[Because I am in no position to preach to anyone about the environment, this is an open letter to myself on Blog Action Day.]Dear Robin,
You joined Slow Food USA. You have written about your yearning for simplicity. You have taken some baby steps toward environmentally sound practices and more healthful living. But I believe it’s time to stop joining, talking and taking baby steps.
It occurs to me that true change can only occur if you just…slow…down. Stop working seven days a week. Stop rushing around and living without, well, living. Stop being so impatient to get everything done right now. Live mindfully about what you are doing every moment and about the consequences of your choices and actions.
Slowing down will be good for you and for your family. What’s more, it will be good for the environment.
I will give you some examples of some of your personal actions that contribute to the environmental crisis we’re facing:
-You sometimes drive when you can walk. Do you really need to move your SUV from one end of the shopping center to the other as you do your errands? Can’t you walk there and back?
-You still use products such as weed killers and harsh cleaning products because they provide a fast, short-term solution, although they add little drips to the stream of pollution that is killing the earth.
-You drive past local farmers’ produce stands and buy the same produce at the grocery stores that is imported from the other side of the country–or the other side of the world.
-You still buy some ready-made foods rather than baking your own bread, making your own cheese or growing what you need with methods that don’t require chemicals, additives or being shipped from far away.
-You still throw clothes into the dryer rather than air drying them in the sun and fresh air.
-You waste energy by doing such things as leaving the computer on all night long so you won’t have to wait to read your email in the morning.
-You haven’t taken seriously the environmental cry to reduce, reuse and recycle.I could go on, but I don’t want to embarrass you here.
By slowing down, you will walk more gently on the earth. You can make some healthy changes that will mean better, healthier foods, less stress from hurrying around and more time with family and friends. You might also save some money and sleep better because you’ve gotten a bit more exercise (and, uh, saved some money).
Nuff said. Go out and do better now.
Robin
I want to believe in miracles. I want BADLY to believe in miracles. Especially the kind that help you lose weight while eating everything you want, “turn back the hands of time” and be more productive “than you ever dreamed.” Heck, I would settle for a miracle plant food!
So when I read about SUPERThrive and the extravagant, if unrealistic claims, of making plants grow seemingly overnight, I had to give it a try.
But then, there’s the heavily marketed Miracle Gro. (I spent MANY YEARS working in a multitude of advertising agencies and grew to HATE cute spellings and words that are JammedTogether with an ExtraCapital. But I have made every effort to overlook that shortcoming of these products.)
SO I PUT THEM TO THE TEST. THE CHALLENGE:
–Three identical plants from the same grower.
–Raised in identical conditions of light, soil, pot and equal amounts of nurturing and neglect for 12 weeks.
–The difference: The water. One plant would be given only plain spring water from our well. One plant would be watered with water spiked with Miracle Gro. The third watered with water spiked with SuperThrive.
I first read about SuperThrive in James Dodson’s Beautiful Madness (a review of which you can read here). Although he was a skeptic, he reported on an extremely successful grower who SWEARS by the stuff and buys it by the barrel full.
On looking into it further, it seemed a bit of a modern aged snake oil. The product label is full or verbose claims. There are some good ones:
–Used by thousands of governments, state universities, leading arboretums, botanical gardens, park systems, U.S. States and cities in multiple drum lots.
–Lifts the world!!
–Added to 21 fertilizers by 21 growers.
And my favorite…
–Used by FIVE U.S. Departments to help win World War II.
As you can see, it’s difficult to take a product like this seriously since the claims are so outrageous and wholly unsubstantiated.
Nevertheless, in the interest of science, I will suspend disbelief.
The company is fairly vague as to the ingredients. The label claims that it includes “unique, normalizing vitamins-hormones.” In fact, when I embarked on this experiment I happened on a website that had conducted a chemical analysis of the product and confirmed that it does, indeed, have vitamins. It was unclear whether the vitamins were ones that plants need and, alas, I can’t find the website any longer.
The typical application of SuperThrive, according to the crowded label, is about a teaspoon per gallon, which can be added to other fertilizer.
Miracle Gro, on the other hand, simply states that it is a “Liquid Plant Food.” It states that the composition is 8-7-6 and offers a guaranteed analysis of the nitrogen, phosphate, potash and iron content. Application is 10 – 20 drops per quart of water for this particular Miracle Gro Product.
On the left is the plant only given spring water from our well.
In the middle is the plant fed with Miracle Gro.
On the right is the plant fed with SuperThrive.
THE RESULTS:
As you can see from the photo, the plant that was given only spring water from our well did not fare nearly as well as either the Miracle Gro or the SuperThrive plants. The plant is smaller, there is less new growth and overall the color is less green. The plant is clearly less vigorous than the other miracle food plants.
Left to right: Plain water plant, Miracle Gro plant, SuperThrive plant
After that, the judging becomes somewhat more difficult. My impartial (because he doesn’t give a hoot) observer, Benjamin, says that the SuperThrive plant appears to be bigger, healthier and more vigorous.
Yes, the SuperThrive plant has more new growth, more leaves and is a bit greener. On the other hand, the Miracle Gro plant is also vigorous and the growth is more mature and leaves are larger.
In the end, the SuperThrive plant is probably a bit more vigorous.
But is it a miracle? Sadly, no. Clearly, something in that outrageous bottle works, but it’s no more a miracle than Miracle Gro. And the price is outrageously higher. On Amazon the price was about $32 for a PINT. The 8 oz. bottle or Miracle Gro still has a tag on it from the local nursery for $2.49.
So, in the end, I vote for Miracle Gro. It has a good result with a value price. And you don’t have to feel entirely taken with their marketing pitch either.
My next question: Is that Alaskan fish fertilizer better than either one? Frankly, the only reason I didn’t include it in this test is that the local nursery didn’t have FOUR plants. But I have seen some amazing new growth in the weeks following when I pour on the stinky stuff. (And boy, does that stuff STINK.)
Ciao!
Robin
I found this little plant at Behnke’s last week when poking around after my yoga lesson. How sweet is this little beauty? And named after one of my favorite things–pocketbooks!
But as with many beautiful things, the beauty is only transitory.
Because I may be one of the last people left who has never heard of the pocketbook plant, I went online to find out more about my new treasure. Sadly, nearly all the websites say that the plant is usually kept until after the blooms have died and is then discarded. New plants can be started from seeds that have been allowed to dry on the plant, but propagation is, from what they say, difficult.
So let me get this straight. It’s very beautiful, so we are encouraged to enjoy the beauty for the here and now. But when the beauty fades, we are to just toss it away on the trash heap with not a backward glance or regret? Just go on with our lives, buying other beautiful plants that we will also toss away when they have passed their prime. We shouldn’t even TRY to keep the joy the plant has brought us alive by giving it the chance to live again as new little pocketbook plants?
That’s just wrong. And it’s also a symptom of our society’s unhealthy fascination with all things beautiful and easy. (Think Britney, Anna Nicole Smith, Paris Hilton…The list goes on.) We are too willing to just walk away from things once they become difficult or ugly.
I say we put a stop to this wanton waste of pocketbook plant potential. I say, “Save the Seeds!”
I, for one, intend to harvest those little pocketbook plant seeds, plant them and let that plant live again.
Robin
