Plant Hardiness Zone Map Shift

The new USDA planting zone map is up, and yeah, the zones are shifting northward.  Article at NPR, and below are screen caps of the maps.  At the article though, it's pretty nice, at the top of the maps there's a flip-between-maps button, and at least the CONUS part perfectly overlays for easy comparison.  

Old, 2012:

New, 2023:

Book Review: The Martian

This is not "some of the best" but The Best hard science fiction I have read in decades.  The technology and events are all just outside our current capabilities, but clearly within our reach.  As in "three year advanced development project away" within our reach.  There are no cute robots, rebellious computers, funky aliens, or space wizards to be found here.  Instead, this is a book populated by steely-eyed missile men – of both the X and Y chromosome persuasion – who deal with cascading failures and sleep depravation to get a stranded astronaut home from Mars.  Nobody quits, ever.  Nobody has plot-shaking emotional outbursts.  (A few heated discussions and a few moments of quiet private weeping, sure, but they're over soon and nobody dwells on them.)  Hard decisions are made, engineering is done, corners are cut, bad jokes are cracked.  A bunch of shit breaks.  Everything here could actually happen, to the best of our present knowledge.  And in the end, ... well I won't say.

The plot is very simple.  If you've watched the trailer for the upcoming movie, you pretty well have the whole thing right there.  Yes, it is a simple plot, simple like chess: easy to get the overview, but actually playing a tough game through to the end is the hard work and the joy of the entire exercise.  There is no character growth, except perhaps for one young flight controller.  These are adults we're dealing with here, they're already developed.  What a relief not to have to slog through pages of weepy-ass "Why am I even bothering?" prose and just get to a gripping story for once.  In short, they act the way actual engineers and scientists act.  Let me repeat: what a relief.

Finally, it would be a disservice to the author not to mention the outstanding technical detail he put into this novel.  A few experts in various fields have quietly typed emails to him clearing up some relatively minor loose ends, and this should be taken as testament to the level of writing here.  The entire book rings of truth from beginning to end, and at no time did any pseudo-scientific technobabble jar me – physicist, space enthusiast, digital comms geek – out of immersion in the story.  It is that good.

If you enjoyed the movie Apollo 13, or thought Gene Kranz's memoir Failure is Not an Option was a non-stop page-turner, this is the book for you.  This ranks up there with the tales of Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke.  Maybe that's the best part: it's good readable hard sci-fi, not a leftover tale from some golden age but written in the here and now.  It gives me hope for more and better tales of this order, and for the future as well.

Afternote: Relevant links can be found at last week's post about the movie's trailer.  Interview with the author, his website, etc.

This Evening's Harvest

Things are getting into full swing 'bout now.  Some of the okra are a little big and tough, but they'll cook down fine.

Collards 1-2-3-4-5

A few collard leaves, fresh from the garden:

De-stem.  Stack leaves and slice into ribbons.  Slice stems cross-wise to keep any fibers short.

Fry up in a little olive oil with some Tony Chachere's seasoning, maybe squeeze on a little bit of lemon once it's on the plate:

Fry the stems separately, they're a little tougher and need to cook a tad longer.  Just as tasty though.

Fry an egg in the residues.  Tasty.

Who ever said you had to boil the damn things for four hours then add half a pig just to re-introuduce some flavor?  Fresh and fast is the way to go.

Now Powered by Kale

Article on the green stuff, including a couple of recipes, over at Bicycle Times.

BTW, it's doing really well in the garden despite last week's ice storm.  It's definitely going to be in my winter gardens from here on out.

Hot Pepper

Things are cranking up with the garden now.  Cayennes are starting to produce.

Tasty, and the lower half wasn't hot at all.

First Fruits

Couple of cherry tomatoes.

Yum, they had real flavor.
The pipeline is starting to fill, slowly, slowly.

Weekend Roundup

What do you plant when all else fails?  Okra!

Obligatory bike-in-woods picture:

First ride on the new tires, Specialized S-Works Ground Controls (front and rear, same pattern each).  I must say, they work so well that they take a lot of the challenge out of mountain biking.  The new tread pattern has been tweaked using finite difference modeling, and brother do they grip.  Slippery roots, clay washes, damp logs, no problem.  Hardpack?  Pfft, everything works there, no challenge at all for these tires.  Loose sand?  Had one spill in a tight turn, but when I looked at where the tires washed out, it was clear that they'd gone down clawing for grip.  I'll take the rap for that spill.  (no damage, btw)

OK, I'm going to say it: these things, so far, seem to grip better than WTB Velociraptors.  THAT is something I thought I'd never see.

Garden Planted. Mostly.

Peppers, watermelons, and tomatoes.  Lots of tomatoes, Brandywine heirloom and cherries.  We'll see how it goes this year.  Much bigger than last year's garden at 150 square feet, versus the former 65-ish.  The layout's also better than in past years, there's plenty of mulch, and there's a leave-it-alone soaker hose dedicated to each of the three beds.  Toss in a UV flashlight for spotlighting hornworms, and the whole thing should go a lot easier than last year's effort.

Still some stuff to do.  The fence mesh needs to be properly stretched and hung on the T-posts, but it's good enough now to keep the bunnies at bay until I can get back to it.  Got to build some supports for the tomatoes.  Think I'll make tripods out of bamboo growing in the side yard for this; easier and cheaper than stakes.  Maybe some more mulch.  And the rest will just take time, water, and sunlight.

Garden Start, 2013

Had a couple of nice weather days so it seemed like time to lay out the garden for this year.  Here's how far I've gotten:

The paving bricks had been just laying in a stack since I re-bought the house; I was glad to finally find a use for them.  Used all of the stack but about 15, it was a closely run thing.  Turned over the first few inches of soil to break up the grass, spread out about an inch of compost over that, layered on a plating of corrugated cardboard, mulched over the top with leaves, and finally wet it all down to get things working.  Total area is about 150 square feet, in three 2'x25' strips.  Should give plenty of room to work between rows, and cut down on the pest migration between plants.
What to plant?  Well, that's a month and a half away, but the current plan is for tomatoes, watermelons, peppers, and maybe some cilantro or whatever else random stuff I can find.  Strawberries too, but those will go into a separate off-the-ground pot(s).  Doodlebugs eat the fruit otherwise – or at least, that's what happened last year.
So much more to do: soaker hoses, more-more-more mulch, a short chicken wire fence to keep the rabbits at bay, and of course actually planting.  But the heavy lifting's done, and the rest is all the fun parts.

Spring Garden

Yeah, it's small, maybe 80 square feet.  But it was easy to do in one day, and it's even easier to water.
Step 1: figure out the footprint of the sprinkler.

Step 2: turn the footprint over, ring with bricks, throw in some compost, and plant that sucker.

Now watering will be trivial: flip on the pump for a half-hour or so in the evening.  Sure, some plant types may get over-watered while others get the right amount, but it should all be close enough.  The point here is to get it done, and to make it easy to maintain.


And the plants?  Tomatoes (8), banana peppers (4), strawberries (4), cilantro (2, but they're big), and turnip seeds (myriad) just to see what they'll do.
Well, we'll see how it works out.  More pictures as events develop.  Remember, I never said I knew what I was doing with all of this.  Results are not guaranteed.