Interesting elements from

• Malaria kills 1 child per 30 seconds and over a million per year
• People can feel the symptoms of malaria anywhere from 8 days to a year after infection
• Malaria was eliminated in the U.S. with DDT and people think Africa should do the same
• Some believe the benefits of using DDT to eliminate the disease in Africa out way the risks and dangers

Questions

• How would DDT be administered to eliminate the disease?
• How would it be controlled?

The Omnivore's Dilemma

Interesting elements from Ch.9: Big Organic of The Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan:

• A farm claiming to be organic have cows in fenced "dry lots" with certified organic grain as food and tethered to milking machines 3 times a day
• Free range can mean a tiny door to a little grassy yard that is only accessible after 5-6 weeks of age
• Organic chickens must have "ACCESS to the outdoors" but if they don't for the first 5-6 weeks of their lives then they rarely go out into unknown territory outdoors
• plants grown in synthetically fertilized soils are less nourishing than ones grown in composting soils

Questions:

• On average how many grocery stores sell inorganic food vs. organic food which is still treated similarly with sneaky ways of doing it?
• Whats the difference of energy used on organic vs. conventional?

Silent Spring

Interesting elements from Ch.3: Elixirs of Death of the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson:

• Synthetic chemicals/insecticides were a result of studies during WWII for weapons in chemical warfare that happen to be deadly to insects
• One can substitute other elements for Hydrogen in a hydrogen carbon bond
• Chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides pass through the placenta to the embryo while in the mothers womb
• When swallowed dieldrin is 5 times more toxic than DDT but when absorbed through the skin it is 40 times more toxic
• The toxicity of organic phosphates can be increase by non-insecticide agents
• Herbicides can cause gene mutations

Questions

• How easily accessible are these chemicals to an average person?
• How many long term effects are still undiscovered?

week 10 &11

Over the past two weeks I have done 45 minutes of composting, 45 minutes of research and planning on how to keep our artichoke plants alive over the winter so that they will give us fruit next season, and 30 minutes of turning soil.

Week 9

An hour of planting the last of the late garlic and composting

Raw Milk Controversy: Legal Battle

Interesting elements form article, U.S. Raw Milk Advocates Invite Farmer on Hunger Strike to Rally:

• Michael Schmidt has been on a hunger strike since Sept. 29 drinking only water and wont stop his strike until the premier will agree to meet with him to talk about the rights to buy food directly from farmers
• In Canada it is illegal for the sale or distribution of raw milk
• He has 15 convictions of provincial offences related to selling unpasteurized milk

Questions after this reading:

• How long will Michael Schmidt be able to function on only water?
• When did it become illegal across Canada to distribute raw milk?

The Raw Milk Controversy: History

Interesting elements from Raw Milk Outbreak: Canadian Experience:

• None of the children who drank pasteurized milk in Toronto had bovine TB in 1920
• According to the CDC, in seven years from 1998 to 2005, there have been 39 outbreaks associated with un-pasteurized dairy products, which involved 1 death, 66 hospitalizations, and over 800 illnesses
• It is impossible to get sterile milk directly from an animal

Questions from the reading:

• What did farmers used to do to prevent or cure diseases spread from unpasteurized milk? (pre modern technology)

Myths About Organic Agriculture

Interesting elements from Mythbusting 101:

• 20 chemicals/pesticides, herbicides are organic approved and used in large amounts on organic crops even though they may be just as toxic as man made/synthetic pesticides
• work is being done to genetically engineer nuts so that they lack the protein that cause allergic reactions
• The pesticide, discontinued for causing Parkinson's disease like symptom in rats, is redistributed and poured in to the oceans to eliminate some species of fish

Questions after this reading:

• Is there some way we can genetically modify a plant to help with deadlier diseases such as cancer, HIV, etc.

Next time I'm buying organic I will look at the label to see if there is more information on their methods

Neonicitinoids

Interesting elements from the video:

• 30%-50% of hives per year are being lost in the U.S.
• Systemic pesticides are always in the plant from the roots all the way up to the nectar and were released onto the shelves before all the environmental effects were known
• The EPA does not perform the tests, it is the businesses that do the tests
• An average of 6 different pesticides but up to 39 pesticides in hives across the U.S. in each sample found in a study done in part by Pen university
• Short term consequences are being considered but long term consequences are not being taken into account
• Industries can bend tests to benefit themselves

Questions I now have

• How can we prove (faster) that declining honey bee numbers is linked to pesticides?
• Why are administrators approving pesticides when it is the scientists who know all the data and results?

week 8

This week I did 20 minutes of composting and I spent a little over an hour turning soil in the gardens.

