  Then, also in defiance of Ontario laws, they fail to post warning signs.  At least one such offending Toronto outlet even features a well-equipped children’s playground.

Neither are spray companies with their supposedly trained technicians always in safe and sensible compliance.  Recently a crew were seen to apply herbicide to an apartment lawn despite strong winds blowing the spray over an adjoining well sed municipal sidewalk.

It may be possible to legislate against pesticide use for ‘cosmetic’ purposes.  But it will be impossible to enforce such legislation.  The choice will remain with the home gardener, if not the professional.

Horticultural Happenings

Events of interest to gardeners in the Toronto area and elsewhere

Spadina House Gardens

            Historic garden tours Wednesday & Sundays from 1:30 to 3 p.m. conducted by knowledgeable gardeners; free with $5 admission to the house.  285 Spadina Rd; for more information call (416) 392-6910

Toronto Field Naturalist Outings & Talks

            Free guided walks; children welcome but please no pets; all are TTC accessible; dress according to weather, bring beverage, camera, notebook and binoculars; for more information on walks call (416) 593-2656

   August 1^st  –    East Don Parklands birds & butterflies; meet at 9:30 a.m. Northeast corner of Sheppard East and Leslie; bring a lunch; also wildflowers in abundance.

   August 8^th –     Beltline evening ramble; meet at 6:45 p.m. at Lawrence West subway station.

August 18^th  –    Little Norway Park & other Gardens cultural heritage; meet at 2 p.m. Southwest corner of Queen’s Quay West and Bathurst; includes the new Music Gardens, as well as others.

August 22^nd  –    Toronto Island butterflies; meet at 10 a.m. ferry docks at foot of Bay St; bring a lunch; birds, butterflies, wildflowers.

August 26^th  –    Burke Brooke Garden Tour; meet at 2 p.m. southeast corner of Eglinton East and Bayview Ave; urban ecology and gardens.

August 29^th  –     Todmorden Mills insects; meet at 11a.m. at bottom entrance of the Pottery Rd hill, which runs west off of Broadview; also herbs, wildflowers, etc.

Farmers’ Markets in Toronto

            Titillate the taste buds with fresh Ontario produce: Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto City Hall 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Wednesday June 6^th to October 3^rd.

               Mondays  – East York Civic Centre, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 11^th to

                                       October 1^st.

Thursdays  –   Mel Lastman Square, North York Civic Centre, 10 a.m. to

                           2 p.m., June 14^th to October 25^th.

Saturdays   –   Etobicoke Civic Centre 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., June 6^th to October 20^th.

High Park Walking Tours

August 7^th – 6:45 p.m., forest fire – friend or foe?

May 29^th  – 8 p.m., moth night (great for kids too), meet at Grenadier Café on the West Road in the park; each walk is about 2 hours long; for more information call (416) 392-1748.

International Society of Arborists

August 12 to 15^th  –   ISA’s International Conference at the Hilton          Milwaukee City Centre, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; visit www.isa-arbor.com for details.

Avonlea Community Garden

            Planning is underway for a new community garden in East York; meet August 2^nd at 7 p.m. in Main Square Community Centre, 269 Main St and become part of a unique neighbourhood project; for more information call (416) 693-6278 (Jill) or (416)-991-7490 (Solomon).

Still more, outside of Toronto but of Special interest, are these events:

Richters Free Seminars

Sundays   – 2 p.m. 1km east of Goodwood on south side of Hwy 47 (Bloomington Rd at Hwy404); for more information call (905) 649-6677 and/or visit www.richters.com

August 12^th – Harvesting Herbs.

August 19^th –  Organic Herb Gardening.

Also …

August 19^th  – 5^th Annual Richters Herb Farm: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with door prizes, lucky draw, herbal foods, products and gifts by local artisans, free demonstrations, kids corner, herb walk, music.

August 26^th  –  Workshop: Building Smudge $40 as with all Richters workshops pre-registration two weeks in advance is required; limited space; all materials included in fee; commences at 2 p.m.

4^th Annual Gardens of Inspiration

August 26^th – The Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation holds its fund-raising full day themed garden tour for gardening enthusiasts.  Tickets $200 includes breakfast, luxury coaches to gardens in the Lake Simcoe area, gourmet food and tips from gardening celebrities.  Proceeds go to support the hospitals Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care Program.  Call (416) 946-4574 and/or visit www.princessmargarethosp.com for further details.

Horticulture Magazine’s Garden Program

August 24^th to September 7^th –    Springtime in the Western Cape, South Africa including famed Namaqualand and Kirstenbosch; small group limited space and numbers.  For more registration details call 1-800-395-1901.

