Paracelsus McCoy

IMO, stock-free has the side benefit for people (and animals) that it can work well for vegans or vegetarians, but I am interested in it primarily from the perspective of sustainability, esp. cutting outside inputs and embodied work and knowledge as low as possible. I have been trying to do that for the past four years in my garden. I've been organic for almost 30 years and always used composted manure as a top-dressing without even thinking about it. Then with the way things are going in our economy, four years ago I started thinking about what kind of gardening I could without outside inputs, even though already I was not using any synthetics. So I decided to try it and began investigating green manures. I stumbled across that book in my search for knowledge on that score, and I was struck by how apt it felt for sustainability, especially coming at the same time I was reading about the energy consumption embodied in meat animals. I can't employ a lot of their methods, but using white clover and peas as my fert is really working.

I don't usually bring up this issue precisely because instead of looking at the issue itself, people take it as a personal insult, becvome enraged, start sneering about killing insects and talking about their metabolism. That's not productive and it's not to the point. Btw, I am not a vegan. I'm not even a vegetarian, although I avoid eating meat because it is wasteful. But whateverr I am has nothing whatsoever to do with the validity of stock-free growing. That exists separately from me.

Dave Bennett, I gave you the reason why stock-free: sustainability. I cannot see how that is bashing you. I am totally with you on the grains thing, although IMO they are problematic now primarily because of their contamination with GMOs. I ate bread for many years with no problem. It seems way too coincidental that right now all the sudden all these people cannot eat grains and GMOs are contaminating grains and non-organic soy (and now they will be contaminating a lot more, etc).

What's the alcohol percentage? If it is 95% alcohol, then it is not a problem to add some to a wax or oil base. If it's more, you can risk growing botulism when you add it to the oil or wax, since the droplets will be sealed from air. It shouldn't matter too much for a salve, but you would have to be careful that the person had no cuts or scratches where the salve was applied; otherwise, they might get wound botulism. Personally, I would warm macerate the herb in oil, strain, and use that. I have found that a rice cooker on warm is great for doing that. Just be sure to keep inside condensation wiped off or leave the lid off. A lidded jar in the sun works good this time of year too.

If you are interested in sustainable growing without any animal inputs and minimizing off-site inputs, take a look at Growing Green by Jenny Hall and Iain Tollhurst. These folks run a stock-free farm in the UK and have created a stock-free certification there. This type of growing has been popping up in the US, Canada, and Europe as well. It is especially attractive to me because it allows the grower not only to get free of using animals at all but really focuses on keeping everything possible produced on site. The book is very dry because it is basically the description of the stock-free rules, but it is very very inspiring to someone who wants to grow without animals and without outside input. I've been gardening organically for almost 30 years, but this book really convinced me of changing some of the things I took for granted. Check it out:

http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/growing_green:paperback

Biodiversitygal, thanks for your wonderfully detailed post. I have been thinking hard about going off grid when eventually I can afford to buy my own place.

Looks like horse nettle, Solanum carolinense. IME, comfrey is not easy to start from seeds--seems to prefer propagating vegetatively. That might be why you ended up with weeds growing where you planted them.

When I see potato beetles on a plant, I examine the leaves to see where they have laid eggs, because they always have. That's why putting the plant on top of the soil next to other healthy plants will tend to result in more potato beetles throughout the planting area. Instead, I pick off the eggy leaves if there are not too many. If there are, with some plants the eggs can be squashed, but with others the leaves are too tender and squashing the eggs means seriously injuring the leaves. Otherwise, the plant just has to be trashed, and I mean put in the trash or burned. Otherwise, they will reproduce and seek out other members of the nightshade family in your garden. The nightshades are my favorite family of plants and I grow various members of it for seeds, herbs, fruits, roots, just the hell of it, whatever. This is the first time I have had a problem with these beetles on my plants outside of years ago on some squashes on some other land.

I have not found that growing marigolds through my garden has any effect on anything other than it looks good. IME, also, it is not the common French or African marigold that is meant but Tagetes tenuifolia, which has a different smell. I have seen these sold as "Gem" marigolds. Sometimes the seeds can be pricey, but some places sell them in bulk so they can be sprinkled around. This is the same one that some people in the south use as a thick border planting to keep root-knot nematodes out of plots they have solar-killed nematodes in. I have heard good things from people who have tried that.

I use wide beds for growing, although some things are grown around the edges of my city lot as well or even just sprinkled around in areas that get dappled sun, like my currants, gooseberries, roses, and woodland shrubs. In the past I have grown things in groups without a problem, like 18 tomatoes in a patch. I must make use of what sun I have in my shady lot. This year it happens I have grown a lot more things in very tiny groups, like four plants or two plants, and I have actually had more problems than in the past with bugs, but it has been a real weird year weatherwise--huge amounts of rain, strong hail that smashed a bunch of plants, super high temperatures, windstorms, the works. Such volatile weather is difficult to garden around.

I tried this yesterday, making it in a mason jar and letting the brew sit overnight. I strained it by just pouring it through one of those gold filters, which is gold-plated mesh and plastic, that I got for making nut milks. It filtered pretty good without any hassle. At the top was the kind of foam I have seen in very fine ground boiled coffee, which I used to make years ago. It did taste different, but I found to my surprise that I prefer the more acidic hot brew. Go figure. I was hoping I could get away from adding dairy to my coffee. Nope. A fun experiment, though.

Yes, by "tender growth" I mean growth that has been stimulated by too much N fert. Typically, my plants don't have this because I don't use synthetic ferts, but this fert I got on sale, although organic and supposed to be only 6-6-6, must have been higher than 6 for the N. Maybe that was why it was discontinued. I have noticed the beetles have migrated to my woodland tobacco now (started with the same fert). These are still in pots. 

I have got them right now in spades on two ground cherry plants that I grew from seed and which were very robust before they were attacked. They are growing amongst stuff like creeping charlie, wild lettuce, various mints, self-heal, and vervain, so they are not in a monoculture. Normally I do not get these bugs on things at all in my garden, not even when I was growing potatoes a few years ago. I tried hand picking them, which helped a little. I meant to pick up a bead vac the last time I had a car, which is good for vacuuming up pests like this, but I forgot. I think the issue with these particular plants is that they had a lot of tender growth due to the fertilizer I used to start them on. It is organic but is not the just plain liquid kelp that I usually use. It resulted in a lot of top growth in all my seedlings but not enough root development. Thing is, I used the same stuff to start my eggplants and peppers and whatnot, and no evil eye, they have not been attacked. Only these two plants. They were, though, huge when I set them out. Other than tender growth, I cannot see a reason why the bugs targeted these plants.

In TCM, botanical names are not used to identify herbs. I have found that as many as five different herbs can have the same Pinyin name and be used interchangeably or all together. That said, if you get a decent book on TCM herbal medicine, it should give the botanical names. I got one at a remainder sale for like $1.50.