On 10/03/2015 11:15 AM, songbird wrote:
what do you normally grow? where abouts are you?

LOL. Love the snippage.

Once upon a time on usenet Frank" "frank wrote:
On 3/6/2015 3:45 PM, Hypatia Nachshon wrote:
All of us home gardeners are affected, to one degree or another &
will be into the future. (Not to mention major food suppliers, even in
"developed" countries.) The deniers (including powerful committee
chairmen in the US
Congress) are still out there serving their Corporate Masters, but
let us hope that their in$anity will become less influential as
facts develop. An entertaining article about the exposure of Willie
Soon, one of
the most corrupt "scientist" deniers can be found at:
http://www.onearth.org/earthwire/willie-soon-reader

OR

http://www.onearth.org/earthwire

You will need to scroll way down -- past some very useful articles
-- to: "All your Willie Soon schadenfreude in one handy article".

HB

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people
some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time." Abraham
Lincoln




HB


Sara,
Who do you think funds all the scientists supporting global warming?

You don't need to support a fact. It's only the deniers with vested
interests who need to plow money into 'research'.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a
cozy little classification in the DSM."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)

Once upon a time on usenet Dan Espen wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" writes:

Stronzo Bestiale wrote:
On 3/8/2015 5:50 PM, Fran Farmer wrote:
On 9/03/2015 8:19 AM, snotbottom wrote:
It's been nice to see some life in the group again. Let's not
kill it by getting political. I'd rather just read about the
gardening advice and experiences from others and take the
divisive stuff somewhere else.

Climate Change has an impact on those of us who do bother to garden
and who also try to have productive gardens. That makes climate
change on topic here. Climate change only becomes a divisive issue
here when those who can't read for comprehension try to deny that
it is a reality.

He's right. You and Sara are getting political.

And here was I thinking it was a matter of science. Silly me.

Surely you've noticed that one political party here in the USA
is having none of it.

What has the stance of a political party in the US got to do with science
that affects the whole world? (It's bigger than the US you know....)
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a
cozy little classification in the DSM."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)

Here in NJ, the snow on the ground is still over a foot deep.
But my orchid has been blooming non-stop since around XMAS.
What a beautiful plant.

The XMAS cactus have been going since before Thanksgiving.

Once upon a time on usenet Brooklyn1 wrote:
Stronzo Bestiale wrote:
Fran Farmer wrote:
Stronzo Bestiale wrote:
Fran Farmer wrote:
snotbottom wrote:
It's been nice to see some life in the group again. Let's not
kill it by getting political. I'd rather just read about the
gardening advice and experiences from others and take the
divisive stuff somewhere else.

Climate Change has an impact on those of us who do bother to
garden and who also try to have productive gardens. That makes
climate change on topic here. Climate change only becomes a
divisive issue here when those who can't read for comprehension
try to deny that it is a reality.

He's right. You and Sara are getting political.

It's science.

Oh, you a scientist?

Climate has been changing for a Billion years, so imperceptively
slowly that it has zero effect on a lifetime of gardening, not even
100 life times of gardening.

Yet recently it's been changing at an alarmingly accelerated rate. I've
certainly noticed it in my 50 something years.

All anyone who gardens need do regarding
climate change is to check their daily weather report and even that is
wrong at least 50% of the time. The people here who insist on arguing
climate change are those pinheads who do not garden, not a one of
those shit stirrers has ever shown pictures of their garden... it's
all their fantasy... the closest they come to gardening is shopping
Walmart's produce.

Insults huh? I guess that's the measure of you then.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a
cozy little classification in the DSM."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)

Once upon a time on usenet T wrote:
On 03/09/2015 12:50 PM, Drew Lawson wrote:
In article
T writes:

Are your tomato beds well drained? Tomatoes love to be
drenched (they are from the Amazon), but do not like
their roots in standing/stagnant water.

Tomatoes originated in the Andes, not the Amazon.
Aside from the initial letter, the two have little in common.

Hi Drew,

Tomatoes were originally cultivated by the Incas which
inhabited the Andes. But they came from the Amazon rain
forest. Peru, which contains both the Andes and Incas,
also contains part of the Amazon rain forest. I think
you are mixing the origin of the plant (the rain forest)
with the origin of who originally cultivated it (the
Incas and Aztecs), but I could be wrong.

Amazon Facts:
http://rfadventures.com/amazon_facts.htm

"At least 80% of the developed world's diet originated
in the tropical rainforest. Its bountiful gifts to the
world include fruits like avocados, coconuts, figs,
oranges, lemons, grapefruit, bananas, guavas, pineapples,
mangos and *tomatoes*; vegetables including corn, potatoes,
rice, winter squash and yams; spices like black pepper,
cayenne, chocolate, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, sugar cane,
turmeric, coffee and vanilla and nuts including Brazil
nuts and cashews. At least 3000 fruits are found in
the rainforests; of these only 200 are now in use in
the Western World. The Indians of the rainforest use
over 2,000.

