Edith Stacey

I have used West Coast Seeds for a long time (from when they were Territorial) but have been very disappointed in past two years with low germination and MUCH reduced quantity of seeds per pack along with significant price rises.  My preferred seed suppliers now would be either Full Circle in Sooke or Salt Spring Seeds for the Wet Coast of Canada or exchange with fellow local (in my case  Pender Island) gardens and my own saved seeds.  The Victoria seed Savers event is next Saturday, Feb 17, so that might be a good option for you too R. Ranson.  Also had quite a few selections backordered from West Coast Seeds last year and some peas were not sent out until Late April which was too late for the season--disappointing, but I’ll try them this year.

Hi Dale; The second photo in the initial post looks like you're going to cut butter!

Hi Dale:

Will you be able to have walking paths like that on your berms? Looks pretty impressive.

How did your plantings stand up to deer predation?

We still have a forestry fire closure here and hence no chip or mulch to be had unless you bring it from off island, but hopefully some availability in next couple of months!

Edith

Hi Dale:

Good for you for hanging in with Thong with your community garden. What happened to Mike? Did he come back on board? Over here on Pender Island (about 30 km or so as the seagull flies from Dale's city grade, likely 80 km or so from his farm) we have had very different results at our relocated community garden from prior years. We are on much richer soil than at the old location, available sheep manure and better draining and so an earlier start in the season. My immediate neighbour did vey well with heading cabbages and even harvested some with a straight cut and then quartered the base leading to four little mini cabbages growing. I thing generally bush beans have fared better than pole beans too. All in all a very impressive result for 24 plots in their first year. Diversity reigns! The Jerusalem artichokes are a bit late, and potato harvest only mediocre--I think you did a lot better with your red ones.

What have you or Thong got going for the winter? I'll likely plant out garlic and a green manure and maybe some more broad beans--the dwarfing red flowered ones I picked up a couple of years ago at the seed savers meeting in Victoria--originally I only received 6 seeds, now I have a jar full and I've given many to others too.

I can't quite envisage an experiment that could control for the many variables, both intended and incidental such as introduced fungal inoculants vs. random arrivals, much like others have mentioned.
On one's own property however good record keeping including rainfall stats etc together with regular photos over an extended period would likely give you significant data for future endeavours at least in a similar environment. IMHO memory is far too fallible. Although I've done many courses over the years (including a PDC in early 2001) some of the most significant 'take home messages' have been from field trips and walking the land with knowledgeable people which is one of the reasons I give much more credence than many on this forum to Biodynamics and their practitioners.
I've viewed wonderful examples in Queensland Australia, various sites around New Zealand, but know that much of what I witnessed there would not be applicable here in coastal British Columbia--still many of the underlying principles are applicable.
Another good source I've found is old time farmers, gardeners or horticulturists in your area, especially if they are prepared to share their failures as well as their successes!

Just my 2 cents,
Edith

Nothing to do with post in a bag, or insulation, but in the bigger arena of basic shelter, this example is getting a workout by the inhabitants
.....



Edith

Hi Dale:

What is it with you and pond liner? Did you score half a warehouse of it or something? Hardly qualifies as a natural material I wouldn't have thought.

Kinda reminds me of advice I got when first returning to New Zealand after 25 years in Canada when I got my first property after renting for 3 years..."Plant Abyssinian banana [Ensete ventricosum]--great for producing your own biomass". Yup, great for that--soared to about 10 metres in less than two years, looked very tropical, got severely wind whipped, and took a lot of effort to cut down--destroying the clothes I was wearing. [Do you know how to get banana juice stains out of cotton T-shirts? Easy, use scissors.]

Then I had banana seedlings popping up all over the yard for the next 7 years.
Everytime I weeded them--pull and drop I muttered the same mantra: "oh look, great biomass".

Older, but (a bit) wiser.

Edith

Dale:

Your Thai friends could probably supply the massage therapy.
At the very least you'll feel better when they stop!
Maybe you don't want it remedied, just like the novelty.

