Warm season lettuce-Batavian or Summercrisp lettuces « giantveggiegardener I like salads, especially in the summer but most lettuces bolted here in my garden in the summer. Last year I grew some lettuces that grew well in the summer. Most lettuces are cool season crops that bolt with the heat but Batavian (also known as Summercrisp) lettuces did surprisingly well here. I grew them in partial shade and not in the direct sun. Not only was I happy they did not bolt and nor get bitter, but they have a crisp sweet taste to them and lasted all summer. There are many more Batavian lettuces online but these are what I tried. Cardinale-recently saved from extinction. Manoa-A special mini head from University of Hawaii, grown widely in the Islands for its resistance to heat and tip-burn. Anuenue-Another A sweet green header from Hawaii. Jester-Crisp as ice, glossy, juicy as an apple, perfectly proportioned for a plate or a sandwich, flashy red speckles on semi-savoyed leaves with crazy-crisped margins like a Jester’s attire. Skyphos-Most adaptable butterhead. Related
Plant Care Guides Shasta daisies, with their white petals surrounding yellow centers, are similar to the familiar meadow daisy, but have larger and more abundant blooms. About This Plant Shasta daisies bloom over a long period, from early summer until fall, forming tidy clumps from 2 to 3 feet tall and up to 2 feet across. The bright flowers contrast nicely with the glossy, dark green foliage, livening up any garden bed. The flowers are also suitable for cutting. Special Features Easy care/low maintenance Good for cut flowers Attracts butterflies Site Selection Select a site with full sun and well-drained soil. Planting Instructions Plant in spring, spacing plants 1 to 2 feet apart, depending on the variety. Care Apply a thin layer of compost each spring, followed by a 2-inch layer of mulch to retain moisture and control weeds.
Starting COLD HARDY VEGETABLES Super Early « giantveggiegardener So now that the Persephone period is almost over and the magic date of January 15th is upon us, what does that mean? It means our day lengths are getting longer and January 15th is when we start getting 10 hours of daylight that will continue to get longer every day. Have you noticed already it now gets dark around 5:30 instead of 5 pm? The darkest time of the year is over. If you want to try growing cold hardy vegetables outdoors at this time of year, you will need a cold frame, low tunnel or hoop house. If you already planted cold hardy vegetables late last fall in a cold frame, low tunnel or hoop house, you may have noticed that the little seedlings haven’t been growing much at all as winter set in. In late winter, before you have harvest your winter crops, decide what you want to plant in your bed once space opens up in your cold frame. STARTING VEGETABLE SEEDS INSIDE:I’ve already written about starting seeds inside on many earlier posts. arugula-Astro, Sylvetta claytonia leek-Tadorna
RareFind: Rare Azaleas, Rhododendrons, Trees & Shrubs, Perennials and more. 7 Tips for Cleaning Fruits, Vegetables Image Federal health officials estimate that nearly 48 million people are sickened by food contaminated with harmful germs each year, and some of the causes might surprise you. Although most people know animal products must be handled carefully to prevent illness, produce, too, can be the culprit in outbreaks of foodborne illness. Glenda Lewis, an expert on foodborne illness with the Food and Drug Administration, says fresh produce can become contaminated in many ways. If possible, FDA says to choose produce that isn’t bruised or damaged, and make sure that pre-cut items—such as bags of lettuce or watermelon slices—are either refrigerated or on ice both in the store and at home. Wash your hands for 20 seconds with warm water and soap before and after preparing fresh produce. Lewis says consumers should store perishable produce in the refrigerator at or below 40 degrees.