New Hope Cuisine

At the Table Matters meeting on Friday, I arrived late and could only make it to one table. I chose to go to the New Hope Cuisine table and was truly inspired. I have always considered it a disgusting crime that we throw out tons of "unsatisfactory" food in grocery stores. Things such as a cake with a crack in it that nobody will buy, are being thrown out into landfills. What New Hope is doing, is taking all that food and creating frozen gourmet meals and soups from rescued foods. Whole foods is their main supplier however they are trying to get other businesses to partner up with them. At the moment Costco and Safeway are refusing to do so. In our discussion on how to get people to buy these delicious meals ( the lemon and apple chicken was all rescued food), I suggested making a Facebook page for the meals. When I think about advertising these days, the majority of it is done through technology (TV, computers, radio) and youth are a great target for these meals. University kids are always busy and may not always have the time to make themselves a good meal so New Hope would be perfect! When Scott, the Executive Chef and Instructor said that he is not at all technology savvy, I mentioned that Rockridge (I believe West Van and Sentinel too) have a program called Work Experience where there would likely be people willing to volunteer to help with creating an online area for the New Hope Cuisine. I took an extra one of his business cards and plan on talking with one of the Work Experience teachers about the idea. I hope it works out because what Scott and his team are doing is amazing.

Colony Collapse Disorder

The response for this subject will be late because of the 14 holds on one copy of the film at VPL.

Week 7

This week I spent 20 minutes composting at school and 45 minutes cleaning up dead plants in the gardens and planning out next years crops.

Identifying and Treating Varroa

Interesting elements from Varroa Mite History, Distribution, and Biology video:

• Compared to the size of the host (bee), varroa mites are one of the largest parasites on the planet, like a basketball sized tick on a human.... scary
• Natural parasite to an Asian species of honey bee, not American
• Varroa Mites have a special apparatus they stick out of the Royal jelly to breath when they are waiting for the larva to be covered

Next time I'm in the apiary I will look for any bees with deformed wings, to make sure they are not carrying deform wing virus.

Questions:

What other viruses can varroa mites transmit to honey bees?

What is the most effective way to get rid of varroa mites?

Identifying Nosema

Interesting facts from Nosema Disease Diagnosis and Control:

• Spore explosively uncoils when it hits the bee's gut and passed from bee to bee through feces
• Disease increases when bees cannot leave hive for cleansing flight
• sample size is as big as 100 bees

Questions

• What are the best conditions for nosema to thrive?
• Why must dead bees be soaked in alcohol longer than live bees?

Next time I'm in the apiary I will look for feces in the hive to see if they are taking cleansing flights or not.

Common Bee Diseases

Interesting elements from Beekeeping Made Easy: Pest/Disease Program:

• Three types of brood, however all very different, only AFB means burn everything
• Nosema and paralysis is only found in adult bees
• Small hive beetles prefer queenless hives

Next time I'm in the apiary I will look to see if there are any signs of brood (any of the three kinds)

Questions from this reading:

• What is it about vegetable oil that blocks the sent that attracts tracheal mites?
• Why are animals such as squirrels able to mess with hives without being stung or effected by stings?

Week 6

This week I did 15 minutes of composting at school and 20 minutes of gardening at home. I ended up falling off a horse and bruising my hand and hip, which made it difficult to garden so I did not get my whole hour in.

Week 5

This cauliflower we did not tie the leaves above it, so we'll have to see how it tastes.
Pulled out all the carrots... there were a lot!
The backyard compost is doing well!
Harvesting delicious apples every day.
This week I spent around two hours movie manure into our garden beds, pulling out old plants and weeds, and a few other things were harvested.

A Composting Success Story

Interesting elements of the High School Garden Grows Pride article:

• Windermere uses its feeder schools for their compost too as well as its own compost material
• The aquaponics system sounded very interesting and fairly unique for a school
• A small fruit orchard. Several schools have had vegetable gardens, however A fruit orchard would be a very interesting aspect.

Questions

• Is a fruit orchard something West Van high or Rockridge could consider?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of an aquaponics system

Next time I'm at my school compost, I will see how we recruit people to help out with our garden and compost.

Worm Composting

Interesting elements from Composting with Red Wriggler Worms article:

• The idea to reuse something such as an old dresser or a trunk for the container
• Not to use the large worms found in soil and compost. I would have assumed they would survive just as well in the worm composting
• The number of worms needed for one pound of waste (2000 worms)

Questions

• What other species of worm would work well in other parts of the world?
• Does introducing these worms into your garden have an effect on the worms already there?

