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Posts Tagged ‘seed’

Picture for a second, a future world where all the paper goods we consume can bud into a flower when planted in soil.  Like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory where everything is edible, except with this ideal world: all of the paper is seeded and sproutable, plus the schnozberries still taste like schnozberries!  The way it turns out, seed paper transforms this possibility into a reality.

If you have never heard of seeded paper you are not alone, who knew paper made out of seeds possibly will bloom a flower or any plant for that matter? Yes, despite the paper making procedure, the seeds can still germinate which enables them to bud when planted.  Seed paper is a beautiful, eye-catching, and easily recyclable item which may include many different plant seeds.

But why should we utilize and increase the word about eco-friendly seed paper and all recycled paper for that matter?  In accordance with the CWAC (Clean Water Action Council) the answer is due to environmental damage caused by the paper industry, which is a good deal more than merely deforestation. The following are a few main damaging effects on our eco systems caused by paper waste according to Clean Water Action Council. A lot of impure sediments seep into food supplies and river systems containing a multitude of species of fish and ducks. There is certainly a ceaseless continuation of toxic chemical pollution, in addition to atmosphere pollutants including carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides, sulfur dioxides, carbon monoxides and particulates. There is also a large quantity of energy consumption. Mills extract a immense quantity of electrical energy from public utilities, or mills are forced to construct their very own energy facilities. An extensive quantity of water is needed along with copious quantities of solid waste. Worldwide, colossal tracts of forest are stricken by the paper industry, accounting to the world’s scary deforestation trends. Politicians are a bit deterred to act caused by collaboration of government entities and the multi billion dollar paper industry interests.

The majority of us are aware of global warming, man’s ever-growing carbon footprint, and detrimental man-made pollution of all sorts.  We perceive with our own eyes the unsafe toll on the environment attributable to the increased effects of our personal human actions and behavior.  We wish to reduce, reuse, recycle, and make this planet a greater place for upcoming generations, but every so often we must be confident, empowered, and reminded.  We are making strides with companies promoting the use of reusable grocery bags. Seed paper as well is an ideal way to inspire one another to go green.

If you’re a business expert, conservationist, business proprietor, salesperson, or simply passling along your annual holiday letter to family and friends, using seeded paper as your correspondence stationary is a great way to show your personal or organization-wide promise to reducing your carbon footprint while also saving trees.   When you give out your seed business card, or send out your holiday seed cards you are extending the excellent news about seeded paper, recycling, and the imperative necessity for all of us to exist and be eco friendly.  As the 40th anniversary of Earth Day comes to pass (April 22nd), there has never been a more fitting moment for organizations to purvey their obligation to reducing their carbon footprint through adopting green methods to make this world a better place for upcoming generations.

Gardener, What of Your Compost Heap?
By Trevor Dalley

To the making of composts there is no end.

Where it is possible to make compost, this is the best material of all for the gardener to use. All kinds of green material and garden waste can be incorporated in the heap including annual weeds. Grass Mowings, Hedge Trimmings, Pea, tomato and Bean haulm, old flower stems and so on.

If a proportion of manure can be obtained, this also should be included in the heap, though it is not absolutely essential. Poultry manure, if included, should not exceed 20 per cent in bulk and should be applied in layers not more than an inch thick. A thick layer of poultry manure will prevent air from circulating and retard the break-down of the heap. It is often possible to obtain industrial or semi-industrial organic waste (waste from eating establishments and hotels) that, if incorporated in reasonable proportions, can be of great value.

Seaweed is probably the most valuable of all, and other materials which I have used include water-weed from rivers and canals, decayed sawdust from the old sawmills and waste coffee, cocoa residues from various industrial processes, also we have used hemp not the type that some people smoke, (if you tried to smoke this type you would have to roll a joint the size of a telegraph pole to get any sort of buzz) we only use the type for making rope.

Fresh fallen leaves have a delaying effect on the break-down of the heap and it is better, therefore, to allow them to rot by themselves for a year or two and then to incorporate them in the compost heap.
I find that the Garden Compost Heap should not exceed four feet square and about three feet high, but they can be made of any desired size.

If the Compost Heap is made to wide or to high, there will be a lack of air and the majority of the necessary bacteria will not multiply. The Garden Compost Heap should be built on soil rather than on a concrete base or on gravel. If it is built on grassland, it is better to dig out the top 4 inches of the grass. In any case, there should be a loose layer of hard, woody material to assist aeration.

Baled Straw is the best material to use for the walls; it provides a neat, convenient method of making the heap and enables the compost to decompose fully right up to the walls and assists the retention of the heat of decomposition. After the bales have been used two or three times and have started to disintegrate, the Straw Bale can itself be incorporated in the next heap. Many Garden Compost Heaps, however, are made without any retaining walls at all.

Quicker results and more even decomposition will be obtained if the raw materials are mixed and shredded before being put on to the heap and there are several shredding machines on the market which are very efficient. Where no shredder is available, dry materials should be mixed with fresh green matter in alternate layers. Straw Bales of any description should be thoroughly wetted. The layers should not exceed 6 inches in thickness and should be a good deal less in the case of Grass Mowings and any other material that will form a mass which the air cannot penetrate.

A light sprinkling of topsoil or good de-composted compost should be added at every twelve inches of height to introduce bacteria into the heap. A sprinkling of lime dust in the form of crushed chalk at a rate of one ounce to every two square yards may also be added along with the topsoil.

