Disqus - Latest Comments for TMPlanter

Re: Cash Money...and new plantings

Tmplanter — Thu, 06 May 2010 14:27:25 -0000

Aren't you worried about the comfrey mining all the nutrients in the patchs they're growing in?

Re: 100th Online Order Truffle Giveaway

Tmplanter — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 14:48:04 -0000

I so want to try your truffles so here is a comment/question; what did you order/want on sacred succulents for your food forest?

Re: Back in the Forest Garden

Tmplanter — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 00:04:53 -0000

Moringa is probably the one i'd recommend the most; which you can get through the ECHO bookstore online and for a garden I'd get egusi which is also found at ECHO; oh and marama bean which you can get through silverhillseeds a south african website.

For medicinals that can survive/thrive in an arid climate go to sacred succulents which has alot of rare plants and seeds (though most are best for the coastal-California climates).

Re: Back in the Forest Garden

Tmplanter — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:31:58 -0000

http://www.amazon.com/Rainw...

Probably the best book for dryland gardeing techniques to maximize your weather and terrain.

Are you planning to grow more desert plants like mesquite or are you sticking to the Mediterranean trees?

Re: Wild Food in the Desert

Tmplanter — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:37:12 -0000

Its only magical in the places the cows haven't gone to(I'm guess the city leases the land to the cow farmers across the fence so their cattle have extra room to graze); I don't understand how farmers deal with them though, they eat and destroy everything!

Re: Wild Food in the Desert

Tmplanter — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:46:00 -0000

Wildcrafting is soo fun; right now its salad season so fennel, dill, dandelion, mustard, red/crimson/white/showy indian clover, chickweed, oxalis, and esp. the Miner's lettuce is abounding luckly we've had nothing but rain these past few weeks which will extend the plant cycle another month before they all go to seed.

Its weird my city has this chunk of land for the public, miles of it right off the highway full of trails and paths and although their are food plants scattered around I noticed their is one spot about 1/4 of an acre with 2 rather square plots on a north-east facing hillside that is completly covered with only food plants even some herbal plants like dutchman's pipe; possibly a remenant of a woodland food garden?

Re: Truffle Giveaway! No joke!

Tmplanter — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:35:04 -0000

Okay so I talk about self-suffiency to my school friends and I also do some salad picking up in the mountains in my town; I am creating gardens and hope to do classes or workshops on water-saving techniques during the bone dry summers and I am also getting ready to do some friend's patios and backyards into vegetable gardens. Also with the large amounts of free time I have now I am doing alot of studying on Ayruvedic Medicine to have my body to its best potential without using coporate made medicines.

Re: A Question from S...

Tmplanter — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:04:02 -0000

60,000 years is alot of time but its not like they stayed in place; though if you go by research the first people going through the bering strait route didn't show up until no more that 30,000 years or so and the modern day decendants of the New World Arctic landscape have only been there for around 15,000 at the most.

Moving from Eastern or Sub-Saharan Africa, through the fertile cresent then into the Indian Sub-continent or through Central Asia then at any location moving North-East into the Siberian landmass; they most have gone through dozens of climates and encountered many food sources.

You then have to think about the other theories of New World colonization; The Polynesian Theory, the Tasmanian-Patagonian theory (Now actually "proven" and accepted in the scientific community), the West African link, etc... Including the mulitude of migration waves from the Bering Strait; there had to have been a constant flow of genetics.

Then one has to think that every generation adapts alittle bit more than their the last; so to answer the question "can an Inuit person live on a fruity diet?"

For sure; is the climate that person is in be best to do it (Like if that Inuit person lived in the subtropics or tropics) or would they be in thei Frozen homeland depending on that I feel it can vary. The various cusines and food patterns of a traditional people is created to be as cohesive as possible to their surroundings for maximum chances of survival.

