Gratitude is Action: Join Lawn Crusaders and the Victory Gardening Movement at the 7th Congress Thanksgiving Activism Party in Tarzana this Saturday 11/21, 2009
Workshops will be held from 3:30-6:00 pm
From 6 PM on we will be eating and socializing until 10:00 pm.
Please bring a favorite dish to share with friends, and also the recipe if you desire to do so! No meat dishes please.
Location: Tarzana
Date: 11/21/2009 Time: 3:30-6:00 PM 6:00-10:00 pm
URL: http://www.luckypotluck.com/potluck/7thCongress
Many of us at Lawn Crusaders and in the Victory Gardening Movement will join the following workshop/party this Saturday. We have worked with them since their creation, and highly recommend them. Tell Zoe we sent you, if interested:
7th Congress Thanksgiving Party.
We are very excited to see everyone next Saturday! There is no admittance charge.
The party will be on November 21 with the workshops running from 3:30-6pm and the party from 6:15-10pm.
We would like to make a "Stone salad" rather than a "Stone soup". In order to do this we would like everyone to bring one veggie item that can be used to build a salad. No need to let us know what you are bringing, because the magic will
be in the surprise. We will put everything together at the party and then enjoy our creation.
The event is a potluck, and it is helpful if you can list the item that they will be bringing. No meat dishes please. The list is located at this website:
http://www.luckypotluck.com/potluck/7thCongress. No need to create an account with luckypotluck.
Volunteers for setup and cleanup would be appreciated.
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Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Classes and Events Schedule for June 19 to June 27, 2009
Schedule for June 19 to June 27, 2009
ORGANIC GARDENING CLASSES & GATHERING SCHEDULE FOR JUNE 2009:
We and many Organic Victory Gardeners will be at the Live H2O Event in Long Beach this week-end...
ORGANIC GARDENING CLASSES & GATHERING SCHEDULE FOR JUNE 2009:
We and many Organic Victory Gardeners will be at the Live H2O Event in Long Beach this week-end...
Friday to Sunday June 19th, 20th, and 21st: Live H2O 2009 Long Beach
Join the Victory Gardening Movement on the Beach in Belmont Shore
5180 E. Ocean Blvd. Long Beach Ca 90803.
Wednesday 6/24 from 3:00 to 7:30 PM in Compton CA 90222
[Most important series of classes to attend! - Learn HOW TO
GROW YOUR OWN SUPERFOODS!]
Saturday June 27 from 10 AM to 7 PM, Venice Beach EcoFest 2009
Come volunteer at our booth!
This week-end, no classes at any of our Gardens, you are all invited
to be a part of a worldwide event to focus human attention and healing
on water and the oceans: LIVE H2O 2009, where all our team including Dr Green,
Dr Smith and Dr Martin will be present and speaking on various subjects.
As usual, no costs whatsoever to attend: The event is totally open to
the public, on the Beach in Long Beach near Belmont Shore
(5180 E. Ocean Blvd. Long Beach Ca 90803), on Friday June 19th,
Saturday June 20th, & Sunday June 21st 2009 from 10am to 9:30pm.
There will be two main stages, a yoga platform, and one childrens stage.
The event will include live musical performance, vendors, speakers,
healers, dancers, fire performance, and (at 5pm on Sunday the 21st)
a special 9 minute group ocean healing using the power of sound.
The event will be broadcast worldwide, and simulcast between each
of the venues. On Sunday there will be a synchronized worldwide
focus/prayer for 9 minutes to put energy into the oceans at all
the venues simultaneously.
At the appointed time, along with many different visiting elders
and medicine people (we have the Water Shaman from the Hopi tribe
leading the ceremony) the participants are all going to “om” into
the water and heal its structure. As shown to be possible by our
Featured Speaker: Dr. Masaru Emoto, and in the films “What the
bleep do we know? (2004)” www.whatthebleep.com/ and “Water (2006)”
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1195401/water_the_movie_trailer/ .
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June 19 - June 27 Organic VICTORY GARDENING CLASSES & EVENTS
Next classes are:
We will have a strong presence this week-end at the
Live H2O 2009 in Long Beach - June 19th, 20th, and 21st,
with both Dr Martin, Dr Smith and Dr Green!
We highly recommend attending - Event is open to the public at no cost!
On the Beach in Belmont Shore 5180 E. Ocean Blvd, Long Beach CA 90803.
Read on for more details!
We hold classes usually both on week-ends, Saturday or Sunday, and also
often have weekday classes in the late afternoon, usually starting at
3 or 4 or so. (These often end after 8, always with a few people
coming only after 5. It is perfectly OK to do that, particularly if
you work normal hours.)
Wednesday 6/24 from 3 to 7 PM in Compton CA 90222.
Saturday 6/27, 2009, 9 AM to 7 PM, we have the Venice Beach Ecofest,
for which we need volunteers all day long!
Wednesday 7/01 from 3 to 7 PM in Compton CA 90222.
Wednesday 7/08 from 3 to 6:30 PM in Compton CA 90222.
Wednesday 7/08 from 7 to 9:30 PM in Garden Grove CA 92841
"California Organic Gardening Club".
Please note: We also need to prepare CLASS & GROUP LEADERS -
So if you feel that's something for you... please tell us!
Wednesday 6/24 and 7/1 VICTORY GARDENS & LAWN CRUSADERS are
continuing to team up with GREEN HOPE USA Community Garden Project
for the Planting of 2000 MORINGA Trees at Green Hope's Community
Garden and Model Forest Garden in Compton! Learn how to plant
the fastest growing, most nutritious tree in the world and help
start transforming Los Angeles into a Superfood Pioneer!
=======================================================
Live H2O 2009 Long Beach - June 19th, 20th, and 21st:
Join the Victory Gardening Movement on the Beach in
Belmont Shore 5180 E. Ocean Blvd, Long Beach Ca 90803 -- View map:
http://maps.yahoo.com/map?q1=5180%20E.%20Ocean%20Blvd.%20Long%20Beach%20Ca%2090803%20US&mag=5&ard=1#mvt=m&lat=33.75576&lon=-118.137841&mag=5&zoom=14&q1=5180%2520E.%2520Ocean%2520Blvd.%2520Long%2520Beach%2520Ca%252090803%2520US
More Info: 949-254-2191 www.myspace.com/liveh2ola
http://maps.google.com/ will give you the exact directions from your location.
=======================================================
=======================================================
More on Live H2O 2009 Long Beach - Friday to Sunday
June 19th, 20th, and 21st:
The main venues are located in: Vancouver-B.C., Long Beach-California,
Kudaka-Japan, Cardiff-Whales, Tokyo-Japan, Hawaii (Big Island),
Toronto-Canada, Los Cabos- Mexico, and Delphi-Greece, and many smaller
events are going on in numerous other cities. (I’ve heard recently
that we’re now at 135 cities). The Long Beach event is being put
on by volunteers and has been funded by grass-roots level donations.
We have put together the most positive live music, the most intelligent
speakers, the best trained yoga practitioners, and the most beautiful
performance artists that we can find.
This event is really about the audience and the awesome healing power
of sound as it interacts with the Living Water in us. Dr. Lee Lorenzen
(a biochemist) discovered that there is a frequency of sound that heals
the human body, and for this event most of the musicians and performers
will be using this altered tuning to help heal the audience and the
ocean. This altered tuning is already used throughout Europe and is
known to musicians as tuning to A444 (or 16 cents sharp). This new
tuning, and the understanding of how human intention changes the
structure of water are for the first time being combined with the
global network that synchronizes us in time via satellite -- to do
something that has truly never been done before.
Come join us for a big party on the beach to raise our consciousness
about one of our most valuable resources. And remember, about 95% of
the mass of any plant (and much more for some) is composed of Water,
Air, and sunshine. Water is much more complex than mechanistic science
wants us to believe, and basically Water lives, ansd sustains, informs
and imprints life. This is why Water is so important! As the great
Viktor Schauberger put it, it truly is the "blood of the Earth".
Don't miss this event! Live H2O Long Beach 2009 event websites:
http://www.liveh2ounitedbylove.net/
The Myspace site for the event.
www.myspace.com/liveh2ola
The Facebook site for the event:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/live-h2o-united-by-love/68377026800?ref=ts
A Promo video for the event:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvanAOQi6yQ
Here is the site for the international event
http://www.liveh2o.org/
=======================================================
More classes: Sometimes soon, we should also have
a follow-up class at our location in Alhambra.
Classes will continue all of this month and the coming months,
usually on week-ends, but in different locations.
And remember, on June 27, 2009, we have the Venice Beach Ecofest,
for which we need volunteers all day long!
=============================================================
SUPERFOODS: To learn more about the Moringa, just go to sites such as:
http://savegaia.blogspot.com/2005/04/wonderplants-moringa-miracle-tree.html
http://moringanow.blogspot.com/2005/05/wondertree-100-facts-moringa-fact-01.html
http://moringanow.blogspot.com/2005/05/wondertree-100-facts-moringa-fact-12.html
http://greling.com/2008/09/20/grow-a-miracle-tree-in-your-backyard/
"SaveGaia: Cultivation of Moringa – I used these growing directions
and they worked well" which refers to the best page on the subject:
http://savegaia.blogspot.com/2005/05/growing-moringa-part-ii.html also
found here:
http://gaiathelivingplanet.blogspot.com/2005/05/growing-moringa-part-ii.html
http://biodynamic.blogspot.com/2005/05/moringa-manure.html
A short list of other SUPERFOODS & WONDERPLANTS can be found here:
http://biodynamic.blogspot.com/2005/02/looking-for-land.html
A search on Google for: “ savegaia moringa ” (without the “”)
will yield links to more material. In a nutshell, Moringa is
a revolution in the making!
Moringa leaves compared to common foods - Values per 100gm portion:
Nutrient Moringa Leaves Other Foods
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Vitamin A 6780 mcg Carrots: 1890 mcg
Vitamin C 220 mg Oranges: 30 mg
Calcium 440 mg Cow's milk: 120 mg
Potassium 259 mg Bananas: 88 mg
Protein 6.7 gm Cow's milk: 3.2 gm
And actually, when it comes to the Moringa, which is a native
Philipino tree, Dr Green, who will teach you at the Compton class
and event, gets extensively quoted by no less than the Philipino
Government, as you can see here (So be assured you will be
in good hands!):
http://www.pcarrd.dost.gov.ph/message/viewtopic.php?id=2137
=============================================================
JUNE: Announcing this year's EARTHDAY L.A. VENICE BEACH ECOFEST
coming on Venice Beach on June 27th, where we will of
course have our own booth, for which we need volunteers!
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NEW INTRODUCTION VIDEOS LISTED AT THE END OF THIS EMAIL
PLEASE Methods - Vertical Layers - Robert Hart's 'Forest Gardening'
http://www.adrive.com/public/69975eca5bb3a3ec26714eaa99c44d1d3fc3b98d4b0f98675d41f7e4571030b9.html
=============================================================
An idea for which the time has come - reaching beyond Tinseltown!
