Sustainable sourcing

I’ve received the first seed catalog of the season! It’s time to start ordering seeds and planning plant purchases for next spring. I want to be realistic and environmentally sound. That poses some new challenges this year.

Previous years' seeds were stored in the refrigerator

    I love spending cold winter evenings mooning over catalog portraits of perfect vegetables and lush, bright flowers. A seed packet doesn’t cost much, and I convince myself that I’ll find space for that special squash vine or those five varieties of string beans. I also tend to over-estimate how many sunny spots there are for annual flowers in the insectary bed or the perennial borders.

Everything looks perfect in the catalog

    The miracle of seeds germinating and sending up their first leaves never gets old for me. I like sowing seeds and coddling seedlings through their first weeks under lights. I don’t do so well with the next stage, growing those seedlings into sturdy young plants bursting with energy for their move to the garden. When I compare my willowy seedlings to their hearty counterparts at the garden center, I often resolve to stop sowing seeds at home and depend on the experts.

My zinnia seedlings look puny compared to the garden center's

    This year things look more complicated for two reasons. First, I’m still trying to avoid introducing neonicotinoid insecticides into my yard. Even seeds may be treated with these pesticides, which are toxic to bees and other beneficial insects and persist for years in soil and plant tissues. I don’t want them here because I’m trying to foster native insects, not kill them. In addition to shopping for neonic-free plants, no easy task, I also aim to buy seeds that aren’t treated with pesticides.

Neonics poison bees when they visit flowers

    That’s why I prioritize organically-produced seeds, sure to be pesticide-free. It’s convenient that the year’s first seed catalog comes from The Natural Gardening Company, the oldest certified organic nursery in the country. This seed house emphasizes vegetables over flowers, and being in California, they don’t necessarily feature varieties suited for the Northeast.     

     Closer to home, there’s Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Maine, which offers lots of organic seeds. Even if they're not organic, Johnny’s seeds are untreated, and none contain neonicotinoids. Even Burpee offers some organic seeds. It’s hard to pass up beautiful new varieties in the catalogs that aren’t organic, but I have enough organic choices to make
it bearable.

Basil and borage growing from neonic-free organic seeds

    Second, I’ve made it a goal to buy less plastic with my garden purchases. That means trying to bring home fewer plastic six-packs and individual plastic pots of seedlings. For the last couple of years, my friend Jennifer and I have bought some of our herbs in fiber pots. These are theoretically compostable. At my house, they turn into dog chews before they can decompose. At least they’re plastic-free.

    What about the rest of my plant purchases? Almost all at local garden centers will be offered in plastic pots. 

Organically-grown seedlings, but they're in plastic pots

I’m going to look into bareroot options. Strawberry plants are often shipped this way without soil or containers, and I’ve read that other plants can be too. Let’s share sources!

                         Happy Holidays

Buyer bee-ware

It’s seed ordering time again. I’m receiving fat catalogs every week bursting with alluring color photos of flowers and vegetables to grow from seed. Last year I wrote about trying to adapt my seed and plant purchases to avoid neonicotinoids, bee-killing pesticides ubiquitous in the nursery trade. What’s the point of a pollinator garden that kills pollinators?

When you plant for pollinators, you don't want toxic flowers

    To refresh your memory, in 2013, Friends of the Earth (FOE) conducted a landmark study, publicized in their report Gardeners Beware. Sampling plants from garden centers and big box stores across the country, they found widespread presence of neonicotinoids (called neonics for short) in the plants offered to consumers. 

    FOE’s Bee Action campaign continues. With other environmental organizations as allies, they’ve succeeded in mobilizing consumers to oppose use of these pesticides. 

Shoppers prefer their flowers without insecticides

There’s good information regarding neonics on the Friends of the Earth website, including a handout on how to recognize and avoid the neonics sold in the US: acetamiprid, clothianidin, dinotefuran, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam. 

     You can watch for these names and avoid pesticide sprays that contain them, such as Ortho Flower, Fruit and Vegetable Insecticide and Bayer Advanced Complete Insect Killer. I’ve never been desperate enough to resort to these broad-spectrum insecticides in my garden, but I understand how gardeners can panic and reach for a spray bottle.

Before spraying chewed leaves, give beneficial insects time to solve the problem by eating leaf-eaters

    Neonics are systemic insecticides that insects take in when they eat or touch treated plant tissues, as when bees collect pollen from flowers of treated plants. 

Neonic-treated pollen can poison bees

They may die immediately, become disoriented, or pass on the poison to others in the hive. Once treated, plant tissues continue to hold the toxins almost indefinitely. 

    Neonics are widely used to maximize yield and keep plant foliage looking clean and unchewed as plants pass from growers to distributors to garden centers. We don’t have to spray neonics ourselves to poison pollinators in our yards; our plant purchases will be toxic to insects unless we purposely avoid neonic-treated plants.

Garden center seedlings may be contaminated with neonics

    The Friends of the Earth campaign has convinced some major retailers to stop using neonics or label treated plants: here’s a link to their list. BJ’s Wholesale Club promised that their plants would be neonic-free or labeled by the end of 2017. Home Depot committed to completing its neonic phase-out by 2018. Lowe’s pledged to work on it. True Value says their plants will be neonic-free by spring 2018.

    Unfortunately Massachusetts is not a leader in this effort. National campaigns like FOE’s have more leverage with big nationally visible chains than with local businesses, apparently. I’ve had luck shopping at Allandale Farm in Chestnut Hill, which doesn’t use conventional pesticides and commits to sustainable practices. 

    As I plan my seed purchases for 2018, I’ll let you know where I find organic seeds and pesticide-free seeds. 

They don't make seed catalogs like they used to

I believe this is a temporary problem; eventually the nursery business will bow to consumer pressure and provide us with reliably neonic-free seeds and plants. Will they convert to pollinator-friendly methods? That depends on whether we keep up the pressure.

At the Climate March, April 2017