Scotts, the Maker of Miracle-Gro, Behaves Shittily—Again
**NOTE**A correction to this piece was made in my October 2, 2012 post.
You might recall that earlier this year Scotts Miracle-Gro pled guilty to charges that they had illegally used insecticides known to be toxic to birds and wildlife in two brands of bird seed: “Country Pride” and “Morning Song.” According to prosecutors, the Ohio-based company knowingly coated the seed with these insecticides because they wanted to protect it from insects pests during storage.
Prothonotary Warbler
Credit: Juan Pons
Millions of bags of toxic seed were manufactured and sold over two years. And even warnings about the toxicity of the pesticides from two of the company’s own employees did not stop them from selling it. The products were recalled in spring of 2008 and, eventually, Scotts was fined $4.5 million.
This incident certainly isn’t the first time Scotts has behaved in a manner that has surely earned its executives a nice, toasty seat in hell. But it’s a good one to call out when talking about the company’s history of asshattery, including making it nearly impossible to buy a freakin’ bag of soil that doesn’t include its products. What are they up to now? you ask.
Check out this post by Amy Stewart on Garden Rant: “Dear Scotts: Just Try, One Time, Not to be So Shitty.” It’s about how Scotts’ lawyers nabbed and quickly trademarked a phrase that garden writer C.L. Folinari came up with as part of a goodhearted campaign to get people excited about gardening and growing different types of plants.
Oh, and Scotts also went public in June about their $200,000 donation to Restore Our Future, the super PAC that supports Mitt Romney. The donation made Scotts one of the first public companies with a well-known brand to contribute directly to an election campaign following the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision on campaign funding.
Scotts has made its corporate character very clear. It’s up to gardeners like us to do the same.
The Lasagna Method: Get Rid of Weeds and Sod the Easy Way
If I could somehow go back in time and give my new-gardener self just one piece of advice, it would be this: Use the lasagna method when starting a new garden bed. Of all the tough gardening chores, removing old weed-infested sod (or any sod, really) rates right up at the top of the This-Really-Bites list. Oh, how I wish I had known that I could just smother stuff rather than wrestle it out of the ground—the sheer force propelling me off to the chiropractor to fix my aching back once again.
There is no such thing as maintenance-free gardening. But gardening doesn’t have to be on a mission to kill you either. This is the beauty of the lasagna method. The goal is to keep light and, to some extent, air and water, from reaching the weeds and turf. There are no exact rules for this process, so I’ll explain what I do and you can modify the strategy as you see fit.
Read More»Growing Potatoes in a Bag
I’ve never grown potatoes. But when I got the opportunity to test Gardener’s Supply Company’s Potato Grow Bag this summer, I thought, why not give it a try? The fabric bags come in several colors, but I went with black so it wouldn’t stand out so much amidst the rest of the containers in our garden. Our potato starts came from our friends at Bossy Acres: three fingerlings and 2 blue heirlooms. Thanks Elizabeth and Karla!
The planting process was similar in some ways to the type of hilling you do with potatoes when you plant them in the ground. Following the instructions on the Grow Bag packaging, we put the bag where we wanted it in the garden and filled it with a 4 inches of pre-moistened, organic potting mix. (Gardener’s Supply sells a mix that you can buy, too.) Next, we placed our potato starts on top of the mix, being careful to space them evenly apart. As instructed, we covered the little potato pieces with another 3 inches of potting mix and watered everything well.
The plants grew fast and we followed the instructions to add 4 inches of potting mix for every 8 inches of growth until the bag was completely full. One thing to note: The instructions didn’t say this, but because we have problems with voles, we put a small square of hardware cloth between the bottom of the bag and the ground before we filled it to keep the critters out.
Read More»Has Aster Yellows Turned Your Plants Into A Pack Of Mutant Monsters?
- On August 17, 2012
- By Meleah
- In Annuals, Herbs, Organic Gardening, Perennials
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Do your echinacea (coneflowers) look like mutant, green monsters from an alien universe? Mine do. And that’s because a disease called aster yellows is running rampant in Minnesota this year. The disease is caused by a phytoplasma, a microscopic bacteria-like organism that makes its home in the vascular system of plants.
Aster yellows causes unearthly distortions in many plants, including coneflowers and phlox.
