#urban growers

[chokrihizem]

🍓🌱 Excited about growing your own organic strawberries right at home? 🌱🍓

Did you know you can grow delicious, pesticide-free strawberries even if you have limited space? 🍓🌿 Container gardening is the perfect solution! 🌞🏡

👩‍🌾👨‍🌾 Whether you're a seasoned gardener or just starting out, here are some tips for growing juicy strawberries in containers:

1️⃣ Choose a sunny spot: Strawberries love sunlight! Place your containers where they'll get at least 6-8 hours of direct sunlight daily.

2️⃣ Pick the right container: Opt for large containers with drainage holes to prevent waterlogging. Terra cotta or plastic pots work well.

3️⃣ Use quality soil: A well-draining, nutrient-rich soil mix (like compost and peat moss) is ideal for strawberries.

4️⃣ Planting time: Spring is perfect for planting strawberries. Space your plants about 8-12 inches apart to allow room for growth.

5️⃣ Watering and feeding: Keep the soil consistently moist, but not waterlogged. Feed your strawberries with organic fertilizer every 2-3 weeks.

6️⃣ Pest control: Keep an eye out for pests like slugs and birds. Netting can protect your berries while still allowing sunlight in.

➡️ Want to read my full article: How to Grow Organic Strawberries in Containers!

🎉 Growing your own strawberries is not only rewarding, but also a delicious way to enjoy fresh, organic fruit all summer long! Have you tried growing strawberries in containers? Share your tips and experiences below! 🍓💬

[bumblebeeappletree]

This panel event was originally recorded on September 18, 2020, as part of GreenThumb's international virtual event in partnership with Capital Growth in London and Toronto Urban Growers.

Hear from community gardeners and urban farmers from London, Toronto, and New York City around how gardens and farms are contributing toward these cities’ resilience, food security, and COVID-19 response. Organised by Capital Growth in London, NYC Parks GreenThumb in New York, and Toronto Urban Growers, this webinar shares lessons from across the pond on how community gardens and urban farms are responding to the COVID-19 crisis, building solidarity among neighbours, and preparing the road ahead.

Intros by organizations:

o Sarah Williams, Capital Growth, London → introduce Bill

o Bill LoSasso, NYC Parks GreenThumb → introduce Rhonda

o Rhonda Teitel-Payne, Toronto Urban Growers → introduce Melana

Welcome and intro from moderator - Melana Roberts, chairperson of the board of Food Secure Canada

Panelists:

• NYC: Karen Washington, from the Garden of Happiness, speaking about Bronx Community Farm Hubs

• NYC: Mark Leger, gardener at Phoenix Community Garden speaking about Phoenix’s food access and COVID response activities

• London: Kiloran O’Leary from Global Generation speaking about The Story Garden’s involvement in Community Harvest and other COVID responses

• London: Alice Holden, Head Grower at Growing Communities Dagenham Farm - an organic farm based in outer London growing produce for sale locally and through a box scheme, while supporting various community initiatives

• Toronto: Jessey Njau, www.zawadi.farm - backyard farmer building community in Thistletown neighbourhood

• Toronto: Isaac Crosby, Lead Hand in Urban Agriculture and Indigenous Gardens at Evergreen Brick Works

[agreads]

EBL is investing in promising technology from the start-up Voltiris: next-generation photovoltaics

The EBL (Genossenschaft Elektra Baselland) is testing innovative PV installations in one of the greenhouses owned by the Füllinsdorf-based company Eschbach Gemüsebau. The installations allow the sunlight required for photosynthesis to shine through and thus do not impair plant growth. The technology is primarily aimed at operators of larger greenhouses, which until now could not be operated with…

[mkdigi]

GARFIELD COMMUNITY FARMS WORKDAY AND WORKSHOP

Garfield Community Farms welcomes visitors to their last regular workday opportunity on Thursday, October 31st, but don’t be too spooked- even though weekly volunteer hours are coming to a close for the season, there’s plenty more to come from this decade-old urban farm that successfully restored a three-acre patch of abandoned land.    On Saturday, November 16th, they’ll offer a Composting…

[artsandculture]

The Water-Lily Pond (1899) 🎨 Claude Monet 🏛️ The National Gallery 📍 London, United Kingdom

For Monet, gardens offered a refuge from the modern urban and industrial world, although he and his fellow garden enthusiasts benefited from modern advances in botanical science that were creating new hybrid flowers in a wide choice of shapes and colours that could be produced on an almost industrial scale. He made modest gardens in the homes he rented in Argenteuil and Vetheuil in the 1870s, but from 1883, when he moved to a rented house in Giverny, about 50 miles to the west of Paris, he had more scope to indulge his passion for plants. He became a dedicated gardener with an extensive botanical knowledge, and sought the opinions of leading horticulturalists. As Monet’s career flourished his increasing wealth enabled him to fund what became a grand horticultural enterprise: by the 1890s he was employing as many as eight gardeners.

