4 urgent mini-posts

The ideas pile up, crowding my brain. I'll just park them here, letting them out into the blogosphere where they're clamouring to go. I might be back some time to write about them in more detail ... but I probably won't. There are only so many weeks in a year, and weekly posts are enough for me.

1. Bicycle gardening ideas - planters on the handlebars of a bicycle, or strapped to the bars. ('Bring your plants on an adventure...') Or when bikes are retired, they can be recycled in the garden or on the roadside and have plants growing all over them. The whole bike becomes a planter. Skeeter from In the Garden blog did this. Or bike parts can be used creatively in the garden.  Jonathan Maus used old wheel rims to form edging. Or ...  or...  there's no end to the creative ideas thinkable  ...

Photo by Friend of Humanity 

2. Backyard pesticide use may fuel bee die-offs.  Many garden bloggers have voiced their resentment at being told what they should and should not do in their own backyards. Maybe this will give them food for thought. The most popular class of pesticides found in many commonly used products, is called neonicotinoids. They have been found to disrupt bee navigation and make them vulnerable to disease and stress. But it's not a clearcut situation and more studies are needed. In the meantime Mace Vaughan (pollinator director  of Xerces Society, an invertebrate conservation group) suggests that consumers be warned about the dangers of these products. "Maybe a big butterfly with an X over it and a sign that says, 'May Kill Pollinators' ".

Honeybee on Appleblossom 

3. At Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, a pair of Red-Tailed Hawks have been nesting on a light pole for the past 4 years. This year the Dept of Ornithology installed a camera to enable people to watch these birds 24/7. On its All About Birds website you can see the female laying eggs, the eggs hatching, the male bringing a dead vole back to the nest to eat or just generally check in to see how and what they're doing. But be warned: I have found this site to be addictive!

'Big Red' from All About Birds website

4. The Briars is a lovely old homestead on the Mornington Peninsula about an hour and a half from Melbourne. It has an Eco Living Display Centre and has become a community hub for those committed to green values. My friend P. lives nearby, and she has a wonderful voluntary job in their Hands in the Dirt program. Here's P. talking about it:

 "One teacher was telling the class abut the old days when you couldn't just go to the shop for food, and another teacher was showing some tiny lettuce seeds. They all got to take some dried beans out of pods, plant them as well as lettuce seedlings, learn about seed-saving, worms and making a worm tower, see soil microscopically, and other fun activities. We had preppies to grade 6 from local schools. All seemed to enjoy it and the teachers learned too. A highlight for some groups was tasting my fennel seeds, which taste like liquorice - they all wanted to take some home!"


About a year ago my son was in the United States visiting his wife's relatives in Omaha. He wanted to buy some fresh vegetables. He went to the local supermarket and asked someone working there where he could find peas. Yes - you guessed it - the young man directed him to the freezer. He was unaware that peas existed in any other format! In a way he was right, because in that supermarket fresh peas didn't exist.  What a shame when he was at school that there was no Hands in the Dirt program.

Photos by P.