Stirrings

It is, but just barely so; close to the equator.

True enough but it depends on ones distance from the equator. As I mentioned, I'm pretty far southward in NA and that whole ecliptic thingy is pretty high in the sky.

Same here; it's just that a number of events coincide this year.

Chard is one of a few plants for which I just can't find the combination. Seeds always germinate well but the plants simply don't thrive. I suspect a nutrient imbalance but haven't really made a serious effort to investigate. This region has chronically high pH, which locks up iron (for example), so the solution may be as simple as incorporating a slow-release acidifier.

Yes, there is _that_. I doubt the condition is unique to AU.... Unfortunately, the elements of USA "culture" that get exported are the commercial LCD elements. Whom do _we_ blame for the loss of "our" language?

I have no direct knowledge of or experience with either. Are they different beasts entirely or is it a distinction without a difference?

It almost never gets that hot in my locale -- the 41-year high is

105; low 90s is more typical of summertime temps. However, that can be stifling because the humidity is extreme.
Reply to
Derald
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Farm1 wrote: ...

every one of the rhubarb chunks i planted last fall made it through transplanting this past winter. i know the experts say to divide it in the spring, but i've had 100% success dividing in the fall and am often too busy in the spring.

holy crap! that's a lot of roses... :)

songbird

Reply to
songbird

...

cheers!

what are you planning on planting this season?

songbird

Reply to
songbird

Well I know tht silver beet (chard) is supposed to be high in iron so perhaps there is something is what your thopughts about your acid levels.

Yep. A bit liek the universal view of Aussies as being sports loving - apparently more people visit museums and art galleries here regularly in Oz than ever attend a football match.

Whom do _we_ blame for the loss of "our"

Can't hep you there. I do remember once reading somethign written by a US baseball player of the 1920s and he wrote the most superb Eglish prose.

ralian who keeps chooks now says they keep 'chickens' and

Well what you'd call 'chicks' is what I'd call a 'chicken and what you'd call an adult 'chicken' is what I'd call a 'chook'.

of high 90s etc. A ton is

I hate humidity. I live inland so we get a dry heat and that is somewhat bearable when it's over the ton.

Reply to
Farm1

Yeh! Applause!

i

One gardening guru here in Oz says that the right time to do certain tasks is when you remember to do it. I like that because it suits my disorganised way of going about gardening

Well it doesnt actually look like we have a lot of roses givent hat they are scattered around. I know we have more than that but I stopped counting at (IIRC) 112.

Reply to
Farm1

Ummmmm. Dunno yet. I haven't looked in my seed tins or at Green Harvest to see what thye've got in their online dogalogue.

And of course there are still lots of things hanging on in the veg garden and just waiting for a bit more warmth to start a spurt. I've got baby lettuces and mizuna sulking away as are the onions and there is not even a sign yet of the eschallots I planted.

Reply to
Farm1

I'm contemplating incorporating finely-chopped pine straw into a couple of beds to see whether I detect any "improvement", real or imagined. Pine bark, also, is easy to obtain but its texture is far too coarse for my purposes; would have to shred it further. My query to this NG about the efficacy of pine bark as acidifier produced no meaningful responses. I do know that blueberry farmers in this area grow their crops above grade in pine bark.

All that I "know" about Australia is gleaned from the occasional "public" (read: "state") television program and from watching the first four seasons of "Masterchef", occasionally referencing maps and climate data for the towns mentioned. I was distracted, though, by watching the dandy (the food writer guy) blossom as his income increased, LOL! Even in _my_ day, US public (state funded is "public" in USA) education was grossly inadequate in geography and comparative cultures. As I understand it, those are totally absent from today's curricula.

Shoot, he may have been better educated, even though a higher percentage of today's professional athletes are "college graduates".

Well, "chicks" is a slang appellation (rapidly falling into disuse) for young women, although, townies think it still means "young chicken" :-) Hatchlings and the very young are "biddies"; adolescents are "pullets", a corruption of the French; and adults are "chickens". Of course, among the cognescenti, "chickens" is further subdivided.

+1. As I type this, I'm on a beer break from splitting firewood on a muggy, muggy morning. I'm on a near-tropical (more-or less 28 & 1/2 dg N lat.) fairly narrow peninsula so the humidity is a constant, although, I'm easily 15 miles, maybe further, from the Mexican Gulf..
Reply to
Derald

Derald wrote: ...

what is the problem with larger chunks? they will last longer and provide alternate homes for acid loving critters plus they'll hold moisture for a longer period of time. plants will grow through them without problems.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

Anyone who can do a web search will very quickly, and easily find that the prevailing opinion is that pine needles will not drop soil pH.

Reply to
Billy

This seems to be so from the insular and (sorry to be blunt) ignorant attitude to the rest of the world shown by many Americans on usenet and internet. I recall a frightening example at the hight of the Gulf War where in a survey a huge proportion of Americans had no information about Iraq including where it was, other than it was populated by Arabs. Possession of this factoid is no great achievement as they also think Afghanistan is populated by Arabs.

