Roundup Resistant Weeds

Well what were we thinking? That glyphosate (sold as Roundup) would keep on killing weeds forever? Nope - we now have glyphosate-resistant weeds in 20 states (they don’t mention Canada in this but…)

The weed folks say we have to stop using glyphosate regularly and mix up the herbicides being used so weeds can’t develop genetic resistance. Too bad - too late - horse out of barn alert here.

You can read the news release here.

Organics Too

Resistance to any control - chemical or organic - can be expected from any insect or weed if the control products are used to often without a rotation. Note I included “organic” in this as well so organic gardeners that rely on a favourite control exclusively are reminded to switch up in an approved rotation.

I once created a herd of soap resistant aphids in my nursery propagation house because I wasn’t paying enough attention to my rotations. Took another year to eliminate that particular production problem by using a full rotation. Learn your own lesson from mine.

Bad Gene P450. Bad Gene!

I don’t know what got into Gene P450 in Sweet Corn. It turns out that this gene (or one closely related to it) is susceptible to common corn herbicides. So when you spray your sweet corn with Atrazine, the darn corn plant dies along with the grass. Bad gene behaviour for sure. What is it thinking?

Well, scientists have finally figured it out and have traced this gene in all varieties of sweet corn that die when sprayed. So they’re going to spend a ton of bucks to breed this gene out of corn. No more dying on the job just because you get whacked by something noxious. What do you think you are - just another grass plant? Oh wait….

So - you can sleep soundly tonight folks. Gene P450 has been identified and corn breeders are going to backcross that little troublemaker right out of existence.

Whew. That was a close one. We might have had to grow those varieties using organic methods.

Compost Tumbler Review

One of the trials we have going this summer is this compost tumbler (we got ours from for review purposes from http://www.organic-compost-tumbler.com/)

Start to finish in the construction process, about 45 minutes. I deliberately didn’t study the instructions and still managed to get it all together. Mind you, I had to refer to the sheet more than once during the process as you’ll see.

Two tips - let the poly (it’s really heavy duty stuff by the way) sit out in the hot sun for at least an hour before you put this sucker together. Otherwise, it will be hard and not at all easy to work with. Don’t even bother trying to do this on an overcast, cold day in the spring - you’ll wind up hating yourself and this compost tumbler

The second is to really apply the vaseline or cooking oil to the lip. You’ll see me struggle to turn it, hit it with darn near everything I had close to hand (my tools were still all packed away after our move) and even manage to whack a finger. The tight fit works really well once you have it together and it doesn’t leak on the stand but getting it together means really having to hold your mouth right and using a lot of slippery stuff.

After one month, we’re surprised how much organic matter we have in the drum. Because we eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, theres a lot of trimmings being composted. As soon as the gardens get going, I think we’ll see a great deal more going in. The tulip flowers and stems will be the first garden debris to hit it so it should start seeing some serious loading.

This thing is heavy. And loaded up, it is becoming a bit of a chore to turn it around. There’s a lot of weight there so put it where you want it. You aren’t moving it once it’s full.

Here’s the video.

MBAB: So How Important are Gardening Blogs

This is an interesting kind of question and like all things it depends very much on your point of view.

I’ve heard folks say that they must be important because there’s so many of them. My response is, “What?”

Sure, look at the Google numbers.

What?

Search for gardening blogs on Google and look at the numbers.

So I did. Funny thing though, when I search for gardening blogs (2 word search) I get the number 364,000. And when I search for “gardening blog” (note quote marks) I get a different number 112,000 (May 23/08 - your results may vary)

What’s the difference mean? Folks it means you can’t use Google to count the number of gardening blogs. The first search brought back the number of website pages using the word (gardening) plus the number of website pages using the word (blogs) plus the number using the combination (gardening blogs). The sum of these was 364,000.

The second number is lower because we’re asking for all the results with the two-word term (gardening blogs) and note the enclosed quotes to limit the search.

So we can’t get a sense of the number of blogs from Google.

We can get a better sense of the number of gardening blogs from Technorati. This company tracks some 70 million blogs on the Net.

Using the advanced search function there, Technorati says that 3421 blogs include gardening. But these are also Home and Garden classed so the focus isn’t necessarily on gardening.

But we’re about as close as we can get at this stage of the Net and even these numbers are soft. Given 55% of the blogs on the Net are abandoned according to Technorati - the active number of garden bloggers is likely less than 1500.

On the other hand, basketball lists 8660 blogs, while Celebrity and Gossip weigh in at 169,759 blogs and Small Business cruises along at 1,038,094. For crying out loud, even knitting lists 4075 blogs.

Gardening with some 80-90 million participants (if those surveys are to believed) is a relatively puny 89-pound weakling in the mix and not overly numerous outside of a small circle of friends.

