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October 2002 THE
GARDENER’S AUTUMN ARRIVES WITH FALLING
LEAVES, CRANBERRIES & PUMPKINS also
an Asian invader, birds that use herbs, garden web sites and more . . . The family
that rakes together, aches together, one garden humourist has claimed. Witty,
perhaps but raking is a necessity. Well okay, we will admit that should you be
able to tolerate the sounds of a banshee in agony, a leaf-blower might just have
its uses this time of year. One way or another, though, those tens of thousands
of fallen leaves must be collected and consigned to the composter or a special
enclosure erected only for this purpose. Never ever include rose leaves,
however. They are likely to harbour black spot disease spores and composters do
not reach high enough temperatures to kill this extremely serious and prevalent
pathogen. So what
happens in the wild, environmentalists demand? First there are rarely flowerbeds
to be found in the forest. Neither are there lawns. And if there were, the
falling leaves would form a damp, air-excluding mat over bed and lawn alike.
Even environmentalists fail to survive in such airless conditions, never mind
valuable plants. Composted leaves, two- or three-years-old, are another matter,
as we will discuss in next month's mulching notes. In the
perennial garden, clumps of hemerocallis and hostas, daylilies and plantain
lilies for those that ‘aven’t the Latin for the Latin for the larnin’, may
still be split into smaller sections this month and replanted. Such a procedure
is necessary every three to six years. Perhaps ten to twenty, do we hear? If the
latter, something substantial in the tool line will be required. Certainly a
sharpened, round-nosed spade for lifting the roots. Splitting them requires
something else again. Purloining a heavy kitchen knife from the house, perhaps
even a sturdy meat chopper is liable to raise fear in ones neighbours and fury
in the spouse. Try instead a turf edger, that crescent-shaped blade mounted on a
long handle. Armed thus, the work is wonderfully tension releasing after a rough
week at the office. Use the
same tool for its normal purpose, that is to edge the lawns also this month. A
neat tip in the literal sense is to run the edger also along all boundaries
where lawn meets walkways, patios or drives. Turning to the lawn itself, the
very least required is a late fall feeding with a granulated fertilizer. After
the hot, dry summer some grub damage has been reported from all over southern
Ontario. Garden centres carry government-approved sprays to control these. As
always, read the label prior to use. Note that most such sprays work best if the
lawn has been thoroughly watered a day to two days prior to application and then
again watered immediately afterwards. Weeds may
also have been found to invade lawns following the summer heat blast. If
herbicide applications do not appeal then one may be reduced to that ancient
method of crawling across the lawn on bent patella, wielding a sharp knife with
intent. This can be effective but very hard on the vertebrae and those cute
little discs of spongy tissue which are meant to cushion them. Check out the
catalogue at www.rittenhouse.ca for some
most interestingly civilized mechanical devices that achieve the same while
permitting a more erect posture. The final mow of the lawn at the end of this
month or the beginning of November should be made with the blades of the mower
set at just a half-inch high to assure such snow as we may have does no serious
damage to the grass. Early this
month, prior to Thanksgiving (14th October this year), it will be
time to lift and save the very best of those flowers that have decorated border
and box all summer long. Although often designated as “annuals,” they are in
fact tender perennials, which originated in the tropics and sub-tropics. Most
are surprisingly easy to maintain in the home over winter. Start by washing
clean in hot water six-inch plastic pots and saucers. Pot up the plants in a
professional medium such as “Hortimix” or “Promix,” then, before
bringing indoors, water heavily to drive out assorted creepy-crawlies sheltering
in the soil around the roots. Many
flowers, for example, fibrous-rooted begonias, impatiens, browallia and
geranium, are best cut back to stubs about three inches high. The growth they
made outside will not adjust to indoor conditions. It too may contain
interesting if minute collections of pestiferous wildlife. Fuchsia, hibiscus and
bougainvillea should have three-quarters of the growth made over summer cut back
but leave the ubiquitous “spikes” or Cordyline alone. Indoors, locate
on windowsills in east or north windows. Treat all
of these and you would regular houseplants. Most of these suffer that foul fate
of over watering. A moisture meter is the indoor gardener’s best friend, and a
cheap one at that. When watering is indicated, drench the soil thoroughly with
room-temperature water. Spray with similar water daily if possible, to remove
dust from the foliage and, above, all, to discourage spider mite pest. Fertilise
biweekly with liquid plant food. Should you desire, talk to them in manner
approved by H.R.H. Prince Charles, being wary only of boring the plants to
death. Once each
week throughout October and into November, start ‘Paper Whites’ and prepared
hyacinth bulbs along with the mightier Amaryllis in clay pots. Such containers
are less likely to tip over from the weight of growth than plastic pots are.
Until the bulbs are required, store in a frost-free, dark and dry area protected
by paper bags. While shopping for these, keep an eye out for clearance sales of fertilizers,
growing mediums, soil amendments. A penny saved is a penny extra for more exotic
plants next year. Finally,
those gardeners to whom the dwindling days and extended nights are anthemia,
bringing on feelings of gloom and despair now that the outdoor scene is drawing
again to a close, might rejoice in the following: There was a young fellow named
Hall Who fell in the spring in the
fall; 'Twould have been a sad thing Had he died in the spring, But he didn't - he died in the
fall. A Gardener’s October October Flowers Calendula or Cosmos October Month National Apple Month – P.O. Box
657, 6707 Old Dominion Dr., McLean, Virginia 22101 National Popcorn Month, The
Popcorn Institute, One Illinois Center, 111 E. Wacker Dr., Chicago, Ill. 60601 North American Native Peoples Full Moon Hunter’s Moon: elk, deer, beer
hunted October Weeks 1st Week National
Spinning & Weaving week
National 4-H Week (week of
the first Sunday) Final Week National Cleaner Air
Week October Days 5th-6th
Weekend National Storytelling Festival 14th Canadian
Thanksgiving 15th October National
Poetry Day 19th (Saturday)
Sweetest Day 20th (Sunday) Boss’s Day 27th (Sunday) Mother-in-Law’s Day 27th (Sunday) Daylight Saving Time Ends October Birthdays 3.
Group of Seven artist Alexander
Young Jackson born Montreal 1882 (died 5 April 1974) 11. Henry
John Heinz of food products fame, 1844 (died 14 May 1919) 13. 1853
– Lillie Le Breton [Langtry] ‘The Jersey Lily,’ born St. Saviour, Jersey;
mistress of Edward VII (d.12 Feb 1929); a birthday she shares with Margaret
Thatcher (born 1925) 21.
Oswald J. Avery, Canadian
bacteriologist, early studies on DNA, 1877 (died 29 February 1955) October History 4.
Gregorian Calendar introduced
1582 12. Columbus
makes his first landfall in San Salvador, Bahamas, 1492 – ‘It’s Better in
the Bahamas’ October Canadiana 1.
Eugene O’Keefe, brewer and
banker, dies in Toronto 1913; born Ireland 1827 (primary product used in slug
control) 5.
Jacques Rousseau, botanist, born
Ste-Lambert, Quebec 1905 died Lac Ouareau, Quebec 4 August 1970 6.
Jean-Francois Gaultier, botanist,
physician, born France 1708; died Quebec 10 July 1756 10. Middleton
records port wine froze at Churchill when poured for the King’s birthday 1741 11. Frederick
Broadsword born 1918 Port Burwell, Ontario 12. George
Lawson, botanist born Logan, Scotland 1827; founder of Botanical Society of
Canada 13. Sir
John William Dawson, geologist, born Pictou, N.S. 1820 (died 19 November 1899) 22. U537
establishes automatic weather station Martin Bay, near Cape Crudely, Labrador,
unidentified until 1981 25. Sir
Robert Stuart, pioneer meteorologist, born Aurora, Ontario 1857 (died Toronto 27
September 1940 26. John
Rabat, brewer, dies London, Ontario 1866 after successful business at forks of
the Thames River (product used in slug control) October Saints 19. St.
