Composting

We've had a compost pile for many years but I'm not sure we're doing it right. I don't turn it and I never see it "hot". Still it generates good looking soil - but with a twist. Since the mix does not reach 120-150 F, it doesn't kill the seeds of weeds or vegetables tossed in.  When I used compost on an onion garden we got a lovely crop of tomato plants instead.

Here's some advice from composting websites...
http://www.howdogardener.com/composting-101.html

Composting requires four ingredients:

I. Green Materials for Nitrogen
Grass clippings, Fruit & vegetable scraps and trimmings, Coffee grounds
Used tea bags, Cow, horse, or poultry manure

II. Brown Materials for Carbon
Dry brown leaves, Shredded newspaper, Wood chips, Sawdust

III. Water
You want the pile damp like a sponge, but not soaking wet.

IV. Air
About 30% of the total initial volume of your compost pile should be air space.

http://eartheasy.com/grow_compost.html This site has a nice list of what to compost and how. It discourages banana peelings because the skin might contain pesticides. Add grass and sawdust in thin layers to avoid clumping. Use pine needles in moderation because they are very acidic.

All sites agree on the following:

Do not compost meats or fats or pet droppings
Don't compost diseased plants

Cures You Can Grow At Home

I like plants and am one of the few cubicles at my workplace with plants in it. At home we have a veritable jungle of easy-care hanging plants. And plants can be more just pretty and freshen the air, they can also be useful as described in Organic Gardening's (OG)  9 Food Cures You Can Grow At Home.

1. Aloe Vera is easy to grow with light and water once a week. You can break off a leaf and apply the gel that oozes out to soothe your skin from damage like sunburn.
2. Basil - this grew like mad in pots we hung outside our window. Pull off the white flowers to keep the herb from going bitter. Can be used in cooking, pesto or "rub crushed leaves on your temples to relieve headaches. Pour boiling water over basil leaves for a pain-relieving footbath."
3. Lavender - has a great smell and can be soothing if you have trouble sleeping. OG says, "Crush a handful of the heads and add to a bowl of boiling water to use as a steam bath for your face."
4. Lemon Balm (keep it in pots!) Used for "healing cold sores."  Also, "rub leaves directly onto skin as a natural insect repellent or to soothe bites."
5. Mint (also keep limited to pots).  OG says, "Sip tea made with fresh peppermint leaves to soothe stomach cramps, nausea, and flatulence." But I've also read that mint is a stomach irritant and to be avoided if you have GERD.  OG also recommends using it in a steam bath for decongestion. 
6. Parsley - also grows well for us. Eat daily as an immune-system booster. Also good for bad breath?
7. Rosemary - is said to lift spirits when used in a tea by people with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder).
8. Sage - gargle with a sage broth for sore throat (boil 1/4 cup of leaves and let it cool)
9. Thyme - OG recommends, "drink a tea made from lemon thyme to treat colds before bed. Warning: don’t use thyme when pregnant."

Bottom Line

The article 9 Food Cures You Can Grow At Home also has links to growing advice. I'll have to try some of the "cures" suggested. The only one I have personal experience is aloe vera applied to skin, though I've grown and used others just for cooking.

How To Plan A Vegetable Garden

"My green thumb came only as a result of the mistakes I made while learning to see things from the plant's point of view."
~H. Fred Dale

My luck with gardens is very poor. Our havest last year was two or three plum tomatoes.

So instead I'll let another site do all the talking today and encourage all to check out How to Plan a Vegetable Garden at RootSimple.com.

Bottom Line

Gardening takes practice and planning. Begin now.

Don't touch my vegetables!

Be civil to all, sociable to many, familiar
with few, friend to one, enemy to none.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)

In recent months I described how the poor economy has increased the incidents of metal theft - stealing air conditioners, trash cans, etc. for their scrap metal value. End Bold thieves steal bridge in North Beaver, Pennsylvania.

