Kerry Michaels has an effective teaching style and you will enjoy the clarity of her tutorial as to how to grow great potatoes in containers.  Kerry likes to use our Smart Bags for container growing - they are versatile, re-usable, inexpensive and long-lasting. With step-by-step photographs and concise explanations Kerry takes the mystery out of growing potatoes anywhere container-style.

   Says Kerry, "If you’ve never had a freshly dug potato you are in for a total treat. Like tomatoes the taste and texture of fresh is very different than those you buy from the store. By growing your own potatoes, you also have the opportunity to plant unusual varieties that are hard to find. There are several advantages to growing potatoes in containers. It is easier to protect them from the critters that love them and you also don't have to worry so much about weeds. It's also a really fun project to grow potatoes in containers with kids because potato plants grow stunningly fast and most kids love eating potatoes."

    Our new Organic Patriotic Potato Container Growing Kit starts out with three  Smart Bags for triple the fun and discounted savings.

Jim

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     After a long campaign of fruitless orchestration and concocted dismissiveness from financially conflicted ‘academics’ on Biotech’s payroll, Monsanto has taken a new tact in trying to discredit the landmark peer-reviewed study about the effect of GE food on rats. The team was led by respected French scientist Dr. Gilles-Eric Seralini of Caen University.

     Dr. Seralini’s group conducted a monumental long-term two-year-study of rats fed a diet of GE food and small amounts of the glyphosate herbicide GE crops are grown with.  Significantly, by design, Seralini matched the procedures in his study to those first utilized in Monsanto’s 90-day short term GE crop studies. The Seralini study results documented serious health effects which first appeared at 120 days.  Notably, severe toxic effects were indicated including kidney and liver damage and increased rates of tumors and mortality. The Seralini study was released in September, 2012 and has called into serious question Biotech’s use of short-term three-month studies to justify the supposed ‘safety’ of their laboratory genetically engineered crops.

     So, unable to bring about a retraction from the bought-and-paid-for ‘outrage,’ Monsanto has had one of their people installed at the journal in question, Food and Chemical Toxicology.  The retraction effort aimed at Seralini followed the hiring of Monsanto scientist Richard E. Goodman at Food and Chemical Toxicology to serve in the specially created post of Associate Editor for Biotechnology. Adding to public concerns, the identities of those individuals behind the non-transparent study review have not been made public nor has there been any disclosure of their freedom from conflict of interest.    It is worth mentioning, on a related note, that another Brazilian study – also critical of GE crops – was also retracted after Goodman’s hiring.  The peer-reviewed Brazilian study was immediately published in another journal.

     Amazingly, Food and Chemical Toxicology Editor Dr A. Wallace Hayes could offer no valid reason for retraction.  According to a GM Watch’s article: “Hayes concedes that an examination of Prof Séralini’s raw data showed ‘no evidence of fraud or intentional misrepresentation of the data’ and nothing ‘incorrect’ about the data.  Hayes states that the retraction is solely based on the ‘inconclusive’ nature of the findings on tumors and mortality, given the relatively low number of rats used and the choice of rat strain, which Hayes says naturally has a ‘high incidence of tumors’.   Crucially, however, inconclusiveness of findings is not a valid ground for retraction.”

     Here is the excellent Seralini team's response to the retraction.

     Additionally, this article describes the support Prof. Seralini has received from the European Network of Scientists.  Concerned scientists and citizens from around the world are now signing an Open Letter from the Institute of Science in Society (ISIS) in support of Dr Seralini.  We encourage you to join us in standing up for academic integrity and signing onto this important letter.

Jim & Megan

     We’re here to make your dollars go further this Holiday Season!  Order anything from our wide selection of organic goods - Organic Potatoes for the Kitchen, Organic Vegetables, Organic Grains, Organic Gifts, Organic Certified Seed Potatoes, Organic Cover Crop Seed or Organic Vegetable Seed or any of our other items - for yourself or as a gift for a loved one and save big while doing so.