Here’s my take based on these numbers and the experiments I do on both my blog and my websites.

If you’re trying to reach out to other folks outside of the garden-blogging world, blogging is pretty much a waste of time (right now) . Websites (properly designed) are much more effective at reaching average homeowners.

However if you’re trying to talk to those in the media (most of the influential garden writers have blogs) or those young garden writers who are next year’s stars (they have blogs too) then you really want to figure this blogging media out. Because your main media people read the same magazines you do and they all tend to cluster together by reading each other’s blogs.

And that’s why garden blogging is important in the horticultural trade. It has nothing to do with reaching gardeners in large enough quantities to justify commercial advertising budgets. It has everything to do with reaching the writers, editors and publishers who influence other media channels and the rest of the Net.

photo credit: ocean.flynn

Oregano Oil an Insecticide

There’s an article just released by the Society of Chemical Industry’s Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture” showing that oregano oil works as well as synthetic insecticides to combat infestation by a common beetle, Rhizoppertha dominica, found in stored cereals.

Now this doesn’t mean it will work on other insects but the fact remains clear that there are an increasingly large number of biologically-derived substances that have as much or more of an effect on pest-insects than noxious chemicals do.

And in my experience, a change in garden techniques and a few biological remedies and almost all the pests we normally see can be easily handled with organic methods.

source: Science Daily

Impatiens for Full Sunshine

I ran a few trials last year on Viva Sunpatiens. They were planted out in the full hot sunshine with absolutely no protection of any kind - I’m mean let’s make it a test.

My observations.

Don’t let this plant dry out. I had it in a somewhat sandy soil and if the soil moisture got too low, the plant wilted. It was almost an indicator plant that showed how much moisture was there. First to wilt.

Bloomed heavily almost all summer from a mid-June planting. We were late getting the plants but they grew well as soon as I figured out they needed more water then the rest of the plants in this area.

All colours did equally well with the exception of the variegated plant. You can see the results of this in the picture above. That plant didn’t do well at all and never did fill up the area I assumed it would. The other colors, (red, orange, violet) were equally good in this location. Do note that the soft pink flower in the variegated form I was growing wouldn’t have given much of a contrast even if it had produced growth and flowers.

Bottom line. If you wanted to grow impatiens in the full hot sunshine, this plant deserves a trial in your garden. It grew well in mine and I’d have it back again if I needed those color ranges. Just don’t count on the growth or flowering of the variegated variety and do water them regularly.

As for container use - it will do very well there but if you tend to let your baskets go dry, this might not be a good choice for being abused that way. I suspect growing it in a slightly shadier spot would give better performance and require less water but hey - they called it a *Sun*patiens so that’s where it went.

Let me know if you tried it in your garden and how it grew for you.

Free Container Gardening Seminar

I’m launching the container gardening seminar this coming week. Topics are being requested right here. So if you’re interested, drop in, sign up for the free series, reports etc.

There’s no charge for this seminar and reports for those participating.

R.I.P. Howard Dill

Howard Dill set a gardening record that hasn’t been beat to this day. Back in the 80’s he won the world champion pumpkin growing contest 4 times in a row. And he bred ‘Atlantic Giant’ the first of the really big pumpkins and one that is still commercially available today. Some would say that he created the entire large pumpkin growing craze.

I never met Howard Dill but I grew that pumpkin every year. I have pictures of my son sitting on one of them as it was taller than he was.

And I still remember my daughter’s grade 3 teacher when he said he needed a pumpkin for Halloween and I volunteered to bring him one. The look of astonishment when we wheeled that into his class (we needed a nursery cart that would handle several hundred pounds of pumpkin) was worth the several hours of loading and careful driving it took to get it there. As I recall, all he could say was, “Oh my gawd!”. Mind you, he was probably trying to figure out what to do with it afterwards but that wasn’t my problem.

Here’s his obit courtesy CTV

Are You a Scupie?

Are you a SCUPIE (Socially Conscious Upwardly-mobile Person)?

Seems there’s a few of them running loose at the moment and click here to see the site (complete with manifesto).

You gotta love it.

But are you a Scupie? And is this the way to go?

MBAB Why Blog?

This blog post about blogging is something I’m considering doing every Monday. I’m calling it my Monday Blog about Blogging (MBAB) post and gardeners who don’t blog should simply ignore anything with a MBAB in the subject line from now on.

Why blog?

I want to follow up the thought I had a few weeks ago on blogging and why people blog.

