A Seed Saver's Garden

[heirloomgal]

Gosh, @Pulsegleaner , is there NOBODY in the US that carries or would share the seeds you want?!?
A broken clock is right 2x/day, and I am on the side of USDA on this one. Seems like a Small thing, but crickets in Hawaii were dying off a few years ago. A parasitic fly from Asia was drilling into the male crickets, attracted by their chirping. It was laying it's eggs in the cricket, which would hatch out as flies, repeating the process.
SOMEHOW the crickets evolved into same species, but NOW the male crickets vibrate, like a purring cat, attract the females and breed, but it doesn't attract this fly.
Fly eggs are pretty small, and I wouldn't want to be the person who lets loose yet another invasive and harmful species from another continent that doesn't have any natural predators.
We alREADY have been dealing with the asian carp in the Illinois River, and the state monitors the locks in the Calumet Sag Canal to be sure there are no asian carp, where they raise and lower the river height to go to and ship down from Lake Michigan.
Everybody knows if a breeding pair escapes in the Lake Michigan, ALL 5 of the connected Great Lakes will be infested.
Shame, bc for awhile people were harvesting them and eating them. They are a healthy fish to eat.
They literally fly into fisherman's nets. I think they are being fished now for fertilizer.

A successful 'copi' rebrand of invasive Asian carp promises economic and ecological benefits for the Peoria region

Since first appearing in the Illinois River in the late 1980s and early 1990s, copi have largely crowded out native species like catfish or gar.

www.wcbu.org

New fish processing facility to open in Alexander Co., Ill.

A new fish processing plant is set to open in southern Illinois and bring new job opportunities.

www.kfvs12.com

The thing about the seed restrictions which is *suspicious* is that, while the seeds from seed companies are utterly forbidden 'for fear of disease of pathogen', cargo ships, airplanes and transports carry all manner of seeds across global borders with no real restrictions in the form of food. If you look at tomatoes for example, major restrictions exist for those from a seed company or even a friend from across a border. But tomatoes are shipped in to the US by the gazillion from all kinds of places and at least some harbour disease given where they're grown. For some odd reason, the USDA doesn't worry about those millions of seeds. ToBRFV is the new tomato disease on the scene (created of course in commercial greenhouses), and is presumably part of why tomato seed restrictions exist, but tomatoes with seeds carrying it can be in the grocery store. Many home gardeners, like me, ferment the seeds, so diseased seed doesn't make it into circulation. Seed companies actually have the safest tomato seed for that reason, they aren't in the fruit and have been fermented. And I've never seen a warning sign to not plant the seeds in the tomatoes from the grocer- something many people do. In Australia, some of the tomato growing facilities forbid workers from bringing tomatoes bought at the grocer to work in their lunches, because they are aware of that danger. So while the reasons the USDA gives for it's caution seem sensible, it's like they've tightened the faucet in the front as much as can be, but out the back a hose is blowing out at full pressure.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

The thing about the seed restrictions which is *suspicious* is that, while the seeds from seed companies are utterly forbidden 'for fear of disease of pathogen', cargo ships, airplanes and transports carry all manner of seeds across global borders with no real restrictions in the form of food. If you look at tomatoes for example, major restrictions exist for those from a seed company or even a friend from across a border. But tomatoes are shipped in to the US by the gazillion from all kinds of places and at least some harbour disease given where they're grown. For some odd reason, the USDA doesn't worry about those millions of seeds. ToBRFV is the new tomato disease on the scene (created of course in commercial greenhouses), and is presumably part of why tomato seed restrictions exist, but tomatoes with seeds carrying it can be in the grocery store. Many home gardeners, like me, ferment the seeds, so diseased seed doesn't make it into circulation. Seed companies actually have the safest tomato seed for that reason, they aren't in the fruit and have been fermented. And I've never seen a warning sign to not plant the seeds in the tomatoes from the grocer- something many people do. In Australia, some of the tomato growing facilities forbid workers from bringing tomatoes bought at the grocer to work in their lunches, because they are aware of that danger. So while the reasons the USDA gives for it's caution seem sensible, it's like they've tightened the faucet in the front as much as can be, but out the back a hose is blowing out at full pressure.