Next time I'm in the garden I'll see how many different species of worms I can see.

Week 4

I composted for 30 minutes this week and spent 35 minutes gardening.

Before working

After working

Leaf Mold

Interesting elements from the How To Make Leaf Mould video:

• Best to use a range deciduous plant leaves for a range in nutrients, pine needles in a different heap for other varieties of plants, but no coniferous plant leaves
• Leaves will take about a year to create a useful leaf mould but dampness and circulating air in them is helpful
• Pine needles create an acidic leaf mould

Next time I'm in the garden I'll look for leaves to see what types are around here.

Questions

• I wonder which mix of leaves would be the most nutritious for the garden?

Other plant leaves that are bad for leaf mould

• beech
• birch
• hornbeam
• oak
• sweet chestnut
• magnolia
• holly

Bokashi Fermentation

I was very interested to find out from The Composting Guy's Guide to Bokashi that you can even through meat and dairy into the Bokashi as well as all the usual brown and green materials. It was also very interesting that the liquid from the waste materials can be poured down the drains to eliminate odours. I originally would have thought the liquid would cause odours. That is another thing I was interested to read, that the bokashi box has no bad odour.

When I'm at my compost next time I will check to see if mine has an odour or not.

I'm interested to know what other "goodies" would benefit the bokashi mix besides kelp or rock dust?

General Composting Tricks for the North Shore

Watching the North Shore Recycling Program, I liked the comparison they made saying the compost should have the same moistness as a damp, wrung out sponge. Using this comparison made it very clear what the compost should be like. It was interesting that you need equal amounts of green and brown materials. It's crazy that one household can compost about 500kg of material that turns into 100kg of fertilizer.

Next time I go out to my compost or the school compost, I will make sure to bring an equal amount of newspaper shreddings or other brown materials as well as the fruit and vegetable scraps.

This video made me wonder why people would buy fertilizer when they can make their own, more environmental fertilizer for free? I also am curious as to how long it would take the anaerobic bacteria to ferment the food scraps in a composting bin.

week three gardening/composting

For my hour this week, I spent some time apple harvesting, composting at Rockridge, planting a few new plants, and weeding.

Building up and protecting soil

From the Scoop on Dirt, I was interested by the origins of the word dirt. I never knew that dirt came from the word drit which means excrement... Unpleasant but interesting! It is so cool that up to nine million microbes can be in only one gram of soil. It's incredible that American's erode about 3.5 tons of soil every year.

Next time i'm in my garden I will look to see how many worms I can count while I'm working.

This article made me question how many tons of soil the average Canadian erodes annually. I also wonder what it would look like if we were to look at a sample of dirt under a microscope. It must look so cool with all those organisms in it!

Growing Garlic

From the Garlic Planting Guide I was interested to read that there is enough variation in climate from altitude, distance from the sea, and mountains to cause changes in reliability in garlic plants. It was interesting that this article mention rotted compost as well as general garden fertilizer. I would have thought one of the two would be enough. I also thought it was interesting that you can tell approximately when to harvest the garlic by how the foliage.

Next time I'm in the garden I will look to see if any of the root vegetables in the garden are beginning to rot or if they look nice and healthy.

My biggest questions after reading this is which garlic will work best and which will we like the most in our garden.

Week 2 Gardening

I harvested some carrots and potatoes for part of our dinner. I also picked all the tomatoes that had gotten ripe since last time I harvested

Here was a section of the garden before I started work.

This is the same section of garden after an hour of weeding.

Planting Winter Crops

West Coast Seeds guide to Winter Crops in BC interested me when I saw how much of a variety there can be in winter from our own gardens. It was interesting to see the different types of row coverings there are for winter. Also how the row covers can increase the temperature under them by 5 degrees! That's quite a difference in Vancouver weather. I never realized how much planning truly goes into a successful full-year garden. Every starting of all the plants has to been known in advance.

Next time I'm in the garden I will pay attention to what plants are beginning to die now that the weather is changing, and what plants are still healthy.

This made me wonder how many of the plants listed in the article can be grown in similar climates that are either a little cooler or a little hotter. It would be interesting to know how much variation they can take. I also wonder out of all of the winter crops, which is the most successful?

WILL THE CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD BE DISMANTLED?

In the news article discussing the Canadian Wheat Board, I was interested to read that about 56 percent of eligible farmers voted in the plebiscite for the Canadian Wheat Board, however there is difficulty to get that many voters out for federal elections! I'm also interested to read that the federal government will continue with it's decision making based on their political mandate rather than taking into account the recent plebiscite. Jack Wilkinson's comment was very interesting. He made a good point. With 10 billion people that need to be fed, we need a strong agriculture system. Having just been to Africa this past summer, I am a witness to how much usable land there is there that is being wasted or ignored.

