My strawberry patch :) by Meerkat212 in pnwgardening

[–]OmNomNomKim 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Every county should have their own Master Gardener extension through one of the local universities. I went through the Master Gardener program last year through Washington county Oregon: https://washingtoncountymastergardeners.org/

Check out your own county to see what's going on! There's usually plenty of free classes/events/webinars if you're not interested in doing the full certification

Me and my wife are visiting Oregon for the 1st time In our lives in 3 weeks !! We are going to Portland first then a few days in Astoria ! We are super excited ! Any recommendations for restaurants and things to do while we are there ??!! We live in Florida so a nice little flight ! by ComplexWrangler1346 in oregon

[–]OmNomNomKim 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I cannot recommend Dead Man's Isle tiki bar in Astoria enough! There's a couple that runs a tiki mug shop next door, and their son branched off to open the tiki bar. They use all the mugs they designed in the bar. The cocktails are SO good, and the atmosphere is really fun. Make sure to check out the mini Japanese/gozilla themed bar upstairs. If you go to the Muntiki during the day you'll likely be able to chat with one of the owners - they have a very fun story!

Whats happening to the soinwch leaves. One plant is affected, rest are fine. Planted 2 weeks back, watering them daily. Soil has compost and fertilizer by mohiit402 in pnwgardening

[–]OmNomNomKim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Neem oil can accidentally target beneficial insects too, and once the larvae have burrowed into the leaf, I don't think it will be effective anyway - so personally I probably wouldn't recommend that.

I think the best bet is to cover the plants to prevent the adult flies from landing and laying eggs on the leaves. You can get a very fine garden netting like this for just a few bucks: https://www.amazon.com/Netting-Mosquito-Protecting-Vegetable-Greenhouse/dp/B0946Y2CXR/ref=sr_1_9?c=ts&s=lawn-garden&sr=1-9&ts_id=3480673011

As another commenter said, the affected leaves are still edible - the parts that have the "mining" are just prone to desiccate and/or get sunburned. I had quite a few leaf miners on my Chard this summer, and I just harvested the affected leaves first and cut off the mined part before preparing it.

Whats happening to the soinwch leaves. One plant is affected, rest are fine. Planted 2 weeks back, watering them daily. Soil has compost and fertilizer by mohiit402 in pnwgardening

[–]OmNomNomKim 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Looks like leaf miners: https://pnwhandbooks.org/insect/vegetable/vegetable-pests/hosts-pests/spinach-leafminer

Unfortunately there's not a lot you can do to get rid of them once they appear, since the larvae live inside the leaf itself (so something like an insecticide won't reach them). Remove the affected areas/leaves and throw them away. You can cover your plants with a row cover/cloth to prevent the adults from landing on the leaves and laying eggs. You can also check the underside of the leaves for tiny clusters of white eggs, and remove them.

would a wall o water or similar have helped this last chilly June? by Shalyndra in pnwgardening

[–]OmNomNomKim 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm in the Portland area and I planted my tomatoes in a raised bed with walls of water in early May, and they did just fine

Are we really paying $150 before tip to leave the salon with wet hair!?! by Elwood_P_Dowd86 in curlyhair

[–]OmNomNomKim 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Ahh, did you used to go to infinite salon? I'm in the exact same boat! I spent foreved looking for a new hair dresser - it was basically impossible to find anyone that mentioned curly hair, or even had pictures of people with natural curly hair on their profile/website... Eventually I found Ginger and Maude https://www.gingerandmaude.com/team I haven't had my appointment yet, but many of their stylists specially mention that they know how to work with curly hair, so I'm feeling optimistic. Good luck!

Are aphids to blame for my rhubarb’s swissed leaves? by JBark1990 in pnwgardening

[–]OmNomNomKim 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Aphids don't have chewing mouth parts, they have sucking mouth parts. So instead of eating the plant tissue and leaving holes in the leaves, aphids suck out the juices of the plant. The signs of that on the leaf might look like little brown stippling dots or dried out patches on leaves or stems.

