Thompson & Morgan Jazzy Grow Bag Challenge (with incredicrop®)

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Mid-April 2016 I received the challenge pack from Thompson & Morgan including two Jazzy tubers (that's the potatoes, folks), two 8 liter grow bags, a sachet of incredicrop® and a bag of 25 liters of incredicompost®.

The aim of the challenge was to see how much bigger the yield was from a single tuber thus one was grown with and one without the incredicrop® (slow release fertilizer) though both in the same growing medium, that is to say the same amount of incredicompost®.

Though the leaf growth of the potatoes that did not have the fertilizer was stronger – at least initially – the other caught up to a degree. That made me think that the former might also have the higher yield, rather than the one with the fertilizer.

OK, long story short. The results can seen in the photo, with the one on the right being the one that had a once only application of incredicrop® at time of planting. I must say that even I am surprised.

Both the bags had equal amount of water applied and stood side by side. The soil (compost) in the one without incredicrop® was also a lot more waterlogged (the bags really need more drainage for the kind of weather that we have had this spring) while in the other one the soil (compost) was a lot drier and fluffier. Whether the incredicrop® had something to do with it or not, however, I cannot really say. Just making an observation.

The tubers were both planted on April 23, 2016 and the potatoes were harvested on August 27, 2016.

© 2016

A Community Garden Became an Alternative to Juvenile Detention

A small green space in Queens helps court-involved youths turn their lives around.

The first time Tatiana visited the Curtis “50 Cent” Community Garden in Jamaica, Queens, she didn’t want to touch the dirt.

“It was scary,” she says. “I just had to stick my hand in real quick and get it over with.”

That was around two years ago. Tatiana, then in 10th grade, had racked up around 200 absences at her nearby high school. She was failing all of her classes, and a handful of petty crimes had landed her in juvenile court. Through the Queens Youth Justice Center, an alternative-to-detention program, Tatiana was placed in an all-girls group. Every Thursday, Shernette Pink, who runs the program, led the teenagers in conversations about self-esteem and motivation—discussions they rarely had at home or school.

But it wasn’t all talk. Pink had recently been contacted by Heather Butts, a coordinator with H.E.A.LT.H. For Youths, a leadership and development nonprofit that established a presence in the 50 Cent Garden, one of the few green spaces in a neighborhood where public parks make up only 3 percent of the total acreage. Butts suggested bringing some of the teens from the Queens Youth Justice Center to volunteer at the garden.

Tatiana was one of the first from the program to work in the garden, a 10,983 square-foot, well-manicured corner lot at the edge of a sleepy residential neighborhood. Just overhead, the Long Island Railroad occasionally rumbles by. The New York Restoration Project (NYRP), a nonprofit dedicated to cleaning up public spaces across the five boroughs, bought up the land along with 51 other plots in the late ‘90s. In 2008, a donation from the rapper 50 Cent (who grew up in the area) funded a rainwater harvesting system and overhauled planting areas.

Read more here.

AMERICAN ECOVILLAGES? THEY EXIST AND HERE’S 5 EXCITING EXAMPLES

Have you ever thought about getting away from it all and moving to an ecovillage? What’s an ecovillage you ask? Ecovillages are communities whose inhabitants seek to live according to ecological principles, causing as little impact on the environment as possible.

It’s a rather appealing idea to a growing number of people as self-sustainability and self-governance are a growing trend. Ecovillages are popping up all around the nation with a few common themes.

Awareness of caring for the world we live in and our responsibility to this planet are common threads among the ideals of many ecovillages. While there are many models that differentecovillages follow, there are some commonalities among them.

Intentional living is a primary philosophy for most ecovillages. You’ll also commonly find things like;

• community gardens,
• shared agriculture,
• off-the-grid energy,
• bartering systems,
• homeschooling co-operatives and more services that inspire a community of sharing.

This philosophy of intentional living within a community makes the transition to off-the-grid living much more attainable and less inhibiting than trekking off on your own homestead. Living in a community where everyone shares similar life philosophies can make the transition much more exciting and fulfilling.

Read more here.