Jean de Bereave Jesuit priest and martyr d.1649; patron saint of Canada Another Asian Invader? Remember the Asian long horn beetle scare of four years
ago? It never established itself here, but areas of Chicago and New York were no
to so lucky. It cost each city US$2-million to bring under control the invader
that is believed to have arrived in North American from China in 1996 sheltering
in fresh-cut wood used for shipping crates. Infested trees must be felled,
reduced to chips and burnt in order to destroy the infestation. Now be prepared to possibly welcome the Emerald ash
borer, Agrilus planipennis, warns Jennifer Llewellyn, a nursery crops
specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food. It has been
reported, she says, from five counties in Michigan and just across the Detroit
River in Essex County of southwestern Ontario. EAB as the beetle is
professionally referred as, is described as being a metallic green, 7-14 mm in
length. As with other similar beetles, for example the
all-too-familiar bronze birch borer, EAB larvae eat their way through the
cambium layer, the ashes’ plumbing system just under the bark, causing
branches and, eventually, the entire tree to die. Jennifer Llewellyn advises
other indications can include D-shaped emergence holes in the bark; numerous
shoots forming at the base of the tree; and vertical cracks in the trunk and
larger branches as well, of cousre, as EAB itself and its larvae. In Michigan, it has reportedly killed various
ornamental varieties of ash along with green ash, Fraxinus pennsylvanica,
white ash, F. americana, and black ash, .F. nigra. Ornamental tree production nurseries in the
infected area have been quarantined, but these trees have justifiably been
highly recommended for city plantings as well as in rural reforestation
projects. Complicating matters is the fact that adults have been seen emerging
too lay eggs from late spring through August in Ontario, making cultural or
chemical controls equally difficult. More information, including photographs, at www.msue.msu.edu/red_se/roberts/ash It’s
Back! The Garden Journal & Source Book 2003 It is easy to distinguish between the true gardener and
the casual plonker of plants. The latter never plan; the former always do. And
they have the records to prove it, kept for this past decade in Margaret Bennet-Alder’s
indispensable annual publication, The Toronto Gardener’s Journal &
Source Book. Despite the title, the journal’s influences may be
felt wherever Canadian gardeners gather. Outside southern Ontario, it may be
necessary to adjust the weekly suggestions in the ‘Journal’ pages somewhat.
And, true, the ‘Source Book’ concentrates on southern Ontario when it comes
to garden centres, plant suppliers, education and the like. This still leaves
vast lists to browse through as the winter nights draw in and a gardener’s
thoughts turn to future plantings and planning. There are even pages on which to draw plans of that
dream garden – and more pages in which to insert a permanent photographic
record of old and new efforts. Plus pages for April through December for listing
‘Delights,’ ‘Disappointments’ and, inevitably, ‘Next Year.’ How about other gardens, parks, conservatories?
They’re all here, in Toronto and elsewhere, quite a lesson for those that
insist on running off to European gardens or even to our friends south of the
border. Can’t make it far for one reason or another? How about web sites,
videos, periodicals, books, even television and radio (our favourite: Bruce
Zimmerman, 610 CKTB 10 a.m.-noon Saturdays). This is a book that should make any and all Canadian
publishers hang their heads with shame for not thinking of it first. And as far
as we know, self-publisher Margaret Bennet-Alder is no recipient of Sheila Copps’
largesse so freely handed out to those self-same publishers each and every year.
How may you lay your hands on a copy for oneself ? , many for timely Christmas
gifts? Send $17.95 plus $2.05 for shipping to Briar Hill DTP at 490 Briar Hill
Ave, Toronto Ontario M5N 1M7, or use Visa and phone/fax to 416-488-3368 or
416-488-4738 or e-mail to gardenbook@rogers.com Ghastly
Gardening: Birds Find Herbs Heaven Scent Do birds appreciate scented herbs enough to use plant
material to control parasites on themselves and in their nests? The journal Science
has drawn attention to key research on the subject. Marcel
M. Lambrechts of the Functional and Evolutionary Center in Montpellier, France,
and his colleagues reported in last July’s issue of Ecology Letters on studies
they conducted on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica with local
populations of Farus caeruleus, a bird known to the less-scientifically
minded as blue tits. In a commentary, Bart Kempenaers
of the Max Plank Research Center for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany, claims
that this “behaviour could be an innovation unique to Corsican tits.”
Kempenaers is certainly wrong inasmuch as other birds over widespread portions
of the Earth have been observed to exhibit similar behaviour. Behaviour known as “anting”
is common to many species. The bird picks up an ant in its beak and rubs it
through its plumage, using the formic acid the insect exudes to rid itself of
parasites. But “anting” needn’t involve ants, it has been established.
Birds may also use fragrant flowers such as marigolds, sections of fruit such as
lime, and even cigarette buts and mothballs for the same purpose. Birds
of prey, noted Peter Wimberger from the University of Puget Sound in Washington
State, as far back as the mid-1980s, seemed to use various selected greenery in
their nests. House sparrows in India add leaves of the neem tree to their nests.
The same neem branches are added to village granaries throughout much of
tropical Asia and Africa to control insect infestations. The equally widespread
starling is equally resourceful, selecting portions of such plants as agrinomy,
fleabane, wild carrot and yarrow to include in its nests. Lambrechts found that the
Corsican blue tits incorporated fragments of more than 10 herbs, including
yarrow, lavender, mint, and lemon balm into their nests. By simple but elegant
experiments he was able to demonstrate that the birds were attracted to the
scent of the selected plants and were obviously not using the material merely
for physical construction. Contrary to what ecologists had previously believed
then, blue tits. And by extension other birds, certainly do use a sense of smell
in their everyday lives. Elsewhere in Corsica, alas, such sophisticated
appreciation of select use of natural scents has been less than prevalent.
Napoleon, born and raised on the island, enjoyed dousing himself in pints of
violet water. He was less particular when it came to amorous encounters. In a
letter to Josephine, he instructed her he was returning to Paris and she was not
to wash for several days. Cranberries: Love at First Blush “The Indians bring us
cranberries in spring and autumn which are as large as cherries and as good; the
best grown under water,” wrote Elizabeth Simcoe in the diary she kept during
her sojourn with her husband in Upper Canada 1792-96. A year before she left
Canada forever, the less fortunate Samuel Herne recorded in A Journey from
Prince of Wale’s Fort that for a week he and his companions “tasted not
a mouthful of any thing, except a few cranberries, water, scraps of old leather,
and burnt bones.” In another diary entry, Mrs.
Simcoe notes that cranberries were, in her native England, called “water elder
berries,” but perhaps the British version never achieved the popularity of its
North American cousin since the latter, she said, are “less bitter.” Perhaps
this was the reason for an attempt in the early years of the following century
to introduce our own luscious berry to British palates. William Cobbett, who had
sheltered from the fury of the English judiciary in the recently revolutionized
American colonies, recorded in his Rural Rides, coming across some
growing in the gardens of Albury Park, near Dorking in Surrey, on 30 November,
1822. “It is clear,” he wrote, “that they may be cultivated with great
ease in this country.” Apparently British conservatism or perhaps their
infamous cuisine, conquered good taste and the American cranberry sank back onto
the bogs. Not so on this side of the ocean.