Not all plants can become infected with aster yellows, but many annuals, perennials, vegetables and weeds are affected by it, including asters, carrots, chrysanthemums, coreopsis, cosmos, daisies, dandelion, marigolds, onions, petunias, potatoes, thistle and tomatoes. Aster yellows isn’t a new disease. It’s just worse this year than it normally is for reasons experts are still pondering. Hot weather seems to have something to do with it.
Aster leafhoppers are the reason why the disease travels through gardens so quickly. They transmit the disease from plant to plant when they feed on infected plants and suck up sap that contains the phytoplasma. After a short incubation period in their tiny bug bodies (the leafhoppers are not harmed), the microorganisms multiply and the insects spread the disease further as they feed.
It’s hard to do, but you really should rip infected plants out and throw them away.
The symptoms of aster yellows vary from plant to plant. But most of the time you’ll notice that infected plants look stunted and distorted in weird ways. Foliage can be yellow and flowers often look yellow or a spooky shade of green. Seeds and fruit don’t develop. You might also see spindly stems and flower stalks. It’s not a pretty sight.
The biggest bummer, though, is that once a plant has aster yellows it can’t be cured. You’ve got to rip the whole plant out and throw it away. I know, I know. I don’t do that either. I just cut off the infected part of my coneflowers and let the rest of the plant that looks good stay. But that is a bad idea. Yes, I get to enjoy the relatively normal-looking parts of my alien, mutant coneflowers. But by allowing those plants to stay in the garden, I’m ensuring that aster leafhoppers will continue to spread the disease to other susceptible plants in my yard and my neighbors’ yards.
It’s really the same tough reality crew members on spaceships in sci-fi films often face. You remember the plot. They all know that their friend was infected by some horrible monster creature thing down on the planet they just visited without wearing proper protective gear (what’s up with that?). And they all know it’s only a matter of time before a baby monster creature thing bursts out of their friend’s chest and tries to infect them all. But, hey, for the moment the friend seems mostly fine, so why not let the poor sot live, right? We know how that story ends.
So let’s all vow to rip out plants infected with aster yellows—at least by the end of the season when we cut down plants for fall. It’s fine to throw these infected plants in the compost because the phytoplasma dies when the plant dies. Not all plant diseases work that way. Unfortunately, this harsh step won’t guarantee that aster yellows won’t come back again next year because infected leafhoppers are likely to still be around or you could inadvertently bring an infected plant home from the garden center. I think I’m finally going to give up on coneflowers all together. I like them, but I’m tired of knowing there’s a mutant, green monster lurking behind those pretty purple flowers.
Note: This post ran this week as my Everyday Gardener column in Minneapolis’ Southwest Journal.
Thanks Tree Crickets For Your Enchanting Nighttime Songs
- On August 08, 2012
- By Meleah
- In Bugs, Natural Wonders
- 0
In the summer, there’s always some amount of critter chirping going on in the yard after dark. But this year those chirps and trills are so boisterous and loud, you’d think we were in the woods rather than the city.
Snowy tree cricket
Credit: Clemson University-USDA Cooperative Extension
Others have noticed the change, too. And though we don’t understand what’s responsible for turning up the volume on the beautiful nighttime chorus this year, some master gardeners I know did figure out what’s probably doing the bulk of the chirping—tree crickets. In particular, snowy tree crickets (Oecanthus fultoni), which live in trees but like to roam the garden in search of things like aphids to eat. Thanks, little guys!
Not surprisingly, there are some great videos out there showing these critters doing their thing. Is it just me, or do you agree that it’s simultaneously enchanting and weird to see one of summer’s mysteries so nakedly exposed? Oh, and here’s my disclaimer: I am not an entomologist, so if these crickets are not correctly identified by the video’s poster, I apologize in advance.
Go here to see a male snowy tree cricket showing off for the ladies.
Click here to see a four-spotted tree cricket (Ocecanthus quadripunctatus) in action.
And here’s another four-spotted tree cricket singing.
Another snowy tree cricket
Credit: Joseph Berger, Bugwood.org
One last interesting tidbit; snowy tree crickets are often referred to as “nature’s thermometer” because the rate of their chirping is related to the temperature. Opinions on the best formula to use to translate their chirping into the correct temperature vary, but the most commonly suggested method is to count the number of chirps in 13 seconds, and then add 40 to that number to get the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit.
