The Wingham Advance-Times, 1984-06-13, Page 30page. tfi- ores§troads--- li e. la, 1984
Bac kya rd
Gardener
Bug booze and
seeds .in gel
By Patrick Denton
There are times when one
particular topic keeps recur-
ring in garden talk among
friends. Right now there are
two subjects that seem to be
popping up with regularity.
They are Booze for Bugs and
Fluid -Sown Seeds.
Let's deal with the bugs
first. A friend mentioned to
me recently that quite by
accident she discovered that
fungus gnats will flock to
wine and drown themselves
quite happily in it.
Apparently she had bottled
some homemade wine, but
one bottle had a rather loose -
fitting top. When she next
noticed that bottle in storage
the wine had a thick layer of
small dark flies which had
managed td squeeze their
way into the bottle.
This gave her the idea to
place jar tops with wine be-
side her houseplants, in
hopes of luring the flies into
these traps. Apparently this
worked quite nicely, and the
fungus gnats disappeared.
Fungus gnats are a dread-
ful plague of houseplants, as
anyone on intimate terms
with them will know. The
little flies don't munch away
on the plants, but their mag-
gots do damage roots. I've
grown quite paranaoic about
them myself, and enjoy trap-
ping them on sticky yellow
markers set among the
plants. Now if we can spare
some wine, I plan on trying
the booze trap.
We've all become familiar
with beer traps for slugs. Ap-
parently tin cans partly
filled with beer will also at-
tract and drown flea beetles,
a common pest on tomatoes,
potatoes, beans and peppers.
These small, dark jumping
beetles make tiny round
holes in the -leaves.
Some gardeners have
found that earwigs too are
attracted to yeast and alco-
hol odors. Cans or jars with
their tops set at ground level
and a dollop of stale beer or
yeast dissolved in water at
the bottom will draw earwigs
to the delicious waftings for
a tumble into the traps.
Another garden procedure
that seems to be capturing
the imaginations of back-
yard gardeners these days is
sowing seeds in a semifluid
gel. One friend describes her
method like this: "I germin-
ate parsnip seed in my
sprouter. When the seeds
have sprouted I mix a small
amount of sizing or wall-
paper paste in a bowl, add
the sprouts and mix gently
by hand. I transfer the mix-
ture into a plastic bag, and
when the rows are ready cut
a small hole in the corner of
the bag and squeeze out the
mix into the row."
This is not something new.
I've noticed for some time
seed catalogs offering ready-
made kits for pre -sprouting
seeds on dampened absor-
bent paper and stirring them
into a prepared gel before
sowing them via plastic bot-
tle with a changeable nozzle
for different seedling sizes.
Any thin jellylike liquid
can be used for mixing with
pre -germinated seeds, as
long as it is not mixed too
thin, or so thick that the
seeds become glued to it.
One recipe I've seen uses
cornstarch at about three
tablespoons for each pint of
water, mixed while the
water is cold and then boiled
to thicken it. Stirring is im-
portant, to eliminate lump-
ing — a disaster at sowing
time. Cooled, the mixture
should be thinner than tooth-
paste and should flow, not
squirt out of the plastic bag.
The sprouted seeds are
mixed with the gel as soon as
the first tiny root growth ap-
pears. One easy way of doing
this is to place the plastic
bag in a glass with the edges
draped over the sides of the
glass. Pour in the gel, add
the sprouted seeds and mix
very gently with a spoon.
The bag is twist tied, and a
hole cut in a corner just
slightly larger than a
sprouted seed.
One misconception that
often arises among home
gardeners wishing to try this
seeding method is that the
gel protects the seedlings
from cold and frost. -It
doesn't. Seeding in gel does
give a head start on the sea-
son' because the
ea-son'because,the seeds have
already germinated at plant-
ing time. It's a method mid-
way between dry seeding
and transplanting.
But although some gar-
deners have found cold -
tolerant vegetables like on-
ion, cabbage and spinach
can be gel planted a week or
two earlier than usual, this is
not recommended with
warmth -loving seeds like
zinnia and marigold.
Pre -sprouting slow germi-
nators like parsnip and car-
rot does give a helpful head
start though, and gel plant-
ing also allows good spacing
at planting time, just about
eliminating the tedious job of
thinning.
Vase would bring
about $300
By James G. McCollam
Member, Antique
Appraisers Association
Of America
0: What can you tell about
this vase with the enclosed
mark on the bottom? It is 9
inches tall, green with pink
flowers.
A: The mark indicates that
it was made by the Ceramic
Art Co. in Trenton, N.J.,
around the turn of the cen-
tury. In 1906 the company
became part of Lenox China.
Vases like this are selling
in the $300 range.
1
PENT-UP DEMAND
For the past year pent-up
demand by consumers has
been sustaining the econo-
mic recovery. Consumers in
the U.S., after hesitating for
three years, have finally
stopped putting off major
purchases. After postponing
these expenditures during
the depths of the reces'Sion,
such: spending now, is soar-
ing. The U.S. public has been
on a credit -buying binge that
is just beginning to show
signs of weakening.
