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Spring is here, but still too cool here in N.W. Jersey too start my garden, and way too muddy with all of the rain. Need to dry out before I can work with it. Got a source for manure to turn in and a good sunny spot. Last year I planted some "Yellow Teardrop Tomatoes" never had them before and they were awesome! So sweet and full of flavor. Going to do more this year, 3 or 4 times as much, my friends keep asking me if I'm going to have them again.

The MONTHLY Gardening Thread is a 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. If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located. This thread is a non-political respite. 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...

Short video on why you should not eat the Chinese garlic..................

Mar 18, 2024 As A Man Thinketh PODCAST - Making Sense of Agriculture and Society 0:08 Oregon enforces laws to shut down small farms in the name of water conservation, affecting many farmers. 4:26 Legal battle in Oregon impacting small farmers and agricultural practices. 8:50 Oregon implements restrictive water regulations impacting small farms, potentially labeling them as confined animal feeding operations. 12:51 Government crackdown on small farms in Oregon impacting market gardeners and farmers. 16:51 Government regulations impacting small farms and animal farmers despite sustainable practices

A railcar carrying 60,000 pounds of Dyno Nobel ammonia nitrate, a chemical fertilizer that also can be used to make explosives, left Cheyenne full and arrived two weeks later in California empty. (Jimmy Orr, Cowboy State Daily) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Nearly a year after 30 tons of ammonium nitrate went missing on a train ride from Cheyenne to an old salt mining town in California, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is still investigating where and how the explosive fertilizer vanished. “The FRA investigation is still being finalized,” a spokesman with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s FRA told Cowboy State Daily in an...

Research in mice shows limited intakes of one particular essential amino acid can slow the impacts of aging and even lengthen their lifespan. Scientists are now wondering if these findings could help people improve their longevity and quality of life. Isoleucine is one of three branched-chain amino acids we use to build proteins in our bodies. It is essential for our survival, but since our cells can't produce it from scratch, we have to get it from sources like eggs, dairy, soy protein and meats. But there can always be too much of a good thing. Earlier research using data...

…But I’m fascinated by tradwife life, why it appeals and what it’s selling.It’s less the campy, colour-saturated, submissive 50s-housewife cosplay (if you aren’t familiar, check out @esteecwilliams and prepare to hear that “God designed two genders for different purposes”). That feels like fantasy or fetish, designed, I suspect, to appeal mainly to men. (Some of the women who yearn to surrender to a male provider could be, as one astute TikToker put it, “mistaking wanting to be a trad wife with wanting universal basic income.”)But the other kind – families forging a wholesome, homesteading existence – taps into a longing...

A plan to locate a massive field of silos that suck carbon dioxide out of the air is planned somewhere in central Wyoming, and $11 million has been raised so far. An illustration of what an "orchard" of silos to pull carbon dioxide out of the air and sequester it underground in central Wyoming could look like. (Spiritus Technologies) A venture capitalist with a pedigree in the startup world and a scientist who has a background in materials research on sensitive military projects have teamed up to figure out a new way of sucking carbon dioxide out of the air...

VIDEO AT LINK........... March 19 (UPI) -- Beekeepers were summoned to a Mississippi highway to round up thousands of bees when the 18-wheeler hauling their hives overturned. The Adams County Emergency Management Agency said the truck overturned Sunday night on Highway 61, in front of Merit Health in Natchez. Beekeepers from Adee Honey Farms in Woodville were summoned to the scene to help round up the bees that swarmed around the overturned truck. Adams County EMA Director Brad Bradford said the scene was not cleared until 7 a.m. Monday. "This was my first bee catastrophe," he told WLBT-TV. He said...

Tangerine Beauty Crossvine is the perfect flowering native vine for covering a trellis, arbor, pergola, or fence. It's beautiful, easy to grow, and a favorite of pollinators... - WATCH THE VIDEO -

In the ongoing search for sustainable and environmentally friendly alternatives to meat and other animal proteins, researchers have settled on a new product that only solidifies our descent into a dystopian science fiction story. Published in Nature Communications, this could be humanity’s new favorite food; genetically engineered mold. The study, led by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, demonstrates how the edible fungus, Aspergillus oryzae, can be bioengineered to enhance its nutritional value and sensory appeal as a meat substitute. By modifying the fungus’s genome using cutting-edge synthetic biology tools, the researchers were able to elevate the production of key...

Australia-based Costa Berries broke a Guinness World Record by growing a blueberry that weighed .72 ounce. (Photo courtesy of Costa Berries) March 14 (UPI) -- An Australian berry company broke a Guinness World Record by growing a Ping-Pong-sized berry that weighs .72 ounce. A Guinness adjudicator examined the blueberry grown by Costa Berries in Corindi, New South Wales, and confirmed it was the world's heaviest blueberry. Brad Hocking, head of the team that grew the berry, said it was picked in November last year and kept frozen while the company communicated with Guinness World Records. The blueberry is the new...

Is the inside surface of clear copper tubing, such as used in refrigeration systems, anodized or have some other finish applied to it? It appears to be impossible to solder to, even using acid flux, unless the surface is thoroughly sanded (or use steel wool or a wire brush). The inside surface "as is" looks clean, with no darkening or oxidation, but is smooth, lacking the tiny scratches of sanding with high grit sandpaper, or using steel wool on it.

Some 39% of the United States is farmland. But, according to the Department of Agriculture’s recently published farmer census, there are fewer farms, and the ones that are surviving are bigger than before. Another statistic that’s worth pointing out: More than 150,000 farms and ranches use renewable energy, up 15% since the last census in 2017. Incorporating solar panels onto open fields or buildings was the most popular method. That’s progress. But the demographics reported in the census are less of a cause for celebration. People of color and women remain underrepresented. Despite diversity efforts in recent years, less than...

The MONTHLY Gardening Thread is a 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. If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located. This thread is a non-political respite. 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...

Frog mating can be a competitive and sometimes deadly affair as many males compete for females – but females have some tricks to avoid unwanted attention Male frogs commonly coerce female frogs into mating, but some females have come up with ways to avoid harassment – including playing dead. Many frog species, including the European common frog (Rana temporaria), only have a short window of a few weeks each year to mate. This means that lots of males simultaneously compete for the attention of females, sometimes leading to deadly clashes as individuals are submerged under a competing group of males....

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. If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located. This thread is a non-political respite. 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...

Understanding cloud patterns in our changing climate is essential to making accurate predictions about their impact on society and nature. Scientists at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) and the Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology published a study in the journal Science Advances that uses a high-resolution global climate model to understand how the clustering of clouds and storms impacts rainfall extremes in the tropics. They show that with rising temperatures, the severity of extreme precipitation events increases. Extreme rainfall is one of the most damaging natural disasters costing human lives and causing billions in damage. Their frequency has been...

* Graphene is a material that consists of a single layer of carbon atoms that are bonded together in a repeating pattern of hexagons * According to scientists, it has “miraculous” properties in terms of strength, elasticity, thermal and electrical conductivity * The testing of graphene-derived materials for toxicity has been very limited, and even the limited testing has shown a wide range of potential harms — yet graphene materials are being broadly introduced into different industries and aspects of our lives, from biosensors to conductive surfaces to batteries and face masks * Due to their unique properties, graphene materials...

The dual explosion of cicadas, which hasn't been seen for centuries, will hit much of the state, but in one portion, an overlap of the two major broods is possible Illinois will see a unique situation when two massive broods of cicadas emerge across the U.S. this year, but where will the biggest emergence be seen? The rare occurrence, which could bring billions of cicadas to the surface, last happened 221 years ago.