Even in far off Sable Island, that “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” the main
import may have been wrecked ships but by 1897 was exporting 400 barrels of the
highest-quality cranberries every year. Elsewhere ‘Down East,’ as in so much
Maritime tradition, Lucy Mud Montgomery knew of uses for the glowing red
berries. In her Anne of Ingleside (1936) she tells of fall, the scarlet
of blueberry bush leaves, golden and russet chrysanthemums and the making of the
first cranberry pies. According to Canada Agriculture,
fresh cranberries have a storage life of eight weeks. A 100-gram serving is 88
per cent water, with 11-milligrams of vitamin C and 40 international units of
vitamin A, 11-grams of carbohydrate, 0.7-grams of fat and 0.4-grams of protein. Better yet, for both men and
women, these “grapes with hypertension,” offer proven health benefits. Tero
Kontiokari and his colleagues at the University of Oulu, Finland, for example,
found that urinary tract infections in women were less likely in cranberry juice
drinkers (British Medical
Journal, vol. 322, p.1571). Two 8-ounce glasses per day is the usual
recommendation, researchers at Rutgers University discovering that it is the
proanthocyanidins, the concentrated tannins found in cranberry juice, that are
responsible. It seems uncertain whether the berries themselves are as equally
effective. A study conducted at the
University of Western Ontario established that eating the fruit reduced the risk
of breast cancer in mice by half, according to Najla Guthrie, the study's head
researcher, two years ago. Mice drinking the juice alone suffered 40 per cent
fewer tumours, she said. The same year saw the launching of www.foodnutrition.com,
offering help to men avoid prostrate disease. Pros-Tect is a tasty food bar that
sold for about $50 for a months supply, according to Diane Francis of the Financial
Post. It was the result of a teaming between food expert Louis Hochman and
Jack Barkin, chief urologist at Toronto’s Humber River Region Hospital and a
director of the Male Health Centre, a semi-private clinic. Besides a large
portion of cranberries, the ‘nutraceutical’ (food-drug) contains oats, rice
krispies, soy, saw palmetto, pygeum, stinging nettle, lycopene, selenium, zinc
and ginseng. Ironically, the ‘Great Toxic
Cranberry Scare’ of 1959 was the first of the modern crazes for food alarm
myths. On 9 November, 1959, just prior to American Thanksgiving, Arthur Fleming,
Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, claimed that a single consignment of
cranberries from Oregano had, when tested by the Food and Drug Administration.
Showed contamination with the weedkiller aminotrizole. The resulting nationwide
panic only subsided when bureaucrats backtracked. Cranberries will be on my
Thanksgiving table, said Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson. Equally
adamant over the benefits of this possibly forbidden fruit were presidential
candidates Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy, the former knocking back four
helpings of sauce, the latter glasses of juice. Plainly red was patriotic when
it came to preventing cranberry farmers from sinking feelings. Helen Webber and Marie Woolsey in
their Wild & Wonderful Cranberries (Churchill, Manitoba: Blueberries
& Polar Bears Publishing, 1998) note that the people of the First Nations
introduced these delights to early setters as far back as 1620. But how to make
a simple sauce? Combine in a saucepan 4 cups of cranberries with 2 cups of sugar
and a cup of water, bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. By this time the
fruit should have popped and the sauce to thicken. Bottle in sealed jars and
store on the refrigerator. Most commercial bags of the berries have very
similar, reliable recipes printed on their sides. More? Webber and Woolsey offer
everything from cranberry sauces to salad, pies to pudding, cake to cookies and
then some. No longer though are the British
ignoring such proven advantages of Vaccinium. Dubious claims abound, as
this one discovered by New Scientist reader Ivor Watts: “Pure cranberry
juice – ingredients: water, cranberry juice (16 per cent), sugar, colour (anthocyanincs),
malic acid, citric acid, flavourings.” It even received a profitable royal
nod. When Sarah Ferguson, then still Duchess of York, came to the United States,
she was paid $1.2-million in green backs to promote Ocean Spray Cranapple Juice
in a commercial. “I love Americans,” she said. “They give as girl a
break.” In the final analysis, though, in
Canada we can always count on that unholy alliance of Ottawa’s politicians and
bureaucrats to waste with a will. As part of their ‘Millennium Grants’ three
years ago, some proud burghers of Truro, Nova Scotia, received $4,380 to produce
four sets of slides and one hundred leaflets on the history of cranberries in
their community. The
Great Pumpkin A passion for pumpkins seems to
be a modern phenomenon. Captain Bligh, of The Bounty fame, was recorded
in an 1787 journal as declaring: “I'll see who will dare refuse the pumpkin,
or anything else I may order served out! You damned scoundrels, I'll make you
eat grass, or anything you can catch, before I've done with you! “ Lucy Maud
Montgomery’s heroine declares in Anne of Windy Poplars, “I am so sick
of pumpkin preserves.” Diplomat and author Lawrence Durrell, making
observations for his Alexandra Quartet in Egypt of 1942, wrote: “Dust storms
herald spring; and summer comes in such a wave of damp that the blood vessels in
the body feel swollen and full of water. If one wrote poems here they could only
be marrows or pumpkins.” This month, surrounded by a
plethora of the orange cucurbit as far as the eye can see in the average city
atmosphere, one wonders: Why pumpkins? A major reason undoubtedly is a human
fascination in all that is larger than life. And pumpkins can certainly be
large. Champions now weight in excess of a thousand pounds having this past
summer put on as much as 40-pounds a day. And Canada can take the credit
for creating prodigious pumpkins. It all began with horticulturalist Howard Dill
from Windsor, Nova Scotia. He developed the variety ‘Dill’s Atlantic
Giant,’ now standard for record-seeking pumpkin fanatics. However, not one to
rest on either his laurels or pumpkins, Howard continues to strive ever on wards
and upwards. The very latest of these may be found at www.howarddill.com.
Ontario has produced some mighty
giants. A home gardener from Pictou broke the elusive 1,000-pound mark as far
back as 1996. Five years later,
Harry Willemse of Forest, Ontario, walked away from the 14th Annual
Pumpkinfest $3,000 richer thanks to his 1,046-pounder. According to Rebecca Rupp
in her Blue Corn & Square Tomatoes (Pownal, Vt: Storey, 1987), a
600-pound ‘Atlantic Giant’ would make “a good three hundred pies.” Harry
Willemse’s prize-winning entry might then have resulted in some 525 pumpkin
pies. Whether he or other pumpkin competitors actually like such traditional
seasonal provender, and in such quantities, has yet to be established. Possibly the appeal lies in terms
of endearment. A survey of 1,000 American adults by R.H. Bruskin Associates, a
market-research firm, found out of the top 12 terms of endearment, pumpkin tied
at ninth place with ‘angel.’ Then again, in Dr. Alan Hirsch’s famous 1995
study at the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, found
that “the smell of pumpkin pie had a greater effect on male sexual arousal
than any other scent tested,” according to Cathy Newman. Hirsch, a neurologist
and psychiatrist, is himself baffled by the findings. Then there is the problem of
disposing of large amounts of seeds that competition pumpkins produce. Warner
Brothers devised an original use, besides roasting and eating them, in their
1967 cinematic recreation of the hit Broadway musical Camelot. They
ordered pumpkin seeds to be used for embroidery. This may have contributed to
critic Leonard Maltin’s designation of the movie as “appalling.” “Man
is a perpetual-notion machine, and it's always the same notion,” says Connie
Moore. And pumpkins certainly have given rise to some notions. Reminiscing on
Pago Pago, W. C. Fields recalled a girl down there, Sadie, who had “some
pumpkins.” But it is that British rugger ritual song By Their Fruits Ye
Shall Know Them to which we must turn for the ultimate in male fantasies:
“They
only get bumpkins/Whose bra's are just sackfuls of bloody great pumpkins.” It
is to be hoped those British sporting songsters never encounter one of Howard
Dill’s creations. Gardening
Web Landscaping
on a Low Budget School boards and balanced budgets are not exactly a
popular subject in Ontario right now. Since provincial law demands balanced
budgets, trustees are squeezing the nickels until the squeak. Little is left to
trickle down for landscaping school grounds, regardless of expressed support for
such. Faced with the same constraints, homeowners need practical advice when it
comes to landscaping and planting. Such is found at www.schoolgrounds.ca,
the brainchild of Anne Coffey at the Canadian Biodiversity Institute in Ottawa.