One has to think; many Nations/Clans/Tribes/Confederacies, etc... in the Great Plains grew corn, squash, beans, etc... but when the spanish brought the horse and the Aboriginal people got ahold of them the diet and culture completely shifted into a Buffalo-oriented society moving from a sedentary to a transitory lifestyle and abandoning a labour-intensive, possibly less nutritious diet for one that was using less energy.
____________

I have the opportunity to get free-range raw cream; its very rich and tasty but very expensive and I can't get it anymore, but when I happened to get 3 16oz bottles of the stuff I was putting it on everything, it tasted so great to me but I was expecting some sort of obvious sweetness but it was rather bland.

I can remember being content, not needing to eat much and my skin being very clear; I think it helped my hyper-pigmentation issue.

When I get some cash again I will be eating alot more fats; but now all I have is ghee.

Re: A Question from S...

Tmplanter — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 02:13:50 -0000

I hate to comment based on one line you said but I noticed it before on the comments of the 200+post topic and sporatically.

Ethnically based diets; I have been talking about this with my friend for a long time and it always ends bad namely because she takes Weston Price and Western writers of Chinese/Aryvedic medicine too seriously.
I actually am not talking to her about it now because her constitution isn't well and getting into a debate won't help her.

Namely her arguements are of dairy and rice; but when you see the distribution of dairy drinkers Western, Central, Eastern, Southern and Saharan African; The Middle East; Central, Southern, South-Western, Siberian Asia; Northern, Central, Caucus, Mediterranean Europe and I wouldn't be surprised if Andean South America where included (llamas/Alpacas), you can see it was not simply a Northern European thing; its a caloric, movement and cultural thing.

A point she had was Lactose Intolerance but there was a global study done on many ethnic groups and people who rated high on those intolerant were the Massai peoples who are known for their dairy habit.

The mucus forming factors in milk aswell as the lactose all change with fermentation making it as easily digestible for one person as it is to another; thats why my brothers can only eat cheese and yogurt but not milk (While my mom, dad, and I can drink it straight).

It (the ethnospecific diets) is to me is like saying we are like the finches of the Galapagos Islands; physically and genetically different because of our foods and therefore altering our very being.

But humans all have incisors, molars, and canines; humans all traditionally had used bacteria or plant enzymes to alter foods to make things easier to digest not only dairy, but meat, and plant matter aswell.

Is it right to say certain foods are for certain people when humanity is not static but rather extremely dynamic changing on a dime to the World and eating what they are given? and isn't this ethnic differentiation one more step in the wrong direction, basically saying we aren't really the same because my ancestors ate more meat than yours?

Re: Fatisfied...SOOOO fatisfied.

Tmplanter — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 23:58:19 -0000

At any case I'm glad more people are getting into raw animal products; some vegans say its not "natural" for us to eat these things and people should eat leaves, fruits, and nuts; but really we've been eating raw fermented animal products (namely caracasses) for milenia in our more distant forms.

More folks need to try raw dairy and egg; it'll certainly banish alot of preconceived notions out of the way if people try it before they say it isn't good.

Plus how can someone say something so delicious and nutritious as kefir tell people its so bad for you !?!

Re: Fatisfied...SOOOO fatisfied.

Tmplanter — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 23:42:13 -0000

Seems like alot of people are becoming raw vegetarian; has Weston Price's work been circulating around?

Re: Winter Gardening at the White House

Tmplanter — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:54:38 -0000

Everyone is coming together to help make this thing happen; I love it! (Now if only I had people like that)

Re: Meet the Natives

Tmplanter — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:24:10 -0000

I try not to be quick to judge; when the Japanese came to the Melanesian and Micronesian nations alot of things happened to the indigenous people there.

Massacres, famines, & illness came; local societies where wiped out. The traditional healers and ritual practioners couldn't do anything; basically the toppling of their world was happening and then all of a sudden ANZAC and American soldiers came and liberated the people (Though not for that sake obviously, just to repel the Japanese) they left metal tools that greatly decreased work loads, brought vaccines and things like Quinine, trinkets to trade, and foods like sugar.

