Hydroponics in the Classroom- part II

The little hydroponic garden we started two weeks ago has done well. We have a mixture of lima beans, radishes, and tomatoes growing here in vermiculite, as described in my first hydroponics post.

If you're interested in a similar set-up for indoor seed-starting, you don't need to invest in one of these expensive units. I'll post about it later, but my home-made unit (not pictured here) cost about $60.

The tall plants are the lima beans. They grow quite quickly, making them ideal for the classroom. I'll also post more about fun activities with lima beans later.

I feared at first that the tomatoes hadn't made it, but now they are poking up under the bean plants. It took them about a week to germinate, and they are probably going to be too small for our experiment this week. In the future, it looks like they would need over a month to get to a good size for experiments.

Well maybe they will do well enough under lights to produce fruits if I take them home?Finally, the radish plants. They win the prolific plant award. The packet was full of seeds, and it seems like every one germinated! The plants below were sowed by just one group, about 1/4 of a seed packet.

My flatworm fix

A new shipment of flatworms arrived for the other professor's Biology 101 class. This is what they look like when they get mailed from Carolina Biological Supply. I actually feel gleeful about the prospect of having more flatworms for my mini-aquarium after the experiments are over this week.

There are already about 15-20 flatworms in this aquarium, but they like to hide under the rocks. The white rocks work well, since their slender black bodies show up well as they move across the white background. Also notice the yellow egg yolk. That's more than enough for their weekly feeding.

I spent a good ten minutes watching them on Friday. I still think there is something very wrong about my current obsession with flatworms. What happened to my botanical snobbery?

Baffling the Fire Ants

If you are from the Southern US, or South America, you probably have had the unpleasant experience of being assaulted by fire ants (Solenopsis invicta). Ouch, do they sting. Then they itch like no other insect bite can itch.

I found out recently that fire ants also kill bluebirds! According to Tim Davis, a Clemson extension agent, they are responsible for half the predation on bluebirds. I tend to be a plant person, but bluebirds are one of those animals, like the flatworms, that are just irresistable.

If you love making homes for the bluebirds as much as me, then you might want to protect them with an easy to make baffler. Here are the steps as outlined by Davis to build a fire-ant baffler:

1) Cut the top part off a 12-oz Coke bottle, or the beverage of your choice, to form a funnel. (I also use these makeshift funnels to put dirt into terrariums)

2) Take your funnel and tape it upside-down on the post that holds your bluebird house. Electrical tape works well since it’s waterproof and durable. It’s important to tape it tightly, so you don’t leave any space between the tape and the pole for them to climb through.

3) Enjoy watching your Bluebirds in their safe home!

Native Grasses-- Historical Perspectives

I went to a recent lecture by Bill Stringer, an agronomist at Clemson University. Some interesting things I learned:

1) The American cowboys started out in Charleston, SC. The indentured servants noticed all the nice grass, asked for cattle to be shipped over, and found that they could make extra money by ignoring their lords and raising cattle. And when the grass ran out, they kept migrating West.

2) Native plants are defined as anything here before 1492, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue. The plants that Native Americans brought into the state before then are still counted as native. A double standard?

3) In 1492, as the European explorers arrived, South Carolina looked like a savannah, with few trees and mostly grass. The land here tends to progress to the oak forests we have today. But the Native Americans regularly burned the land, sometimes on purpose. Yes, they were probably more at one with the earth than the Europeanon settlers, but perhaps in American culture they are put on too high pedestal. But we should still appreciate them for saving our foolish ancestors from starvation, as I mentioned on my Thanksgiving is About Gardening post.

4) The SC native plant society has started a program to collect native grass seeds to plant along the National Forest highways. Previously they were planting grasses that were foreign and invasive.

Bill Stringer, president of the SC Native Plant Society, and college students working to collect native grasses. To find out information about the program, you can contact him through the SC Native Plant Society.

I imagine invasive plant concerns are also an issue for other former colonies like Australia? Kudzu is the most annoying invasive plant here in my opinion. It seems unstoppable. Is just a coincidence that if you take out the "D" in kudzu, you get "Kuzu" , which sounds a lot like "kazoo" , the most annoying musical instrument ever? I think not!

Flatworm Gardening

As a college student, I loathed the fact that I had to take any classes about animals at all in order to graduate with a degree in botany. It's hard to find a school that hasn't capitulated to the trend to combine zoology, microbiology, and botany, into a huge bucket of a biology department, so that was one of my deciding factors for choosing my college. Plants, plants, and more plants! They deserve their own department.