Monet began by refashioning the garden in front of the house, the so-called ‘Clos Normand’, replacing the existing kitchen garden and orchard with densely planted colourful flower beds that were filled with blooms throughout the seasons. He was able to buy the house in 1890, and three years later he purchased an adjacent plot of land next to the river Epte beyond the railway line at the edge of his property. The plot had a small pond with arrowhead and wild water lilies, which he wanted to turn into a water garden with a larger lily pond ‘both for the pleasure of the eye and for the purpose of having subjects to paint’.

The idea may have occurred to him after he had seen the water garden at the 1899 Exposition Universelle in Paris created by the grower Joseph Bory Latour-Marliac, who bred the first colourful hardy waterlilies. Monet began by requesting permission from the Prefect of the Eure to dig irrigation channels from the Ru – a branch of the Epte – to feed his pond, but the Giverny villagers objected, fearing it would contaminate the water and that the foreign plants would poison their cattle. Monet was furious, but three months later permission came through and he began to enlarge the existing pond, replacing the wild water lilies with Latour-Marliac hybrids available in yellows, pinks, whites and violets.

The pond was enlarged on further occasions – in 1901 and 1904 – tripling the size of the water garden. Together with the flower garden on the other side of the railway track it became the principal preoccupation of the last 26 years of Monet’s life. While the Clos Normand garden was laid out along fairly traditional lines, harking back to the formal French gardens of seventeenth-century Europe, with a central alleyway and geometrically arranged beds, the water garden was more Eastern in inspiration. Its less regimented, more natural design and more muted colours created a quieter, meditative atmosphere. Monet erected a Japanese bridge over the western end of the pond that took its inspiration from the bridges in ukiyo-e Japanese prints. He was a keen collector of these prints and he owned a copy of Hiroshige’s Wisteria at Kameido Tenjin Shrine (1856), one of the many prints that features a curved bridge. In a more general sense, the water garden reflected Monet’s admiration for the Japanese appreciation of nature.

Monet had to wait for his water garden to mature before he could begin to paint it in earnest. As he later recalled: ‘It took me some time to understand my water-lilies. It takes more than a day to get under your skin. And then all at once, I had the revelation – how wonderful my pond was – and reached for my palette. I’ve hardly had any other subject since that moment.’ In total, Monet painted 250 canvases of his water garden. Around 200 of these represent water lilies floating on the surface of the water, while the remainder also show the Japanese bridge, the weeping willow trees and wisteria and the irises, agapanthus and day lilies on its banks. In all these pictures Monet was painting a subject that was already ‘pictorial’ – a landscape that had been carefully composed according to his personal aesthetic. The National Gallery has three further paintings of the water garden :Water-lilies, setting sun; Irises; and Water-lilies.

Monet painted three views of the Japanese bridge in 1895, not long after it had been constructed, but then took a break from the subject, only returning to it in 1899. By now the pool was overhung by vegetation and surrounded by plants, but to judge from contemporary photographs it was never as enclosed as Monet painted it, and he exaggerated the feeling of claustrophobia. In December 1900 he exhibited 12 paintings at Durand-Ruel’s gallery in Paris, all of which showed more or less symmetrical views of the Japanese bridge.

In this painting, as in the others in the series, we are looking down onto the surface of the water, where the lily pads float into the distance, meeting the dense foliage on the far bank. Weeping willows are reflected in the pond and clumps of iris border its banks. The perspective seems to shift so that it is hard to find a single focal point; it is as though we are looking up at the bridge but down on the waterlilies. The picture, like the water itself, seems to oscillate between surface and depth. The mainly vertical reflections provide a counterpoint to the horizontal clumps of the lily pads. Different colours, applied with thick brushstrokes, are placed next to each other. This way of painting has more in common with Monet’s early Impressionist works than his more recent paintings of mornings on the Seine, where he had used softer, more blended strokes to convey hazy atmospheric effects.

The Japanese bridge series marked a turning point in Monet’s art. From now on his subjects were painted from an increasingly confined viewpoint, conveying the sense of an enclosed world. In later paintings of the pond, he would dispense with the banks and bridge altogether to focus solely on the water, the reflections and the water lilies. The culmination of Monet’s water lily paintings were the Grandes Dėcorations, 22 enormous canvases each over two metres high and totalling more than 90 metres in length, which he completed months before his death and donated to the French state. These are now on permanent display in two oval rooms in the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris.