Potato Days

August 24 to 25^th  –   East of Fargo, North Dakota.  Don’t miss celebrating the Red River Valley’s pre-eminent potato producing place with mashed potato wrestling, potato picking and mashed potato sculpture contest; for more information call 800-525-4901 and/or visit www.potatodays.com

News from a Gardener’s View Point

City Gardening peers at the past month’s news from Canada and elsewhere

Landscaping

☻     Turn Singapore into a garden city, the Prime Minister urges 4-million citizens, by creating high-rise gardens and forget pettifogging bureaucratic controls.

☻     Rosedale ratepayers are aghast as Gerry Schwartz and Heather Reisman tear down a neighbouring house to enlarge their garden, after already demolishing a second home for the same purpose and purchasing two more adjacent properties.

☻     The ubiquitous pressure-treated lumber, known as ‘PTL’ in the trade, will shortly carry warning labels as, according to research, the arsenic compounds with which it is impregnated can leach out over time.

Trees

☻     A proposed parking lot for a visitor center to Vancouver Island’s “Cathedral Grove” of old growth forest in MacMillan Park has environmentalist scandalized.

☻     In an attempt to head off confrontation between environmentalists and scientist creating genetically modified (GM) trees, a symposium is held in conjunction with the International Union of Forestry Research Organization (IUFRO)

☻     France’s Minister of Agriculture, Jean Glavany, causes an uproar when he labels the classic rows of plane trees lining French rural roads as a “public danger” and “we can cut them down and plant them elsewhere.”

☻     Black ash, essential to New Brunswick native people’s basket making and medicine, is in short supply so a reserve there will use a $25,000 provincial Environmentalists Trust fund grant to seek our more sources.

☻     A tree falling on a Strasbourg, France, concert kill 10 and injures 85

☻     Calgary residents are instructed to water trees or lose them do to severe heat, but the city’s tree canopy is already less than what is considered desirable.

☻     Trees can respond aggressively to the light cast by their neighbours, reports the journal Nature.

Lawns

☻     A U.S. study urges hearing protection for children, especially from loud lawn mowers, concerts, fireworks and toys.

☻     Officials prowling the city to detect miscreants in the early morning hours enforce a Cranbrook, B.C., ban of garden irrigation.

☻     A Swedish researcher reports that since, unlike U.S. lawnmowers, European ones along with other gas engine garden machinery, are not fitted with catalytic converters, pollutants including carcinogens and carbon monoxide are being spewed across the continent.

☻     “We all know that car emissions contribute to air pollution.  But did you know that running a lawn mower for one hour is equivalent to driving a car 500 kilometres?”  David Anderson, Environment Minister, to Senate Standing Committee on Energy, Environment & Nature Resources.

Flowers

☻     “colour is another easy trend to apply to your wardrobe.  Guys can sport pastels such as lilac, mint and hot brights such as purple and fuchsia.”  ‘Street Style,’ GTA Today.

☻     Two years after the discovery, New Scientist catches up with a paper in the British Medical Journal entitled “Viagra makes flowers stand up straight,” which demonstrates the drug prolongs the lives of cut flowers.

☻     Long’s Braya, an endangered plant that only exists in a very small area of Newfoundland, has hundreds of specimens destroyed by a careless construction crew seeking to improve an airstrip to accommodate pesticide-spraying planes used to preserve balsam firs for the pulp paper industry.

☻     A new perfume to be worn by cats and their owners, ‘Oh My Cat,’ is composed of bergamot freesia, jasmine, magnolia and mandarin orange to attract humans, together with a touch of olive leaf oil to appeal to the felines, just US$32 per 50ml.

Down in the Vegetables

☻     The Canadian Tomato Alliance files a complaint with Canada Customs, alleging dastardly U.S. growers of dumping tomatoes onto Canadian markets.  A few weeks earlier, strangely enough, the same U.S. growers accused their Canadian counterparts of similar reverse action.

☻     Grading tomatoes by tapping the opposite end to the stalk and making them vibrate is recommended by the Laboratory of Agricultural Machinery and processing in Leuhaven, Belgium.

☻     A subspecies of the elephant yam, Dioscorea elephantipes that was believed extinct is rediscovered in South Africa.  The edible tubers of the yam can weigh up to 300 kilograms.

☻     Cucumber rhumba: Frank, the Canadian satirical magazine, invents yet another term for intercourse.

