How do you store your seeds?

How you save your seeds is supposed to be tremendously important - temperature, humidity, and light all affect whether seeds sprout, die, or stay safely dormant. People have schemes of varying elaborateness to store their seeds - from envelopes in the closet to carefully mixed silicon crystals, sealed jars, and temperature controlled fridges.
Today, Norway opened the ultimate seed bank near the north pole. If your seed vault doesn't look like this, you're doing it wrong:As soon as I heard about this, I immediately envisioned my dream job: alone, in the Arctic, with high speed internet and the responsibility to thaw out and replant seeds as they became at risk of going dormant. I mean, how fun would that be? (There would need to be free coffee. But it's Norway - isn't that one of those worker's rights things those Scandinavian countries spring for, along with 36-hour work weeks and months of maternity leave?) Unfortunately, there will be no staff on-site, so my dreams of being the next Gregor Mendel - Mr. Freeze hybrid will have to wait.
The seed bank isn't open to the public; it's intended to be a last resort in case plague or fire or floods threaten our food sources. I think the logistics of this scenario need work, since there cannot possibly be enough of every kind of seed to renew world resources. But I'm sure they have a really good plan - after all, these are scientists we're talking about, right?

Pesky Pests

With all the bad press about Japanese beetles, it's often easy to assume that we're in an all-new pest high. New varieties, growing numbers - Orem, Utah spraying the entire community (!) with pesticides that will prevent gardeners "from harvesting vegetables or fruit from their gardens for the next three years." (!!!) (http://ag.utah.gov/plantind/JB-MayorLetter.pdf)
According to the mayor, this is necessary so that the beetles do not destroy agriculture in the state of Utah. He also implies that this, along with the heavy spraying, will eradicate the Japanese beetle.
So it's in this context that I'm reading Jeffrey Lockwood's book, Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shapes the American Frontier.
After reading about the ravages of the locusts, which weren't confined to the American frontier at all, but in the Middle East and Europe and parts of Africa, I feel confident in saying that we really should be more appreciative of our pest problems. The Rocky Mountain locust (Melanoplus spretus) formed tremendous swarms - in one recorded case, at least 110 miles across - that decimated everything in their path, eating not just plants but dead animals and inanimate objects (tool handles, for instance, and the clothes of the farmers who tried to kill them). They left between 100 and 150 eggs per square inch of land, consequently hatching millions upon millions of offspring. And the hotter and drier the weather, the more likely they were to devastate the land.
Reports from Salt Lake indicated that the insects would drown in the lake and then wash ashore, forming 6-foot walls of rotting insects around the lake.
So I have a suggestion for Orem: how about holding a Japanese beetle appreciation day, to acknowledge that, as voracious and invasive as the beetles are, things could always be much, much worse?

Go, NOG, Go!

Ok, perhaps NOG isn't the best acronym. New Orleans Gardeners are rebuilding. Actually, I bet this isn't completely new, as I bet many people who were able and chose to return did something with the yard. The article discusses several aspects, including the decomposition of plants introduced by the hurricane - perhaps compost in disguise? - but not, surprisingly, erosion. Surely those masses of water removed or rearranged the top soil?

My favorite gardener in the profiles returned to his garden to remove all his rocks. Sure, plants can be replaced, even if you may not live to see them in their full glory, but if you have good rocks, you have to hold onto them.