Bear in mind that this website has as its primary aim schools, not home grounds
but the fundamentals are the same. Drawing up plans and planting lists, site
preparation and the physical installation are all there. Consultants charge
upwards of $250 an hour for this kind of thing. Another useful site can be found
at that of the Washington-based National Wildlife Foundation’s Backyard
Wildlife Habitat ™, www.nwf.org/backyardwildlifehabitat
which, as the name implies, is exactly that, information on attracting wildlife
of the non-human form. Here Come
De Judge Early in 2002, Monsanto won a landmark decision in a
court challenger to protect its patented canola seed. Percy Schmeiser, a
Saskatchewan farmer, saved seed from his own fields of canola for planting the
following season even though he knew or, the judge said, ought have known, that
this seed included at least a portion of Monsanto’s patented canola seed sold
under the name of ‘Roundup Ready.’ The agribusiness giant was not amused
when, acting on a tip, it obtained samples for testing from Schmeiser’s farm.
Those of a legal bent of mind can now follow the judgement at http://decisions,fct-cf.gc.ca/fct/2001/2001fct256.html
Is this case important? If for no
other reason than the costs involved. Schmeiser was ordered to pay Monsanto
$150,000 plus $250,000 in legal fees. Then there’s the matter of his own
lawyers. A Powerful Bugging As is already widely known,
microbes are already being used to clean up some forms of pollution but perhaps
less has been disseminated about the energy production possibilities. The U.S.
Department of Energy has funded a program, “Genomes for Life,” for
US$103-million to explore these potentials in five different projects. For
detailed explanations, go to http://doegenomestolife.org Science
Journal’s Sites Along with the British journal Nature, this
weekly publication is, in hard copy, only available in the largest libraries. On
line, however, there are three excellent sites of particular interest. Searching
for a career in any scientific field? Visit
www.sciencecareers.org
to discover opportunities from coast-to-coast in North America and elsewhere in
the world either by keyword or location. Science is also an
advertiser’s choice because of its readership. Search by keyword, company name
or product category at www.scienceproductlink.org.
Finally,
‘Horticultural Happenings’ doesn’t pretend to keep up with all the trade
shows and conferences and many, many more are listed at. www.sciencemeetimngs.org. Truth-or-Consequences:
Genetic Modification Outside of the pages of Hansard, some of the
distortions of fact are being promulgated with regard to genetically modified
crops, their safety and environmental effects. In particular, Europeans and
their fellow travellers, ever eager to decry North American technology, continue
to spew out disinformation of a virulence to make the late and unlamented Dr.
Joseph Goebbels proud. Fortunately at least one web site cuts through this
bafflegab. An up-to-date report from the Washington-based
National Center for Food and Agriculture Policy is at www.ncfap.org. 100 Years of Nobel Prizes The journal Science
recommends this web site from the Nobel Prize Foundation featuring “videos of
all 21 speakers at December’s centennial symposium on how genomics is
revolutionizing fields form developmental biology to medicine to evolution.”
This is an incredible look at what the future holds for every inhabitant of the
planet from the organization founded on the profits of a bang – that of
dynamite in the opening years of the 20th-century. www.nobel.se/nobel/nobel-foundation/centennialsymposia/medvideo.html Fighting
Fungus The mysterious murderers are among us at nt.ars.grin.gov/taxadescriptions/hympomyces,
another site recommended by the journal Science. This examines the
mushroom-attacking mould Hypomyes, or at least its 30 most common
species, with their ecology and complicated life cycles. The site is hosted by
the Systematic Botany and Mycology Laboratory of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, so probably best for the faint of heart. After last months Fungi
Fair at Toronto’s Civic Garden Centre, it will give local mycologists
something to romp through. Something’s Bugging You Michael Kesterton of The Globe and Mail has an
indispensable column for those who enjoy the trivia of everyday life. This past
summer he discovered a complete website featuring nothing but insect proverbs
from numerous nations and cultures. Kesterton quoted several, including one from
Italy: “The moth does most mischief to the finest garment.”
Wrong! It is not the clothes moth but its larvae that does the damage. Visit the site, memorize a few, and bug the heck out of
everybody: gnv.ifas.ufi.edu/~entweb/proverbs.htm October Horticultural Happenings Toronto Field Naturalist Outings Free guided walks; children
welcome but please no pets; all are TTC accessible; dress according to weather,
bring beverage, camera, notebook and binoculars. 1
October Sherwood Park Nature Walk; meet 9:30 a.m. at park entrance on Sherwood Ave, east
of Mt. Pleasant Rd, north of Eglinton; morning only 6
October: TFN Meeting
commences 2 p.m. Emmanuel College, 75 Queen’s Park Cres E. (south of Museum
subway east entrance); visitors welcome; this month’s talk: The Heerman’s
Gull 12
October West Donlands Nature Walk; meet 2 p.m. southeast corner Bathurst & Drewry
(north of Finch) 16
October Charles Sauriol Reserve Nature Walk; meet 1:30 p.m. south side
Lawrence E, just east of Don Valley Parkway at park entrance 20
October: Natural Garden: Trees & Shrubs; meet 10:30 a.m. southeast
corner Leslie and Lawrence; morning only 26 October: Rouge Valley
Nature Walk; meet 10:30 a.m. northwest corner Finch and Leslie; bring lunch;
a long walk with hills to climb. Civic Garden Centre A well-established organization
‘helping people grow.’ Edwards Gardens, 777 Lawrence Ave. E. at Leslie St.,
Toronto tel: 416-397-1340; fax:
416-397-1354; e-mail: civicgardencnetre@infogarden.ca;
website: www.infogarden.ca Lectures: Door sales only – no advanced
registration 9 October 7:30 p.m. Carnivorous
Plants Around the World (free to members; non-members $5) 30 October 7:30 p.m. Reviving a
Tired Old Garden (admission $5) Courses:
1 October 7-9:30 p.m. Plant
Propagation (members $22, public $32) 3 October – 21 November 7-9:30
p.m. Plantscaping Your Garden (members $120, public $150) 7 October 7-9:30 p.m. Gardening
Au Naturel (members $20, public $30) 8 October 7-9:30 p.m. Putting
Your garden to Bed (members $20, public $30) 11 October 12:30-2:30 p.m. Fresh
Pumpkin Arrangement (members 45 public $55) 15 October 7-9:30 p.m. Winterize
Your Garden (members $22 public $32) 28 October 7-9:30 p.m.
Landscaping for Winter Interest (members 20 public $30) Kettleby Herb Farms Workshops Pre-registration and a $20
deposit is required for all the workshops listed here; to register, phone
905-727-8344 or fax 905-727-1415; e-mail info@kettlebyherbfarms.com 6 October Herbal Home remedies
with Sue Britnell; $80/person (repeated 27 October) 20 October Herbal Skin/Bath Care
1 to 4 p.m. with Sue Britnell; $80/person A ½ hour drive north of Toronto
at 15495 Weston Road; more at www.kettlebyherbfarms.com Ontario Rock Garden Society 5 October meeting at Civic Garden
Centre, 777 Lawrence Ave East, Toronto commences with plant sale at 12:30
followed by speaker at 1:30 p.m.: Charlie Sale on “A Vancouver Hillside
Garden” Visitors welcome Port Elgin Pumpkinfest 5 & 6 October. Port Elgin on
Lake Huron greets the orange globes; details at www.greycounty.on.ca High Park Harvest Festival, Toronto 6 October Noon – 4:40 p.m.”
