This post is for the meme hosted by Rambling Woods. Her blog is beautiful and she has loads of information and really a blog dedicated to nature. My this post is nothing compared to her. But since it involves nature, so I thought of linking it with her.
. This post is going to be almost wordless; just some photos and some news. Some bees -- bumbles and some native ones are back; tons of flowers are blooming, along with fruits and vegetables. So, here are the photos:
Squashes and cabbage
Nasturtium plant and its flower; they are edible. I forgot the name of this flower, need to look up my diary but too lazy to get up from the desk and hunt it down :-P
Whoever ate this portion of the leaf must be very romantic; otherwise how could it create such a nice heart? Or is it showering love to me for letting use my garden and not using any chemical? Awww...I would like to think it's loving me :-). Melon flowers and onion flower
Is this my lover who created that heart-shape? Not sure. Few bees are back; a bumblebee feeding on my onion flowers (I am not calling them allium flowers because these are edible onion plants and I will be soon harvesting onion from them)
Now here is the good news first: Seattle to build nation's first food forest. You can read the details here. Seattle’s vision of an urban food oasis is going forward. A seven-acre plot of land in the city’s Beacon Hill neighborhood will be planted with hundreds of different kinds of edibles: walnut and chestnut trees; blueberry and raspberry bushes; fruit trees, including apples and pears; exotics like pineapple, yuzu citrus, guava, persimmons, honeyberries, and lingonberries; herbs; and more. All will be available for public plucking to anyone who wanders into the city’s first food forest.
Here is the sad news, and this news might provide conclusive evidence for the causes of colony collapse disorder in bees and vanishing of our pollinators. You can read the article here. Target shoppers in Wilsonville, Oregon found a tragedy in the parking lot as tens of thousands of of bumble bees were found dead and dying on the pavement, along with honey bees and ladybugs. As the estimate of dead bees rose to 50,000, the Oregon Department of Agriculture confirmed the insecticide Safari caused the deaths in a Wilsonville earlier this week.
Here is the most worrisome news. Those of us who grow our own food or can afford organic or farmers' market food might not feel concerned about this news though we should. Close to 100 billion dollar (a very conservative approximation as latest research are showing that even auto-immune diseases, parkinson and alzheimer and cancer could be related to diet; so, if these are also considered, then it will be more than 100B) is spent, every year, by the US economy for diseases related to food. The country can get broke if all these spending continues to rise. You can read it here, If you like things like Mtn Dew, Chex Mix, Hungry Man frozen dinners, or roughly 80 percent of all the packaged foods sold in your average, American grocery store, you may want to sit down - several of the chemicals found in some of America's most common foods are considered to be so unhealthy that they're actually ILLEGAL in certain other countries.
. This post is going to be almost wordless; just some photos and some news. Some bees -- bumbles and some native ones are back; tons of flowers are blooming, along with fruits and vegetables. So, here are the photos:
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Squashes and cabbage
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 |
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Nasturtium plant and its flower; they are edible. I forgot the name of this flower, need to look up my diary but too lazy to get up from the desk and hunt it down :-P
 |
 |
 |
Whoever ate this portion of the leaf must be very romantic; otherwise how could it create such a nice heart? Or is it showering love to me for letting use my garden and not using any chemical? Awww...I would like to think it's loving me :-). Melon flowers and onion flower
 |
 |
 |
Is this my lover who created that heart-shape? Not sure. Few bees are back; a bumblebee feeding on my onion flowers (I am not calling them allium flowers because these are edible onion plants and I will be soon harvesting onion from them)
Now here is the good news first: Seattle to build nation's first food forest. You can read the details here. Seattle’s vision of an urban food oasis is going forward. A seven-acre plot of land in the city’s Beacon Hill neighborhood will be planted with hundreds of different kinds of edibles: walnut and chestnut trees; blueberry and raspberry bushes; fruit trees, including apples and pears; exotics like pineapple, yuzu citrus, guava, persimmons, honeyberries, and lingonberries; herbs; and more. All will be available for public plucking to anyone who wanders into the city’s first food forest.
Here is the sad news, and this news might provide conclusive evidence for the causes of colony collapse disorder in bees and vanishing of our pollinators. You can read the article here. Target shoppers in Wilsonville, Oregon found a tragedy in the parking lot as tens of thousands of of bumble bees were found dead and dying on the pavement, along with honey bees and ladybugs. As the estimate of dead bees rose to 50,000, the Oregon Department of Agriculture confirmed the insecticide Safari caused the deaths in a Wilsonville earlier this week.