[probablyasocialecologist]

If Ugandans have a social safety net, it is woven from banana fibers, and if there is a clear path to socialism, it will be lined with banana leaves. The lusuku model, premised on intercropping and smallholder farming, could be the basis for national agrarian reform that improves the lives of Uganda’s agricultural workers without accelerating the destruction of the natural environment. Uganda faces increasing difficulty feeding itself because of climate extremes and land degradation, and this affects farmers more significantly than anyone else. Moreover, since the 1990s, the ruling National Resistance Movement regime sold off and dismantled most of the coffee, tea, and cotton growers cooperatives, leaving smallholder farmers in the hands of the predatory middlemen which cooperatives had been established to protect them against. Unable to collectively bargain and exposed to dramatic fluctuations in the market prices for cash crops, many people left rural areas to search for employment in cities. This has been a driving force behind the massive inequality between rural and urban workers. Ugandans now produce more food than they consume, even exporting to other countries in the region, yet 41% of people are undernourished, and agricultural production has decreased over the last 20 years. For the most part, the strategy pursued by Uganda’s government has been to encourage the development of ecologically disastrous intensive agriculture for export, privileging foreign investors rather than developing the infrastructure that would benefit peasants. Indeed, while more than 70% of Ugandans are employed in agriculture, the sector only receives around 4% of public investment, and projects aimed at helping smallholder farmers have had very little success, even by their own standards. Many of the government’s investments in agriculture very clearly advantage larger landowners, to the detriment of the poorest farmers. For example, most of the government’s investment in labor-saving technologies has been spent on tractors, which are great for large plots but largely unaffordable or unsuitable for the average farmer, whose plot is usually between 1-3 acres large. However, a socialist transition premised on agroecological reforms could make use of the existing lusuku model to create the kind of growth that actually improves poor farmers’ lives without destroying their environment. This could begin with reestablishing cooperatives and engineering agricultural prices around social needs and goals, like guaranteeing access to food. Research from around the world has shown that while large, monocrop plantations are good at producing huge volumes of one crop, smallholder farms are more productive when evaluated on a per-unit area and are capable of securing national food sovereignty. Why, for example, should Ugandans buy rice imported from Pakistan or Vietnam when banana intercropping yields more calories per hectare than rice? Lusukus could feed the nation without relying on foreign experts, development aid, or the capital-intensive inputs now being imported to grow for export. Because lusukus are far better for the soil, they also improve the nation’s capacity to resist severe floods and drought, effects of climate change that hit poor farmers hardest. In these ways, the lusuku model could provide a sustainable path to socialist development.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this LA Times story:

It was 111 degrees when Mark McBroom stepped from his air-conditioned pickup and onto a dry alfalfa field. Remnants of desiccated hay crunched underfoot, and the sun-baked soil was fragmented with deep cracks.

McBroom and other Imperial Valley farmers agreed to leave many hay fields unwatered for seven weeks this year in exchange for cash payments from a federally funded program designed to alleviate the water shortage on the Colorado River.

Many farmers decided that the payments — $300 per acre-foot of water conserved — would pencil out for them this year, in part because hay prices have recently fallen.

“Most of the farming community felt like our water is worth a lot more than that, but we wanted to help,” McBroom said. “We want to be good neighbors.”

But while the three-year deal is helping to save water in the river’s reservoirs, some people in the Imperial Valley say they’re concerned it’s also accelerating the decline of the Salton Sea and worsening environmental problems along its retreating shores.

With less water running off fields and into the sea, growing stretches of dry lakebed are being exposed to desert winds that kick up lung-damaging dust. At the same time, the lake is growing saltier as it shrinks, bringing changes to a habitat that is a vital stopover for migratory birds.

“This three-year deal is accelerating the receding of the sea,” said Eric Montoya Reyes, executive director of the nonprofit group Los Amigos de la Comunidad. “It’s going to impact our community.”

The voluntary water-saving program is an unusual effort by farmers who receive the single largest share of Colorado River water. While the growers adamantly oppose leaving farmland permanently dry, they decided that shutting off water temporarily to hay fields would help conserve supplies and minimize effects on crop production and the local economy.

Leaders of the Imperial Irrigation District say their agreement with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will save up to 700,000 acre-feet of water — enough to raise the level of Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir, more than 10 feet.

But environmental advocates have argued that the irrigation district’s deal with the federal government fails to adequately address the effects on the shrinking lake.

The Salton Sea has been drying up over the last two decades as a result of a deal in which the Imperial Irrigation District transferred a portion of the valley’s water to urban areas.

For years, local activists and residents in the Imperial and Coachella valleys have urged state officials to speed up long-delayed efforts to build wetlands along the retreating shores to create wildlife habitat and control dust that contributes to high asthma rates.

[witch-of-the-creek]

Fascinating flora, special edition.

White Sage

I am still doing a regular post about sage in general, but as a conservationist and student of ethnobotany, I wanted to address the conservation status and history of salvia apiana in particular.

White sage is endemic to Southern California and parts of Northern Baja, and is a valuable medicinal and cultural resource to indigenous populations who were forcibly relocated to these areas. Today, the majority of white sage is cultivated by indigenous Americans on protected land.

