Re: email list suggestion - organic or not .....

>> Since their backer is a University, they are not averse to any and all
kinds
>> of 'cides - herbicide, pesticide, fungicide - suicide ..... well, slow
>> suicide ..... sorry about that, it's a rant ..... ;- ( .....
>> Toni
>Well I am totally bewildered. Toni and I seem to be talking about two
>different lists!.  In fact though the University hosts the list it does not
>moderate it.
>Moira
>Tony & Moira

Hi, Moira  (and Tony)  Thanks for your private support for me in times past.
And we are not at loggerheads now.

The Organic Gardening List is one and the same - yours and mine.

But my memories of being a Seattle Master Gardener, with ties to the
Extension Service from Washington State University  (the Land Grant
College who backs the OGL)  as different from the University of
Washington,  (the Business college)  are filled with remonstrations :

Do NOT advise anybody to use  "old wives remedies",  untested by
scientists, since the University is our sponsor and sticks-to-the-facts,
ma'am.

Do advise everybody to  READ THE LABELS on any/every product
and stick-to-the-instructions.

Do advise everybody to IDENTIFY the REAL problem - new gardeners
(and many not-so-new)  sometimes have trouble identifying a culture,
environment, or climate problem that has deteriorated a plant to where it
is sick and attracts insects and now think that a 'cide is the ONLY answer.

Do learn to fertilize  (sparingly and when necessary)  and water according
to plant needs - healthy plants, with your help, can fight off most damage
and continue to produce.

And many more - but you get the idea.  It's all good advice.  Except.
Except that part of the University's business is producing 'cides and
continuing their wide-spread use - and this carries over to the advice
that is eventually promoted on the Organic Gardening List, many of
whom  *are*were*   Extension-trained Master Gardeners.

My first  "rub".  Organic gardening implies, to me, non-synthetic,
non-man-made  "fertilizers"  and manual pest controls.

The instructors who train Master Gardeners - and wonderfully
educated they are ! - all are experts in their various specialties.
All University trained and they pass on their knowledge.

And there's my second  "rub".  They know all about the 'cides and
how  "safe"  they are.  But history is proving that some/much of what
education/research has  "tested and proved safe"  is not.  NOT in the
long run.  DDT.  Dioxin.  Dieldrin.  Lindane.  Etc.

What is worse, the insects are adapting - because of insect numbers
and anatomy and their short life spans - to the 'cides.  Are humans ?
who knows which human survivors are surviving the  "safe, tested"
University products being applied to our foods and adapting to them,
and which are still operating on inherited good genes ?

And now come the gene-splitters ..... but that's another  "rub" .....

Toni
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