Permaculture Blog

My Asian pear tree has been having a bit of an aphid problem. The Argentinian black ants herd the little juice suckers, and defended them from the ladybugs. They have taken over two trees in an area near my pond. I have been going out regularly and mashing most of the aphids I could easily find but I also haven’t made a big effort to get them all! Just trying to keep them at bay. And the reason I have not been trying to get them _all_ worked out perfectly this morning

This morning I was wandering around and taking it a bit easy because I tweaked my back last week and I heard chirping. I knelt down and stayed very still in order to see where the chirping was coming from and a little flock of birds maybe 20 or so were in a tree about 15 feet away and started flying toward me. I didn’t move and several of them flew right past me about three feet away and then others started landing in the tree right in front of me -the Asian pear.

Bushtits! I didn’t move and stayed very still and several more arrived. Pretty soon there were four or five little Bushtits hopping around literally within grasp, about a foot away from my face devouring aphids. I even already had my reading glasses on and got an incredibly good look at them. I swear I was looking at several right in the eyes. This lasted for probably close to 2 or 3 minutes – maybe as much as 5. I was getting tired of kneeling, and then after a last good look around they flew off.

Now they weren’t perfect. There was a cluster of aphids right at eye level that I could see and they missed. But I didn’t even go in and mash those few remaining aphids. The bushtits now know where to come and look for a bite to eat. If I completely clear out the aphids by spraying them with something toxic I screw up the Bushtits two different ways, 1: by poisoning them and 2: convincing them that there isn’t anything good to eat there and they will stop visiting. And another point, the Argentinian ants utterly failed to defend their herd. — losers! :-)

As usual we had a wonderful meeting. A fantastic fruit salad was provided. I assume by Claudia and Marianne, and if I am incorrect would be grateful if someone would correct me. It went quickly! Chris the owner of Closing the Loop Farm is doing a great job and gave a wonderful talk about the big picture of his efforts. It was an absolutely gorgeous day and those of you who are lazy bums and never come to a meeting after signing up, your loss not ours :-) I took a few pictures but could not get the meetup.com site to load them. So I am posting them here and then will move them over there. Thank you meetup.com. WordPress doesn’t have any trouble with them.
Bob 310 429 8477 http://www.PuraVidaAquatic.com

2013 Fall Convergence for San Diego Permaculture

The following is an excerpt from an email I sent to a friend of mine but that I thought I would post here on the blog.

Poison oak! Fortunately when I fell down the hill I was nowhere near it. I was on the hill in front of the big windows. I was working on brush clearance. But if you ever have trouble with Poison oak again, I have a suggestion.

Microbiology is a terrible thing to waste :-) Our immune system is what mediates the response to poison oak. Our antibodies bind to the compound and then accidentally tell our body to over respond => hypersensitivity reaction — itch itch itch :-)

The original scientific analysis of antibodies involved papain. Papain is a protease enzyme that cleaves antibodies into three separate pieces. Once they are cleaved they are no longer able to cause the hypersensitivity reaction to poison oak.

Papain is found in the Papaya fruit also the key ingredient in meat tenderizer. Meat tenderizer works on insect stings for a different reason but _ for me_ it also works on poison oak. And the crystals feel so good as a scratching agent. Put a tsp of meat tenderizer on a sponge and rub/scratch away. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh :-) Rub lightly, don’t draw blood! And if you grind up an aspirin pill — it works exceedingly well topically :-) But don’t tell the FDA that I said so because apparently they’re against anything natural that actually works and won’t allow aspirin to be put in poison oak medications– go figure.

Were the tobacco companies good at self regulating? Without regulation were they worried about our exposure to secondhand smoke. Without regulation did they do a good job of playing fair with additives? Without regulation did they worry in the least about lying to you and even Congress.

Cigarette companies sold their products to adults. No children were hurt– oh wait but the children of those adults were then exposed to secondhand smoke without the ability to do anything about it. We now pay for the cancer and lung disease and other illnesses. Is this the same as Pesticide companies putting pesticides in our food? Don’t the parents pick out the food?