Smudging refers to a variety ceremonies that involve the burning of sacred herbs. The British, Spanish, and French colonizers started to relocate indigenous people, to wash away their culture, take their children, and erase their languages. Smudging is an English word that was used to generalize and belittle a widely held set of spiritual practices, and has now been reclaimed by many indigenous communities.

The use of this plant by non native people, and the misappropriation of the word ‘smudging’ came much later, around the time the first legal protections were established to protect the remaining people and culture. “In the 1960s, the hippie movement co-opted the use of white sage and evolved into the New Age Movement.” (Ramirez, Rose & Small, Deborah)

The popularity of white sage has only gotten higher, and with a boom in demand, illegal harvesting of the plant has become all to common a practice. “With very few commercial growers of white sage (Salvia apiana), the vast majority of products are wild-harvested.” (Ramirez & Small)

“What I learned when I was in California and visited the Etiwanda Preserve was that it is the epicenter of the current commercial harvest.” (Leopold, Susan).

“What is important to stress is that this underground sage mafia is not ethical or sustainable wildcrafting as it is portrayed in hipster IG accounts and stores! The scale of white sage commercial trade on the Internet and demand in China is alarming” (Leopold).

“I was invited by the owner of a white sage company to meet at the Etiwanda Preserve in March of 2019; he wanted to show his sustainable harvesting methods. I quickly pulled out my phone to show him that it was against the law to do so, and that recent arrests had been made. He carried on as if that was not the case” (Leopold).

The current elemental status of white sage is G4, which means ‘apparently secure.’ This rating has not been reviewed since June nineteenth, 2002. The lack of updated information on the plants range and occurrences have kept it off multiple endangered species lists.

The article referencing a book by Ramirez and Small, published in spring of 2020, evaluate that 50% of white sage has been eradicated due to urbanization.

I am not native, I can’t speak for any native people. All of what I have stated here is a summary or quotation of the words of indigenous activists, ethnobotanists, and conservationists. My hope here is to give a factual overview of the situation and provide direction to people more knowledgeable than myself.

Sources below

-News from Native California, Spring 2020 By Rose Ramirez and Deborah Small

[writeblrgarden]

PLANT GROWERS - MEET THE WINNERS - TARI

Meet Tari, who got third place in our grow a plant event in november! Tari goes by she/her, and you can find her at @mxxnlightwriting. She wrote her first story when she was six, and has been writing with the goal of publishing since 2020. She writes romance and fantasy, along with dabbling in a few other genres.

Tell us about the WIP you'd like to talk about today.

The WIP is "A Spark of Magic" a YA Urban Fantasy novel (the first in a series!) Isaac has turned into a merfolk and that puts everything in his life in jeopardy. To try and fix this predicament he asks Alice for help, someone he believes to be a witch based on a rumour he heard. He's right that she's a witch, but what he doesn't know is that she can't summon her magic. What starts as an unlikely partnership turns into something more as every answer they seek seems out of reach and the secrets they encounter make it hard for them to trust anyone, including each other.

Describe your writing process. Do you like to plan everything or are you more spontaneous?

I am more spontaneous, but my process changes depending on my writing project. Sometimes, I have a scene, a couple of characters, a small playlist for vibes and I just go for it. In those cases, I discover my story along the way, and through subsequent drafts, I work to make it cohesive and the best it can be. Some require more planning, and in those cases, I tend to outline the vast majority of the story, but there's always something that even I, as the writer, don't know from the start.

What have you found to be the most challenging and/or rewarding about writing?

I think writing can be a lonely endeavor, especially when you don't have writer friends to help you keep motivated. It's also challenging because more often than not, only you know your story and its characters and world, and translating that from your mind to the page can be hard, especially when you're a perfectionist. On the flip side, there's nothing better than finishing a WIP. Writing "The End" on a draft is always incredible. No matter how many times I do it, it always feels like the first time. It's the culmination of so many hours of work, of meeting characters and watching their journey from start to finish, of writing their story. It that feeling of "You've done it", you know? And no one can ever take that achievement from you.

Below the read more is more of our conversation with Tari, along with a link to pre-order her novel now!

What inspires you to write?

People. Loneliness. I want to write stories to keep people company, to be there for them when they feel like no one is. Mostly, I write stories because it's the only way I know how to live. They've been an integral part of my life for so long that I would be incomplete without it.

Share some advice for other writers.

Just keep writing! Never look down at your own work, always look at it from an inquisitive lense. Look at how far you've come, at how much you have improved. Be fascinated by your previous work and know that it's the foundation for the writer you are today. You will always be improving, so celebrate that, even when it's hard. On that same note, never put down your work when sharing it with others. That will have them create expectations of your work before they get to enjoy it. Present it as a blank canvas and let people create their opinions of it, good or bad, but always remember that it is your story. Make it the best it can be for you, not for others.

What do consider your writing strength?

I'd say dialogue is my strength as well as character building! With dialogue is great to go over everyone's speech patterns and see what kind of words they would use and how they would chat with others (and notice how that changes depending on the character they're interacting with), which also influences character building.

