Bryan Matthews

The Greeks called it nardus, for the best lavender came from the Assyrian city of Naarda.  Nard, or spikenard, was highly valued and thought to cure everything from insomnia and aching backs to insanity.    Bees love the lavender bush, which has graced the alley known as Desolation Row for almost a decade.

Seditionary Seed Savers Iraqi farmers are allowed to save their seeds, as they have been doing for millennia.  If an Iraqi farmer chooses to plant Genetically Modified or Gene Manipulated (GM) seeds, they are required to pay a 'technology fee' and an annual license fee for planting the patented seeds. At the heart of Order 81, 'Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety Law', was the Plant Variety Protection (PVP) provision, which states 'Farmers shall be prohibited from re-using seeds of protected varieties or any variety mentioned in items 1 and 2 of paragraph (C) of Article 14 of this Chapter.' Far from growing vegetables of mass destruction, Iraqi farmers and gardeners have been exchanging seeds with the rest of the world at least since the 1990s.  Popular varieties are Ali Baba watermelon, Aswad eggplant, and Basraywa, Rouge d'Irak, Nineveh, Al Kufa, and Abu Rawan tomatoes.