still thinking about yesterdya’s nancy, it’s so so good
On a post about the Blue Haired Girlfriend’s quixotic citrus breeding experiments, @voidingintotheshout asked:
I mean, if you wanted a hearty citrus relative, why didn’t you just grow Osage Orange? They can grow as far north as Michigan which is surely further north than anyone could reasonably expect to grow a citrus tree. They’re not edible but then hearty orange isn’t either. Osage Orange are so cool and such a interesting historical plant from the Shelterbelt era of American agriculture. Apparently they do smell like citrus.
This is part three of three. Part one. Part two.
Now you’ve done it! It’s time for A Very Brief (But Also Insufficiently Brief) History of Twentieth Century Hardy Citrus Cultivation! Growing citrus trees this far north is kind of nuts, it’s true, but I promise you it is not even close to the weirdest things people have done to grow citrus in places where the citrus doesn’t think it should grow.
A note: This post will written using the Swingle citrus taxonomy system, including things that are definitely wrong. The citrus taxonomic tree looks like that one box of orphaned computer cords I keep moving with me to new houses “in case I need them” except some sort of adorable five-dimensional kitten has entertained herself with them and some of the resulting knots are not technically possible in our space-time continuum.
The powers that be gave us citrus because nothing pleases them like seeing a geneticist cry.
Polish bishop blessing a new bypass around Kutno. 2014.
this literally looks like a surrealist painting
I’m sorry friends, but “just google it” is no longer viable advice. What are we even telling people to do anymore, go try to google useful info and the first three pages are just ads for products that might be the exact opposite of what the person is trying to find but The Algorithm thinks the words are related enough? And if it’s not ads it’s just sponsored websites filled with listicles, just pages and pages of “TOP FIFTEEN [thing you googled] IMAGINED AS DISNEY PRINCESSES” like… what are we even doing anymore, google? I can no longer use you as shorthand for people doing real and actual helpful research on their own.
Time to drop some links again.
– https://searchmysite.net/
Search engine for the indie web, personal websites, digital gardens. You can also find them in websites like Neocities, Indieweb, Blogarama, and write.as. There is also a big list of personal websites.
– https://search.marginalia.nu/
Search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and promotes websites that aren’t usually at the top of the list.
– https://www.worldcat.org/
Search engine for items in libraries (books, but also maps, articles, sound recordings, theses, etc.)
– https://scholar.google.com/
Search engine for scientific papers, reviews, etc. It’s still google, but a lot better than the normal search engine counterpart.
– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines
A list of search engines sorted by subject, area, and more. If you’re searching on a specific area, it might be worth checking if there is one focused on that area.
– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_databases_and_search_engines
A list of academic databases and search engines.
– https://tineye.com/
Reverse image search alternative to Google’s.
Also, P.S.: Please stop using Google, and start using more privacy focused search engines, like DuckDuckGo or SearchX (opensource; personally haven’t used it yet, but it looks promising for privacy-focused users)











