Rizamendoza808 - Riza's Weird Page

The Galaxy, the Jet, and the Black Hole

Bright elliptical galaxy Messier 87 (M87) is home to the supermassive black hole captured by planet Earth's Event Horizon Telescope in the first ever image of a black hole. Giant of the Virgo galaxy cluster about 55 million light-years away, M87 is the large galaxy rendered in blue hues in this infrared image from the Spitzer Space telescope. Though M87 appears mostly featureless and cloud-like, the Spitzer image does record details of relativistic jets blasting from the galaxy’s central region. Shown in the inset at top right, the jets themselves span thousands of light-years. The brighter jet seen on the right is approaching and close to our line of sight. Opposite, the shock created by the otherwise unseen receding jet lights up a fainter arc of material. Inset at bottom right, the historic black hole image is shown in context, at the center of giant galaxy and relativistic jets. Completely unresolved in the Spitzer image, the supermassive black hole surrounded by infalling material is the source of the enormous energy driving the relativistic jets from the center of active galaxy M87.

For image credit and copyright guidance, please visit the image websitehttps://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190427.html

Hubble Space Telescope

Time And Space

I love them

Owls Are Flying Cats

Vegans of tumblr, listen up. Harvesting agave in the quantities required so you dont have to eat honey is killing mexican long-nosed bats. They feed off the nectar and pollinate the plants. They need the agave. You want to help the environment? Go back to honey. Your liver and thyroid will thank you, as well. Agave is 90% fructose, which can cause a host of issues. Bye.

“When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.”

— Alexander Den Heijer

Bisexuals, watch out for “bi positivity” blogs that promote panphobia.

Ex:

Pansexuals are transphobic/chasers!

Pansexuals have internalized biphobia!

Pansexuals just want to be special!

etc.

Pansexuals, watch out for “pan positivity” blogs that promote biphobia. 

Ex:

Bisexuality only means 2!

Bisexuals hate nonbinary people!

Bisexuals aren’t actually bi if they’re in a same-sex/different-sex relationship!

etc.

Don’t give them a platform. Let’s keep the solidarity up, yeah?

This is too adorable

I loved THIS tweet so much I had to illustrate it. 

Follow the brilliant writter on Twitter:  MicroSFF and Tumblr: @microsff

Follow me on Twitter: Queenofthedorks and Tumblr: @queenofthedorks

Reblog if you wish cancer didn't exist.

when will people use the anon function to send passionate, homosexual anonymous love letters

Can't afford to buy things for your garden?

*Re-posting, with new information

A store-bought bag of topsoil, a roll of landscaping fabric, or a bag of cedar chips doesn’t go very far if you have a large garden or a very limited budget. Here are some ways to create the materials you need for a beautiful, organic, productive garden, by both re-directing household waste, and foraging in your local area. I use a lot of these tricks in my garden to make it almost completely free for me to continue growing new things, and expanding the workable area every year!

For soil

Save your food scraps to create a rich compost for growing veggies and amending your soil. There are numerous options for every size of dwelling and yard. Small space solutions such as Bokashi and vermicompost work indoors and don’t produce bad smells, so you can keep them underneath the sink.Worm towers, compost heaps, and outdoor compost bins are a great solution if you have more space. The more you add, the more rich, nutritious material you can make for your garden. I like composting because it means I don’t have gross smelly garbage bags to deal with, because food waste is diverted. It seems like a lot of work at first, but it actually saves time, money, and transportation.

Seaweed or kelp is one of the best things for your garden, with over 70 essential nutrients, and acting as a weed barrier and a moisture-retentive mulch. I collect seaweed nearby on the beach with my bike trailer, or, when I go for a walk I bring a little home with me each time. It’s an absolute miracle for your soil.

Worm tower

Fertiliser

There are three things that are essential for plant growth. These are nitrogen for leaves and vegetation (N), phosphorus for roots and shoots (P), and potassium for water movement, flowering, and fruiting (K). Commercial fertilisers will give the relative concentrations of each of these compounds with and “NPK” rating. Plants like tomatoes also need calcium to produce healthy fruit. You can create amendments for your garden and soil at home so that you do not have to purchase fertiliser.

For nitrogen

Grass clippings contain 4% nitrogen, 1% phosphorus, and 2% potassium (NPK = 4-1-2).

Human urine contains 12% nitrogen, and it’s sterile. Dilute before adding directly to plants.

Legumes such as beans, clover, peanuts, and alfalfa fix inorganic nitrogen into the soil with mycorrhizal organisms and nodules on their root systems. Plant these crops every few years in rotation with others to renew the soil organically.

For phosphorus

Human urine is also a great source of phosphorous and trace amounts of potassium.

Ground up bones or shells add a slow-release phosphorous to the soil

Had a baby recently? Bury the placenta in the garden.

For potassium

Hardwood ashes 

Composted banana peels

For calcium

Break down all of your eggshells, or seashells you have found, in a plastic bucket, using vinegar. This creates a soluble calcium solution you can add to a watering can. 

Soil Acidity/Alkalinity

Many plants are particular about what the soil pH should be.

To make soil more acidic: add oak leaves, pine needles, leaf mulch, urine, coffee grounds or sphagnum. 

