I was stopped by these tulips while out walking with my camera recently. I love the way the petals have rolled down as the flowers die. Nature sure is neat.
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Scotts versus TerraCycle
TerraCycle Inc — a company started by a college student that sells liquid worm poo fertilizer in recycled pop bottles — is being sued by Scotts makers of Miracle-Gro claiming that the product package designs are too similar and confuse customers “…because some TerraCycle plant foods have a green and yellow label with a circle and a picture of flowers and vegetables on it.” Cause you know how novel and original these style choices are in the garden industry. They have started a blog called “Sued By Scotts” chronicling the lawsuit.
Scotts is also taking issue with the TerraCycle claim that their product is better than “a leading synthetic plant food” while refusing to hand over their test results to Scotts.
I love me some worm poo but have never tried the TerraCycle product since I can get liquid vermicompost produced locally or make it myself. I don’t think I need to tell you that I think Miracle-Gro is a terrible, environmentally unsound product but I gotta say that while I didn’t think it was possible this kind of bullying tactic only further places Scotts front and centre on my shitlist.
Terracycle’s answer to Scotts claim is due today.
Further Reading:
- How Not to Grow a Business – About Scotts with a little more about the suit.
- When the Worm Poop Hits the Fan — Market It – From Advertising Age
- Article from the Oklahoman
Making a Community Garden
Parkdale, the neighborhood where I have made my home for most of my adult life houses approximately 75% of its residents in apartments with 38% residing in high-rise towers without access to outdoor space. This neighbourhood is incredibly diverse with people hailing from literally all over the world. It’s an excellent example why Toronto is lauded as the most multicultural city in the world and why I love it here so much. But with so many people living on low incomes and without outdoor space, we desperately need food-growing gardens that serve the needs of this community.
Over the last month or so I’ve been involved with an exciting innitiative in my neighborhood to build a community garden in an underused park next to the local community centre. It’s not a huge garden and demand for space is high, but the hope is that the success of one such garden will open up the possibility for many more in this area.
This past weekend marked the official groundbreaking of the garden. The City gave us two options to get the garden started: they would remove the sod with a cutting machine or rototill the entire area. From the start the group has established a mandate to be as ecologically sound as possible, our goal being to create an environment that cultivates the health of the neighborhood. As a result we opted for the less invasive sod removal method. We would have loved to have simply composted the grass in place (sometimes called sod conversion) however time is not on our side this time around. Rolling up the sod means we can control how much the soil is cultivated, preserving the health of the soil and keeping as much nutritional matter intact as possible. We were also concerned that rototilling would result in grass popping up in plots within a few weeks.
We saved some of the sod to form rows between plots and gave the rest away to locals who needed it.
I am really excited to be a part of such a great project and can’t wait to see how it evolves and grows in the coming weeks and most especially once the gardens are planted and on their way to making food and building relationships within the community.
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