Nestlé stürmt die Quellen

In den USA mehren sich Proteste gegen die Trinkwasser-Abfüllwerke des Lebensmittelgiganten Nestlé. Der Kampf um das öffentliche Wasser wird mit allen Mitteln geführt.

WASHINGTON –  Die Emotionen kochten hoch, als das Thema bei einer Bürgerversammlung debattiert wurde. „Aus Waitsburg darf nicht Nestléburg werden“, schimpfte eine Frau. „Wir sind dabei, unseren Familienschmuck zu verkaufen“, empörte sich ein Mann.

Andere Bürger unterstützten dagegen die Pläne des Lebensmittelgiganten Nestlé, in dem kleinen Städtchen im US-Bundesstaat Washington ein Abfüllwerk für Trinkwasser in Flaschen zu bauen und das Wasser dafür aus kommunalen Quellen zu schöpfen. Das werde 50 Arbeitsplätze schaffen, sagten sie – ein wichtiger Faktor, um mit mehr Steuereinnahmen wieder etwas mehr Leben in den verarmten Ort zu bringen. Doch am Ende schloss sich der Stadtrat von Waitsburg den Kritikern an und erteilte Nestlé eine Absage.

So wie in Waitsburg erging es dem Unternehmen mit Hauptsitz in der Schweiz einige Monate zuvor auch im Bundesstaat Oregon. Dort entschieden die Einwohner von Cascade Locks in einer Art Volksabstimmung, ihr Trinkwasser nicht einem multinationalen Großkonzern zu übergeben. In den USA wächst der zivile Widerstand gegen Unternehmen wie Nestlé, Coca-Cola und Pepsi, die sich ein Milliardengeschäft aus der kommerziellen Nutzung von Wasservorkommen erhoffen. Statistiker haben errechnet, dass schon bald die Erlöse aus dem Verkauf von Flaschenwasser höher sein werden als der Umsatz, den diese Konzerne mit zuckerhaltigen Brausen machen.

Hier weiterlesen. Read more here.

A Clothesline Comeback

While clotheslines may seem old-fashioned to some, they are making a comeback due to their considerable economic and environmental benefits. Clotheslines have always been around, but sadly, in some places driers have become so common that it is illegal to hang your clothes outside at all! Here are some compelling reasons why you should hang your clothes out to dry:

-Dryers are a major household energy consumer as well as producer of CO2 emissions. Depending on your dryer efficiency and how often you use it, running one can cost from one hundred to several hundred dollars a year.* Give yours up for a month and check out the effects on your electricity bill!  You’ll be doing the environment a favor at the same time.

-Ditching your dryer means a longer life for your clothing, since putting clothes in the dryer wears out fabric–just think about how much dryer lint you remove after every load.

-That fresh, clean, smell store-bought detergents advertise comes naturally from drying clothes in the sun. Sunlight kills bacteria that create odors, and it helps bleach stains naturally. Try to hang stained clothes in direct sunlight.

-Clotheslines drastically cut down on your ironing time. Shake out clothes before you hang them on the line–the weight of the wet cloth pulls out most wrinkles without you lifting a finger. Enjoy the freedom of not needing to be there when the dryer stops to make sure clothes don’t wrinkle.

Common Clothesline Hangups
There are understandable reasons people don’t use clotheslines (rainy weather, stiff clothes, too little space, etc), but the benefits often outweigh the challenges. Here are a few simple solutions to make using a clothesline work for you.

Rad more here.

How to Save Seeds

If you planted heirloom seeds this year in your garden and think you are done harvesting now, you are wrong! Today we are going to learn all about how to save some of the most common garden seeds. If you've been wanting to save money off your yearly gardening plans and learn to become even more self-sufficient, you will really enjoy today's blog post.

Before we start learning how to save seeds, we have to know the difference between the types of plants and seeds you planted in the first place in your garden.

Types of Seeds

Hybrid Seeds -
Hybrid Seeds are bred to be different than their original plant. Maybe they grow bigger or produce more or are more disease resistant. Whatever the case, hybrid seeds are not able to be saved since they are different from the original plant and can produce unreliable off-spring.