I understand that people blog for several reasons:

*To make money
*To meet others and social network
*To create authority plays
*They don’t know
*All of the above or combination of the above

Making Money. I think I can say that my research and experiments show that garden blogging isn’t an overly profitable niche. Sure there are a lot of gardeners but there aren’t a lot of advertisers on the Net yet. So without advertisers willing to pay decent dollars, there’s not a lot of money here. Make a few hundred dollars a month and you should consider yourself doing very well. The data I’ve seen says that with the exception of the very top end of general bloggers, most (about 99%) aren’t covering their hourly wages. I’d be surprised if the average garden blogger was covering their wages.

To meet others, share gardening info and have fun. I talked to a bunch of bloggers while writing an article and most of them said they started out for themselves but then discovered a ton of friends online. And the journaling and socializing became intertwined. Social networking sites for garden bloggers such as Blotanica seem to be popular with some folks. Again, my survey data says that this is a very small part of the general gardening population.

To create authority plays. If you want to become a well known garden writer within a very limited circle of people (other bloggers and the trade) then blogging is a perfect medium to do that. You won’t make money on the blog but you’ll be able to use the blog to enhance your reputation and create other opportunities for yourself.

Not known. A lot of folks haven’t figured out why they’re doing this crazy activity. And some don’t care because they’re having fun (see point two).

All of the above. I think that’s pretty much self-explanatory.

The point is that if you know why you blog, you can do it better. If you need to make money, then you focus on things that make money. If you want to socialize, then you hang out at a bunch of your favorite blogs and social network site. Well, you get the picture. You do what makes your blog work best for you. You mix it up a little but your main objective must be your primary activity.

But you do it real and you do it the best you can.

Mayo’s Present Arrives

You know a guy has to deliver the goods. And the quickest way to a woman’s heart is certainly not diamonds if she’s a serious gardener. Here’s my moving-in present to Mayo. It’s called growing the relationship.

And to top it off - I’m moving it with a wheelbarrow to the garden.

Love hath no bounds when it comes to composted manure. The good stuff - 4-5 years old. And lots of it.

I’m grateful

Every morning, I try to write notes to myself - a writer’s mind-cleaning exercise.

This morning, I reminded myself that I was grateful.

Grateful for having met Mayo.
Grateful for good friends the W’s
Grateful for waking up this morning feeling better
Grateful for having an imagination
Grateful for being able to garden today
Grateful for being able to fill more than a page of my notebook with things I’m grateful for. A very long list.

A wonderful way to remind myself what a great life I have.

Have you reminded yourself lately?

It isn’t Mother’s Day

My mom didn’t teach me much about gardening and keeping plants alive. She was never really good at that particular little task in life. In fact, giving her a plant was pretty much like sentencing it to a slow, lingering, miserable death - except when she killed it quickly and mercifully. Not sure what it was but I didn’t get my gardening stuff from my mom.

I got a ton of other things though. I got a wicked sense of Scottish humour - a bit of a dry wit that tends to sneak out when least expected (or in my case tends to hide when least expected). I got that practical Scot nature that says not to waste anything and to make do whenever possible. She was born in Aberdeen, Scotland and I got a sense that there was a lot of history behind us but a heck of a future ahead if we grabbed it. And never, ever give up on a dream. I got the love of reading in a big way from her; books were an essential part of our home and continue to be one of my passions in life. Books weren’t a big part of my dad’s life but my mom’s collection almost approached my own. If you worked hard enough and smart enough, you’d get where you wanted to go. Family was first even though you were mad at them at the time.

There were a lot of really important things my mom taught me.

Mom is stil pretty clear that you “do it now!” and that you “do it when you’re young enough to enjoy it.” If she thought I was staying around the area to “take care of her” she’d whup my butt. (Mind you, she’d have to catch me first and I can still outrun her and her walker) Nope, my mom is pretty clear that life is to be lived and you had better do it while you can.

She’s still as happy as can be, saying that her retirement home is the best place she could have wound up; that having the freedom to go out but help there 24/7 if she needs it is great. She still loves her music and singing, and can still do a shuffle every now and then when the knees aren’t grinding too badly.

Yah just can’t keep a good Scot down.

One of the things that always annoyed her was Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. She thought they were commercialized and simply marketing exercises to “sell stuff”. So as a kid, we never made a big deal of those things and generally still don’t. A simple phone call usually does the deed. She said if you couldn’t appreciate people through the year, then one day wouldn’t make a bit of difference and the person would know which you really felt.

So. In the old days, we tried to get together as a family on a regular basis and it was a rare week when we didn’t see them at least once. I’ll tell you that my dad is gone now but I still take my mom out to dinner once a week so she can get outside her retirement home walls (she can’t travel on her own anymore). And I know we’re going out for a big ice-cream cone after dinner. Her memory isn’t as good as it once was but she’s happy. And it isn’t Mother’s Day and I didn’t send flowers or a card like the rest of the mom’s got. And she’s likely never read this as she can’t manage a computer anymore.

