The_v

I used to spend several thousand every year buying books. Usually from small independent bookstore. I was also always in the library checking out books but the local libraries collection was very small and limited.

Next I got one of the early generation kindles keyboard when I was traveling all the time before I had a smart phone. I of course found all the free books and downloaded several thousand of those. Amazon made almost nothing off of me for that one. I still hit the library regularly for books I could not get for free or stuff for my kids.

Then my local library started offering digital books via Libby and Hoopla. I have pretty much completely stopped using kindle completely in favor of those two apps. I vote every chance I get for the library to get more funding as its back to being my go-to place. I physically have only gone to the library once in the past 5 years however.

Honestly, I would rather see a massive extension of library services than more private bookstores.

A nice attempt but you'll have to dig deeper to understand how it works.

First off this is how phosphate contaminates waterways.

Phosphorus gets into water in both urban and agricultural settings. Phosphorus tends to attach to soil particles and, thus, moves into surface-water bodies from runoff.

The soil particles holds the phosphorus in the top few inches of the profile. Then during saturation events, it dissolves runs off with the water.

It also can leach into groundwater but it's not as common and depends on the chemical makeup of the soil type.

https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/phosphorus-and-water#overview

This is why phosphorus in lawn fertilizer has been banned in many states.

1/3 of phosphorus is not available to plants at application - completely missed that one.

Plants only take up the ortho-phosphate. Water soluable phosphate is usually a blend of polyphosphate (2/3rd) and ortho-phosphate (1/3). Polyphosphate is converted to ortho-phosphate via hydrolysis in water. Depending on the composition of the soil temperatere, moisture, it can take a few days or a few weeks or months to convert.

K+ interfering with the uptake of Mg+ and Ca+.

K+ , Mg+ and Ca+ compete for uptake directly with K+. Any amount of excess K+ directly competes with the uptake of Mg+ and Ca+. This is why some species just uptake extra K+ and store it in their vacuoles. If you want to cause BER in tomatoes/peppers, watermelons etc... extra K can do this the first year. These species struggle to get enough Ca to the growing point under good conditions. Anything that slows it down can cause BER.

People have genetically different ability to detect flavors. Some people lack the receptors to detect the bitter rindlike taste in todays seedless watermelons.

Close but not quite. 3N plants are sterile. This is because the odd number of chormosomes cannot line up during meiosis and form gametes.

They use diploid pollen 2N pollen to trigger fruit formation but the resulting fruit is parthenocarpic. The white pips and even the occasional colored hard seed coat does not contain an viable embryo.

Crossing of plants with different numbered chormosomes can create fertile offspring if the resulting ploidy is even. For example crossing wheat (6N) with cereal rye (2N) creates Triticale (4N). The Triticale is fertile.

The story of seedless watermelons.

Originally developed by a scientist in Japan pre-WWII, the technology was picked up by watermelon breeding programs at universities in the South-East U.S. Over the next 30 years the university programs worked to develop the technology. Progress was very slow as it takes 15 generations to create a new female line.

Unfortunately for everyone the universities decided to use their tasteless, bland, long distance shipping types to create these females. The most famous of which is Charleston grey.

Finally in the mid-70's the universities released the female inbreds to private companies to create seedless watermelons. The private companies crossed tasty, elongated allsweet and crimsons sweet types as a diplod male with the bland grey females. What resulted was the bland seedless types with large white pips and bland flavor. After all 2/3rd of the genetics came from those terrible females.

For the next 25 years all of the seedless watermelons used the same terrible female lines with slightly improved male lines.

Then a breeder from originally from China decided to create new females. He used small seeded varieties from China and Thailand with deep red color and much thinner rinds.

The resulting seedless watermelons had dark red color, tiny little pips, and a slightly bitter flavor. You see the breeder from China failed to recognize the different flavor profiles in the gene pools. Asian watermelons often have bitter flavors that are completely acceptable in those markets but not in European ones.

And thus we are stuck with bland or bitter shitty seedless watermelons at the store.

There was once a brave lady who attempted to buck the trend. She bred the most flavorful delicious seedless watermelon ever seen on the planet. It was almost honey sweet with strong aromatics and not a hint of bitterness. It was crisp and juicy without a hint of mealyness. It was large elongated and looked just like the good old seeded ones. Alas the market rejected them because "they look like seeded types". She retired early with a big FU to them all.

Diva is a parthenocarpic gynecious variety. It will only produce female flowers.

Burpless = less bitter. Refers to a specific reduced bitterness gene originally from the dutch/English long cucumbers.

No it doesn't expire and it will be fine for most of a decade.

The flower heads are the plants having sex. You have to wait at least 28-50 days for the babies to be viable before you harvest the heads.

Putting that much compost and manure on top will likely be way too much fertilizer. There's a strong possibility of burning the shit out of your plants. Use soil. You can either rake the mulch out of the way and reuse it or add new stuff on top.

It's a reasonable assumption but not the reasons I recommend limited use of the 10-10-10.

Phosphate - Excess phosphate is water soluable and runs off like nitrate. This causes all sorts of issues in waterways. Phosphate also has a delayed release mechanism from the fertilizer. Only 1/3 of it is immediately available. The other 2/3rd are insoluable and stays in the soil for months. It then releases over the winter and early spring and runs off into the waterways. Long before its buildup in the soil to toxic levels it's fucked up the waterways.

