Plants are on Twitter.

'After soldering it together, you simply shove it deep into your plant's pot, connect it up to with an ethernet cable, and when its moisture sensors detect that you've been a bit lax in watering it'll Twitter with a "water me please” prompt.

Ignoring it won't work as it'll step up the game with an urgent Tweet, and over-watering'll earn you a scolding.'

Now Even Thirsty Houseplants Demand Attention With DIY Twitter Kit

You learn something new every day.

Thanks to Colleen's post, I learned that it is frowned upon, and even illegal in some states, to send seeds via the mail.

Neato

Grassland, out of Germany, creates unique art-pieces from nature's engineering.

These wall panels are made out of stainless steel and dried grass.

What's cool about it is that after about two years, the grass gradually fades from the original lush green, to a sandy hay color.

Just remember to keep open flames away from it.

Ha ha.

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Ha.

'Let me get this straight. I have to wash my hands after urinating in public bathrooms but I can pee on my garden cabbage and serve it to guests?'

'So, going by what I've learned from movies, morning talk shows, and random blog entries: I can drink my pee, use it as a facial wash, treat jellyfish stings with it, and now fertilize my lawn with it. Thank god I've been storing it in jars for all this time. I knew it pay off eventually.'

'You could make MILLIONS if you could round up all the "trucker bombs" out there, and sell them as concentrated fertilizer mix.'

Urine, Nature's Free Plant Fertilizer

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Tomacco is/was real!

Real tomacco

'College-level plant science courses routinely teach plant grafting techniques using Tobacco and Tomato plants, which are considered easy plants to graft due to the similar biology.

In 2003, inspired by The Simpsons, Rob Baur of Lake Oswego, Oregon successfully grafted a tomato plant onto the roots of a tobacco plant, which was possible because both plants come from the same family, Solanaceae or nightshade, and furthermore both plants are dicotyledons (It is not possible to graft monocotyledons, because the xylem and the phloem are distributed in bundles throughout the stem, and therefore it is impossible to align the vascular tissues of the two plants).

The plant produced fruit that looked like a normal tomato, but Baur suspected that it contained a lethal amount of nicotine and thus would be inedible. Testing later proved that the leaves of the plant contained some nicotine. The world's first tomacco fruit, destroyed in the testing process, contained no nicotine. The second tomacco fruit was given to a Simpsons writer. The third was sold on eBay and the fourth was eaten by a Xerox engineer who suffered no apparent ill effects from the fruit. The Tomacco plant bore fruit until it died due to weather-related causes at the ripe age of 18 months, having spent the previous winter indoors.

The process of making tomacco was first revealed in a 1959 Scientific American article, which stated that nicotine could be found in the tomato plant after grafting. Due to the academic and industrial importance of this breakthrough process, this article was reprinted in a 1968 Scientific American compilation, Bio-Organic Chemistry, on page 170.'

Lawn Bombs

Mowing your lawn can cause a fire

'HIGHLANDS RANCH – Now that spring is here, homeowners should be aware of grass fires that could start in an instant, but it is not the kind of fire you might be thinking about.

These grass fires can start with your grass clippings.

When many people mow their lawns, they take the clippings and bag them up, and it may be hard to believe, but that can be very dangerous.

"I kind of thought it was like an urban legend, waiting to see it on 'Mythbusters' or something," said Matt Garvin with Gilmore Construction.

Last Wednesday, a fire caused about $7,000 in damage to a Highlands Ranch home, and firefighters believe it was caused by mowing the lawn and the subsequent grass clippings.

"We hear a lot about spontaneous combustion," said Littleton Deputy Fire Marshal Tim Stover, but he says it's rare. "It's fairly unusual. We do see a couple of cases each year with grass clippings and mulch piles."

Stover says if you store your grass clippings in a bag or can, it can burst into flames.

"As it starts, it's a biological breakdown or decomposition of the material and it creates what's called a self-heating process," said Stover.

Stover says it is more likely to start if the clippings are moist.

"As the heat continues to build, materials drying sooner or later, that material is going to reach its ignition point," he said.

"I know that with like our painting rags and staining, that stuff will definitely do that," said Garvin.

Stover says to keep your grass clippings from catching fire you should not tie or cover them up.

"If you leave the container open or leave the bag open without tying it tight, it'll allow that heat to escape and that's what we need to avoid, is allowing that to stay confined into that area," he said.

Stover says the best thing to do is mulch your grass clippings and leave them on the lawn. If you have to bag them up, you should dump them out and let them dry out first because that will decrease the chances of a fire.'

Wormwood in Colorado

‘Green Fairy’ weed taking a whack at Colorado plants

'EAGLE COUNTY - As the senior landscape engineer for the town of Vail, Gregg Barrie knows a weed when he sees one, and these days he's seeing a lot of weeds.

"We have our hands full with noxious weeds so far this year," said Barrie.

However, there's one weed many have seen without realizing what it really is. It is a non-native weed from the Middle East called absinthe or wormwood.

"It looks very much like our native sage, so for years we walked past it thinking it was just a plant that was supposed to be here," said Barrie.

Wormwood, which is believed to have been brought to Colorado in the late 1800s, is also called the Green Fairy, because some say it has psychoactive properties.

"They say it can be a hallucinogen," said Barrie.

The hallucinogenic aspects of absinthe, which can be taken as a tea, has never been proven, but you can find a version of it at most liquor stores.

Mickey Werner is the head clerk at Alpine Wine and Spirits in Vail and says you can find the absinthe flavor in many types of liquor.

"The base component is really an absinthe or black liquorish flavor," said Werner.

The drink is even rumored to have been the key reason for Van Gogh's bizarre ear act.

"Rumor has it that's how Van Gogh cut his ear off. It's definitely an artist drink because of the hallucinogenic effects it had," said Werner.

Of course these days when you drink absinthe liquor all you are really getting is the flavor, because the real chemical in absinthe, thujone, is banned in the U.S. because in high doses it is dangerous.

"Literally, it eats away at your neural transmitters in your brain. Drink enough of it you'll die eventually," said Werner.

Barrie says one thing absinthe is already killing is other plants native to Colorado.

"They tend to crowd out some of the native plants and we want to try and prevent that if we can," said Barrie.

So now realizing that absinthe is a non-native weed and not sage as many thought, it's now on Barrie's hit list for removing plants that don't belong in this neck of the woods.

"It's really amazing how much they have started to impact our natural areas," Barrie said.'