On Date: 5 Mar 2006 09:21:55 -0800,
"James" stated:
Organic seeds are in my opinion a waste of money. Organic
farming doesn't not change the genetics of a plant.

"zxcvbob" later, in a different thread, on
Date: 12 Mar 2006, indicates:
Interesting factoid: people who are carriers of sickle-cell anemia
have a natural resistance to acute malaria.

Meanwhile, over 100 years ago there lived a man named Charles
Robert Darwin who wrote a book.

Charles Darwin (12 February 1809 - 19 April 1882) wrote in
1859, "I have called this principle, by which each slight variation,
if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection." The full title
of the book, commonly referenced as "The Origin of Species":

"On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or
The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life"

On a side note, a hairless man advances that he represents the next
step in the evolution of man.

I counter that the advancement may not amount to anything until he
reproduces the trait and it displays itself in his children or grand-
children. For him, some more work follows.

My votes:
No to DDT.
No to monosodium glutamate (MSG).
No to potasium benzoate and no to sodium benzoate.
No to aspartame.

James also stated that it would take years to go "organic". However,
organic only takes one thing, work and perserverence. Last year my
avocado tree produced about 60 avocadoes, the young mango tree
produced 1 mango, the pineapple plant grew 1 pineapple but now
I have 3 pineapple plants. The tomatoes struggled but I did get over
30 cherry tomatoes off of one vine (and its still producing) and 10
beautiful cucumbers off of several vines. I experienced aphids, slugs,
bugs, butterflies, flies, misquitoes, wasps, lady bugs, and I hope to
see a ton of bumble bees within the next week (the avocado tree
attracts them for one or two days where they swarm over the tree).
This year I'm interplanting marigold, marjoram and nasturtium in
with the tomatoes, and there's now four or five mustard leaf
plants. The orange tree produced bitter oranges but it produced
a quite a few oranges (60 or more).

The mango tree, maybe 5 years old is fully blossomed and beautiful.
It pales compared to the much older mango trees in the neighbor's
yard but I'm quite happy to see all these blossoms on it. Maybe I'll
get 4 or 5 mangoes this year. A pineapple plant took off not far from
it, and then not far from that are 4 or 5 carrots that grow very slowly
(for almost a year, maybe longer). I pulled up a carrot and supposedly
it grows to 12 inches, but this one only lengthed 5 inches. I need some
advice on getting the carrots to grow better.

Of course there's the things I'm disappointed in, the peas and the
green beas tend to fail. I keep planting them, but this time I'm
attempting cow-peas instead of green peas.

I planted a mustard seed from a jar of mustard seeds (over four
years old) and it took and bolted much quicker than the other
mustard seed I planted (Florida broadleaf variety). The Florida
broadleaf mustard takes a while longer to bolt but produces a
lot of tasty leaves.

The nasturtium tastes great and it's the first time I've ever eaten
nasturtium. There's a lot of different pepper growing, and I noted
that a tomato plant planted next to one pepper plant, produced
a lot more peppers on that particular pepper plant. Am I mistaken,
or do tomatoes benefit pepper plants (specifically a serrano pepper).
In fact, I'm quite positive the serrano pepper plant benefited the
tomato plant as well (cherry tomatoes from a seed taken out of a
store bought cherry tomato).

Jim Carlock
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