Drought Gardening: How Will Horticulturists Cope?

from bbc: Gardeners in the UK are facing a difficult summer after the driest spring in over 100 years. But how can home horticulturists cope?

Summer is a time of excitement for gardeners conjuring up manicured lawns, immaculate roses, and a cornucopia of other flora.

But this year the usual optimism is in danger of drying up.

Across England and Wales spring rainfall was 86.9mm - the driest since 1893, according to the Met Office. It's meant problems for gardeners.

The dry spring "knocked gardeners off balance", says Peter Gibbs, presenter of BBC Radio Four's Gardeners' Question Time. This menace contrasts with the usual threat of spring frosts.

Already this has meant gardeners have had to plant seeds quicker and be more selective when deciding what to plant. They also need to consider how plants that will fare well in a hot dry summer will do when the cold eventually returns.

Why Gardening Makes You Happy and Cures Depression

from permaculture: While mental health experts warn about depression as a global epidemic, other researchers are discovering ways we trigger our natural production of happy chemicals that keep depression at bay, with surprising results. All you need to do is get your fingers dirty and harvest your own food.

In recent years I’ve come across two completely independent bits of research that identified key environmental triggers for two important chemicals that boost our immune system and keep us happy - serotonin and dopamine. 

What fascinated me as a permaculturist and gardener were that the environmental triggers happen in the garden when you handle the soil and harvest your crops.

Getting down and dirty is the best ‘upper’ – Serotonin

Getting your hands dirty in the garden can increase your serotonin levels – contact with soil and a specific soil bacteria, Mycobacterium vaccae, triggers the release of serotonin in our brain according to research. Serotonin is a happy chemical, a natural anti-depressant and strengthens the immune system. Lack of serotonin in the brain causes depression.

Proposed legislation would make most gardens and farms illegal

from permaculture.com: This proposed legislation would make most permaculturists, farmers, gardeners and bush regenerators criminals. Many native wattles (Acacia spp), an extensive list of legumes including the Leopard tree, Honey Locust, wisteria and cattle forage plants like Desmodium, wetland plants such as the Common Rush (Phragmites), and common pasture grasses (Phalaris spp), even the iceplants in your Granny's rock garden would be effected by the legislation. Having 10 of any of these plants would be considered a trafficable quantity and cause you to be charged and convicted with a federal drugs conviction and criminal record. Submissions need to be sent in before 11 March 2011 to stop this absurd legislation.