Garden progress - week 3, or is it 4?

I'm getting a little impatient with the progress of the hydroponic seedlings. Today I decided to plant some spinach, arugula, basil, and lavender in soil in regular terra cotta pots. Since the fish have bumped the plastic tray so many times, now I have not only mixed rows, I'm not sure if some of the rooters even have seeds in them anymore. I'm afraid the instability and floating sideways is adversely affecting the growth. I'll have to wait and see.

I heard a few days ago (on Real Time with Bill Maher - my TV crush!) that Michelle Obama is having a garden planted on the grounds of the White House. It reminds me of the Victory Gardens planted during the Great Depression. Hopefully it will inspire city dwellers to start growing some of their own food and reduce the dependence on the agriculture conglomerates like AMD, Cargill, and Monsanto.

Speaking of Monsanto, I am boycotting soybeans because this horrible company has genetically engineered soybeans that are contaminating other crops. They modified soybean seeds with bacterium from the pesticide they make called Round Up. They're called "Round Up Ready" crops and are designed to be resistant to it, so the farmers saturate them with it. Around 70% of soybeans are "Round Up Ready". Thanks anyway, but I don't want to eat that.

They're also suing farmers whose crops are contaminated by the GM (genetically modified) crops and taking possession of the land once "their" GM crops are discovered growing. They have literally driven farmers in India to suicide because the seeds they sell cannot be harvested from the current crop for the next year's crop. They are forced to buy seeds from Monsanto every single year. I watched a documentary called The World According to Monsanto that originally aired on French television that was a flat out display of capitalism at it's worst.

It turns out that Monsanto has been buying up seed companies, thereby cornering the market. Between that and their GM crops contaminating nearby fields, it is a possibility that food crops will no longer be capable of reproducing naturally in the not so distant future. The entire planet could be dependent on Monsanto for basic sustenance. That's a scary thought. They'll be the AIG of the agriculture industry. Maybe they already are. Sphere: Related Content