Here is the most worrisome news. Those of us who grow our own food or can afford organic or farmers' market food might not feel concerned about this news though we should. Close to 100 billion dollar (a very conservative approximation as latest research are showing that even auto-immune diseases, parkinson and alzheimer and cancer could be related to diet; so, if these are also considered, then it will be more than 100B) is spent, every year, by the US economy for diseases related to food. The country can get broke if all these spending continues to rise. You can read it here, If you like things like Mtn Dew, Chex Mix, Hungry Man frozen dinners, or roughly 80 percent of all the packaged foods sold in your average, American grocery store, you may want to sit down - several of the chemicals found in some of America's most common foods are considered to be so unhealthy that they're actually ILLEGAL in certain other countries.
Oh your garden is coming along beautifully! Such horrid news about the bees! When will governments wake up and stop the use of chemicals?
ReplyDeleteHi, congratulations for your beautiful photos and thanks for your kind comment on my blog. I share with you the love of nature, reading and music.
ReplyDeleteThe music you hear on my blog are fado and are sung by my daughter, Sara de Sousa, in Portuguese. You can find them on "you tube".
Warm greetings from Galicia, Spain.
Isabel.
I'm so glad you like the songs. In the world we live talent does not always equal success. She is not known, in fact, with the economic crisis has almost no concerts. The Fades are very dramatic and romantic songs. She sings well any style of song.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Isabel.
I'm happy to hear some of your bees have shown up.
ReplyDeleteI like the heart-shaped-hole in the leaf :)
Way to find beauty in the Little Things!
Great post! I love the food forest idea. I wish more places and states would do the same. Your plants and flowers are nice. Sad news about the bees, I wish they would ban all the insecticides. Thanks for sharing your nature post.
ReplyDeleteThis "bee" one of your most interesting posts. The average "know it all" would look at your garden, and offer all sorts of chemicals to drench on it. At my household waste days, we fill up a drum of liquid pesticides every 90 minutes. We had four or five drums last week at the Morristown municipal yard last Saturday.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the kind words about my blog. It has been evolving for over 6 years and I have too. This is a wonderful post packed with info and passion. It was awful about all those bees and I am sure there are insects and wildlife and people getting sick and dying from all this stuff.... Thank you for linking into Nature Notes.... Michelle
ReplyDeleteYour garden is doing very well. The news out of Oregon is very sad, maybe soon we will see state and local governments beginning to deal with the insecticide problems. Eventually people have to wake up to their long-term interests, don't you think?
ReplyDeleteYou have a productive garden, KL! And that's a big nasturtium bloom you are holding there. The nasturtium I see at the hills here are smaller ;-) And yes romantic bugs haha... they want to be friendly with you hehe... enjoy their company!
ReplyDeleteI read an article about all of the foods band in other countries. It included things found in most cereals, yogurt, chicken and hot dogs. Most of them lead to cancer or even have poison in them. It also had the things you posted.
ReplyDeleteLove this post -- it's so informative and beautiful (as your posts tend to be). I was shocked about the bees in Oregon, appalled by the food-related disease information, and relieved and to learn of Seattle's exciting news. A food forest sounds ambitious, but if anyone can do it, the folks in Seattle can!
ReplyDeleteYes...I've read about that Food Forest in Seattle...what a great idea. As to the bees in Oregon...what a disaster. When will people learn that you can't mistreat Nature like this. The backlash has already started in the form of climate change. People need to wake up...very soon...before it's too late.
ReplyDeleteSad that our food and grocery stores are killing us...I think that is why people are growing more and trying to plant for pollinators...maybe some day soon a revolution will occur and these chemical companies will nto be so powerful...all tyrants eventually are toppled.
ReplyDeleteLooks like you have a good harvest. Sad to read about the news of the bees. I choose to go organic, pesticide free and wildlife friendly in my garden.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog
ReplyDeleteYour blog is pretty good too, lots of nice pics and interesting episodes... I shall take a peep at the Rambling Woods blog that you mentioned...
ReplyDeletebeautiful as always!and wonderful variations of plants :)
ReplyDelete