Garden Tools and Accessories - Best Gardening Stores A new giant virus found in the waters off Oahu | University of Hawaiʻi System News A new, unusually large virus that infects common marine algae has been characterized by researchers at the Daniel K. Inouye Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education (C-MORE) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa‘s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. Found in the coastal waters off Oʻahu, it contains the biggest genome ever sequenced for a virus infecting a photosynthetic organism. Said Christopher Schvarcz, UH Mānoa oceanography graduate student who led the project as part of his doctoral dissertation, “Most people are familiar with viruses, because there are so many that cause diseases in humans. Much of the phytoplankton that grows in the ocean every day gets eaten, thereby sustaining animals in the marine food web. “That sounds bad, but viruses actually help maintain balance in the marine ecosystem,” said Grieg Steward, professor in the UH Mānoa Department of Oceanography and co-author on the study. Giant viruses with special abilities
Experts warn: Must consider role of microbes in climate change | University of Hawaiʻi System News An international group of leading microbiologists, including University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa oceanography Professor David Karl, has issued a warning: Not including microbes, considered the support system of the biosphere, in any climate equation will lead to incomplete predictions of the environmental consequences of global climate change. More than 30 microbiologists from nine countries are calling for the world to stop ignoring an “unseen majority” in Earth’s biodiversity and metabolism when addressing climate change. The paper, Scientist’s warning to humanity: microorganisms and climate change, was published in the journal Nature Reviews Microbiology. “Microorganisms controls the pulse of our planet,” said Karl, director of the UH Mānoa Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST). “They harvest solar energy, recycle organic matter, sequester carbon dioxide, and detoxify many human-made pollutants.
In 1886, the US Government Commissioned 7,500 Watercolor Paintings of Every Known Fruit in the World: Download Them in High Resolution T.S. Eliot asks in the opening stanzas of his Choruses from the Rock, “where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” The passage has been called a pointed question for our time, in which we seem to have lost the ability to learn, to make meaningful connections and contextualize events. They fly by us at superhuman speeds; credible sources are buried between spurious links. But there is another feature of the 21st century too-often unremarked upon, one only made possible by the rapid spread of information technology. Those archives include the USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection, “over 7,500 paintings, drawings, and wax models commissioned by the USDA between 1886 and 1942,” notes Chloe Olewitz at Morsel. Prior to and even long after photography could do the job, that meant employing the talents of around 65 American artists to “document the thousands and thousands of varieties of heirloom and experimental fruit cultivars sprouting up nationwide.” via Morsel. Related Content:
Hearing the Music of the Plants Science shows us that being near trees and plants significantly improves our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. Of course, the healing power of plants has long been understood by indigenous cultures who communed with nature and harnessed the power of plants in Flower Essences, oils, or herbs as well as going on nature journeys to heal their body, mind and spirit. Now the possibilities for plant healing have been taken a quantum step further with the arrival of the Music of the Plants. Forty years ago researchers at the Damanhur Federation of Communities near Turin in Italy started intensive research into plant communication, attempting to prove that plants were sentient beings. They developed a device out of this research, that can read the electromagnetic vibration of a plant and translate it into music. The machine reads the pulse of a plant and then these pulses are put through an algorithm and a synthesizer within the device, translating it into sound. The future
Fire Hazards of Insulation Materials | American Family Insurance While the use of insulating materials in buildings has resulted in energy conservation, this use has also created fire and health risks. For example, some insulating materials can contribute to the spread of a fire, while others produce smoke and toxic gases. The amount of insulation in the walls and ceiling/roof of a room can affect the rate of growth of a fire. Insulation may also affect the performance of heat-producing devices, such as electrical wires, cables, and electrical fixtures. Insulating materials may have an adverse health effect when they are handled or exposed to fire. There are several basic types of material used for thermal insulation. Organic-Based Insulation Typical organic insulations are wood, paper, cork, and cotton. Cellulose insulation is typically manufactured from recovered paper fiber (e.g., magazines, newspapers, etc.) that is treated with one or more fire-retardant chemicals. Risk Control Considerations Mineral Insulations Asbestos. Fibrous glass. *Listed.
Attribution of Foodborne Illnesses, Hospitalizations, and Deaths to Food Commodities by using Outbreak Data, United States, 1998–2008 - Volume 19, Number 3—March 2013 Author affiliations: Author affiliation: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA Despite advances in food safety, foodborne illness remains common in the United States; >9 million persons each year have a foodborne illness caused by a major pathogen (1). One challenge in preventing foodborne illness is determining how to prioritize limited food safety resources across a large number of foods (2). Furthermore, attributing all illnesses to specific foods is challenging because most agents are transmitted through a variety of foods, and linking an illness to a particular food is rarely possible except during an outbreak. To help determine priorities for food safety efforts, we organized the large number of foods implicated in outbreaks in the United States into 17 mutually exclusive food commodities. Data Sources Health officials may report whether an etiologic agent was confirmed or suspected on the basis of published criteria (4,5) and the method of confirmation.