It was a miracle these things happened fpr these peoples; and this man comes to them speaking their language (or a Lingua Franca), gives them these things or lives with them for a time and tells them of the U.S. He promises to come back some day to give them more things and to be back with his adopted family.

Its so familiar to me and so human to worship him for these reasons; if these rituals and beliefs give them something is it no less real than Christianity or Hinduism or any other system of explaining the world?

The faith might die out with them realizing that he is no more powerful then they but its very influential and engrained in the minds of thousands if not atleast a million by now. Its like the Rastafari Movement and Halie Selassie/Bob Marley/Marcus Garvey; somehow it always reinvents and resurrects itself even in the face of damning evidence.

(sorry if its abit too long I like these sort of things)

Re: Meet the Natives

Tmplanter — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:29:19 -0000

It's funny how they are down playing the Tom Navy thing; they're obviously in a cargo cult and worship him as a type of jesus figure, just like John Frum cults. I also think its great indigenous peoples of heavily touristed place can come to America to see whats up. Its a great equalizer and it'll show this place isn't all milk and honey.

I would never take pictures of others like they are mannequins or figures for my entertainment, I was reading an article where a group of people in Papua New Guinea would dance and sing for tourists; the song was them apologizing to their ancestors for having to dance but they need the money. Sad that the tourists have no idea what they are saying.

On that subject, ever wonder what they're are really saying? Like there has to be some liberal leanings to what is put on the screen (liberal as in they aren't trying to be more exact and trying to send out some message). Its good, but I don't think they (the producers) are being 100% honest.

Re: My Space of Love

Tmplanter — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:29:02 -0000

Yes I live in California, the north-eastern most part of the Bay Area to be more specific, so we get only a little bit of the moderation from the ocean.

Its not exotic to me but all the citrus are ripe so you see oranges and lemons on the ground everywhere. Date Palms and Mexican/Californian palms are very common, ofcourse bananas which do defoliate but the stems still survive, avocados grow easily though I've seen only a few trees.

My town is mostly former orchard lands so all stone fruits and pome fruits. I find them all abit boring since with alittle bit of microclimate manipulation for the rare cold year or if people cared to grow them, you could probably get away with growing mangoes, guavas, macadamias, white sapotes, pitaya and all the other great sub-tropicals people buy half way across the world.

Re: My Space of Love

Tmplanter — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:13:43 -0000

You said -40 degrees and I shivered! We got some snow up the face of our mountains yesterday around 1000' and it went down to I think 27 degrees at around midnight with "snow" that melted before it hit the ground; something that happens only every 20 years.

Everyone has been freaking out since friday because of this crazy weather; esp. me scrambling to heavy mulch my bananas Sunday!

More power to you; hopefully you can etch something from that piece of land.

Re: Martin Crawford and New Shrub Ideas

Tmplanter — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:10:54 -0000

I have no problem with exotics; I actually prefer them to most natives (Except the Sequoias). The plants mentioned just get abit too messy to deal with unless all the niches are filled within your closed ecosystem.

As nurse plants they protect and feed the plants you want to grow until a certain stage of maturity; then they're riped out to be mulched, composted, or transplanted elsewhere.

Legumous trees are not my thing as they seem to be overbearing when full grown. I'd have to seriously hack at it to keep it shrub level (and I have issues with cutting tree limbs instead I like to bend and/ or tie them to bring more light; in abit of a hassle imo)

So I am more interested in bioaccumulators and I'm learning as much as possible about them.

Re: Martin Crawford and New Shrub Ideas

Tmplanter — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:25:55 -0000

Goumi, Siberian Pea Shrub and Autumn Olive are all envasive and can swamp your system unless all your niches are filled. As nurse plants they are wonderful but when they mature esp. the Pea Shrub they get extremely hard to kill (atleast in my climate even though its quite harsh; rains for three months straight then seering hot late spring to early autumn).

