I suggest using caution when organic fertilizer is used. Manure may contain pathogenic microbes. Chicken manure often has salmonella. Manures may also contain parasite eggs.

Later,
this was "Not" acceptable and agreed as positive actions.

And I wouldn't keep the same basinful of water two days, or even two hours running.

..Though I sense you agree.

Would you like to expand on that post? I'm open to all ideas.

Thanks,

F.

I'm eager to join this conversation, but duty calls this a.m...in several directions.

Maybe this evening will be quieter.

I'll be back.

F.

Okay...here I go...

As near as I can tell, the building blocks of life, minerals, come from rocks, heaved up and mixed by natural forces over years almost beyond counting.

Then, in enough water and sunlight and shade, the right temperatures, and over time, micro organisms break down the rock elements and carry them to plant roots.

Plants take up the the exact amount of each nutrient necessary for life, balancing them perfectly for that plant species.

'Food' plants are those we have found are good for humans. (There must have been a lot of trial and error and success.)


From this scenario, I deduce that soil micro organisms are key to nutrition, and that we had best protect them in our growing soil as best we can.


One Japanese man thought that NOT tilling the soil was very good. (Google "no-till")

Our forefathers allowed the growing soil to lie fallow, under protective weeds and grasses, to allow micro organisms time to replenish nutrients from the rocks and sand in the soil...though I doubt they knew it was the micro organisms that were doing it.

Some planted 'winter' crops, such as vetch, to be tilled under to enrich the soil with humus (compost). In my view, it was also the plant balanced nutrients they were returning to the soil, and I don't think tilling was necessary. I believe the micro organisms return plant nutrients to the soil through weather/water, as the plants decay...though it takes a little longer the micro organisms survive much better.

Tilling disrupts the life of micro organisms, leaving them exposed.

I also believe that tree and bush fruits are most likely to contain the highest level of nutrients possible, simply because they are not often tilled.

(Spraying, of course, is a whole 'nother story...as is pruning. We just don't want to weaken the plant in any way because a weak plant is subject to blights, all in the good order of things. It is the job of insects and things to return weakened plants/bushes/trees to the soil.)

I could go on, especially to tell of the things in nature that restore and maintain the land...but I'm weary...it was a very busy day.

Volcanic ash is one thing...whole mineral salts that have been through plants is another.

I sincerely think that we could work WITH nature.

So, have at 'er, my friends. Does any of this make sense so far?

F.

So, volcanic ash...

Volcanic ash is expanded rock...expanded by heat. It is full of holes, even micro scopic holes.

Volcanic rock, the stuff that flows, molten (melted) down the sides of volcanic mountains, then cools and hardens, is very light to carry, simply because it is porous. Volcanic rock breaks quite easily.

A volcanic erruption may be a 'leak', or it may be an explosion, depending on how hard and solid is the rock above the advancing magma from below.

Mount St. Helens exploded.

We were up there after things had cooled, and in the path of the blast whole mountainsides of trees lay flat, all in one direction, completely bare of needles, branches, and bark. Masses of trees on nearby mountains, in the path of the force, lay like satin, naked in the sun, scoured in seconds by molten tiny particles in a fierce wind blast.

Some rock particles were so small and so driven that they became airborne and were picked up by passing weather and carried countless miles away.

Our home, hundreds of miles away, was dusted by volcanic ash. Wipe our car or our dashboard and we were doing a 'cut' polish.

Orchardists for hundreds of miles were certain they would lose their crops from the coating. Instead, crops were better for years.

Why? Because...

...Molten rocks from a wide area had mixed their minerals, the building blocks of life.

Even then, glassmakers, shoveling up ash from various areas, found that the ash from one area would blow into baubles of a different color than the ash from another area. (Check me on this.)

...Every speck of ash was sharp (glass!), and full of holes (expanded).

What the holes mean is that water gets in and stays there longer...and that the total exposed surface of the piece of rock is larger than if it were a solid.

Volcanic ash holds water, and there is a far greater surface for micro organisms to work on, breaking down the rock, sand, into minerals available for plant nutrients.

The sharpness of each tiny piece means that it would penetrate hard soil, for one thing, and even the surfaces of existing rock, in every tiny crevice.

Add rainwater, and the soil micro organisms go right to work.


There have been volcanos so huge that the clouds of volcanic ash were so big that they blotted out the sun...some around the world, for a year. There was one such volcano in the 1800's, I heard. Crops failed...and people died.


Then, when soil micro organisms carry the mineral nutrients to plant roots...

...Plants are very selective in which minerals they take up...and how much of each they take up!

Food plants are the smartest of all...they balance their mineral content (and the things they make out of minerals and water and sunlight and shade), exactly right for some living creature's well-being. Because, if a living creature loves the plant and its contents, the creature will make darn sure to scatter the plant's seeds to get more of that kind of plant.

It's automatic, things that eat certain plants act as 'legs' for rooted organisms, to perpetuate the species.


If, however, plants can't find all the right minerals they need, in the amounts they need (or the micro organisms to fetch them), plants will manufacture other things out of what they DO find.