Do you speak and write a foreign language? People need your help!
http://victorygardens2.blogspot.com/2009/04/victory-gardening-events-go-national.html
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Wednesday, May 20, 2009
P.L.E.A.S.E. METHODS - GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND QUICK OVERVIEW
P.L.E.A.S.E. METHODS
GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND QUICK OVERVIEW [V105-95D]
P01 - BENEFITS OF WORKING WITH THE BIOLOGIC FORCES OF NATURE [V105-95D]:
One of the great benefits coming with Gardening, meaning, of course "Organic or 'Bio' Gardening" (since anything that use man-made artificial chemicals and GMOs can't seriously be called 'gardening'), is the wonderful educational and transformational impact it will have on your life and the life of anyone else genuinely involved. This is the reason why exposing children to gardening should be one of the great priorities of any rounded educational program.
Nowadays, most people are completely disconnected from Nature and the vast, complex and all-encompassing Web of Life. Gardening can and, with time, always will, "reconnect" you.
Even more, interacting with soil and plants the natural way slowly but surely will transform you into a Steward of the Land. This process will give you potential access to layers of Reality you possibly were never exposed to. In turn creating for you an entry point into a better understanding of who you are, and of your place and role in the Web of Life. Its intricacies and overall harmony are truly wondrous things to behold. And in a way, all of this is just yours for the asking.
This deeper understanding of Nature and its laws is what set people such as Karl von Reichenbach, Nikola Tesla, Rudolf Steiner, Maurice Maeterlinck, Viktor Schauberger, Otto Warburg, Andre Birre, Andre Voisin, Louis Kervran, Jean Pain and Sepp Holzer apart. We can only benefit from studying and understanding their legacies and integrate their findings in our practices and in our lives.
To place things in perspective, let us quote here Dr Patricia Doyle, a Ph.D specialized in emerging disease and epidemiology, recently writing about 'Avian Flu' and 'Swine Flu' outbreaks: “As I've told my students and audiences for many years, either we work with Nature or we work without, but when we do without, we are self-defeated on every front, in every way. The fact is that we live entirely dependent on a planet sustained by a long, extremely complex series upon series of finite closed systems of energy and information. This is our ultimate reality, and we'd better get used to it, because it's the only future we have to go back to.
Nature can be excruciatingly beautiful, but also be exceedingly deadly, as Aldous Huxley elaborated in his essay, "Wordsworth in the Tropics". We must keep both realities in our consciousness at all times, if we wish to survive another day. For an excellent review of Huxley's very perceptive thoughts on a wide variety of subjects, I recommend this website, with its wonderful photos: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley In spite of our manipulative techniques we're only one species of critter in the midst of countless other critters in the air, water, and land, most of whom we go through life completely unaware of, although it's finally become obvious that we do so at our immediate and fatal peril.“
There are two points emerging from this quote: First, we either work with Nature, or we don't. If we don't, we should be ready to pay the bills when they come due. The second is when Nature strikes, it strikes the weak, and the weakest are the poisoned ones. That is, the one who eat like most people do.
Even during the Great Plague epidemics, and in the worst places to be in at that time, while *everyone* was exposed to the plague, only about ½ of all people died. If you ever thought about such historical events, did you ever ask yourself: “Why this half, and not that half?” The obvious answer is, because of a difference in immune systems and immune defenses.
Now, what created the difference? Genetics? Perhaps indeed did genetics contribute to a small extent. But what made the real, most statistically-significant difference, and still does, is how and what people ate. Actually, the most evident statistical correlation is with whether people were likely to have a garden or not. Monks, many of whom cared for the sick, and should have been among the highest casualties, but who all tended gardens, died in much smaller numbers than for example armsmen, who didn't.
Think of it! True, no one can force a horse to drink, but one can lead a thirsty horse to the pond. You have been given all the information you need. Whether you drink or not is up to you.
Only thing, whatever you decide, don't delay too much, because most probably we are only about three years from major systemic collapse in the monetary and economic areas. (Which is in itself quite ironic, considering that December 2012 is in fact supposed to be “the end of the world”). How will this possible collapse translate in terms of loss of social support systems or even epidemics remains to be seen, perhaps everything will still somehow work as before, just a bit worse. But then, perhaps it won't. If it doesn't, your Garden, if there is one, and your overall level of preparation might make a big difference to you. Perhaps to points we are not used to consider in the normal course of living in a supposedly civilized society.
Again, think of it! And perhaps start creating a serious Garden and also maybe stockpile a bit of food and water, while all this is still easy to do!
P02 – TRUE UNDERSTANDING OF NATURE LEADS TO UNDERSTANDING SOIL DESIGN [V105-95D]:
P021 - THE 'SCHAUBERGER IMPERATIVE”: When you "design" soil the proper way, all you do is observe Nature at her best (or more probably, stand on the shoulders of the giants that preceded you, to better observe Her), and then attempt to emulate and recreate Her most intricate and exquisite processes.
This process of internalized observation and then, emulation, is what we call the “Schauberger Imperative”: “Erst kapieren, dann kopieren”. “First, 'get it' (or 'grok it', to use the word Robert Heinlin coined in “Stranger in a strange land”), then, copy it.”
P022 - EMULATING NATURE:
P0221 - THE NEED TO OVERCOME PSEUDO-SCIENCE: For example, the mechanicist or materialist-reductionist, who doesn't understand much of anything, will tell you things such as : "But nature will never bring seaweed, fish meal or fish oil to a field or a forest, so why would we do it?". "Vitamin and mineral supplements are just an easy way to produce expensive urine."
Or "It doesn't matter what you eat, as long as it's equilibrated for protein, carbohydrates and fats": This was and still is the standard creed of allopathic medical "nutrition", a subject to which until recently most medical school devoted one hour. Not per day. Not per week. Not per month. Not even per year. No. One hour for the total seven years pre-med and "medical" curriculum! And these are the people (who incidentally, according to insurance companies actuarial tables, die at the youngest age of all professions) that we are supposed to listen to, to stay healthy!!! If you needed any more proof that the world as it is is in dire need of some deep reform, here you have it...
OK, Nature doesn't bring seaweed or fish meal or oil to field and forest. Fine. And perfectly true. But only if you can't see beyond the reach of your nose.
But for those of us who actually use their brains, now, what do you think Nature does in many places, such as for example the Pacific Rainforest, when salmon comes to spawn and to die and decompose, and bears and cats and all sorts of animals and micro-organisms (and humans) catch it or harvest it, eat it and defecate it, or leave parts of it to rot and be naturally composted? Exactly what you do when you bring seaweed from the shores, or plankton or fish from the Ocean, even in the form of fish meal. All you are doing is simply by-passing the krill or small fry eating the seaweed first, to be eaten later by the salmon, whose function is to be the carrier that brings the minerals and nutrients of the Sea deep into the land.
P0222 - Nature's intricacies are endless, and they almost totally escape mechanicist 'science'. And even if such realities are readily accessible to any bright child who gardens, corporate "scientists" will continue peddle their Land- (and People-) killing artificial chemicals, politicians will continue to subvention the corporate hand that feeds them, and the Land-killing practices of agri-business will just continue in scope and ambitions, etc, until the whole complex system we live on completely collapses. Some signs seem to indicate we are no that far from such an event anymore.
Listening to peddlers instead of listening to the majestic voices of Nature sure is a mark of folly. Yet, as a society, that about all we do. With results that speak for themselves: Cancer, once the rarest of diseases, will hit one person in two. Alzheimer's, which did not even have a name before the early 20th century, is now classified as the fourth killer by rank. Etc, etc.
Do you really think it's all by chance? Or maybe just another "unfortunate effect of global warming"? Or perhaps, just happening by operation of the Holy Spirit, who, for some reason, doesn't like us anymore?
Our noses are right in the middle of it, but it seems that aspartame, MSG, pesticides, herbicides, artificial hormones, GMOs, bad government and fast "food" did something to our collective sense of smell. To say nothing about our collective brainpower.
P023 - SMALL-SCALE, LOCAL ORGANIC GARDENING & FARMING *IS* THE MOST PRACTICAL SOLUTION:
We go over this in this page from many different approaches, but the main point is truly simple: When you start Gardening, you are making a stand against all this, and all the past and present errors. As fart as you are concerned, enough is enough. You become a revolutionary, a genuine Resistance fighter.
You are embracing Change. Moreover, you are Change.
And you will reap the rewards of doing the right thing!
The easiest way to get your own successful Garden going is Garden Design with the P.L.E.A.S.E. Methods, and soil design.
P03 - RAISED BEDS AND SOIL DESIGN - GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND QUICK OVERVIEW
P031 - OPTIMAL SOIL DESIGN – UNDERSTANDING SOIL COMPOSITION:
The key for good soil is good mineralization and "fluffiness" with lots of varied organic material, leading to good water and air retention and therefore, air and water availability to the plants, and to a soil that is so alive with micro-organisms, earthworms, etc, that it almost moves.
Well-designed soil simply follows Nature's own rules, and makes key soil components, that is, water, air, minerals and micro-organisms, readily and easily available to the plants. Let's go over this:
P0311/ WATER: No water, no life. Water is the blood of the Earth, and the main component of your own blood and body. For plants too, water availability, that is, LIVING water availability must remain high at all time, but drainage must also be excellent -- stagnant waters are death for many higher organisms. Why? No water, no hydrogen, no oxygen. No water, no life.
Water availability is taken care of by "fluffiness", and the superior capability of many organic materials, such as leaf molds or peat moss to absorb many times their weight in water, “clusterize” the water (make it “alive”) and keep it available for plants.
P0312/ AIR: No air, no life. People rarely think of air as a main component of a healthy soil, but it is. In fact, it is almost as important as water. No air, no carbon dioxide, no oxygen, no nitrogen. The more aerated your soil, the better will your results be. “Fluffiness” of the soil, for the organic gardener, should be almost a religion.
P0313/ MINERALS: Minerals are only about 2% to 8% of the average plant, usually in the vicinity of 5%. Yet, these minerals are so essentials to the plant's (and the plant eater's) well-being that when there is a lack of them and any possibility to create them by transmutation at 'room' temperature, plants actually do so. This was conclusively proven by Louis Kervran in the 50's and the 60's, yet 'official' science still does not officially acknowledge the fact. Nonetheless, this explain why an acre of wheat produces biomass containing 75 pounds of magnesium in average, even if there is NO magnesium in the soil. However, these are complex processes, and many essential micro-nutrients can not be synthesized that way. If it's not there, it's not in our food, and Dr Wallach of “Dead Doctors Don't Lie” fame has quite advanced the proposition that 99% of our disease are actually nutritional deficiency diseases. Personally, we don't know if the percentage is truly ~that~ high, but at any rate everything seems to indicate it truly is very high. Indeed, if it's not in the soil, it's not going to be in out food. And we might die from it. This is why nutritional supplementation is important, and even more, this is why growing food right, that is organically and in mineral-rich soils (think seaweed and fossil minerals) is fundamentally important.