Sort of what I was getting at. Most of the invasives we seem to get now don't come from things people brought in on purpose; they come from pests that wandered into some cargo ship or plane and hitched a ride.

The fact that most of my interesting seed CAME IN through that "back hose" doesn't blind me to the fact that that hose shouldn't be there. I may grumble when the food seed gets so pure there nothing fun to find, but I know that is actually a GOOD thing in terms of food production.

I actually think that the food purity laws probably need to be constantly updated as time and tech improve. The more feasible it is to affordably remove impurities, the lower the amount of those impurities should be allowed. I know perfect purity is economically impossible, but we should be able to get closer each generation.

And that, in essence is my problem with the laws, even if they claim to be for protecting the country and the food supply, they way they are applied really seems focused more on handing the whole food supply over to the biggest corporations who can afford to pay the government the biggest bribes, and insure that everyone is as totally government and corporate dependent as possible.

You are right, if they are SO worried about diseases, why don't they require ALL produce to be irradiated before import?

In a certain sense that's also why I am so paranoid about them using tricks to try and arrest people like me and you who are interested in growing unusual and exotic things. Keeping things in limits is a lot of work, but if you get rid of anyone who might TEST those limits, the problem APPEARS to go away. If you get rid of everyone who MIGHT want to break a law, you don't have to put any effort into actually trying to KEEP anyone from breaking that law. You look good to the public because it appears you prevented a crime which, in their books, is even better than avenging it, and it takes a lot less work to do so (since, every trouble maker you get rid of for good is prevented from ALL of the mischief they might have done.) The easiest way to enforce the law is to make people scared to even THINK of breaking it.

 

[ducks4you]

I get it!

 

[heirloomgal]

I get it!

That wasn't all directed at you duckies! Lots of love around here for the feathered friends!

 

[heirloomgal]

Sort of what I was getting at. Most of the invasives we seem to get now don't come from things people brought in on purpose; they come from pests that wandered into some cargo ship or plane and hitched a ride.

The fact that most of my interesting seed CAME IN through that "back hose" doesn't blind me to the fact that that hose shouldn't be there. I may grumble when the food seed gets so pure there nothing fun to find, but I know that is actually a GOOD thing in terms of food production.

I actually think that the food purity laws probably need to be constantly updated as time and tech improve. The more feasible it is to affordably remove impurities, the lower the amount of those impurities should be allowed. I know perfect purity is economically impossible, but we should be able to get closer each generation.

And that, in essence is my problem with the laws, even if they claim to be for protecting the country and the food supply, they way they are applied really seems focused more on handing the whole food supply over to the biggest corporations who can afford to pay the government the biggest bribes, and insure that everyone is as totally government and corporate dependent as possible.

You are right, if they are SO worried about diseases, why don't they require ALL produce to be irradiated before import?

In a certain sense that's also why I am so paranoid about them using tricks to try and arrest people like me and you who are interested in growing unusual and exotic things. Keeping things in limits is a lot of work, but if you get rid of anyone who might TEST those limits, the problem APPEARS to go away. If you get rid of everyone who MIGHT want to break a law, you don't have to put any effort into actually trying to KEEP anyone from breaking that law. You look good to the public because it appears you prevented a crime which, in their books, is even better than avenging it, and it takes a lot less work to do so (since, every trouble maker you get rid of for good is prevented from ALL of the mischief they might have done.) The easiest way to enforce the law is to make people scared to even THINK of breaking it.

@Pulsegleaner this is a really big topic and hard to just skim, but it's certainly pertinent to us seed people. I understand the desire to avoid invasive species. When I swam at Providence Bay on the Lake Huron coast last summer, I actually worried about those wierd little invasive sucker lamprey fish with those circular mouths full of teeth. I kind of had those things in the back of my mind the whole time, because they are just such awful creatures and I do not want to encounter one on my legs or feet. At the same time, if you're going to have travel of any kind these things are absolutely unavoidable. So long as people are moving from here to there, there will be hitchhikers at least some of the time. Even in Ontario, the flora and fauna north to south can be quite different and they're respectively thousands of km apart; there is invasive species that have moved in both directions now mostly as a result of human movement - sneakers, tire treads, canoes, tents, clothing, backpacks. But this is just the way the world is, we can't forbid people from summer vacation for fear they'll transport a caterpillar or moth. This is the nature of life on earth right now, mobility oriented. There is a cost to everything I guess. People have fatal collisions on the roadways all the time, and that's just part of having cars and roadways tragic as it is.