Wow. A lot of stuff came from the Amazon!

A quick look at a typical fragile tomato plant tells
you it did not originate in the freezing cold, high
altitude deserts of the Andes.

The Andes start at not much more than sea level and go up from there. Saying
something is cultivated 'on the Andes' doesn't mean the peaks.

Now back to my point. These plants come from the Amazon
rain forest. They are accustomed and evolved to expect
a daily drenching from thunderstorms. So, I was trying to
find out if Higgs was recreating these ideal conditions:
Humid, drenched and drained. (Not high altitude, freezing
nights, and very low moisture.)

The ancestors of edible tomatoes may well have "origiated" in the Amazon
basin but the ones that I grow would succumb to blight or mould very quickly
if subjected to the wet and humidity of a rain forest. They've been
selectively bred to grow places other than where they may have originated.
The tomatoes bought to Europe and then to the US weren't from the Amazon
basin - they were cultivars obtained from the natives of South America who
had bred them for generations to grow elsewhere.

You want to grow rainforest 'tomatoes'? I think you'll find they're not much
different to any other Nightshade species other than perhaps having larger,
redder fruits.

This is actually information I am relaying from a local
CSA greenhouse. Their incredible organic tomatoes
were in wet, humid, drained green houses. And EVERY
tomato was incredible: both heirlooms and hybrids
alike.

How do they control or prevent blight / fungus / rot?

Do you have tips for her? I hate it that she can't get a
decent tomato. As far as my experience goes, it is all
about the soil.

Going by the above you know almost everything there is to know about them.
You can't help?
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a
cozy little classification in the DSM."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)

Fran Farmer wrote:
songbird wrote:

what do you normally grow? where abouts are you?

LOL. Love the snippage.

i hate having to reformat google groups posts...




songbird

"~misfit~" writes:

Once upon a time on usenet Dan Espen wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" writes:

Stronzo Bestiale wrote:
On 3/8/2015 5:50 PM, Fran Farmer wrote:
On 9/03/2015 8:19 AM, snotbottom wrote:
It's been nice to see some life in the group again. Let's not
kill it by getting political. I'd rather just read about the
gardening advice and experiences from others and take the
divisive stuff somewhere else.

Climate Change has an impact on those of us who do bother to garden
and who also try to have productive gardens. That makes climate
change on topic here. Climate change only becomes a divisive issue
here when those who can't read for comprehension try to deny that
it is a reality.

He's right. You and Sara are getting political.

And here was I thinking it was a matter of science. Silly me.

Surely you've noticed that one political party here in the USA
is having none of it.

What has the stance of a political party in the US got to do with science
that affects the whole world? (It's bigger than the US you know....)

Huh?

Not sure what you are getting at.

My comments are clearly limited to the USA.

Now we're having a climate science vs. politics scandal break out in Florida.
The fun never ends.

--
Dan Espen

On 03/10/2015 05:44 PM, ~misfit~ wrote:
This is actually information I am relaying from a local
CSA greenhouse. Their incredible organic tomatoes
were in wet, humid, drained green houses. And EVERY
tomato was incredible: both heirlooms and hybrids
alike.
How do they control or prevent blight / fungus / rot?

Do you have tips for her? I hate it that she can't get a
decent tomato. As far as my experience goes, it is all
about the soil.

Going by the above you know almost everything there is to know about them.
You can't help?

Hi Misfit,

I am relaying what I saw and was told at a successful
green house.

Here is good link for you:

Growing Hydroponic Gardening Tomatoes
http://www.mightygrowhydro.com/growi...opinically.htm

"For tomatoes, an ideal humidity level in the greenhouse
needs to be between 65 and 70 percent. Temperatures must
not vary too much, although tomatoes flourish when the
night time temperature is ten degrees below that of the
daytime Ideally, temperatures really should be seventy-three
degrees during the day and sixty-three during the night.

This is what I observed at the successful greenhouse.

Maybe somewhere in the link there will be something for you
about the "blight / fungus / rot" problem you were complaining about.

I am hope at some point Songbird will chime in. He has about
100 times my knowledge. Maybe he knows something about
your "blight / fungus / rot" problem too.