The soil can only give what it has. Sure, micro-organisms (and even plants and animals) are actually capable of room-temperature elemental transmutations. But these are limited in scope, and the conditions for the creation of certain elements are sometimes not present, leading to their absence, and thus to nutritional deficiencies in animals and humans. Iodine is one of the classical example of that. Therefore, you must make sure that a properly designed soil not only has sufficient supply of macro-elements, such as the famous trilogy N. P. K. (Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Kalium, that is, potassium), but even more, that it contains all the micro-elements or oligo-elements that complex living processes require. A soil filled with organic matter never lacks NPK. But it may lack of many elements necessary for the health of plants and of what or whom eats the plants. There are several ways to ensure this, the easiest probably being mammal urine (if you can have access to it, one of the greatest natural fertilizers there is, by weight, 2.5% nitrogen compounds, and 2.5% minerals, vitamins, etc), seaweed and fossile humates (for example from Utah's humic shale deposits) or even simply from natural coal dust.
P0314/ MICRO-ORGANISMS AND FUNGI: No micro-organisms, no higher order life -- no plants, no animals. In fact, each of us has 2 to 3 POUNDS of beneficial (and a few quite less beneficial) microorganisms in our guts. Without them, we would die, and without them, there would be no superior life whatsoever.
So, when it comes to the soil, anything that contributes to the well-being and availability of beneficial micro-organisms is good. Additions such as bio-dynamic compost, "Effective Micro-Organisms" and mushroom mycelia are quite useful to the very least, and some would say, essential.
Mushroom mycelia (mushroom "roots", preferably from edible varieties, actually, the whole plant, since the mushrooms we eat are only the fruiting bodies)), for example, are an often overlooked component of a healthy soil. The smart Gardener won't overlook them, though.
Mycelia and probiotic micro-organisms are essentially symbiotic with higher order plants, and perfectly capable of transferring minerals, nutrients and more from one plant to another. They do it all the time. As already alluded to, to some extent, mycelia and probiotics are also capable of certain elemental transmutations, which for example is why even in a completely magnesium-depleted soil, biomass will always provide significant levels of magnesium, as wheat fields prove year after year.
The web of life is much more complex than mechanistic "science" would have us believe, and the observation,comprehension and emulation of Nature is the only way we can grow food that is in tune with the physical needs of our bodies. In other words, 'food' that is truly “food”.
Again, as the great Viktor Schauberger put it about what our relation to Nature should be: "Erst kapieren, dann kopieren." "First 'get it', then emulate it." This is the only possible way to go!
P0315/ CARBON: The entire web of life on this planet is based on carbon. For plants, easy access to bio-available carbon, in form of humic and fulvic acids compounds (humus), etc, is absolutely essential. This is provided by discomposing vegetal matter, with which your 'designer soil' will be filled with. At the level of the garden soil designer, humus and leaf molds from the forest as well as composts will take care of that issue.
However, supplementing the soil with 1% to 5% pure carbon black preferably from vegetal sources can actually increase biomass production in very remarkable ways, often lasting for a very long time. This is the secret of the Mayan "Black Soil". Still today, there are patches of rainforest in Mexico and Guatemala, in what once was Mayan market gardens of millennia past, that are much more productive than their surroundings. The secret: Carbon black. Generously admixed into the soil hundreds if not thousands of years ago. Definitely a "long term investment": Spend once, have your descendants (or their conquerors) at the 50th generation still reap the benefits! Definitely the definition of a good investment, particularly considering how cheap it is. To say nothing about “car5bon sequestration”, one of the current buzzwords of environmental activism.
P032 -OPTIMAL SOIL DESIGN - PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS:
P0321- GENERAL FACTS: THINGS ARE SOMETIMES SIMPLER THAN WHAT YOU MAY THINK...: Don't worry too much about how "composted" or "fresh" your soil components are (except for extreme cases, such as chicken manure which, fresh, can only be used mixed with saw dust or wood shavings, and only completely at the bottom of a bed). The issue for you to worry about is quantity. In practice, raised garden beds are very hungry beasts...
… BUT YOU WILL NEED LOTS OF MATERIALS: One bag of anything is close to nothing. Just *one* 30 or 32 square feet raised bed (3' x 10' or 4' x 8') will absorb between 1 and 2 TONS of materials (and that's METRIC tons, not 'short' tons), depending on the height of the bed and the nature of the material, it's humidity or moisture content, and other such factors... That's quite some, and requires or patience and work, or cash – in which case other people will do the work for you.
In the P.L.E.A.S.E. cutting-edge gardening and agricultural methodology, all of this comes to play in patterns and layers:
To best understand the process of layering, nothing beats attending a couple hands-on soil layering and soil design classes. This will get to get you a feeling about the whole thing, how to make layers, etc. And perhaps get some significant amount of horse manure if you can secure any (doesn't matter if it's straight from the factory, horse manure does not really need to be composted) and definitely a couple bags seaweeds from the shore.
PO322 - P.L.E.A.S.E. SOIL DESIGN FOR STANDARD RAISED BEDS – PATTERNED LAYERING:
The composition of the soil designed for standard raised beds will vary according to location and with the actual on-site availability of suitable materials, such as leaves, grass clippings, leaf mold, shredded brush or twigs, horse or rabbit manure, etc.
What a standard bed will almost always contains is:
P032201/ An initial layer of cardboard or newspaper. This creates both a permeable water barrier and a powerful earthworm attractant.
P032202/ Local materials if any, such as surface leaves, grass clippings (but NOT from chemically treated lawns), small brush, etc. These should always be put at the bottom, since you can safely presume them to be quite seedy.
P032203/ Wood shavings or chips (chipped-shredded tree branches, horse bedding, clean sawdust, etc). If you have such a layer, add chicken manure to it if handy, or horse, goat or rabbit manure, animal urine, etc. Reason for that is that such chips are structurally excellent for your soil, but usually totally devoid of nitrogen.
P032204/ If you have crushed eggshells (get them from restaurants, besides what you can collect from your own kitchen, family and neighbors), this is the stage where you put them in, the shells crushed and thinly spread.
P032205/ Freshly collected seaweed. Or kiln-dried agricultural kelp, if that's all you can get.
P032206/ Alfalfa (what might be called "hay" by some).
P032207/ Straw inoculated with mycelia ("mushroom roots", if you want. This can be bought commercially, or grown by yourself, from supermarket-bought mushrooms, and sterilized oats or rice bran.)
P032208/ These two, admixed with horse manure if available. Dairy cow manure is even better, but much harder to find. Horse manure is the easiest manure to find, and the second best after dairy cow manure. Any other manure will do, but avoid the offerings of anything that eats meat (so, forget about pigs, dogs and cats -- at best use that at the bottom of a big hole in which you will plant a tree. Same goes for human offerings, if the idea came to your mind. Sure, they use “nightsoil” in China, but it isn't that good an idea to follow suit.)
P032209/ Rock powder. Easiest is freshly decomposed granite (in L.A., we get ours from our "private mine" in La Canada). And other rock powders or granules, the best being natural phosphate rock and certain volcanic rocks ground to a flour. A bit of calcium- and magnesium rich rock would be good as well -- usually calcium carbonate deposits, in moderation. Volcanic rock dust is usually the very best. Freshly discomposed granite does basically the same thing than standard rock dust, but lava dust does different things, or the same things in a much more powerful way.
P032210/ Leaf and Leaf Mold from forest grounds. Absolute best is oak leaf mold.
P032211/ Wood ashes - that is, if you have any. Best: Hardwood ashes. Don't burn any treated (=poisoned) woods! Addition of wood ashes is only important if you use acidic leaf molds such as decomposed pine needles, as it will adjust the PH to more neutral. This, because wood ashes are alkaline, they contain potassium hydroxide (= "potash" = 'K' for Kalium, an old name for the same thing, in “N.P.K”) and some phosphoric compounds ('P' in “NPK”).
P032212/ Standard garden compost (the one anyone can make using kitchen scraps, etc).
P032213/ A small amount of local garden earth, like 5%, admixed with the rest. Mainly to add some local micro-organisms.
P032214/ “McAndrew Special” bio-dynamic compost, or any genuine biodynamic compost, if any available. [See www.biodynamiccompost.com for that.] Sort of a “life force” as well as micro-organisms concentrate.
P0323 – GENERAL ORDER: There are numerous variations as to how things are admixed, and there are usually several layers of each material, thinly spread. The way to go is repeating the layers several time over, working the seediest material to the bottom, the chunky material just over it, going finer and finer as you approach the surface.
P0324 – WHAT TO AVOID: Stuff like bone and blood meals are in itself excellent for the plants, but should be avoided because of possible prion contamination, besides the fact that many people are uncomfortable with them for ethical reasons. But if you use bone meal, chicken and turkey bones are best. Avoid pork and beef if you can.
P0325 – WHAT TO POSSIBLY ADD: Numerous other amendments can be added, such as carbon black a.k.a. "biochar", perlite, vermiculite, peat moss, guano, composted chicken manure, mosses, oak leaves and oak leaf mold, humic shale granules, humates, shredded barks, etc, or whatever else suits your fancy (as long as compatible with organic principles) but these are not basic standards. And if you have to buy them, will cost you extra.
Of course you can also add things such as soil analysis and adjustments, PH measuring and balancing, etc, but by and large, you don't need to even think of them in normal circumstances.
P033 – HOW TO EMULATE NATURE:
Your goal when layering and admixing materials is to create a soil as close to possible to the ideal conditions Nature creates in forest hollows on light slopes, where numerous factors contribute to give birth to super-rich soils allowing plants to develop optimally. This, because of both texture and 'fluffiness' as well as water AND air retention capabilities and micro-organisms 'friendliness”..
AIR is as much one of the four keys components of a healthy soil as water, minerals and beneficial micro-organisms! What you are doing when incorporating lots of air is emulating Nature at her best.
“Doing things right” from the very beginning will reward you over and over, year after year. Multiplying your initial investment in time and energy plus perhaps small amounts of money to create for you generous and repeated dividends of bountiful, healthy and health-sustaining crops.
It's well-worth your efforts!
In CONCLUSION, designed the PLEASE-ing way, your soils will completely obey the Schauberger Imperative: "Erst kapieren, dann kopieren!": First, 'grok' or 'get from the inside' what Nature does and how and why; then, copy it!
P.L.E.A.S.E. Methods are the very antithesis of conventional agriculture. They are unlikely, thus, to see the plants grown on them in need of conventional approaches.
In a nutshell, as a consequence of poor practices and separation from Nature, or perhaps even, as some think, by design, agri-business crops and processed food make you sick. While PLEASE farming or gardening and natural (true) food will return you to Health and keep you healthy!
What you eat and the way you eat it, this is entirely your choice. Therefore, health or sickness is your choice. As Hippocrates put it 2500 years ago: “You are what you eat”!
COPYRIGHT NOTICE & DISCLAIMER: Copyright and copyleft: (C) OSL 1964-2009. The material here is all copy-righted, but you are hereby licensed to copy it, print it and repost it freely, as long as: 1/ You reproduce it verbatim, that is, exactly as it is, with all authorship and copyright mentions intact, including this one. 2/ You do not charge ANY money for it, be it directly or indirectly, and do not use it to *make* money. There is nothing wrong with business at all, but if you use the material published here this or any similar way, then, you will need to acquire a commercial license from the copyright holders. That is, in most case, us. Disclaimer: Whether used at no costs or by license, the present material was published for information and/or entertainment only, and does not constitute professional, medical, legal or any other advice or opinion of any sort -- by further reading or using this material, you acknowledge that you do so at your own risks, and will indemnify us and all other parties for all possible direct or indirect consequences, be they foreseeable or not! Minors are not licensed to read or use this material without prior parental or guardian's permission or the authorization of a qualified and responsible adult. Caveat emptor!
