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September Gardening: Spinach gave Popeye super strength, but it also holds the promise of a different power for a group of scientists

Bulb-noshing Squirrels, Tulip Origins, Spinach Power



What did squirrels do before we started planting bulbs? Where Byzantine gardeners pestered by them when they turned to tulips as an ornamental? Did the Seljuq Turks who overran their empire and so notably cultivated them equally plagued? And while lilacs came from the same source via Vienna to Holland, a recently proposed theory has the tulips of Amsterdam coming instead from Andalusia in Spain, then part of the vast Ottoman Empire. “It is probable that a known 11th century agronomist from Toledo, ibn Bassal (‘the onion-vendor’s son’) played a protagonist role in the introduction and first cultivation of the tulip in Iberian territory,” researchers wrote in the magazine Economic Botany.
Modern gardeners go nuts on squirrels but there is no relief in sight. As Curtin University’s Dr. Bill Bateman and his colleagues have shown, the eastern grey squirrel has adapted just as well, if not better, to life in the city than their fellow squirrels have to the woods. Every fall, newly arrived Dutch bulbs offer a tempting cafeteria to these furry #. Is there any way to stop squirrels from digging up freshly planted bulbs? Many have bene tried with lesser or greater success. The solution that can be suggested with any confidence is to pin down three-quarter-inch chicken netting over bulb beds. It is removed at the first signs of growth the following spring.

Diversion No. 1

Black Thumb? He was so dumb he thought Rambling Rose was a country and western singer

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Spinach gave Popeye super strength, but it also holds the promise of a different power for a group of scientists: the ability to convert sunlight into a clean, efficient alternative fuel, explains the journal Nature. Physicists at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana are using spinach to study the proteins involved in photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert the sun’s energy into carbohydrates used to power cellular processes. Artificial photosynthesis could allow for the conversion of solar energy into renewable, environmentally friendly hydrogen-based fuels. But before you commence seeding extra spinach in veg plot, it is a complicated process, explains Purdue News, performed over two days in a specially built room that keeps the spinach samples cold and shields them from light. They then require exposure to a laser – not something the average gardener has handy.

Diversion No. 2

A European ruling could force gardeners with ride-on mowers to take out motor insurance against accidents on private land, according to media reports. It is said that in Hell the police are German, the cooks English, the politicians French and now, indubitably we known that the bungleaucrats are from Brussels.
Just as we are being urged to plant oaks and maples among other native trees to replace ash devastated by the alien Asian emerald ash borer, scientists report they too may be threatened by exploding populations of scale insect pests. Researchers from North Carolina State University reported in the journal Global Change Biology that centuries-old museum specimens hold clues to how global climate change will affect scale insects that can weaken and kill trees. Already increasingly warm urban conditions are favouring this pest and its incidence. This, the scientists suggest, will continue to expand over coming decades.

Diversion No. 3

A 1902 one-and-a-half-ton Ransome driveable lawn mower has been lovingly restored in all it’s massive masterpiece by Andrew Hall, 54, a gardener from Ilminister, Somerset, who took four years on the task. The forerunner of modern motor mowers in its heyday day cost £137 – the equivalent today of £15,000 – and was first purchased by Cadbury’s for use in their Bournville model village.
The Saskatoon berry gets a name change when it crosses the border into some U.S. states CBC News is amazed to learn. Actually, in Eastern Canada Amelanchier is also known as serviceberry or, as in Michigan and Minnesota juneberry, quite logically since that is the month it ripens to a tasty purple-black. Researchers at Cornell University found that Americans loved the taste of Saskatoon berries, but the name didn’t resonate as well as juneberry. To capitalize on their thirst for the small purple berries, some U.S. marketers are asking Canadian growers to change their labelling, revealed the national broadcaster. It is claimed that a couple of American visitors lost while driving through the prairie province encountered a native. Replying to their enquiry as to where they were, he told them, “Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.” “Drive on,’ the woman commanded her husband, “and find someone who speaks English.”

Diversion No. 4

Your houseplants could reveal the secrets you’d rather not have broadcast. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered a way to turn inanimate objects like crisp packets and pot plants into ‘visual microphones’, which can pick up conversations even in a sealed room, writes Sarah Knapton in The Daily Telegraph. The team at MIT found they could record noise by videotaping the miniscule vibrations that sound waves cerate in inanimate objects. By focusing on a pot plant or a crisp packet in a sealed room, they were able to record the tiniest movements and convert it back into the sound that created it. The research was presented at the computer graphics conference Siggraph in Vancouver, Canada in the second week of August.
Looking for something to celebrate? Various U.S. organizations have made it their business to proclaim September to be National Chicken Month, National Honey Month, National Mushroom Month, National Papaya Month, National Potato Month, National Rice Month, National Wild Rice Month and California Wine Month, to name but a few. Oh yes, and 3rd September is National Welsh Rarebit Day. If all this is enough to make you feel down in the mouth, in China, 20th September is known as Love Your Teeth Day.


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Wes Porter -- Bio and Archives

Wes Porter is a horticultural consultant and writer based in Toronto. Wes has over 40 years of experience in both temperate and tropical horticulture from three continents.


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