I think the elephant in the room with seeds is the governing bodies 'assessment' of danger. A lot of focus is put on these potential contaminants in seed imports, but what about the 'approved' stuff going on in laboratories domestically? This is the truly concerning stuff. The public gets no say in these activities of creating contaminants. I just read that Bayer gmo'd a new soil microbe that can possibly spread so long as it can find soil. Seems like abad idea to me. I consider most of these controls just a corporatocracy forwarding thier own interests; there is the stated intention of the rule (which sounds plausible) and the actual purpose of it. The seed thing, I think , is about a long term goal of limiting human autonomy because, in the end, seeds are a kind of freedom and independance. There's a war on food production unfolding (under the guise of *netzero*), and seed restriction to ordinary citizens is a part of that. Granted, I'm not a fan of centrality, and I lean toward a Milton Friedman vision of things but it is a big part of why I'm a seed saver today. I see it here with MAID, conceivably a compassionate option for those suffering long term health issues, and now it's the 5th leading cause of death and you don't even need to be sick to get it anymore. It wasn't about what they said it was.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

And the frustrating thing is that some people even try and go the other way, directly trying to thwart people doing things in the name of helping humanity just to keep the bureaucratic tape up. If you have heard anything about those women in Israel who managed to bring the Judean Date palm back from extinction after 5,400 hundred years. When I saw the report, there was some person commenting on it who kept railing on the government for even letting the women try, since they were amateurs and, had they not been successful, the samples would have been lost forever He said they should have been reserved for an Israeli university who would have been facilities to maximize success. Which is fine, except it was made clear that they HAD tried that, and no university wanted to DO the attempt. The pits were just sitting in storage cabinets, slowly dying, with no one else interested in them. And the person STILL said they should have never been given a chance, that dying in a cabinet was preferable to letting amateurs try.

And some of the import rules are baffling. You can import all of the hulled and polished Job's tear kernels you want, but all Job's Tears of the eating kind with their shells on (and therefore growable), are completely banned from import. Why? You can import the hard shelled kind used for beads, even though that is an invasive in a lot of regions (like Hawaii) and it subject to the exact same pests and diseases. Is there some kind of cockeyed agreement with China to keep them a monopoly for the crop (doesn't sound like the kind of thing a Capitalist country would do, particularly one that wants to LESSEN dependency on China.)

As for travel, yes, that is true. The problem is that that isn't a good answer for a lot of people, since there are a lot of ultra environmentalists who would say that is exactly why we SHOULD ban people from traveling for any reason, that, in a sort of Zen sense, the only truly environmentally friendly way to travel is to not travel at all, than any method of moving causes too much damage, be it car, mass transit (you still need to build those mass transit vehicles) bicycle (again, still need to build the bikes) animal (animal enslavement and abuse, plus pollution due to excess urine and dung) or even walking (damage to the ground due to walking on it.) In short, that the right way to protect the world is to tie a big rope around everything and never let anyone enter for ANY reason (or just get rid of humanity totally, which is even better.)

 

[heirloomgal]

A picture of hope and inspiration today. God bless the farmers. No farmer, no food, no future.

 

[flowerbug]

if you want to check out videos on youtube of what happens at border inspections of plants and foods that are imported... if they find signs of diseases or bugs they can have entire loads rejected or destroyed. even if they only inpect a certain percentage of loads coming in that still works better than if they were doing nothing at all...

 

[heirloomgal]

Victory.

The blasted mouse that has miraculously evaded every form of capture for the last month, and managed to eat some of my pepper seedlings, has FINALLY been defeated. Sticky traps, snap traps, diy bucket traps, tunnel traps, cheese, peanut butter, crackers, corn, peanuts in the shell, birdseed; this mouse outsmarted every single attempt we made. It's like he was radioactive; I've never seen anything like it in my life. We ended up catching him because we found him staggering around the kitchen this morning, disoriented.

Sigh of relief. Now I can safely plant more pepper seeds.

 

[Alasgun]

Did he eat some of those Poppy seeds you were talking about a while back?