Consumption is the essen-
tial economic activity,
Unless there is a total col-
lapse households consume
some bare minimum; con-
sumption activities consti-
tute a kind of floor for the
level of general economic ac-
tivity.
While consumer spending
tends to display a measure of
stability over time relative
to business spending and in-
vestment, nevertheless it
fluctuates a great deal. Con-
sumption represents about
two-thirds of GNP and of
course when consumer spen-
ding is weak, business spen-
ding and investment also de-
cline. There would be no
reason for business to invest
in plant or inventories if final
demand were in a slump.
Consumer spending rises
and falls along with public
confidence about the
economic. outlook, but it
ultimately depends on per-
sonal disposable income.
Consumers were reluctant
to make major purchases
during the 1981-82 recession,
not only because they were
worried about losing their
Electroplating is an inex-
pensive method of applying a
thin layer of pure silver to a
base metal by a chemical
process.
0: This chair is supposed
to be over 100 years old. Can
you tell me what period it is
and how much it is worth?
It is a combination of
plain, curly and bird's-eye
maple.
A: Your chair is from the
Empire Period and was
made in the second quarter
of the 19th century.
The value would be in the
$125 to $175 range.
0: What is Sheffield Plate
and why is it worth so much
more than ordinary silver
plate?
A: Sheffield Plate is made
by sandwiching a layer of
co..er between two layers of
ster hag silver. This is and
was a much more expensive
process than electroplating.
The high costs of today's
labor would make Sheffield
Plate as expensive as solid
sterling silver.
EMPIRE CHAIR
.. Made of three
types of maple
CanEc a's
Business
by Bruce Whitestone
jobs, but also because their
take-home pay was adverse-
ly affected by rising prices of
essentials like food and
shelter, and also of non--
essentihls such as cars or
entertainment.
Spurred on by the re-
covery, millions of consum-
ers in the U.S. threw caution
to the wind and have gone in-
to debt to buy basic and lux-
ury goods. Income tax filing
in the United States was
delayed in the winter, be-
cause tax refunds were not
expected; tax repayments
cannot be relied on to stim-
ulate consumer spending as
they did in 1983.
Consumer debt has been
expanding in the United
States at an unsustainable
rate, reflecting consumers'
voracious appetite for
credit; however, growth
seems to be slowing down
from the annual rate of ex-
pansion in the final months
of 1983. Then consumer debt
was rising at a 17.7 per cent
rate but now it is around 13
per cent, still too high to be
maintained. Over the past
year U.S. consumer debt
rose by $42.6 billion, or 12.4
per cent.
In the U.S. consumer
prices, producer prices for
finished goods, and compen-
sation per hour suggest only
moderate inflation. How-
ever, price trends of raw
materials and sensitive mat •
-
erials signal trouble by the
end of this year. Hence in a
perverse way, strong con-
sumer spending now may re-
present a vote of no -confi-
dence in the future. With in-
sufficient action to reduce
the United States' budget
deficit and expectations of
some tax increases after the
November election, consum-
ers and businessmen are try-
ing to buy and .produce all
that they can to beat .antici-
pated tax increases. The
more people realize how bad
the deficit situation will be-
come, the more consumers
will accelerate their pur-
chases in 1984.
Along with that, capital
spending is coming earlier in
the economic cycle than
usual. Investment noW to cut
costs rattterithan to increase
capacity suggests that busi,
ness is preparing for a
margin squeeze and not for
prosperity. All of that- wW
exert upward pressure on in-
terest rates as the Federal
Reserve Board tries to mod-
erate the demand for credit.
Higher taxes to cut the
deficit, developing restraint
bytheU.S. Federal Reserve
Board, and retrenchment by
the consumer would indicate
an economic downturn in
1985. Most of all, consumers
seem to be spending now and
thereby depleting their re-
serves. Even if consumers
remain optimistic, low sav-
ings rates and increased in-
stallment debt indicate that
the resources for continued
consulter spending are un-
available at anything like
the present pace.
Seats balkled
The Scots for a long time
refused to eat potatoes be-
cause they weren't men-
tioned in the ,Bible. Also,
leprosy, tubercplosis and
rickets were once attribu-
ted to potato -eating.
Ace by golfer, 6
The youngest golfer ever
to score a hole -in -one is
Tommy Moore, Hagers-
town, Md., who was 6
years, one month and one
day old when he aced the
145 -yard fourth hole at
Woodbrier Golf Course,
Martinsburg, W.Va., March
8, 1969.
A t i S from. sap?.
Arthritis can stem from
ordinary wear -and -,tear,
can btu an inherited condi-
tion, can be triggered by
(manure to drugs or, more
intereating, -by sunlight. It
can develop from, gonor-
rhea or meningitis. It af-
flicts a million new victims
in this country yearly.
Snap up the opportunities
in the
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