Free Republic

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

BOISE, Idaho – If you're looking for milepost 420, you won't find it in Idaho. Idaho transportation officials say the mile marker has been replaced with 419.9 signs to curb thieves eager to own a number associated with marijuana enthusiasts. Turns out, Idaho isn't alone in this problem. States like Washington and Colorado have also replaced 420 signs with 419.9 after consistently having to replace them after thefts by supposed sticky-fingered stoners. Adam Rush of the Idaho Transportation Department says officials have replaced the old sign along U.S. Highway 95 with "MILE 419.9," just south of Coeur d'Alene. ~snip~ The...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

Paintings can be a window to more than the outmoded dress and strange customs of the past — sometimes, they have modern-day science lessons to impart, too. That's the case with Giovanni Stanchi’s 17th century still life of fruit, as Phil Edwards points out for Vox — just look for the watermelons. Stanchi’s work, painted between 1645 and 1672 (and now up for auction at Christie’s), includes strange watermelons that look so foreign they could be from outer space in the bottom right corner. If watermelons looked like that in the Renaissance, then why do they look so different today?...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

The death of a Danish backpacker who drank a brew of tea made from poppies has prompted a warning from a Tasmanian coroner about the dangers. Jonas Havskov Pedersen died on his 26th birthday in February 2014 as a result of morphine intoxication after drinking poppy tea. He was on a working holiday at the time he climbed a poppy field fence somewhere between Jericho and Oatlands and took some poppy heads. Mr Pedersen began to vomit several hours after drinking the tea and his travelling companion said he looked "scared" and did not "look right". Both men eventually went...

The history of a 390-year old bonsai tree at the National Arboretum that survived the Hiroshima atomic blast is being honored this week. Thursday marks the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. The Japanese White Pine is in the Arboretum’s National Bonsai and Penjing Museum. The tree was donated in 1976 by bonsai master Masaru Yamaki as part of Japan’s Bicentennial gift to the American people.

During a severe drought in 2011, JennaDee Detro noticed that many trees on the family cattle ranch in Cat Spring, Texas, withered, but a certain evergreen holly appeared vigorous. It's called a yaupon."The best we can tell is that they enjoy suffering," Detro says with a laugh. "So this kind of extreme weather in Texas — and the extreme soil conditions — are perfect for the yaupon."Detro began researching yaupon — a tree abundant in its native range, from coastal North Carolina to East Texas — and discovered that the plant contains caffeine and has a remarkable history.A thousand years...

Arhopala japonica. Credit: Wikipedia A trio of researchers with Kobe University in Japan has found that lycaenid butterfly caterpillars of the Japanese oakblue variety, have dorsal nectary organ secretions that cause ants that eat the material to abandon their fellow ants to instead hang out with and defend the caterpillar against enemies. In their paper published in the journal Current Biology, Masaru Hojo, Naomi Pierce and Kazuki Tsuji describe their research into the relationship between the two creatures and why they believe the nature of that relationship needs to be reclassified. Scientists have studied Japanese oakblue butterflies before, noting that...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

This python, captured in Shark Valley, in Everglades National Park, may be the second-largest python ever caught in Florida. USGS ======================================================================================================================== A python researcher working in Everglades National Park has captured what may be the second-largest Burmese python in the state of Florida, CBS Miami reports. The snake was captured on July 9 in the park's Shark Valley and was documented at 18 feet 3 inches long. It's just 4 inches shy of the state's record 18 foot 7 inch python caught in Miami-Dade, CBS notes. Whether it's indeed the second-largest, officially, remains unclear, due to differences in record-keeping in...

For 17 years, Tom Carroll and his wife Hermine Ricketts tended an organic garden in the front yard of their home in Miami Shores Village, Florida. They grew everything from arugula to zinnias, mostly for home consumption. Then, one day in August 2013, disaster struck. It wasn't a hurricane, a flood, or a drought. It was the government. Armed with a newly amended zoning ordinance geared toward home aesthetics, Miami Shores ordered the couple to uproot their vegetable garden or pay $50 a day in fines. The village would tolerate fruit trees, flowers, or even plastic pink flamingoes in the...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

While we're taught that food that smells rotten should be thrown away, there are actually many foods that you eat whenever they've just started rotting. Of course, it's not pleasant to call these foods rotten, so we refer to them in different ways instead. Cheese Making cheese comes down to your ability to control rot. This is because milk is treated with bacteria and enzymes causing it to curdle. The curdles are then cut, formed and ripened into cheese. Stinkheads Another native Alaskan delicacy is what's known as stinkheads. These are King Salmon heads that have either been buried in...

It might be time to salt the earth. Researchers are claiming Giant African land snails are spreading from South Florida and are carrying way more dangerous parasites then previously thought. A recent U.S. Geological Survey published in Journal of Wildlife Diseases, says previous research on Giant African land snails grossly underestimated how many of them are carrying rat lungworm, a parasitic worm that burrows into humans and can cause meningitis. USGS biologist and lead researcher Deborah Iwanowicz discovered the parasite increase by taking multiple tissue samples from the snails—as opposed to previous studies led by lazy scientists who only took...

I am not a Southerner. My ancestors didn't live in the South. I think the Southerners are going about this all wrong. What they need to do is claim the old Confederate States as a reservation for the Confederate way of life. Minus the slavery. It's like the Indians have all their reservations. They even have a Federal Bureau, the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Indians kept slaves and they fought against the government of the United States when we tried to make them like us. Look at what they get. Free housing. Free medical care. Free food. Money. Hunt...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

The city has ordered a Kanata couple to move or tear down their front-lawn garden by July 30, but they have no plans to budge. "We're not moving it," said Shannon Lough, who bought the house with her partner Will Needham in September. Lough said Neeham plans to sit defiantly in his garden July 30. The couple was told there had been a complaint and was given the option of moving their garden back six-to-eight feet. According to Lough, that's not an option as the plants wouldn't get the sunlight needed and the current garden's spot will remain as a...