Joy Oasis

link to my flickr page, for some reason pictures do not post here.

A bit of history.
I planted this chayote plant from store bought chayote fruit. It grew nicely, and gave me lots of chayote squash and we ate lots of leaves as they are tasty and plentiful. I sprouted a few new plants from them, and new plants started growing properly, at first slow, then faster. However they stopped growing and became stunted, and this is what I noticed:

Nicole Alderman wrote:Until seeing this thread, I'd never heard about the Abkhasian people. I did a little research, and didn't find much about their gardens (though some are subtopical, which might explain how they grow citrus). It looks like they are some of the longest living people.

That is very interesting. Mountain air and no city stress is helpful too. And they didn't buy food from the stores. Now we have our food contaminated in all manner possible - irradiated, genetically modified, sugared, vegetable oiled (or seed oiled to be more exact), added artificial ingredients, etc. Commercial foods seem to be not food, but products to make to look and taste like foods.

Wow, that is amazing, that you actually live there and seen the gardens. I will wait to see, if you find out more with interest. Can you take some photos of those old gardens?

One of my new favorites-
rose hips with some licorice root.
It doesn't need to be sweetened as licorice gives it nice sweet taste and rose hips some fruity flavor.

My father told me about wonderful gardens, that could fully sustain people in that region, that had nut trees, and even citrus trees. Somehow they would dig deep trenches and plant trees ( on the slope possibly) to keep trees covered in snow, protected from the freezing. And soldiers couldn't occupy the area  by blocking food coming in until they realized, what is going on and started destroying their gardens. I am so curious, if anyone knows more about them, because I am sure we can use some of those ideas.

From what I understand there are two types of glues used for the labels-water soluble and oil soluble. Water ones are easy -just soak. But moist need oil, any oil or fat. I use bacon fat - put some on and leave it for a while. Then scrub with paper towel with more fat, and some powder -like borax and baking soda. I feel, that powder helps to take it off easier, but it works with just oil as well. It can take 5-10minutes, so I gather a few, and then scrub them as I watch youtube videos about homesteading.

Lovely breakfast. Beautiful and delicious and healthy.

Cucumbers in salad or by themselves, and sometimes as pickles. We eat them daily.

If you are talking about cyanide form found in foods, processed cassava flour doesn't have it. But that form is actually beneficial for us. It is in a form, that need to be activated by certain enzymes, which are made in significant amounts just by cancerous cell, and not by normal. I take about ten apricot kernel seeds a day (5 in the morning and 5 at night) to prevent cancer. And it lowers blood pressure for people who have to high. I happen to have low anyway, but in such a small amount it doesn't affect me in a bad way.  Here is the list of high and low amounts of it in foods
http://www.vitaminb17.org/foods.htm
If you are interested in the topic read more about it in books such as Laetrile Case Histories; The Richardson Cancer Clinic Experience by John Richardson, World Without Cancer: The Story of Vitamin B17 by Edward Griffin, Alive and Well: One Doctor's Experience With Nutrition in the Treatment of Cancer Patients by Philip Binzel