Dr Barbara Olioso's Blog

Organic Farming is only the start: the soil is the real asset

Last night I went to a fantastic talk on organic gardening by Charles Dowding. Charles was very generous with tips and insights and embodies gardening at its best, with a strong pair of arms, a brown tan and no fat!
Charles made me realise I had a blind spot in relation to organic farming. I shall explain why. Charles lives near a field where they farm organic spelt. Last year they could not crop it in August because of the heavy rain. So they did it in September when it was dry but the soil was still wet. Heavy and huge machines squashed the soil making it very compact. When it rained all the water flooded his field and nearly his house. The rain water and the compacted soil are a deadly combination for soil erosion and flooding. This means that even if organic farming is good it needs to incorporate the health of the soil as it is the major asset which we need to care for. No wonder flooding has been a big problem in the last few years..
Charles runs one day workshops on No Dig Growing, you can find out on his website here

Organic swimming pools: what an amazing space

In Vicenza, Italy, I came across the distributor of Austrian firm Bio Top Natural Pool, a company with over 20 years experience in the development and manufacturing of natural swimming pools, totally chemicals free and absolutely enchanting. Based on the harmonious coexistence concept, impurities and excessive nutrients are handled by plants and micro-organisms. Have a look at their gallery here

Felt shrouds: a sustainable alternative now available in the UK

I attended the talk of a very passionate lady, Yuli Somme, who is trying to bring back to life the ancient tradition of using felt as a burial material. The concept behind this is very much inspired by the desire to thread lightly on the earth and to leave it lightly as well. By using all local materials from Dartmoore and Wales, such as sheep felt and wood (from wild woodland), the environmental impact is greatly reduced: there are no airmiles and the materials are from renewable sources (sheep wool is one of the most sustainable materials as it grows back very quickly). No metal is used.
The leaf shaped shrouds are really beautiful but what impressed me the most was not their sustainability or their beauty, but the idea of completing the life cycle by going back to earth in a way that is in harmony with nature.
Prices range from £150 for a small one up to £885 for a full size one with decorations. To know more visit BellaCouche

08/08/08 and bees: what's the link?

Yesterday I was part of a ceremony in Avebury to celebrate and honour the bees. I decided to go because of the major crisis bees are going through worldwide. At the ceremony (organized by astrologer Elisabeth Keller) I discovered that bees do use a figure of eight dance to communicate where new sources of food are. How fascinating to use a dance as a language to communicate, can you imagine humans doing the same?

Altar set up in Avebury by Collette Barnard of Sweet Track Counselling

(The details of the dance were worked out by Karl von Frisch and his colleagues and are detailed in his 1967 book The Dance Language and Orientation of Bees. Von Frisch was able to watch the bees perform dances by replacing one of the walls of the hive with glass.)
Over one hundred and forty people from all over England and also from the States gathered in a big circle and each one of them blessed with a positive word Glastonbury springs water which was then sprinkled on the land to bless the earth to generate flowers that will feed the bees (this was at around  8pm). The circle was finally blessed by birds flying over it and also a bee appeared despite the time of the day!
Bees are such amazing little insects playing a vital role in the natural eco-system. They also produce honey, beeswax, propolis, royal gelly and pollen! So small and yet so powerful...
To know more about the bee crisis and the implications of it I recommend the book A world without bees by Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum.

Too many oestrogens cause impotency in men, Conference reports

A conference by medical doctors, held in Italy in September 2007, alarms about too many estrogens like substances found in our environment. The consequences? Statics speak by themselves:
male infertility and impotency are on the rise (think of the increase of IVF tretaments)
baby boys born with retracted testicles have increased by 4 times in the last 20 years
females develop at an earlier age
The estrogens content is monitored only in meat and milk, leaving unchecked non animal food and cosmetics.
Estrogens block the L3 receptor found in the foetus cells, aimed at the sexual differentiation of the foetus interfering with a normal development of the male sexual organs
This is not a good time to be born a boy!