All the Dirt on Gardening

Not to get on a soapbox about seed and plant varieties, but ... One of the reasons places like Seed Savers and preservation catalogs like Sand Hill exist is because the food source has become so concentrated that they are worried about a plant or animal disease rapidly running through the entire food system. Photo: Oregon State University Julie Steenhuysen of Reuters reported this piece Late blight, which caused the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s and 1850s, is killing potato and tomato plants in home gardens from Maine to Ohio and threatening commercial and organic farms, U.S. plant scientists said on Friday. Late blight has never occurred this early and this widespread in the United States, said Meg McGrath, a plant pathologist at Cornell University's extension center in Riverhead, New York. She said the fungal disease, spread by spores carried in the air, has made its way into the garden centers of large retail chains in the Northeastern United States. Wal-mart, Home Depot, ...