Brown Dog and Gretchen at the beaver dam:
Brown Dog and Gretchen at the beaver dam
John S. Quarterman, Gretchen Quarterman, Brown Dog, Yellow Dog,
Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 22 July 2012.
Both dogs:
Continue readingI remember when my father and I put these things there, around forty years ago. They’re still intact, and if you look closely you can still read the labels. We prefer taking things to the dump these days.
Metal can:
Metal can
John S. Quarterman, Gretchen Quarterman, Brown Dog, Yellow Dog,
Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 22 July 2012.
Plastic bottle:
Gretchen on the beaver dam:
Gretchen on the beaver dam
Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 22 July 2012.
Gretchen and her footprint:
Beautyberry, Callicarpa americana, proven insect repellant!
Barbara Pleasant wrote for Mother Earth News April/May 2009, Beautyberry Banishes Bad Biting Bugs: Researches are finding evidence that beautyberry, long used as a folk remedy, really does deter bugs such as ants, ticks and others.
In 2006, researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural
Products Utilization Research Unit in Oxford, Miss., found that extracts from beautyberry leaves could match DEET for repelling mosquitoes. The next year, experiments showed that the active ingredients from the leaves (callicarpenal and intermedeol) provided 100-percent repellency of black-legged ticks for three hours. In 2008, the four-person research team, headed by chemist Charles Cantrell in Mississippi and entomologist Jerome Klun in Maryland, published research that added fire ants to the list of pests repelled by essential oil distilled from beautyberry leaves….
Fresh green leaves, crushed and rubbed on people or pets, often repel insects for a couple of hours.
Looks like Charles L. Cantrell of U. Miss. has published several papers about this:
Continue readingThis is how we get new okra to eat:
This is how we get new okra to eat
Picture by John S. Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 19 July 2012.
I've seen on the okra blooms honeybees, bumblebees, and several kinds of wasps, all pollinating and making more okra.
-jsq
Got enough Roundup and Paraquat drifting onto you? Want some 2,4-D with that? If not, you can send your comments to USDA now. Hey, what if we all plowed under the mutant pigweed instead of breeding more with poison soup!
Tom Philpott wrote for Mother Jones 18 July 2012, USDA Prepares To Greenlight Gnarliest GMO Soy Yet,
In early July, on the sleepy Friday after Independence Day, the USDA
quietly signaled its intention to greenlight a new genetically engineered soybean seed from Dow AgroSciences. The product is designed to produce soy plants that withstand 2,4-D, a highly toxic herbicide (and, famously, the less toxic component in the notorious Vietnam War-era defoliant Agent Orange).
Readers may remember that during an even-sleepier period—the week between Christmas and the New Year—the USDA made a similar move on Dow’s 2,4-D-ready corn.
If the USDA deregulates the two products—as it has telegraphed its intention to do—Dow will enjoy a massive profit opportunity. Every year, about half of all US farmland is planted in corn and soy. Currently, Dow’s rival Monsanto has a tight grip on weed management in corn-and-soy country. Upwards of 90 percent of soy and 70 percent of corn is engineered to withstand another herbicide called glyphosate through highly profitable Monsanto’s Roundup Ready seed lines. And after so many years of lashing so much land with the same herbicide, glyphosate-resistant superweeds are now vexing farmers and “alarming” weed-control experts throughout the midwest.
And that’s where Dow’s 2,4-D-ready corn and soy seeds come in. Dow’s novel products will be engineered to withstand glyphosate and 2,4-D, so farmers can douse their fields with both herbicides; the 2,4-D will kill the weeds that glyphosate no longer can. That’s the marketing pitch, anyway.
There’s more in the article.
It can also get into your well water, and then, according to EPA:
Continue readingBefore:
Before
John S. Quarterman, Gretchen Quarterman, Brown Dog, Yellow Dog,
Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 15 July 2012.
After: Tomato, jalapeno, habanero, bird pepper:
Continue readingMore than twice as wide as my foot:
More than twice as wide as my foot
John S. Quarterman, Gretchen Quarterman, Brown Dog, Yellow Dog,
Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 15 July 2012.
-jsq
Okra and corn:
Okra and corn
John S. Quarterman, Gretchen Quarterman, Brown Dog, Yellow Dog,
Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 12 July 2012.
Bloom and okra:
Continue readingGretchen with tomatoes from one day:
Gretchen with tomatoes from one day
Picture by John S. Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 12 July 2012.
-jsq