2023 Garden Thread

Bugmeister said:
Feels like no garden thread would be complete without mentioning invasive Japanese knotweed (https://www.nwcb.wa.gov/weeds/japanese-knotweed). I have a little bit on my property and have been fighting it for years, mostly because my next door neighbor sucks at taking care of their property.

Maybe everyone knows this already, but for me at least I was really surprised to hear it is a) edible (https://www.phillyorchards.org/2020/04/22/japanese-knotweed-edible-medicinal-invasive/#:~:text=Mature shoots are much tougher,the trend for foraged foods.) and b) super medicinal, in that it is crazy high in resveratrol - a potent antioxidant found in the skin of red grapes, and, as it turns out, found in super high concentrations in knotweed.

Here is just one of many studies on resveratrol (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5435979/).

Another weird cool fact about resveratrol - studies are showing that consumption can help reduce the probability of sunburn. As a lifetime surfer, getting some sunscreen “from the inside out” would be great. Given that resveratrol is also found in red grape skins….glass of red wine, anyone?

Still don’t want knotweed in my yard, but at least now I yank it out with a respectful nod.

Also, say hello to my new supplement. I have a surf trip coming up later this month….will I come back looking more like George Hamilton? Who knows?

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The data on resveratrol is really interesting. It was the hot area of aging and antioxidant research 15 years ago. Our lab focused on aging, oxidative damage, and antioxidant strategies in skeletal muscle. Resveratrol had a lot of promise and showed a lot of possible benefits, but as more studies on its in vivo intracellular effects came out, most research on it faded away as the cell culture benefits disappeared when applied in vivo. Our lab did a lot of work on it, astaxanthine, and other antioxidants. The biggest hurdle is that it is a non-specific free radical scavenger and it turns out that free radicals drive increases in reactive oxygen species and nitric oxide species that are important signaling molecules for positive adaptive response. Therefore, resveratrol suppressed the signalling responsible for positive gene expression changes. As with most things in life, when it comes to free radicals in your body: none is bad, a little is good, a lot is bad.

I'm still hopeful it can show positive effects, supplements that are beneficial, safe, and have no side effects are quite rare.
 
Tomatoes - yeah i measured them - some are 50” tall. I am in awe of this season. Looking forward to this years cycle. Renewing seed stocks. Marvel Stripe (Oaxacaan) and Old German. Big plants big tomatoes. Peppers corbaci, chiltepin( perennial) Fish, Corno d Toro, Holy Moley, Orange Leysa, more sweets than my usual hot pepper crops. But still have a bunch of hot sauce I made last fallIMG_3429.jpegIMG_3430.jpegIMG_3426.jpegIMG_3426.jpegIMG_3439.jpeg
 
Gary Knowels said:
The data on resveratrol is really interesting. It was the hot area of aging and antioxidant research 15 years ago. Our lab focused on aging, oxidative damage, and antioxidant strategies in skeletal muscle. Resveratrol had a lot of promise and showed a lot of possible benefits, but as more studies on its in vivo intracellular effects came out, most research on it faded away as the cell culture benefits disappeared when applied in vivo. Our lab did a lot of work on it, astaxanthine, and other antioxidants. The biggest hurdle is that it is a non-specific free radical scavenger and it turns out that free radicals drive increases in reactive oxygen species and nitric oxide species that are important signaling molecules for positive adaptive response. Therefore, resveratrol suppressed the signalling responsible for positive gene expression changes. As with most things in life, when it comes to free radicals in your body: none is bad, a little is good, a lot is bad.

I'm still hopeful it can show positive effects, supplements that are beneficial, safe, and have no side effects are quite rare.
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Same holds pretty true as an anticancer agent. A lot of in vitro work suggested it could be beneficial but in human trials has pretty much flamed out. It has poor PK/bioaccumulation properties and at higher doses (to get around PK issues) can be nephrotoxic.

This sort of pattern is all too common in biomedical research. My lab (when I had one back in the day) investigated several compounds that looked super promising as cancer therapeutics (ovarian cancer), especially in chemotherapy-resistant (taxane and platinum agents) ovarian cancer cells - even looked good in mouse models - never made it to the clinic though.

Apologies for an thread drift.

Cheers
 
Things are starting to happen in the flower border...a small area of the border that looks nice this time of year.

