MOTHER EARTH NEWS August - September 2018

The other evening, after work, I was building a new door for Joanna’s hospital coop when I heard an inordinate amount of buzzing. I thought it was flies on some dead animal that one of the dogs or cats had dragged into the workshop, but I was wrong. It was a group of about 30 scout bees measuring the new hives I’d recently built. These hives have 14 frames in them, and only a few of the frames are primed with about an inch-wide strip of foundation rolled from brood comb wax. One of the hives also has a vial of lemongrass essential oil in it — a semipermeable vial that releases the scent in the parts per billion concentration range. The extra vial was left over from baiting the…

Rocky Start for Colorado Transplants I absolutely love MOTHER EARTH NEWS, and I’ve been reading it since the ’70s, after discovering it in college. I lived in Pennsylvania for 63 years before moving to Colorado less than two years ago. In Pennsylvania, gardening was so easy; I could grow stuff just by breathing on it! In 2013, my 13 tomato plants produced a few thousand tomatoes. However, living in the Colorado foothills is quite different. In the time we’ve been here, I haven’t grown a thing. Our soil is shallow, dry, and not exactly nutrient-dense. There are boulders under everything. I would love an issue devoted to mountain gardening. I’m sure others living in the Rockies would also appreciate it. Perhaps there are some longtimers who might share their tips for success…

To discover these hidden forests, hundreds of students and scientists from around the world spent thousands of hours inspecting more than 200,000 images to count every visible tree and shrub. The research was warranted, because previous tree counts have proved inaccurate. Most relied on low-resolution satellite images that made it difficult to distinguish between trees, rocks, shadows, and even dirt patches, leading to an undercounting of overall trees. Thanks to newly available ultra-high-resolution photos from Google Earth in which each pixel represents a meter or less, this study has accurately identified far more trees than before. These hidden forests are no small find. In fact, they collectively cover an area almost the size of a second Amazon rainforest and represent a 9 percent increase in estimated global forest coverage. Most are…

Many people know that modern agriculture relies on massive amounts of pesticides to produce substantial results, but few realize how far-reaching pesticides’ impacts can be. Now, a new study is revealing that these compounds are more present in our bodies than we think. Glyphosate, the active ingredient in many herbicides, is known for triggering environmental damage and adverse health effects at excessive concentrations. In fact, researchers from the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine have revealed that the chemical is showing up in human bodies. While it’s convenient to think the contaminant is confined only to the corn and soy fields it’s sprayed on, tests of everyday foods, such as cookies, ice cream, and crackers, are all showing traces of the chemical. Human exposure to glyphosate has increased more than…

A pilot program from the Georgia Department of Transportation is striving to change the notion that farming and freeways don’t have much in common. Working in partnership with The Land Institute and The Ray, the department has developed a perennial wheat farm along a highway’s right-of-way. The project is taking place along the Ray C. Anderson Memorial Highway, an 18-mile stretch of land locally known as “The Ray” that’s already on the cutting edge of sustainable transportation. Along its route are solar-powered electric vehicle charging stations, a pollinator garden, and rainwater-capturing bioswales. However, the perennial wheat project takes this highway sustainability program to a new level. Perennial grains are increasingly viewed as a viable avenue for improving the environmental impacts of modern agriculture, and positive results from the pilot program could…

While a healthy diet has always been considered necessary for overall wellness, historically, many hospitals have overlooked its powerful potential for healing. In some areas, that’s beginning to change. In Pennsylvania four years ago, St. Luke’s Hospital partnered with Rodale Institute to start an organic produce farm at the hospital’s campus in Easton. Since its first season, the St. Luke’s farm has expanded to grow 100 fruit and vegetable cultivars on 11½ acres. Today, St. Luke’s sends all new mothers home with a basket of organic produce. New moms aren’t the only ones benefiting from the farm’s bounty, which is also served to patients, cooked up in cafeterias operated by the hospital’s six-campus network, and sold at nearby farmers markets. Hospital farms are part of a broader movement to make organic, locally…