How To Stop Powdery Mildew

...the temperature is under 90° F. Do not apply any of these oils if you have used sulfur. DIY Options For home remedies I turned to advice from Washington State University horticulturalist Linda Chalker-Scott. How about milk, widely touted as a powdery mildew treatment? According to Chalker-Scott the answer is yes it might work, but you may need to apply milk before powdery mildew appears. And the studies were done with whole milk, so the effectiven...

Read…

How to Cook Broadleaf Plantain

...n pizzas--and I’ll eat anything on a pizza. The seeds can be collected and used in seedy applications. But all in all, the flavor and tough texture of plantain left me uninspired. Trust Pascal to figure out how to cook the stuff. He boiled it, testing often, and found a sweet spot: the exact time it takes to boil out of the bitterness, but still leave the leaf intact. The short story: 3 minutes for young leaves and 5 for old ones, so 4 minutes wor...

Read…

The Strange World of Artificial Plants

...stomers? Marijuana dispensaries, the set decorator for Weeds and law enforcement! From their website: Across the world law enforcement finds itself with the continuous dilemma of having to train new recruits to identify and find illegal marijuana plants . . . Our plants are used by many police departments across the world, the US Military and the Royal Mountain Police in Canada to name just a few. Be forewarned that the bush above, complete with r...

Read…

What’s Your Personal Food Policy?

...eel strongly about is factory raised meat. I just can’t eat it anymore. It used to be that, out of courtesy, I’d eat anything served to me when I’m a guest at another person’s house. I’m not sure I can still do this. As Michael Pollan says, “Were the walls of our meat industry to become transparent, literally or even figuratively, we would not long continue to raise, kill, and eat animals the way we do.” And those walls have become transparent to...

Read…

Butterfly Barrier Failure

...ption the best. Planting a bunch of brassicas is like opening an all you can eat buffet for cabbage leaf worms. Our backyard has more biodiversity and fewer problems with pests. I used better (homemade) compost in the raised beds in the backyard, thus the soil in these beds also has greater microbial biodiversity...

Read…