European Union to ban natural remedies

Did you know that at the end of this month, the EU will impose a new approval process for herbal medicines, natural supplements and therapeutic preparations? This means that every supplier of such goods will have to re-prove the safety of their products, many of which have been used for thousands of years, generating studies and reports at their own expense which is estimated to come to at least £80,000 PER PRODUCT.

Sound familiar? Anyone that follows this blog will recall my rant about Armillatox, a totally natural biodegradable garden soap which is no longer licensed for the very uses for which it's most needed, due to a similar EU directive back in 2003. At the same time around 80 other garden brands disappeared from our shelves forever.

It is expected that this ruling will put many small companies supplying natural remedies right out of business, and remove certain herbs (including ALL Chinese and Indian medicines) from the European market completely.

Now I'm not here for a discussion on the safety/danger/effectiveness of alternative medicines (nor to slag off the pharmaceutical giants that no doubt had something to do with this directive. Ahem.) But I can't sit back and ignore efforts to take that choice away. Modern medicines are artificially manufactured chemicals with dangers and side-effects of their own. Why ban the natural option? Plenty of people swear by alternative medicines, some claim they owe them their lives, some say they couldn't face life without them. These plants have been used for health reasons as long as humans have walked the earth, and no-one's taking away my right to choose them if I see fit.

So I went here and signed this petition, and I urge you to do the same.

Forbidden Healing

Noooooo!

Something ate my cucumber plants!

It didn't just have a nibble. It ate the whole things. Both of them. Completely. Two good-sized seed leaves on each.

Indoors!

There was a snail trail across the carpet (the plants were outside during the day so the little sod must have stowed away) coming away from the pots and back again. But could I find the little blighter?

Of course, I won't be put off. New sowings were made within minutes. A few years ago I would have sown far more plants in case of disasters like this, but it sucks having to get rid of them when you find you've got too many and I really don't have a lot of space to grow billions of seedlings.

So I shall just have to wait a couple of weeks longer for my cucumbers.

Sigh.

Dew

The sparkling dew drops on the leaves of the strawberry plants outside the back door keep catching my eye on these bright mornings.

But looking around the garden this morning, I was surprised to see that there was no dew on any other plants. Intrigued, I consulted the trusty interweb to remind myself how dew worked.

But no, this isn't dew apparently. (Perhaps the perfect arrangement of the droplets on the very tips of the leaves should have given it away, but it was early, okay?) It's guttation.

Yep, guttation. You learn something new every day.

Guttation is a harmless process that occurs sometimes in vascular plants, which close their little breathing holes (stomata) overnight but keep taking in water if the soil is wetter than the roots. This leads to a water pressure build-up in the plant overnight, and excess water is pushed through its veins to the tips of the leaves, where it oozes out and forms droplets. More here if you care for a more in-depth science lesson!

In fact, much of the dew we see is likely to be guttation, and not dew at all. 

 

Samson thought it was all very interesting.

Or maybe he just wanted to know why this was more important than breakfast.

You'll just have to wait...

I've been rubbish at taking photos recently.

I haven't taken any of our garlic and onions, which have settled in extremely well in the good weather we've been having and are growing away enthusiastically already, some several inches high.

I haven't taken any of our dozens of thriving seedlings, which are spending some milder nights outside in the plastic greenhouse already.

I haven't taken any of the ten big bags of manure we're spreading this year to revitalise our soil's fertility.

I haven't taken any of our various pepper seedlings, which finally sprouted after weeks of waiting.

I didn't take any when I potted on the tomatoes the other day, or when I sowed a new batch of squash and chard seeds, or when I planted out the winter purslane and some new rosemary and lavender plants I got from the market.

I didn't take any of the horseradish roots I dug up, nor the horseradish cream sauce I made for our roast dinner on Mother's Day.

I didn't take any of my failed first attempt at pickling beetroot, when I misguidedly topped-and-tailed the beets and they lost all their colour and flavour when I boiled them.

I left the camera at home when we (and some lovely friends) weeded and manured the strawberries and dug a trench all along one side of the allotment to try to keep the couchgrass out (I'll sow the trench with marigolds too and sprinkle with organic slug pellets, to try to stop the snails before they reach my crops!).

I forgot to take any pictures of our first asparagus harvest before I chopped it up and put it in a rich, buttery omelette... and I forgot to take a picture before I ate it.

So I'll just have to update you another time...

A Paradox

So by the way, I write more than just this blog. I tend to keep it quiet; I don't like the reactions you get when you tell someone you're a writer. It goes one of three ways: super-high expectations, amused scepticism, or prying questions about the latest dark and tentative imaginings I've been pouring out onto the page. I started off, as many probably do, with angsty teen poetry and a few plays at school, then I went on to churn out several novels that never quite got finished, a few short stories, and endless TV scripts and screenplays. It was just a hobby, but a hobby that I hoped one day might earn me some money...

Well, ladies and gents, today I'm proud to tell you that I'm a writer. Last month a UK production company optioned a feature film screenplay of mine, with plans to produce it later this year for release early 2012.

I'm telling you this now for three reasons: 1) it's the latest distraction that's stopping me from keeping the blog up to date, 2) assuming all goes well, the time will come when I'm unable to stop raving about it, and you'll want to know what I'm going on about, and 3) it presents me with a tricky paradox to deal with, that's not irrelevant to this blog.

Here I am, on the one hand trying to advocate low-impact living, dreaming of an eco-friendly homestead and self-sufficiency and a simple life, repelled by waste and excess and the rich-poor divide... I don't really need to go on, do I? The film industry has to be one of the worst out there when it comes to waste and excess and overpaying its stars. This opportunity could end up nothing for me - if funding falls through, for example, maybe I'll still never see my name on the big screen. Equally, it could be the start of a whole career. If I want to be 'low impact' about it I should tell my stories in novel form - hey, novels don't even have to be printed on paper any more - but I'm just not driven to write novels; I'm driven to write movies. I love film - always have, always will. Perhaps a new ethical model for production companies is in order - perhaps they don't have to be so wasteful and excessive - and as in most other industries, film studios are doing more all the time to 'go green' - but it'll always cost a lot of money to shoot a film people want to see. It's inescapable. I believe art and culture and storytelling are important - I really, really, really do - but is it important enough that we should spend hundreds of thousands (sometimes hundreds of millions) making a film, when there's so much need in the world? Well of course not. But is there anything I can do about it? Well it's easy to say no, isn't it...? Maybe I'm not as sincere about this environment stuff as I'd like to think; a true anti-consumer wouldn't have a DVD collection the size of mine...

Maybe I'm being too hard on myself; maybe it's all right to have a weakness if I do good in other areas. Maybe I should focus on the good that can be done through storytelling; the masses that can be reached; the messages that can be sent. Maybe I should strive only to write low-budget modern-day films! But even looking at the cost of a low budget film and considering how else that money could be put to use, something doesn't sit right. Maybe I should put my, ummm, career, where my mouth is. But wouldn't it be crazy not to take every opportunity that comes my way?

How do I make peace between the two big passions in my life?