Fruit & Nuts

☻     The Canada Food Inspection Agency assures Canadians that imported bananas cannot possibly infect citizens with the flesh-consuming bacterial disease necrotizing fasciitis.

☻     Strawberries in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley rot and go unpicked thanks to weather and a lack of pickers.

☻     A Burlington, Ontario, black walnut street tree is denting cars and pounding people with its nuts but the city council refuse to cut down a healthy tree. This proves some politicians are sensible and modern cars not exactly strongly built.

☻     The cherry harvest in orchards around Oliver B.C., are threatened when pickers walk off the job.

☻     The Canadian armed forces clear a former artillery range in New Brunswick of shells to allow people to pick blueberries.

☻     Prime Minister Jean Chretien receives “decorative grapes” from the president of Chile, according to Saturday Magazine, while Deputy Prime Minister Herb Gray is the recipient of a spice-storage tray from his Malaysian counterpart.

☻     A Guelph University professor announces that the new developing highly flavoured strawberries he is developing have “amazing … second levels of grape, orange and banana.”

☻     The U.S. National Watermelon Promotion Board hopes to persuade us that there is an excellent health food and good for breakfast, too.

Herbs

☻     U.S. researchers analyzed the use of Echinacea, phedra, garlic, ginseng, kava, St. John’s wort and valerian for a study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association and warns that their use could be critical before and after surgery.

☻     The scent of peppermint increases some athletes’ performances, claims psychologist Bryan Raudenbush at Wheeling Jesuit University, West Virginia but only for simpler sports, not those where more skills is required, such as hockey.

Indoor Plants

☻     In an interview with Weekend Post, David Tarrant admits to not having any houseplants as “because I’m away so often they’re such a pain to look after.”

Bugs and Gardeners

☻     A fungus that consumes CD's is identified as originating in the Central America country of Belize but music lovers needn’t worry, at least not here, Canadian industry experts say.

☻     “Without question, many consumers have the impression that the use of pesticides on our landscapes is nothing more than ‘cosmetic,’ and that our landscapes do not warrant the use of these products to keep them healthy and vibrant.  We must do a better job of communicating to the public that this is not the case.”  Ken Paverly, Healthy Lawns Information Coordinator, Horticultural Review, May 2001.

☻     Stains on the light-coloured cars of employees of a Swedish firm are identified as bee excrement, the buzz being, according to an expert, that the critters like to defecate on light-coloured surfaces.

☻     Professor Leonard Ritter, University of Guelph, reports that there is no demonstrable connection between pesticides and cancers or childhood asthma hypotheses, supported by inaccurate and incorrect assumptions, in order to advance a specific interest or agenda, however well intentioned.

☻     The West Australian newspaper reports that well known naturalist Harry Butler’s name “appears on a few species, including a louse that lives in the anus of a carpet snake,” reports New Scientist.

☻     A U.S. scientist has used genetic modification to protect Californian grapes from bacterial disease that threatens the state’s wine industry.

☻     Coming soon in your issue of Naturwissen-schaften: How African bees create permanent prison cells for parasitic beetle invaders.

☻     Voracious armyworms, the caterpillars of a moth, destroy 12,000 of pasture in New Brunswick, along with more in Quebec and Prince Edward Island as well as infesting the U.S. eastern seaboard.

☻     And out in Alberta, as predicted last year by scientists, enormous swarms of the clear-winged grasshopper are devastating thousands of hectares.  

☻     Dupont, manufacturer of the systemic fungicide benomly (Benlate) announces it will be voluntarily discontinued at the end of 2001.

☻     Entomologists hunt through Pictou, Nova Scotia for more of the feared beetle from Asia and Europe that caused $3.6 million damage to evergreens in a popular Halifax park.

☻     Down in Houston, Texas 3.5 million residents are threatened by excessive numbers of mosquitoes after heavy flooding.

☻     A Canadian biological scientist at McGill University explains how garden snails succeed better at sex while remaining hermaphrodite.

☻     European cockchafers, the young of which include the notorious lawn ‘white grubs,’ are shown to be attracted to each other by benozquinone, which, in other beetles, is utilized as an odiferous chemical weapon.

☻     Since the late blight is caused not by a fungus but an organism known as an oomycetes, a scientist from the Netherlands suggest a new class of pesticides to control it: oomicides.

☻     In a major setback for lowering human exposure to pesticides, bureaucrats in India ignore scientific evidence and ban commercial distribution of genetically modified cottonseed.

☻     Ottawa approves the use of concentrated strychnine for Saskatchewan farmers to poison gophers feasting on their crops.