Re: A Message from Mindy

Tmplanter — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:04:53 -0000

Well if you don't mind me saying this but from what i understand the high protein legume is responsible for the various lean and muscular peoples of the southwest in areas too harsh for the four sisters, from a book I'm reading acorns and mesquite as a staple are responsible for some long-lived elders still around today who have not succumbed to western diet (at least completely).

Though I think its better to grind it yourself than get the packaged powder as with most things of that sort.

Re: More Exposure for Self-Reliance

Tmplanter — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:37:06 -0000

I'm planning on doing a woodland edge influenced orchard; focusing on the cider gum, chilean hazelnut, lucuma, babaco, and elderberry trees interspersed with various medicinals/fruits/vegetables,etc... from the Oceanic-Influenced climates (Like chilean guava the best tasting berry ever) since I plan on moving to the Coastal Northern California region Sonoma up towards Humboldt County nearer to the Redwoods a few hours away from were I'm at now.

Plus I am learning about raising merino sheep and silkworms for fibrecrafting.

So I can't do those heat loving plants without lots of microclimate manipulation or greenhouses; its like a constant 60 degrees up there lol

Get the book Perennial Vegetables by Eric Toensmeier if you don't already have it; its just awesome! That and going to PFAF really has gotten me into looking into growing only perennials like alot of our more tropical farmers have done for millenia.

Re: Modern vs. Ancient (ahem..Wild Humans)

Tmplanter — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:00:18 -0000

The marrow is the best part! My family thinks I like it because I am having iron defeciences; I just think its tasty! Though I've never eaten deer marrow.

I will say though that agriculture may be only 12,000 years old but no doubt structured and planned burnings was around much longer. Read Tending The Wild; amazing book on a different type of Horticulture; though that type of growing food was/is practiced in Australia, the Western Cape in South Africa, and parts of Chile. They were able to semi-cultivate things getting the best of both worlds: stable supply and ultimate nutrition.

Re: More Exposure for Self-Reliance

Tmplanter — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:20:05 -0000

I love planting and farming; my mom's side has been farming continously for 300 years as soon as the shackles came off from the trip, no doubt even longer in the bush. Its not a matter of if I make alot of money, I really am not a fan of money and I live relatively simple for most my age. I just don't want to grow and build something with no market for it.

If I spend the next two years busting my arse to make a community garden and make 2,000 dollars to get on the farmlink program I want it to be for something. I went to the Regenerative Design Institute and the manager said the U.S. will need 10,000 young farmers for sustainble food growth not thinking about prices and how much land a farmer will need to make a decent living without going into debt.

I wasn't really asking you the question, moreso just putting it out there since no doubt things will need to be done if there isn't a clearcut path or set of paths to follow.

Re: More Exposure for Self-Reliance

Tmplanter — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:36:10 -0000

I have thought about this and have thought that if everyone grows their own food, sales it to local resturants, gets off their jobs,etc... how will i make money as a farmer? The only places I could sale to would be places with little room for growing like San Francisco or Oakland but even then there will be major competition and you'll have to find a niche which will eventually be inundated with more competitors and you'll eventually have to cut your prices down to beat the competition which isn't all that good for the farmer.

What would the best answer be then? I don't want a career with limited success and even less stabilty. All the books I've read have never brought this up, but whats the point of farming food if no one will need to buy it? What's the point of farming if you can't make a viable income. How will I be able to help my community if I am not really needed. I might aswell homestead then waste time planting for no one.

Re: Keeping it Light...at Night.

Tmplanter — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:39:36 -0000

Couldn't do it; I love food to much. lol

My rabbi told the congregation that the more traditional sects abstain from food every tuesday and thursday. Way too much for me to handle; not my cup of tea!

Re: Food Forest Overview

Tmplanter — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:30:19 -0000

Well when you come back buy a avocado tree! A type called Mexicola is hardy to 18/19F so it can last in your dome during your frigid winters.