Friday, June 4, 2010

Testing, testing, one two three....

Do you love online tests?  I do.  Especially when it means I can sit in conditioned air and take the test pretending I am doing something that will benefit my garden.


Sidebar:  You've read The Ant and The Grasshopper, yes?  With temperatures heading into the high 90s in the forseeable future, it seems both ants AND grasshoppers may be getting more time out in our garden spaces than we will.


So here is this Roots of Change "Are You A Climate Friendly Gardener?" test.

I did pretty well, overshot on how far produce travels though.  It seems to me nearly everything in the conventional grocers down the thoroughfare from where I live comes from Chile.  Apparently a careful reading of the question would have emphasized their wanting the "average" distance.  Otherwise feel I acquitted myself honorably.

How about you?  Do you have what it takes to impress yourself with an online test?  Beauty of this is, no weeding, no feeding, no pests to pick off.  A simple test to take with an associated article if you're interested.

Check it out:  Are You A Climate Friendly Gardener?

8 comments:

  1. Hi Deb from Texas, you are the 4th Deb i've commented just now, i wonder what that means! It looks like that name has been popping up in front of me and i'm responding. I love your photos here esp that larva with the resting pose. I did not take your tests but i already know i am a friendly gardener and i am for taking good care of Mother Earth. We are a very small country and the malpractices of big countries for maintaining their easy lifestyles will certainly manifest and obliterate us in so short time. I hope their consciences will be bothered and they succumb to the calls for change! thank you.

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  2. Thanks, I enjoyed taking the test. I also got the distance wrong, but guessed too short. In BC, we get much of our produce from California.

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  3. Well hello Andrea! There were always loads of Deborahs in all my classes in school - VERY popular name for a while. I think it was Deborah Kerr in the movie "From Here to Eternity" behind some of it... Glad you are a Fellow Earth Friendly Gardener.

    Garden Lily - oooh BC! In my mind it is always cool and beautifully green there. We get loads of produce from California here in Texas as well even though we grow a lot locally.

    Happy to have you both drop in and hope you'll be back!

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  4. Took ten minutes for the first question and I still didn't get an answer....
    Tell me what you learned.
    I found another one that is instant, and I got "Full Marks" no less.
    Still, having drenched my greenhouse tubs with some 'orrible chemical yesterday to get rid of vineweevil, I feel utterly guilty. It may not leave a carbon footprint through the greenhouse roof, but still..

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  5. Hullo Jo! I learned the produce comes an average of (SPOILER ALERT) 1500 miles to sit in the bins of my local standardized US chain grocery store. I got the rest correct so that felt fine.

    It is my impression only those hard core types would rather see you dump a crop of anything into the compost bins than use a chemical option judiciously in an attempt to overcome a pest attack. In a contained situation such as yours I think you might cut yourself some slack!

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  6. Hiya,

    What annoys me most about having to use this stuff is that the pests came in with plant from the garden centres.
    I never had any trouble, didn't even know what an earwig looked like, let alone vine weevil, lily beetles and shieldbugs. Nor had I ever had a snail or slug cross my path.
    Once I got the urge to buy in plants, my troubles started.

    Are you coping with your heat? AC doing overtime? Our summer has finally arrived, with a temperature of 74 degrees. Enough to stop me gardening :-) Watching Wimbledon instead.

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  7. Wow - 74 degrees is a fair approximation of our nighttime lows here at the moment. All a matter of what you are used to I suppose.

    That IS extremely frustrating to think your local garden centers have introduced you not only to lovely plants but also to a host of pests that apparently hitched a ride in with them. There were widespread problems with tomatoes on the East coast here in the States last season due to one large grower with a prevalent pest. The plants were shipped all around and it took on plague proportions. Seems there would be some regulation to cover that the way countries try to be careful with plants coming in from foreign countries.... Very argggh worthy!

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  8. The regulations are in place. Have been for ages. It is the enforcement that is severely lacking. Britain has lowered the bar for quarantine regulations for pets from abroad. Only a matter of time and rabies will be prevalent. Time is money, no matter what the consequences. "argggh worthy" indeed.
    BTW, where/how are you?
    Verif word is 'nishic'. What meaning can we attach to that?

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Rollingwood, Central Texas
Family historian by default. Oldest surviving matriarch on my branch of the Family Tree. Story teller, photo taker, gardener, cook, blabbermouth.