Cigarette companies that add the addicting agent nicotine to their product. Is this the same as pesticide companies producing a product that kills the insect predators preferentially and addicts us to the chemical.

Cigarette company executives say/no actually testify ” there is no evidence that cigarettes cause cancer.” Is this the same as pesticide companies such as Monsanto and Dow telling you that the pesticides they produce are fine and won’t hurt you.

I think that it is.

The following is an excerpt from an email I got from a woman named Holly. I think it would be a great idea if you readers out there would follow some of her links.

…. You probably know I call myself filmmaker for change. This month I’m excited to share some important actions that will hopefully lead to change.

Please read about the Save America’s Pollinators Act below and please share this info widely. We have to remember we should be using the Precautionary Principal and not unleashing thousands of new chemicals each year without knowing if they will really be safe for humans, other species and the planet.

SAVE AMERICA’S POLLINATOR ACT Reps. John Conyers and Earl Blumenauer introduced H.R. 2692

Please bring friends together for an organic potluck and a screening of our film Vanishing of the Bees. Then get everyone to write letters to Congress and your local paper about why you care about the bees and importance of HR 2692. Ask them to share this link virally: http://bit.ly/12mBIPJ. Remember, if we don’t take united action together now, Congress might not either.

When you write your letters, you may want to mention that clothianidin was granted conditional registration by the EPA in 2003 and Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD was first noticed by beekeepers in 2004.

The European Union successfully banned 3 pesticides in the neonicotinoid family: clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiametoxam for a two year period. But of course Syngenta and Bayer are now suing the EU because of this ban.

Additionally, I just found out that a lot of the plants you may be buying at garden centers may also be tainted with these pesticides, so please take a moment to sign the petition asking the CEOs of these stores to stop this deadly practice.

THE IMPACT OF ONE FUTURE360 TV COMPETITION The Impact of One is in the running to screen at SXSW Eco Oct 7-9th.

With only 1 more month to go until the Big, 2nd-Global Day of Action against Monsanto, activists are hard at work, preparing for thousands to converge on Monsanto’s Global Headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri. It is anticipated that more than 3.5 Million people will take part in this Global Day of Action in more than 600 Cities World-wide on Saturday, October 12, 2013! This will be the biggest single event, ever to take place, opposing a Biotech Company. But, we need your help! Please share the promo video: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gae8u4OWD4Q) share the website (www.March-Against-Monsanto.com) share the Main Event: “O12: Meet Us in St. Louis – March On Monsanto’s HQ” ( https://www.facebook.com/events/1405239749694606/) share your local event and make sure to invite ALL of your friends. Find your local event here: http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/p/blog-page.html and share information you know regarding Monsanto Inform people about GMO’s. Most people don’t know that they eat them or what they even are. Inform people about Monsanto’s horrible business practices and ethics. And most of all, inform people that we need them to join with us, and tell Monsanto we have had enough! We deserve to know what’s in our food, and we do not approve of their practices of patenting seeds, stealing farms, their monopolization of the food supply and more. Also, their are 2 funds set-up at this time to raise money for: (1) the event in St. Louis and (2) To advertise the Promo Video, which in return, advertises the main event, the event as a whole, and puts out a Global Call to Action. If you have the ability to donate to either of these campaigns, either donate to: the video campaign (2) at: http://www.gofundme.com/47jvc0 the Main Event (1): http://www.gofundme.com/46cj4s Any funds and help you may be able to provide would be greatly appreciated! It is time to spread the word, that in 1 month from today, we will March Against Monsanto. See you in St. Louis or out on the streets!

For more for information on the San Diego event please see

https://m.facebook.com/events/230246890447359/

I read that it (neem oil)
>is biodegradable
>and has a short half-life: up to 4 days
>in water and 44 days in soil. The
>article that I shared above said that
>Indians use deoiled neem cake and
>neem leaves as a dual action soil
>fertilizer and pest control agent,

my response:

short half-life: up to 4 days in water” should read … at least 4 days in water.  This is a huge semantic difference.  The use of the words “up to” above could be used by chemical companies in order to deliberately encourage people to miss read it.  Certainly not saying that they would :-)  Why would anybody who truly cares deeply about the organic and permaculture lifestyle minimize the toxicity of anything?