One of the great benefits coming with Gardening, meaning, of course "Organic or 'Bio' Gardening" (since anything that use man-made artificial chemicals and GMOs can't seriously be called 'gardening'), is the wonderful educational and transformational impact it will have on your life and the life of anyone else genuinely involved. This is the reason why exposing children to gardening should be one of the great priorities of any rounded educational program.
Nowadays, most people are completely disconnected from Nature and the vast, complex and all-encompassing Web of Life. Gardening can and, with time, always will, "reconnect" you.
Even more, interacting with soil and plants the natural way slowly but surely will transform you into a Steward of the Land. This process will give you potential access to layers of Reality you possibly were never exposed to. In turn creating for you an entry point into a better understanding of who you are, and of your place and role in the Web of Life. Its intricacies and overall harmony are truly wondrous things to behold. And in a way, all of this is just yours for the asking.
This deeper understanding of Nature and its laws is what set people such as Karl von Reichenbach, Nikola Tesla, Rudolf Steiner, Maurice Maeterlinck, Viktor Schauberger, Otto Warburg, Andre Birre, Andre Voisin, Louis Kervran, Jean Pain and Sepp Holzer apart. We can only benefit from studying and understanding their legacies and integrate their findings in our practices and in our lives.
To place things in perspective, let us quote here Dr Patricia Doyle, a Ph.D specialized in emerging disease and epidemiology, recently writing about 'Avian Flu' and 'Swine Flu' outbreaks: “As I've told my students and audiences for many years, either we work with Nature or we work without, but when we do without, we are self-defeated on every front, in every way. The fact is that we live entirely dependent on a planet sustained by a long, extremely complex series upon series of finite closed systems of energy and information. This is our ultimate reality, and we'd better get used to it, because it's the only future we have to go back to.
Nature can be excruciatingly beautiful, but also be exceedingly deadly, as Aldous Huxley elaborated in his essay, "Wordsworth in the Tropics". We must keep both realities in our consciousness at all times, if we wish to survive another day. For an excellent review of Huxley's very perceptive thoughts on a wide variety of subjects, I recommend this website, with its wonderful photos: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley In spite of our manipulative techniques we're only one species of critter in the midst of countless other critters in the air, water, and land, most of whom we go through life completely unaware of, although it's finally become obvious that we do so at our immediate and fatal peril.“
There are two points emerging from this quote: First, we either work with Nature, or we don't. If we don't, we should be ready to pay the bills when they come due. The second is when Nature strikes, it strikes the weak, and the weakest are the poisoned ones. That is, the one who eat like most people do.
Even during the Great Plague epidemics, and in the worst places to be in at that time, while *everyone* was exposed to the plague, only about ½ of all people died. If you ever thought about such historical events, did you ever ask yourself: “Why this half, and not that half?” The obvious answer is, because of a difference in immune systems and immune defenses.
Now, what created the difference? Genetics? Perhaps indeed did genetics contribute to a small extent. But what made the real, most statistically-significant difference, and still does, is how and what people ate. Actually, the most evident statistical correlation is with whether people were likely to have a garden or not. Monks, many of whom cared for the sick, and should have been among the highest casualties, but who all tended gardens, died in much smaller numbers than for example armsmen, who didn't.
Think of it! True, no one can force a horse to drink, but one can lead a thirsty horse to the pond. You have been given all the information you need. Whether you drink or not is up to you.
Only thing, whatever you decide, don't delay too much, because most probably we are only about three years from major systemic collapse in the monetary and economic areas. (Which is in itself quite ironic, considering that December 2012 is in fact supposed to be “the end of the world”). How will this possible collapse translate in terms of loss of social support systems or even epidemics remains to be seen, perhaps everything will still somehow work as before, just a bit worse. But then, perhaps it won't. If it doesn't, your Garden, if there is one, and your overall level of preparation might make a big difference to you. Perhaps to points we are not used to consider in the normal course of living in a supposedly civilized society.
Again, think of it! And perhaps start creating a serious Garden and also maybe stockpile a bit of food and water, while all this is still easy to do!
P02 – TRUE UNDERSTANDING OF NATURE LEADS TO UNDERSTANDING SOIL DESIGN [V105-95D]:
P021 - THE 'SCHAUBERGER IMPERATIVE”: When you "design" soil the proper way, all you do is observe Nature at her best (or more probably, stand on the shoulders of the giants that preceded you, to better observe Her), and then attempt to emulate and recreate Her most intricate and exquisite processes.
This process of internalized observation and then, emulation, is what we call the “Schauberger Imperative”: “Erst kapieren, dann kopieren”. “First, 'get it' (or 'grok it', to use the word Robert Heinlin coined in “Stranger in a strange land”), then, copy it.”
P022 - EMULATING NATURE:
P0221 - THE NEED TO OVERCOME PSEUDO-SCIENCE: For example, the mechanicist or materialist-reductionist, who doesn't understand much of anything, will tell you things such as : "But nature will never bring seaweed, fish meal or fish oil to a field or a forest, so why would we do it?". "Vitamin and mineral supplements are just an easy way to produce expensive urine."
Or "It doesn't matter what you eat, as long as it's equilibrated for protein, carbohydrates and fats": This was and still is the standard creed of allopathic medical "nutrition", a subject to which until recently most medical school devoted one hour. Not per day. Not per week. Not per month. Not even per year. No. One hour for the total seven years pre-med and "medical" curriculum! And these are the people (who incidentally, according to insurance companies actuarial tables, die at the youngest age of all professions) that we are supposed to listen to, to stay healthy!!! If you needed any more proof that the world as it is is in dire need of some deep reform, here you have it...
OK, Nature doesn't bring seaweed or fish meal or oil to field and forest. Fine. And perfectly true. But only if you can't see beyond the reach of your nose.
But for those of us who actually use their brains, now, what do you think Nature does in many places, such as for example the Pacific Rainforest, when salmon comes to spawn and to die and decompose, and bears and cats and all sorts of animals and micro-organisms (and humans) catch it or harvest it, eat it and defecate it, or leave parts of it to rot and be naturally composted? Exactly what you do when you bring seaweed from the shores, or plankton or fish from the Ocean, even in the form of fish meal. All you are doing is simply by-passing the krill or small fry eating the seaweed first, to be eaten later by the salmon, whose function is to be the carrier that brings the minerals and nutrients of the Sea deep into the land.
P0222 - Nature's intricacies are endless, and they almost totally escape mechanicist 'science'. And even if such realities are readily accessible to any bright child who gardens, corporate "scientists" will continue peddle their Land- (and People-) killing artificial chemicals, politicians will continue to subvention the corporate hand that feeds them, and the Land-killing practices of agri-business will just continue in scope and ambitions, etc, until the whole complex system we live on completely collapses. Some signs seem to indicate we are no that far from such an event anymore.
Listening to peddlers instead of listening to the majestic voices of Nature sure is a mark of folly. Yet, as a society, that about all we do. With results that speak for themselves: Cancer, once the rarest of diseases, will hit one person in two. Alzheimer's, which did not even have a name before the early 20th century, is now classified as the fourth killer by rank. Etc, etc.
Do you really think it's all by chance? Or maybe just another "unfortunate effect of global warming"? Or perhaps, just happening by operation of the Holy Spirit, who, for some reason, doesn't like us anymore?
Our noses are right in the middle of it, but it seems that aspartame, MSG, pesticides, herbicides, artificial hormones, GMOs, bad government and fast "food" did something to our collective sense of smell. To say nothing about our collective brainpower.
P023 - SMALL-SCALE, LOCAL ORGANIC GARDENING & FARMING *IS* THE MOST PRACTICAL SOLUTION:
We go over this in this page from many different approaches, but the main point is truly simple: When you start Gardening, you are making a stand against all this, and all the past and present errors. As fart as you are concerned, enough is enough. You become a revolutionary, a genuine Resistance fighter.
You are embracing Change. Moreover, you are Change.
And you will reap the rewards of doing the right thing!
The easiest way to get your own successful Garden going is Garden Design with the P.L.E.A.S.E. Methods, and soil design.
P03 - RAISED BEDS AND SOIL DESIGN - GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND QUICK OVERVIEW
P031 - OPTIMAL SOIL DESIGN – UNDERSTANDING SOIL COMPOSITION:
The key for good soil is good mineralization and "fluffiness" with lots of varied organic material, leading to good water and air retention and therefore, air and water availability to the plants, and to a soil that is so alive with micro-organisms, earthworms, etc, that it almost moves.
Well-designed soil simply follows Nature's own rules, and makes key soil components, that is, water, air, minerals and micro-organisms, readily and easily available to the plants. Let's go over this:
P0311/ WATER: No water, no life. Water is the blood of the Earth, and the main component of your own blood and body. For plants too, water availability, that is, LIVING water availability must remain high at all time, but drainage must also be excellent -- stagnant waters are death for many higher organisms. Why? No water, no hydrogen, no oxygen. No water, no life.
Water availability is taken care of by "fluffiness", and the superior capability of many organic materials, such as leaf molds or peat moss to absorb many times their weight in water, “clusterize” the water (make it “alive”) and keep it available for plants.
P0312/ AIR: No air, no life. People rarely think of air as a main component of a healthy soil, but it is. In fact, it is almost as important as water. No air, no carbon dioxide, no oxygen, no nitrogen. The more aerated your soil, the better will your results be. “Fluffiness” of the soil, for the organic gardener, should be almost a religion.
P0313/ MINERALS: Minerals are only about 2% to 8% of the average plant, usually in the vicinity of 5%. Yet, these minerals are so essentials to the plant's (and the plant eater's) well-being that when there is a lack of them and any possibility to create them by transmutation at 'room' temperature, plants actually do so. This was conclusively proven by Louis Kervran in the 50's and the 60's, yet 'official' science still does not officially acknowledge the fact. Nonetheless, this explain why an acre of wheat produces biomass containing 75 pounds of magnesium in average, even if there is NO magnesium in the soil. However, these are complex processes, and many essential micro-nutrients can not be synthesized that way. If it's not there, it's not in our food, and Dr Wallach of “Dead Doctors Don't Lie” fame has quite advanced the proposition that 99% of our disease are actually nutritional deficiency diseases. Personally, we don't know if the percentage is truly ~that~ high, but at any rate everything seems to indicate it truly is very high. Indeed, if it's not in the soil, it's not going to be in out food. And we might die from it. This is why nutritional supplementation is important, and even more, this is why growing food right, that is organically and in mineral-rich soils (think seaweed and fossil minerals) is fundamentally important.
