Mother Nature Knows Best

Mother Nature Knows Best

Natural gardening is winning converts to the cause of ecology

Before there was Scott's Turf Builder, bioengineered tomatoes, and sprinklers that operate on timers. Mother Nature was already a pretty impressive ecologist when it came to designing self-sufficient habitats. Many gardeners are now honoring that wisdom by trying to imitate closely what nature does when left to its own devices. The movement, known as natural gardening, champions the use of biologically diverse indigenous plants, the restoration of wildlife habitats, and the reduction or elimination of chemical pesticides and herbicides. It also promotes designing landscapes to conserve water and developing naturally healthy and fertile soils by using compost and other organic soil supplements.

The native plant trend owes much to the severe droughts experienced in California and other parts of the country over the past decades. In the face of such dryness, gardeners saw their cultivated garden plants wither under the heat, yet at the same time noticed many wild plants growing beautifully in undeveloped areas. Their conclusion: native plants are often best suited for stressful environmental conditions. Hardy native plants, they also learned, rarely need any chemical fertilizers or sprays to stay healthy.

We cannot in fairness rail against those who destroy the rain forest or spotted owl when we have made our own yards uninhabitable (Sara Stein, author of Noah's Garden: Restoring the Ecology of Our Own Backyards). Picture by Elena.

Another tenet of natural gardening is xeriscaping, which literally means dryscaping. The term refers to landcaping techniques aimed at conserving water in parched regions. Although originally developed in the West, xeriscaping methods are now used in all parts of the country to conserve water. Technicians include grouping plants according to water needs, using native plants, limiting lawn areas, and using mulches. When watering, xeriscapers recommend using drip irrigation or soaker hoses. The most commited even collect rainwater, and in very drought-stricken areas gray water collected from household laundries, showers and sinks. (Don't bother with gray water unless you use biodegradable soaps).

Many specialty nurseries now sell native plants for specific natural habitats such as Midwest prairies, Southwest deserts,and wetlands. Conservation groups like the National Wildlife Federation are also active in explaining the importance of planting vegetation that will attract and sustain butterflies, bats, birds, and other animals pused out by housing and business development.

To get away from chemical pesticides, gardeners are also practicing integrated pest management. By using natural botanical pesticides, sticky traps, and other IPM techniques, the amount of chemicals necessary for a pest-free environment can be cut dramatically. Composting can serve much the same rôle in helping gardeners reduce the use of chemical fertilizers.

To be sure, Americans still spend close to $10 billion every year to keep their lawns looking emerald green and weed-free, and more chemicals are dumped on gardens and lawns each year than on all the farms of America. But with just small compost piles and meager water rations, wonderful plants may easily grow – if you are naturally inclined.

University of Toronto

University of Toronto

University of Toronto is a public research university, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College and it was the first institution of higher learning in the colony of Upper Canada. The institution assumed the present name in 1850. Today it comprises twelve colleges that differ in character and history, each retaining substantial autonomy on financial and institutional affairs. The University of Toronto has two satellite campuses located in Scarborough and Mississauga.

The University of Toronto is noted for influential movements and curricula in literary criticism and communication theory, known collectively as the Toronto School.

Historically, the University of Toronto was the birthplace of insulin and stem cell research, and was the site of the first practical electron microscope, the development of multi-touch technology, the identification of Cygnus X-1 as a black hole, and the theory of NP completeness.

Toronto ranks highly in global rankings and is consistently ranked first in Canada.

All the pictures have been taken by Elena.

• John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. 230 College Street.
• Engineering Faculty. The University site encompasses 71 hectares (180 acres) bounded mostly by Bay Street, Bloor Street, Spadina Avenue and College Street.
• Here was realized a major nineteenth century aspiration: the establishment of a non-denominational institution of higher learning supported by Gouvernement.

Faculty of Music of the University of Toronto.

Flavelle House, Faculty of Law.

Universitiè's College in Victorian Style.University College. The building of University College in 1856-1859 largely assured the furture of the University of Toronto and drew it in time into a federal pattern, hich was widely followed in Canada and the Commonwealth.

Coats of arms, More, Victoria University.