-T

T wrote:
....
I am hope at some point Songbird will chime in. He has about
100 times my knowledge. Maybe he knows something about
your "blight / fungus / rot" problem too.

nope, i'm not a guru when it comes to tomatoes
and unfortunately i get overruled now when i want
to try different varieties. others here have a lot
more experience.

i've done the usual routine types of attempts to
limit damage or remove plants that look to be badly
infected before they can spread to other plants.

spacing plants, trimming lower leaves to prevent
diseases by increasing air flow and sunlight, mulching
to prevent splashing of soil onto the plants, etc.

sometimes these things help and other times they
don't. last year it didn't matter what i did the
disease came in with the plants when they were
planted (my best guess, because of how it affected
all the plants no matter where they were planted in
different types of soils, some were mulched others
weren't, etc.).

this year i plan to plant two cherry tomato plants
and that's about it for tomatoes. we have enough to
get by in the pantry and that will let me rotate
plant other veggies. i can always use more space for
beans.


sonbird

On 11/03/2015 1:14 PM, Dan Espen wrote:

Now we're having a climate science vs. politics scandal break out in Florida.
The fun never ends.

Yup. I've just been reading about North Carolina House Bill 819.
Astounding. King Canute would be proud.

On 03/10/2015 10:43 PM, songbird wrote:
T wrote:
...
I am hope at some point Songbird will chime in. He has about
100 times my knowledge. Maybe he knows something about
your "blight / fungus / rot" problem too.

nope, i'm not a guru when it comes to tomatoes
and unfortunately i get overruled now when i want
to try different varieties. others here have a lot
more experience.

i've done the usual routine types of attempts to
limit damage or remove plants that look to be badly
infected before they can spread to other plants.

spacing plants, trimming lower leaves to prevent
diseases by increasing air flow and sunlight, mulching
to prevent splashing of soil onto the plants, etc.

sometimes these things help and other times they
don't. last year it didn't matter what i did the
disease came in with the plants when they were
planted (my best guess, because of how it affected
all the plants no matter where they were planted in
different types of soils, some were mulched others
weren't, etc.).

this year i plan to plant two cherry tomato plants
and that's about it for tomatoes. we have enough to
get by in the pantry and that will let me rotate
plant other veggies. i can always use more space for
beans.


sonbird


Hi Songbird,

But you are the soil expert!

I make up with lack of yield with quantity of plants.

Wife and I both LOVE cherry tomatoes and eat them like candy!

Two years ago, some invisible mite got a lot of folks,
but they missed me. :-P (Usually it is the other way
around.)

I still have to get a decent yield off a regular
tomato plant. Got 5 box car willies last season.
Got a nice yield of cherries though for once.
(Boy picking cherry tomatoes sure gives you an
appreciation of those that do it for a living!
The trick is to eat one out of every ten you pick.
Keeps you encouraged.)

This season, I think I am going to double my compost.
And stock up on chicken poop fertilizer.

The year the greenhouse used chicken poop, their tomatoes
made your eyes roll in your head. The year they switched
to fish poop from ponds, they were on the bitter side.

-T

Once upon a time on usenet T wrote:
On 03/10/2015 05:44 PM, ~misfit~ wrote:
This is actually information I am relaying from a local
CSA greenhouse. Their incredible organic tomatoes
were in wet, humid, drained green houses. And EVERY
tomato was incredible: both heirlooms and hybrids
alike.
How do they control or prevent blight / fungus / rot?

Do you have tips for her? I hate it that she can't get a
decent tomato. As far as my experience goes, it is all
about the soil.

Going by the above you know almost everything there is to know about
them. You can't help?

Hi Misfit,

I am relaying what I saw and was told at a successful
green house.

Here is good link for you:

Growing Hydroponic Gardening Tomatoes
http://www.mightygrowhydro.com/growi...opinically.htm

"For tomatoes, an ideal humidity level in the greenhouse
needs to be between 65 and 70 percent. Temperatures must
not vary too much, although tomatoes flourish when the
night time temperature is ten degrees below that of the
daytime Ideally, temperatures really should be seventy-three
degrees during the day and sixty-three during the night.

This is what I observed at the successful greenhouse.

Oh, you're talking about a hydroponic system. I have done some hydroponic /
aeroponic growing in the past with humidity and temperature control and it's
a whole different ball game to organic soil growing. They have very little
in common.

In soil the humidity is much higher closer to the ground whereas in a
hydroponic greenhouse it's fairly uniform top to bottom. It really is apples
and oranges. A hydroponic greenhouse is a semi-closed system where you have
control over light levels, temperature and humidity. Consequently you can
walk that fine line between perfect and too high humidity knowing that it's
not going to go too high, and that it's uniform.

Maybe somewhere in the link there will be something for you
about the "blight / fungus / rot" problem you were complaining about.

I am hope at some point Songbird will chime in. He has about
100 times my knowledge. Maybe he knows something about
your "blight / fungus / rot" problem too.

The biggest problem this year for me was that 'spring' was mostly very wet
and humid. We had maybe two weeks of 'yay it's spring' weather then six
weeks of wet humid and colder than usual. I had to pull my first planting of
tomatoes out as they just wet black and rotted (at 1.5m tall no less). So
you can perhaps see why I don't agree that tomatoes like it very humid. (Ask
anyone who grows tomatoes in the UK about what it's like trying to grow them
in a climate that's too wet for them. They have to rotate the areas they
grow them in religiously or they get bad blight early on in the season from
the spores of last autumn.)

