Bob’s weed killer (part 2)

Next target: Blackberry

Blackberry is the main reason I concocted this salt weed killer, because there is tons of it here.  In researching salinity sensitivity in plants, I was thrilled to see that blackberry is very sensitive.  So far in the plants I’ve sprayed, this seems to be true! In only a few hours, the leaves are wilting.  The test of course will be if it gets to the root ball and finishes it off for good.

9/10 10:56 am

12:56 am

 

9/11

I ran out of the Hain Sea Salt which I had got at Grocery Outlet for $0.50 per pound a few months ago. Decided to try 40 lb bag of Diamond Crystal Solar Naturals salt which I picked up at the local grocery for $8.

The salt crystals are course, not fine, like the Hain was and consequently don’t dissolve as quickly. Lots of stirring needed. After spraying some blackberry, the results don’t seem to be as good as they were with the Hain. I figure the salinity wasn’t as high, so now I’m grinding up the salt into a fine powder using my coffee to see if that makes a difference.

From what I’ve read online about sea water salinity and salt absorption, sea water is some 35 grams of salt per liter whereas the maximum salt saturation level in water is nearly 10x that at 357 grams of salt per liter. I’m guessing that’s probably where the first batch using the Hain was at, not so sure about the Diamond Crystal. Will know more later today, when I hit the blackberry using the salt powder water.

Seawater has a salinity of roughly 35,000 ppm, equivalent to 35 grams of salt per one liter (or kilogram) of water. The saturation level is dependent on the temperature of the water. At 20 °C one liter of water can dissolve about 357 grams of salt, a concentration of 26.3%.

9/14 10:36 am

Salt water is doing the trick! Everything I spray it on quickly begins to wilt and start to die.

Bob’s weed killer experiment

9/6/2019

1 gal water
2 pounds salt
1 squirt Dawn

The target: Spray leaves of small Live Oak tree cut last month that is now suckering up (I know Round Up would work, but will this? – hope so!)

9/7/2019
9:30 am – first spray
3:50 pm – seems to be working!

3:50 pm – second spray

9/8/2019

8:00 am  – third spray.  Rained/misted last night and washed off the leaves.  Still looks to be working as is evidenced by the drooping stems.

1:49 pm

9/9/2019

7:55 am

6:58 pm

9/14

4:01 pm

Paddle.com server offset – Greenland?

I thought setting the time zone in PHP to Europe/London would sync with Paddle’s servers since they’re in the UK, but apparently that’s not correct. It looks like Greenland is a better match. Will know in a few more minutes when it turns 6:00pm here (California) if their server zeros out and July starts.

UPDATE
Greenland is off by an hour (i.e., 11:00PM and not midnight as I was hoping). Now have to find a way to add an hour to Greenland or find some other way to do it.

Amazon: All Your Base Belong To Us

Walking down 4th Street in Santa Rosa yesterday and passing shop after shop, it crossed my mind that many of these businesses are vulnerable to Amazon. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them fold in the next few years as Amazon’s tentacles reach out and take them down. High rents, employees and a nearly impossible hurdle to maintain inventory that can compete with Amazon I see as the Achilles Heel of the brick & mortar stores. Just a matter of time.

Cars and cats don’t mix

Today I came upon a juvenile cat in the middle of the road. It had just been hit by a car, but was alive and just sitting there with it’s head up. I went out to the road, waved at an oncoming car to stop and picked up the cat and carried back to my car. It was bleeding badly in the face and was obviously in shock. I drove to the nearest vet and a couple of assistants helped get it out of my car and into the clinic. After a few minutes the vet came out and said because it was a feral cat that it would be sent to the Sonoma County Shelter in Santa Rosa. A few hours later I called the shelter and was told that it had died at the clinic.