I meet many young people, my daughters' friends and also overseas visitors from Europe and Asia. At 18 yo they also know very little of the world outside their own country so it seems the education systems elsewhere are not too good either but by 30 they have filled in a fair bit. You can tell me if this is so the US but it doesn't seem so from here.

I would hope that by the time they reach middle age everybody has corrected such deficiencies and are able to make some intelligent contribution to life in an internationalised world . One can hope.

BTW was Masterchef dubbed or left in Strine?

;-)

David

Reply to
David Hare-Scott

Partly because I don't want to contend with "larger chunks" the size of a man's hand, and larger, screwing up the tilth in the beds. This is not civilized garden shop pine bark but the bulk product as it is peeled from the logs. I intend to incorporate it into the dirt, not use as a mulch, so it'll need some chopping but not terribly fine like bone meal or alfalfa meal, or examples. Also, I will reduce it to a relatively small and uniform size for the same reason that I do composting materials. That is, to speed up decomposition. I don't want it to last. Bark is acidic only while it is decomposing; the resulting product is neutral. The addition of pine bark, if effective, would be an ongoing process along with replentishing compost, manure and other amendments because the limestone continues to dissolve in the soil as well as in the water.

Reply to
Derald

You must have overlooked the "real or imagined" qualifier:-) At any rate, thanks for doing the research for me, although, surely one does not make decisions based on "prevailing opinion", LOL. Of the first four hits I got on Google, two were purely fluff pieces and two were totally misguided "experiments" or "tests". And none of them even offers a hint what species of pine were involved. The only author who actually "tested" never did actually incorporate the pine straw into soil so none of his conclusions is relevant. It may be, though, that I'd do best just to continue to use pine straw to carpet the garden paths and work areas but the determination won't be based on the "conclusions" and suppositions of a self-styled "expert" or casual writer. I'm long past believing what I read or assuming academic credentials to be indicators of competence or reason.

Reply to
Derald

I don't recall seeing your initial post on this. I do use pine needles (from white pine, not chopped) on my blueberries, and have for decades - conveniently, they dump a lot of needles on the deck that the blueberries are planted next to, so I just sweep them the right direction. However, I also apply sulfur to the bed, and rarely test, so I can't really quantify any effect - other than that they bear and grow.

Reply to
Ecnerwal

ah, ok, i don't do enough with finicky root crops to worry about chunks in the soil. the worms and other soil critters like whatever i can get buried.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

From somewhat closer to the forest: You may be a bit optimistic.

I'll take that as a straight question. If you mean original soundtrack with native Australian "English", then, it was left and with regional accents intact. IIRC, we had very few "what'deesay" instances. Downloaded torrents from a pirate site and enjoyed being able to watch serial episodes uninterrupted. Of course, I saved the technique demonstration episodes. Those don't exist in the US "Masterchef" franchise. Sorry, I digress.

Reply to
Derald

It was semi-serious. Apparently in days of yore some locally made movies were in fact dubbed into USA accents because audiences couldn't follow them in the original. The Masterchef presenters all speak general rather than 'broad' Australian, in both accent and content. OTOH in the Crock Dundee series there were many broad accents and plays on slang and local vocabulary, and yet they were popular in the US. Perhaps things are changing.

D
Reply to
David Hare-Scott

I can't watch Mad Max now. When it first hit the US, it was in perfectly understandable 'Strine. Then it got successful and some genius decided it needed to be overdubbed in crap-tastic US accents. It's dreadful.

Reply to
Ecnerwal

I haven't seen any of those mentioned except for Masterchef. I remember that, before he got his ass killed, there was some relatively young, blonde, Aussie natureboy dude who was quite popular in the 'States, too; can't remember his name. Didn't watch him, either. I haven't actually been to a movie since the 1970s, watch very little "entertainment" teevee and detest those gee-whiz nature things. Just an old stick in the mud, I guess. My wife and I spent many years employed in the motion picture industry, which makes movies exceedingly difficult for me to watch. I never was a "fan", anyway, and care nothing for the esoterica of the "art". I've worked with many European, Brit, Canadian and a few Japanese production companies but no Australians.

Reply to
Derald

Steve Irwin. Got hisself killed wrasslin a sting ray. A fine case of Darwining yourself. (see the Darwin Awards).

He also took his child ( then literally a babe in arms) into the croc enclosure with the crocs that he daily teased with meat, what a juicy morsel! It was so she could learn the family schtick he claimed. In front of the cameras of course. So strutted the Beastmaster.

Some people want him beatified, the family has now written his hagiography so anything is possible.

David

Reply to
David Hare-Scott

Think of it as "Auto Eugenics".

Reply to
Derald

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