Then, a few days before Xmas, when I'd normally be getting into the main
harvest the weather dried up - too much! It got very hot and dry.
Consequently I've only just started getting a decent number or ripe tomatoes
now and the days are getting much shorter already and the nights colder.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a
cozy little classification in the DSM."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)

Once upon a time on usenet Dan Espen wrote:
"~misfit~" writes:

Once upon a time on usenet Dan Espen wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" writes:

Stronzo Bestiale wrote:
On 3/8/2015 5:50 PM, Fran Farmer wrote:
On 9/03/2015 8:19 AM, snotbottom wrote:
It's been nice to see some life in the group again. Let's not
kill it by getting political. I'd rather just read about the
gardening advice and experiences from others and take the
divisive stuff somewhere else.

Climate Change has an impact on those of us who do bother to
garden and who also try to have productive gardens. That makes
climate change on topic here. Climate change only becomes a
divisive issue here when those who can't read for comprehension
try to deny that it is a reality.

He's right. You and Sara are getting political.

And here was I thinking it was a matter of science. Silly me.

Surely you've noticed that one political party here in the USA
is having none of it.

What has the stance of a political party in the US got to do with
science that affects the whole world? (It's bigger than the US you
know....)

Huh?

Not sure what you are getting at.

My comments are clearly limited to the USA.

Yes but not everybody else's were. This is an international group and so to
say in this group that climate change is a political matter is frankly
wrong.

Now we're having a climate science vs. politics scandal break out in
Florida. The fun never ends.

Ok but that doesn't mean a discussion on climate change in a global group
has anything to do with politics.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a
cozy little classification in the DSM."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)

Fran Farmer wrote:
....
:-)) And less snow for water for the populace is only one of the signs
you've written about......

I keep wondering if it will take famine
conditions in the first world before some people finally manage to join
the dots.

i suspect there will be food riots and troubles in
poorer countries again long before you see problems
in the first world countries. the first world has
the resources to ship foods around. only when we
get some rather unlikely multiple year droughts in
several of the large grain growing regions in
combination with wars which disrupt shipping would
you see a large famine in the first world.

at the moment i think we're on the edge and could
be mostly ok, but it means making some changes.
improving ground and surface water regulations,
putting the land back into the hands of people
instead of corporations, having more diversity and
protection for wild spaces, funding restoration
and replanting projects, increasing wetlands to
help with flooding and droughts, improving irrigation
and monitoring of ground water pumping.

boycotting products from companies or people
who poison is one immediate thing that i can do
and that shifts at least some production towards
more sustainable methods. growing my own food
using sustainable methods is another. at least
then i know some wild creatures have a home that
isn't being poisoned.


songbird

On 12/03/2015 4:12 AM, songbird wrote:
Fran Farmer wrote:
...
:-)) And less snow for water for the populace is only one of the signs
you've written about......

I keep wondering if it will take famine
conditions in the first world before some people finally manage to join
the dots.

i suspect there will be food riots and troubles in
poorer countries again long before you see problems
in the first world countries.

Yup.

the first world has
the resources to ship foods around.

Yup, and does do that now regardless.

only when we
get some rather unlikely multiple year droughts in
several of the large grain growing regions in
combination with wars which disrupt shipping would
you see a large famine in the first world.

Well Oz has certainly had the multiple year droughts in grain areas and
I have a vague memory that Russia had too. Can't quite see the shipping
disruption on the horizon.

at the moment i think we're on the edge and could
be mostly ok, but it means making some changes.
improving ground and surface water regulations,
putting the land back into the hands of people
instead of corporations, having more diversity and
protection for wild spaces, funding restoration
and replanting projects, increasing wetlands to
help with flooding and droughts, improving irrigation
and monitoring of ground water pumping.

:-)) In short, I think you have joined me in my 'when pigs fly' view of
the possibility of the dots being joined?

boycotting products from companies or people
who poison is one immediate thing that i can do
and that shifts at least some production towards
more sustainable methods. growing my own food
using sustainable methods is another. at least
then i know some wild creatures have a home that
isn't being poisoned.

We have a wonderful garden for other creatures. Some I could do without
liek the blasted rabbits and the snakes but the others are all well
worth observing. For example; we spend a lot of time watching the
antics of birds and the last time I bothered to aks Himself (who is very
keen on birds) he had recorded seeing between 60 and 70 different birds
types in our garden. We make sure we do our pruning to avoid nesting
times and we keep many plants that are supposedly weeds because they
give food or shelter for wildlife. We do fight about Queen Anne's Lace
though. He always pulls it out when he notices it because he thinks it
will go wild in his paddocks. I have finally mananged to stop him
ripping out my verbasums now as I finally corrected his
misidentification of them.