You all are very welcome

my pretty little crocuses and unknown friend. The crocuses are growing, among the grasses, here and there, in our backyard. I don't know how they got there. I can only guess that the previous owner of the house planted them in the flower-bed; the crocuses were dug-out by the squirrels and scattered out in the backyard.

I allow weeds in my garden for couple of reasons: what are weeds to me perhaps are great plants to someone else somewhere in this world. Dandelion are considered weed in the USA, but they are grown and eaten in France. I can't recognize plants and thus those weeds might be native plants. Many of these weeds have flowers and I see bees and butterflies flocking on them. Thus, I leave them in our garden. But, I don't allow weeds to grow in my vegetable bed, vegetable garden. However, these "unknown friends" are most welcome. I don't know what they are; online search is revealing that they are speedwell? They are creeping ground cover with beautiful, dainty, fragile flowers. The sky-blue flowers are tiny but intricate in every details; the four petals are stripped. The middle is white with a big yellow center. Even the small, rosette-like leaves, arranged in whorls look like flowers. The whole plant is covered with such beautiful flowers and looks exquisitely beautiful. The pictures are not doing any judgement. They can stay in my vegetable-plot, in my pots, everywhere in my garden. Can anyone recognize these plants?

Flower and Garden Show

I went to a flower and garden show yesterday (2/19). This was my first time visiting such a show. I liked it but I expected more. It had lots of stalls but there were only two stalls that had anything to do with garden - one was selling coco-peat and the other was selling seeds; rest of the stalls were selling food, jewelries, stone-handicrafts, etc. There were some garden set-ups based on Alice-In-Wonderland theme; the flowers in the set-up were quite common flowers - tulip, rose, hellebore, primrose - nothing unique. I observed that there were not many identification tags for most of the flowers, trees and shrubs. The set-ups give nice ideas about designing and decorating a garden. Here are some pictures:


Images of some flowers:

And, how can I go to a garden and flower show and not buy something :-)? I got three bags of potato seeds, pepper and gourd seeds and seeds of some not-so-common herb seeds. They are St. John's Wort, Savory, Feverfew, Borage, Cardoon, Pennyroyal and a common herb, Thyme. I could not control myself and bought them, but my research is telling me that some of them are extremely invasive; also, Pennyroyal can supposedly be very toxic. Anyone has any ideas about these herbs? I got them because of their flowers which attract bees. I now have to grow them in pots and also need to learn to control myself from buying all sorts of seeds.

Bugle has sounded...

Battle-maps drawn. Wisdom and knowledge gathered. Commodities and supplies hoarded.

Arms and fighting tools cleaned and readied. Newer tools prepared. Recruitment, preparation and training are going on for the young soldiers in their small confined "training" grounds.

Battle has almost started....

STOP MONSANTO

Monsanto is trying to infiltrate Vietnam. It already did once because Monsanto was the creator of the agent "Orange," used by the US Military during the Vietnam War which is "estimated to have killed 400,000, deformed 500,000 and sickened another 2 million." Still Vietnamese children are born with birth defects from the exposure to this agent. More details can be found here.

Monsanto has already infiltrated India which has lead to thousands and thousands of farmers committing suicide. Monsanto promises genetically modified crops with higher yields; it also promises farmers that they do not have to use insecticide/pesticide/etc because of the GM crops. The exact opposite is true. Those GM crops, being non-native, fail miserably, especially to pests and insects. For that farmers need to use not only huge quantities of pesticide/insecticide chemicals, but they need to use those that are produced by Monsanto; other chemicals do not work. Also, use of such huge quantities of chemicals lead to more watering of the plants. All these lead to not only huge economic burden for the farmers but also the land and soil become dry and plants fail because of lack of enough water. Result: huge number of suicides by farmers. More details here


Monsanto has created a wave of terror for the small farmers and organic farmers in both the USA and Canada, "In 1996, when Monsanto sold its first patented genetically modified (GMO) seed to farmers, this radically changed the idea of how farmers planted and saved seed. Less than two decades later, Monsanto's aggressive patent infringement lawsuits have created a climate of fear in rural America among farmers." 300,000 (THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND -- that should give you some ideas about how bad Monsanto is; otherwise not so many groups were going to come together) plaintiff groups that include organic farms, farmers, ordinary citizens have come together to pre-emptively sue Monsanto from patenting every seeds on earth and creating a reign of terror. The case has been filed in NY's Federal Court in Manhattan. The preliminary hearing took place on January 31st, 2012. More details can be found here.

We the ordinary people CAN STOP these giant corporations like Monsanto who are trying to rule the world by infringing and patenting the world's natural resources. All we have to do is make some promises:
1. Educate public and especially the farmers of third world countries
2. Do not buy any seeds from companies like Monsanto
3. Do not buy anything from any companies that do business with Monsanto
4. Do not buy any products that are made with genetically modified crops
5. Help and Support the local small-farmers and the organic farmers.
6. Grow one's own at least some vegetables and fruits, in whatever small scale possible.

If the mass population does not buy, then obviously these corporations will not make any profit and will fail.

THE WORLD WITH ALL ITS MYSTERIES AND BEAUTIES AND NATURAL RESOURCES BELONGS TO ALL OF US.

Two more Primroses

I got two more primrose plants, bringing up six different primrose plants in my collected. Well, no one can blame me for buying them. I am reading all these Indian and southern hemisphere (Australia, New Zealand and South Africa) blogs and getting depressed on seeing all the gardening they are doing now. I can't do anything except perhaps start some seedlings, but it might be still too early. Thus, I am satisfying my gardening needs by buying cheap primrose plants. Well, yes, something are growing in the green house, but that's not enough.

A Really Good Bargain

I have been looking for this 4-in-1 tester that supposedly tests moisture-level, ph-level, fertility-level and light-level of soil. I don't know how this one works but I once had a moisture-tester and that one really worked well. So, I am hoping that it will also work well - I don't want a detailed report (for that I need to send the soil to testing-lab) but at least some idea about moisture, ph and amount of N-P-K content in the soil.

I had been looking for it for quite a while, at least for about a month. Many a times, I was on the verge of buying them for whatever prices the sites/catalogs were asking. Most of the garden catalogs had this tester listed for a price range between $40-$55. I looked at it for Ebay; I could buy it there for about $24-$25. Looked it up in Amazon next.

The minimum price listed in Amazon was $11.49 with free shipping. I got an Amazon card and paid only $1.49 :-). Really sweet bargain; patience really pays.