What has been the nicest compliment you've received or what has been the toughest criticism you've received?

Whenever people say they were moved by my writing that always feels like the greatest compliment. As for the toughest criticism, as a perfectionist, I am my toughest critic.

What do you love the most about writing?

The entire process of falling in love with a new idea and making it the best it can possibly be. Nothing will ever make me as happy as when I have a random idea that consumes my entire existence and demands to be brought to life. Sometimes, it's not you who chooses the story. Sometimes, it's the story that chooses you.

✨ Tari's novel, A Spark of Magic, is available for pre-order now! Check out the information on her post here.

[smellslikebot]

initially i wasn't planning on trying to air layer the persimmon tree because i haven't found any evidence of anybody doing it successfully (just vague anecdotes and urban legend shit) and every single person on youtube who tried to document the process or even get a cutting to root has failed

but my mom is adamant that i at least give it a shot, so i did some more searching and found a UC Davis resource page with instructions on how to root a persimmon cutting. the interesting(?) thing is that it says to use a softwood cutting, which i hadn't seen anybody else try

and air layering instructions generally specify that you should do it to branches of a certain age/hardness, which made me wonder if air layering the softer green growths on a tree was even a Thing... looking that up led me to a video of an old taiwanese dude doing just that, and that reminded me of one of the anecdotes i'd read (that the person knew of "asian growers in california" who'd successfully air layered persimmon trees LOL)

so my plan here is basically "try something difference"

[thestudentfarmer]

🥳🥳🥳🥳

The cucumbers are starting to come in, ive picked 8 that are about 11-13 inch long with more to come :)

The front side pics only today, since the back is weirdly sparse at the moment.

Guranteed there will be a few hidden ones ive missed too. This is 3 or 4 plants, a couple died before taking off almost overnight so I'm not entirely sure.

These are a striped variety of armenian cucumbers, I like them because~~~~~

🌱once they get going they are very prolific producers on few plants.

🌱Fruit can be 12+ inches long and I've found some as thick as a watermelon once (was not tasty. The chickens loved it tho!) Bigger than 1.5 inch wide tends to start getting seedy.

🌱They can get some whacky shapes.

🌱If established and given a watering 2x a day for about 10-15 (early morning, sunset/dusk) before heat hits heavy, they will generally continue producing long after most other plants have finished. For my area that's about 3 days of sustained 105+*f. These cukes kept producing right through the summer with little stuttering.

🌱Did I mention they produce a lot? I'm not kidding, we grew I think 6 plants the very first grow (other varieties have done very poorly) and got over 200lbs of cucumbers. It felt very much like the zuchinni grow season joke. We had enough for us, The chickens and regular gifts to at least 5 other households with plenty extra to gift to coworkers and classmates. 😂

🌱They are pretty set em and forget them, trellising them this year is something new im trying so I can work out ways to produce more food on a urban sized lot.

🌱personal notes, no cucumber urps :D so if ya suffer from them, this could be a variety to try.

I've tried a few other varieties (pickling, lemon, straight 8s, english) and not been as successfully as these have been. At this time their gonna be the ones we grow from now on. I'll try others, but like said just haven't had luck with them.

They either grow too slow, weak and sickly or the 2 times we got fruit they were waaaay to bitter.

These seeds came from a packet at one of local libraries seed library. I'll be trying to figure out how to save the seed this year to return some back (which is all they ask folks to do, is return seed if possible) if it's viable.

I'll be for sure bringing some nasturtium and hollyhock seeds in the next time I'm up since both produced well this time :)

I don't wanna endorse any one seed page specifically at this time for addutional grow info, Since I like to get seeds from local or regional growers (small business's or gardeners and hobbiest most preffered), thankfully there's at least a Wikipedia page with some interesting info and an edu page too :)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_cucumber

https://extension.usu.edu/yardandgarden/research/cucumber-in-the-garden

That's it for today :)

🌱🌱Happy Homesteading and Gardening 🌱🌱

6.15.2024

[peakwealth]

Beasts of Burden

Parked on a street in Chinatown, Bangkok. Vintage unknown. It has been there for decades, has licence plates and is in driveable condition as far as I can tell.

. . . .

It is easy to get nostalgic about old Land Rovers. Everything about them contradicts the 21st century. They are or were basic machines with heavy steel frames and aluminium bodies that were riveted together. The passing of time did not seem to affect them.

Introduced in 1948 and made in what was then the heartland of English car manufacturing (Coventry, Solihull), they stood for a less complicated time when everything was mechanical and nothing was virtual.

Eventually economic reasoning caught up and production was halted in 2016. I remember wistfully looking at some of the last remaining models sitting in dealers' showrooms in such remote places as Ponta Delgado (in the Azores) or Suva (in Fiji). By then Land Rover was no longer very British. Ownership of the brand had shifted to BMW in 1994, then to Ford before being sold to the Indian Tata conglomerate in 2008.

