Monthly Archives: April 2014

Lettuce, Bolting and Bitterness

Garden, , ,

DSC02215 I was surprised to see a new lettuce bolted.  I brought it in, and found that it was not really the newly planted lettuce seed which had bolted, but rather it was an offshoot of an earlier harvested plant put into the ground last fall.  You can see the tall bolted lettuce is an offshoot of a cut off plant.  Right next to it is a shorter, more condensed, normal, newly seeded lettuce plant.  It is not an offshoot of the cut off plant.

This clearly showed that the older lettuce, which had been exposed to cold bolted.  In another set of harvested lettuces (not shown), it was clear that last fall’s plants which survived and are growing in early April, are bitter, whereas the fresh, spring planted lettuce that is now growing, is not bitter.  THe truly new, spring planted lettuce has not bolted yet.  It was new shoots from last fall’s lettuce which bolted!

Growing any garden utilizes energy from the sun.  Homegrown saves trips to the store, if not money.   It is good to learn what one can do with one’s seeds, soil, water, and sunshine!

Autism

Health, ,

DSC02237  You have probably heard of autism, a neurodevelpmental disorder in which children have impaired social interactions, is now closer to being understood. This report in the the March 8, 2014 issue of Science News  relays the Feb 7 Science  information that the diuretic bumetamide, already reported to help at least some autistic children, prevented autism from developing in rodent models of the disease, when pregnant rodents were given the diuretic one day before the rodent pups were born.

Here is the sequence of preventive events as elucidated in the rodent models:

  1. The diuretic reduces prenatal pup brain chloride.
  2. The lower chloride levels permit a  a GABA functional reversal.  Prenatally, GABA is an excitatory  neurotransmitter, whereas after birth, GABA is a calming neurotransmitter.
  3. Too much chloride prevents the GABA functional switch from happening during birth, and leaves the rodent pup brain in a hyper-excitable, immature condition.
  4. It is way to early to try this on people.   However, this is a very promising result, which will hasten forward progress in the areas of autism prevention and treatment.

Any way to personally or societally become more efficient,  including ways to prevent and offset any health issues ultimately saves all of us energy and fossil fuel use.

Garden, April 4, 2014

Garden, , , , , , ,

DSC02178 After a bit over a week nursing this cold, I was happy to see the progress in the garden.  Several items have continued their bolting.  The cabbage flowers are blooming on two plants.   There seem to be small heads on a couple of plants, and I suspect that these will not bolt, because they may have been too undeveloped when the cold snap hit about a month ago.   The broccoli flowers look great.    One of the mesclun mix is blooming a nice white flower.  The cilantro is blooming white. Some lettuce flowers will open within a week.  The taller dill is budded in a green Queen Ann’s lace pattern.

It seems that there are several kinds of new plants that are growing together very well, providing each other with shelter from the warm afternoon sun.  It is a balmy 76 degrees on the shaded front porch, so one can imagine that the backyard plants may relish a bit of each other’s shade as they grow.

The plantains have started to grow again, though the dead parts look worse than ever.  I can probably cut them down, and separate off the stems for chipping more easily now!  It is time for me to get weeding in order to keep ahead of it.