Yarns From The Garden: July 2010

Plant of the podcast

Also known as the airplane plant

member of the lily family

Native to S Africa

Leaves up to 16 inches long and almost an inch high

has advantageous roots

Puts out stolons with flowers and baby plantlets

Found by NASA to be one of the most efficient plants for filtering pollutants out of the air

Easy to grow, tolerates a wide variety of light, temperature and humidiy

Tip of he podcast

IPM

Could be a whole podcast on it's own

Instead of blasting the problem with whatever is handy, there is a series of steps to ake.

Threshold Decide what is an accepable amount of bugs or disease. In some cases it might be one, but in something like an aphid, it might be 20 per leaf, these are just numbers, you have to set your own.
Monitor and identify the pests. You cannot properly control something if you don't know what it is, and you definitely do not want to destroy a good bug
Prevention The best thing to do is to keep your plant as healhy as possible, that will help if it is attacked, and pests and diseases seem to go for the weakest individuals.
Once monitoring, identification, and action thresholds indicate that pest control is required, and preventive methods are no longer effective or available, IPM programs then evaluate the proper control method both for effectiveness and risk. Effective, less risky pest controls are chosen first, including highly targeted chemicals, such as pheromones to disrupt pest mating, or mechanical control, such as trapping or weeding. If further monitoring, identifications and action thresholds indicate that less risky controls are not working, then additional pest control methods would be employed, such as targeted spraying of pesticides. Broadcast spraying of non-specific pesticides is a last resort.

Digging in the Dirt

Weeding and watering.

Fibery Fun

This year the Tour de Fleece started Saturday July 3rd and runs until Sunday July 25th, 2010.

Guidelines (NOT RULES):

Spin every day the Tour rides, if possible. Saturday July 3rd through Sunday July 25th. Days of rest: Monday July 12th, Wednesday July 21st. (Just like the actual tour)
Spin something challenging Thursday July 22nd. (The Tour’s toughest mountain stage from Pau up the legendary Col du Tourmalet)
Take a button if you want one. Then we can use the button on our blogs in show of solidarity. Take it from here or grab a clean one from the flickr pool. Come join the flickr pool!
Wear yellow on Sunday July 25th to announce victory. Why not wear yellow on any day you feel particularly successful? (Yellow is the color of the race leader in the Tour - but here we are all ‘race leaders’)
Other colors if desired: Green (sprinter - think FAST), Polka-dot (climber - as in uphill), and white (rookie)

Teams: Join one, or many, or none.

Rookies (first years)
Sprinters (fast and/or high mileage like lace)
Climbers (conquer mountains, big personal challenges)
Breakaway (Art yarns)
Peloton (The main group. Everyone is in the peloton at some point)
Lantern rouge (You will participate as much as possible but you may skip days here and there. Cheerleaders welcome.)
Wildcards (This is for people who want to form their own team. This includes sponsored teams, like those affiliated with a specific fiber shop or people who live in the same town, etc.)

I have been spinning on my handspindle