In Mourning...

In Mourning...

A friend of mine, a Sioux Pipe Carrier has died as of 5:31am today, I will be in mourning for several days thinking of all the good that has been done for "mitakuye oyasin."

12 different fruits on 3 trees

I picked up 3 Espalier trees today with a minimum of 4 types of fruit per tree. These are all going in my Mandala garden along the outer edge.

The first tree is of multiple pears, mostly Asian types. They include Tsu-li, Kikisui, Chojura, Hosui, and Bartlett. Asian Pears in general are more crisp like apples and have aromas that range from pineapples, & brandy to butterscotch.

The next was a multi-apple. These include Spartan, Summerred, Cortland, & Red Macintosh.

Lastly was another of multiple pears, mostly European. This tree includes Bartlett again, Commice, D'Anjou & Flemmish Beauty.

So, in order to recap, I have a 30' Mandala made up of six fruit trees, where the chickens visit each tree every 12 weeks to fertilize and more. In front of these 6 fruit trees is a separate kitchen garden as well. All in all, very soon I will have so much fruit & vegetables I won't ever have to buy any chemical laden food again not to mention being a investment that is better than giving money to Wall St.

It's NOT a Fairytale! It's GREAT NEWS!!!

Seattle is building the nations first public Food Forest. For details please review the link.

My question is, what can Coos County do to make this a reality for us?

Revisiting the Master Gardener

I was thinking of the Master Gardener I met again today, whom I am now calling, "Ollie Everyman."

"Ollie" is the name I will now use when I refer to someone who has taken the OSU Master Gardener program, or someone that subscribes to the ludicrous notions of using petro-chemicals, herbicides, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, or any other -icides. Nearly anyone can become, "Ollie" at a moments notice.

So, while talking the other day, Ollie told me to spray my trees with copper sulfate because it is 'relatively' benign and it would kill the epiphytes on my plum and apple trees, "After all, every spot the epiphytes are is another spot the tree can't bud."

Benign?

While the internet isn't perfect, information about Copper Sulfate hardly benign. Wikipedia has this to say about toxic effects of Copper Sulfate.

Toxicological effects

Copper sulfate is an irritant.[22] The usual routes by which humans can receive toxic exposure to copper sulfate are through eye or skin contact, as well as by inhaling powders and dusts.[23] Skin contact may result in itching or eczema.[24] Eye contact with copper sulfate can cause conjunctivitis, inflammation of the eyelid lining, ulceration, and clouding of the cornea.[25]

Upon acute oral exposure, copper sulfate is only moderately toxic.[26] According to studies, the lowest dose of copper sulfate that had a toxic impact on humans is 11 mg/kg.[27] Because of its irritating effect on the gastrointestinal tract, vomiting is automatically triggered in case of the ingestion of copper sulfate. However, if copper sulfate is retained in the stomach, the symptoms can be severe. After 1–12 grams of copper sulfate are swallowed, such poisoning signs may occur as a metallic taste in the mouth, burning pain in the chest, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, headache, discontinued urination, which leads to yellowing of the skin. In case of copper sulfate poisoning, injury to the brain, stomach, liver, or kidneys may also occur.[25]

Seems to me that is hardly benign, and if I am spraying this in the air it is going to get into my lungs! What a crazy nightmare, being taught to intentional poison myself so I can have extra bud space on a tree that is already giving me plenty of food!

Well, currently it is legal to poison yourself over a long period of time to get rid of a naturally occurring epiphytes, let me point out that the epiphyte has numerous uses around the home.

Usnea, the "Old Man's Beard" is a fungus that has been in use for over 1000 years medically. It is a potent antibiotic, and anti-fungal agent. It's high in Vitamin C & completely edible. It can be plucked off the tree and used as gauze to treat surface wounds when modern antibiotics and sterile gauze padding are not available. There are other medical uses and those are beyond the scope of this article. This is about how silly humans are. :p

Seems to me, I would rather NOT poison myself, and keep another edible here on the property that also has multiple uses, looks nice too.However, it also dawned on me that spraying this anti-fungal spray of copper sulfate would kill the fungus in the soil that is NEEDED to keep trees healthy. Trees have a very important relationship with soil fungi to the point of it being in a symbiotic relationship with nearly, if not every single tree in a forest.

In fact, the lack of proper fungi in the soil is what causes Blight, a fact gardeners & foresters have known this since before Ralph Waldo Emerson, so it is beyond me why anyone would want to use a chemical like this when there is no logical reason to. What was Ollie thinking? Maybe Ollie just doesn't realize.

Fedge, a way to deflect deer away

Sorry for my shaking in the video, it's my first and I was nervous. :)

OSU's Disservice of Master Gardeners

Thinking of changing how I blog today, too much doom and gloom. I can't save the world, no one can. All I can do is go out, garden without GMO's, without F1 Hybrids, without this new age chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.. the new age of chemical food growing is over, it just doesn't work.

I know students & teachers of OSU's Master Gardener program think it works. I got into a 5 minute discussion about how the program is not sustainable yesterday with someone who teaches for it. I doubt I changed their mind, but it did make me realize I can only do so much.