When this happens, the plant is stressed...vulnerable and open to anything that will break it down into soil once more. Plagues start this way...just as we may be plagued by the forces that break us down into soil, once more.

Minerals, balanced for us by plants, build us strong and beautiful, immune to most plagues...maybe even all.


There it is, folks. The little word we all depend on...'immunity'.

We break the chain of life at our own peril.

I say we haven't broken it enough, yet...because we still exist in this era of conditions suitable for human life...but we have certainly strained the plants that support us...likely by straining and eradicating the micro organisms that support plants.

F.

I'd like to jump, here, to the question about 'bugs' in the garden or soil that may make us sick...

Do you think we can avoid them entirely?

I feel we can't.

A breeze may bring anything in the window, even into the most sterile home.


My dad used to say, "You gotta eat a peck of dirt before you die."

(I never did figure out if that was cumulative, or all at once.)

Surely to goodness that obligatory peck of dirt contains SOMETHING we don't like.

And, where have our feet been BEFORE we pull on our socks?


I heard from a grocery store manager of one sad lady who shopped with plastic bags over her hands. She passed the items, herself, through the checkout, and bagged them.

I could only think that someone had told her that HER hands were 'dirty'. I wonder how she got the food into her mouth. That might have been a sight to see!


If you agree that we're going to encounter something, anyway, then why aren't we all dead in the streets by now?

And, if microbes and worms eat all our nutrition, how come the numbers of fat people are growing so rapidly?


At least one poster to CureZone, and a few websites, say that, if we eat soil micro organisms, right on our foods, those critters will zoom in on our mucoid plaque deposits, loosening them, and allow them to be on their way through our guts.

I read, a long time ago, that there are around 400 varieties of beneficial micro organisms in our digestive tracts.

That made me wonder how many varieties survived the Antibiotics and other things we've swallowed since. (I go back before Antibiotics , Dr. Salk, WW II, and DDT, but not before the industrial revolution began.)

I figure that all of us who are still breathing are pretty tough...and that our toughness must come from immunity...a strong body that knows what to do even when we aren't consciously aware of it.


If we go up in an airplane, we can see how big is the natural world...all of it, except our encampments and roads and dumps, lying fallow under weeds and grasses and every bush and tree that can make it...eating up carbon dioxide and spewing out oxygen. Wherever green growth is wild and lush, we can be sure no plow has set furrow.

Lakes and oceans we can't see into. Folks like Sylvia Earle tell us they are dying, NOT because of micro organisms, because we have been using our waterways for chemical dumps. Water travels so far. Two-thirds to three-quarters of this planet's surface is water. That's a heck of a big garbage dump, and all of it kept beautiful, in former times, by micro organisms, the base of the food chain.

(At one time the green-growing things in the oceans produced 70% of our oxygen. Now our oxygen is being burned up in internal combustion engines, too...our most expensive fuel. I cheekily wonder how fond we are of breathing.)

We create things like chlorine bleach, etc. to be sure our stuff is 'clean', not thinking of our grandbabies', or our own, oxygen supply.


If we need more beneficial micro organisms in our bodies, to do the work, and build our immune systems, the only way I can see to get them is to swallow them, from our finest gardens.

Personally, I'll use a basin of water to rinse off the grit, and to give some hope of getting the good critters into my stomach.

Otherwise, I''ll simply brush the radishes off on my jeans, and dare the grit.

Did you ever notice? Bears at the zoo take peanuts in the shell, whole, and delicately spit the shells...keeping the peanuts.

:D

F.

...Let your land lie fallow under weeds and grasses.

...Grow beside wild places (not so far for good critters to travel), at least 60 feet from any busy road...farther, if you can.

...Mulch with volcanic ash or volcanic rock where you won't cover seedlings. Volcanic debris, being glass, is really hard on crawling things with soft underbellies.

...Mulch with straw or similar things, also not covering seeds and seedlings.

...Create compost from the wild, and mulch with it. Bring in a few shovelfuls of wild soil and carefully place in central locations, immediately, and cover with the best mulch you have, also immediately.

...Do not till.

...Keep free from man-made pollutants.

...Buy seed with old-fashioned names...there is a law that prevents newly-engineered seeds from being labeled with old names...though they may sound like old names. Read old-fashioned catalogues and gardening books...the older the better.

...Do any necessary watering at dawn, the coldest time of the day. You are ready to conserve water evaporation with your good mulches.

...Where weeds and grasses will shade your seeds and seedlings, cut back your weeds and grasses enough to ensure sprouting and growth, leaving the cuttings for mulch.

...Plant trees, watching where the shade will fall, and where winds and weather need to be controlled. Plant food trees.

...Don't use purchased animal manures.

...Read Eliot Coleman http://www.fourseasonfarm.com and the Japanese man who wrote about no-till gardening, and how the Brazilian man, Mr. Nasser, restored ten hectares of spoiled land with clumps of local weeds and grasses...see the Discovery Channel...ask them.


That's the best I know, basically. Ask Jessesmom, too. I think you'll find that these suggestions are the cheapest around.


Now I'd like to tell you two things that may be helpful, as well.