Potassium - elevated levels of potassium in some species is an issue in others it's not a problem. For example corn and other grasses will suck up extra K+ and store it. Howeve in tomatoes, peppers, potatoes etc it can inhibit the uptake of Ca+ and Mg+.

The idea that hitting plants with 3-1-2 fertilizer causes top heavy growth is myth that is passed around gardening forums and many books To put it bluntly it flat out doesn't happen. The root/shoot ratio is quite a bit more complex than that.

Severe over-fertilization of N fertilizer is an issue for many species. This can trigger a flush of vegetative growth and delay reproductive growth. For example if you over-fertilize cucurbits it will often spontaneously abort female flowers before they open. It can also cause ammonia burns to the roots or tissues.

Cucumbers have two types of flowers. Male and female flowers. Male flowers have a thin stem under the flower. Female flowers have what looks like a mini-cucumber underneath of them. They only open for a few hours on one day so they never need pruning.

The blooming pattern for cucumber is referred to sex expression. There is moneocious (more males than females), predominantly female (more females than males) or gynecious (all female). This is controlled by the F-locus gene cluster.

Moneocious varieties are self fertile and only require 1 plant. These are all of the old OP types.

Predominately female varieties are all hybrids and need a moneocious pollinator (usually blended 1:10 or 1:15).

Gynecious varieties hybrids but have another cluster of genes that allow for parthenocarpy (seedless fruit). These varieties don't need to be pollinated.

10-10-10 is a decent spring fertilizer for a few reasons. Cool temperatures inhibit phosphate uptake in plants. So having some extra available when the plants need it helps with early growth. Also only around 1/3 of the phosphate in the fertilizer is available immediately for the plants to use. The other 2/3rds takes some time to change formulations and become available. After the initial shot in the spring a fertilizer that matches the plants needs is a better option. 3-1-2 NPK is not high N fertilizer. It's balanced nutrition for the plant. The rest of the summer you'll want to use it instead of the 10-10-10. The first nutrient defiency to show will be Nitrogen. When you see the oldest leaves on the plant start to turn lime green or yellow, give it some more fertilizer.

The tomoatos will set on their own if they are outside. Either the wind or pollinators will find them.

6 month potting soil usually has manure in it that breaks down slowly over time. Just keep an eye on it it might run out of nitrogen in 3-4 months.

You can add in soil to fill it up to the top. The leaves and such compact with water and will be competing for nutrients in the soil as they breakdown.

Prune the peppermint whenever you feel like it. I only do mine yearly.

Marigolds seed: If you leave the flowers and let the seed pods mature you can reseed them. Just wait until the end of the year and there will be a ton of them all over the plant.

1. You are right to question the frequency of the 10-10-10 fertilizer. Although people refer to it as balanced fertilizer it's actually high phosphate and high potassium. The ratio plants need to grow is 3-1-2 NPK. 10-10-10 should be used very sparingly. Usually only once in the spring at transplant. The rest of the year you should use something like 24-8-16 plus micros. The frequency depends on the species. For example peppers require 8x more fertilizer than lettuce.

2. The tomato - if it's blooming again after transplant let it go. The plant will only set as much fruit as it can support.

3. Onions. spacing is fine. They plant them much closer commercially. Moist is not a problem, soggy is an issue.

4. Herbs, let them grow for a week or two then start using them. Except. The African basil - Use now. Basil booms constantly but keeps getting bigger of you cut off the blooms all summer.

5. Cucumbers can suffer from severe transplant shock when transplanted. Those are just coming out of it. They need heat and time to grow. Do not move them. Just be patient and in 3 weeks they will be trying to take over the bed.

6. Tomato beds - things grow slowly at the start, be patient. Depth is really not an issue. As long as tomatoes get enough food and water they will grow a massive plant a small pot.

7. Peppermint - blah blah blah it's so invasive.... BS. It spreads by runners. All it takes is a yearly pruning with a trowel and you can keep it contained anywhere. I have some mint I planted 10 years ago that takes me 10 minutes once a year to control. Leave it be and enjoy it

8. Marigolds - thin or don't thin it matters not. Marigolds are very weed like and do just fine crowded.

9. Zinnias - that's enough room for them. Since it's a small pot all the plants will get enough light. Just let them go. Keep up with your watering when they get bigger however.

A C-section will run you $60K easy. With the 80:20 insurance thats $12K owed by the parents. . With the federal out of pocket maximum being $9,450 for the mother. The baby also has a $9,450 out of pocket maximum. So the family will likely owe at least $12k before leaving the hospital

$5K handout is seriously ignorant. It will cost a hell of a lot more to reverse the trend

In order to increase the birthrate above replacement level here are a few things that need to happen.

1. Free universal healthcare including dental.

2. Rent control for all apartments locked to single income minimum wage.

3. Ban on investment properties for single family homes. If the house is classified as single family, you can't rent it out. It must be sold.

4. Free childcare.

5. Free education from pre-K to Graduate levels.

6. Open immigration policies for countries with higher birthrates.

7. Increase minimum wage to make it a livable wage.

8. To pay for it all - Increase corporate taxes to 95% for more than $100million income. Increase personal taxes to 95% for more than 1 million in income.