. . . .

The real thing, Santanas, in Andalusia.

Classic Land Rovers are in essence farm vehicles. As such they have remained a common sight in the countryside of southern Spain, their colour the same as the dry Andaluz soil at the height of summer. Wherever olives grow you will find Land Rovers, especially the Spanish variant which was built for many years under license by Santana.

Long before production ended, Land Rovers had also become yuppie toys, often in gleaming black. Worse, the new owners of the brand decided that even if the vehicle no longer made commercial sense, the name and the outdoorsy mystique were worth preserving.

Imagine my irritation when I was confronted, some weeks ago, with this reality, the ultimate in urban sophistication on wheels, parked on a street in Nagoya, Japan (above). Notice the subtle pastel paint job which actually refers to the early production models, painted the same green as commercial aircraft before delivery. It was the only paint they could find in postwar Britain, the legend goes.

I suppose it was inevitable that Land Rovers would go the way of the Range Rover. It started off more than fifty years ago as a country squire's all terrain vehicle, designed to take the bumps. Although it was a definite step up from the Land Rover, it still had solid axles front and rear, and a manual gearbox. But over the years it evolved to its current status as the rich person's SUV-limousine of choice with price tags exceeding a quarter of a million euros. But the old ones are still around, farm vehicles once more, popular with sheep farmers and wine growers.

Object of enduring fantasy. Vintage Land Rover Defender with all the trimmings on a street in Turin, Italy, June 2024.

[aller-geez]

Get to know: Rexar Fang

29 // he/him // Straight // Pasanta (Catalan urban legend)

Full name: Rexar Fang

Nickname: Rex

Date Of Birth: June 22nd

Big Three: Cancer 🌞 Libra 🌝 Scorpio ↗️

(under construction!!!!)

Physical Appearance —

Age: 29

Eye Color: Red centers with a grey outer ring

Hair Color: Grey with red bangs

Weight: 162 pounds

Height: 6’4

Race: Pasanta (a Catalan Urban Legend that describes them as huge terrifying canines with flames for eyes that comes into peoples homes at night and sits on their chest while they’re asleep, causing breathing problems as well as horrible nightmares)

Distinguishing Marks or Characteristics: Rexar has deep red freckles, and a pale complexion. He has two bridge piercings, both cheekbones (Anti-eyebrow), as well as a piercing in the center of his bottom lip. He constantly has a thin stream of smoke coming from both nostrils that smells of burning maple wood, and it relaxes whoever smells it. Some of his relatives use this trait for malicious things, however Rexar has no interest in killing.

Personality —

Greatest Strength: His pyromancer abilities

Greatest Weakness: his love for his girlfriend, Kriia may sometimes cloud his judgement, causing him to act irrationally.

Soft Spot: Kriia

Mannerisms: Friendly, and outgoing. Golden Retriever personality. Gets along with Remington, and even has somewhat a rivalry going with him. Extremely loving and devoted boyfriend to Kriia, who is pretty much in charge in their relationship.

Miscellaneous Trivia —

Rexar’s family all masquerade as simple Pyromancers, as revealing their true species could end up in their demise. They are very well known and extremely wealthy, leaving Rexar very well off in their huge estate.

In his free time, he is a Trap Metal artist who produces his own music, using one of the guest houses on his property as a studio that he records in as well as occasionally jamming with friends. He goes to local shows and events where he sometimes will preform.

Rexar is also widely known as an experienced marijuana grower. He has converted some of the acreage in his family’s huge estate they had left for him into grow buildings and fields where he grows and cultivates medical marijuana that gets sold to clubs all over, and locally on the street by his girlfriend.

Sneeze Content —

ALLERGIES

Any smoke that isn’t produced by his body

How severe are they?

Not extremely severe but they do cause near instant fits. These can be dangerous if they are unexpected, as every time he sneezes it produces some kind of flame. Stifles only produce sparks/embers, but full bodied sneezes have almost a flamethrower effect.

Do they get sick often?

He does have a crappy immune system, although no where near Remington’s. He can even sometimes deflect Remi’s germs due to his extreme body temperature.

How bad is it usually?

Part of his must have items for whenever sick is a fire extinguisher, as fires tend to happen frequently when Rexar is sick. He tends to get seemly deathly ill for only a day or two, but his body naturally sweats it out. If he is sick and his nose is too stuffy for any smoke to exit, it will divert to his mouth, with a small fraction leaking from his eyes, making them constantly water.

Do they stifle?

If out in public or otherwise somewhere flames wouldn’t be appreciated, he’ll stifle, as to only have to worry about any embers that may fall afterward.

How loud are their sneezes?

Not very loud. He tends to naturally quiet them due to the huge flames that decimate everything in front of him.

What do they sneeze into?

His hands usually, as they are by nature, flame retardant, although sometimes an unusually large sneeze or a longer than usual fit can result in some burns.