music and entertainment, children’s games, nature crafts, garden activities,
market place, wagon rides, harvest foods and more. Apple Harvest Craft Show 5 & 6 October Meaford’s
apple harvest celebrated in this charming town on the southern shores of
Georgian Bay; details at www.greycounty.on.ca Bent Willow Branch Chair Workshop 5-6 October build your own classic hooped back willow
chair at Feir Mill, RR#3, Omemee, Ontario K0L 2W0; fee of $525 (+GST) covers all
materials, meals and B&B accommodation; telephone 705-799-5331 or fax
705-799-1204; e-mail: feirmill@sympatico.ca Rouge
Valley Fall Colours 13 October 1 – 3 p.m. fall colours and salmon run:
meet at Pearse House, east side Meadowvale Rd, north of Sheppard E.; more
information 416-282-8265 Transgenic
Plants and the Environment 20 October: Royal Canadian Institute Sunday afternoon
lectures on science: 3 p.m. in the Mcleod Auditorium, Medical Sciences Building,
1 King’s College Circle, Toronto (UofT); more 416-977-2983 Mycological
Society of Toronto Information on society meetings, and forays to search
for mushrooms, telephone 416-444-9053 Ian Wheal
Heritage Walk 26 October: Lost sagebrush Prairie of Runnymede; meet
1:30 p.m. Runnymede Subway Station Toronto
Entomologists Association 26 October meeting starts 1 p.m. in Room 119, Northrop
Frye Building 73 Queen’s Park Cres. E., Toronto; more information from
905-727-6993 Halloween
Hoot at Riverdale Farm, Toronto 25 & 26 October 201 Winchester Street, 9:30 a.m.-
3:30 p.m.; more 416-392-6794 Ghost
Walk 25 & 26 October at the Grey County Museum, Owen
Sound will get you in the mood for a truly spooky Halloween;
details at www.greycounty.on.ca/museum;
located at 975 – 6th Street East, Owen Sound Nature
Conservancy Travel Trips For more information, call 703-841-7413, visit www.nature.org/magazine/spring2002/jounreys
or e-mail jcadams@tnc.org 18-17 October Bolivia Noel Kempff Mercado National Park 31 October-9 November Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsular 1-3 November North Carolina’s Jocassee Gorges, sea
kayaking and hiking 8-10 November North Carolina’s Roanoke River Swamps
weekend canoe trip 9-17 November Peru Amazon Voyage
aboard a 28-passenger riverboat Farmer’s Markets in Toronto Final chance to experience
farm-fresh produce this month. Inner City residents are particularly unfortunate
as for some reason known only to politicos, bungleaucrats and the
powers-that-be, the last date is 2 October Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto
City Hall: Wednesday 2 October 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. East York Civic Centre: Mondays
until 21 October 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Etobicoke Civic Centre: Saturdays
until 19 October 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mel Lastman Square, North York
Civic Centre: Thursdays until 24 October 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Allan Gardens South side Carleton Street
between Jarvis and Sherbourne Streets; open Monday to Friday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.,
weekends and holidays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; further information 416-392-7288 or www.allangardens.com Fall
Chrysanthemum Show:
Late-September to mid-November Centennial Park Conservatory Three greenhouses with a total of
more than 12,000 square feet of interesting and changing plant collections. 151
Elmcrest Road. Open daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. More information at 416-392-8543 Cloud Garden Conservatory A walk-through greenhouse that
recreates the lush tropical foliage of a Costa Rican cloud forest. South side of
Richmond Street, between Yonge and Bay Streets. Open Monday through Friday 10
a.m. to 3 p.m. (closed on holidays). More information from 416-392-7288 Gardening in the Headlines A
round-up of the past few weeks news of interest to gardeners Landscaping §
Where would we be without the observant readers of New
Scientist? A warning sign over decorative rocks at Stapley Water Gardens,
Natwich, England, asked customers to refrain from lifting the rocks because
“they are very heavy.” An adjacent sign advised that the prices appeared on
the bottom. Lawns §
Cocking a snoot to environmental lambasters of lawns, The
World, first of the floating condominium ships to travel the seven seas,
offers residents a golf course with a putting green of real grass §
Entertainer
Whitney Houston is charged in New Jersey with violating a state water ban by
leaving her mansion’s lawn sprinklers operating all night, reports the Newark State-Ledger. Trees §
“North American forests are nearly a third larger today
than they were in the 18th century, thanks to better land management,
selective logging and reseeding clear cuts,” according to a National Post
editorial §
Terrorism in Kashmir has cost over 36,000 lives over 15
years, plus an estimated 10 million trees illegally poached from that astounding
beautiful and botanically important Indian state in the Himalayas. Not the least
are willow trees, valued for making the cricket bats cherished by leading
batsman in India and the Caribbean, according the National Post. §
Trees
kill: the tropical fungus disease Cryptococcus neoformans,
originally identified at Vancouver Island’s Rathevor Provincial Park and known
to have killed one and sickened 50 others, has now been identified in trees all
over Vancouver Island §
African
deity worship involving candles and sacrificed animals is to blame for a
17,000-acre forest fire north of Los Angeles, according to U.S. Forestry Service
investigators. §
Tropical deforestation rates are some 25% less that
previously reported by the FAO, says Hugh Eva from the European Commission’s
Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit in Ispra, Italy, who, along with Frederic
Archard and their team, report in Science on fresh studies of satellite
images taken between 1990 and 1997. §
The ragged-leaved palm Reinhardtia gracilis
discourages chomping bugs by its ratty appearance, suggests ecologist Rodolfo
Dirzo of the National Autonomous University in Mexico. In the wild this works
fine, notes Science but: “Back in the lab, however, insects, when fed
unidentifiable leaf bits, prefer it to other palm brands.” Either way, it is
unlikely to be selected as a houseplant. Flowers §
Daylilies are “[T]he hussies of the plant world. They
put it all out for the world to see. None of this shy, elusive,
only-a-bug-with-a-mile-long-snout-can-pollinate-it junk, day lilies are super
sexy, they know it, they are proud of it, they flaunt it and, as a result, they
finish their business in one day,” says Robin Calderon, owner of the official
American Hemerocallis Society display garden, reported in New Scientist §
About a dozen teenagers attempting to get high on Datura
seeds instead are hospitalized with hallucinations. Fortunately there have been
no fatalities in the Kitchener, Ontario incidents, but one girl was reportedly
strapped down for 16 hours. Others, police say, have been found wandering into
traffic and long railway lines. §
Calendula blooms have long been used for culinary
purposes and as a saffron substitute. Unfortunately in its enthusiasm for edible
flowers, a daily city tabloid neglects to explain in a September article that Calendula,
while it may be called “marigold,” is not the same as Tagetes, the
familiar border annual of the same name, sometimes recommended to discourage
nematode worms of which readers may now be relieved. §
In
preparation for the Festival of the Dead, 29 October to 2 November, residents of
Oaxaca, Mexico, plant special flowers, amongst other preparations, something
many gardens here would benefit by. More on this annual celebration at www.mexonline.com
§
A report on the uses of “geranium” in space studies
may be found, notes New Scientist, on the “sensors online” website at
www.sensorsmag.com/articles/o802/12
which tells of the high-energy solar spectroscopic imager (HESSI) spacecraft
which was launched last February and how “it contains nine geranium detectors
manufactured by Ametek Advanced Measurement Technology.” Those of a scientific
bent will have already detected the howler or, as New Scientist enquires,
a “spellchecker refusing to accept “germanium” perhaps?” Down
in the Vegetables §
In the face of reduced fish harvests over the past three
years in the waters surrounding Prince Edward Island, local fishermen demand
studies be conducted on possible links to pesticide runoff from farmers’
potato fields. §
The latest food fad, reports Michael Kesterton in The
Globe and Mail, is a diet of raw vegetables and nuts. Known as “living
foods,” no meat or fish is allowed, nor can any food be heated over 46C
(115F). The news comes via The Baltimore Sun, which does not mention how
many cases of food contamination have resulted. §
Three dozen infected P.E.I. spuds have done it again:
inspectors found potato wart infecting the spuds the corner of a field 10 km
form where the now-notorious 2000 outbreak was located, and believe the virus
was transported to the new site through the use of contaminated farm machinery. §
“For three years now, I have grown genetically
engineered Bt potatoes alongside conventional plots and measured consumer
preference. People like them. They like the reduced chemical use. They seem
genuinely interested in the trade-offs I contend with on a daily basis. The
number one question from my customers continues to be, ‘where can I get Bt
potato seed for my garden?’ If people want this in their backyards, what is
the response from McCain’s and McDonald’s? What is the response from
society?” Jeff Wilson, a Hillsburgh, Ontario farmer argues for GM spuds to
solve PEI’s problems in the Financial Post §
Following
an outbreak of mop-top potato virus in P.E.I., the U.S. National Potato Council,
never at a loss for commercial claims, say that this is where the outbreak
