Chance Lunceford

The Chip Drop card came in the mail today, and I verified. I also opted to pay $20 to try and get chips faster.

M Ljin wrote:Could they be Mirabelle plums? I think those are supposed to thrive in drier or harsher conditions than ordinary ones.

Dunno, but I think it'll be good to learn. Challenge accepted.

Okay, so, first I reckon, some definitions within the context of the system will help:

- Periodized Progressive Resistance Training: A training design principle based around the truth that growth is not linear. The brass tacks are to begin your training below maximum capacity, and then to design a gradual increase (not necessarily always in a linear fashion, but we can discuss that later) in output which will take you just beyond your former maximum capacity. Then, you restart, dropping back below maximum and working back up. When you start training, you'll see large jumps, like, possibly 20% in 12 weeks. When you've been training for many years, you'll be lucky to achieve 103% after a full year of hard training.

- Density: To reiterate, OUTPUT/TIME. How this works is much of what's to follow. But, as a basic example, we'd be measuring the quantity of repetitions of a given movement, at the same level of resistance, were performed within a consistent period of time. So, you performed 43 reps of your goblet squats in 15 minutes. If you just grokked that next time you're going to aim for at least 44 reps, then you're ahead of the game.

- Training Block: The entire 4-12 week (most commonly) training schedule you're designing. This can be ultra specific, down to every last rep and weight by day (necessary for elite athletes), or it can be loose, like just starting with the exercise choices only and seeing where you get by the end of the training block (recommended for beginners).

- Density Block: The individual combination of a designated movement and a designated time constraint. A basic example, bench press+10 minutes. A different example, 15 minutes+maximum distance running.

- Superset: Two movements performed in rapid succession. Example, a set of barbell rows immediately followed by a set of pushups.

These definitions will establish a good foundation of understanding to build upon, and I can introduce new vocabulary as needed. But, ponder over what I've outlined above, because many of the keys to what I'm teaching are already there.

Funny enough, it's planted with a mulberry cutting, a quince cutting, an almond cutting, a walking onion topset, and a bulb onion set, all of which are currently alive.

The mulberry even seems like it will survive. It's a cutting from Kokuso Korean mulberry. The cuttings from Kokuso seem to be rooting fairly easily.

The onions are both doing great.

It'll be interesting to watch what develops in this pot over the next few weeks. It would be a fun experiment if all of those cuttings took, just to plant them bundled up as is and see what happens.

This is exciting for me.

If you've been reading this thread, you know I found a wild plum growing in the city of Springdale, just outside of Zion Canyon.

The fruit were a little smaller than a golfball, vivid yellow -skin and flesh- and tasted like grapefruit.

So, I kept the seeds from the handful I grabbed (wish I would have grabbed more), and stratified 'em.

I posted a picture earlier of the radicle from the first seed to germinate.

The picture below is of the seedling's first inch above ground.

I'm thrilled. I have no idea how close the seedling will be to the parent, and I'm strongly considering driving down to Zion this winter to harvest some scion stock from the tree (if I can recognize it defoliated, heh), but my four seeds, well, three seeds and a seedling, represent the most novel plum genetics in my system. A wild plum, vivid yellow, that tastes like grapefruit and grows in an area most unusual for wild plums (the city irrigation was certainly keeping this specimen alive, but it's still in a place that gets up to 110°F in the summer surrounded by red rock which absorbs and amplifies the heat), so, it's a tough tree well suited to my similarly harsh conditions.

I'll bring this little buddy inside (or at least into the garage, I need to measure how cold it gets in there when the temperature drops) for the winter, because it's not gonna harden off in time to survive the winter left outside. I'll still pop it outside on days above freezing through the winter to keep it from getting too wimpy before spring arrives, and it should have a great headstart on next year's season. Maybe it'll be a little seasonally confused, but we'll see.