The soil can only give what it has. Sure, micro-organisms (and even plants and animals) are actually capable of room-temperature elemental transmutations. But these are limited in scope, and the conditions for the creation of certain elements are sometimes not present, leading to their absence, and thus to nutritional deficiencies in animals and humans. Iodine is one of the classical example of that. Therefore, you must make sure that a properly designed soil not only has sufficient supply of macro-elements, such as the famous trilogy N. P. K. (Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Kalium, that is, potassium), but even more, that it contains all the micro-elements or oligo-elements that complex living processes require. A soil filled with organic matter never lacks NPK. But it may lack of many elements necessary for the health of plants and of what or whom eats the plants. There are several ways to ensure this, the easiest probably being mammal urine (if you can have access to it, one of the greatest natural fertilizers there is, by weight, 2.5% nitrogen compounds, and 2.5% minerals, vitamins, etc), seaweed and fossile humates (for example from Utah's humic shale deposits) or even simply from natural coal dust.
P0314/ MICRO-ORGANISMS AND FUNGI: No micro-organisms, no higher order life -- no plants, no animals. In fact, each of us has 2 to 3 POUNDS of beneficial (and a few quite less beneficial) microorganisms in our guts. Without them, we would die, and without them, there would be no superior life whatsoever.
So, when it comes to the soil, anything that contributes to the well-being and availability of beneficial micro-organisms is good. Additions such as bio-dynamic compost, "Effective Micro-Organisms" and mushroom mycelia are quite useful to the very least, and some would say, essential.
Mushroom mycelia (mushroom "roots", preferably from edible varieties, actually, the whole plant, since the mushrooms we eat are only the fruiting bodies)), for example, are an often overlooked component of a healthy soil. The smart Gardener won't overlook them, though.
Mycelia and probiotic micro-organisms are essentially symbiotic with higher order plants, and perfectly capable of transferring minerals, nutrients and more from one plant to another. They do it all the time. As already alluded to, to some extent, mycelia and probiotics are also capable of certain elemental transmutations, which for example is why even in a completely magnesium-depleted soil, biomass will always provide significant levels of magnesium, as wheat fields prove year after year.
The web of life is much more complex than mechanistic "science" would have us believe, and the observation,comprehension and emulation of Nature is the only way we can grow food that is in tune with the physical needs of our bodies. In other words, 'food' that is truly “food”.
Again, as the great Viktor Schauberger put it about what our relation to Nature should be: "Erst kapieren, dann kopieren." "First 'get it', then emulate it." This is the only possible way to go!
P0315/ CARBON: The entire web of life on this planet is based on carbon. For plants, easy access to bio-available carbon, in form of humic and fulvic acids compounds (humus), etc, is absolutely essential. This is provided by discomposing vegetal matter, with which your 'designer soil' will be filled with. At the level of the garden soil designer, humus and leaf molds from the forest as well as composts will take care of that issue.
However, supplementing the soil with 1% to 5% pure carbon black preferably from vegetal sources can actually increase biomass production in very remarkable ways, often lasting for a very long time. This is the secret of the Mayan "Black Soil". Still today, there are patches of rainforest in Mexico and Guatemala, in what once was Mayan market gardens of millennia past, that are much more productive than their surroundings. The secret: Carbon black. Generously admixed into the soil hundreds if not thousands of years ago. Definitely a "long term investment": Spend once, have your descendants (or their conquerors) at the 50th generation still reap the benefits! Definitely the definition of a good investment, particularly considering how cheap it is. To say nothing about “car5bon sequestration”, one of the current buzzwords of environmental activism.
P032 -OPTIMAL SOIL DESIGN - PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS:
P0321- GENERAL FACTS: THINGS ARE SOMETIMES SIMPLER THAN WHAT YOU MAY THINK...: Don't worry too much about how "composted" or "fresh" your soil components are (except for extreme cases, such as chicken manure which, fresh, can only be used mixed with saw dust or wood shavings, and only completely at the bottom of a bed). The issue for you to worry about is quantity. In practice, raised garden beds are very hungry beasts...
… BUT YOU WILL NEED LOTS OF MATERIALS: One bag of anything is close to nothing. Just *one* 30 or 32 square feet raised bed (3' x 10' or 4' x 8') will absorb between 1 and 2 TONS of materials (and that's METRIC tons, not 'short' tons), depending on the height of the bed and the nature of the material, it's humidity or moisture content, and other such factors... That's quite some, and requires or patience and work, or cash – in which case other people will do the work for you.
In the P.L.E.A.S.E. cutting-edge gardening and agricultural methodology, all of this comes to play in patterns and layers:
To best understand the process of layering, nothing beats attending a couple hands-on soil layering and soil design classes. This will get to get you a feeling about the whole thing, how to make layers, etc. And perhaps get some significant amount of horse manure if you can secure any (doesn't matter if it's straight from the factory, horse manure does not really need to be composted) and definitely a couple bags seaweeds from the shore.
PO322 - P.L.E.A.S.E. SOIL DESIGN FOR STANDARD RAISED BEDS – PATTERNED LAYERING:
The composition of the soil designed for standard raised beds will vary according to location and with the actual on-site availability of suitable materials, such as leaves, grass clippings, leaf mold, shredded brush or twigs, horse or rabbit manure, etc.
What a standard bed will almost always contains is:
P032201/ An initial layer of cardboard or newspaper. This creates both a permeable water barrier and a powerful earthworm attractant.
P032202/ Local materials if any, such as surface leaves, grass clippings (but NOT from chemically treated lawns), small brush, etc. These should always be put at the bottom, since you can safely presume them to be quite seedy.
P032203/ Wood shavings or chips (chipped-shredded tree branches, horse bedding, clean sawdust, etc). If you have such a layer, add chicken manure to it if handy, or horse, goat or rabbit manure, animal urine, etc. Reason for that is that such chips are structurally excellent for your soil, but usually totally devoid of nitrogen.
P032204/ If you have crushed eggshells (get them from restaurants, besides what you can collect from your own kitchen, family and neighbors), this is the stage where you put them in, the shells crushed and thinly spread.
P032205/ Freshly collected seaweed. Or kiln-dried agricultural kelp, if that's all you can get.
P032206/ Alfalfa (what might be called "hay" by some).
P032207/ Straw inoculated with mycelia ("mushroom roots", if you want. This can be bought commercially, or grown by yourself, from supermarket-bought mushrooms, and sterilized oats or rice bran.)
P032208/ These two, admixed with horse manure if available. Dairy cow manure is even better, but much harder to find. Horse manure is the easiest manure to find, and the second best after dairy cow manure. Any other manure will do, but avoid the offerings of anything that eats meat (so, forget about pigs, dogs and cats -- at best use that at the bottom of a big hole in which you will plant a tree. Same goes for human offerings, if the idea came to your mind. Sure, they use “nightsoil” in China, but it isn't that good an idea to follow suit.)
P032209/ Rock powder. Easiest is freshly decomposed granite (in L.A., we get ours from our "private mine" in La Canada). And other rock powders or granules, the best being natural phosphate rock and certain volcanic rocks ground to a flour. A bit of calcium- and magnesium rich rock would be good as well -- usually calcium carbonate deposits, in moderation. Volcanic rock dust is usually the very best. Freshly discomposed granite does basically the same thing than standard rock dust, but lava dust does different things, or the same things in a much more powerful way.
P032210/ Leaf and Leaf Mold from forest grounds. Absolute best is oak leaf mold.
P032211/ Wood ashes - that is, if you have any. Best: Hardwood ashes. Don't burn any treated (=poisoned) woods! Addition of wood ashes is only important if you use acidic leaf molds such as decomposed pine needles, as it will adjust the PH to more neutral. This, because wood ashes are alkaline, they contain potassium hydroxide (= "potash" = 'K' for Kalium, an old name for the same thing, in “N.P.K”) and some phosphoric compounds ('P' in “NPK”).
P032212/ Standard garden compost (the one anyone can make using kitchen scraps, etc).
P032213/ A small amount of local garden earth, like 5%, admixed with the rest. Mainly to add some local micro-organisms.
P032214/ “McAndrew Special” bio-dynamic compost, or any genuine biodynamic compost, if any available. [See www.biodynamiccompost.com for that.] Sort of a “life force” as well as micro-organisms concentrate.
P0323 – GENERAL ORDER: There are numerous variations as to how things are admixed, and there are usually several layers of each material, thinly spread. The way to go is repeating the layers several time over, working the seediest material to the bottom, the chunky material just over it, going finer and finer as you approach the surface.
P0324 – WHAT TO AVOID: Stuff like bone and blood meals are in itself excellent for the plants, but should be avoided because of possible prion contamination, besides the fact that many people are uncomfortable with them for ethical reasons. But if you use bone meal, chicken and turkey bones are best. Avoid pork and beef if you can.
P0325 – WHAT TO POSSIBLY ADD: Numerous other amendments can be added, such as carbon black a.k.a. "biochar", perlite, vermiculite, peat moss, guano, composted chicken manure, mosses, oak leaves and oak leaf mold, humic shale granules, humates, shredded barks, etc, or whatever else suits your fancy (as long as compatible with organic principles) but these are not basic standards. And if you have to buy them, will cost you extra.
Of course you can also add things such as soil analysis and adjustments, PH measuring and balancing, etc, but by and large, you don't need to even think of them in normal circumstances.
P033 – HOW TO EMULATE NATURE:
Your goal when layering and admixing materials is to create a soil as close to possible to the ideal conditions Nature creates in forest hollows on light slopes, where numerous factors contribute to give birth to super-rich soils allowing plants to develop optimally. This, because of both texture and 'fluffiness' as well as water AND air retention capabilities and micro-organisms 'friendliness”..
AIR is as much one of the four keys components of a healthy soil as water, minerals and beneficial micro-organisms! What you are doing when incorporating lots of air is emulating Nature at her best.
“Doing things right” from the very beginning will reward you over and over, year after year. Multiplying your initial investment in time and energy plus perhaps small amounts of money to create for you generous and repeated dividends of bountiful, healthy and health-sustaining crops.
It's well-worth your efforts!
In CONCLUSION, designed the PLEASE-ing way, your soils will completely obey the Schauberger Imperative: "Erst kapieren, dann kopieren!": First, 'grok' or 'get from the inside' what Nature does and how and why; then, copy it!
P.L.E.A.S.E. Methods are the very antithesis of conventional agriculture. They are unlikely, thus, to see the plants grown on them in need of conventional approaches.
In a nutshell, as a consequence of poor practices and separation from Nature, or perhaps even, as some think, by design, agri-business crops and processed food make you sick. While PLEASE farming or gardening and natural (true) food will return you to Health and keep you healthy!
What you eat and the way you eat it, this is entirely your choice. Therefore, health or sickness is your choice. As Hippocrates put it 2500 years ago: “You are what you eat”!
COPYRIGHT NOTICE & DISCLAIMER: Copyright and copyleft: (C) OSL 1964-2009. The material here is all copy-righted, but you are hereby licensed to copy it, print it and repost it freely, as long as: 1/ You reproduce it verbatim, that is, exactly as it is, with all authorship and copyright mentions intact, including this one. 2/ You do not charge ANY money for it, be it directly or indirectly, and do not use it to *make* money. There is nothing wrong with business at all, but if you use the material published here this or any similar way, then, you will need to acquire a commercial license from the copyright holders. That is, in most case, us. Disclaimer: Whether used at no costs or by license, the present material was published for information and/or entertainment only, and does not constitute professional, medical, legal or any other advice or opinion of any sort -- by further reading or using this material, you acknowledge that you do so at your own risks, and will indemnify us and all other parties for all possible direct or indirect consequences, be they foreseeable or not! Minors are not licensed to read or use this material without prior parental or guardian's permission or the authorization of a qualified and responsible adult. Caveat emptor!
