Gardendaze

If you read my little “Introduction,” it says that I’ve been an organic gardener since 1994. What it should really say is that I’ve been totally organic since then. Before I had been primarily organic, but if something really got out of control, I might resort to a chemical control. In 1994, when I realized I had no butterflies on my property and that butterflies were extremely sensitive to pesticides, I completely swore off them, cold-turkey. As my long-time readers know, my husband, the Spoiler, is not quite so committed, however.

But on occasion, I’ll come across something that just makes my jaw drop and makes me think that even I’ve been living under a rock.

The other day, I was reading something–I don’t even recall what–and it made a passing reference to a golfer who passed away in 1982 after playing 36 holes of golf on a pesticide treated golf course.

At first I thought, “Wow, that’s a lot of golf, ” but then I googled the story. I won’t link to it here because I don’t know the real outcome–I suspect it’s been suppressed. Suffice it to say the 36 rounds of golf were over 3 days–and the man was a Navy pilot, a fitness freak, self-described, who had complained of illness when playing on this course before. He died a grotesque and horrible death. The pesticide is still on the market and is sold to the home gardener for use on edible crops.

Better yet, this is not the only report of illness linked to this pesticide and the EPA lists it as a probable carcinogen–and yet, this weekend, we can all waltz right into our garden centers and big box sores and get it if we have a few spots on our plants–because it is a fungicide.

So I ask you all, please, to reconsider what you’re doing in the garden.