To make soil more alkaline: add wood ash, shell, or bone.

Mulch

Mulch is decomposing organic matter that adds nutrition to the soil, while simultaneously keeping out weed growth and retaining moisture. It also attracts worms, fungi and other beneficial creatures to your soil. Free sources of mulch include:

Leaves

Garden waste

Grass clippings

Straw (often straw bales are given away after being used for decoration in the fall. You can also plant vegetables directly in straw bales using a technique called straw bale gardening).

Wood chips (if you can borrow a wood chipper after you’ve collected some wood you can have attractive wood mulch for free)

Straw bale garden

Landscaping fabric

When mulch isn’t enough to keep the weeds down, many people opt for landscaping fabric. It can be quite expensive and inorganic-looking. Free solutions that both attract worms and can be replaced in small segments as they break down include:

Newspaper*

Cardboard*

Egg cartons*

Printer paper, looseleaf, etc. in thick layers*

*try to make sure you are using paper that has vegetable-based dyes, so you aren’t leeching toxins into the soil.

Soil density/drainage

If your soil is compacted and you have plants that require low levels of water, or excellent drainage, add sand. I don’t recommend stealing it from the beach, but ask around and you’d be surprised at how easy it is to get for free. Sawdust also improves drainage. Adding organic matter and mulch encourages worms, who also till and aerate compacted soil.

If the area still needs drainage, dig a hole and fill it with bricks or rocks to create a “dry well”

For drainage in pots, add crushed bricks, terra cotta pot fragments, packing peanuts, small stones, marbles, orsand to the bottom under the soil layer. I find these in construction sites, on craigslist, or at flea markets.

Pots and growing containers

If you have space, raised beds are a great no-dig way to establish growing space. If you are pressed for space (like working on a balcony) there are many cheap or free options for container gardens.

Creating raised beds allows you to build up the soil without digging. Free ways to do this include using rocks or lumber (like my DIY “lasagna garden” made with the sheet composting technique), using the “wattle“ method with sticks and posts you have found, using discarded straw bales, old bricks,paving stones, cinder blocks or really anything else you have lying around.

Hugelkutur raised beds, which fix carbon and provide drainage, can be made by stacking sticks and untreated wood, and then piling soil or compost over it. (Thanks milos-garden)

Rubber tire gardens retain heat in the night and allow for great drainage. They can also be painted in fun ways.

Herb spirals (here is mine: 1, 2, 3) can be built with stones, bricks, and other found materials.

I often use old cooking pots, barbecues, teapots, or other found objects as planters.

Making wooden planters is easy, and scrap or salvaged wood is also easy to come by. I’m not a fan of using wooden pallets for DIY projects, but they are also a free source of lumber for things like planters.

If you can track down peat moss, cement, and vermiculite, you can make an easy Hypertufa planter in whatever shape you would like, provided you have a form in which it can dry.

I’ve made hanging gardens out of soda cans.

You can build a self-watering container with a 2L pop bottle.

Start seeds in eggshells

Make biodegradable pots out of newspapers.

Wattle raised beds

Rubber tire gardens

Hugelkultur

An herb spiral

Hanging gardens in cans (2)

Trellises and supports

Many plants need external support, such as stakes of trellises, to thrive.

Rebar can almost always be salvaged cheaply or free and makes a great trellis, arch, or purgola 

Build trellises and supports out of the pliable young stems of plants like willow

Rebar trellis/arch

Living willow arch/trellis

Paving

Paving often requires a foundation of sand or another stable and well-drained substrate, and a covering of stones, bricks, or other weatherproof elements. Slowly collect stones over time, or free paving stone fragments to create a mosaic-type walkway. Often people give these things away on craigslist. I made a patio and fireplace out of free salvaged bricks, for example.

Salvaged garden walkway

Greenhouses and cold frames

Here is a gallery of greenhouses made out of salvaged windows and doors

A cold frame is easy to make with salvaged lumber, and plastic sheeting.

Window greenhouse

Palet cold-frame

Seeds and plants

Swap seeds with other gardeners

If you see a plant you like at someone’s house, ask for seeds or cuttings

Save seeds every year and build a library of options. Here is a great guide to seed saving.

Save seeds from foods you like from the grocery store: consider growing peanuts, ginger, garlic, peppers, or a walnut tree: all of these and more can be planted from store-bought produce.

Learn to take cuttings. There is a tonne of info on the web about basic cutting propagation, layering, (like I do with rhododendrons) air layering, and numerous other techniques to take clones of plants you like. This saves going to a nursery and shelling out big bucks for all the variety you want.

For cuttings, willow tea and honey are great rooting hormones/antiseptics/anti-fungal agents, which can save you $40 if you were thinking of buying commercial rooting hormone.

You can root cuttings in a potato! (See my methods for rooting “borrowed” plants here)

Air layering

Rooting cuttings in potatoes

—-

I hope this helps you build your garden outside of the usual capitalist channels! It can be a cheap or free hobby if you are willing to think outside the box, and maybe put up with things that don’t look as clean or crisp as a hardware store catalogue. If you have any further ideas, please add them! The more information the better.