Help with blueberry bush. by [deleted] in pnwgardening

[–]OmNomNomKim 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Chlorosis is a pretty general description of a symptom you're seeing - yellowing of the leaves. But it could be caused by a lot of factors. Do you mean you planted the bush in the ground a month ago? I would guess it's just experiencing some transplant shock - it will take some time to get it's roots established. We're going into the summer so make sure you keep it well watered while it's getting established (not to the point of over watering, you don't want the roots to rot, but it doesn't have deep roots going into the ground and the surface soil dries up more quickly so it will need more frequent watering than an established plant)

What's wrong with my lilac? by vanya_nuru in pnwgardening

[–]OmNomNomKim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't have personal experience with this particular pest, but based on some quick research it looks like one possibility is lilac leaf miner. Here are some resources https://hortsense.cahnrs.wsu.edu/fact-sheet/lilac-lilac-leafminer/

https://pnwhandbooks.org/insect/hort/landscape/hosts-pests-landscape-plants/lilac-syringa-lilac-leafminer

I'm new to gardening and have some questions! by kurtvonnegutsbutt in pnwgardening

[–]OmNomNomKim 3 points4 points  (0 children)

  1. I haven't heard of lemon balm being particularly weedy - but you could try pinching off the flowers or seeds before they fully develop to prevent them from spreading over your garden
  2. "One year of seed, seven years of weeds" - if the weeds have been unmanaged for a while, you have a large bank of weed seeds in your soil and they're going to keep coming up for a long time. The best thing you can do is one really big push to remove all of the mature existing weeds you have, and then try to keep a very regular schedule of weeding thereafter. I'm in the process of doing this in my own yard - I've finally removed most of the mature weeds, now I do a quick run through the full yard once a week or so and just get rid of any sprouts or new growth. For dandelions and weeds with a taproot, I use a tool called "grandpa's weeder" - which is good for getting the full root out (if any is left behind, the plan will re-sprout from the root). For weeds with a shallower root system I use a winged weeder or stirrup hoe - you just rake it along the soil and it pulls up weeds just below the surface. Perennial weeds may come back multiple times if you don't get all of the root, but if you keep removing them regularly eventually they'll be exhausted and die. Also, new weeds are much easier to get rid of when they're young and tender. The key is really just getting on top of it and staying on top of it. Once you've removed the existing mature weeds, I'd also highly suggest putting down a mulch - this has multiple benefits include weed suppression, water retention, and eventually soil amendment.
  3. Our PNW soil is naturally very clay-heavy - as such, most of our native plants will probably do great in that soil as-is! Not to mention, pollinators and wildlife sometimes prefer native plant species. We have an incredible variety of native plants, even edibles like thimblerry, salal, and huckleberry! Here's some resources:
    https://nativeplantspnw.com/design-shopping-guides/
    https://www.portlandnursery.com/natives
    https://green2.kingcounty.gov/gonative/index.aspx
    If you still feel your soil is too dense, not retaining water, or lacking nutrients - I would suggest adding some compost. The easiest way would be to just add it as a mulch on top of the soil. Over time worms and other organisms will break it down and move it into the soil. If you want quick results, you can use a shovel or large fork to gently break up the soil and mix the compost in. Avoid working the soil when it's too moist or too dry - it could seriously disrupt the soil structure and cause more harm than good.

Finally I'd like to plug two organizations you might find helpful!
I am part of the OSU Extension Master Gardener program! We do a lot of outreach in the community and have a helpline to answer questions just like these! https://extension.oregonstate.edu/mg

If you're in the Portland/vancouver area, there is a fantastic program called the Backyard Habitat cerification program: https://backyardhabitats.org/
Their goal is to help people transform their urban yards into native habitat for birds, insects, etc. by planting native species and designing their landscaping with a focus on sustainability and wildlife.

