As the New York Times has it in Farmers Cope With Roundup-Resistant Weeds, the use of Roundup, a weedkiller, is creating "superweeds" and big trouble for farmers:

But farmers sprayed so much Roundup that weeds quickly evolved to survive it. "What we’re talking about here is Darwinian evolution in fast-forward," Mike Owen, a weed scientist at Iowa State University, said.

Having landed themselves in this situation due to this practice in non-organic farming, the answer is this: more »

It's a sad day when you find the Charlotte Observer's June 19, 2010 article entitled Arsenic high in water sample near Duke plant. What's Duke? An energy company in North Carolina which is apparently dumping arsenic-contaminated water into NC's Mountain Island Lake, "the major water supply for Charlotte, Gastonia and Mount Holly": more »

I was surfing around the Web this evening when I discovered a link to the Heirloom Organics website at non-hybrid-seeds.com. Curious, I took a look.

According to the website's home page:

Non-Hybrid or Open-Pollinated seeds allow the gardener to collect seeds from a crop for future planting. Hybrid seeds do not. All Heirloom Organics Seed Packs are 100% Non-Hybrid AND Non-GMO (genetically modified) and specially sealed for long term storage.

Sounds like a plan. We've been storing a small amount of organic seeds that we purchased from Whole Foods, but I'm glad to find more sources.

When I first heard about the British Petroleum's Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill, my first thoughts went to what incredible damage was sure to come, including damage to the eco-system, animals, and people's livelihoods. And so it turned out to be true. more »

While blog-hopping/researching this morning, I discovered Where Is My Milk From?.

Apparently milk products have some sort of code that specifies where they were produced. At Where Is My Milk From, you just type the code into the box (the white box in the image to the left) and click the arrow for your results.

The website says:

This information is taken from the IMS List, published by the FDA in conjunction with the US Department of Health and Human Services, and the Public Health Service.
This website is owned and operated by an independent third party.

There's also a link in the small type there to the FDA IMS list in PDF format — that's the Interstate Milk Shippers list.

Pretty nice stuff. I'd try it, but I don't have any product right now, so no bar codes.

One of the beauties of living in the South is the advent of Spring. Remember the beginning of Last of the Mohicans (Daniel Day Lewis version) where they're running through the trees? Everyone else was engrossed in the action. I, instead, was breathlessly taken by the beauty of the forest. "Where is this land?" I asked. Well, that was North Carolina. Precisely where I sit now.

We've got a large stand of trees behind our place. As an ex-long-time Los Angeleno, I wasn't that thrilled when it got cold here, nor when the autumn leaves dropped off the trees. Then, two weeks ago, buds appeared on the trees … and two weeks later, the trees are in full leaf.

One day, as I sat and admired all the greenery surrounding us, what looked like dozens of green … moths? … flew out from a tree. As the numbers escalated, and they approached me, I spied what they really were — seeds from the trees, each with its own little "wing" that caused it to ride the mild wind, whirling like helicopters. more »

I did not set out, back in 2007, to write an article panning Chinese goods. How that came to be was simply that I was reading here and there, and kept noticing warnings against various Chinese goods. Not from "alarmists"; no, these sources were the New York Times, among others. Finally, I set about making a list, which eventually became Questioning Chinese Imports. And now, nearly three years later, we have … Chinese Drywall. more »

Planning aside, the first issue to address in setting up your home organic garden would be the issue of soil. Now, you can simply use the soil in your backyard, improving on it and/or bringing in bags of soil as needed. But that assumes a lot, presuming you're trying to grow organic vegetables and fruits. more »

Given the state of the economy in the last few years and as it's likely to be for an unforeseeable time, and given the occasional difficulties in determining whether the food obtained from our local big-name organic/natural food store is truly organic, we've decided to focus a bit on organic gardening.

Anyone who's had the opportunity to taste produce fresh from the garden has likely experienced the heightened taste that fresh produce — non-frozen, non-refrigerated, non-sprayed, non-crated for thousands of miles — can give you.

This doesn't have to be difficult, or require acres of space to do — we'll be following up with articles on organic soil, how to grow your garden, and other elements that will help you to grow your own produce.

Seeds can be gotten from various sources — organic seeds, or legacy seeds. Organic soil — which, in my experience, is very different from "regular" soil — can also be purchased. I'll be doing a follow-up on that.

And so, we've started our new Organic Gardening category.

We're more than a little late on this (today's the last day), but here's the word from Food Democracy Now!:

After years of bureaucratic wrangling, a recent USDA environmental review may finally approve Monsanto’s GMO alfalfa. If approved, GMO alfalfa will fundamentally undermine the entire organic industry overnight. In addition, the USDA says Americans consumers don't care about the contamination of organics. Act Now! Comments are due by close of business today.

Please join us in calling on Secretary Vilsack to stand up for organic family farmers and reject approval of Monsanto's GMO alfalfa by signing this petition. You may add further comments in the comment box below.

Voice your opinion and cast your vote

ADDED March 6, 2010: Your Victory on the McCain Bill.