Well here's a new sign of the times, Vegetable stealing! As reported by WLS radio of Indianapolis,

gardeners of the Grassroots Community Farm were nearly in tears over the latest insult. .... Who would steal their hard-won tomatoes right off the vine? Who cut the collard greens and swiped their sweet potatoes? ... it was the work of vegetable thieves who came equipped with shovels and plastic bags. ...
Indianapolis is not alone with stories of garden thievery. The New York Times reported recently that veggie thefts this summer that have disheartened gardeners in New York's network of more than 700 community plots.

Bottom Line

Think about the word Civilization. It begins with the word "Civil". When civility and respect are lost, then civilization too will be lost. Robert Heinlein in his novel Friday addresses this point,

Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms as you have named…  But a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than a riot.
This symptom is especially serious in that an individual displaying it never thinks of it as a sign of ill health but as proof of his/her strength.
...
I want to mention one of the obvious symptoms: Violence. Muggings. Sniping. Arson. Bombing. Terrorism of any sort. Riots of course – but I suspect that little incidents of violence, pecking way at people day after day, damage a culture even more than riots that flare up and then die down…

Soil

"The miracle of the seed and the soil is not available by affirmation; it is only available by labor."-Jim Rohn

If you garden but are disappointed with the results, check out article "A Checklist for Beginning Gardeners" on SurvivalBlog.com. It includes this tip on how to analyze your soil,

Take a quart canning jar with a lid that will screw on tight enough that no water will escape during the test. Then, take about a pint of soil from where you plan on growing your garden. Clear out any plant matter and rocks, pummel the soil until it's as fine as you can make it, put it in the jar, make a line or similar mark to show where the top of your sample is inside the jar (we used masking tape and a permanent marker), fill it up with water to about an inch from the top, add 1 teaspoon dish detergent to help break up the soil, screw on the lid, and shake vigorously for five to ten minutes. Older kids and a spouse come in real handy during this process.

What you're trying to do is break the soil up as completely as possible. Once your soil is looking uniformly finely ground, set down the jar in a sunny window or some other well-lit place and time two minutes from the moment you set the jar down. While you wait, get a flashlight since you may need it for the next part as well as a marker and possibly some tape. We found masking tape worked well. At exactly two minutes, you'll see that some of the soil has accumulated on the bottom. We didn't have any difficulty seeing it because of the nature of our soil, but some might, so shine the flashlight on the jar to help find the top part of that accumulation. Make a mark.

That first mark is the amount of sand in your soil. We have extremely sandy topsoil; that's why ours was easy to see. At two hours, make another mark to show where the accumulation is at that point. That's your silt level. If you really want to be thorough with this test, wait until the water turns clear to get your clay level. It could happen within a day. Ours took several days. It looks like we have very fine clay in our soil.

... Once you have all these marks, calculate the percentage of each. Divide the height of that original mark into the other marks you made after the shake-up.

Here is a quick field-test for your clay-silt-sand mixture. Squeeze a handful of damp soil into a ball in your hand. If you poke the ball lightly with your finger and it breaks apart, it is probably sand. If a bit more pressure breaks it, you’re dealing with silt. If it sits there despite your poking, you have mostly clay.

Bottom Line

The reason these tests are so important is because they let you know how much water your soil will hold, if any. Water flows through sand but is absorbed and held by clay. I checked several web sites but could not find a recommendation for the "best" sand/clay ratio. You want a mix of both to achieve a "crumbly" soil but the ratio will depend on the plant. Plants with large root systems will need more sand since hard clay is difficult to grow through.

Cassava

"I yam what I yam." - Popeye

Twice this week I've come across a reference to cassava, a yam like vegetable that is rarely seen in America (except as tapioca) but vitally important in other parts of the world. The cassava, also called a yucca, is an odd food that contains nearly the maximum theoretical concentration of starch on a dry weight basis among food crops. Fresh roots contain about 30% starch plus calcium, phosphorus and vitamin C but very little protein or anything else useful. It can be poisonous with traces of cyanide that must be removed when preparing. Nutritionally it's like eating unenriched white bread.