Was it really dry while I was away?--you wouldn't think that looking at my property here on Pender--very wet and definitely colder than last winter (I've only been back in Canada just on 18 months), but my citrus tho' showing some frost damage are still alive. I have two helpers today to progress the hugel project, as the nerve damage I'm still getting over as a result of last years chemo means I'm much less able to do stuff myself than I would like, but hopefully it will improve. In the interim I find it better to hire helpers than lament the lack of progress. Still thinking/working on longer range plans, but essentially unless I can get the neighbours agreement to cut a few of their large trees in addition to my own, I'm going to be pretty limited on what I can do because of lack of sunlight. GRRRR........

Edith

I've done juicing mostly on the advice of the Naturopath. I've used a vitamix, the Breville juicer (as publicized by Joe Cross) and a hand cranked one for wheat grass juice. Both juicers take a bit of cleaning and therefore it is easy to cease using them, or use only sporadically. My favourite juice combo is beets, carrots, celery, cuke, whole lemon (sans seeds) and a good chunk of ginger. I don't juice anything in the brassica family as I prefer those foods lightly cooked, and use lettuce, tomatoes, peppers and avocado in regular salads. By juicing this way, I prepare enough for two days and make sure there is minimal head space in the bottle in the fridge to reduce oxidation--an alternative would be to add some ascorbic acid like Andrew Saul recommends.

I may go back to growing wheatgrass juice and juicing that which IMHO doesn't taste too wonderful, so then I add in some Pomegranate juice or Akai concentrate to make it more palatable.

I'm actually moving to the viewpoint that it may be better to produce and use home made fermented veges such as beet kvass or gingered carrots (both recipes in Nourishing foods) to up the probiotic intake than juicing--it takes about the same amount of time, but produces less waste (maybe less waist also!).

I actually think that makes the most difference in the live blood analysis my Naturopath uses is plentiful water!

More than a few armchair experts on this thread...

i've been an organic gardener/consumer for over two decades, never knowingly consumed aspartame, and generally avoided most processed food, HFCS (don't live in the US), made my own kefir, yoghurt, (both from organic A2 Raw Milk--very difficult to locate since I've moved to B.C. Canada) kombucha etc. Yes I've juiced frequently too.

Still was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma in July 2011 with guarded prognosis. Have endured 16 weeks of chemo this year (cyclophosphomide/bortezomib/dexamethazone) from July to late October to either 'minimal effect' or 'unfortunately this treatment didn't work in your case'=two opinions from two different oncologist at the Cancer Clinic in Victoria, B.C.
Am currently in Europe having spent the last 6 weeks pursuing 'a novel treatment' at a private clinic in Switzerland at significant personal expense. Can't say much more at this stage for two reasons--I won't know what impact it has had until I return to Canada for another round of tests in mid January plus I had to sign a confidentiality contract not to disclose the treatment protocol on 'any blog, social media, forums or similar' Not sure how enforceable that would be, but can say I'm feeling a whole lot better than I have in moths and even looking forward to planning a spring garden in a few short weeks!

I certainly agree with Jennifer that it is not helpful to be inundated with off the wall suggestions from well meaning friends/family/acquaintances, but have now learned to simply smile and thank them for caring about me, which is easy to do and avoids the conversation escalating into a conflab.

I actually think Max Gerson was onto something, but it is worthwhile to remember he has been gone for over 50 years and there has been a huge amount of research in the intervening period. There is even a great deal offered within the US--both the Riordan clinic in Wichita, Kansas and Nicholas Gonzalez in New York are two that come to mind. Curiously one of the longest known survivors of my condition after declining conventional was the Oxford Don, Michael Gearin-Tosh who followed a modified Gerson for about 13 years, yet the Gerson site itself has a page/comment that it is not effective with this cancer.

Also for what it's worth coffee enemas were widely used in the 50's and earlier and were also in the Merck manual until the mid 70's I think.
This is yet another illustration of folk mocking a treatment when they know little about it--kinda what you meet on a regular basis when you attempt to explain some permaculture approaches to neophytes eh?

As I understand it Steve Jobs had an aggressive pancreatic Cancer--it is a notoriously difficult cancer to treat, especially when advanced. Likewise the cancer which took Steve McQueen 30 years earlier (pleural mesothelioma in that case) was blamed on alternative treatment he followed late in the course of his disease.

Just my two cents...