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Old Blogs Never Die…

I had sort of an interesting experience recently giving up a blog.  Many of you may remember Root Cause (www.root-cause.net).  This was a joint effort between myself and Rebsie of Daughter of the Soil.  Like many blogs it got off to a good start, then Rebsie and I decided we had other priorities.  When the time came to renew the domain name, I decided it wasn’t worth the US$10, and let it expire.

Much to my surprise, the domain was quickly snatched up by a spammer!

Why would this domain be interesting to a spammer?  Well, many of my fellow bloggers out there showed support for our work by linking to us in posts and including us in their blogrolls.  This made it one of the more popular gardening blogs on the Internet.  This meant we ranked very well in search engines, which sent a lot of traffic both to us as well as the other blogs we linked to.  By grabbing this expired domain, this spammer was able to make use of all these incoming links for other purposes.  A few people still have this in their blogrolls!

Anyone still linking there will probably themselves lose some search engine ranking, because by now this is almost certainly a ‘known spammer’, and search engines usually punish people who link to known spammers!

I think it’s really important to check your blogroll from time to time, and be sure to remove links that go to places you don’t expect.  If you decide to abandon your blog, consider this sort of thing could happen.  You might want to consider removing your blogroll, as well as contacting people who list you in theirs and ask them to remove the link.

If you’re still linking to Root Cause, please remove the link!

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Dim Politicians

Today is the start of the phased ban on incandescent light bulbs in Europe.

This is a really poorly thought out policy, and a very thinly veiled attempt to push consumers from cheaper unpatented technologies like the common light bulb that dates back to Thomas Edison, and force them to buy newer patented alternatives which have their own drawbacks.

The argument that this is for environmental reasons does not hold water, nor do the cost analysis.

There is the argument that older bulbs use only a few percent of energy consumed to actually produce light, and the rest is simply converted to heat.  Well I heat my house in the winter at the same time of the year I use the most lighting, and if my light bulbs contribute to that, I will simply use less central heating.

In addition, while newer bulbs may be more efficient, the amount of energy used for home lighting is a very, very tiny percentage of world energy use and therefore the amount of energy saved is also tiny.  We are also replacing a product that used to be made in Europe (ordinary light bulbs) with one that is now made in China and shipped half way across the world (CFLs).  The extra energy used to transport these bulbs is surely not part of the politicians energy calculation.

CFLs contain mercury, a dangerous poison.  Long ago mercury thermometers were made illegal almost everywhere in the world over safety concerns.  Most of us, including those of us who are environmentally aware, don’t want to have any unnecessary mercury in our homes!  It does not matter what the amount is, or if our local city governments promise to recycle it. The most environmentally friendly product is not one that’s been recycled, it’s the one that was never purchased in the first place!  We simply do not want to buy, consume or be exposed to any mercury in our homes.  There is no internationally or scientifically recognized ‘safe limit’ to exposure to mercury in living spaces that I’m aware of.  There is certainly no desirable limit of exposure.

Besides, the technology exists now to make CFLs with considerably less mercury than is currently being done.  While politicians and product manufacturers would love to see us all go out and buy the high mercury version now, only to rush out and replace them by buying the lower mercury version later, that’s not what we as consumers want to do.  If we are going to buy CFLs at all, for most of us it makes sense to wait until the low mercury versions are available to buy them!

When the time comes that manufacturers create a product consumers want to buy that replaces the traditional light bulb, it will be time to phase them out.  Until then, it’s time politicians see that people don’t want inferior, poisonous and pointless technology forced down their throat for the sake of corporate profits.

In the meantime, politicians might want to turn their attention to matters of real consequence to the environment, like agricultural reform, increased efficiency in vehicle transport, the phasing out of nuclear and carbon based power generation and the reinvigoration of local economies.

This whole idea of getting rid of light bulbs must have been dreamt up by the same politicians who thought of the EU consitutional reforms we are all so eagerly waiting for.

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Kumato®

kumato1

Perhaps I should call these Kumato raisin tomatoes!  This is a picture about a week after harvest.  Do you notice how the skin is shrivelling up on some of them?

kumato2

Here’s what the inside looks like of one of the healthier looking ones above.  This is three-quarters of a tomato, after a fourth of it was sacrificed for a taste test.  Notice how the skin tore a bit instead of cutting, because it was so tough?  All I can say is wow, YUCK!  A sort of stick to the roof of your mouth, pasty taste.  What a lingering after-taste!  Nothing I would wish on anyone else.

Okay, by now you are all probably wondering what I am getting on about here.

The Kumato® is a variety patented by Syngenta.  According to their website, this variety is created entirely with traditional breeding methods.  As they explain on their website, they never sell anything but the final product to consumers, and only grown by specially licensed farmers and sold through specially licensed sales outlets (in other words, only very large supermarket chains).  If you don’t buy it from an authorised vendor, it’s not a real Kumato!

So if the seeds are so controlled, how did I get the seeds to grow this in my garden?  The answer is that it seems to be an open pollinated variety, and when you save seeds from the tomatoes and regrow them, they appear to grow true to type.  I got these seeds from Laura of Mas du Diable, and I think she told me her father was the original saver of the seeds and gave them to her.

Syngenta does not actually sell this tomato in the Netherlands, so I couldn’t save them myself.

So what’s up with these tomatoes?

Well seed companies lose money when people save and replant their own seeds, and this is often dealt with by means of F1 hybrid varieties, which don’t grow true to type when grown from saved seeds.  It appears in this case Syngenta has breed their tomatoes to be so totally dependent on chemicals, that anyone who does not know their secret formula of agricultural poisons cannot exactly reproduce the tomato sold in stores.

When I grew it, it was very weak and attracted every disease I normally get in my tomatoes.  I grew it in a container, and noticed the roots did something strange to the dirt to make the water flow through quicker and not be well retained.  The plants were not very productive for me either.

Why was it created?

Well first, here in Europe we have seed laws that restrict the varieties allowed to be sold.  Many people in Europe have never seen a tomato that isn’t red!  This is a ‘black’ tomato (also called purple), and it’s a real oddity.  In addition, there’s probably some marketing advantage for Syngenta to be able to say it’s an open pollinated variety, and especially many gardeners are shunning F1 varieties by now in Europe.

Personally, I’m going back to growing heirloom tomatoes!

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Here are some pictures from Rich L.  See comments below.  Click on images to see full sized.