You didn’t teach me gardening mom, you taught me the important stuff instead.

I love you mom.

Great Tits and Global Warming

Doug strives to bring you all the news that’s fit to print on a wide variety of subjects. Hey, if GardenRant can have their poster pinups - so can Doug.

Here’s a link to an encouraging story about the environment and great tits. Complete with pictures.

Online Gardening Courses - Tell Me What You Need To Know

Tell me what seminars to run for you.

Click here to go to the “tell Doug” page

Who’s a Gardening or Blogging Expert?

One of the questions I’m intrigued with at the moment is, “Who’s an expert?”.

The easiest example to start this question is to look at the television and catch the “talking heads” or “talent” that appear there. We see “experts” trotted out to examine the entrails of just about every major situation - from political to military to foreign situation analysts and even gardening now and then. There’s an expert for everything.

Some of these folks have really “been there and done that” and have expertise to draw on. Some did it a few years ago (or more) and some are still involved. But no matter the level of expertise, the nature of television lends them credence. They’re on the tube so you trust them. Somebody has branded them as “expert”.

I have a personal stake in this at the moment because I’m taking several courses from “experts” and I had to research them pretty carefully before I signed on to give them my money and my time. What’s the point in taking advice from somebody who is simply a talking head and can read a teleprompter well?

And what’s this got to do with blogging and gardening?

Well, I think the same kinds of questions can be asked of the gardening and garden-blogging world.

It is one thing to read a personal blog and know the gardener is telling us something from her own garden, sharing what she’s seeing and taking pictures of. This person makes no pretense at authority and writes for her own pleasure and for a journaling kind of writing. These are great fun.

It is entirely another thing to take advice from somebody who’s giving it as if they know something about gardening. How do you know?

What are the reference points you use to determine that somebody will make a good garden instructor or garden coach? Or are they good talking heads, good garden bloggers, like our well-coifed tv guys? Or do they really know their stuff? What qualifications do you look for when picking a garden “expert”?

Similarly, do you go to garden bloggers to learn about blogging or do you go to those who make a 6-figure income by blogging? What are the reference points you use to make that decision?

You see, here’s the real deal with publishing and television. It’s a business. The person who can give you the best ratings wins. The person who can sell the most magazines wins. The person with the biggest blogging audience wins. The author with the biggest book sales wins. The most attractive-to-the-audience person gets the job given all equal factors in television because looks count in responses/advertising revenues.

The best writer doesn’t necessarily sell the most books nor have the biggest blog. The best gardener may languish unknown because they prefer to be gardening and not doing the social swirl that raises profiles. Being the best at what you do doesn’t necessarily translate into the highest profile.

So how do you decide who’s an expert?

Free Ebook(s) for Writers

If you write or want to make money writing, (and it doesn’t have to be about gardening) you might want to check out these two -suddenly free - ebooks on copywriting. I paid about $25 bucks for one of them 5 or 6 years ago. And now they’re free.

Check it out and download it here.

But I’m glad I didn’t wait.

Karma

Over the years, I’ve written (fairly clearly I think) about not allowing certain kinds of plants into your garden.

There are the outright garden thugs. And these include plants such as Crown Vetch, Goutweed (variegated and green leaf) and Artemesia ‘Silver King’. This would certainly include grasses such as Phragmites (variegated ribbon grass) and a few others that deserve to be planted far from my gardens.

Simple garden thugs would include a range of vicious spreaders such as Euphorbia epithymoides (Spurge).

My new garden has all of these planted by previous owners.

Karma.

Whatever it was, whoever it was to. I apologize profoundly and sincerely.

The Secret to Life

OK - you’re bored and not doing what you want to do.

Read this.

My moment was when my kid brother died. I decided then and there that if I had to die young, I didn’t want to leave anything on the table.

My only problem is that I keep adding things to the table and I think there’s more there now then there was then. The older I get, the more I find I really want to do. I have more projects in my radar than I can count. I want them all.

Life’s a giggle.

Home Depot Phases Out Garden Chemicals in Canada

I never thought I’d say this but good for Home Depot. (I haven’t heard any thunder and the roof is still up where it belongs).

Home Depot announced

that it will voluntarily stop selling traditional pesticides and herbicides in its stores across Canada by the end of 2008 and will increase its selection of environmentally friendly alternatives.

This is ahead of schedule for the Ontario ban that is supposed to take place in 2009. And well ahead of other provinces who have not yet put bans or timetables in place.

Damn, this might mean I have to actually get an orange hat.

Mind you, that’s two now for HD. They also sponsor Tony - my secret red-neck passion - Stewart in Nascar.

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