There's another seed that has popped, but the radicle hasn't yet extended, so I'm letting that one stay. Two others have yet to pop, but they're nicely swollen, so I think they're viable. If I can get all four germinated, I'll keep the healthiest looking specimen in my yard, then I'll take the other three over to my project area and plant them next to some of my favorites to play with pollination in the future.

Hi Friends,

I know this seems perhaps a bit out of context, but I don't think so. See, part of the reason I'm able to do so much in the soil is that I'm an absolute physical unit. I can work harder, and longer, than folks who aren't capable of being unrelenting.

I didn't stumble into this capacity. Indeed, I had to work hard to become an elite athlete. Then I got sick, and lost 80lbs, and almost died. And then, I added all that weight back, and I'm again a monster, even with some lingering health stuff.

I'm not uniquely physically gifted. In fact, I was what the lifting world calls a "hardgainer" until my thirties. But, I am uniquely mentally gifted. And, I learned how to manipulate biological imperatives to achieve specific changes in my body. B MUST follow A, savvy?

Also, I have spent the entirety of my adult life as a practitioner of physical culture. It's saved my life more than once. I'm also an obsessive who dives deeply into that which fascinates me. I've learned and tested everything exercise.

Along the way, I developed a system of training that combines the ultimate tool for sustained physical development (or in any endeavor actually, but that's another conversation), periodic progressive resistance training, with an almost universally underused and poorly understood component of exercise which demystifies training and unlocks incredible sustained progress: DENSITY.

Density is, essentially, LOAD/TIME.

I wrote a book, called The Density Training Manual, and if you're interested, maybe I'll dredge up the ebook and send it to you for free. Maybe, it's on an old computer. Heh.

But, in this thread, I'll teach you the basic components of the system, show you how and why to track your training, teach you an outline for how to design a complete 4-12 week training block, give you some go-or-no-go rules for when to progress and when to step back, and leave you with everything you need to begin designing your training in a purposeful, practical, effective manner that can be used as the basis for your training for the rest of your life.

You'll still need someone to support you in correct form, and that'll ideally be someone close to you. I recommend working with a serious strength and conditioning coach, or powerlifting coach, or bodybuilding coach, rather than a "personal trainer" for a couple of months so you can perfect your form.

But, after that, and with the system I'll teach you, you won't ever need another coach unless you're interested in elite levels of physical culture or want to compete in a sport or physique competition.

I'll work on this over the next couple of days/weeks until I've conveyed the system.

This is not a business or training or money seeking situation. I don't want that, I'm just offering some knowledge because I worked hard to gain it and I want to share my treasure with you.

Oh, since you're probably wondering, here you go:

I had two medlar (Marron and Dzevera) and three autumn olive (Garnet/Charlie's Golden/Amber) plants arrive this week. The Marron is looking a little worse for the travel, but I have faith it'll pull through.

The Garnet autumn olive had a few fruits.

I ate them. They were tasty, and mildly astringent. Would be great in a preserve/jam/jelly situation and I liked eating 'em anyway.

Anyway, I saved all the seeds and got 'em stratified in vermiculite. Heh. These were grown in a nursery next to several other improved varieties, so the genetics will be solid. Nice to get a headstart on the propagation game with FOA (fruit on arrival).

Got 'em all in the ground this morning.

Found these roots growing between two blocks.

I thought it looked cool.

Harvested around 80% of the sunflowers I'm saving seed from this year. A few of my favorites are not quite ready.

Dennis Barrow wrote:I have 3 raised beds I grow strawberries in.  This year, one of the beds has had a serious decline of plants and no runners from them.  This bed was the most prolific of them all last year.   I am thinking there is some type of virus in it.  The beds are all 20 feet apart.

I was planning on replacing this bed this winter with a new one as it is starting to fall apart.  I am thinking I will not plant strawberries in the new bed as any virus in the soil would probably transfer to new plants.  I guess I will build 2 more beds, one with new soil for new strawberry plants.

This sounds like a job for crop rotation. You could have 5-6 beds and switch 1-2 out every year, then grow annual vegetables in the 2-3 empty beds.