The granting of the charter of the new educational institution in 1827 was largely the result of intense lobbying by John Strachan, the influential Anglican Bishop of Toronto who took office as the first president of the college.

Faculty of Music.The original three-storey Greek Revival school building was constructed on the present site of Queen's Park.

Victoria College.

Under Strachan's stewardship, King's College was a religious institution that closely aligned with the Church of England and the British colonial elite, known as the Family Compact.

Caven Library. During the American Civil War, the threat of Union blockade on British North America prompted the creation of the University Rifle Corps, which saw battle in resisting the Fenian raids on the Niagara border in 1866. University of Toronto Book Store: Technology, cell phones, custom garment printing, bookpod print on demand, textbooks, clothing, stationery, gifts/frames, medical, fiction/non-fiction, snacks & drinks.

Relief sculptures of General James Wolfe, Samuel de Champlain, John Graves Simcoe and Isaac Brock. They grace the facade of the Archives and Canadiana Building at the University of Toronto.  Like their real-life counterparts, these sculptures keep a watchful and weathered gaze upon the surrounding landscape.

The namesake University Avenue is a ceremonial boulevard and arterial thoroughfare that runs through downtown between Queen's Park and Front Street.

Bookstore of the University of Toronto.

Engineering Faculty.

Hart House. One of the historical buildings on the site.

Knox College built in 1911 - 1912.

Metallic Installation on the Campus. Metallic-structure on the site of the University of Toronto.

University Tower.

Varsity Blues of University of Toronto. With its green spaces and many interlocking courtyards, the university forms a distinct region of urban parkland in the city's downtown core. The Varsity Arena is part of the University of Toronto central campus.

Collateral

Collateral

By Peter Watts

Eight hours in IT when they landed: every aug tested to melting, every prosthetic stripped to the bolts while the attached meat sat silent and still and kept all the screams inside. They gave her four hours’ rack time even though her clockwork could scrub the fatigue right out of her blood, regulate adenosine and melatonin so precisely she wouldn’t even yawn right up until the point she dropped dead of heart failure. Might as well, they said : other schedules to clear anyway, other people to bring back across other oceans.

They told her not to worry. They told her it wasn’t her fault. They gave her propranolol to help her believe them.

Four hours, flat on her back, staring at the ceiling.

Now here she was : soul half a world away, body stuck in this windowless room, paneled in oak on three sides, crawling with luminous maps and tacticals on the fourth. Learning just what the enemby had been doing, besides sneaking up on a military cyborg in the middle of the fucking night.

« They were fishing, » the PAO told her.

“No, » Becker said; som subconscious subroutine added an automatic « sir ».

The JAG lawyer – Eisbach, that was it – shook her head. « They had longlines in their outriggers, Corporal. They had hooks, a bait pail. No weapons.

The general in the background – from HDHQ in Ottawa, Becker gathered, although there’d been no formal introduction – studied the tacpad in his hand and said nothing at all.

She shook her head. « There aren’t any fish. Every reef in the WTP’s has been acidified for twenty years. »

« It’s definitely a point we’ll be making, » Eisbach said. « You can’t fault the system for not recognizing profiles that aren’t even supposed to exist in the zone. »

« But how could they be – »

« Tradition, maybe. » The PAO shrugged. « Some kind of cultural thing. We’re checking with the local NGOs but so far none of them are accepting responsibility. Whatever they were doing, the UN never white-listed it. »

Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015, edited by Rich Horton, Prime Books, 2015. 

Collateral. Photo by Elena.

How to Create Custom Ringtones

Did you know that you can create your own ringtones? It’s actually super easy, if you just follow a few easy steps.

Creating Custom Ringtones

First thing you have to do, after you choose your song of choice, is pick a part of the song you want to use for your ringtone. Since songs are usually a lot longer than a ringtone is intended for, you will have to choose a fragment of a song. Once you choose your fragment, make sure to write down the start and ending time of the fragment you are going to use for your ringtone. You can choose a song fragment up to 30 seconds long.

After you decided on your song fragment, you will have to right-click or ctrl-click the selected song and then click Get Info on the context menu to display the Item Information dialog box for this song in the title bar, if you are using Windows. Keep in mind that on a Mac, the dialog box shows the song's title rather than the words Item Information.