presently devastating U.S. crops originated. Equally eager to gird for spud
strife, Ivan Noonan, general manager of the P.E.I. Potato Board,
calls it heated rhetoric and reports that the infected spuds came from Maine. §
Recent
excavations at remote Roman stone quarries in the eastern Egyptian desert have
revealed Rome fed her skilled workers well. Archaeologists found the remains
of more than 50 types of food plants, including olives, grapes, artichokes,
onions, garlic, green vegetables such as cabbages, watermelons, peaches and many
types of nuts. Bones of 20 different animals were also discovered plus snail
shells. The quarry workers also received free wine. The Romans were so
civilized. §
Jane Wardle of University College of London says parents
must persist to persuade children to overcome dislikes of vegetables such as
spinach, peas and broccoli. A little late on the last now for George Bush,
Senior. §
A new, dwarf, miniature watermelon just 6-inches across
is introduced commercially by Syngenta Seeds, after development at its Boise,
Idaho laboratories. It is seedless and uniformly sweet, reports claim. Pumpkins §
Cleopatra’s Mysterious World of Pumpkins, near
Stuttgart, Germany, boasts a display of 650,000 pumpkins and receives almost a
half-million visitors each year from September through October. Fruit
& Nuts §
Lose weight by eating nine grams of almonds before
dinner, says Men’s Health magazine, reporting on Purdue University
research which demonstrated this unusual tactic reduced appetite. §
According
to the British tabloid Sun, a 12-year-old girl bit into an apple and
found a gold ring. One Rosalind Pike (37) claims she lost the same ring at a
pool in 1975. A garden expert believes it was dropped by a bird or orchard
worker into an apple tree and the fruit formed around it. §
Roasted
in banana leaves, the Chinese snakehead fish is a gourmet delight, served at the
Yin
Yankee Café, Annapolis, Maryland. But Japanese scientist Hiroshi Morishima of
Nagoya City University has another proposal for the disposal of the world’s
annual one billion tonnes of waste banana foliage: turn it into paper. Pilot
projects are already operating with reported success in Jamaica and Haiti. §
Torrential
rains and floods threaten the grape harvest in southeastern France §
From the
top of a tall pole dangles a mannequin by a stout noose. Alongside is a sign
bearing the message: “Thieves Beware. This Dummy Got Caught Stealing Trees.”
John McKnight’s ‘Appleden Farm', near Colborne, Ontario Spices
and Herbs §
What will they find unhealthy next? Hay fever sufferers
will increase their symptoms, a report says, if they indulge in chamomile tea,
along with apples, bananas and cucubits, or the products of the cucumber
and melon family. §
According
to his former mistress, Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s [former?] dictator, uses a
herbal mask in an attempt to eliminate facial wrinkles. Houseplants §
Of the 27
fan palm species Pritachardia, 23 are found in Hawaii and 8 of them are
officially classified as endangered, according to the
National Tropical Botanic Garden (NTBG), on Kauai. Worse, of the world’s
nearly 3,000 species pf palms, some 220 “are threatened with extinction,”
says the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. §
New Scientist’s
feature ‘Feedback’ notes an advertisement for the Solar Magic garden lamp
promises “during the day it converts both sunlight and daylight into
electricity.” Seeds §
Mycogen Seeds and Pioneer Hi-Bred International in Hawaii
and Adventis CropSciences in U.K. are claimed to have made errors in
field-testing of GM corn in the case of the first two corporations, and GM
canola by Adventis, reports New Scientist. Bugs
and Gardeners §
Thailand’s Public Health Minister announces a ban on
the Madagascar Giant Hissing Cockroach, a 10-cm beast popular as a pet in
Bangkok. §
Many
tropical ants that live in trees will not harvest leaves of the tree they call
home, but leave the foliage to distract and divert invading species,
biologist Walter Federle from the University of California at Berkley has shown §
By
painting out distinguishing marks on the faces of wasps, behavioural
ecologist Elizabeth Tibbetts of Cornell University, proves that wasps recognize
each other not juts by chemical means but by visual recognition, a fascinating
fact to keep in mind next time you are stung. §
Brandy
Elliott, 26, a lab technician of Regina, Saskatchewan, won a local radio
station’s contest to collect live grasshoppers for a pair of Elton John
concert tickets. She spent 10 hours driving along mosquito-infested ditches
around the city collecting 39,000 to prove what Sir Elton’s music is worth. §
If you
can’t beat them, eat ‘em: Thailand’s edible insect industry is worth
$75-million-a-year, reports The Globe and Mail, noting that wile the most
poplar is the takkatan, or grasshopper, “fried or boiled scorpions, grasshoppers, bamboo worms,
silkworm pupae, ant eggs giant spiders, water beetles” are also relished. §
If you can’t beat them, eat ‘em (2): Vancouver School
Board offers a fall night school course on cooking “invertebrates” –
animals without backbones. Featured fare is insects and mollusks, but no
politicians. §
Ants that farm aphids for their sweet excretions are
well-documented but now then world’s first bee species to exhibit similar
practices has been identified in Brazil, reports Joao Camargo from the
University of Sao Paulo For the Birds §
“I think they would have sounded like geese, they would
probably have honked and squawked something like geese and they certainly would
have looked a bit like geese,” Peter Murray of the Museum of Central Australia
describing fossils of a giant goose 3-metres tall near Alice Springs. And we
complain about Canada geese on lawns and in parks? §
Sparrows and starlings in Scotland are reported to
exhibit “a strange neurological condition,” reports New Scientist,
which prevents them from flying and causes them to walk in circles and
somersaulting bizarrely. Sounds like it has reached Toronto, if City Hall antics
are anything to judge by. Weeds §
Researchers from John Hopkins University, Maryland,
report in the journal Science that the corn lily, Veratrum
californicum, which can cause birth defects in lambs, contains the chemical
cyclopamine which shows great promise in treating the commonest form of
malignant children’s cancer, medulloblastoma, a frequent cause of fatalities. §
Allison Snow of Ohio State University and her colleagues
demonstrate in controlled tests that wild sunflowers, a weed to U.S. farmers,
becomes hardier and yields up to 50 per cent more seeds when they are crossed
with a GM sunflower resistant to seed-nibbling moth larvae. There are no plans
to release that particular GM sunflower, though, says its developer. Pioneer
Hi-Bred of Iowa. §
Henk van Dijk and his colleagues at the University of
Lille, France, believe that studied of GM sugar beets show that closely related
weeds in trial fields of the crop swap genes back and forth, but that such beets
can still help farmers. Mushrooms §
An Italian couple undergoes emergency liver transplants
after mistakenly consuming the potentially lethal death cap mushroom while
vacationing near Bologna. City Gardening has warned of this in the
past, but repeats: There are old mushroom collectors and bold mushroom
collectors, but there are no old, bold mushroom collectors. If you cannot
positively identify it, not even a nibble; we want to keep our readers. §
Al-Tuwaitha
Nuclear Plant, Baghdad, far from producing weapons of mass destruction, is in
fact being used, at least in part to raise edible mushrooms, Iraqi facility
director Faiz Albayrakdar shows select journalists, nibbling on a few and
claiming they are good for his libido. Mushrooms are commonly cultivated on
large quantities of horse manure. Composting §
Increased
but improper composting is to blame for the increase in raccoons, reports Terry
Thorsell of Critter Control Canada. He claims that such non-comp items as
spaghetti, bacon and eggs are added to the bins, to the delight of the raccoons
and other pests and the despair of neighbours. Check your sense of humus or
plain composting common sense at 416-392-4689 or visit www.city.toronto.on.ca/composting §
Panic hits Britain as rumours circulate that home
gardeners will require licences for their composters. But it is all a mistake,
says Environmental Minister Michael Meacher, the result of confusion with
commercial composting requirements. Don’t let Toronto City councillors know
though – it might encourage them. Catch an assessment of commercial composting
risks in the U.K. as a result of mad cow and foot-and-mouth diseases at www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/byprods/cater/comprisk.htm Gardening
in the City §
The relocating of the central, 1500-sq.-ft. section of
the University of Toronto greenhouses to Allan Gardens will cost upwards of
$9-million according to Frank Kershaw, Director of Policy and Development for
Toronto’s Economic Development, Culture and Tourism Department, or $60,000 a
square foot. §
Amongst animals diagnosed in Manitoba as having West Nile
virus is a squirrel §
A engraved granite commemorating the winning of the 2001
Communities in Bloom Award by the Kingsway and King Georges Parkette in west
Toronto was stolen in July, reports The Etobicoke Guardian, but now found
by an alert reader of that newspaper and returned, this time cemented, to the
parkette, originally planted by avid local gardener Penny Moles. §
Raccoons are so bold in Toronto’s Yorkville district,
according to The Toronto Sun’s Joe Warmington, that they ignore people
entirely. “What kind of dog is that?” inquired a bemused tourist. §
Northern Ontario gardeners, however, are a much hardier
breed although finally harassment by foraging black bears became a bit too much.