How often do they sneeze?

Isn’t usually a frequent sneezer, as the smoke that constantly flows from his nostrils seems to almost numb his sinuses.

How many times do they sneeze in a fit?

3 is almost always guaranteed. If he stops at 2, you know there’s a 3rd coming sometime soon after.

Do they have build-ups or are they sudden?

Both. Sometimes he’ll have warning with a short buildup, other times he’s caught completely off guard with no chance to stifle them.

Do they sneeze in public?

Not if they can help it, although some are bound to slip sometimes. He will automatically try to stifle them, however.

Some examples of their sneezes?

etCHXIEW!!

heT’CHXOO!!

H'uSSHhhiew!

et’tCHOO!!

Backstory —

(coming soon..)

Reference Sheet —

[dustedmagazine]

Bonnie “Prince” Billy — Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You (Drag City)

Photo by Urban Wyatt

Will Oldham’s latest album as Bonnie “Prince” Billy has a deceptive simplicity. It is mostly framed in casual, campfire strumming and homespun stringed accents. Its lyrics scan in a predictable, folk-infused manner, following steady rhythms in waltz-time and four-four; they are delivered with wry, unflappable confidentiality, however surreal or fanciful they turn. Keeping Secrets feels like, itself, a bit of a hidden gem, murmured at you rather than shouted, a quiet one but a grower. You might imagine a family gathering, after dinner, playing for the joy of it, a vibe that Oldham captures in his understated single, “Crazy Blue Bells,” when he croons, “Someday when there’s time to sing, a few of us will gather, and raise a voice to anything because everything matters.”

This is not to say that there is anything austere about Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You. On the contrary, these songs bloom like an old-fashioned garden, outwardly modest but wafting heady perfume and color in your direction. “Bananas” is a gentle knock-out, as it buzzes with glorious, dizzying harmonies (Dane Waters sings back-up) and ends with an operatic high note, hushed but also astonishing. “Blood of the Wine” drapes lush folds of string sound over its minor key jitter, skittering jewel-like mandolin trills over Appalachian lament. Oldham benefits from some real skill in his backing band, which includes Sara Louise Callaway on violin, Kendall Carter on keys, Elisabeth Fuchsia on viola and violin, Dave Howard on mandolin, Drew Miller on saxophone and Dane Waters singing.

Of course, Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s casual music get together is better than yours will ever be, because of who he is, a master of whimsy and existential dread and a consummate constructor of metaphor. That’s on the verbal side; he is also quite good at melody. His songs curve and flower in pleasing ways that are not quite unexpected, but not a cliché either. They sound familiar when you hear them first and burn in slowly over multiple hearings.

On the verbal side, I’d give the nod to “Willow, Pine, and Oak,” a gently coruscating examination of human failure, cast in the form of an extended meditation on trees. Here are willows, sucking up all the water, and pines, showy but prickly and oozing resin, and oaks, the best by far, on the basis of strength and constancy. It’s the sort of extended metaphor that is simultaneously exact about its subject and its larger poetical applications, and instead of quoting the words, I urge you to just listen to it once or twice and here how well it does what it does. The melody of this song is lovely, too, with swooning lashes of string sound and the most subliminal kind of harmonies. It is sort of perfect despite the degree of difficulty. If I were a diving judge I’d give it a 10.

For sheer sonic beauty, however, the prize is harder to award, so let’s split it between haunting “Bananas” and more ebullient “Behold! Beheld!,” both quiet and unassuming but full of grace. It’s a gift to be simple. Keeping Secrets is that sort of present.

Jennifer Kelly

[bumblebeeappletree]

Sam Van Aken is the creator of the Tree of 40 Fruit and he is the guest on Episode 65 of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast with Susan Poizner of the fruit tree care training website orchardpeople.com. #fruittrees #grafting #organicgardening

Learn more about Sam Van Aken here:

https://www.samvanaken.com/

And if you are ready to learn more about fruit tree care, read on!

🌳 Learn specialist fruit tree pruning, pest and disease management, young tree care and more in one of Orchard People’s premium online courses: https://learn.orchardpeople.com/

😀 For a 10% discount on any course, use the discount code: VIDEO.

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🍐 For monthly fruit tree care content updates sign up for Orchard People's free monthly newsletter and to receive a free 11-page eBook "Growing Fruit Trees That Thrive" visit:

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Orchard People has made fruit tree care easier for thousands of home growers, gardeners and arborists in North America and beyond since 2013.