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Capt Insano Emeritis said:
Battles fought and primarily organically over 40plus years.
Himalayan blackberries- grub hoeing and later crossbow
Ivy- made me realize I amhighly allergic to-it
Jerusalem artichoke. Meh! Took me 5years of digging and sifting. Contemplating borrowing a hog
Bind weed and morning glory. 2’ trenches and sifting
Aclepsia- butterfly bush and salal they appear everywhere here. Along with grape hyacincth and bluebells- always digging up bulbs.
Rue -0- grace- used to have a medicinal herb garden with it in it. That sheet now can send me to the emergency room!

There are a lot of other volunteer battles. I grow dandelions now. I have learned that they are pretty. No lawn anymore. I grow pink dandelions and put the leaves in salads.
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Jerusalem artichoke are the devil. In my early 20s I planted some, thinking it was artichoke. I didn't research. What a nightmare. Took years to clean up. 5 bulbs turning into over 500 real fast.
There should be a warning with those at stores.

My new nemesis is cleaver weed. Sticky burr type weed. Popped up on my property 2 years ago, now it's taking over everything. Not in the garden, just all over the property. Luckily not deep rooted, so just yanking, and yanking, and yanking. Man is spread fast and aggressive
 
jact55 said:
Jerusalem artichoke are the devil. In my early 20s I planted some, thinking it was artichoke. I didn't research. What a nightmare. Took years to clean up. 5 bulbs turning into over 500 real fast.
There should be a warning with those at stores.

My new nemesis is cleaver weed. Sticky burr type weed. Popped up on my property 2 years ago, now it's taking over everything. Not in the garden, just all over the property. Luckily not deep rooted, so just yanking, and yanking, and yanking. Man is spread fast and aggressive
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I would recommend it as a hunger fighting solution but then on that level the earth would have to learn to love it.
 
Salmo_g said:
Skip, I am in awe. I planted my tomato plants 5/18, and it seems like they have barely grown at all.
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You recall with new greenhouse set up. Great grow lights and a large controllable heat mat and seed started at the end of Feb or first week of March but tomatoes were exploding and spent a few weeks under a remay cloche that let water and light in.the weather cooperated
 
Dry as a popcorn fart out here on the east side of the OP...
Gonna be a bad fire season I am afraid.
 
Worked in the garden all evening after work today. Finally planted out my cherry picked pepper and tomato starts from seeds started in early March. Peppers look a bit sad from getting the hard prune but I’m confident they will start bushing out in the next few weeks.

Trying a few different techniques this year with tomatoes. Vertical trellising and DIY deep watering tubes. Trellis is EMT conduit and connectors I found from this cool company online.

https://makerpipe.com/

Tubes are 2 inch PVC with caps at the bottom and small holes drilled in the sides for somewhat of a trickle effect. We will see about the deep water tubes. I figure I can always pull them out if they don’t work how I envision. I think I might start a gardening journal so I remember what works and what doesn’t.

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Mossback said:
Dry as a popcorn fart out here on the east side of the OP...
Gonna be a bad fire season I am afraid.
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Same on the west side. I'm lugging around 400' of hoses trying to keep rhodies happy. I can tell now, our collection will be thinned quite a bit by the fall. Between last year's late spring, this year's early spring freeze and now no rain, we have a bunch that are not thriving. The man-made hybrids are probably doing the best but they are the oldest and deepest rooted.
 
Capt Insano Emeritis said:
I would recommend it as a hunger fighting solution but then on that level the earth would have to learn to love it.
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Jerusalem artichokes are delicious in my opinion, but I can’t eat those things—the flatulence is unreal. Fartichokes. They have loads of an indigestible starch!
 
I’m a good 38” less in height compared to @Capt Insano Emeritis and everyone else on my tomatoes 😉, but got them in the pots yesterday.
I’m about a month behind where I normally am due to a late, lazy start on my part this spring.
SF

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OK, has anyone here had success keeping mosquitoes at bay with lemongrass plants?
 
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Flymph said:
OK, I has anyone here had success keeping mosquitoes at bay with lemongrass plants?
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No, but for a while in Vermont we grew citronella plants in pots on the deck and they helped with mosquitos. There were like geraniums without blooms.
 
I need a recommendation for a good 50' garden hose that won't kink easily. My hose is so kinky that it is very frustrating to use. If anyone has found a hose they like that lasts, I am all ears! Thanks.
 
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