Eat 'em, Store 'em and Save Some Seeds for next year.

As summer winds down, the tomato crop is usually at its peak. Our little patio tomatoes are sweet and juicy. The best tomato I tasted this year was a Brandywine; a deep, dark luscious heirloom variety. I am saving some seeds from it to try next summer. It is a great time to stock up on the tasty tomatoes available right now so you can enjoy their homestyle goodness all year. You can can them or, like us, we just clean them and toss them into the freezer in plastic bags. We then have tomatoes all year for sauce, soups, stews, whatever. READ MORE...

 Butterflies are important neighbors to have in our gardens.They help plants produce seeds by pollinating flowere. 

Monarch butterflies are considered by many people to be the most beautiful of all butterflies, and are called the “king” of the butterflies, hence the name “monarch”. All butterflies go through a life cycle that transforms their bodies. Read more about the amazing transformation of the Monarch here.

The Monarch butterfly is sometimes called the "milkweed butterfly" because its larvae eat the plant. In fact, milkweed is the only thing the larvae can eat!

But monarchs are losing places to find food and lay their eggs. Scientists are trying to learn more about what is happening to them. 

You can help! The Monarch Larva Monitoring Project (MLMP) is a citizen science project involving volunteers from across the United States and Canada. You can sign up to monitor patches of milkweed weekly to count monarch eggs and larvae, and assess milkweed density. This data will help scientists determine the distribution and abundance patterns of monarch butterflies in North America.

Just ask the bees!

 Bees are now using forms of communal transportation (trucks) to get to work. They are getting trucked to pollinate the plants that we depend on for food. (Leaders: for more background info, click here to read Beeline to Extinction")

Bees are disappearing all over the country. They call it CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) which simply means that beekeepers are find their hives have honey, larvae, and the queen in them, but no BEES and no trail left behind to tell what happened to them.  Read more...

Look at your body...look at the way you are built. 

You have legs and arms, finders and toes, and all up and down there are hinge-like structures that help you to bend. You are designed to MOVE.

Not only that, you are designed to be with people. Scientific studies are even beginning to prove what people have always known...a sense of community makes us feel whole.

Read more...

What could be more fun?

Exploring the outdoors with a bunch of kids. Many of us would not mind going back to a time when it was safe (at least safe-er) to roam the great outdoors and discover amazing new things each and every time you went  went exploring with your friends. 

Well, the amazing things are still out there to see ....

• bugs that light up at night
• gorgeous butterflies that unfurl huge nose-like structures (proboscis) into beautiful flowers in order to sip up the energy plants so generously provide in nectar
• green bugs that look like aliens from other planets that appear to be praying as they search for bugs to eat in the garden
• slithering mollusks (slugs) that drag themselves along the sidewalk leaving a slimy wake
  
  • sunflowers that turn throughout the day following the path of the sun
  • leaves....all kins of leaves...every shape and size, furry, velvety, spiney, smooth, shiny, dull, red, green, yellow and purple....each one grabbing photons from sunshine and transforming the energy they capture and transforming it for the rest of us to power ourselves
  • and free snacks!!!! nuts, berries, sunflower seeds, tomatoes...all sorts of delicious treats

  This and much, much more is out there, but are many children looking? Their eyes seem to be averted  toward televisions,  computer screens, video games, and shopping centers.
  
  Gardening gives us all a chance to get out and "get back to our roots." Take the opportunity to garden with a child. Your life, and that of the child, will be forever richer because of it!

  ---

  Some Ideas:

  Try: Gardening by the Foot

A lady at the Harvest Fair last weekend in Sacramento tried to tell us our food pyramid is wrong.

We dont think so.

Kids Growing Strong has chosen to use the pyramid promoted by the Harvard School of Public Health. We have spoken to many experts and believe it is a better alternative to the USDA's "My Pyramid" which, we believe, unintentionally has been influenced by business interests (whose actions ARE intentional.) For a larger image of the Healthy Eating Pyramid in .pdf format click here to visit the Harvard website.

Based on the latest science, and unaffected by businesses and organizations with a stake in its messages, we feel the Healthy Eating Pyramid, built by the faculty in the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health,  is a simple, trustworthy guide to choosing a healthy diet.

Read more...

Did you watch Psych last week? (Yeah...so...I like Psych.) Yes it is stupid but it is fast-moving, sometimes witty and it makes me laugh. Anyway, last week the murderess' weapon of choice was naphthalene... the petroleum byproduct that was used in mothballs to kill moths up until mothballs were "reformulated" due to toxicity concerns.  Naphthalene is structurally similar to 2-methylnapthalene. Why am I writing about this here? Because 2-methylnapthalene may be in the cereal you feed your kids.

You've all heard about the Kellogg's recall of 28 million boxes of breakfast cereal. The cereal was recalled because 2-methylnapthalene, used in the packaging, was found on the food itself,  altering the taste and smell, and causing some people to get sick. 

Read more...