International Permaculture Day is Coming!

International Permaculture Day is May 6th, I am wondering currently for ideas on how to help spread Permaculture and its agricultural benefits. So, I am looking for ideas, please share some if you have any!

I am going back out to work in the gardens and ponder this very thing.

I Actually Care About You...

I spent the morning viewing the cruelty of humans in a video game. Nothing ever changes when you can't physically see the person. Some people just don't care who they hurt so long as they can't see them. I guess this is the same condition that allows us humans to ignore painful truths and reality about the world around us.

So, in order to turn my disdain on end, or my frown upside down I proceeded to work outside because as Geoff Lawton once said, "All the worlds problems can be solved in a garden." I got 10 new strawberry plants transplanted today. Red onions , beets, corn salad, and fava beans were planted. This time of the year we have so much to do as farmers. We need to sow seeds, transplant, & care for so many other things.

And that's really what it comes down to, caring. I care what I eat, what my family eats, what my friends and loved ones eat. I even care what the people whom have harmed me in the past, & future eat. I care that people I have never met have good healthy food because if I don't care, who will anymore?

We have been getting lied to for a long time...

I was taught marijuana would make a person insane. A lie. I was told it was a gateway drug, another lie. Cigarettes, coffee and alcohol are greater gateway drugs by far. I was told marijuana causes cancer, now we know that's a lie with video feeds showing it shrinking cancer cells in the lungs.

Now I look at all the lumber being cut, the giant clear cuts and the landslides going into the Coquille river and so on... and I think to myself this.


Food for thought.

The bravest 11 year old I have ever seen...

"I came here today to talk about what is wrong with our food system."

Charges of Bio-Piracy; India vs Monsanto

Sometimes I do not need to say anything, the video does it for me.

I will not publish...

Let the whole world know, I will not publish PRO-GMO rhetoric on my blog. I am decidedly against it in all forms just like I am the use of pesticides and herbicides.

If a comment from a viewer(s) is even remotely viewed as being in favor of any of the above, it will not be published here.

As Geoff Lawton said, "The age of Chemical Agriculture is over, it doesn't work."

Great News for Organic Farmers!!

(NaturalNews) Purveyors of conventional and genetically-modified (GM) crops -- and the pesticides and herbicides that accompany them -- are finally getting a taste of their own legal medicine. Minnesota's Star Tribune has reported that the Minnesota Court of Appeals recently ruled that a large organic farm surrounded by chemical-laden conventional farms can seek damages for lost crops, as well as lost profits, caused by the illegal trespassing of pesticides and herbicides on its property.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/033216_GMO_contamination_lawsuits.html#ixzz1lvp2G2Z7

Personally, I couldn't be happier. If someone contaminates my property, I get to sue the people who did it, as is right.

Memories of Willie

I am not a fan persey of country music. I grew up with punk, and rap music, an odd mix to some, but it was very NYC in the 80's. From the Ramones and Blondie to Slick Rick & Doug E. Fresh I listened to it all, and it was good.

However, one day, cutting school while my friends were in school I hopped to Downtown Manhatten and hung around the Ed Sulliven theater, right across from the "Miss Saigon" production on Broadway.

It was like any other day in NYC, people doing there thing, people shoved out of buildings in underwear running down the block. Pigeons cooing, and so on, but then I noticed a bus with a giant yellow rose on it, so I started sketching the rose on the bus.

Unknown to me at the time, I was sitting outside Willie Nelson's Bus and he was being interviewed by David Letterman, with the late Senator Sonny Bono. I had gotten up to stick the drawing I did on the doors of the bus when Willie Nelson came up to the door!

In shock, not knowing what to say I handed him the simple drawing, and walked off excited I met a famous star of music and the big screen. At this time of my life this was a huge and major thing to me, and the fact I handed him a drawing of mine, to his hand made it all the better.

All of this was by coincidence. Something I have learned to go with in my life, sometimes not well, but all in all I try very hard to take it in stride. However, something about Mr. Willie Nelson had me thinking last night as I laid awake with insomnia again....

The fight to save family farms isn't just about farmers. It's about making sure that there is a safe and healthy food supply for all of us. It's about jobs, from Main Street to Wall Street. It's about a better America. -Willie Nelson.

Well, if I ever meet Mr. Willie Nelson again, I hope he looks at the work I am doing or have done and gives me a thumbs up. We are all in this together, not just as Americans, but the food issue is now a global one and I can only hope we can work together simply like a teenager handing a drawing to a random person.

Will the US have a 2nd Dust Bowl?

Is the US about to have a 2nd Dust Bowl and Black Sunday event? It seems glaringly obvious that in the Monsanto controlled agriculture in the world has dust bowl / dust storm events going on so large they are visible from space, and have been going on for years.

Now the US plains is having a drought again, and the soil is already dead thanks to constant chemicals being dumped onto the land. What will it take for the US to start adapting Regenerative Ag & embrace Permaculture?