I had a few weeks’ hiatus while scrambling around for the holidays – but have one last teaser for you before the close of 2010. This photo is reminiscent of what Christmas trees will start looking like in the next few weeks. Can you figure out what it is?
Ignore the parallel horizontal lines – they will be explained on Monday. And yes, the photo quality’s not great, but the reason for that will be clear on Monday as well.… Continue reading this article “Last puzzle of 2010”
Just one more little holiday to go over holiday week (A week during which faculty at UMN were put on furlough — in other words unpaid vacation), but for many of you I’m sure it’s a big one: New Years. I’ve never been one for New Years resolutions. It’s always just seemed kind of artificial to me. Still, some people find real motivation with the passing of a new year. What about you? Any great New Year’s resolutions out there related to gardening?
Went down to Georgia to visit family, ended up with 4″ of snow on Christmas. Very exciting for them. For me, not so much. I had just left 6″ of snow that had persisted for three weeks and was looking forward to some sunshine.
Happy holidays to all of our readers, far and wide!
Windmill palms in the snow, Carnesville, Georgia, 12/26/10.
As many of you know, we Garden Professors justify our existence as faculty members every year through annual reporting. Blogging is one of the newer educational opportunities that most university systems haven’t quite figured out how to measure and evaluate.
So we’re taking matters into our own hands. I’ve created a short survey to assess our effectiveness in outreach education in the blogosphere.
The more feedback we get, the easier it is for us to make the case for continuing this effort. … Continue reading this article “Annual reporting – and you can help!”
Relaxing at the in-laws in Ohio for the long Christmas weekend. Hope all of our blog readers are having a enjoyable holidays. In other words, I hope you didn’t have to fly anywhere over this Christmas weekend!
I’ve been catching up on some reading including recent articles on invasive alien plants that should be of interest to our readers. I’ll share some thoughts when I get back on schedule next week. In the meantime there’s still another football game to watch this evening and another plate of my mother-in-law’s cookies that need some attention.… Continue reading this article “Happy Holidays!”
Unintended consequences. When doing one thing causes something you didn’t expect. Many unintended consequence stories in biology start with introduced species. I’m going to skip those here. I’ve been thinking about unintended consequences recently while trying to figure out what to do about my hops. You see, hops have a nasty habit of getting powdery mildew. That’s one reason why you don’t see a whole lot of hops growing outside the relatively arid Yakima Valley (75% of US production).… Continue reading this article “Unintended consequences”
As there seems to be a good deal of interest in the topic of honeybees, and I’m a beekeeper, albeit relatively novice, I thought I might continue a bit of discussion.
I’ve been beekeeping for three years, and I sold my first honey harvest this fall. Six gallons, divided into pint and half pint-sized jars. As a newbie, extracting the honey from the frames and getting it into the jars was, by far, the messiest thing I’ve ever done. … Continue reading this article “Organic Honey?”
I had the opportunity to read a disturbing post over at Garden Rant the other day about the insecticide clothianidin and how the EPA required its producer, Bayer, to run tests on the safety of using plants grown from seeds treated with clothianidin for bees. Tests which were, apparently, never carried out appropriately. This post sent me over to another site, AlterNet, which explained the problem in detail. In a nutshell what happened is that the EPA asked Bayer to run some tests on how its new pesticide might affect bees.… Continue reading this article “Bees and Pesticides”
Recently a well-known gardening blog featured a guest posting by a garden writer who made a case for using Canadian sphagnum peat moss as a horticultural amendment. He defended his preference through “facts” provided by the Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss Association.
This is kind of like relying on the petroleum industry for the most objective information on the environmental effects of oil spills. Or the tobacco growers association for data on the effects of smoking on human health. … Continue reading this article “A sustainable resource? Oh, for peat’s sake!”
Nelida was born in a subsistence farming community in Oaxaca, Mexico. She escaped an abusive alcoholic household at 14 by going to live with her (soon to be) husband’s family, who took her in, then took every opportunity from that moment forth to remind her what a burden she was for them.
After marrying at 16, the young couple migrated north to the US in search of a better life where they found farm work. They toiled 12 years on commercial farms in California, then headed further north, seeking farm work in the lush Skagit Valley in Washington State. … Continue reading this article “Pure Nelida: the story of one Viva Farms participant”