2014, a Year in Comments: Plant Thievery, Loquats, Breakfast Cerial and the Apocalypse

...t of researching the issue was discovering the Garden Professor’s Facebook page, wherein brainy horticulture types engage in a dialog on newfangled ideas. Use the search function on that page to find the subject you’re interested in. Who would have guessed that Facebook is useful for more than sharing cat photos and speculating about caftans? 5. Non-GMO Versions of Grape Nuts and Cheerios Less Nutritious Than GMO Versions. This may seem to be a po...

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Saturday Linkages: Bitters, Dogs and Native Plants

...13/12/04/how-to-eat-more-plant-based-meals-handout-now-available/ …. Eagle Rock backyard yields fresh fruit and food for the hungry http://www.theeastsiderla.com/2013/12/eagle-rock-backyard-yields-fresh-fruit-and-food-for-the-hungry/ … Native plants: restoring an idea–http://www.patternliteracy.com/116-native-plants-restoring-to-an-idea … In the U.S., recycling is often pigeonholed as… – Unconsumption http://disq.us/8gf2so For these links and more...

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Root Knot Nematodes, Meliodogyne spp.

.... But I was desperate so I shelled out the money to give it a try. I applied the beneficial nematodes in my garden and at a client’s house. So we have two experimental plots. I’ll let you know how it goes. Of course, you can always grow plants that are resistant or not affected by parasitic nematodes. I have noticed that new zealand spinach is totally immune. While other plants are stunted and won’t grow, new zealand spinach flourishes. So if all...

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Pl@ntNet: “Shazam” for Plants

...roid phone app that uses image recognition and crowd-sourcing to recognize plants. It’s free, so I downloaded a copy yesterday and ran around the yard to see how it works. You take a closeup of a leaf, flower, fruit or bark and the app takes a guess on an identification. My first attempt was Nasturtium, which the app immediately identified despite my bad photo. It also correctly identified daffodils and got close to identifying Malva parviflora. I...

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More boneheaded plant representations from Hollywood

...designer shoes and footballs do. This is why it is fine to be stupid about plants, because nobody cares about plants, and we have lost every last vestige of plant literacy. I don’t think this is a case of me being picky. I’m not being a plant geek here, pointing out some minutiae of botany. I’m talking about the misuse of really common plants that people do know, or should know. Ferns, for example, are a plant that even the most determinedly unint...

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