Are you doing your pandemic garden, even if it’s on a balcony or windowsill? How’s it going? If not, you might consider it as a source of both fresh produce and some peace from the COVID-19 stress. The other day I went to one of my favorite nurseries here in the Sacramento area and it …
Looking for some tomato tips? I do sometimes escape the lab into the outside world and once out of there I can often be found in my vegetable garden looking after my tomatoes. I’ve written many times here on The Niche about gardening including tomatoes and have an occasional series “Scientist in the Garden.” After …
I don’t study frogs, but they’ve sure been studying bugs in my garden this year. Every so often and more frequently in summer I post about experiences as a scientist in the garden. As long-time readers know, I’m a bit obsessed with growing tomatoes. You can see past posts on tomatoes and tips on how …
Who let the frogs out & why do they sit on my tomatoes? Read More »
What’s better than fresh “fruit” from your own tomato garden? For the last few years when I think about planning my summer tomato garden, I start months in advance preparing the soil. I had fava beans as my cover crop all this past winter and tilled it into the soil late in winter. It adds …
What’s the deal with dragonfly eyes? They are so huge! We’ll zoom in on them. Do bees bite? Yes, but not the way you might think. Growing cool tomatoes? I have some thoughts on that too. I’m a scientist and a gardener so it’s not surprising I write an occasional series here on The Niche …
Scientist in the garden: dragonfly eyes, bees bite flowers, cool tomatoes, & tips Read More »
One of my hobbies is gardening, which helps keeps one’s sanity amongst all the grant writing, etc. However, I have a tough time leaving the science behind when I go out into the garden so sometimes I give in and go all science nerd in the garden. I’ve been doing a series on my blog …
Giant black widow spider & ant come eye-to-eye: surprising result Read More »
I’ve been gardening since I was a kid and I guess I’ve been a scientist that long too so now it’s time for another installment of “scientist in the garden.” You can see past such posts here, which usually include various cool photos. Today’s post is focused on unusual things in the garden. Getting out …
Scientist in the garden: purple cauliflower & other cool photos Read More »
I’ve always grown tomatoes in my garden and I like unusual varieties like Beauty King. This year I’ve got a bunch of cool tomatoes growing out back. Some are now starting to ripen so it’s getting more exciting. Note that this posted has been updated for 2023. Growing tomatoes is not as hard as I …
How to grow cool tomatoes like the Beauty King tomato Read More »
Isn’t it cool how close one can get with just an iPhone and a macro lens to take pictures of things including nature? 2020 update: you might also enjoy these pages of nature photos I took. Can you figure out or guess what these things are below that I captured “on film”? Some are self-evident and …
With iPhone zoom lens, fun photos of super tiny stuff including nature Read More »
As readers of this blog may recall, I have a garden where I grow a variety of plants every year. One year I had quite a few sunflowers and ever since I have “volunteer” sunflowers popping up that have all kinds of interesting traits. The neighborhood squirrels collected hundreds of sunflower seeds and buried some …
Praying mantis & giant spider hunting bees on garden sunflower Read More »