Organic Gardening Magazine & Miracle Gro Redux

Fox, er...."News" recently aired a segment on organic gardening courtesy of Organic Gardening Magazine. A spokeswoman for the magazine loosely rattled off the basics of gardening (allegedly) organically. As with so many truncated blurbs on t.v. "news", there's always the opportunity for dispensing more MISinformation than correct information.

One example was the suggestion for a homemade insect repellent using

"Water, LIQUID SOAP and vegetable oil"

Liquid soap is ambiguous and - to the unwitting and neophite organic gardener - misleading. How difficult would it have been to add the caveat that it should be pure soap with no added perfumes, dyes, etc.? Or simple measurements of each? I know. I'm picky.

But what ground my gears the most was the on-going sucking up and whoring of the magazine's principles for revenue by the blatant product placement of Miracle Gro Organic Choice Potting Soil on a potting table next to the Rodale spokeswoman. I've been around this Scotts' rodeo enough already that this is redundant on my part. Nevertheless, it's a bone I'll continue to pick as long as the born-again, pseudo-organic prophets (*see: "Profits") at Scotts continue to poison OUR bones with their vast inventory of toxic chemicals. I don't care how loudly or how often they tout the altruism of their intentions into the organic market. To me, they'll always and forever walk like a chemical duck and talk like a chemical duck.

There's enough information out there disputing the true organic voracity of Miracle Gro's Organic Choice line. Even if you discount my own.

Apparently, not enough, however, to warrant Organic Gardening Magazine's insistent, persistent, public and/or subliminal endorsements of it.

Then, again....it WAS Fox.

SEE THE VIDEO HERE