My organic garden, 2009

[CTScott]

Here's a few shots of mine. We have two main garden areas, and then the herbs and fruit and nuts are spread out in various parts of the yard.

Main garden (20'x50') - Raised beds on left with sugar snap peas (front), tomatoes and peppers (middle), lettuce and greens (rear). Cultivated area on right contains corn, squash, cucumbers, beans, edamame, garlic. Two 30+ year old blueberry bushes in the rear center.
Garden.jpg

Second garden area (more tomatoes) to left of chickens and ducks. Pumpkins, raspberries, and blackberries behind. Grapes growing over chicken run, like a trellis, also shades the chickens. Peach, apple and chestnut trees to the right of chicken coop (behind the bamboo). Concolor Fir trees to the left of the duck run will be xmas trees (in about three more years).
Chickens.jpg

Strawberry bed by pool deck. More blueberry bushes to the left of and behind the perennial flower bed on the left.
Strawberries.jpg


Hazelnut trees (behind red maple), apple trees, and more xmas trees in orchard area off side of driveway.
orchard.jpg

[cali yaris]

+1 about Monsanto. They sued a corn farmer when their GMO pollen blew onto his field and pollinated his corn. Lame.

Some of our seeds are products of last year's plants that we allowed to go to seed.

Here's mine for 2009:

x2 cherry tomatoes
x2 large tomatoes (2 kinds)
x2 eggplant
x3 hot peppers
x4 green and red bell peppers
x5 yellow squash
x5 zuchinni
x2 cantalope
x8 corn
x19 bush beans
x3 basil
x1 oregano
x3 chives
x2 rosemary
x1 lemon balm
x1 raspberry
x4 chard
x8 spinach
x3 cilantro
x5 aloe vera
x2 sage (two kinds)

TREES
grapefruit
tangerine
peaches
Meyer lemons
dwarf avocado

[Shroomster]

how do you know if the seeds you purchased are monsanto?

[BailOut]

Originally Posted by Shroomster

how do you know if the seeds you purchased are monsanto?

AFAIK Monsanto doesn't sell seeds in the consumer segment, just their newest flagship pesticide, Roundup (their previous flagship product was Agent Orange and we all know how that turned out).

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by BailOut

AFAIK Monsanto doesn't sell seeds in the consumer segment, just their newest flagship pesticide, Roundup (their previous flagship product was Agent Orange and we all know how that turned out).

That's non-sense, Brian. Agent Orange and Roundup are as different as gasoline and ethanol. What's more, glyphosphides are now available in "generic" forms, which kind of demonstrates their age on the market.

Agent Orange (a blend of the agents 2,4,5 T and 2,4 T) was produced by Dow Chemical and Dupont, not Monsanto. The most toxic part of it was not really part of the specified chemicals but was the product of an unwanted "side reaction", that produced "dioxin". Sloppy processes, probably because of the volume needed for LBJ's dirty little war, lead to dioxin being sprayed onto US troops, Vietnamese people and vast areas of Viet Nam. This came to light when a producer of 2,4,5 T had a thermal issue, lost control, and contaminated areas of Italy with dioxin. At that point Dow and Dupont couldn't bluff and BS their way out of it.

Roundup is one of the "glyphosphide" class of herbicides. The stuff is used as part of a "no-till" mode of agriculture that reduces soil erosion. There is no way in hell that farmers could put Agent Orange on crop lands due to its persistence. Monsanto loves the stuff because they can market "Roundup resistant" seeds to farmers.

The two do not even share the same mode of attack - Agent Orange burns out plants by forcing them to over grow. Roundup interferes with protein synthesis.

I've never seen Monsanto seeds for non-commercial sales but I would not be surprised if they have a consumer division out there. Monsanto is sneaky.

Gene

[BailOut]

Originally Posted by GeneW

Agent Orange (a blend of the agents 2,4,5 T and 2,4 T) was produced by Dow Chemical and Dupont, not Monsanto.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_o..._manufacturers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#History

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by BailOut

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_o..._manufacturers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#History

Ahhhh! Misread it. Sorry, Brian.

Gene

[Shroomster]

well I picked 4 cukes today and ate one and I'm not dead (referring to my previous thread), they were delicious, and I think I'm liking this gardening thing :)