And yet the cassava has fed South America for thousands of years and is today either the primary or secondary food source in the humid and sub-humid areas of tropical Africa and vital to sub-Saharan Africa. It is a vital staple for about 500 million people and is grown in India and across Asia into Thailand, Vietnam and China. On reason for its popularity is its hardiness. Cassava thrives better in poor soils than any other major food plant and rarely needs fertilization. Cassava is very drought resistant and very tolerant of neglect; it can be left for up to three years in the ground before harvesting. So if a farmer catches malaria and is laid up for a month or two, the crop won't care. In additional the cassava leaves contain protein and vitamins.

My first encounter with cassava this week was in a TED talk describing an attempt to genetically alter cassava to contain vitamin A (like a yam) to improve the health of millions. The second encounter was no so positive, there is a global virus infecting cassava crops. “Even the pigs refuse [to eat] this,” said one farmer. Some are comparing this to the great potato famine of the 1840s that caused starvation in Ireland and resulted in mass migration of Irish to the US. Fortunately the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (yes the Bill Gates of Microsoft) is spending tens of millions of dollars to find a cure.

Bottom Line

Hopefully a cure to the cassava virus will be found soon and starvation will be prevented. In the meantime the Gates Foundation is teaching farmers how NOT to spread the virus.

See also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassava

Springtime!

“Buttercups and daisies,
Oh, the pretty flowers;
Coming ere the Springtime,
To tell of sunny hours.”
- Mary Howitt

The snow is gone and we've experienced the lion roaring winds of March and the showers of April. I'm ready now for the May flowers. My wife & I do OK with indoor plants and herbs and outdoor flowers but we have had little success with outdoor crop gardening due to poor soil, too much shade and lack of skill.

This year we will try something new. My wife has been rereading the classic book, Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. We have some large planters and are buying soil, peat moss, manure and vermiculite to fill them with. We'll see how it goes.

A raised garden is a nice idea if you have poor soil or want a productive garden of modest size. You can build your own raised beds with some lumber or premade kits. You can use used tires or even an old kid's wading pool.

Bottom Line

The internet is full of advice for raised bed gardening, for example www.raisedbedgardeningtips.com/ But even better is to find a nearby neighbor who gardens and ask them about what works for your climate zone. What seeds grow best? What soil mix do they use and how much watering? What should you do about bugs and pesticides (natural or organic)? Will you need protection from deer (they ate our tulips) or rabbits (they ate our hostas) or birds (they ate our berries)? Good luck and get started soon.

Medicinal Aloe Vera

The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.”
- proverb

We do not have much luck with gardening at my house. The soil is rocky and acidic. Even when we do prepare the soil and try to grow something then either:

1. Not much grows (we planted squash and got two tiny vegetables for our efforts)


2. What does grow gets eaten by deer

Fortunately we have better luck with potted plants. It is not hard raising herbs both indoors and out in pots. We grow basil, parsely, chives, etc. We also grow aloe. The aloe cactus does not need much attention. In fact most of my cactuses have died by overwatering them - the roots rot. The site TheGardenHelper.com advises that the soil must be completely dry between waterings. The aloe grows in the summer and sleeps (needing only a cup or two of water) during the winter. During the summer months, the soil should be completely soaked, but then be allowed to dry again before re-watering.

The medicinal properties of Aloe vera have been known, and recorded since biblical times. It has been used for a variety of ailments, and as an ointment for burns, cuts, and rashes, as well as an ingredient in various beauty preparations.The sap of the Aloe is a thick, mucilaginous gel. It is this gel which is used medicinally. The outer skin has essentially no value, but because it is commercially easier and less expensive to sell the entire leaf. - TheGardenHelper.com

More information on aloe and its uses can be found at NewEmergencyPreparedness.com.

