plants health food gardening
gardening
The most difficult thing about gardening is staying in one place. Many
of us dont 'own' our land, and get moved on, or want to travel,
especially in summer when plants need a lot of attention. Gardening
techniques work over many years. We have to find the right compromise
between travelling and learning from other places and also wanting to
enjoy having a garden and eating uncontaminated food. So whereever you
are, treat the gardens around you as your own, try to keep a long term
vision even if you yourself wont be there for very long, but respect the
ideas and techniques that have been put in place by those who have been
there before. When you are somewhere for a longer time, try to help
passers by become involved and see how the garden works. and of course,
save seeds, swap seeds, when you travel carry seeds with you.
Growing food is often separated from enjoying ourselfs and made into
'work', it would be good to see more bands/soundsystems playing infront
of garden fields to motivate and inspire people. you might expect that
this would destroy the garden. but we need to break down the barrier
between work and play and maybe not get so wasted when we hear music or
not be so orderly when we 'work' in the garden.
Plants which need more attention could be planted on paths we use often
or on junctions of paths where people naturally meet and make a pause.
perrenial veg:
(that grows every year and you dont really need to do anything once they get going)
- Jerusalem artichoke/topinambour
is a super easy to grow tuber. Some people dont like to eat it. Good as a reserve if other things fail to grow.
- asparagus/spargel - you can buy 'crowns' one or two years old
- rhubarb
- horseradish - the leaves are big and good to eat raw or cooked, the root of course you can make a spicy sauce from.
- perrenial kale
plants that are easy to grow and feed you well:
- broadbean / fevre / dickebohnen - the first beans of the year you will eat.
- chard / blette / mangold - lives for two years, a real feeder plant.
- spinach / epinard / spinat - seriously nutritious and doesnt mind the cold
wild plants that feed you well
- nettle - very nourishing and also medicinal.
- quinopod/fat hen/melde - spinach-like plant that can be eaten raw or cooked.
- chestnuts/chataignes/kastanien if you live somewhere warm enough that they grow big, you can really live on chestnuts for a considerable portion of the year. They can also be made into bread. Great to have such a filling food coming from the woods, a really important tree, could be the key to re-foresting agricultural land. Makes great firewood, as the dead standing poles are already seasoned, and the long, straight live poles are also very good building wood.
- wild garlic/Bärlauch can be eaten in early spring when there are not many other exciting things to eat
green manure
- white clover
- red clover
- ryegrass
- field beans
- peas
- lupins
other gardening ideas:
bio/organic seed suppliers
Gardening Books:
food
spironlina
spirolina is an edible algae that needs only water, urine and iron (from
rusty nails for example). However, it needs quite a warm climate. In
colder places it is only possible to grow it in a greenhouse in summer.
A possibility could be to pump it through a wood stove or compost
heater.
aphanizomenon flos-aquae (AFA). apparently this has more chlorophyll
than spirulina, needs less salinity, has more calcium, and importantly,
can live in a colder climate. But it seems it only grows naturally (not
cultivated). AFA and Spirulina
Compared
tempeh:
Tasty indonesian soja with mould grown on it. The difficult thing is
keeping the temperate constant. tempeh needs to be at about 32 degrees C
for about 22 hours. Not a problem if you live in indonesia. If it gets
colder than that for some time period, it seems it still works but takes
longer, eg: on a woodstove which goes out at night but you light it
again in the morning. but there is then increased risk of contamination
with other bacterias. If it gets too hot the mould cannot survive.
electric incubators are easier to regulate temperature but less
ecological and use too much power to realistically run from batteries.
typically an isulated box (eg: an old refridgerator) and a heating
element (eg: 40 or 60w light bulb). The simplest way to regulate it is
with a dimmer switch (this works quite well). but leaving a dimmer set
external temperature changes (eg: at night) and towards the end of the
process the tempeh begins to produce its own heat and the temperature
rises. Old water heater thermostats can also be used, which can be
regulated by moving the temperature sensing element closer or further
from the heat source. It would be interesting to know if its possible to
use a refridgerator thermostat for this as these are much more readily
available.
Regulating the humidity is also an issue, a small amount of air
circulation is needed but it must not dry out. You can experiment with
covering them and leaving a small gap open. Some people use plastic food
bags with tiny holes in which works well but is expensive and wastefull.
