Landscape and Garden Articles

“Kind hearts are the gardens, Kind thoughts are the roots, Kind words are the flowers, Kind deeds are the fruits, Take care of your garden And keep out the weeds, Fill it with sunshine Kind words and kind deeds”     ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

Here is some recent news from around the world for landscapers and gardeners everywhere.

It’s not too late to get started for a winter vegetable harvest. 

Even in the northern regions you still have time to put in a winter garden.

Spinach, radishes, carrots, chard and kohlrabi are just a few of the many vegetables that you can start now and reap before the winter’s end.

From the Providence Journal:

There is still time to plant seeds to provide fresh vegetables well into winter.

Eliot Coleman, author of Four-Season Harvest and The Winter Harvest Handbook, grows vegetables through the winter in Maine.

It’s much easier in Southern New England.

There are several varieties of radishes that grow so quickly that they will be ready to pick before winter arrives, says Eva Littlefield, a customer service representative for Johnny’s Selected Seeds, an employee-owned company in Winslow, Maine.

Hakurei, a white turnip that Johnny’s carries, grows quickly and tastes delicious raw, when it is about as large as a golf ball, or cooked, when it is about the size of a tennis ball. When it grows larger, voles or some other critters tend to nibble on it beneath the soil’s surface. It matures in 38 days.

Radishes mature quickly, too. A beautiful example is Amethyst, ready in 30 days. Cherriette, a small radish, matures in 26 days.

Carrots mature in about nine weeks. Plant a variety such as Sugarsnax — the name says it all — before the end of August, and they will be ready to pull before the end of October. In his first book, Four-Season Harvest, Coleman says the variety Napoli will endure winter.

Read the whole article here.

A garden design by Capability Brown, one of England's greatest gardening architects, is to be brought to life after remaining hidden for 250 years

From: The Telegraph (UK) (2-20-09)




Read the whole article here.

Honeybees losses are still a staggering 29%, down from 36% the year before.

While improvements are being seen, honeybees are still on the decline.  This spells trouble for farmers and gardeners alike.

From the USDA Agricultural Service:

Survey Reports Latest Honey Bee Losses

By Kim Kaplan
May 19, 2009

WASHINGTON--Honey bee colony losses nationwide were approximately 29 percent from all causes from September 2008 to April 2009, according to a survey conducted by the Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

This is less than the overall losses of about 36 percent from 2007 to 2008, and about 32 percent from 2006 to 2007, that have been reported in similar surveys.

"While the drop in losses is encouraging, losses of this magnitude are economically unsustainable for commercial beekeeping," said Jeff Pettis, research leader of the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Md. ARS is USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency. The survey was conducted by Pettis; Dennis vanEngelsdorp, president of AIA; and Jerry Hayes, AIA past president.

Photo Credit:   avlxyz / Flickr

America’s favorite herbicide found to cause damage to human cells.
The weed killer, Roundup has an ‘inert’ ingredient that can kill human embryonic, placental, and umbilical cord cells.

From: Scientific American


Used in yards, farms and parks throughout the world, Roundup has long been a top-selling weed killer. But now researchers have found that one of Roundup’s inert ingredients can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells.

The new findings intensify a debate about so-called “inerts” — the solvents, preservatives, surfactants and other substances that manufacturers add to pesticides. Nearly 4,000 inert ingredients are approved for use by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Glyphosate, Roundup’s active ingredient, is the most widely used herbicide in the United States.  About 100 million pounds are applied to U.S. farms and lawns every year, according to the EPA.

Until now, most health studies have focused on the safety of glyphosate, rather than the mixture of ingredients found in Roundup. But in the new study, scientists found that Roundup’s inert ingredients amplified the toxic effect on human cells—even at concentrations much more diluted than those used on farms and lawns.

One specific inert ingredient, polyethoxylated tallowamine, or POEA, was more deadly to human embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells than the herbicide itself – a finding the researchers call “astonishing.”

“This clearly confirms that the [inert ingredients] in Roundup formulations are not inert,” wrote the study authors from France’s University of Caen. “Moreover, the proprietary mixtures available on the market could cause cell damage and even death [at the] residual levels” found on Roundup-treated crops, such as soybeans, alfalfa and corn, or lawns and gardens.

Read the full article here.