Bottom Line

Aloe is easy to grow and can live for many many years. In our house we find it very helpful when we have a bug bite, minor burn, sun burn or anything itchy. We break off a small leaf and spread the sap on our skin.

Disclaimer - Aloe is not a miracle cure. Never put aloe or any substance on a 3rd degree burn (i.e burnt skin) . I'd also seek medical advice before putting it on a 2nd degree burn (blisters).

Learning Survival Skills

I am the very model of a modern Major-General
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical ...
- From the Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan

To continue a theme from yesterday, part of emergency planning is skills assessment. When the worst occurs, how will YOU be able to help? The following is quoted from Survival FAQ which was cited yesterday as a great resource for planning:

"The kinds of skills and materials you need can be very widespread. Depending on the threat you're planning for, you might want the ability to recreate civilization as we know it. This is almost certainly impossible for one person, or even one family ... to be competent at them all. This is why survival groups or small communities are almost always preferable ...

You'll find that certain things are needed for many different threats. First aid skills and materials are always useful, you may find that they show up for every category. ... You might decide that you need to be proficient in emergency first aid, food preservation (drying, smoking, canning, pickling) , animal husbandry, engine mechanic, construction (design and building), fire fighting, sailing, fishing, computer programming, ham radios, weaving cloth, sewing, tanning leathers, bee keeping, accounting, trading, cabinetmaking, farming, dentistry, childbirth, small military unit tactics, advanced emergency medical treatment, improvised explosives, hunting, trapping, welding, metal working, power production and generation, telephone systems, and almost anything else you can think of.

Where to get trained:
... your local community probably offers a wide variety of courses that will help you in your quest. Check with your local community college, high school adult program, community center, or other educational programs. Just don't expect to see a category called "Survivalist Training". Your local fire department probably offers training in CPR and first aid, and if you can join, they'll offer you more and better training. The local law enforcement agency may offer training as well as your county's civil defense / emergency preparedness office.

Where to get experience:
The best way to learn some skills is to do it. ... you can offer your services as a volunteer to any one of a number of organizations. For example, if you're not sure how to cook for large groups of people, volunteer at a food bank, meals-on-wheels, or church group, and learn! If you want to learn how to build houses (and fix them, and how to use tools), organizations like Habitat for Humanity are available, just looking for helpers. You'll learn some skills, but more importantly, meet people who can show you more tips and tricks. Organizations like the American Red Cross usually need disaster workers, first aid instructors, etc., and they'll train you.

It may not be practical to study your specific area of interest, but can learn something that's closely related. If you don't have a field to farm, how about a back yard you can start growing a few vegetables in? If you're an apartment dweller, and don't have a yard at all, you can grow some vegetables, or even just flowers, in window boxes. You probably can't provide all your food needs from a window box (unless it's a huge window), but you can start finding out what it's like, what works, and what doesn't.

Bottom Line

My wife and I follow the advice given above. We have been trained by the Red Cross and by our county disaster program (WEVR) for free as volunteer disaster workers. We've attended low cost classes at a local community college and with community outreach programs.

The knowledge is out there. Go get it.

Winterize Your House & Garden

"If you haven't found something strange during the day, it hasn't been much of a day" - John A. Wheeler

Today I recommend an excellent blog on ways to winterize your garden and house at http://gallimaufree.wordpress.com/. It's a check list of tasks to do before winter hits with freezing temperatures. For example:

• Empty your garden hoses and put them up for the winter
• Check your furnaces and filters
• Wash all your blankets, feather beds, duvets, duvet covers, flannel sheets, and winter curtains.

Bottom Line

I'll personally vouch for one of the recommendations, "Make bags of long grain rice - tubes long enough to drape over your neck or squares to lay against your back or head or joints. These can be microwaved and used as heating pads. If you mix them with fragrant herbs, it will also smell nice."

My wife uses this trick every night in winter to warm her feet. I microwave two cloth bags filled with rice for about 3 minute and place them in the bed. It's a modern version of the coal filled bed warmer.