Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2016 5:45:39 GMT -7
I find it very suspicious that there are no posts under gardening?? With all the greenhouses and hoop houses I see you'd think there would be a lot of sharing going on? Gardener's where are you? Hiding your secrets maybe?
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Post by dorothykeeler on May 10, 2016 2:44:33 GMT -7
Thanks for caring! We are all up to our earlobes in potting mix as we start our seeds, prune, plant, water, and protect our gardens from recent frost and snow! More later, I promise!
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2016 8:49:21 GMT -7
I agree...where are all the "green people" in this community? Let's face it the way the weather has been you can't be that busy so why not share your little tidbits of knowledge with us philistines? Are you growing something you don't want us to know about??? Maybe we should checkout what's really in those "green" houses? Just a thought...
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2016 9:28:27 GMT -7
Ok, here's a question maybe a gardener might be able to answer....why do you have to cover plants when there is a freeze or frost but you don't have to cover weeds? Why do you lose plants and not weeds? Scientific answer please but in laymen's terms. That is if a gardener isn't to busy?
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Post by Admin on May 13, 2016 20:11:26 GMT -7
Why do you need to cover plants when there is a danger of frost? Water, unlike most liquids, expands when it freezes and changes to ice. When ice forms inside a plant cell it breaks the cell wall and then the cell dies. Non-native plants are more prone to frost damage then native plants or weeds. Native plants have either less water inside their cells like spruce and juniper or they have more "antifreeze" mixed in with the water. I suspect the antifreeze is alcohol but I am not sure. Weeds have more antifreeze than say tomato plants. Thus weeds will not freeze solid and die until the temps drop into the low 20's. Tomatoes will die as soon as the temps drop below 32 degrees. Covering plants keeps the cold air at bay when the ground is warm.
In Florida, farmers often spray orange trees with water when the overnight temps drop below 32 degrees. Why? When you spray cold water into freezing air, the water actually warms the air. Ice may form on the oranges and leaves but for a few hours that will act like an insulator and keep the freezing air away from the tree cells.
One last physics lesson since we live in Montana and forest fires can burn down our homes. If you install a sprinkler system around your home that sends out a continuous fine spray of water, you may be able to prevent the fire from touching your home. You do not need to soak your home either. If you feed a spray of water into the path of super hot air, the water will change to steam. It takes a LOT of energy to convert water to ice or steam. These are called phase changes. When you shoot a continuous spray of water into a hot ball of gas or flames the water absorbs a great deal of energy as it changes to steam. Soon the flames and super hot air will lose it's ability to ignite combustible materials. Then the fire dies.
Back to gardening. Hope you found this useful. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2016 20:20:38 GMT -7
Smarty pants...
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chris
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Post by chris on May 23, 2016 11:57:50 GMT -7
"What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back,—with a hinge in it.” – Charles Dudley Warner, My Summer in a Garden (1870) |
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Post by dorothykeeler on Jun 7, 2016 18:28:50 GMT -7
Hi Folks!
We were headed to the post office on June 6th when we found 1 monarch circling our gardens. We hopped out of the car and couldn't get close enough to take a photo or sex it.
Luckily, it was a female, and she left us with 101 eggs to rescue, raise, and release.
101 eggs is not a typo! We found eggs on both the common and showy milkweed. We checked this morning and she laid more eggs on the swamp milkweed, but, after collecting eggs for several hours, it was too dark to collect them. This is our 3rd year raising monarchs. Last year, we released over 75. For details, see /posts/1121874
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Post by leokeeler on Jun 8, 2016 13:19:52 GMT -7
Nature Is Beautiful, here is one of the 101 eggs that are about 1/4 the size of the head of a pin  |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 8, 2016 14:55:53 GMT -7
Since you are "harvesting" eggs, and this is under the gardening section....how many eggs would it take to fill a skewer to count as an appetizer? I'm assuming you can Bar-B-Que them? We are talking about edible gardening right? Since I'm a novice in gardening that seems reasonable...after all I have eaten some strange stuff harvested from organic gardeners around here! Just asking!
Great photography!!!
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