Then you will have to click the Options tab to bring it to the front of the Item information dialog box.

You will then have to click the Start Time box and enter the start time for when you want the ringtone to begin. Make sure when setting the Start Time value and Stop Time Value to use a colon to separate the minutes and seconds, and use a period to separate the seconds and thousandths of seconds, like this for example: 1:22.100.

Creating custom ringtones. Photo by Elena.

After you enter the Start Time, you will then have to enter the Stop Time in the appropriate box. iTunes will once again select the Stop Time check box automatically for you.

Once you have both times entered, you will then click the OK button to close the Item Information dialog box.

After you close the Item Information dialog box, you will have to Right-click or ctrl-click the song, and then click Create AAC Version from the context menu. iTunes will then create a new song file containing just the section on the song you specified.  If for whatever reason the command on the context menu is not a Create AAC Version, you will have to change the current encoder. To do this, you will have to choose Edit-Preferences (if using Windows) or iTunes-Preferences (if using Mac) to display the iTunes or Preferences dialog box. Then on the General Tab, you will need to click Import Settings. In the Import Settings dialog box, choose AAC Encoder in the Import Using drop-down list and iTunes Plus in the Settings drop-down list. To finish, click the OK button to close out each dialog box.

Once you have that figured out, you will need to Right-click or ctrl-click the new shorter song file, and then click Show in Finder on the context menu. iTunes will then open a Finder window showing the new song file.

Press Return to display an edit box around the song name, if you want to edit the name to identify your ringtone.

Change the file extension from m4a to m4r, and then press Return to apply the change. The m4r extension indicates the file type is a ringtone.

Leave the Finder window open for the moment and go back to iTunes.

With the new song file still selected, choose Edit-Delete. Now iTunes will display a dialog box confirming you want to remove the file.

Click the Remove button and iTunes will display a second dialog box asking if you want to move the file to Trash.

When prompted, make sure to click the Keep File button.

In the Finder window, click the ringtone file and drag it to the Library section of the Source list in the iTunes window.

You are probably reading this and thinking “This was supposed to be easy!” But I promise you, you are almost done! One of the last things you have to do is set the original song file to play only your ringtone section. You will have to restore it back to normal. To do that, just follow these steps.

To restore the song file back to normal, you will have to Right-click or ctrl-click the original file in the iTunes window, and then choose Get Info to display the Item Information dialog box.

If the Summary tab doesn't appear in the front, click it to bring it there.

Clear the Start time check box and the Stop Time check box that you previously entered.

Click the OK button to close the Item Information dialog box.

As your last step, you will need to click the Ringtones item in the Source list to display your ringtones. The file you created should appear there, and you can now start using your new ringtone!

Earlier versions of iTunes use to have a nice feature for making ringtones from songs bought from the iTunes Store. Apple unfortunately removed this feature ever since iTunes 10 came out.

Links

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Starter's Guide to Sowing Seeds

A Starter's Guide to Sowing Seeds

Germination goes better when the soil is more than backyard dirt

Soil pH is just one of several factors that can determine whether a seed developers into a thriving plant or fails to grow at all. We explain here how the savvy gardener can give seeds a helpful head start in life:

When should I start seed?

Most seed packages come with full instructions on when to start the seed. As a rule or thumb, most annual vegetable and flower seed should be started about six to eight weeks before the average last frost date in your area.

What is the best soil medium?

Always use a germination mixture that has been specially formulated to spur growth. Homemade soil mixtures are easy to make and they are cheaper than buying premade ones, especially if you start large quantities of seed.

One of the best recipes is Cornell Peat-Lite, developed by horticulturists and agronomists at Cornell University. Its ingredients include: 1 bushel of shredded sphagnum peat meat; 1 bushel of horticultural vermiculite (no. 4-fine); 4 level table-spoonfuls of ammonium nitrate (a nitrogen source); 2 level tablespoonfuls of powdered superphosphate (20 percent); and 10 level tablespoonfuls of finely ground dolomitic limestone.

Never use soil from the yard or garden as your germination medium unless it is sterilized and combined with materials such as vermiculite, perlite, and horticultural sand. The mixture should be light and almost fluffy even after it is watered.