Organic Seeds -
Organic Seeds are produced without the use of chemicals and toxic fertilizers. They can be hybrid or heirloom but they cannot be genetically modified. If you have heirloom organic seeds you can save them.

Heirloom Seeds -
Heirloom Seeds are seeds that come from plants that have been around for a long time. This means they are not modified in any way from the original plant. This means you are able to save these seeds because they will grow into the parent plants.

So if you planted any variety of Heirloom Seeds, you are in luck! You can harvest your plant seeds and save them for next year's planting so you won't have to buy new seeds. Below you will find the most commonly planted veggies and learn how to save their seeds.

Read more here.

Freak occurrence: 323 reindeer killed by lightning in Norway

If the chances of getting struck by lightning are slim, the chances of 323 reindeer getting struck by lightning must be miniscule, but that’s exactly what seems to have happened on a mountain plateau in Norway.

When Knut Nylend, an official from the Norwegian Nature Inspectorate (Statens naturoppsyn – NNI) went out on a routine inspection near Hardangervidda National Park on Friday, he wasn’t expecting to see hundreds of dead reindeer lying across a field.

“They were lying there dead in a fairly concentrated area. Reindeer are pack animals and are often close together. During a heavy thunderstorm, they may have gathered even closer together out of fear,” NNI spokesman Knut Nylend told Norwegian news outlet NTB, as cited by The Local.

Read more here.

What part of reusable do people not understand?

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

In recent months to a couple of years I have begun wondering as to what part of the word and term “reusable” people have difficulties in understanding.

People seem to go on a picnic in a park, nowadays, and not wanting to use plastic cutlery (after all that is not very environmentally conscious and “green”) they bring, and some actually buy specifically for this picnic, reusable metal cutlery and then, hold on to your hats, throw those knives, forks and spoons, into the trash because they have, obviously, become dirty in use.

In one instance it was a case of people having bought half a dozen packs of knives, forks and spoons at IKEA (receipt found also) at £3.99 per pack, then put the dirty ones back into the plastic sleeves that they came in, though not in the right order, put the lot into the IKEA bag, and then deposited everything into the little bin.

This is the case not only reusable cutlery that is, deliberately, thrown after picnics, but also plastic drinking tumblers, often entire IKEA sets. Also washing up bowls, that have been used with ice to keep drinks cool, often also specifically bought for this one picnic, are being deliberately left behind, and at times even quite expensive chef's knives. The latter, as far as parks and open spaces, are also rather worrying should they fall into the wrong hands.

It would appear that somewhere along the line the message seems to have gotten lost as to what reusable means and I would say that that is just a tad worrying. Those people either have either more money than sense, that is to say too much money that they can waste things in such a way, or they really have not understood the message of “reusable”, or are simply too lazy to take their reusables home to wash, or all of the above.

For those who have not understood what reusable means let me spell it out slowly: “re” is a prefix here and “usable” means you can use it and together it means that you can use it again, and again, and again. All you have to do, in the case of tableware, and that includes cutlery, is to wash it.

© 2016

Neo-liberalism vs. neo-conservatism

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

While they are two different names in essence they are the same side of the same coin

Neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism are basically one and the same and are fascist, as in the true meaning of fascism, and that to the very core. In the United States they are called neo-conservatives, or neo-cons, while neo-liberals is the term that is used in Europe and elsewhere. Both are one and the same and their aims are the same.

Neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism are the enemy of democracy even though the proponents of this system vehemently claim the opposite, that is to say that the system is the height of democracy. They are the new and true fascism and it has nothing to do with the old and new Nazis. Fascism in its true sense means total rule by the state, and by oligarchs and corporations, and thus oppression of all but a select elite.

But, wherever we look today, whether the European Union, which claims to be a bulwark for peace and democracy, and almost all so-celled free and democratic countries and government, neo-liberalism and its partner neo-conservatism have infiltrated and undermined what may have, once upon a time, a long time ago, some kind of democratic institutions.