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Monday, April 27, 2009
VICTORY GARDENING EVENTS GO NATIONAL AND BEYOND
VICTORY GARDENING EVENTS
GO NATIONAL AND BEYOND!
If you wish to replicate what we are doing in California here in "Hollywood" in your own city, county, state or province or nation, please contact us and we will provide you with guidelines and relevant material.
No cost whatsoever for our help, but your local group can not charge anything for attending classes or regular events either!
So far, practical assistance can be provided to you in Spanish, Korean, French and German. Other languages coming.
If you wish to volunteer your help in translating existing or future material in any of these or other languages, or to familiarize yourself with what we do and become a contact point in a language other than English (even an already covered one, such as, for example, Spanish or Korean), please contact us!
No cost whatsoever for our help, but your local group can not charge anything for attending classes or regular events either!
So far, practical assistance can be provided to you in Spanish, Korean, French and German. Other languages coming.
If you wish to volunteer your help in translating existing or future material in any of these or other languages, or to familiarize yourself with what we do and become a contact point in a language other than English (even an already covered one, such as, for example, Spanish or Korean), please contact us!
Permalink - the permanent link for the present page is:
http://victorygardens2.blogspot.com/2009/04/victory-gardening-events-go-national.html
Sunday, April 12, 2009
ANNOUNCING OUR NEW BLOG LISTING COMING EVENTS
ANNOUNCING OUR NEW BLOG LISTING COMING EVENTS
You can find it here:
http://victorygardeningevents.blogspot.com
The latest post with the events scheduled so far from 4/29 to 6/27 is here:
http://victorygardeningevents.blogspot.com/2009/04/victory-gardening-2.html
You can find it here:
http://victorygardeningevents.blogspot.com
The latest post with the events scheduled so far from 4/29 to 6/27 is here:
http://victorygardeningevents.blogspot.com/2009/04/victory-gardening-2.html
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
ANNOUNCING THE VG2 - GARDENER HANDBOOK SERIES
ANNOUNCING THE VG2 - GARDENER HANDBOOK SERIES
We have created a new blog entirely focused to our coming Gardeners' Handbooks and How To Series.
You can find it here:
http://vg2gardenerhandbook.blogspot.com/
You can find it here:
http://vg2gardenerhandbook.blogspot.com/
Best is to start with the following post:
This blog will be used exclusively to announce the publication of the different parts of our "Victory Gardens 2.0" and "Victory Gardening 2" general "Gardener Handbook", a collection of practical "How To" focused Handbooks. The list of which you can find here: http://vg2gardenerhandbook.blogspot.com/2009/01/vg2-gardener-handbooks-in-making.html . Links to download them at no costs will be provided there.
We also recommend you visit our sibbling blog from time to time at:
http://victorygardening2.blogspot.com/
[VG-HAnn-V101] PERMALINK - The permanent link for the present post is: http://victorygardens2.blogspot.com/2009/01/announcing-vg2-gardener-handbook-series.html
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
VICTORY GARDENING 2 & VICTORY GARDENS 2 FAQ
VICTORY GARDENING 2.0 & VICTORY GARDENS 2.0 FAQ
We will add from time to time to this FAQ. If you wish to have a specific question addressed, please ask us in email, or simply by using a "comment".
Q - Can I use herbicides, pesticides, GMOs, etc, in Victory Gardening?
A - Short answer: Not likely! Sure, you "can" do anything, including take a gun, put it in your mouth, and pull the trigger. It's up to you.
However, is it wise to do so? Most people would disagree. At any rate, the Gardening equivalent of such action, even if done in slow motion -- since it will take you a lot longer to achieve your clearly stated goal, has obviously little to do with "Victory Gardening". So, no, you can't do both.
But you can certainly pretend to garden, and use poisons as much as you want.
However, you certainly cannot get into "Victory Gardening", and poison the Earth and yourself. These things are simply incompatible.
Plus, why would you want to, anyway? If you want to eat crap, your local supermarket is full of it. Since it's available at no effort to you, why not just go, and buy it?
Aping "conventional" agriculture will produce the same results as it does in matters of health, sustainability, environmental impact, etc. If that's what you seek, consider that Agribusiness is much better at it than you will ever be! So, rather than getting into "gardening", why not consider becoming a shareholder of a certain company in St Louis which is on a mission to destroy the planet? And enjoy the ride... While you can!
Now if bugs in the garden are your problem, there are many, many quite efficient natural ways to handle them. So why not learn what these ways are?
At any rate, the occasional bug is of course common, but bug infestations are a rarity in a properly designed "Edible Ecosystem" or "Edible Landscape". The wide variety of plants concentrated in a small area make such problems quite unlikely. To begin with, your garlic and onions and other aromatic plants are going to work for you on an on-going basis...
Bottom line: If you do it right, you won't need any man-made poisons. Period.
But of course, if you believe in them for religious or other reasons, again, it's all just up to you! No one can stop you of using them. Just ask yourself first, though: Is eating poisoned food *really* what I want?
When answering that question, remember Dr Otto Warburg, the only physician to ever get TWO Nobels in Physiology and Medicine, and the "Warburg Imperative".
Q - What is the view of cutting-edge architects and builders about the idea of Green Buildings, Green Roofs, and Personal Organic Gardening?
When answering that question, remember Dr Otto Warburg, the only physician to ever get TWO Nobels in Physiology and Medicine, and the "Warburg Imperative".
Q - What is the view of cutting-edge architects and builders about the idea of Green Buildings, Green Roofs, and Personal Organic Gardening?
A - Here too, things are changing, and for the better!
For example, on January 21st, 2009, Ian Ritchie, Royal Academician and Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy of Arts (in the United Kingdom), concluded his speech about a new design paradigm in Architecture organized by USC (the University of Southern California) by a call to organize cities around sustainable community units, of which locally grown food, such as those promoted as Sustainable Organic Gardens, would be part of the new structure.
One of the most successful and outstanding architects of his generation, Ian Ritchie is best known for his leading participation in major government-sponsored projects in France, such as the Cité des Sciences and Parc at La Villette, the Louvre Pyramids with IM Pei, etc, and his creative use of cutting-edge low-energy concepts, materials and technology; as well as his design and construction influence in the political arenas of UK government.
For those in the know, it is extremely significant that a man of his stature supports the ambitions of Victory Gardening and similar ideas and developments.
In our opinion, such support will make it increasingly difficult for local and state governments to continue dragging their feet about sustainability and the necessity of widely embracing the concepts behind Victory Gardening 2.0. This is, indeed, very good news!
In fact, here too change is in the air. For example, in Los Angeles, the Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, seems in the process of expressing an increasing interest in "Green Solutions" that truly make a difference.
Q - Are there SUCCESSFUL MODELS FOR VICTORY GARDENING 2.0?
A - There are many. For example, just visit the website maintained by the Dervaes family in Pasadena, California, about their own personal experience in Victory Gardening. You can find it at:
More, and curiously enough, an entire nation can be cited as such an example, and the irony of it is that it was once the very model of the most unsustainable "bully-type" conventional agriculture, since it was a centralized communist showcase, relying almost entirely on artificial fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, hormones, and the like: Cuba.
After the fall of the Soviet regime in Russia, Cuba was cut off all the goodies of conventional agricultural coming from Big Oil, in this case, Soviet Big Oil. How they adapted, and the results of it, makes for a very interesting case to study.
Particularly with oil at $50 a barrel and gas at $2 a gallon, and the perspective to see them again at $150 a barrel and $4 or $5 a gallon, and more, as undoubtedly will be the case again soon, after the unavoidable final collapse of the dollar predicted by all experts, including by people such as legendary investor Warren Buffett himself.
Particularly with oil at $50 a barrel and gas at $2 a gallon, and the perspective to see them again at $150 a barrel and $4 or $5 a gallon, and more, as undoubtedly will be the case again soon, after the unavoidable final collapse of the dollar predicted by all experts, including by people such as legendary investor Warren Buffett himself.
Q - What is the "Warburg Imperative"?
A - A commandment we should all obey!
Shortly before their death, Pr.Dr. Otto Warburg, Head of the Department of Cell Physiology at the Kaiser-Wilhelm and later Max-Planck Institute in Berlin, the only physician who ever got two Nobels in Medicine and Physiology for his work on Cell Physiology and Cancer, met with Amb. Dr. Hans von Reichmann, who was at the time the highest ranking civil servant in the service of the European country of Austria.
They reminisced about their lives, the war, the more and more sorry state of the world, and speculated about where it was going (that is, where we are right now) and what to do about it.
Among many other subjects, the conversation got on food. Dr Warburg was well-known for basically refusing to eat any food that wasn't organically grown or raised in his own garden or the garden of people he personally knew and trusted, which obviously, at the time, made him the target of quite many a joke among his colleagues, and such.
During that conversation, Dr Warburg intimated that for anyone who wanted to be and remain healthy, there was no higher imperative, whatever it took, than creating and maintaining their own Organic Garden, and eating from it, as much as was humanely possible. Or teaming up with other people, partaking to and benefitting from the creation and maintenance of such a Garden.
And that as far as he knew, man-made chemicals were not only the trigger for most cancers, but also the ultimate causes of most if not all "modern" ailments.
Dr. v. Reichmann reported this conversation to Andre Birre, (the seminal author of "Humus, Health and Wealth of the Earth", founder of the "Organisation for the Service of Life", "Save the Earth" and "Nature and Progress" - now the Certification Authority for Organic Agriculture in several countries in Europe and Africa), and to Dr. Annenberg and other team members at the OSL, who all took both the idea and the mandate very seriously.
This has been known since as "The Warburg Imperative".
Even if, under the guise of advertising, the "mainstream" media and the secular arms of Agribusiness, Big Oil, Big Pharma, and the like, buries us under propaganda to the contrary, including with such total absurdities as that there are no problems at all with artificial hormones, antibiotics and GMOs in our food, the "Warburg Imperative" is clear, easy to comprehend, and simple to follow.
It is even more valid today than it was in the early 70's, as there were no GMOs in the 60's and 70's.
Whether you have the wisdom to follow the Warburg Imperative, though, is again entirely up to you. However, before you make a decision, perhaps just remember who Pr.Dr. Otto Warburg was, and what he advised us to do.
They reminisced about their lives, the war, the more and more sorry state of the world, and speculated about where it was going (that is, where we are right now) and what to do about it.
Among many other subjects, the conversation got on food. Dr Warburg was well-known for basically refusing to eat any food that wasn't organically grown or raised in his own garden or the garden of people he personally knew and trusted, which obviously, at the time, made him the target of quite many a joke among his colleagues, and such.
During that conversation, Dr Warburg intimated that for anyone who wanted to be and remain healthy, there was no higher imperative, whatever it took, than creating and maintaining their own Organic Garden, and eating from it, as much as was humanely possible. Or teaming up with other people, partaking to and benefitting from the creation and maintenance of such a Garden.