Next time I'm in the garden, I will look to see how much of the food I am growing there is going to waste and how efficiently the space is used.

This article made me wonder how Lemieux plans on using technology and science for a technology that has been used for millions of years. I can understand how there may be some benefits to being able to map out a plan with a computer. But when it comes down to it, farming is farming. I also ask why the government is so blatantly ignoring the results of the plebiscite instead of working with it?

First week garden pictures

This week I spent 35 minutes at Rockridge doing the composting from around the school. I also spent 25 minutes in my backyard garden harvesting tomatoes and other vegetables as well as weeding.

Bee Foraging Behaviour

While watching the fifth assignment from week one, "Bee Foraging", i was interested to have get perspective through how the bee sees. Compared to some animals they have fairly good vision, although compared to others it's quite bad. It's very cool that bees communicate through a kind of dance. Who knew that a dance could tell where, how far, and what will be at a certain place. It's very interesting that not only do bees have their own internal clock, but they also have an internal odometer measured by fuel consumption and an internal compass.

Next time I'm in the apiary or the garden, I'm going to look for a bee doing a sort of dance to tell the others where the best place to go forage is.

This article makes me wonder why the bees sting the forager bee to death if they don't tell the hive all the information they need from it. I also wonder how they make the special sound that is their version of asking for more information.

Other Hive Designs

In the video from the fourth assignment for the first two weeks, "Overview of Top Bar Hives", the first thing I noticed was that the beekeeper tapped the top of the bars with the end of his knife. I'm very curious as to why he did that. Does it have an affect on the bees? I was intrigued by the fact that top bar hives need less smoke than the langstroth hive. It was interesting that there were brood patterns and honey stores on the same bar.

Next time I am in the apiary I will look for the differences between the langstroth hives and the top bar hives such as the ones from this film.

Langstroth Hive Design

One element from the "Basic Components of the Langstroth Bee Hive" design video that I found interesting is that there are certain aspects of the hive that you can change (such as the number of deeps/medium deeps) and the bees are not affected but other aspects (such as the size of the cone foundations) can cause problems. It's interesting that this video says the bees store the honey above the eggs and the larva, however I seem to recall that when we were looking at the cone foundations last week in the west van hives, the honey and larva where relatively interspersed. I found it intriguing that the bees don't seem to mind what material is used in the hives even though some materials are not natural such as the metal top that keeps out rain.

Next time I'm in the apiary I will pay extra attention to the placement of the honey verses the eggs and larva to see if what the video says about the storing of honey in the higher deeps is accurate.

It makes me wonder what other designs (other than the top bar design) would work better or worse as an alternative hive. I'm also curious as to why the man in this video used shorter "medium deeps" instead of the bigger normal deeps.

Bee Lifecycle

In the second article, The Life Cycle of a Bee, I found it interesting that the egg has such a structured four days. It is straight, then bent, then on it's side, and then hatches into a larva. Another thing that I found very interesting was the colour of the young adult bees. I thought bees were all the same in colouring, however this article taught me that new adults are light in colour and greyish. I also found it very fascinating that bees have such organized roles for their different ages such as how until the approximate age of 21 days they stay in the hive and only then do they become field bees.

Next time I'm in the apiary I will look to see what day the egg is at by its position. I'll also try to identify the different roles the worker bees play in and out of the hive, whether it's in the garden or in the apiary.

This article made me curious as to how the bees know when they have to change jobs and how to do their new job.

I also wonder how bees evolved to be so efficient and if they once worked differently as a hive.

Bee Yard Safety

From the first reading, Some Basic Bee Yard Safety Tips, the first thing that stood out to me was the fact that not only does black truly aggravate bees, but white actually calms them. I also was unaware (until reading this article) that bees get upset over so many things such as the smell of caffeine or sweat, the weather, and that they can track CO2. One of the most interesting elements was the advice to have a banana on-hand incase of a sting. I thought it was very cool that just eating a banana would help replenish your potassium store after creating anti-bodies against the sting.

Next time I go into the garden or apiary I will make a point of being aware of the weather and looking for a different attitude of the bees depending on if it's sunny or cloudy and cold.

This article has made me wonder what other scents offend the bees that we are unaware of and what unknown aspects could calm them more. With the list of handy things to have on-hand, I also wonder what type of natural medicines were used on bee stings prior to modern medicines.