The Helpful Gardener
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Ch. 6 Algae and Slime Molds

The toughest opponent I ever faced in a lawn or garden was a slime mold in a lawn (customer was convinced he needed to water every night and day and wouldn't stop even after we told him that was his issue, until his wife bludgeoned him into stopping somehow). We tried all sorts of stuff to knock this back; EM, hydrogen peroxide, core aeration followed by compost top dressing followed by more hydrogen peroxide followed by EM.

It finally slunk off after the last barrage, but I know it is still lurking, waiting for DH to get water happy again. This is one of the original life forms and as such, it's a survivor. Anyone else run across slime molds or algaes in their gardening lives?

Toil
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not in the garden, but I've seen them about. They are fascinating and beautiful.

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The only one I regularly run across is the aptly named dog vomit slime mold, and I have never heard it desribed as beautiful, but you did put up some images of a far more attractive species, toil, so I defer... still beauty is in the eye of the beholder...

HG

Toil
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here is the one I posted before

[img]https://i929.photobucket.com/albums/ad137/toilpics/db54199f.jpg[/img]

Gardenerjeff
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So there I was at UVM the night before my first lecture after the book was published. I was sitting in the car, trapped by a torrential down pour without an umbrella. The rose plants in the parking lot divider beds were heavily mulched with wood chips of some sort. While sitting there for 20 minutes, you notice things, and one I noticed was all the dog vomit. When it came to me that tis was slime mold, something I had written about but never seen, it was a terrific moment. I jumped out of the car and took pictures and got up close. I also got soaked.

Later, after my daughter read the book, she related that during one of her years at Cornell, she kept "a" slime mold as a pet, but never thought to bring it home to show me.

In any case, they are fascinating. They don't do much, if anything, in the garden and my co-author probably suspected the chapter was filler material, but they are just so darn interesting...billions of cells coming together and acting like, well, a big animal. Is that what we are, only with a tough, almost permanent skin? Made me wonder! How about you?

twm

Jeff Lowenfels
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Now I know what [url=https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=70944#70944]these[/url] were -- little slime mold myxamoebae playing follow the leader.... Aww, aren't they cuuute? :wink:

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I have a question not a profound enlightenment

I have and small area in my yard that seems to stay wet a lot. I don't have the famous "dog vomit" but there is a thin black coating on the ground there. Is this slime mold?

I believe the problem is this is at the bottom of a hill and the grade there isn't perfect so the water stays there longer. Not to mention the clay soil isn't helping any.

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Sounds likely Gixx... right conditions...

HG

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This chapter really showed that there are many organisms that may not play a crucial role in soil food webs, but do, to some extent, still make an impact.

I never knew that algae existed at all in our gardens, let alone the fact that ditomacious earth is actually a bunch of dead algae cells.

I've seen slime mold plasmodium before, but never knew what they were. I think that it's amazing how they all converge and are able to act in unison as one big mass. Next time I see one, I'm going to try putting a piece of organic matter on it and see if it really gets ingested over time :o.

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That black one Gixx was talking about is the tough character I faced down in that lawn...

The customer was unhappy with it as it could make a pretty profound smell, and it sure wasn't pretty... but not really harmful and usually not so dominant like that...

The[url=https://universe-review.ca/R10-18-slimemoulds.htm]life cycle[/url]truly is fascinating, individual amoebae that coelesce into a "slug" of sorts, until it turns into a "mushroom" and spores off... more little amobae...

It's like three life forms rolled into one... :o

HG

garden5
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That is a pretty interesting life cycle. It looks like the mold does post some nutrient-release benefit to plants since the text on the site you linked to mentioned that they spend their time consuming bacteria on the forest floor.



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