Visit our website for more in depth information on fruit tree care and maintenance!

https://orchardpeople.com.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

03:32 How did the Tree of 40 Fruit Project Start

04:26 The mix of blossom colors

05:25 Grafted branch placement

06:05 The first Tree of 40 Fruit Exhibition

07:56 Number of varieties grafted onto each tree

08:41 How interstock grafting works

09:30 Best rootstock for multi-graft stone fruit trees

10:13 Santa Rosa plum rootstock history

10:57 Types of fruit on a Tree of 40 Fruit

11:53 Myrobalan rootstock compatibility

12:22 Interstock as a "highway" between cultivars

14:16 New Tree of 40 Fruit projects

16:21 Multi graft apple trees

18:05 Downside of multi-graft trees

20:35 Examples of multi-graft trees

23:12 Grafting apple with stone fruit trees

24:39 Multi-graft tree maintenance

29:10 Commercials

34:00 Mid show topic reminder

36:27 Why grafting works

38:13 Relationship between rootstock diameter and tree health

40:45 Cultivar choices for Tree of 40 Fruits

41:50 Client requests for Tree of 40 Fruits

43:18 Growing multi-fruit trees indoors

44:07 Cooling hours necessary for fruit trees

45:00 Working with artists from communist regimes

47:48 Tree of 40 Fruits in Canada

48:34 Map of Trees of 40 Fruits

49:05 Sam's website address

49:43 Viruses in tree cuttings (scions)

51:52 Sam's family's view of his work

53:25 Sam's art for sale

54:10 Show contest

55:40 Show wrap up

[krishilearning]

What is Hydroponic Farming System

It is the skill of growing plants in the absence of soil. Hydroponic system depends on a water based nutrient rich solution.

Hydroponic is a method of growing plants in a controlled environment (eg-greenhouses) where nutrients are dissolved in water and delivered directly to the plant’s roots instead of relying on soil for support and nutrition. The hydroponic system utilizes various substrates such as perlite, coconut coir or even air to anchor the plants. The nutrition solution, which contains all the essential elements necessary for plant growth, is carefully monitored and adjusted to ensure optimal conditions.

Here are some key components of Hydroponic Farming -

Growing medium : Instead of soil, hydroponic system use various growing mediums such as rock wool, perlite, coconut coir or even air (Vertical Farming) to support plant roots

Nutrients Solution: A carefully balanced mixture of essential nutrients is dissolved in water and delivered directly to the plant roots. This ensures that plants receive the precise nutrients they need for optimal growth.

Environmental Control: Hydroponic systems enable growers to fine-tune environmental factors like temperature, humidity, light and CO2 levels to create ideal conditions for plant growth . This level of control minimizes the risk of pests and diseases.

Water Recycling: Hydroponics is highly water efficient. Unlike traditional farming which can be water-intensive, hydroponic systems recirculate water, reducing overall consumption. This makes it particularly attractive with water scarcity. 

Hydroponic Farming in India -

In India, hydroponic farming is gaining traction due to its potential to address various agricultural challenges, such as water scarcity, limited arable land availability, and the need for sustainable and high-yield crop production. It offers opportunities for urban and peri-urban farming, making it a viable solution for increasing food security and promoting sustainable agriculture practices in the country.

Applications in India:

Hydroponic farming has diverse applications in India:

Urban Agriculture: Hydroponics is well-suited for urban areas, where space is limited, and fresh, locally grown produce is in high demand. Rooftop gardens, vertical farms, and container farming are popular choices for urban agriculture in India.

Commercial Greenhouses: Many commercial growers in India have adopted hydroponic systems for the production of various crops, including tomatoes, cucumbers, and leafy greens.

Research and Education: Hydroponic systems are used in research institutions and educational settings to study plant growth, nutrient management, and environmental control, contributing to agricultural innovation in the country.

Food Security: Hydroponic farming can help improve food security by providing a reliable source of fresh produce, even in regions with challenging climate conditions.

Types of Hydroponic Systems:

There are various hydroponic systems designed to cater to different crops and environmental conditions:

Drip System: Nutrient solution is delivered directly to the base of each plant via a network of tubes and pumps. Excess solution is collected and recirculated, minimizing waste.

Nutrient Film Technique (NFT): In NFT systems, a shallow film of nutrient solution flows over an inclined trough, with plant roots placed in the film. Roots draw nutrients and oxygen from this thin film.

Aeroponics: This system mists the plant roots with a nutrient-rich solution, providing both nutrients and oxygen to the roots through a fine mist. This method encourages rapid growth.

Deep Water Culture (DWC): Plants are suspended in oxygenated nutrient solutions in DWC systems. Air stones or diffusers are used to oxygenate the water, ensuring the roots receive an adequate oxygen supply.

Wick System: The simplest of all hydroponic systems, wick systems rely on capillary action to draw the nutrient solution from a reservoir into the growing medium. This is a passive system that requires no electricity.

Ebb and Flow (Flood and Drain): This system cyclically floods plant containers with the nutrient solution, then allows it to drain, providing oxygen to the roots. This mimics natural irrigation patterns.

Vertical Farming: Vertical hydroponic systems utilize vertical space, allowing for the stacking of plant layers. This approach maximizes crop production in limited space, making it suitable for urban environments.

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