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Ethical Bulk Bean Seeds in the US

Paul, a reader in New Hampshire in the US recently sent me an email with a good question.  He wants to buy heirloom/OP bean seeds in 1lb packages, and wants to know where in the US he can do this ethically?

He said he’s read what I’ve written earlier about the Seed Savers Exchange, and their various statements on their website, and doesn’t want to buy from them.

He said he bought some seeds from a company I won’t mention here (but Paul can mention it in the comments if he wants), and they came packaged in fake plastic bags made of GMO corn manufactured by ‘Cargill’, and he doesn’t want to buy from them again.

Anyone have any suggestions?

I’ve looked around, and emailed Paul some suggestions, but it’s surprisingly difficult to find a company selling bean seeds in this way.

If anyone out there is themselves selling bean seeds in bulk, let me know and I’ll forward your email address to Paul.

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Murky Depths

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything about my house foundation, with all the excitement of the events in Brussels, I almost stopped paying attention.  They’ve just gotten to the exciting part!  They’re removing the contaminated ground under the house.

Since the house is built nearly at water level, they didn’t have to dig far before they reached water.  In the picture above you can see they inserted a measuring stick so they could monitor the water level with respect to the dirt.  Soon they are going to start running a pump to remove some of the water, so they can dig deeper.  Rain is forecast, so the water table might start rising too.

You can see the pipes sticking out of the ground are what they drove for the piles.  They aren’t yet filled with concrete, but that’s due to happen on Monday.

The smell is quite incredible.  Oily and very dirty smelling.  It’s classified by the city as very toxic waste (when compared to what they usually find under peoples houses in the city).  Mostly it’s heavy metals that are the problem; high levels of zinc, a bit of lead and mercury, and some other things.  The test showed traces of petroleum distillates.  It’s very dirty!

According to city records, until 1930 or so the house had a dirt floor.  What they found was 3 different concrete floors built on top of one another.

The house is 350 years old and and been sinking the whole time.  Literally, from one generation to the next, they’ve just been dumping their crap into the floor, letting it sink and building a new floor on top.

Here you can see the former load bearing wall I posted about before.  Now it’s a nice new steel beam.

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Brussels Action 17-18 April 2011 — La Via Campesina Video

I didn’t post this before because I was having trouble with the embed code from their website, but this is a video posted by La Via Campesina just before the Brussels seed swap and demonstration. La Via Campesina is the organization that called for the days of action in Brussels.

If you’re having trouble viewing this video embedded here in this page, you might try downloading a copy onto your own computer from this page.

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Traditional Greek Sesame Seed Harvest

Unless your Greek is a lot better than mine, you probably won’t understand what’s spoken, but these are still fascinating videos of a traditional Greek sesame seed harvest.

The seed pods on sesame plants suddenly open and throw their seeds when they mature, so in order to harvest the seeds you have to, well, do what these guys are doing. This is where the expression ‘Open Sesame’ comes from.

In these videos they leave the plants to dry for 8 days each in two different kinds of stacks. In the Greek climate, they sow seeds between 20 May and 10 June, and the harvest is between 15 August to 15 September.

Thanks to Mary who provided the links and translations of the details above.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three