And that as far as he knew, man-made chemicals were not only the trigger for most cancers, but also the ultimate causes of most if not all "modern" ailments.
Dr. v. Reichmann reported this conversation to Andre Birre, (the seminal author of "Humus, Health and Wealth of the Earth", founder of the "Organisation for the Service of Life", "Save the Earth" and "Nature and Progress" - now the Certification Authority for Organic Agriculture in several countries in Europe and Africa), and to Dr. Annenberg and other team members at the OSL, who all took both the idea and the mandate very seriously.
This has been known since as "The Warburg Imperative".
Even if, under the guise of advertising, the "mainstream" media and the secular arms of Agribusiness, Big Oil, Big Pharma, and the like, buries us under propaganda to the contrary, including with such total absurdities as that there are no problems at all with artificial hormones, antibiotics and GMOs in our food, the "Warburg Imperative" is clear, easy to comprehend, and simple to follow.
It is even more valid today than it was in the early 70's, as there were no GMOs in the 60's and 70's.
Whether you have the wisdom to follow the Warburg Imperative, though, is again entirely up to you. However, before you make a decision, perhaps just remember who Pr.Dr. Otto Warburg was, and what he advised us to do.
[VG2-FAQ-V102] PERMALINK - The permanent link for the present post is:
Saturday, January 24, 2009
SERENDIPITOUS TIMES
SERENDIPITOUS TIMES
Times of Crisis are times of Change.
And when what exists is not that satisfying, times of Change hold great promises.
In our own experience, how things fall together nowadays is sometimes nothing shortly of amazing. As we develop this post, we will give some examples of this. In any event, it is now clear that...
The time has truly come for a "General Greening".
Greening our lives, our communities, and our Host Planet, the Earth.
Greening of the way we build, we live, we interact with each other and our environments, as well as with our Host Planet, the Earth, as a whole.
The present webpage will be dedicated in exploring examples of synchronicity and fortunate and/or sometimes remarkable events, working toward a greening of our lives and of the Planet. Exemplifying conjunctions of people or circumstances we perhaps wouldn't have thought normally possible.
Definitely, things are changing.
Let's make sure the Change in the air is for the better!
[To better understand the points we are making, please read our FAQ at: http://victorygardens2.blogspot.com/2009/01/victory-gardens-20-faq.html ]
[VG2-ST-V101] PERMALINK - The permanent link for the present post is:
Friday, January 23, 2009
OUR GOALS - GREEN BUILDINGS & GREEN LIVING
OUR GOALS - GREEN BUILDINGS & GREEN LIVING
TGB - TRULY GREEN BUILDINGS:
The energy and carbon footprint of a "truly green building" is essentially ZERO. Plus, water is no more wasted, but rather immediately recycled on the spot to feed surrounding and integrated building vegetation. Water run-off is allowed to percolate and/or captured, stored for vegetation use when possible.
This is not pure theory. It can be done: Some of the current policies of the City of Santa Monica, CA, go in these precise directions.
WHAT IT MEANS: This does not mean, of course, that when it comes to human dwellings or business buildings, no external energy is ever used, or no carbon is ever emitted. This just means that when energy use and emissions are considered over a longer period of time, say a year or more, the sums actually equal or near ZERO. Or perhaps are even positive: More energy is produced than used, more carbon absorbed than emitted.
How is this achieved? By generating energy on the spot (photovoltaic, passive solar, wind or geothermal when possible, new energy, etc) and by using construction methods and/or retrofitting that fully integrate suitable vegetation, that contributes to achieving the overall goals. For example, roofs of old should become a dying specie, systematically replaced by "true green roofs" (TGR).
"Truly Green Buildings" should and in their time will become the goal of public policy. First, supported by fiscal approaches, and ultimately, mandated by law for newly constructed personal dwellings, and to the extent practical, for business buildings.
Helping in making these changes happen is more and more becoming the mark of all people with ecological awareness and social consciousness. Sure, politicians are still lagging, but this is one of the matters where concerned citizenry can truly make its weight felt. After all, marginal shifts in electoral patterns can have very clear impact on those who would not get the message in time. And most likely, will.
TGB - TRULY GREEN BUILDINGS:
The energy and carbon footprint of a "truly green building" is essentially ZERO. Plus, water is no more wasted, but rather immediately recycled on the spot to feed surrounding and integrated building vegetation. Water run-off is allowed to percolate and/or captured, stored for vegetation use when possible.
This is not pure theory. It can be done: Some of the current policies of the City of Santa Monica, CA, go in these precise directions.
WHAT IT MEANS: This does not mean, of course, that when it comes to human dwellings or business buildings, no external energy is ever used, or no carbon is ever emitted. This just means that when energy use and emissions are considered over a longer period of time, say a year or more, the sums actually equal or near ZERO. Or perhaps are even positive: More energy is produced than used, more carbon absorbed than emitted.
How is this achieved? By generating energy on the spot (photovoltaic, passive solar, wind or geothermal when possible, new energy, etc) and by using construction methods and/or retrofitting that fully integrate suitable vegetation, that contributes to achieving the overall goals. For example, roofs of old should become a dying specie, systematically replaced by "true green roofs" (TGR).
"Truly Green Buildings" should and in their time will become the goal of public policy. First, supported by fiscal approaches, and ultimately, mandated by law for newly constructed personal dwellings, and to the extent practical, for business buildings.
Helping in making these changes happen is more and more becoming the mark of all people with ecological awareness and social consciousness. Sure, politicians are still lagging, but this is one of the matters where concerned citizenry can truly make its weight felt. After all, marginal shifts in electoral patterns can have very clear impact on those who would not get the message in time. And most likely, will.
There is no need for us as a society to put up with politicians who don't "get it", or drag their feet in the services of the corporate interests who paid for their elections. This is particularly true in our local communities. "City Hall" is the easiest part to clean up, of the whole mess.
We should also encourage the creation and uses of new building materials and techniques adapted to the goal of green building and green living. For example, there are great promises in the area of cast earth, prefabricated foam concrete panels, and the like. And in general, in using "earth" and local soil components in our buildings, for example as fillings in prefabricated panels. Certainly, "adobe" is not exactly a new discovery, but there are many news ways of doing old things that only modern technologies could afford us.
In any event, in the end, it is clear that our current conceptions of building and living in these buildings, and the techniques we used to that end, should be *totally reinvented* in accordance with the goal of "truly building green", which to a large extent will determine if we can "truly live green".
TGR - TRUE GREEN ROOFS:
If you think of it, roofs are truly what make a dwelling. The roof of a family dwelling, and of a commercial building as well when suitable, as we see it, should carry soil and be planted, as a rule with edible landscaping and food croops. These, at some time in a near future, will as a rule be attended by automated gardening systems.
Whatis important is to always keep in mind the superior qualities of such roofs when it comes to building insulation, and building functionality. And the fantastic difference they could make in our environmental and ecological footprints.
Working on slowly but surely making green roofs a standard, rather than a very rare exception, is our stated goal. As well as studying and promoting the best ways to retrofit existing buildings with green roofs.
TGRs would represent an immense leap forward. They must first become a standard option for new buildings, and then slowly be developed into a mandate for them, as technology and know-how is developed.
TGL - TOTALLY GREEN LIVING:
Totally Green Living should also become our goal.
Besides the question of local energy use and generation, a standard human family dwelling should produce at least 90% the food used there on the spot in an organic and sustainable manner, recycling all organic waste on the spot, and reducing all other waste to marginal levels.
More, using modern technology to start working where we live should and certainly will become a standard. Commuting is clearly an enormous and nowadays mostly useless waste of time, energy and money. Coming with an increasingly inacceptable environmental footprint.
TGT - TRULY GREEN TECHNOLOGY :
To achieve these goals, we should resolutely embrace the use of corresponding advanced technologies. What comes immediately to mind is encouraging the obsolescence of the idea of "commuting to work", when most tasks could more efficiently be addressed from the places where we live.
But there are many more possible developments.
For example, there are great promises in developping localised energy-generation using new energy technologies. Even if, of course, there are huge societal obstacles to such developments, as this could be perceived as a treat for existing energy oligopolies.
At a more practical level, today, the level of cheap computing power we have achieved would permit to create cost-effective household robotized units.
These could to a large extent change the way we interact with our immediate environments. For example, allowing to have many simple and repetitive task necessary when growing plants totally automatised, using what could be called "Garden Robotics".
Considering the enormous amounts of time, energy, water and money wasted on maintaining mostly useless lawns, such approaches hold great promises for the future. And since developping them should actually be profitable business, there is a good chance that we will see such development happen soon.
GREEN BUILDING AND GREEN LIVING IS NOT ONLY POSSIBLE, BUT IT IS A PRACTICAL CHOICE WE CAN ALL MAKE TODAY, TOWARD A MUCH MORE RATIONAL, SUSTAINABLE AND COST-EFFECTIVE WAY OF LIVING.
MAKING THE CORRESPONDING CHOICES NOW WILL COMES WITH SUBSTANTIAL POSITIVE CONSEQUENCES FOR THE QUALITY OF OUR LIVES, OUR ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINTS, AND OUR LOCAL AND PLANETARY ENVIRONMENT.
Making these choices is what we advocate everyone should consider doing, at both the personal and collective level.
Since everything we do always can only start with ourselves, YOU should consider making these choices, and advocating them with friends and family and in your own community. In your own self-interest, the interest of your own community, and the interest of our host planet as a whole.
We should also encourage the creation and uses of new building materials and techniques adapted to the goal of green building and green living. For example, there are great promises in the area of cast earth, prefabricated foam concrete panels, and the like. And in general, in using "earth" and local soil components in our buildings, for example as fillings in prefabricated panels. Certainly, "adobe" is not exactly a new discovery, but there are many news ways of doing old things that only modern technologies could afford us.
In any event, in the end, it is clear that our current conceptions of building and living in these buildings, and the techniques we used to that end, should be *totally reinvented* in accordance with the goal of "truly building green", which to a large extent will determine if we can "truly live green".
TGR - TRUE GREEN ROOFS:
If you think of it, roofs are truly what make a dwelling. The roof of a family dwelling, and of a commercial building as well when suitable, as we see it, should carry soil and be planted, as a rule with edible landscaping and food croops. These, at some time in a near future, will as a rule be attended by automated gardening systems.
Whatis important is to always keep in mind the superior qualities of such roofs when it comes to building insulation, and building functionality. And the fantastic difference they could make in our environmental and ecological footprints.
Working on slowly but surely making green roofs a standard, rather than a very rare exception, is our stated goal. As well as studying and promoting the best ways to retrofit existing buildings with green roofs.
TGRs would represent an immense leap forward. They must first become a standard option for new buildings, and then slowly be developed into a mandate for them, as technology and know-how is developed.
TGL - TOTALLY GREEN LIVING:
Totally Green Living should also become our goal.
Besides the question of local energy use and generation, a standard human family dwelling should produce at least 90% the food used there on the spot in an organic and sustainable manner, recycling all organic waste on the spot, and reducing all other waste to marginal levels.
