Plant Tissue Culture PPT

With the summer months receding into distant memory, now is the time for the astute gardener to turn her thoughts to the harsher winter months and prepare her garden accordingly. Forethought and action now can help your prized plot emerge from the wintry depths in a better condition than would otherwise be the case.

Lawns

A lawn can make or break the look of a garden, and proper pre-winter care is essential if it is to be at its best during the forthcoming year. In late autumn, give it its final mowing, making sure that the mower is set to its maximum cutting height. Also, keep raking off any leaves and debris that fall onto it from surrounding trees so that they don´t shade the grass, thereby excluding air, encouraging disease and inhibiting growth. Now is also the time to scarify the lawn with a spring-tined rake to remove dead grass, moss and other detritus, all obstacles to a healthy lawn. Then, the lawn should be aerated with a garden fork or a rotary aerator. This alleviates the soil compaction that has occurred during the year. The lawn will probably have sustained some damage after the wear and tear of the summer, so sow seed on any bare patches that have emerged, and make good any other repairs to edges and so on. Finally, a top-dressing should be applied to feed the grass and promote growth.

Flowerbeds and borders

In the flowerbeds, all the annuals, which will be dead or dying but certainly well past their best, should be dug up and put on the compost heap, while perennials should be cut back and, if required, divided to give more plants, which should then be planted in situ, or overwintered in a greenhouse. If you have any shrubs that you want to move, do it now, as it allows them time to get firmly anchored before the growing season. However, be sure to stake them, as they may need extra support while settling in. Soil loses a lot of nutrients during the summer, so dig in compost or fertilizer ahead of the next growing period. Roses should be dead-headed and cut back, so long as they are not winter-flowering, and trees and shrubs should be inspected for damage and disease, which can then be cut out. Any plants that have spent the summer outside in pots should now be returned to the confines of the house or the greenhouse before the first frosts.

Ponds

If you have a pond, cover it with some netting, which will prevent leaves etc. falling in and polluting the water. A good idea, if you have fish, is to float a small ball on the surface, so should it freeze over, you only have to lift the ball up to provide a ready-made hole for to allow the fish to breathe.

Building maintenance

Inspect walls and any other garden buildings, such as greenhouses and sheds, for wear and tear. Any weaknesses should be attended to before the inclement weather makes them worse and more costly to repair.

Garden furniture

If possible, garden furniture should be stored away somewhere safe and dry. However, if that is not possible, ensure that it is protected with weather-proof covers. And don´t forget that winter winds can be particularly harsh, so be sure that everything is weighted or tied down.

Tools

Finally, when all the jobs have been completed, it's time to turn your attention to your tools. They work hard and deserve to be treated with care, so clean and oil them well, and let them enjoy a well-deserved winter's rest in a nice, dry shed or garage.

Much of gardening in winter is the tidy up and then the prepartaion for a closed season. However there are of course things you can do for future growth, for example the drying out and storage of seeds or, as may people try, the winter treatment of seeds. Putting them into flats and then putting them outside over winter to see them germinate in spring. If you need ideas, get online and get inspired!

Graeme is writing on behalf of vegetable seeds supplier Kings Seeds

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Handling this new and insidious invasion of Japanese Knotweed has become a matter of concern across the British countryside and urban centers and suburbs. This fast-growing, hardy weed which was once cultivated by Victorians as an ornamental plant in the 19th century has mutated into a scourge that attacks old and new buildings from the foundations, waterways, drainage systems, motorways, roads, and airport tarmac.

Knotweed infestation, apart from causing destruction, can also bring down property values of commercial and residential land, and make property owners and tenants liable to criminal and civil prosecution under several environmental protection and civic liability acts. Getting rid of this urban nightmare has become a priority. However, many horticultural experts feel that the situation has been unnecessarily vitiated by the efforts of a few mortgage and realty companies who started the ball rolling by refusing to lend on Knotweed infested properties. They feel that Knotweed, while it can cause structural damage, is not as catastrophic as it's made out to be. With timely intervention, Knotweed can be eradicated quite effectively.

Today several companies offer a suite of services to help eradicate/control Knotweed and it's essential to keep some pointers in mind when choosing the right one for your needs.

Survey Services: Before investing in land or selling it, you can employ a surveyor to assess the property thoroughly and provide a detailed report of not only the condition of your property but also that of neighboring areas if you suspect that Knotweed penetration may be present underground. The RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, UK) is planning to bring out a study to help its surveyors to assess Knotweed infestation risks and provide a balanced and practical assessment of the risks.

Eradication or Control: Different strategies have to be followed for both. Most property-owners prefer complete eradication though it takes time, effort and money. However, for special situations like Knotweed in a waterway system, only control may be possible.

Chemical or Organic: herbicides are available for clients to choose from. Alternate treatments like vinegar and sea-water sprays have been found effective in smaller plots/weaker infestation.

Removal: is considered the best type of eradication, but also the most rigorous and laborious. Large tracts of earth have to be dug, as Knotweed is known to penetrate upto 10 meters and even the trace of a stem or rhizome left behind can lead to re-infection. The problem with removal is that the moved earth must be disposed of properly, otherwise it can contaminate water-systems and neighboring property.

Root-barrier, Cell-burial and Quarantining: are methods which must be conducted under strict supervision, since they are control rather than eradication methods. Frequent assessment of the restrictive barriers has to be undertaken by soil and horticultural experts.

Finally, taking proper preventive steps would be the best solution rather than attempting to eradicate or control it.