To sterilize a seed medium in an oven or microwave, you can use a medium-sized potato as your sterility gauge. Place the soil medium in the oven at the same depth as you would need to fill a seed flat. When the potato is cooked enough to be eaten, the soil should be clean enough for your seeds. Photo by Elena.

What is the right temperature for planting?

Most seedlings do best with “warm feet and cool heads.” Make sure soil temperatures are at least 70 to 80F. Air temperature can be about 10 degrees cooler at night. Heat cables or heat mats are placed under germination containers to ensure soil temperatures that are evenly warm throughout. They are inexpensive and can be found in many garden-supply catalogs and most garden centers.

How much watering is necessary?

Water immediately after sowing seeds. Use a spitzer bottle to evenly moisten the surface. The most common mistake is applying too much or too little water. Just keep seeds and seedling evenly moist and never allow seeds to dry out, even temporarily.

How much lignt do seeds need?

Some seeds need light to germinate, some need darkness, Once germinated, however, all seeds need bright light to develop. Light can come from a sunny window – south is best – or fluorescent lighting. Most seedlings need at least 12 to 16 hours of light each day.

To sterilize a seed medium in an oven or microwave, you can use a medium-sized potato as your sterility gauge. Place the soil medium in the oven at the same depth as you would need to fill a seed flat. When the potato is cooked enough to be eaten, the soil should be clean enough for your seeds.

If you are using fluorescent light, seedlings need about 15 to 20 watts per square foor of growing area. A double row of fluorescent tubes is enough for flats that are up to 16 inches wide. Place the light tube about 4 inches above the plants. Don't forget to raise the light tubes as the plants grow.

When should seedlings be thinned out or transplanted?

After the seedlings have germinated and developed at least two leaves, thin them out with scissors at soil level so remaining seedlings are an inch apart. If seedlings aren't thinned out, they will get crowded and become thin, weak, and disease-prone. Transplant seedlings to wider and deeper containers after they have developed at least two to four leaves. Transplanting allows seedlings to develop a stronger root system before being planted outdoors.

What kind of soil do seedlings need when they are moved outside?

Good growing soils are fertile, well drained, and well aerated. When you pick up a handful of earth, it should have a crumbly texture and be filled with worms and other enriching organisms. To prepare outside plots for planting, add at least 3 to 4 inches of organic matter to your garden beds every spring or fall. Work in the organic matter to a depth of at least 12 inches. If you are working with soil that has a lot of heavy clay or sand, add more organic matter and work it in several inches deeper, both in the spring and in the fall. If your soil is poorly drained, you may need to add sand or even put in drainage pipes.

What is the importance of soil pH?

A soil's pH number indicates its level of acidity (sourness) and alkalinity (sweetness). The pH scale ranges from 1 to 14 with 7 being neutral. Numbers below 7 indicate more acidic levels and numbers over 7 indicate alkaline conditions. Most garden plants, flowers, and vegetables prefer a slightly acidic soil pH of 6.2 to 6.8 – about the same acidity as pure water. The pH scale is logarithmic, which means that a soil pH of 5 is 10 times more acidic than a pH of 4.

How do I know what my soil pH is?

As a general rule, if you live in an area with little rainfall and high temperatures, like New Mexico or Arizona, you probably have alkaline soils. If you live in a region with a lot of rain and a temperate climate, as in the northeastern states, the soil is probably acidic. To get an exact soil pH reading, you will need to get your soil tested. Most county extension agencies will do such an analysis free of charge if you bring a sample to them. They are listed in the blue government services pages of the telephone book. Extension agencies can also analyze your soil's nutrient levels and let you know if you need to add any nutrients.

How reliable are pH home test kits?

Although they are not as accurate as soil-testing labs, home test kits will give you a fairly general pH measurement. You can buy such do-it-yourself soil testing kits from garden catalogs or from a well-stocked gardening center. Just be sure to follow all directions carefully to get the best results.

What should I do if the pH level is off?

Soil pH can be lowered – that is, made more acidic – by adding a combination of ground sulfur, aluminum sulfate, iron sulfate, and garden gypsum. In addition, pine needles, pine bark, and peat moss will slowly bring about slight drops in pH levels naturally. To raise pH, you can add agricultural or dolomitic limestone to your soil.