From plastic straw bans to reusable shopping bags and increasing concerns about climate change, toxic chemicals in common household products and the shifting of local and national policies, the environment looks to be having a moment.
I've been trying to avoid single-use plastics for quite awhile. It's harder than I thought, and I can't do it completely. In the kitchen I'm transitioning from plastic wrap and storage bags to reusable ones. In the garden, I've had a compost tumbler for more than a decade, but if I'm being honest, I've fallen a bit off that wagon (I'll get back on). In the bathroom, I've replaced liquid hand soap with old-school bars, and I've switched from plastic strips to bamboo bandages.
Although I'm always here to answer your questions with both traditional, time-tested garden advice as well as the latest scientific findings, my own plants have never seen a synthetic pesticide or herbicide. When they decline beyond the point where cultural or biological means can save them, they meet the executioner. Common sense always prevails, however, and I assure you that if my 14-year-old stand of a dozen, 30-foot-tall evergreens falls prey to a life-threatening insect, I will spray it faster than you can say, "parasites with piercing-sucking mouthparts."