Well, I'll let you in on a secret, readers. I actually liked the one zoology class, "Introduction to the Animals," that I was forced to take. Of course until today I could admit this to no one, outside of the professor, and had to continue chanting "Plants rule, animals drool!" so I'd feel like a real botanist.

And now for another deep dark secret- I've developed a crush on flatworms.

Flatworm love is yummier than gummyworms. (photo by merfarm)

It all started with a simple experiment we did in Biology 101. I discovered, along with my students, that the little worms had all sorts of cute features, like ability to detect light, a simple nervous system, and an endearing way of slithering around the glass dish.

When I returned from winter break, I was surprised and delighted to find that there were still a few flatworms alive in their bottle, and with a little research I discovered the reason- they can be carnivorous.

Well I had to do something to save them all from devouring each other. Thanks to planarians.org , home to the flatworms, I learned how to create a little flatworm garden. All it took is some rainwater, a few rocks, and a meal of cooked egg yolk. They seem to be happy in their new home!

The scary thing is I'm as excited to visit my worm garden everyday as our hydroponic plants. Have I fallen over to the dark side?

Hydroponics for Dummies

Yes, I finally get to grow some things in our biology lab! I’m crossing my fingers that the tomatoes and lima beans we planted last week in vermiculite will grow and thrive under the light rack in the biology lab. I’ve haven’t germinated these type of seeds in vermiculite before, so I hope it works. Otherwise we won’t have a lab to do in three weeks and I’ll look pretty silly as degree-carrying botanist. Teaching is kind of like live theater, you get one shot and you’re always on stage. It’s scary yet exhilarating at the same time.

Do you have any recommendations for cheap and easy plants to grow for experiments? Or growing suggestions for starting seeds for hydroponics?

Photo by dbesa

I choose vermiculite since we can wash it off and transplant them to water for a mineral nutrition and/or toxicology lab. Yes, we are engaging in hydroponics in the classroom!

I asked my students if they knew what hydroponics meant in class, and there were some snickers from the back of the lab. Unfortunately hydroponics seem irrevocably linked to growing marijuana. Hey, what about hydroponics for growing tomatoes? And there have been a million interesting experiments in agricultural research using hydroponics

It might seem like I’m railing against marijuana-growers lately, so don’t take it personally if you have some stowaways in your greenhouse. I just don’t appreciate my name showing up on websites about growing marijuana. It’s not likely my students or administrators are spending time googling me, but what if? It’s not the best impression when you’re trying to get tenure at a college with conservative values.

Let me explain. I first wrote for the hydroponics magazine The Growing Edge in the late 90’s. The magazine is focused on the commercial greenhouse owner or the enthusiastic hobbyist, and clearly is not catering to pot-smoking crowd. The editor actually asks writers for the Growing Edge to not write for other magazines that have that reputation.

But I vanity Googled myself a few years ago, and on the top of my hits was an excerpt from one of my articles was on some site that had “smoking” in the address.

I know there are probably laws against reprinting someone’s work on the Internet without permission, but what about a quote? Can anyone quote you and put your name on their website without permission? I’ve gotten married and changed my name since then, so it’s not a real issue for me now. But I’m sure this issue is affecting some people somewhere.

The urge to deadhead

Over the holidays our family had nice meal at an Italian restaurant in Atlanta. As we walked out, I tuned out my husband’s comments on the various models of cars in the parking lot and focused on the pansies. They were doing nicely, but I immediately noticed several dead flowers on the plants and (*gasp*) even a well-developed seedpod.

I couldn’t overcome the urge to deadhead. I pulled off a few crispy flowers and a seedpod. Then I couldn’t control the botanical urge to slice the pod with my thumb open with my finger, exposing the tiny developing seeds. How could I resist?

This behavior isn’t limited to commercial property, either. If I see a dead flower in anyone’s yard, I can’t stop myself from picking it off. It’s a compulsion. Is this my duty as a good horticultural citizen, or am I just sticking my nose in other people’s soil where it doesn’t belong? I don’t know, but I can’t stop.

This habit actually started in my childhood, when my brother and I shared a newspaper route. One family on my route never pruned their yew bushes, so I took it upon myself to strip off a rouge branch with my bare hands every time I passed. In other yards, I plucked dandelions and faded marigold flowers. My dead-heading addiction started early.

