permaculture

["Ava Devenport" <essenheal@iname.com>]

On 05/30/00, ""Claude Genest" <genest@together.net>" wrote:
> Oh Ava !
> 
> Don't knbow wether to laugh or cry on that one !
> Cheez, I'd only heard good things about Indiana till now ( my brother went
> to Purdue).
> This lawn business is worse than I thought.
> Apparently there was an Oprah show recently devoted to the splendors of a
> manicured lawn.
> What madness.


Speaking of Purdue!  Home of Dr. Jim Simons and his 'New Crop' program.  
Wonderful ideas regarding sustainable living, new fiber and chemical crops 
for agriculture.  Supposed to help put the American Farmer back on the map 
(other countries have discovered they can grow corn & wheat, also).  The 
only problem with this program is that they take most of the educational 
programs out of the country.  Mint is the only crop education/workshops 
they have available for this state, which has only been producing mint 
since my grandparents can remember!

They do nothing here to help support permaculture, sustainability, etc.  
I've tried getting information, etc. from Dr. Simon and he won't even take 
the time to respond.  I thought that since he was on the board of United 
Plant Savers, which I'm a charter member of, that I might have a little 
pull with them and nothing!  I had to write to other organizations to get 
grants/seeds/roots to help with the Wetland Restoration Program we had 
set-up at one of our local state parks.

I also do agri-research with fiber/chemical crops (latex for green-earth 
building).  I recieve the seeds (untreated) from the Agricultural Research 
arm of the USDA.  Purdue has trial crop research on two of the plants I'm 
working with and they haven't sent copies of the research to me regardless 
of many requests I've made.

> I changed the tilte of this email cause I wanted to share with the group a
> little bonus I got from Ortho, manufacturer of nasty chemicals (and some
> decent books).
> I noticed a weed identification chart at a gardening store that I felt would
> be useful to help me identify all those beneficial "weeds" that I might want
> to encourage. (i.e spare rom mowing)
> Anyway, I went to Ortho's web site and asked for one and , lickety-split,
> it's on it's way !
> Hee-hee. (I don't why I'm so tickled by this, feel like I'm being naughty or
> something..)


Good for you!  I love weeds!  They're beautiful, nutritious, beneficial to 
the environment and make lovely gardens.  They don't mind poor soil or 
little water and the less you care for them, the better they grow!  I have 
some recipes for dandelion wine and jelly, but I can't use them because my 
9-year old eats ALL of the blossoms before I can get to them.  Well, at 
least he has a healthy liver!

Blessings,
Ava