Last week I posted about some horticultural disasters I witnessed in the Czech Republic. This week the chamber of horrors is little closer to home; virtually in my back yard to be specific. Our property backs up to US 127, the main North-South through route in our area. It’s a limited access highway with a posted speed of 70 mph, which means an average speed of 82.7 mph. It also means the road is regularly salted whenever it snows during the winter. … Continue reading this article “Rubbing salt into wounds”
Tag: salt
Right Plant, Wrong Place?
It’s (apparently) Dead Tree week here on the GP!
[To my GP colleagues…we should make “Right Plant, Wrong Place” one of our categories, sort of like “Knock it Off.” Or maybe just “Dead Plants in Action.”]
Exhibit A:
Some unhappy little Magnolias. Drip irrigation was running, which leads me to believe salt spray is the culprit.
I was pedaling my sweet Electra beach cruiser down the sidewalk on Cape San Blas, Florida (or Cape San Blarrrgh, if you caught my post last week) and happened upon this tragedy. … Continue reading this article “Right Plant, Wrong Place?”
A salt bath for your tomatoes?
This morning I got an email from one of my gardening colleagues, wondering about the wisdom of watering tomato plants with salt water. He had a link to a UC Davis website which tacitly endorses spraying tomato plants with 10% salt water “to increase their nutritional value and taste.” Unreferenced “worldwide studies” are mentioned, along with the “major potential benefit of providing irrigation for crops in areas with freshwater restrictions.”
Before we deal with the impracticalities and out-and-out harm of using salt water for irrigation, let’s look at why this practice would work on tomatoes. … Continue reading this article “A salt bath for your tomatoes?”
Salt solutions
Hopefully everyone got their filling of turkey and dressing over the long Thanksgiving weekend. I used our unusually mild weather on Saturday to celebrate a time-honored tradition around the Cregg farm: The annual cursing of the tangled Christmas lights.
Turning the calendar over to December in Michigan means another Midwest tradition is just around the corner as well: The annual dumping of the road salt. Although totals vary, at least one source estimates that road crews pour 8 million tons of salt on roads in the US each year. … Continue reading this article “Salt solutions”