All of the above means that in water _at best_ only half of the neem can degrade in 4 days.  That itself is a really long time to be killing things.  (I would bet that most of the toxicity studies are done in 24 hours or less.  “scientists” working for the chemical industry don’t want to wait around 4 days for results).   Think about the level of carbon monoxide you could survive in 24 hours and then being there for another 3 days — cough cough.  Other studies suggest a neem oil half life _ in water_ up to 10 times longer.  (All scientific degradation study results are given in half lives.)

We don’t even understand the conditions that give optimal breakdown.  4 days vs 50 days- what was the difference?

The toxicity of neem oil is something on the order of … 0.5 parts per _million_ can kill fish.  A half life of 50 days vs 4 means a lot of dead fish.  There are also many, many, aquatic organisms that are more sensitive to environmental toxins than fish but do the chemical companies use those more sensitive organisms to test the potential toxicity if neem gets into water?  And many of those very sensitive organisms are the base of aquatic food chains.  Absolutely brilliant to poison them.

The neem oil company representatives (wolves in sheep’s clothing) do not advertise that it may take as long as 50 days to break down!

_And what does it break down into!_  We actually may not want the breakdown products around There’s a lot of potential bio-activity there that we are completely unaware of. When neem leaves were fed to male albino rats for 11 weeks, 100% infertility resulted. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Other issues with this single paragraph are …

1) No one that I am aware of has done an experiment specifically showing whether or not neem oil is a phototoxin.  (A photo toxin is a sun-light activated toxin) Reading between the lines there is ample evidence that it is just such a toxin. Not doing any kind of experiment to show that is or isn’t, is in my book, sheer stupidity.

Therefore, I am sure that all these experiments (especially the mammalian toxicity studies) have been carefully done in the presence of sunlight as opposed to room fluorescent lighting. :-\ to make sure any photo toxic effects would be identified. Yeah right :-(

2) The neem leaves that have been used as a soil conditioner _were deoiled_!  Comparing them to something containing neem oil is at best irrelevant.

3) In my email there is no title or authors to the original article your friend mentions but the articles I have been able to gather are 90% written by the chemical industry and the companies that want to sell neem oil products.  There have been several symposiums.  The remaining 10% of the articles are probably written by people that have connection to the industry but it’s not clear :-)

The majority of the research articles are deliberately written so that the companies can say “studies have shown”.  Many of these articles are written specifically to muddy the water and to downplay the toxic effects of neem oil.  The “scientists” were financially supported by the companies.  With friends like that who needs…. With information like this floating around it is almost impossible for people to really be informed.  It’s a wonder we’re not poisoning the earth — oh wait, we are.  :-0

4) Many European countries ban neem oil and anything containing the active ingredient. I am sure compounds in Europe are banned from being imported simply because they are harmless :-)

Further down in the original email it talks about bees and the fact that neem should not be toxic to them because insects have to ingest it. (extremely puzzled emoticon) I was debating putting in something stronger.  …. like WTF! Guess nobody has ever watched a bee or a praying mantis or a ladybug clean itself.  Argggggg.  The take home point is that neem oil _may_ be a better alternative to some of the commercial pesticides but it is certainly not candy!  And it may be worse in some cases than the best of the commercial pesticides.  We just don’t know.  And in some cases we can’t even believe the stories being spread around the organic/permaculture communities.  We need to find a source of unbiased funding to investigate pesticides.  We should all be minimizing our use of biocides and paying a lot of attention to who is making the money selling it.

A friend of mine Mary Prentice just started a blog about sustainable gardening!

http://growfoodmakeart.com/

She will be answering gardening questions and showing off her artwork.

I very much look forward to more posts on the 10 design principles of permaculture.