Grandma's Garden
By Carolyn Westmoreland
My
grandmother McNary passed on in the late 1960s. Her doctor
told us that she died in her sleep of old age. She lived with my
mother for a little over a year, but until then she always kept
her own home, a vegetable garden, and beautiful flowers. She and
my aunt were schoolteachers back East, and together they traveled
west to homestead land in Colorado. They settled one thousand acres
of land out on the prairie. Their garden was one acre, and the rest
of the grassland was used to raise cattle after grandma married.
They sold butter, vegetables and milk in town and they taught school
and piano. No fancy equipment existed then for help with their labor:
their well water had to be carried into the house, and there was
no electricity. Pesticides were tobacco juice, soap, and other home
remedies including chickens and turkeys that ate bugs in the harvested
garden. Im telling you about my grandmother because she is
still a guiding light for me. I think of her often.
Pesticides and chemicals are in and on everything
these days. In our air, our water, and in the products we use. Our
clothing and furniture are not chemical free, and our food is contaminated
too. Our government approves the use of new chemicals and combinations
of chemicals every year without adequate testing. No one knows to
what extent these substances might be harming our health and our
planet. Some pesticides, like Methyl bromide, are already known
to cause cancer, but due to monetary concerns they are still in
use.
Over the last few decades Ive become a devoted
label reader. One of the first things I ask myself when I see an
ingredient that is questionable on a label is if this ingredient
was used while my grandma was still alive. Silly? Maybe, but going
even further with this thought, if I cant read the label on
the product Im looking at, the item stays on the shelf in
the store. Over the years Ive been called everything from
a nut case, to neurotic, but that is OK. Im seeing some progress.
I had to smile last year as I watched the school next door take
down arsenic contaminated playground equipment, and they stopped
using herbicides on the playground. The smile happened because I
took EPA reports to their office, talked with them, and requested
repeatedly over the years that they stop spraying poison into my
yard where I grow vegetables and herbs. I like thinking that they
might have taken some of my information seriously. But, even if
this isnt the reason for the changes out in the playground,
at least the kids are a little better off, and Im very happy
without herbicides in my garden.
Have you ever tried to check with a manufacturer
on the contents of any of the products you use? Some makers will
tell you as little as possible, shuffle your phone call to two or
three different offices and sometimes they simply tell you it is
a trade secret. Last year I bought some diatomaceous earth from
a store in Montana. When it arrived I checked the label and discovered
that there were additives in the product referred to as bait. Well,
what was in the bait? I phoned the business I bought it from and
he told me that he could not sell pure diatomaceous earth for bug
control without being fined. According to him it was a very stiff
fine too. He couldnt tell me what was in the bait saying it
wouldnt do any good to phone the manufacturer because any
information about the product content was probably protected by
copyright.
I cant help but wonder why it is so hard to
find products today that are pure? Why doesnt a jar of peanut
butter just have the word peanuts printed on the label? Some do,
but you pay a hefty price for the pleasure of pure, additive free,
peanut butter. The additions of cottonseed oil, sugar, palm oil,
corn syrup, salt, food dye, etc. actually makes the product cheaper.
Shouldnt this be the other way around?
Just recently the European Union announced that
they are going to test all of the chemicals in use in their countries.
When I saw this news I felt elated. This should have been done a
long time ago, everywhere. We need to know what these materials
are doing to our environment, and to human beings. A day after the
EUs announcement, complaints and protests proceeded to fly
saying an investigation like this will hurt business; it will put
people out of work, and more. So, for now, the EU has backed off
saying they are still going to test but in a more limited way. Some
of these objections came from the United States.
So, it looks like we are stuck with reading labels
and avoiding heavily sprayed crops. I hope you will join me in reading
labels if you havent been checking them already. Every time
you leave a questionable product on the shelf you will have opted
for something better. If the junk doesnt sell, the consumer
will be heard. Businesses want your money, and eventually, changes
for the better will happen.
If you have a computer and Internet access, look
at the online version of this article at ProgressiveWritersBloc.com
for links to excellent sources of information
on pollution, chemicals, and pesticides, including pesticide
information for Tulare County.
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