Oooof, what a week. End of the semester, quizzes, labs, hosting of faculty position candidate, Hort Club Plant Sale, and 2 graduate student defenses in 8 days (3 in 15 days – am up to my pits in theses 😉
Sorry to say, I’m not feeling particularly profound or informative (like that ever happens), but I do have gardening fever! We’re so close to our last-frost date I’m ready to barge ahead with putting out warm-season veg, tropicals and annuals.… Continue reading this article “Happy Friday”
We recently had a question sent to us about GMO seeds – whether they were being foisted upon us at the store. The simple answer is no. You can’t just go to the garden center and buy genetically modified seeds of any plant, they’re not available yet. I suppose, theoretically, you could call yourself a farmer and purchase genetically modified corn or soybeans, but the corn isn’t sweet corn (for the most part), and soybeans – who grows those besides farmers?… Continue reading this article “Are GMO seeds available for purchase?”
It’s spring…flowers are emerging and so are the podcasts. Here’s the first of our eight episodes for the season. The theme this week is “Spring Cleaning” and it’s the wide world of weeds. The podcasts are now hosted on i-Tunes, so I can follow you anywhere you go. Just sayin’.
I’m trying to get some listener questions “on air” as it were, so if you have a burning desire to be on a podcast with me, just drop an email to lindacs@wsu.edu… Continue reading this article “Podcasting returns! Season 3 begins”
Last August I posted some photos from a field tour in Austria where we saw an organic Christmas tree farm that used Shropshire sheep as their principle form of weed control. The particular breed of sheep is suited to the task since they will graze on grass and weeds but not on conifers. Since then I have shared the pictures elsewhere and found out the Shropshire sheep are also employed in the U.S. and the U.K.… Continue reading this article “Something sure to get your goat”
I’ve been out and about (oot and aboot?) much of the spring giving talks to various gardening groups, including the Sechelt Botanical Garden Club last weekend. Sechelt (in English, pronounced "seashell" with a t at the end) is on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, and we did have a sunny April day (reason number one). That made for an enjoyable visit later to one of the lovely private gardens (reason number two):
And then, there’s that Canadian sense of humor as evdienced by a locally made product (reason number three):
Have a great weekend!… Continue reading this article “I love Sechelt in the springtime”
Why does everyone want to kill dandelions? I like dandelions. I like that my kids go and pick them and give them to me. I like that they break up the monotonous green of my yard. I like that they can be used to make wine (though I’ve never had any). I like that I can pick one and take it apart to teach my kids and the kids in my classes about the basic morphology of flowers.… Continue reading this article “Dandelions”
North Creek Nurseries in Landenberg, PA is a marvelous, native-centric (but not exclusively native) nursery. North Creek is a wholesale propagator (sells liners
to other nurseries for finishing). But if you can meet the $300 minimum, they’d probably be happy to fill your order. They have, among the usual liner sizes, a very neat product – "Landscape Plugs." I’ve been wanting to try them for a while – our work with the backhoe this past summer cleared some nice large swathes of the cursed autumn olive, and made room for perennials. … Continue reading this article “A great way to plant perennials “en masse””
Recently ScienceDaily.com posted an article about American chestnut trees due to be planted in New York City. Researchers hope that these trees will be resistant to chestnut blight, an introduced fungal disease that pretty much wiped out mature specimens over the last 100 years.
When I lived in Buffalo, I was a member of the American Chestnut Foundation and every spring I helped with efforts to replant chestnuts in the hopes that resistant individuals might be found. … Continue reading this article “The new American chestnut tree: resistant survivor or Frankentree?”
Well, things continue to run fast and furious as we get rolling for a new round of field research projects. But we did find a little time to break out the Cornhole set and initiate a new season at Daisy Hill farm. Life is good!
After Jeff’s recent eclectic musical selection of Rasputina’s 1816, I thought I’d go a little more mainstream with Lynard Skynard’s ‘Swamp music’. Turn it up and remember; if it’s too loud, you’re too old. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wJWBcj7lsY
So, what got me thinking about the swampy backwoods down South and the late, great Ronnie Van Zant? The arrival of pallet after pallet of bagged cypress mulch at every gas station/convenience store in the area. Like the first robin, the annual appearance of bagged cypress mulch is another harbinger of spring. … Continue reading this article “Cypress mulch re-visited”