Winter appears to have a death grip on the eastern half of the U.S. for the second year in a row. The thermometer on my car read -6 F on my way into work this morning; with lows of -5, -11, and -2 predicted for the latter half of the week. And to my Northwest friends that have been out mowing their grass already, may the bird of paradise fly up your nose. At this point I don’t even remember what my lawn looks like.… Continue reading this article “Plants for winter interest: Going for the Gold”
Prepping Your Garden for The Next Growing Season
William H. McCaleb, Blog Contributor
Program Assistant for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Halifax County, VA. and Master Gardener
For gardeners in the eastern U.S., last year was a better than normal gardening season. Better than normal yield, better than normal precipitation, and in our case in Virginia cooler than normal which yielded excellent spring cool season crops as well as early summer crops.
But all good things must come to an end; that being the result of several heavy frosts. … Continue reading this article “Prepping Your Garden for The Next Growing Season”
I love my little Leyats!
I’m usually not much for product promotion or endorsement, but so few people seem to know about these spiffy little Swiss-made nippers, seems deserving of a post. Leyat Sàrl is a long-time manufacturer of sécateurs (I love that word – sounds way more dramatic/awesome than “pruners.” Hee!).
Leyat pruners come in all sizes and are pretty popular in orchard and vineyard circles, but I can’t say I’ve seen them at many retailers. I found an old pair of the little ones and have been toting them around for several years, never quite sure where they came from, thus terrified of losing them.… Continue reading this article “I love my little Leyats!”
New Extension publication on wood chip mulches
For long-time readers of this blog, you know how much I love arborist wood chip mulches. Now my new WSU Extension fact sheet has just come out – feel free to share it with your gardening friends.
Your feedback needed!
If you value what we do, please take a few minutes to fill out the survey linked below. We’ll leave this open for the month of January but will need to close it then so we can analyze and use our results. Feel free to share this with other gardening aficionados.
Thanks in advance for your interest and support!
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7R6C6FH
Nanomechanical oscillations…
This week one of our Facebook group members posted a link to a 2013 paper entitled “Love thy neighbour: facilitation through an alternative signalling modality in plants”. The premise in the paper is that plants are capable of acoustic communication and the experiment purported to demonstrate this. (I strongly encourage you to download the article from the link above so you can read it for yourself.)
Briefly, chile seeds (Capsicum annuum) were placed into petri dishes, covered to ensure darkness, and then the dishes were placed in a circle.… Continue reading this article “Nanomechanical oscillations…”
Shooting Fish in a Barrel
Someone recently posted a scientific article on our Facebook page which purportedly demonstrates that Roundup can be damaging to earthworms at concentrations that would typically be used in a field situation. Wow. Scary. I mean really, if we’re damaging earthworms when we apply Roundup, then that lends fuel to the emotional fires that rage against this pesticide. But is that really what this article shows?
It’s unfortunate, but most of you will not be able to see the article that I’m writing about because you won’t have access to the journal in which it was published.… Continue reading this article “Shooting Fish in a Barrel”
The Walking Dead: Christmas tree edition
Zombies are big deal these days. Seems like you can hardly turn on the TV these days without seeing someone (or someTHING) coming back from the dead. Turns out Christmas trees are no exception. Every so often during the Holidays I will get a call or an e-mail that starts off, “My Christmas tree is starting to GROW!” And indeed they are. Under certain circumstances, conifers that are cut and brought indoors can break bud and begin to grow; sometimes putting on considerable new growth.… Continue reading this article “The Walking Dead: Christmas tree edition”
Organic insecticides that will get you high
Plants are crazy chemical factories, synthesizing a whole host of compounds that we use for flavoring and dye and medicine and… getting high. And why are they making all these chemicals? They’re certainly aren’t doing it for our sake… no, quite often they’re trying to kill something – usually insects — and it just so happens that sometimes our brains and bodies react differently enough that instead of killing us, they make us high. Well, and sometimes they kill us too.… Continue reading this article “Organic insecticides that will get you high”
Some Thoughts on Extension
For those of you who are out of the academic loop, Extension is that part of academia tasked with delivering research based information to those who can use it. You’ll hear other definitions, but I think that this basic one is the most useful for the following discussion. Extension, as a general rule, is tightly tied to agricultural sciences though it may include everything from child care to math or even computer science.
For fifteen years I was a part of Extension at the University level.… Continue reading this article “Some Thoughts on Extension”