Don't buy from Gurneys

[higgledy]

I am sure you expereinced gardners already know this, but Gurney's is crazy with thier prices. Which mail order places do you buy from?

[Doug Kanter]

Crazy compared to whom?

[George Shirley]

Pinetree Seeds and Burpee's.

George

[higgledy]

Well, they charge the same prices as does my local Homoe Depot. So why pay for shipping? That is crazy

[Doug Kanter]

Variety, maybe. And, a month from now, the Home Depot morons will be doing everything they can to murder their nursery stock. :-)

[KCnRichmond]

Easy moron. Not all HD stores are the same.

[Cereus-validus-...........]

You tell 'em, Moroni.

Some HD managers are worse than the others.

Don't get you hopes up expecting any of them giving a damn about some silly plants. They're in the hardware business not florists. They get their gardening experts straight out of high school!!!!

[Mel M Kelly]

We have a contest around here to see if Home Depot or Wal-Mart can get the most ideots working with the plants. Plus they don't pay any attention to what area plants should be sent to. You are better off going to a good greenhouse in your area.

From Mel & Donnie in Bluebird Valley

[Doug Kanter]

Here, they can't seem to hire anyone who notices that six-packs dry out in about 23 on a warm day. The plants look like crap within 2 weeks of being put on display.

[Doug Kanter]

23 MINUTES! (typo)

[Wild Bill]

Both good choices, George. I also like Territorial, Johnny's, and Nichol's Garden Nursery. Three years ago I placed a large order with Gurney's, and they botched it up so badly that I have sworn to never buy from them again.

Regards, Bill

[George Shirley]

I've got a couple of seedsmen on my blacklist. Gurney's is just one of them. Pinetree and Burpee's have never screwed up an order of mine, neither has Johnny's, haven't ordered from the others. Thanks for the advice though. We've downsized our gardens of late, only plant about half what we used too, except for hot chiles. Gotta make that hot sauce you know.

George

[higgledy]

Here in Maryland the HD workers don't have time to worry about dried up plants. It is a shame, they work those people like slaves.

[Doug Kanter]

There should an ASPCP - for prevention of cruelty to plants.

[Cereus-validus-...........]

How true that is.

Its really shameful how they force their employees to work in chains.

If it wasn't for the occasional rain, the plants would never get watered.

[thad01]

Actually, I've been thinking of buying some non-hybrid seeds to begin growing my own seed plants... cut out the middle man so to speak. Anyone else have experience with that?

Thad

[Persephone]

Perfect segue into the plight of poor Third World farmers who used to save seek and replant each year -- until Monsanto starte forcing them to buy "Terminator" seeds, genetically engineered so they couldn't be saved and replanted.

Interested gardeners (and people with a world view) might be interested in this cri de coeur on the subject, and might want to send on to your Lists.

Persephone

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Monsanto, the global agritech company [1[ is about to reneg on its pledge NOT to force indigenous farmers to buy new seed every year by selling sterile "terminator" seed that can't be saved. Farmers saved their seed every year for millennia, and replanted the next year -- until Monsanto came along and commodified seed.

[1] BTW - they also seek to commodify WATER in these poor countries! See as well as numerous URLs quoting Ken Silverstein's research in Mother Jones Magazine on Monsanto's drive to make the poorest people on earth buy their bottled water. Keywords such as "Mother Jones Magazine - Monsanto - indigeneous farmers- water" will get you a load of URLs on this and related subjects.]

For example,

get you a timeline from 2000 to the present on the worldwide politics of environmental destruction.

===

So -- Why should our fat and comfortable nation worry about the ruin of indigenous farmers in Third World Countries? YOU know the answer to THAT one! Even if we have no moral obligation to protect the weak and helpless, and prevent the destruction of our only home, the Earth, there's self-interest in not ruining our own agriculture:

As Pastor Niemoeller famously said in 1945 re: the Nazi regime:

"First they came for the Communists, and I didn?t speak up, because I wasn?t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn?t speak up, because I wasn?t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn?t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Monsanto Turns About on Terminator By Jim Thomas and Lucy Sharratt t r u t h o u t | Report

Wednesday 22 February 2006

Biotech giant revises pledge on sterile seed technology as global alliance calls for a ban.

It turns out you can't trust Monsanto. The world's largest seed and agbiotech company made a landmark public promise in 1999 not to commercialize "Terminator Technology" - plants that are genetically engineered to produce sterile seeds. Now, seven years later, Monsanto seems to have changed its mind. It says it may develop or use the so-called "suicide seeds" after all. A newly revised pledge from Monsanto now suggests that it would use Terminator seeds in non-food crops and does not rule out other uses of Terminator in the future.

Monsanto's modified stance comes to light as the biotech and seed industry confronts peasant and farmer movements, indigenous peoples and their allies, in an escalating battle at the United Nations over the future of Terminator that will come to a head next month.