An animal control officer removed eight of the beasts from populated areas
around Kenora over one weekend in late summer, banishing them to local parks. §
Stray
cats in the garden? Playing violin music might just drive them out, if the
investigations of Australian researchers reported by The Sunday Times
are correct. Apparently cats hate the sound of violins.
Playing Fiddler on the Roof along with Paganini’s Caprices for violin
solo of Franck’s Violin Sonata might help. §
Move over Shania Twain and the hand cream she discovered
so effective as have subsequently countless gardeners, despite it being sold for
applying to dairy cows’ udders. Now, says technician Clayton Ah Hee at
Hawaii’s Gemini North Telescope, if you really want clean optical
mirrors, nothing can beat natural sponges and horse shampoo. §
Sorry,
but we can’t resist the web site that purports to support “Bonsai
Kittens,” “dedicated
to preserving the long-lost art of body modification of household pets.” The
use of glass moulds, a la shaping vegetables is suggested in order to
preserve “the long-lost art.” PETA hates this, so we hate to think
what they will say when they discover that moth balls are not the end product of
emasculated lepidoptera but, unfortunately for them, this is a hoax, the work of
students at MIT. See www.bonsaikitten.com. Greenhouses §
An image
of the Virgin Mary is claimed to have been seen on a garden greenhouse in the
northern Saskatchewan community of Ile-a-Crosse, attracting over 500
people. Inventions §
Special
fluids are necessary for magnetic brakes, usually a hydrocarbon-based oil that,
however, fails over a period of time. Engineers at the Naval Physical and
Oceanographic Lab in Kochi, part of India’s Ministry of Defence, have
discovered the answer: use vegetable oil derived from castor beans instead of
mineral oils. They have patented the idea (WO 02/45102), as would any inventors
seeking to eliminate irregularity. Fertilizer §
Calgary-based fertilizer giant Agrium Inc. contemplates
building the world’s largest ammonia-urea fertilizer plant for $770-million on
Western Australia’s Burrup Peninsular. “Australian consumes quite a bit of
urea . . . and it’s on the edge of Asia which is a very big growing market,”
said CFO Bruce Waterman, according to the Financial Post. Science
and the Gardener §
Plants are intelligent, act decisively and have good
memories, says Tony Trewavas of Edinburgh University, in a fascinating article
in New Scientist magazine. So how come they never get elected to
parliament? §
Researchers
demonstrate Schiedea, a genus of plants endemic to
the Hawaiian Islands, may be pollinated by insects or, if growing on cliffs,
become wind pollinated – and a daring scientist risked his life on such cliffs
to prove this. §
In no other country is it seriously contended that
organic farming and genetic engineering can’t coexist. It is extraordinary
that the idea has taken root here. – Prime Minister Helen Clark of New Zealand
reported in The Guardian, 22 July, and whose common sense got her
re-elected a short while later. §
Contrary
to previous belief, the giant cicada killing wasp does not use the spurts in its
hind set of legs for carrying its prey, but for digging holes for its nests, Joe
Coelho reports in Natural History magazine of research completed by
himself and undergraduate student Kimberley Wiedman Yee of Western Illinois
university. §
“School science can be so boring it puts young people
off science for life.” Ian Gibson, British MP, launching a parliamentary
committee report (11 July) reported by the magazine New Scientist §
“GM foods currently available in the marketplace have
arguably undergone greater regularity scrutiny than their conventional
counterparts.” – from the report of the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory
Committee §
“Bugs With a Backpack: The Function of Nymphal
Camouflage in the West African Assassin Bugs, Paredocla and Avcathaspis
spp.” (Animal Behaviour 63, 2002) reports on how these critters
disguise themselves with dust, plant pieces and insect remains in order to
ambush their ant prey while remaining concealed from possible predators. Ottawa
bureaucrats and politicians, please note. §
Condos
for ants are formed by at least some tropical trees, which create swellings
known as domatia at the site of minor damage caused by the ant genus Pseudomyrmex,
which then hollow them out for nests, report Nico Bluthgen, of the University of
Bonn, and Jens Wesenberg, of the University of Leipzig. §
England’s
hedgehogs, a sort of miniature porcupine, have declined by 50 per cent, report
researchers from London University’s Royal Holloway College. The cause is
claimed to be intensive farming practices reducing hedgerows and field margins.