Another tricky thing is how to save the spore so you can make more and
dont have it keep buying tempeh starter. You must leave the tempeh in
the incubator for longer (When you take it out, cut off a thinner piece
for more surface area and to not waste the middle part). After about
another 8 hours, the black powdery stuff is the spores. these can be
scraped with something sterile to collect, or just take the whole piece
of spore covered tempeh and dry it out (eg: on the stove) and blend
it/grind it to a powder.
- kedai perantau sell tempeh
starter from malaysia, quite cheap.
- how to make tempeh starter from
scratch
also recommends books and has facts about how healthy it is.
- tempeh
incubator
- makethebesttempeh.org home made tempeh
culture
- wild fermentation this site has good
forums much info about many kinds of fermentation.
- Grain mill for grinding the beans: look for porkert grain mill, this
is said to be the best. Note that they must not be totally ground to
a powder but cracked in half. Some electric grinders (something
strong enough to grind coffee beans) work well you must just give
them a really short grind.
- The book of tempeh, shurtleff and aoyagi - very good book (can be
found as pdf online)
beansprouts
very important food for winter, when theres not so much salad to eat.
they will grow much faster if kept warm. rinse them as often as possible
- so keep them close to water or somewhere where you will always notice
them and remember to water them. water is important to them, so give
them good water.
almost any bean or lentil (not split ones) will work.
after eating them, clean the container well before starting some more
wine making
alcohol drinking is not healthy. but if you do drink, it can be a good
idea to make it yourself. it saves money, does not support the
supermarkets, and you can be more in control of how much you drink.
However, do not be tempted to drink it before its ready. If this is a
problem remember to make enough that you have a constant supply.
Making wine is easy, but making good wine that does not give you a
hangover is not so easy. Keep everything clean with hot water (or
chemical sterilisers if you really dont have much water), and 'rack' the
wine at least once (syphon it into a new container to get rid of the
sediment). I think its the sediment which causes the hangover. Some
fruits make more sediment than others, so it can be more difficult to
get them to clear. Apple and pear wines can be difficult as they make a
lot of mousse (become frothy).
Yeast and yeast nutrient can be difficult to find. They can be bought on
the internet if there is no brewing shop nearby. It is also useful to
add lemon juice, a source of tannin (some black tea, for example), and
if making a wine from flowers or leaves, rather than fruit, the yeast
will like something to live on, crushed or minced raisens/saltanas are
often used. and sugar is its food.
The first stage of fermentation can be done in an open-topped container,
like a pot or bucket, with some textile over the top to stop insects
going in, kept warm and stirred as often as possible with something
clean.
After five days, or one week, the wine is filtered through cotton or
muslin into another container. Traditionally a glass demijohn with an
air-lock which can let air leave but not enter. I have had success using
25l plastic water containers, with a condom or balloon instead of an
air-lock. but plastic containers are much more difficult to clean. In winter,
make sure the wine does not freeze.
- 1 gallon = 3.785 litres
- C.J.J. Berry - "First Steps in Winemaking" is a good book.
Wines to try:
- dandelion flower / Löwenzahn blumen / pissenlit
- ginger / Ingwer / gengembre
- oak leaf
- elderberry
- elderflower
- rose hip
Links:
health
compost toilets
Shit is a very useful asset, and really the only thing we produce. It is
crazy to treat it as waste and even more crazy to use drinking water to get
rid of it!
It is importand to keep the shit dry. This will make good compost as
well as stop it stinking and spreading bacteria. Use sawdust from untreated wood if possible as it will compost. Some designs of toilet have a system allowing air to flow under the shit, keeping it dry. If you use toilet paper,
depending on what you will do with the compost you might want to put
toilet paper in a separate bucket and burn it. Keep the composting shit in an uncovered heap and add dry plant material.
It can be used on fruit trees after about a year, for vegetables i would wait two years.
Although it is more work initially, going up some stairs to shit on top of a heap can be preferable than shitting in a bucket and having to empty it elsewhere.
See: Joseph C. Jenkins-The Humanure Handbook, A Guide to Composting Human Manure, Third Edition-Joseph Jenkins, Inc. (2005)
