Jay Muir

that is beautiful so far! thank you for sharing.

One solution I have read about is cutting the stems close to the ground and then diligently pouring salt dissolved in water into each and every hollow stem. This in conjunction with black tarping the whole area.
I have fortunately not had the chance to try this!

I went to a Seedy Saturday exchange and left my packets of carefully-labeled seeds on a table, for anyone to take as they like, and wandered off to look at what other seeds people were offering.
When I got back someone had taken seeds and left me a lunar planting calendar in exchange ... one that I had wanted to buy several months before but hadn't been able to afford! what a kindness to leave a calendar in exchange for a few bean seeds.

I found the person who left it in order to thank him and when he learned of my financial situation he offered me a free membership to his ecological gardening group. So in exchange I translated a presentation on seed-saving that he had attended but not fully understood, from English to French so he could know what had been said.

That whole exchange really made my week.

More herbs and plants to look up for their potential antiviral activity:

http://www.wildernesscollege.com/antiviral-herbs.html

When I saw your thread I immediately thought of usnea - tree lichen - it's not hard to Google for scientific evidence of its antiviral properties.

http://www.sustainablehomesteading.com/edible-and-medicinal-plants/usnea-old-mans-beard/

However I couldn't find if there is anything specifically linking usnea to herpes virus treatment, and it is contraindicated for those who are pregnant or have autoimmune deficiency.

Just more for you to check out and research for yourself. Good luck!

Off the top of my head, I had thought that button mushrooms are one of the more difficult kinds to grow?
I think it's because they are the sort of mushroom that grows on already semi-composted materials, which is why commercially they are grown on manure compost (I think?)

In home growing personally I've stuck to the 'easier' mushrooms which are the type that grow on wood waste. Stropharia mushrooms are what I grow because they are the closest to store-bought button mushrooms from what I can gather (I don't like oyster mushrooms much). If you pick them when they're young they are so tender and taste somewhat like portabello. So not exactly button mushrooms but not that far...

In addition they seem to thrive on neglect. I threw the mycelium that I bought into a garden bed mulched with wet cardboard and wood chips and pretty much left it to its own devices, and with the fairly regular rains that we get here through the summer they pop up on their own three times a year - and they are perennial!

Anyways, those are my thoughts ... hope it helps.

PS is day 18 with the temperature spike where she ovulated?

Alex,

Thanks for providing such a thorough description of what your wife is doing.
I know someone who also followed this method.
For seven years and with different partners, she followed this method religiously and never got pregnant, not even a scare (I believe like you she left a margin of a few days on either end), and then when she wanted to get pregnant she knew exactly what day to have sex and conceived on the first try also.

However, she tried to teach this method to some college students, who applied the methodology less rigorously, and several became pregnant shortly afterwards. One of them on tracking her ovulation concluded that she 'never' ovulates so just went for it. Needless to say, this is no method at all!

Anyways, congrats to you and your partner for having the discipline and self-respect to use this method.

As a side benefit of being so intimately in touch with mucus levels etc, my friend got more in touch with her body and was able to overcome some of her hang-ups and physical pain due to menstruation. What a great side effect!

You guys look sweet! Envy those vegan donuts.

We have a large vegan garden but not the time or capacity to host WWOOFers. Maybe someday.

In the meantime good luck with your search! If you're looking for farms free from animal captivity, check out http://www.goveganic.net/ for listings of vegan-organic farms across North America.

I find it a little bizarre that there is still an attitude that women using herbs to control their fertility is somehow 'unnatural' or not good.
European women were stripped of their indigenous knowledge of herbs, child-bearing and fertility during the witch-hunts, which removed both the witches and their folklore, making women vulnerable to control by the church and state who were in need of higher populations of workers in order to bolster the new mercantile economy.

"The attack of church and state against the witches was aimed not only at the subordination of female sexuality as such, although this played a major role, but against their practices as abortionists and midwives... Not only were women artisans pushed out of their jobs and their property confiscated by the city authorities, the state and the church, but women's control over the production of new life - that is, their decision to give birth to a child or to abort - had to be smashed. This war against women raged throughout Europe for at least three centuries" - Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale.

Other cultures worldwide have managed to hold onto their traditional indigenous knowledge of fertility and herbal medicine and their control of fertility often goes unnoticed.

The problem is as stated elsewhere on this thread, when unempowered women try to make random choices about fertility and end up with a big mess - either an unwanted pregnancy, or a damaged fetus from the inconsistent or improper use of abortifacients, or possible health complications to the woman from uneducated use of herbs or vitamins.

Large doses of Vitamin C are effective - which is why many pharmaceutical companies sell Vitamin C with rosehip added, which counteracts the abortifacient, as they didn't want to be associated with ending pregnancies.

I second Sister Zeus as an emergency source of information on emmenagogues and abortifacients.

I also second any recommendation which gives more empowerment, information and agency to women to make these decisions about their own fertility in ways that are self-loving, responsible, and safe.

What woodchips do you have access to? Are they hardwood or softwood?

We also have over 6' deep pure sand and I've been slowly building soil with various mulching techniques, mostly hit-and-miss but the real workhorse that has been leaving deposits of rich black soil has been the Stropharia mushroom mycelium inoculated into the hardwood chip mulch that I have been applying yearly to the garden. So that would be my advice if you're able to get hardwood chips! (Order from Fungi Perfecti, they're the best!)