Presumably this has also reduced Britain’s flea population, which hedgehogs
are notoriously and very prolifically infested with. §
Cockroaches’ springy legs allow them to achieve amazing
stability, reports Robert Full at the University of California, Berkley, and his
colleague Devin Jindrich. The
roaches responded in less than 1/00th of a second to being pushed off
balance by blasts from miniature cannons fastened to their backs. Travel §
Although
the farmers’ markets in Toronto retire for the season this month, those
really, really desperate might want to check in at London, England’s venerable
Covent Garden, originally a wholesale location that closed in 1974, now reborn
as The Food Lovers’ Market which promises a “food fair” from 1 to 3
November; check www.coventgardenmarket.co.uk Weather §
Statistics
Canada discovers that the weather in Western Canada was the most extreme in 30
years, and that this has adversely affected crops §
Atmospheric scientists launch a giant helium balloon,
25-storeys high, from near Vanscoy, Saskatchewan, to spend a day studying the
stratosphere at a cost of about $1-million. §
This past
summer was 3C warmer than usual for the Greater Toronto Area, reports
Environment Canada with an average of 22C. Not quite a record were the 34 days
when the temperature exceeded 30C. Half the usually amount of rain fell, and
indeed only seven out of 31 weekends received any rain at all. It was, of
course, a great gardening summer. §
Seasonal
affective disorder (SAD), a depression brought on by short, gloomy winter days,
is suffered by perhaps 5 per cent of adult Americans, writes Michael Kesterton
in The Globe and Mail. There is, however, he says, a “reverse” or
summer SAD whose sufferers find too much sun depressing. The most depressed
people in the Western World are those from parts of California and Australia’s
Gold Coast, says Mr. Kesterton, citing The Independent on Sunday. Law
and Gardeners §
Annoyed at Florida levying a tax on US$80-million of
orange juice Brazil exports to that state, Brazil puts the squeeze on by
requesting intervention by the WTO in Geneva, thus finally causing Washington
bureaucrats to concentrate. §
In one of
the most hilarious examples of junk science, NOW, Toronto’s weakly
paper disagrees with the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Committee finding that
GM foods are not harmful by stating, “there’s no evidence that they’re
safe either.” Same for most foods, actually: you can die on cabbage, coffee or
peanuts. And several much-touted “natural” health products have recently
been removed from the market. §
Hornets in Germany, protected under environmental laws
since 1987, attack and injure some two dozen people in Bavaria. §
It takes all kinds: according to reports, professional
assassin of the Greek urban terrorist group November 17, who recently
surrendered after several weeks on the run, is an “amateur beekeeper.” §
In a new twist on the US$59-million settlement of suits
by growers alleging DuPont’s fungicide Benlate destroyed crops, a Florida
judge has let stand a claim that the giant chemical company defrauded nursery
owner Jeffery Wagner’s in a secret payment the DuPont made to the law firm
that represented him. Business §
Donated hay to feed drought-stricken Western cattle is
transported by the federal government at a cost of $490 a tonne while Alberta
farmers are paying $180 for the same amount of hay locally, delivered to their
door, the Edmonton Journal reports noting that, as usual, it is the
Canadian taxpayer who is on the hook. §
Canada may export wheat to Iraq, says Federal Agriculture
Minister Lyle Vanclief as war with that country threatens. However, see next
item . . . §
But, according to the Financial Post, Russia
predicts annual grain exports to triple to 16 million tonnes by the end of the
decade, making it a major grain exporter, even to such countries as Canada,
thanks to recent droughts here. §
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announces a possible
voluntary certification scheme to help grain exporters trading with the European
Union assure they follow procedures designed to exclude GM products. §
The British-based journal Nature, while conceding
that the “United States donates almost 60% of the world’s food aid,” seeks
to criticize and advice our neighbours south o’ the border on how to do so and
the errors Nature perceives they are making. Perhaps somebody should
explain to our cousins across the Atlantic the phrase “fish or cut bait.” Environment §
In an attempt to end-run around Toronto City Council’s
consideration of pesticides this fall, the Toronto Environmental Alliance
follows up on their now-notorious blunder earlier in the year with yet another
inaccurate report, this time claiming that lawn care companies are deliberately
making misleading claims on promotional literature. §
The Mauritius palm, Hyophorbe amaricaulis, has but
a single specimen left in a botanical garden in Curepipe on that island. The
seeds it produces are not viable, and all attempts to clone it have, to date,
failed. §
A fast-spreading strain of tropical seaweed Caulerpa
taxifolia, known since the 1980s from France’s Mediterranean coast, has
been identified in California waters. §
Eco-chondriacs: description of chronic environmental
‘doom-and-gloom’ purveyors, coined by Philip Stott is Emeritus Professor of
Biogeography at the University of London §
Elizabeth May, president of the Sierra Club of Canada,
was less than impressed with the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable
Development. “I’m not going to jet off to every useless talk-fest that
occurs just because it’s happening and I’d get to see a bunch of old
friends. I think the world would be better off and the climate would be better
off if we could have avoided all the greenhouse gases from people flying there,
and all the money.” §
Toronto Liberal MP Charles Caccia says he “would bet my
last dollar” that Prime Minister Jean Chretien will ratify the Kyoto protocol
later this year despite dissent by Alberta and most business groups as well as
growing disconcern at public level as it is revealed what this will involve. §
Canada, the United States and Australia are part of an
“axis of environmental evil,” according to Friends of the Earth
International §
Cocoa-Cola India and PepsiCo India are brought before the
Supreme Court of India for painting their logos along a 56-kilometre stretch of
the spectacular Manali-Rogtang pass in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh.
“Rohtang” in Tibetan means “a heap of dead bodies,” reports the National
Post owing, apparently to unpredictable weather conditions encountered
there, not the products advertised. This has seriously damaged unique fossils of
plants and animals, “aghast” geologists claim as well, presumably, as being
an eyesore. §
The
desertification of Africa is a myth that defies all scientific evidence of over
150 years, reports New Scientist magazine, claiming there is no
foundation to the “great spiritual and environmental
panic that persists to this day.” §
Prime
Minister Jean Chretien announces he will ratify the Kyoto Protocol to the very
vociferous objections of Alberta, Newfoundland, Nova
Scotia, Saskatchewan and B.C., along with several of his own Cabinet ministers §
“The head of our tribe has promised to call a meeting
of elders this fall to ratify an international agreement that will give our
leaders the power to change the weather. Whoopee! It’s getting too hot and
there’s not enough rains, so the Prime Minister, after a séance with the
keepers of the sacred polls of public opinion, has decided that Parliament needs
the authority to lower global temperatures.” The Financial Post’s
Terence Corcoran casts a jaundiced eye on Canada joining the Kyoto crowd. §
The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) reports in Science
that it has established a new 15-year program to conserve China’s
indigenous plant species, estimated at 31,000 which represent ~10% of the
world’s total. §
Since waste from European slaughterhouses, known as MBM,
can no longer be converted into animal feed or fertilizer, it is piling up at
2.5-million tonnes a year. This means MBM must be incinerated and the ash dumped
expensively in landfills. British engineers are presently investigating the
feasibility of incorporating such ash into building materials, which should make
for some very interesting housing . . . if you don’t squeal, we won’t. §
In Taiwan, the problem is incinerated sewage –
they’re running out of landfill sites. Chih-Huang Weng, leader of the team at
I-Shou University, has also suggested this as being ideal to include in bricks
fired at 900C. There is plenty of potential for the product in Taiwan, which
must deal with 670,000 tonnes of sludge a year. Sewage fertilizer enthusiast and
Toronto Councillor Sandra Bussin might note this, especially when it comes to
municipal construction projects. Health §
Despite
US$310-million spent annually by consumers on it as far back as 1998, the
much-hyped Gingko biloba natural “memory drug” is just that, all hype,
according to a study published in the prestigious
Journal
of the American Medical Association. §
Kava, the rhizome of the South Pacific pepper plant Piper
methysticum, and much-touted herbal suggested for insomnia and anxiety has
been ordered removed from shelves by Health Canada after studies here and in
other countries proved the herb may cause “acute liver toxicity.” §
Blackbirds, owls and swallows found dead in Austria last
year, died of Usutu virus, until
now unknown outside of Africa. Also unknown is if it can infect humans. §
Another
good reason to drink wine, particularly if you are a premenstrual woman: half a
class will relax you, say team led by Sheryl Smith of the
SUNY Downstate Medical Center in New York, they report in Nature Neuroscience §
West Nile
virus, diagnoses in 49 Chicago-area residents, prompts the city to retain a
commercial spraying service to apply the pesticide ‘Anvil, in hot spots for
the disease in the suburbs over two nights. Illinois has also reported 18
fatalities due to West Nile virus this year and over 300 diagnosed case – and
rising ominously in this worst hit state. A total of 1,400 people have been
infected in 30 states, with 68 deaths. §
The first death from West Nile virus is recorded in
Ontario, with a dozen or more human cases confirmed in that province and Quebec,
while the disease has been recorded in mammals and birds from Nova Scotia to
Manitoba Horticultural Humour A writer for Canadian
Gardening goes to the provincial asylum for the criminally insane at
Penetanguishene to interview Joe Romano, who is reportedly the most incredible
creator of landscape design. As Joe shows her around the gardens he has created,
she becomes more and more astounded. Here are the most magnificent designs she
has ever seen. Perennials are exquisitely combined with ornamental grasses,
annuals and bulbs. Shrubs and small trees have been shaped into topiary work to
rival the best anywhere. Urns and planters are overflowing with foliage and
flowers that the most expert florist would envy. She can’t believe it: here is
a man confined to an insane asylum who is undoubtedly one of the greatest
landscape designers ever. “When I leave here,” she
tells him, “I am going back to the magazine and write a article on you and
your work. Not only that, I am going to demand my Member of Parliament seek a
release from you. The gardens of this province should not be deprived of your
skills. |
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