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April 29, 2010
Dealing with pests

Most of the requests I get for posts deal with pests and, while I hate to get caught up in a negative spin on gardening, sooner or later the topic has to be addressed.

I am going to handle this by breaking it out into three main subsections and two lesser ones:

A) Garden generalities … principles and procedures that you can follow to ensure a generally healthy garden. This will be further broken out into:

1) discouraging pests and

2) actively eradicating them … two entirely different topics.

If I never write on any other subject, those two, alone, would make for a full career.

B) Plant-by-plant growing instructions which will, necessarily, treat the pests that visit each plant along with other factors of cultivation such as lighting, germination temperatures and so on. I might even toss in a particularly interesting recipe or two.

C) Treating each pest as an individual, paying attention to life-cycle, means of control and factors to weigh before deciding to eradicate.

Organic gardening is a blend of encouraging the positives such as healthy growth, presence of beneficial organisms and reasonable tolerance levels with appropriate levels of control when these are threatened or insufficient.

Keep you chin up. First we’ll paint the big picture with the broad brush and then we’ll home in on the details that stitch everything together. Finally, we’ll try to keep a good attitude and have a bit of laughter at how things never seem to work out perfectly, but they always seem to work out well-enough.

–Bill

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W Canaday posted at 9:29 pm |

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April 20, 2010
Human Genome Poster

I don’t collect a lot of statistics about my readers so I can’t be certain that you will be interested in this.

It is only tangentially related to gardening. Well, maybe in the sense … Actually, it probably isn’t related at all, but I thought you might be interested in it anyway.

This is an example of the cool stuff that I encounter using Stumble Upon that I probably would never have seen without it. Hopefully you will take a moment to ‘Stumble’ this page using the (ShareThis) social networking link below.

Well, enough about that. Here’s the link you need.

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/posters/chromosome/chooser.shtml

When you get there, you’ll be able to order a free 24×36 poster of the human genome.

–Bill

W Canaday posted at 10:24 pm |

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February 1, 2010
If you eat food, this applies

From the “I told you so” department.

I hate GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and their insidious sidekick, chemical farming, with the same passion I reserve for pedophiles, politicians, drug sales reps and big bankers.

Read on, my gardening friend. Read on …

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W Canaday posted at 11:56 pm |

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December 18, 2009
Water shortages not mandatory

As gardeners, we know that we are held ransom to water. Rain, dew, pipe, irrigation, drip, flood, spray, weep … if the water doesn’t reach our gardens somehow – or if there is too much of it or it is timed poorly – our plantings are doomed. If we were counting on that food for our own survival, as much of the world does, things would be bleak indeed.

In many, many places, there is a thick layer of dust and doom spread over the landscape. What water is available is often polluted beyond use, too salty, a vector for horrible diseases or too deep underground to retrieve. Global climate trends have forced people off formerly arable land squarely into the lap of aid agencies. Even if the aid agencies operated in some sort of idealized state – and they do not – living from handout to handout is hardly humankind’s proper state of existence.

Enter, stage left, the incredible synergy of water projects and micro-finance loans.

Read on, my gardening friend. Read on …

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W Canaday posted at 6:35 pm |

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October 30, 2009
Catch my drift catcher?

You are probably here because you agree that organic food is a good idea. In that case, you might might be interested in this 5:47 radio link.

 


QUEST on KQED Public Media.

You may also be interested in knowing that Ireland is now officially and completely GMO free. Not even so-called ‘trial fields’ (which end up contaminating the surrounding fields as their pollen spreads). This is HUGE victory … to have even ONE government stand up to big-ag instead of cowering before it, as the US, Canadian and British governments have.

Obama betrayed us all in his appointment of a representative of big-ag as our nations ag representative … but what else are we to expect? The guy he appointed is associated with the group that started the “groundswell” letter writing campaign against the Whitehouse organic garden. Obama is too much of a politician, and not enough of a man, to stand up to these folks … but it looks like the Irish are up to the task.

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W Canaday posted at 5:48 pm |

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October 9, 2009
Gardening for dollars

@GardenSeed posted a twit a few months ago that warrants a re-visit. What she said was “let’s all help the economy with some small victory gardens. check this out for free seeds & tips http://bit.ly/ebN9j

Her thinking was, and is, good.

Read on, my gardening friend. Read on …

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W Canaday posted at 6:24 pm |

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A layered approach to gardening

Due to the abundance of raw materials, the slowed growth of weeds and the generally good moisture levels, autumn is an excellent time to begin a garden. Here’s how:

Read on, my gardening friend. Read on …

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W Canaday posted at 6:21 pm |

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October 4, 2009
There’s always next year

No matter how your garden grew this year (and cooler weather in Michigan and elsewhere doomed many a garden to miserly results, while heat and drought performed the same task elsewhere), there’s always next year.

Well, not for me … I’m going to let mine go fallow next year – it’s way overdue. (see Leviticus, chapter 25)

But MOST years, fall is a time of taking the last of the harvest and storing it somehow. My wife and I usually can as much as we are able, dry some and spread the rest quietly around wherever we see need.

Read on, my gardening friend. Read on …

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W Canaday posted at 11:27 pm |

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March 25, 2009
Four garden tool tips

Like most gardeners, I’ve learned a few tricks over the years that make gardening easier. For me, the best, like these, are nearly free and all are easy to make and use.

1. Tomato ties: Nothing you can buy in the store will work as well for tying tomatoes to their stakes as Read on, my gardening friend. Read on …

Filed under: Doo-dads,Uncategorized,
W Canaday posted at 10:14 pm |

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November 10, 2008
Well, last night,

Well, last night, here in Detroit, we got our first snow of the season. That’s November 9th and it came at around 9:00 PM.
It was a light dusting of large flakes, but they certainly didn’t last very long. listen

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(I’m trying out a new web service called Jott that lets me call in a VERY brief post. If you are curious, you can even listen to my voice by clicking the link above.

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W Canaday posted at 4:36 pm |

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