Weeds

☻     Some Toronto councillors propose banning both the sale and use of pesticides for “cosmetic” use and are promptly denounced by other, as in the words of Councillor Frances Nunziata, “It’s ridiculous.”

☻     Meanwhile, elsewhere in Toronto, the herbicide ‘Roundup’ is used to control the highly invasive dog strangler vine when two year of attempts to control it by hand fail dismally.

☻     Quispamsis, New Brunswick, town council challenge Canadian National Railway’s provincial licence to spray their right-of-way with herbicides.

☻     Englishman Alex Smith of Solar Solutions Fountains, Kington, Hertfordshire, invents the ‘duckbot’ to clear waterweeds from ponds, unattended and powered solely by the sun.

☻     Ragweed is a highly efficient absorbent of meta pollutants, reports Environment Canada’s Technology Advancement Directorate as well as, amongst others, sunflowers, cabbage, Indian mustard, geranium and jack pine.

Gardening in the City

☻     A technician is electrocuted and dies while recording a television garden show in a Calgary studio.

☻     “Trust in the heart of a man who fondled his flowers with care and knowledge.” – Arlene Bynon, National Post.

☻     “There’s a gas station I stop at on the way to the cottage, not for the price but the décor.  As far as I’m concerned a gas station isn’t legitimate unless there’s a barrel painted a hideous colour filled with a planting of bedraggled petunias.  This one boasts two of the best.  In fact, I have a theory I have tested out in the downtown core:  The best service stations, the ones that still pump your gas are the places that honour the petunia requirement instead of a selection of impersonal shrubs.” – Arlene Bynon, op cit.

☻     Bernhard Goetz of New York, running for mayor, is revealed as a well-known squirrel lover in his city.  He also shot 4 black teenagers on the subway in 1984 when they demanded $5 from him.

☻     Vancouver City Council votes to banish gas powered leaf blowers.

☻     Toronto’s board of health moves towards banning the cosmetic use of pesticides on private property following the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling that such falls within municipal jurisdiction.

☻     The day prior to judges viewing Owen Sound’s Communities in Bloom bid, teenage vandals destroy many of the plantings.

Compost

☻     Swedish environmental consultant Susanne Wiigh-Masak, dismayed at environmentally-unfriendly disposal of dead bodies by burial or cremation, proposes composting by immersing frozen cadavers in liquid nitrogen to remove moisture, creating about 20 to 20 kg of powder

☻     “She says the process makes for good potting soil: She has planted roses over coffins with excellent results,” reports the journal Science.

☻     The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington, investigates the possibility of turning cattle manure into glycol anti-freeze and plastic bottles.

Science and the Gardener

☻     Consuming poisonous plants then throwing up over themselves protects grasshoppers from predation by lizards, and American researcher announces.

☻     Research continues to add an allergren from bee venom to potatoes in order to increase spuds resistance to disease.

☻     A gene that imparts cold-resistance to Arctic fish is transferred to cucumbers, imparting them with similar cold hardiness.

☻     A correspondent of New Scientist suggest genetically engineering flounder genes into potatoes and make them easier to peel because “all the eyes would be on one side.

☻     A pesticidal aerosol is patented in Britain that uses an electrostatic charge in the droplets to have them cling to their insect targets. 

☻     Greenpeace and other environmental activists groups are attacked by a respected African academic, Margaret Karembu of the Department of Environmental Sciences at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, at a London conference for spreading alarmist anti-biotech propaganda unsupported by facts.

☻     Soil carbon will not contribute to global warming after all, despite his past predictions, says Scottish scientist Melvin Cannell.

☻     Australian wine scientist demonstrates that white wines are best kept in bottles with metal screw caps, rather than the traditional oak corks.

☻     Ontario plantings of genetically modified crops achieved records levels this season, says a Guelph farm group.

☻     Researchers from Oklahoma State University announce the worlds first sliced peanut butter.

☻     An international team will map the banana genome over the next five years, bringing hope of disease and pest control for the world’s fourth most important food crop.

☻     Vandals destroy or damage test fields of genetically modified crops in England and Scotland.

☻     Canadian scientist in Hamilton, Ontario, improves an experimental ice cream by adding plant anti-freeze protein.

☻     A survey indicates that almost 80% of Canadians are unaware that GMO stands for genetically modified organism.

Organics

☻     Canadian organic farmers get an $854,700 federal research and education center in Truro, Nova Scotia.

☻     A study of organic and conventionally farmed tomatoes reported in the Journal of Applied Ecology indicates that crop losses do not increase when synthetic pesticides are no longer used.