Welcome to the world of TP Knotweed - Japanese Knotweed provides knotweed removal, eradication, and control services throughout the UK. We have different techniques for Knotweed Control. For more detail visit our website Tpknotweed.

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Children have a natural curiosity about the outdoors so encouraging their interest in gardening is not difficult. Gardening has all the attributes that capture a child's imagination, nature, colour, smell, touch and above all else mud! Getting children interested in gardening is also a great way to encourage them to care for wildlife and the countryside around them. A good starting premise I always think is - keep it simple and make it fun. Just make sure you are sensible about basic safety in a garden environment. Here are a few tips that will give your budding little gardeners a helping hand.

If you are a little precious about your garden, give your children a piece of ground of their own and let them fill it with simple plants that are easy to look after. Getting children to grow their own vegetables provides them with a great introduction to gardening. Most vegetables are easy to grow and there is nothing quite like getting them to pick the vegetables they have grown and see them placed on the table for eating. Potatoes are an obvious choice. Get children to grow them in containers where its easy to see emerging shoots and watch them grow. Salad leaves are another easy choice and have the added benefit of being quick to grow from seed to picking.

Get your children to appreciate the wildlife that lives in the garden by encouraging them to feed garden birds. Children love bugs, so set traps to catch all manner of insects from woodlice to snails, spiders to butterflies and allow the children to observe them at close hand. Supervised maintenance of a pond is also guaranteed to capture their interest. From frogs and toads to magical dragonflies and water boatmen. Getting children to help set up a wormery is also a good way of getting them to interact with nature, helping them to understand the complex relationship between the earth and wildlife in creating compost.

There are many plants children will just love to grow. Make sure you choose simple plants that are easy to grow from seed, grow quickly and do not take a lot of looking after. Sunflowers are a great favourite. Not only do they tick all the boxes, but they grow into real giants. Set up a competition to see who can grow the tallest sunflower! Summer annuals are also great for children to grow. Get them to create their own display of bright colours in garden planters that can be placed on a patio for all the family to enjoy.

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Many vegetable gardeners out there such as yourself grow more fruits and vegetables then you can consume before they start to decay or rot. While giving away a portion of what you grow, whether it's to a friendly neighbor or simply a donation to a local soup kitchen or food pantry, is a good thing, you can also preserve much of your harvest for the months in which you are not able to grow in abundance or at all.

While many methods for preservation exist, there are two common ones that have been around for quite some time and are becoming more popular every day. You can tell when something is becoming popular when more and more stores carry a line of products to handle the tasks of that "something".

In this case that "something" is food preservation and the two popular methods for handling such a task are boiling water canning and pressure canning. Each serves a specific purpose, which i will get to in a moment, and both are valuable as well as easy to do. They each require some basic equipment, a little know how.

Boiling-Water Canning
The method of boiling water canning is used when foods are high in acid, such as lemons, peaches, tomatoes, plums and so on. These, and many other items like them, have a pH level at or below 4.6, meaning they have a high acidic content.

This method is conducted by bringing a pot of water to boil at 212 degrees Fahrenheit and submerging jars filled with whatever you are preserving into the boiling water and letting them sit there for a period of time.

High acid foods are processed using this method. Sometimes, recipes call for adding lemon juice so as to increase the acidity of the mixture. The combination of the high acid and the temperature at which the jars are boiled at result in destroying molds, yeasts, various forms of bacteria and inactivate some enzymes.

I will talk about pressure canning in a moment, however, never use the boiling water method to preserve foods that are not high in acid such as beans, peas or corn. For those items you need a temperature of 240 degrees Fahrenheit to destroy bacterial spores that exist in low acid foods, and that can only be obtained with pressure canning.

Pressure Canning
That brings me to the second method of canning, pressure canning. The only way you are going to get the water in your pot up to 240 degrees Fahrenheit is through pressure canning. This temperature is important because it destroys all bacteria, spores and toxins that low acid foods produce.

Besides the popular varieties of veggies mentioned earlier that fall into the category needed to be pressure canned, okra, carrots, beets and turnips are a few more. These veggies are above the 4.6 pH level.

There is a special piece of equipment used for this method called a pressure canner. No surprise there right? The basic items of this canner are the base, a lid, the gauge (dial or weighted) and a rack. The total cost for this canning package, which is sold as a complete set (although you can buy replacement pieces), runs anywhere from $60 to $100.

The way it works is to submerge your jars of low acidic foods into the base and place them on the rack inside, place the lid on your canner and use the gauge to monitor the pressure and temperature. The gauge will release small amounts of steam to maintain the proper pressure inside the container.

Be sure to follow the maintenance instructions that come with your pressure canner. The gauge which measures the pressure in your canner, should be tested for accuracy (dial gauge only) usually once per year and replaced if the reading is off by 5psi (pounds per square inch) or more. A weighted gauge does not need to be tested for accuracy but must be replaced if there is any damage to it.

Some helpful utensils such as a jar lifter, jar funnel bubble remove, headspace tool and lid wand, make canning that much easier as each of these utensils can be used in both methods.

I would recommend starting off with something easy. I canned peaches as my first run through the canning process. It was easy because I was able to use the boiling water method, which I had the proper items needed already in my home. Then I moved to tomatoes and pickles still using the boiling water method and finally beans doing some pressure canning.

Like anything else it takes practice. Don't be afraid to make a few mistakes, or in my case, messes, along the way, and you will be fine.

About the Author
Mike Podlesny is the owner of Mike the Gardener Enterprises, LLC, an online vegetable gardening retailer of seeds and supplies, as well as the exclusive home for the Seeds of the Month Club.

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