Category: Diversions

What Do Pork Products and Fruit Trees Have in Common?

This is one of those “random thoughts” posts…no professorial musings, plant geek gushings, or interpretations of useful research. And absolutely, positively, in no way, expressed or implied, intended to provoke a veg/carnivore controversy nor promote any particular product.

Just a simple question that occurred to me in the grocery store.

“WHERE is all this apple wood coming from?”

Google “apple wood smoked bacon” and get 689,000 results. Apple wood also frequently appears as “applewood”, orthographical conventions aside.… Continue reading this article “What Do Pork Products and Fruit Trees Have in Common?”

Friday quiz time – and happy Valentine’s Day

I thought it would be fun again to do a “what is it” photo:

Answer and a larger photo on Monday…if I can. I’ll be on a dial-up modem and who knows if I can actually get anything posted.  If I can’t, it’ll be up Tuesday.

And from all of us Garden Professors, have a happy Valentine’s Day!

The Government In Your Yard

This year Pinellas county in Florida banned the use and sale of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers for lawns between June 1 and September 30.  Is that a good idea?  On the surface it seems like a great idea because it should reduce the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus which reach streams, lakes, ponds and rivers and cause algal bloom and destruction of water habitats.  On the other hand a PROPERLY fertilized lawn is less likely to have nutrient rich runoff (because of a more expansive root system.) … Continue reading this article “The Government In Your Yard”

The Glories of The Winter Greenhouse

I’m a Southerner. With a capital “S”.  Which is why I am Suffering, with another capital “S”. Here in the Blue Ridge mountains of western Virginia, we have officially surpassed Anchorage and Denver in total snowfall for the season. Today’s batch adds up to 24″ on the ground at our farm.


Blueberries in the snow. If one more person says “Probably good for all the insect problems,” I’m going to get violent.

The chickens are not happy.… Continue reading this article “The Glories of The Winter Greenhouse”

Friday puzzle untangled

Well, either the puzzle was too easy or you guys are too smart!  Deb, Christopher, Lori, Foy, Jim, and Hap go to the head of the class – it was, indeed, staking material left on way too long.  Here’s a photo from over 10 years ago.  I’m not sure this is the very same tree, but it’s from the same parking lot/torture chamber:

I “liberated” these trees with my handy wire-cutters (never leave home without them) shortly after taking the pictures. … Continue reading this article “Friday puzzle untangled”

Friday quiz…better late than never!

As you know, I wanted to get something intriguing for this week’s puzzler from the NW Flower and Garden Show.  Alas, there was nothing that jumped out at me, so I’m digging into my photo archives.

Here is a recent photo from a parking lot tree.  About four feet up the trunk, I found this interesting growth.  No, I don’t know what the tree species is because (a) it wasn’t in leaf and (b) I’m a taxonomy klutz. … Continue reading this article “Friday quiz…better late than never!”

Plant Patents

I love patents.  In fact, I once wrote a novel based on a patent — It was called Patent 22 — If you look this patent up you’ll just find a piece of paper from 1915 which says, essentially, that a search was made for the patent but that it couldn’t be found.  No one wanted to publish it — and reading it now I do realize that it does need some serious work.  Still, I think this little tidbit gives you a little bit of an idea about my interest in patents. … Continue reading this article “Plant Patents”

Friday puzzle answer(s)

Wow!  What a lot of great brainstorming over the weekend!  I would venture to say that The Garden Professors have the smartest students in the world.

On to the answer…or answers.  First, the phenomenon.  It’s called paraheliotropism – literally, a movement to protect (the leaves) from the sun (yes, Trena, it is a tropism!). This is the opposite of another phenomenon called heliotropism, or solar tracking.  Sunflowers famously do this, as do a number of arctic species that collect solar warmth for the benefit of their pollinators. … Continue reading this article “Friday puzzle answer(s)”

Friday Physiology Fun Followup

Astute readers pointed out several morphological adaptations found in drought-tolerant turf weeds:  fleshy taproots, reflective leaf surfaces, etc.  What we can’t see is what many of these plants do physiologically – and that’s photosynthesize using a biochemical pathway that temperate turfgrasses don’t possess. 

This pathway, called C4 photosynthesis, contains some extra preliminary steps not found in plants using traditional (C3) photosynthesis.  The downside:  it takes more solar energy for the plant to photosynthesize.  The upside:  these extra steps allow the plant to "fix" carbon (transforming it from gas to solid) faster, especially when it’s sunny, warm, and droughty. … Continue reading this article “Friday Physiology Fun Followup”

Friday physiology fun

It’s still cold and wintery, so let’s imagine ourselves in a happy place…warm, sunny, dry…with dead lawns.

As the photo shows, the turfgrass is dead; this happens every summer during the Pacific Northwest’s droughty summers.  Yet many of the weedy species are obviously thriving.  Why?

Remember, this is a physiology quiz.  You can discount herbicides, fertilizers, etc.  This is a cool (no pun intended) adaptation that many species native to dry, subtropical to temperate environments possess.  … Continue reading this article “Friday physiology fun”