Every once in a while, I hear a commercial that chaps my ass. Well, get prepared for a rant, because this one involved a topic about which I've bloviated before. Today, the offending ad was a radio commercial for a combination fertilizer and weed killer... you all know where this is going, right? The commercial specifically singled out dandelions and clover, both of which are edible. Even more infuriating, the ad stated that clover plants rob nutrients from the soil while nothing could be further than the truth. Being a masochist, if it's necessary for a post, I hunted down a video for a commercial for the product, which features a bearded Caledonian pitchman:
Again, with the dandelion hate! WTF, suburbanites? EVERY PART OF THE DANDELION IS EDIBLE! Plus, the yellow flowers are showy and produce seedy heads that children love. The travesty of this commercial is only compounded by the hate of chickweed, which is (yeah, you got it) also edible. Like I wrote in my previous rant, people are willing to dump chemicals on their lawns to kill useful plants so that they can grow useless plants. It doesn't make any friggin' sense to me (for the record, I live in an apartment in a multi-family home with a small patch of dirt in front of it- I planted some sunflower seeds in that small patch, which also has some delicious lambs quarters popping up in it).
I'm not an overly sensitive person, but this commercial really cheesed me off... it just touched on a couple of my biggest pet peeves. I mean, that whole dandelion hate thing really has to stop, and this Scottish interloper isn't helping any.
Which honestly isn't as bad as the "accent" of the voiceover in the Outback Steakhouse commercials. What the HELL is that? It sounds like a guy with a mouthfull of marbles and cotton balls trying to spit out the cotton balls and keep the marbles in place...
ReplyDeleteHave a care Sir, you insult the Teevee version of our good friands the Australians. But go ahead, off the fake Scot.
ReplyDeleteIf it weren't for dandelions and clover, Theda would have no ground cover in her backyard at all.
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I hate herbicide use on principle....I think it is killing bees or weakening them. As for dandelions, they are perrenials....and come up in most of the same places each year in my yard even tho' I try to pull the roots.
ReplyDeleteI pull them by hand, year after year, to feed to my geese...who certainly agree they are delicious. But I am considering a dandelion flower MEAD...I've heard of it being made to wine, so why not mead?
And mixing clover flowers, those sweet red or white edible things in might be inspiration, too!
Insecticides and beekeepers' own terrible management practices are what's killing the bees (but don't tell the beekeepers that, they get all mad). Often they're putting insecticides in the hives (to kill mites) and are then surprised it kills the bees. Golly, really?
ReplyDeleteAnyway the whole idea of the "American Lawn" sickens me. Do everything you can to grow grass, now cut it and throw it away. Continue, ad infinitum. Awful.
Oh, and I live in "The Grass Seed Capital Of The World". Allergy season sucks.
ReplyDeleteInsecticides and beekeepers' own terrible management practices are what's killing the bees (but don't tell the beekeepers that, they get all mad). Often they're putting insecticides in the hives (to kill mites) and are then surprised it kills the bees. Golly, really?
ReplyDeleteTrucking hives around like furniture isn't good for the bees? WHODATHUNKIT?!?!?
Oh, and I live in "The Grass Seed Capital Of The World". Allergy season sucks.
Have you got a neti pot?
Native Americans used chickweed as a poultice for treating abscesses, boils and cuts. So it is quite a useful plant.
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