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Alys Fowler: winter bedding plants

Alys Fowler: winter bedding plants | 100 Acre Wood | Scoop.it
There is something peculiarly depressing to the gardening soul to see a pot of compost with nothing growing in it over winter. It makes you feel as if everything has gone to bed and so should you.

It's too late to sow now, because light levels are too low and the weather too inclement for anything other than very erratic germination. The next best option is to buy winter bedding and, if you're like me, haunt the discount section, where the ugly and unloved can be rescued. ...

Sadly, many of our bedding plants are grown using neonicotinoids (systemic insecticides incorporated into the growing medium) to control aphids, whiteflies, vine weevil and sciarid flies. These insecticides are being linked to the decline of honeybees and other pollinators. I love violas, but I also love butterflies and bees. So please become an informed consumer and ask for pesticide-free plants. If the shop can't supply these, or answer your questions, don't buy. Our pounds are our strongest vote in favour of wildlife, so let's use them wisely.
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Let’s Add a Little Dirt to Our Diet

Let’s Add a Little Dirt to Our Diet | 100 Acre Wood | Scoop.it
There’s nothing wrong with a little good clean dirt in our food.

 

Increasing evidence suggests that the alarming rise in allergic and autoimmune disorders during the past few decades is at least partly attributable to our lack of exposure to microorganisms that once covered our food and us. As nature’s blanket, the potentially pathogenic and benign microorganisms associated with the dirt that once covered every aspect of our preindustrial day guaranteed a time-honored co-evolutionary process that established “normal” background levels and kept our bodies from overreacting to foreign bodies. This research suggests that reintroducing some of the organisms from the mud and water of our natural world would help avoid an overreaction of an otherwise healthy immune response that results in such chronic diseases as Type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis and a host of allergic disorders.

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