I also have the urge to water other people’s neglected houseplants, but that can be the subject of another post.

I also discovered a poem about deadheading at Directionally Correct. I love the symbolism!

Biodiversity of a Used Car Lot

My husband called me asking if I wanted to meet him to pick up his dad’s BMW from the service department, and then we would go out to dinner. I agreed and got dressed for dinner, which means putting on the least muddy of my running shoes.

Two hours later, I’m hanging out in the used car lot, known as the “Certified Pre-Owned Vehicles Section” to BMW enthusiasts, while my husband and the mechanic try to identify the strange noises coming from the car.

How did I pass the time?

Well, at first I pretended to be interested in the cars. I believe that one of the secrets to a happy marriage is supporting each other’s hobbies. When we were first dating, my future-hubby graciously supported my gardening hobby by buying me a shovel and letting me dig in his front yard. To support his interest in restoring classic BMW’s, I wore his BMW sweatshirt while planting my first humble garden.

So at first I tried to be supportive and listen politely as they conversed about wheel bearings, but then I wandered outside to the lot. Like any good botanist, I didn’t pay much attention to the cars. I was surveying the landscaping.

Here’s the results of the biodiversity survey I did in the parking lot:

Pansies
Lilirope
Crepe myrtles
2 species of Lichen
2 species of shrubs
3 species of weeds
4 species of trees

Then returned inside the service bay, and my husband pointed out how you could tell how the various cars had been abused by the owners. Tires were bald, hubcaps were scrapped, and body panel lines were uneven.

Meanwhile, I contemplated how the fig trees in the service bay had been criminally neglected. The leaves were pale and several were lying at the trunk in a crumpled brown heap.

My husband also pointed out the differences between the M5 and the 500 series, and the Z3 from the Z4. After a year of marriage to a car freak, I’m starting to get a grasp on the taxonomy and evolution of the BMW. For example, the Z4 evolved from a recent Z3 ancestor.

After a year of marriage to a plant freak, my husband can tell a dicot from a monocot. When I took him to the South Carolina botanical garden, with all passing cars obscured by marvelous plants, he was absolutely fascinated with trying to identify the cars passing on the road by their engine noise.

Blue Laws, Cannabible exempt

Disclaimer: I hesitate to use the word “cannabis” in this post, because now some lost reefer-smoking soul will stumble upon this site looking for ways to grow a better high. Attention Potheads: Please move along. There’s nothing to see here.

Ok, so lately I seem to be going through a blue period. (Notice my posts on the Blue Fern and the Blue Poinsettia). Today’s blue topic will be the Blue Laws in this berry red state of South Carolina.

One Sunday morning when I was newly transplanted from Ohio, I went out to get some gardening supplies. While I didn’t expect the local nurseries to be open, I thought I could pick up a few things at one of the large hardware stores. Silly me. In the state of South Carolina, nothing opens till 12 pm on Sundays.

In fact, one of the popular fast food chains here, Chickfila, stays closed all day. My husband gets very cranky when he can’t get his chicken biscuit fix on Sunday, but stores and restaurants are private businesses. If they want to make time for their employees to go to church and be with their families, that’s OK by me to suffer a little inconvenience.

But when the government steps in and enforces these Blue Laws, that’s when I get really irked. By SC state law, no bar, restaurant, or grocery store is allowed to sell alcohol starting at 12:01 Sunday morning. What happened to separation of church and state? I’m OK with sending drunken college students home from the bars at midnight Saturday night, but what about us working folk, who never get to the grocery store during the week? Why can’t we buy a bottle of wine for our famous Spinach Lasagna when we finally get to the store on Sunday? To be fair, this has also been the case as I tried to buy some Shiraz one Sunday afternoon in Wisconsin, so I’m not picking just on South Carolina.

What I find really ironic, though, that in a state with such a moral high ground, selling books on how to grow cannabis is perfectly legal. I was browsing the gardening section of the new bookstore in town, and I was shocked to discover multiple titles on the horticulture of marijuana, including the “Cannabible”. Why isn’t this illegal paraphernalia?

I'm not suggesting that we should start banning and burning books. I'm sure if I made enough fuss, I could get the books taken out of the store. But I guess I want to live in a community where books, whatever the subject, are considered sacred. I would just like to sip on a glass of wine on Sunday while I read my books.

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