It's the latest in a seven-year struggle over what has been called "the neutron bomb of agriculture" - genetically modified seeds that can't be saved. In 2000, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted a de facto moratorium on sterile seed technologies (known in UN-speak as Genetic Use Restriction Technologies or GURTs). But, at next month's high-level meeting of the CBD in Curitiba, Brazil (March 20-31, 2006), the biotechnology industry will intensify its push to undermine the six-year-old de facto moratorium.

In response, over 300 organizations have declared their support for a global ban on Terminator Technology this week, asserting that sterile seeds threaten biodiversity and will destroy the livelihoods and cultures of the 1.4 billion people who depend on farm-saved seed.

"The world's farmers and Indigenous peoples cannot trust Monsanto," declared Alejandro Argumedo from Asociación ANDES - Potato Park in Cusco, Peru, one of many indigenous groups backing the Ban Terminator call. "Monsanto's broken promise is a deadly betrayal because indigenous peoples and farmers depend on seed saving for food security and self-determination."

Terminator technology was first developed by the United States Department of Agriculture and the US seed company Delta & Pine Land to prevent farmers from saving and re-using harvested seed, forcing them to buy new seeds each season. Delta and Pine Land refer to Terminator as Technology Protection System (TPS) and are currently testing the crops in greenhouses. Delta and Pine Land's Harry Collins has vowed that his company will commercialize Terminator within the next few years

A few years ago, Terminator's fortunes weren't looking so good. In October 1999, in response to worldwide opposition, Monsanto publicly pledged not to commercialize Terminator seeds. Then-CEO, Robert Shapiro, wrote an open letter to the Rockefeller Foundation stating, "I am writing to let you know that we are making a public commitment not to commercialize sterile seed technologies, such as the one dubbed 'Terminator.'"

Now it turns out that Monsanto has quietly revised that commitment, pledging to keep Terminator only out of food crops. Their new wording opens the door to the use of Terminator in cotton, tobacco, pharmaceutical crops and grass with sterility genes. Referring to new versions of GURTs, Monsanto's "pledge" now says, "Monsanto does not rule out the potential development and use of one of these technologies in the future. The company will continue to study the risks and benefits of this technology on a case-by-case basis."

"Monsanto's revised pledge resonates closely with the actions of a few rich governments that have been promoting Terminator at the UN recently," points out Chee Yoke Ling of Third World Network. "It looks like Monsanto and other corporations are behind the strategy to unleash Terminator at the upcoming meetings of the CBD."

Indeed, Monsanto's new stance on Terminator is part of a wider industry attempt to undermine the de facto moratorium that was established six years ago. In the past year, government delegates from Canada, Australia and New Zealand, working hand in hand with the biotech industry, have used UN meetings to introduce new text that will be considered at next month's CBD meeting in Brazil. This text recommends Terminator technologies be approached on a "case by case risk assessment" basis - echoing the language of Monsanto's new "pledge." The intention behind the "case by case" approach is to regulate Terminator just like any other genetically modified crop - looking only at health and environmental impacts. This would ignore the uniquely devastating societal impacts of genetic seed sterility.

"Terminator is a direct assault on farmers, indigenous cultures and on the food sovereignty and well-being of all rural people, primarily the very poorest," said Chukki Nanjundaswamy of India from La Via Campesina, an organization representing hundreds of millions of peasant farmers worldwide. "If Monsanto bullies the UN into allowing 'case by case' assessment of Terminator, it means farmers will be carried off the land coffin by coffin."

"These companies have a clear and simple vision that nothing should be grown without a license from Monsanto and a few other masters of sterility and reproduction," explains Benny Haerlin of Greenpeace International. "They pursue this strategy step by step or 'case by case' as they now call it. If governments at the CBD give in to Monsanto and erode the Terminator moratorium we will all have to pay the bill tomorrow - and the collateral damage will be the integrity and fertility of nature."

The Ban Terminator campaign this week announced the names of over

300 organizations worldwide that are demanding a ban on Terminator technology and encouraged others to join the alliance. The list of organizations is available at These organizations are from every region of the world and include peasant farmer movements and farm organizations, indigenous peoples' organizations, civil society and environmental groups, unions, faith communities, international development organizations, women's movements, consumer organizations and youth networks.

"We are particularly alarmed that Monsanto's edited pledge no longer rejects commercialization of this dangerous technology," said Lucy Sharratt, who is coordinating the International Ban Terminator Campaign. "We invite all civil society and social movements to join with us for the battle against Terminator next month in Brazil."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[KCnRichmond]

The HD I shop at has irrigation.. I know, I know that sounds stupid, but they have like 5 dudes that dote over the plants like children. Everything from annuals to the largest trees. I'm sorry your box store doesn't have anyone worth a damn. They even carry pruners and I've seen them use them...Correctly. They can even tell you what type they are. Maybe you all should do that voice of the people thing with your receipt at their website and complain/compliment the HD you shop at.

[Doug Kanter]

Their "voice of the people" thing does not work, at least not the way it should. Matter of fact, if you call their home office and try to reach a district manager, you'll never get a call back. HD funtions behind a wall of silence.

[Cereus-validus-...........]

Sadly, Big Brother doesn't give a fig.