Layers of Well Rotted Farmyard Manure in the Garden Compost Heap will act as an activator, but whether there is Manure in the heap or not, I always use an activator usually herbal based as I find this speeds up decomposition.
The final covering of the Garden Compost Heap can either be an inch or two of topsoil or a rough thatch of straw, slopped to carry off the rain. In large Garden Compost Heaps, vertical air holes are necessary. They should be spaced at 3 feet intervals down the centre of the Garden Compost Heap.

If the heap seems to be drying out, the outside should be wetted. Try to wet evenly and avoid saturation. There may be a certain amount of leaching from the bottom of the Garden Compost Heap if no retaining wall is used. In such a case it is well to spread a thin layer of sawdust, peat or other absorbent organic matter round the base of the Garden Compost Heap. This material can be incorporated into the next Garden Compost Heap that is made and will add to the value of the finished compost.

The process of decomposition will be greatly accelerated by turning the Garden Compost Heap once every 3 to 4 weeks after building. If so desired the Garden Compost Heap can be treated again with an activator during the turning process but this is not essential. Garden Compost Heaps made chiefly of fresh green material will often break down quite successfully without any turning at all but where the material is very dry and made from straw one turn is practically essential.

It is most important that the high temperature at the centre of the Garden Compost Heap should be obtained, otherwise annual weed seeds may survive and be reintroduced all over the garden. It is advisable to purchase a soil thermometer and make sure that the Garden Compost Heap reaches a temperature of no less than 40 degrees Celsius. If the Garden Compost Heap does not heat up, the reason is probably that it has been built to slowly.

The remedy is to turn it and add fresh green material; also adding chicken dung pellets will help. There is no objection to incorporating diseased vegetable matter in the well-made Garden Compost Heap that heats up properly. In fact, there is considerable evidence to prove that such a Garden Compost Heap becomes a breeding-ground for bacteria that will fight the disease, and that the resulting Garden Compost Heap, when applied to the soil, will give resistance to, if not immunity from, the disease concerned.

This seems to be particularly true in the case of Tomatoes, and many gardeners insist that the compost that they use for their Tomato crops should contain as large a proportion as possible of old Tomato haulm.
Garden Compost-Making is an art that has to be acquired. It is, however, not a difficult art and any Gardener with a reasonable amount of common sense can quickly learn it.

It is also, quite frankly, something which we know more about now than lets say 100 years ago mainly because of the advancements in modern scientific research. What I do think is that some gardeners make much to heavy weather of Garden Compost-Making. It need not be anything like the laborious a job as many people think, providing the Garden Compost Heap is sited in the right place as to avoid unnecessary transport of materials.

Trevor Dalley has been growing and preserving his own fruit for 40 year, most of the preserves are sold in his Organic Farm Shops in Herefordshire England. Did you find those tips on Organic Food a way of Life useful?

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Trevor_Dalley
http://EzineArticles.com/?Gardener,-What-of-Your-Compost-Heap?&id=1718320

Seeds of Success
By Brian Pettinger

All good gardeners know that seeds are on your side they want to grow and thrive. Apart for some weedy exceptions that I will save until the end of this article seeds can be coaxed into blooming excess with only a little know how.

Help From the Seeds.

Every seed tells a story and you can learn to read that story by considering the parent plant and the seed itself. To set seed most plants need to be pollinated male to female and many plants are self-fertile. Having taken a deal of trouble to attract pollinators or pollination most plants package up the seeds and plan how to distribute them.

Berries and fruit have a soft or pithy outer case to help. Birds ingest elderberries and deposit the seed where they will.

Poppies have a pepperpot shaker type seed head that allows some ripe seed to be sprinkled each day over several days or weeks.

Aquilegia seed pods contort and twist to ping out seeds in a squirting motion so they travel a distance.

Dandelion seeds have feathery tufts to allow the wind to blow them where you don’t want them (but I said I would save these comments to the end)
So from these examples you can see seed pods protect and help distribution of the seed.

Seed Size and Features

Seeds vary in size and shape and many will become familiar to the regular gardener. A conker, pea or a grain sized Mesembryanthemum all have the same function to reproduce plants and maintain the survival of the species.

A good big one beats a good small one is a modern quote and in the vegetable garden leek and runner bean seeds are saved from good parent plants. Note it is the plant not necessarily the seed where size counts. Flower seeds should all be sown to get a choice of seedlings to plant out.

Some seeds have hard coats to protect them and legumes like Lupins or Sweetpeas may need the coat soaking in water or chipping or sanding the outer coat to allow moisture to start the germination phase.

Seeds from Alpines or bulbs generally need a period of cold so are sown in autumn or stratified in the fridge and brought into gentle heat in spring.

Special Treatment

Seeds are programmed to germinate when they expect conditions to suit. You can help provide the growing conditions they need.

Moisture or water is the first key ( so do not save seeds in damp conditions for later sowing they may have germinated and died before you get to sow them).

Temperature is the second issue as seeds are programmed to germinate when the seedling has a chance of survival. So tropical plants will need more warmth than say native Cornflowers.
Time for germination can vary from days for sprouting vegetable seeds to over a year for snowdrops, daphne or narcissus.

Some need light and to be uncovered like petunia and poppies whilst other need moist, dark conditions like cyclamen and begonia.

Conclusions

• Seeds want to be winners.
• You can select your own seed and grow your own winners.
• Seeds that are produced in great quantity are playing a percentage survival game. In most garden conditions you only need a percentage to survive and thrive anyway so don’t agonise over losses.
• Weeds spread unless you get to them before the seeds are distributed. Don’t compost weed seeds, the heat won’t always kill them.

http://gardenerstips.co.uk/blog/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Brian_Pettinger
http://EzineArticles.com/?Seeds-of-Success&id=1760333