Weather

☻     Kapuskasing and Timmins in northern Ontario receive snow on Canada Day, hardly confirmation of “global warning.”  Meanwhile in Toronto on the same date, a high-rise horticulturist 24 stories up discovers cold northwest winds have brought frosty destruction to her plants.

☻     The bureaucrats of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) are accused of an “artful form of deception” and their claims of global warning dubious at best by David E. Wojick.

☻     “Friday: clouds and unshine.”  Metro commuter newspaper, July 5^th, 2001.

☻     The worst drought since the “Dirty Thirties” afflicts southern Alberta and central and southwestern Saskatchewan while eastern Saskatchewan and neighbouring Manitoba suffer soaking rains and flooded fields.

☻     Agriculture Canada spends in excess of double its estimate, up to $475,000 on a meeting at a Saskatchewan lake resort while Ottawa denies financial assistance for drought-plaque prairie farmers.

Travel

☻     Thanks to Chernobyl, log cabins in Europe are reported contaminated with enough caesium 137 to make just 10 hours spent in one create a radioactive dose equal to four months of what is considered safe exposure.

☻     A new 11km Diana Princess of Whales Memorial Walk is inaugurated through royal parks of London England; for more information visit www.royalparks.gov.uk

☻     Take your stereo headphones when visiting London or New York which soon will have park benches that play music or delivery messages for your personal listing enjoyment as you rest your aching feet.

☻     Alberta forestry officials are requesting vacationers to parks in the province to report pines showing reddish-brown needles, a sign they are under attack by the mountain pine beetle, a major pest in neighbouring B.C. where consequently lumber companies have been allowed to double their annual harvest to 3 million cubic meters.

Law and Gardeners

☻     Much to the horror of lawn care companies, the Supreme Court of Canada rules that municipalities have the right to ban pesticide application.

☻     In Sweden, an apiarist sues his neighbour in court for killing his swarm of bees with water.

☻     Many leading Burgundy wines are revealed to have had cheap plonk substituted in their bottles by trading companies in that French region.

☻     “Lucky Bamboo,” imported from Asia in water, is banned from Canada after questions are raised to the possibility of the notorious tiger mosquito hitchhiking a ride with it.

☻     Marijuana is now a $6 billion a year industry in British Columbia, reports the organized Crime agency which excludes from its figures other economic benefits such as increased hydroponic sales and employment found by gardeners.

☻     The dread Garden Gnome Liberation Front of France strikes again, kidnapping hundreds of the kitsch statuettes and leaving them marooned on a traffic island in the town of Chavelot.

☻     A banned chemical is found being used by almost half of Quebec’s maple syrup farmers during surprise government inspections.

Business

☻     Correction: we mistakenly reported last month that Heinz plans to introduce ketchup in orange, purple, and hot pink or yellow.  In fact, the new product will come in only of these colours much to our relief.

☻     Demand for organic food is expected to explode in Canada as Loblaws and other supermarkets chains brace to resist invasions by the biggest natural food chains in the U.S.

Environment

☻     New Brunswick sets up a hotline for residents to report dead birds, possible carriers – and victims – of the West Nile Virus.

☻     The UN’s FAO claims that dumps around the world contain 500,000 tonnes of abandoned pesticides.

Health

☻     Vitamin C, long touted as a cure for colds and cancer, may cause considerable damage as well, a study in the highly respected journal Science reports.

☻     Aromatherapy does not affect the brain, reports researchers from the University of Munich in a paper published by the journal Chemical Senses.

☻     Labelling foods for Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMO’s, will not work, says respected scientists Douglas Powell of the University of Guelph.

☻      A man allegedly B.C. leading marijuana growers, offers to supply cannabis seeds to assist Health Canada out of the difficulty of locating such for the country’s medical marijuana program, which commenced in July.

☻     The British Department of Trade and Industry reports an estimated 13,132 hospital admittances owing to accidents involving vegetables; also 1,171 involving leaves, and 1,810 with tree trunks while birdbath caused 311.

☻     Also having banned food derived from genetically modified materials from the organization’s dining room.

☻     Rinsing the mouth with black tea several times helps reduce plaque, reports researcher Christine Wu of the College of Dentistry of Illinois in Chicago at an American Society for Microbiology meeting.

☻     While the naderite Public Interest Research Group claims U.S. regulators failed to properly oversee field tests of genetically modified crops, the U.S. Center for the Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta can find no evidence that those citizens claiming to suffer allergic reactions to ‘StarLlink’ corn found no antibodies to the protein Cry9C in their blood.

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