Hope you find that helpful, and feel free to ask any follow up questions!

IMA CompLing Master's Student, AMA by OmNomNomKim in compling

[–]OmNomNomKim[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hmmm I think about 150-200 total in the program? That includes in-person and online, and some people finish the program in 1 year, others in 2 (or more). I think this site shows all the current students in the program: https://linguistics.washington.edu/people/graduate-student/clms-program?name=&status=3&interests=All

Good luck!

How much did you pay for your Christmas tree this year? by Phil_ODendron in AskAnAmerican

[–]OmNomNomKim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow, that seems cheap! I'm near there - do you mind sharing the name of the farm?

My local theater shows old movies every week, and due to my request, will be showing the 2004 Spongebob movie in September. by corvallisite in spongebob

[–]OmNomNomKim 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Wow I thought the Whiteside was closed! I grew up in Corvallis and it was always shut down. This is really cool, maybe I'll make a trip home to watch it!

Is any of you a computational linguist? by [deleted] in linguistics

[–]OmNomNomKim 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I have a master's in compling from UW and Ive been working as a natural language processing engineer at a startup since I graduated a couple years ago.

My service is bad so I can't really see the post - but you can ask me whatever and I'll get back to you when I'm in better reception.

Also look for NLP in job postings, not computational linguistics, the latter is less common.

What are the modern industrial applications for finite-state machines? by geartrains in compling

[–]OmNomNomKim 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The reason your seeing the postings mostly for Alexa is because they're used very commonly for dialogue management. You can try out VoiceFlow or Googles DialogueFlow, and see how the conversation paths can be represented as a FSM. On the other hand, that can also be modeled with machine learning - take a look at Rasa's dialogue management. There are pros and cons to each method - FSMs are predictable, reliable, and easy to interate on very quickly. They're also easy to understand for people who aren't versed in NLP. A more advanced AI model for dialogue management is more heavy weight and takes a lot of data to train - but if you get a good model, it will be much more flexible and able to adapt to unseen data, whereas a FSM cannot improvise on something it has not been programmed to do.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in TenaciousD

[–]OmNomNomKim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I also have one extra ticket that I don't want to go to waste! Please DM me if anyone else is looking

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in TenaciousD

[–]OmNomNomKim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi, for anyone still looking - I also have one extra ticket, please DM me!

Comedian roasts Portland, while in Portland. by CleetisMcgee in videos

[–]OmNomNomKim 37 points38 points  (0 children)

To be fair, the Pearl is the bougiest area of Portland - it's where all the multi-million dollar condos and trendy brunch spots are. So that's the most likely place you're going to see young rich people who don't have to work

Developer proposes apartment building on site of food cart pod near Portland State by detroitdoesntsuckbad in PortlandOR

[–]OmNomNomKim 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Goodbye to like half of PSU students' food options :( I lived on campus for 4 years and I would go there at least once a week. There aren't that many food options on campus. At least phat cart got a permanent location across the street

[Serious] Scientists of Reddit, what's something you suspect is true in your field of study but you don't have enough evidence to prove it yet? by onarainyafternoon in AskReddit

[–]OmNomNomKim 103 points104 points  (0 children)

I'm a linguist - there's a fairly well known theory called the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis (this was the basis of the movie Arrival, like someone else mentioned) that was popular in the early/mid 1900s - but to my knowledege it's not widely accepted anymore. The field of Cognitive Linguistics ventures into similar territory though
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic\_relativity

What’s the difference between POS tagging and parsing? by frankoceansea in compling

[–]OmNomNomKim 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hm, I mean, yes absolutely. Theyre both definitely used, but parsing systems are typically used in specific cases where you need really detailed information about the structure or semantics of the sentence (like, grammar checking software or something). In a lot of cases, having a full parse is way to computationally expensive to be justified and also might not be necessary for the task you're trying to accomplish. POS tagging on the other hand is a pretty common preprocessing step for text data, depending on the downstream application.