Current News You Can Use

You can keep food and drinks cool on a camping trip or in an emergency without ice or a refrigerator, using the powerful cooling ability of water, which evaporates at 41 degrees, and therefore can cool stuff to 41 degrees, regardless of air temperature, as long as relative humidity is not 100%. Take a jug of water.  Put it in a shallow pan.  Cover it with a towel, and let the ends of the towel lie in the pan.  Pour water over the towel and fill the pan.  The water evaporates from the towel, which wicks more water from the pan, cooling the towel and the mass of water beneath it eventually to 41 degrees F, the point below which water stops evaporating.   Theoretically, one could cool a box of food by setting it in a bigger box and covering it with a wet towel that lies in water in the larger box.  I cool and keep grapes and melon slices fresh, moist and free of flies by covering their bowl with a wet towel set in a shallow pan of water. One might ...

          A great eating green that holds up well through the winter is worth paying attention to.  One that also can be used to treat eye infections is even better. Chickweed under the locust trees Chickweed is already blooming and shedding seed down by the Rogue River along the bike/walking trail at the end of Greenwood Avenue.  It started growing this year months earlier than usual, sprouting with cold September rains, rather than waiting for November like recent years, or January as usual.  The early December snow and deep freeze, down to 8 degrees, didn’t damage the plants, perhaps because they were covered with snow, and they took off blooming and making seed before the end of the month.  It is probably more mature by the river than most places, temperatures being more moderate there.  Chickweed closeup I know it is seeding because I am making  chickweed tea  to treat  conjunctivitis,  A...

       This yard was fine bark mulched; it is now covered with blue star creeper, white thyme; and sweet woodruff; the brown is fresh locust leaves from the tree above.  They cover it through the winter.          Properties from tiny yards to large parks have trees for shade and beauty.   They produce leaves that mostly drop in the fall, and flowers, fruit and seeds that drop any time of year, depending on the plant.   These properties also may have lawns, shrub borders, paths, pavements, or even unplanted waste areas.           Leaves and other tree debris must be removed from lawns, lest they kill the grass, though some can be mulched into the lawn without harming it, with the grass clippings.   They have to be removed from buildings, lest they rot roofs and clog gutters.   They have to be removed from pavements, lest they be a s...

Leaves are the cheapest and most effective mulch for weed control, when enough of them are used.   This natural gardener has been using them professionally on clients’ yards for 13 years.   All other mulches are seed beds by comparison.   Leaves feed the soil and thus the plants; soften it for easy weeding; and can stop sprouting of most small seeds, just by keeping the sun off them.   As long as leaves stick around, they stop germination of seeds that land on top of them, because the top few layers dry out quickly and don’t allow seeds on top to sprout. One can smother nearly any annual weed, and many small perennials, with enough leaves.   But to be efficient with a client’s money, a professional gardener must figure out the least that it takes to do the job effectively when one has to bring them in from other places. There is no need to shred leaves to use them for mulch in most situations.   Whole leaves are better for blocking weeds, but leave...

Jo Gro, our city’s composting operation, will soon be under the management of Republic Waste Services, minus the sewage bio solids that it was originally started to make use of.   Those will be hauled by Republic to Dry Creek Landfill to make methane for electricity generation.   The city will be running Jo Gro long enough to decompose the rest of their bio solids, and then lease the operation to Republic, who will run it as a regular composting service. Leaf bags waiting for pickup One might expect “free” leaf pickup to go away, since it was instituted to provide material for Jo Gro to help decompose those bio solids.   But leaves will be picked up by Republic and Southern Oregon Sanitation from the curb for free as part of their franchise agreements with the City, as they always have.   The only difference is that they will be free to take them to any DEQ-approved composter, to seek the best price for dumping.   Such “free” leaf hauling...