When it comes to neo-liberalism many people seem to think it is a new liberalism, as in, well liberalism and the old Liberal Party, the Whigs, of the British government and political scene many decades hence, almost a century and more. But the suffix liberal, much like the suffix conservative in the USA, to the prefix neo, makes people believe it to be a good thing and something that favors small government and freedom and all that for the people. That shows how misleading labels can be.

Those two neos, as already said, are in fact the face of the same coin, and equal nothing but pure fascism as its true meaning is, namely total stale control of everything in everyone's life and affairs. It is, when they are going to properly get going with it, and they are working on it very hard, a total dictatorship by an elite and corporations. Man and Planet will not longer count in their equation and that is the reason why we must resist this with every possible means.

However, in order to do that we first must recognize the machinations and thus their agents and today there is barely, if at all, one political party or such that has not been infiltrated by the agents of this construct and many in, say, working class parties do not even realize this infiltration and the way those people have undermined what the parties actually stand and stood for.

In Britain that can be equally seen in the Labour Party as well as the Green Party, the latter which wants to make itself to appear more left and for the working class than does Labour in this day and age. The latter is nowadays nothing but a neo-liberal creature and does not in the least have the plight and the interests working people in mind and at heart. Not is it by any stretch of one's imagination any longer a party of and for the biosphere, what used to be referred to as “environment”, and about the Green Party in Germany we so not even want to talk, and neither about Die Linke.

The European Union, as an example, is about as democratic as was the German Empire under the Kaiser and for the good of the working class, namely not at all. Neo-liberalism is the new fascism and the new feudalism in which, as in the case of the EU, the member states are to be regions with the national governments no longer being governments but a governor with his cabinet, the former appointed by Brussels, and an all European (federal) government the parliament of which being a rubber-stamping body and the president and ministers appointed by another set of unelected elites. But then, that is how neo-liberalism and it's brother neo-conservatism operate.

© 2016

Fly-tips will multiply in Surrey

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

From the 1st Sept 2016 some non-household waste will be subject to charges at the tip. These include the following:

• Tires from cars, motorcycles and all other motorized vehicles

• Waste from construction, alteration or repair of your home and garden such as plasterboard, breeze blocks, bricks, rubble, soil, stones, turf, ceramic bathroom fittings, tiles.

You will have a free daily allowance of chargeable waste from the construction, alteration or repair of your home and garden of one bag or one item or one sheet of plasterboard. Thereafter charges will be applied.

The charges are as follows:

• £5 per tire or part tire

• £4 per bag or part bag of chargeable waste; or per item or per sheet of plasterboard

• Bags no bigger than 50cm x 77cm

Items such as a concrete fence post, ceramic bath, cistern, paving slab

sheets of plasterboard no bigger than 120cm x 240cm

If these materials are loose, a charge of £50 will apply per car load

I am convinced that Surrey County Council in this instance will cut off its nose despite its face but then again most of the fly-tips will not come under the County Council but under the local (borough) councils and it will be they who will have to pick up that waste and then dispose off it. Local councils will bear the costs and will have to pay the county at the county tips.

Several years ago when one of the shires decided to go the route of but one refuse bag per household in an attempt to encourage recycling the amount of fly-tips around the county in parks, open spaces and the countryside skyrocketed, according to reports from park and countryside rangers, and much of those fly-tips were in the forms of refuse sacks, other than council ones, with domestic refuse, including kitchen waste, etc.

Since councils across Surrey (and neighboring ones) began charging for green waste, that is to say garden waste, the incidents of the dumping of garden waste in parks and elsewhere has multiplied also by large figures. No doubt we will now see this as far as such waste as above is concerned as well.

Charging commercial operators is, obviously, understandable, and enough of them have taken to dumping their waste, some hazardous, in parks and the countryside, but charging residents who bring the waste in their own private cars will only make matters worse.

For more details, including other materials and method of payment, click the link below:

http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/environment-housing-and-planning/waste-and-recycling/where-to-take-your-waste-and-recycling/community-recycling-centres-household-waste-and-recycling-centres/introduction-of-charging-at-surreys-community-recycling-centres

© 2016