The first begins with crystal mineral salts. These are the dried residue of oceans 250,000,000 years old. One place they are dug is in the Himalayas. They are pinkish. (I love a bath in a 1% solution.) I've heard of a rose-colored deposit from the Andes, and a deposit of seashells in the Canadian Rockies. There must be more.

These mineral salts are sterile and sterilizing, because of their mineral salts content. They are also concentrated because of ancient evaporation. These have been balanced by ancient ocean plants.


There are, too, deposits of old volcanic ash. One is in our town. Likely the micro organisms have been working on them all this time, and any water dripping from it would be loaded with plant-balanced mineral salts.


There are places where water leaks from under glaciers. Often this water is whitish and called 'glacier milk'. It, too, is loaded with minerals leeched from the rocks under the glacier. These haven't yet been balanced by plants. I have heard of bottles of 'glacier milk' being sold in stores...I don't know in what form.


I am told that water needs only to bubble over rocks for a few feet before it is purified. I imagine that would be true of ground water, too. I've also heard that the air beside waterfalls is the finest to breathe.

Artesian wells may carry enough pressure power to move it as you wish. Read up on "artesian wells."


I don't know how any of this can be applied to your garden...but I surely dream of how they might help mine.


The second thing I'd like to mention I learned from a gal who grew tomatoes and long English cucumbers in great greenhouses, a labor-intensive operation. She told me they talk and sing to their plants.

She also said that they let their son and his band practice in the greenhouses.

The plants loved the company, the sounds, and they produced extra well. These people felt they had proven this to be a fact, to their own satisfaction.

I took her story to mean that there is extra energy in sound, and perhaps the human's very presence.

So you could experiment, too.


Please ask me questions...that's how I learn. Maybe we can all boost our immune systems, and save everyone a lot of bother.

My best,

Fledgling

Someone suggested than we lost the ability to make Vitamin C in our bodies because it is so plentiful in nature.

Another said that Vitamin C and salt (which kind, or mineral salts?) make hydrochloric acid for digestion.


That triggers two questions...

...Is Vitamin C still plentiful in the foods we normally eat?



And...

...Does the first suggestion imply that we can make everything else we need, given adequate minerals, micro organisms, water, sunshine, and rest?

...................................................................


I'm beginning to think that applying things to our skins, and the energy fields around them, is even better than swallowing many of the things we need, as it can also eliminate things we need to dump.

That osmosis in water, both in and out, is an amazing thing...as long as we dilute the substances we want to apply, appropriately.


F.

Just the other day I read and saw a video, on CureZone, that CRANBERRY JUICE (not cocktail because it has sugar) actually coats the E-Coli critter so it can't stick in our tissues, and must flow on out of the body.

Isn't that good news?!

Dh rushed out and got some cranberry juice reconstituted from concentrate...and stood over me while I drank a few ounces. (Well, he didn't actually stand over me, but I surely knew I had better drink it.)

Oboy...that was TART!

So he said I didn't have drink two glasses per day, just one.

I persevered.

Then we remembered the stevia...four drops takes the edge off a six-ounce glass of that stuff.


However, there are two fruits that DON'T go alkaline in the body...cranberries and plums/prunes. If a person is sensitive to acids, already has a lot, cranberries may tip the balance a bit. After about a week of one short glass per day, I decided to give it a bit of a rest.

I have some every few days.

Probably I'll do that for a long time...maybe getting close to some directly from the field and whirring them in the blender. (One gal said to keep the lid on...they bounce.)

Don't know what concentrating and reconstituting them does. Maybe the coating action is mechanical, or due entirely to the tartness. Anyway, stevia doesn't hurt, I think.

If I remember where that article and video are, I'll surely post it here...even if this thread drops onto the next to last page. (I have ways of 'bumping' it. This subject is very important to me. I've truly written my best thinking here.)

.....................

By the way, somehow balanced mineral salts, like the Himalayan, are sterile. Wouldn't an appropriate amount, added to the soil, or balanced by plants, from the soil (the soil micro organisms, again) help to protect against critters we DON'T want?

Maybe encouraging the good, erases the bad.

I know I can't wait for those soil micro organisms to go to work on my 'deposits'!

http://owen.curezone.com/nutrition/benefitsofc.html


Everything I've read about and by Owen tells me he is one smart cookie.


I wonder if Vitamin C, sodium ascorbate as Owen suggests, could be picked up by the skin in a bath.

Bahamians use local herbs (just a handful) in a healing soothing bath...maybe Vitamin C is part of that.


It would be worthwhile if, while in the Bahamas, you look up a local Bush Medicine person. I saw one gal on local TV who seemed to know her stuff.

Bet there are others, most any place you go.

I've wanted to speak to an Indian person, here, for years. I'll bet there are several.

I've been asking myself what certain parasites eat. Lo and behold, Hulda's been writing about that very thing...and much, much more.

Some of what she says is far beyond me, but she answers many of my questions, too...as though I had asked her in person!

See what she has to say about Vitamin C, for only one example. It will blow you away. We have to get it from our gardens, I believe.

Here is the link Boem gave today...


http://www.oneradionetwork.com/patricktest/clark_new_concepts.pdf


I think I have much more reading to do.

Smiles, everyone.

Fledgling