Getting Lost on the Web

Photo
Loosestrife by the side of the road.

Ever have this happen to you?
You Google one thing and before you know it you’re in an entirely different realm than you ever thought existed? That’s what happened to me this morning. I Googled Anderson Farms, Wethersfield, CT just to see if they had a web site I could link to from my blog. I came up with a website about Anderson Farms and how they use Growth Degree Days to plan their plantings which (I guess) is how they continue to have these veggies much later than anyone else. This was a University of CT site by the way.

From there I started clicking this, and then I clicked that, and before you knew it, I was looking at all the invasive plants that are going to take over the world! One of them, Giant Hogweed, is a really bad customer. It grows 10-15 ft. tall and the plant juices cause severe skin rash AND can cause blindness. There are eradication projects going on all over Massachusetts including Springfield. Way too close to CT. It’s in other places on the east coast (like Washington, DC), too.

Then we have the battle against purple loosestrife. People are growing beetles (beetle farmers) that will eat the loosestrife, thus killing it. The Extension Service (at UConn and elsewhere) say the beetles are perfectly safe and do not create any concern of becoming a pest. I hope they are right.

Life was so much simpler when I was a kid. No killer plants taking over the world and no world wide web that could tell me about them even if they were there. Ignorance truly IS bliss.