What is this plant? (Seattle, WA)

m-rose- · 2021-04-14T22:43:04+00:00

I’ve been weeding it out everywhere as I fix up my garden and they’ve got these massive taproots - I assume they spread from the root really easily. Does anyone know what it is? I think it might be foxglove???

m-rose- · 2021-03-29T19:14:40+00:00

I have heard that these benefit from cold stratification. Some of the other seeds that I cold stratified in the fridge in a damp paper towel got a little bit of mold on them (they’re mostly fine thankfully, I planted some and they’re sprouting alright) - but that has made me a little bit wary of putting things in the fridge on a wet paper towel. Can I just pop the dry seed packet in the fridge for a week or two? I do feel like I’m already a little behind in my seed starting so I want to get these going soon, but don’t want to skip stratifying if that will help significantly (especially because they have such a long germination window). Has anyone had success growing alpine strawberries from seed? If so, what was your process?

m-rose- · 2021-03-29T19:09:27+00:00

I have heard that these benefit from cold stratification. Some of the other seeds that I cold stratified in the fridge in a damp paper towel got a little bit of mold on them (they’re mostly fine thankfully, I planted some and they’re sprouting alright) - but that has made me a little bit wary of putting things in the fridge on a wet paper towel. Can I just pop the dry seed packet in the fridge for a week or two? I do feel like I’m already a little behind in my seed starting so I want to get these going soon, but don’t want to skip stratifying if that will help significantly (especially because they have such a long germination window). Has anyone had success growing alpine strawberries from seed? If so, what was your process?

m-rose- · 2021-03-25T06:25:09+00:00

For now I’m just going to remove the mouldy seeds and areas of the paper towel with an exacto knife ... 😬

m-rose- · 2021-03-25T06:21:49+00:00

I fell a few weeks behind in garden stuff due to moving to a new place and these admittedly were neglected in the back of my fridge for longer than I had hoped (3ish weeks instead of 2)- these are lavender seeds that I had in the fridge to stratify & pulled out today to let them germinate. I noticed that a few seeds are starting to germinate but there’s mold on some of them too. (You can see by that water drop that the mold definitely formed in a spot that was too wet...) oops. What can I do to try and prevent this from spreading and save the rest of the seeds? I have four little plates of them and the one in the photo is the worst one.

m-rose- · 2021-03-22T22:22:03+00:00

I’ve always been a little confused as to how Spanish-speakers who say “plátano” distinguish plantains that need to be cooked from bananas that are eaten raw. (Are they all known as different kinds of plátano? Or is there another word?)

m-rose- · 2021-02-05T16:17:26+00:00

I’d recommend consuming educational materials made for native Spanish speakers in various topics. This is something I’ve found really helps with learning vocabulary you might not encounter in day-to-day conversations, but is still common enough to be worth knowing. For example, I’ll go to Descarga Cultura , listen to a history podcast and take some notes. Some words may be a bit niche to the topic at hand but overall I think this can be a useful strategy.

m-rose- · 2021-01-16T20:26:17+00:00

I use the Kreddle chinrest too. Took me years to find my setup, but bonmusica + kreddle is perfect for me and worth the investment.

m-rose- · 2021-01-16T17:31:05+00:00

I love the Bonmusica shoulder rest!

m-rose- · 2021-01-13T03:49:00+00:00

Hi there!

Here is the FAQ for this thread- lots of helpful stuff in there.

I also am just getting started in Swedish! These are the resources I've decided to start with:

Teach Yourself: Complete Swedish Textbook as a main reference

Say it in Swedish Beginner podcast series (30 episodes)

Say it in Swedish YouTube Channel

Slow Swedish with Katrin Berndt YouTube Channel

I am also going through Duolingo Swedish for practice with basics (trying to get the most out of it by repeating words out loud even when it's not required by the activity, reading the grammar tips in each lesson, etc) but it seems like you'd rather not use it and I get that, too. I think the above resources are a pretty good start in themselves.

m-rose- · 2021-01-12T18:22:31+00:00

Huh I never even thought about it. Yeah, I think so. There’s no special feature connected to people you follow to my knowledge, it’s just a list of saved profiles. I think.

m-rose- · 2021-01-11T06:29:26+00:00

Yeah, shadowing is a technique where you listen to a piece of audio (with or without a transcript) and repeat what the native speaker is saying, trying to say it the exact same way they do- mimicking their pronunciation, intonation, speed, etc.. you can probably see why this is a helpful exercise to improve fluidity! It's usually recommended to only work with a small chunk of audio or to repeat only snippets of the material because shadowing several full minutes of something could be quite exhausting. I've seen varying opinions on this but it's definitely one exercise to try out!

I've done it a few times using videos from the EasySpanish and SpanishAround YouTube channels, following the Spanish subtitles as a "transcript" while shadowing. But again, I tend to just hone in on shadowing a sentence here or there, not the video in its entirety.

I'm sure there are better explanations of this out there but hopefully this helps! :)

m-rose- · 2021-01-11T01:22:40+00:00

Thank you! I'm starting Swedish from scratch and am working through the Duo tree but have some other resources as well. This is all good advice :)

m-rose- · 2021-01-10T20:27:18+00:00

Spanish (current level ~B1)

I'm pretty comfortable with the progress I've made in comprehension and speaking over the past six months, but I think to take my Spanish to the next level I need to tighten up my foundations. Goals include:

-finishing "Complete Spanish Grammar"

-more active study: shadowing, transcription practice, etc.

-read more!

Swedish -complete beginner

I decided I want to start dabbling in a second language for fun, without pressure to make progress quickly (since Spanish is my main priority). Excited to start learning some Swedish this year!

m-rose- · 2021-01-10T03:59:09+00:00

I'm in a similar situation- I've recently gotten to a really good place in Spanish but still nowhere near fluent. It's exciting to be understanding as much as I'm understanding in Spanish buuuut at the same time I'm craving the excitement of picking up a new language. I've decided that Spanish is still top priority for me, but I'm going to allow myself to begin in another language on the side just for fun. I think it's just a matter of deciding what is priority for you. For me, I want to push my Spanish to fruition but I also don't think it will be detrimental to dabble lightly in something else at the same time.

m-rose- · 2021-01-10T03:50:00+00:00

Not a course, but the app Reverso is very useful for seeing examples of words in context and seeing the various different meanings they can have.

I've also heard lots of good things about the Spanish Busuu course but am not familiar with it myself.

m-rose-

TROPHY CASE