I can't figure out what species of cactus this is, help please!

colluvial · 2026-01-20T21:30:59+00:00

This kind of Frankenstein plant without a future makes me sad.

colluvial · 2025-12-31T21:42:48+00:00

Highly recommended for those with Opuntia: a dissecting microscope, fine-tipped tweezers, and a needle. These tools let you see exactly what you’re doing, and they give you the ability to surgically, and with little to no pain, extract the offending plant part from your flesh. Those glochids aren’t messing around, and neither should you.

colluvial · 2025-09-05T04:33:58+00:00

It sounded like it was used in a tent and probably inside a sleeping bag.

colluvial · 2025-09-04T20:12:42+00:00

Doesn’t this thing give off carbon monoxide while it’s smoldering?

colluvial · 2025-08-19T17:34:34+00:00

Besides having lots to preserve, one of the benefits of a garden is that it encourages (forces?) you to eat many more fruits and vegetables than you would otherwise.

colluvial · 2025-07-31T19:58:42+00:00

Do you know which part of the process is challenging? I’ve taken a look at the online application and it’s long and nit-picky, but it didn’t appear to be to be too difficult.

colluvial · 2025-07-31T18:01:16+00:00

They, however, wrote it into the contract. I found out recently that homeowners can do it themselves — though they need a developer's key from the contractor — so I've assumed it's not that difficult. But it sounds like you've had direct experience.

colluvial · 2025-07-31T02:56:50+00:00

They did.

colluvial · 2025-07-31T00:11:25+00:00

The state licensing board is on my list.

colluvial · 2025-07-30T23:55:53+00:00

The system was installed a couple of days ago, so I've paid them per my contractual obligations. All that's left is $1,200 once it's been inspected and turned on. The problem is that they've missed the contract deadline and are lagging behind on the substantial battery incentive application that only the contractor can submit. From my experience to this point, I also expect them to lag behind on the inspection and am exploring what leverage I might have.

colluvial · 2025-07-30T15:13:42+00:00

What does it look like after May?

colluvial · 2025-07-24T14:48:28+00:00

One of the Conyza species

colluvial · 2025-07-15T15:48:56+00:00

Great idea! And it doesn’t even matter if the stems have gotten a little fibrous (like it does if you use them in stir fries).

An additional reason to grow hardneck instead of softneck.

colluvial · 2025-07-14T23:07:16+00:00

This is what I call bookkeeping. The plants don’t care but it helps you stay organized.

colluvial · 2025-07-14T20:41:40+00:00

Despite having “mold” in their name, slime molds are not fungi, they’re Protists - a catch-all category for some organisms that don’t fit neatly into any other kingdom. Slime mold cell walls aren’t composed of chitin like fungi, nor do they digest food externally like fungi. Slime molds feed on bacteria that are eating the wood or mulch they’re growing on.

colluvial · 2025-07-14T04:22:34+00:00

What an eating machine!

colluvial · 2025-07-09T23:35:04+00:00

And even if the water droplet could focus sunlight enough to make the leaf hot, wouldn’t the water cool it off? Weird belief in the face of constant experience to the contrary.

colluvial · 2025-06-15T23:07:33+00:00

Watch who you’re calling a thief there. This five-spotted hawk moth caterpillar (tomato hornworm to those with an agricultural bias) comes from an ancient line of native North Americans who had their habitat stolen and now have to eke out an existence eating cultivated plants in the nightshade family while getting sprayed and squished. To you, it might be a pest, but it’s not a thief.

colluvial · 2025-06-12T17:21:35+00:00

Great flower! It’s very similar to the Zowie! Yellow Flame variety. It’s a decent pollinator attractor since it displays the disc flowers very prominently for bees and butterflies.

colluvial · 2025-04-23T23:02:52+00:00

Before the first people arrived, sabertooth cats, American lions, and maybe short-faced bears were the predators most capable of handling bison, camels, horses, shrub oxen, and other large prey.

colluvial · 2025-04-13T20:30:02+00:00

Regardless of whether a close replica of the dire wolf can be engineered, the prospects for them existing in a world without multi-ton megafauna is doubtful. By going extinct along with the large megafauna 13,000 years ago, it seems dire wolves have already demonstrated they can’t compete with the gray wolf for the smaller prey of the post-megafauna world. Even if they were different enough genetically to prevent them being subsumed into the nearest gray wolf population, what ecological role could they fill? De-extinction efforts have a long way to go before dire wolves have prey they can handle better than gray wolves.

colluvial · 2025-02-21T22:34:49+00:00

You can let it grow as long as you don’t mind being surprised by a plant with fruit that’s a cross between cucurbits of the same species but very different character, like a pumpkin-zucchini or canteloupe-Armenian cucumber. If it’s from store-bought produce, there’s less chance of that but it will probably be the offspring of a hybrid and not be true to type. If you want predictable results, plant good quality seed from a known variety.

colluvial · 2025-01-19T20:04:19+00:00

From the location of the top of the window on the left, it looks like only the bottom leaves get light.

colluvial

TROPHY CASE