More, using modern technology to start working where we live should and certainly will become a standard. Commuting is clearly an enormous and nowadays mostly useless waste of time, energy and money. Coming with an increasingly inacceptable environmental footprint.
TGT - TRULY GREEN TECHNOLOGY :
To achieve these goals, we should resolutely embrace the use of corresponding advanced technologies. What comes immediately to mind is encouraging the obsolescence of the idea of "commuting to work", when most tasks could more efficiently be addressed from the places where we live.
But there are many more possible developments.
For example, there are great promises in developping localised energy-generation using new energy technologies. Even if, of course, there are huge societal obstacles to such developments, as this could be perceived as a treat for existing energy oligopolies.
At a more practical level, today, the level of cheap computing power we have achieved would permit to create cost-effective household robotized units.
These could to a large extent change the way we interact with our immediate environments. For example, allowing to have many simple and repetitive task necessary when growing plants totally automatised, using what could be called "Garden Robotics".
Considering the enormous amounts of time, energy, water and money wasted on maintaining mostly useless lawns, such approaches hold great promises for the future. And since developping them should actually be profitable business, there is a good chance that we will see such development happen soon.
GREEN BUILDING AND GREEN LIVING IS NOT ONLY POSSIBLE, BUT IT IS A PRACTICAL CHOICE WE CAN ALL MAKE TODAY, TOWARD A MUCH MORE RATIONAL, SUSTAINABLE AND COST-EFFECTIVE WAY OF LIVING.
MAKING THE CORRESPONDING CHOICES NOW WILL COMES WITH SUBSTANTIAL POSITIVE CONSEQUENCES FOR THE QUALITY OF OUR LIVES, OUR ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINTS, AND OUR LOCAL AND PLANETARY ENVIRONMENT.
Making these choices is what we advocate everyone should consider doing, at both the personal and collective level.
Since everything we do always can only start with ourselves, YOU should consider making these choices, and advocating them with friends and family and in your own community. In your own self-interest, the interest of your own community, and the interest of our host planet as a whole.
[VG2-TG-V103] PERMALINK - The permanent link for the present post is: http://victorygardens2.blogspot.com/2009/01/our-goals-green-buildings-green-living.html
Thursday, January 22, 2009
WHO WE ARE, WHAT WE DO, WHY and HOW?
In simple terms,
WHO WE ARE: We are a "HEALTH THRU GARDENING" informal group open to new participants, currently active in the Greater Los Angeles - several locations, from Orange County to Southern Ventura County, as well as in some European locations.
By "Health", we not only mean our health and that of the communities we live in, but the health of our Host Planet as well.
WHAT WE DO: We think that to be healthy, the first thing is to EAT RIGHT, and for this, nothing beats the food grown right where we live - zero "food miles".
Plus, we feel that if one wants to do something for the planet, one needs to start with oneself and one's own environment. And that the reward for doing so is vastly improved health and well-being...
So what we do is educate people about about are issues pertaining to the Environment, Ecology, Green Living and Green Buildings, Organic Agriculture and Gardening, Alternative Health and New Energy, and how they relate to our own health and well-being, and that of the Earth, our host planet. For this, we are in the process of collecting date and producing substantial educational and edutainment material.
You can see some of that material on the websites indicated in our previous post, and many more...
At the most practical and down-to-earth level, the good news is that to start eating right, and living better, is one one the easiest and most impactful thing anyone can do.
And the first thing to do starts in and with your own backyard or the backyards of friends and/or family. Backyards can easily and very cost-effectively (read -- on a total shoestring, if needs to be) be transformed in a little paradise oasis that can produce 2 to 3 pounds of food per square foot per year, and more. That is, a 1,000 square feet backyard can produce 1 to 1.5 and in fact 2 tons of fresh, wholesome organic food each year, here in Southern California. And this is not at all just theory, you can visit a place right now right here in Pasadena where this was done in 2008: 10,000 pounds of organic food produced on just a 4,000 square feet backyard! This is illustrated at www.pathtofreedom.org .
We simply teach people how to do the same. And we teach by doing, and showing how, in the most practical of manners. We have several on-going projects that will be completely documented on video, from small clips to feature-length, professionally-edited material, in which you can participate, and more are coming.
Plus, we are looking for a land donation or long term lease for a symbolic dollar allowing us to create models and model facilities. There are three on-going projects at the present time, with more to come.
WHAT WE NEED: Help in all forms, and first, volunteers to help do as well as to document and disseminate our work. Of course, tools, materials, money, etc, are quite welcome as well, as well as more places to demonstrate what can be done -- perhaps your own backyard!
At any rate, TO DO WHAT WE DO, WE NEED YOUR HELP!
So, if you are interested in what we do and who want to help, or want to learn how to transform a lawn or an empty backyard into an organic food producing garden, or know people who might be interested, please come participate to our on-going activities.
In any event, we have "Volunteer Days" on an on-going basis at different locations in the Greater Los Angeles area. You are invited to join us, and bring along your friends or family (including children as long as they come with at least one parent).
Please note that we also need help with Projects Coordination, Talent Management (for the videos) and technical help (for things such as websites set-up and maintenance, text editing, and making and editing audios and videos).
PERMALINK - The permanent link for the present post is: http://victorygardens2.blogspot.com/2009/01/who-we-are-what-we-do-why-and-how.html
WHO WE ARE, WHAT WE DO, WHY and HOW?
and HOW CAN YOU HELP US?
WHO WE ARE: We are a "HEALTH THRU GARDENING" informal group open to new participants, currently active in the Greater Los Angeles - several locations, from Orange County to Southern Ventura County, as well as in some European locations.
By "Health", we not only mean our health and that of the communities we live in, but the health of our Host Planet as well.
WHAT WE DO: We think that to be healthy, the first thing is to EAT RIGHT, and for this, nothing beats the food grown right where we live - zero "food miles".
Plus, we feel that if one wants to do something for the planet, one needs to start with oneself and one's own environment. And that the reward for doing so is vastly improved health and well-being...
So what we do is educate people about about are issues pertaining to the Environment, Ecology, Green Living and Green Buildings, Organic Agriculture and Gardening, Alternative Health and New Energy, and how they relate to our own health and well-being, and that of the Earth, our host planet. For this, we are in the process of collecting date and producing substantial educational and edutainment material.
You can see some of that material on the websites indicated in our previous post, and many more...
At the most practical and down-to-earth level, the good news is that to start eating right, and living better, is one one the easiest and most impactful thing anyone can do.
And the first thing to do starts in and with your own backyard or the backyards of friends and/or family. Backyards can easily and very cost-effectively (read -- on a total shoestring, if needs to be) be transformed in a little paradise oasis that can produce 2 to 3 pounds of food per square foot per year, and more. That is, a 1,000 square feet backyard can produce 1 to 1.5 and in fact 2 tons of fresh, wholesome organic food each year, here in Southern California. And this is not at all just theory, you can visit a place right now right here in Pasadena where this was done in 2008: 10,000 pounds of organic food produced on just a 4,000 square feet backyard! This is illustrated at www.pathtofreedom.org .
We simply teach people how to do the same. And we teach by doing, and showing how, in the most practical of manners. We have several on-going projects that will be completely documented on video, from small clips to feature-length, professionally-edited material, in which you can participate, and more are coming.
Plus, we are looking for a land donation or long term lease for a symbolic dollar allowing us to create models and model facilities. There are three on-going projects at the present time, with more to come.
WHAT WE NEED: Help in all forms, and first, volunteers to help do as well as to document and disseminate our work. Of course, tools, materials, money, etc, are quite welcome as well, as well as more places to demonstrate what can be done -- perhaps your own backyard!
At any rate, TO DO WHAT WE DO, WE NEED YOUR HELP!
So, if you are interested in what we do and who want to help, or want to learn how to transform a lawn or an empty backyard into an organic food producing garden, or know people who might be interested, please come participate to our on-going activities.
In any event, we have "Volunteer Days" on an on-going basis at different locations in the Greater Los Angeles area. You are invited to join us, and bring along your friends or family (including children as long as they come with at least one parent).
Please note that we also need help with Projects Coordination, Talent Management (for the videos) and technical help (for things such as websites set-up and maintenance, text editing, and making and editing audios and videos).
PERMALINK - The permanent link for the present post is: http://victorygardens2.blogspot.com/2009/01/who-we-are-what-we-do-why-and-how.html
OVERVIEW OF THE IDEAS BEHIND THE "VICTORY GARDENS 2.0" CONCEPT
OVERVIEW OF THE IDEAS BEHIND THE "VICTORY GARDENS 2.0" CONCEPT, with active links.
VICTORY GARDENS 2.0
WHY WE SHOULD DO IT - MAINLY THREE REASONS:
HEALTH, SAVING THE PLANET, THE ECONOMIC CRISIS
WHY WE SHOULD DO IT - OUR OWN HEALTH
http://healththrugardening.blogspot.com/
HEALTH THRU GARDENING - THE DATA
HEALTH THRU GARDENING, a grassroots non-profit focusing on "Optimal Gardens" and "Personal Gardens", currently centered in Greater Los Angeles County, CA, has endeavored to make relevant data available and to create models that people anywhere can emulate. This blog is part of a family of related blog and focuses on the SCIENTIFIC DATA related to DIET, NUTRITION, FOOD & OPTIMAL FUNCTIONAL FOOD PRODUCTION.
http://healththrugardening.blogspot.com/2008/09/hc-site00-welcome-to-health-thru.html
WHY WE SHOULD DO IT - THE ECONOMY & THE SECOND COMING OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION
http://secondcomingnews.blogspot.com/
THE SECOND COMING OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION - LATEST NEWS
As it was at well over 12,000, in Oct. 2008, we predicted the Dow Jones Index would crumble to 10,000 before the 2008 U.S. presidential election, and to 8,000 within 3 weeks thereafter. On Nov. 21, 2008, we tell you that the Dow Jones should be in the 6,000s by early December 2008, and very possibly in the 5,000s (or less) by the end of the year. Unless economic rules get successfully manipulated with the help of the printing press. [They were.] What will you do with this information? How does it relate to Victory Gardening 2.0?
(This blog currently has very little data on it. We got gas at $1.50 right, as well as its stabilisation around $2.00. This lack of data will change soon. The economic Crisis is indeed one of the main reasons why many people will consider starting Victory Gardening. And with good cause!)
VICTORY GARDENING 2.0 - A POSSIBLE WAY TO ORGANISE & DO IT:
http://topangamodel.blogspot.com/
THE TOPANGA MODEL OF CO-OP GARDENING & AGRICULTURE
A local IG-GARDEN is an alliance formed by groups of people known as "STAKEHOLDERS". The PURPOSE of such COOPERATIVE ENDEAVORS is to sustainably produce ORGANIC & FUNCTIONAL FOODS to SHARE & DISTRIBUTE. To work together as efficiently as possible, it's best to follow a model pre-addressing actual or potential issues, such as "THE TOPANGA MODEL". ENVIRONMENTAL COLLAPSE, HEALTH ISSUES & THE ECONOMIC CRISIS are reasons why this model should be widely REPLICATEd.
(Words in CAPITAL letters are defined in our Glossary. This model can be freely emulated by all, and modified so to suit your own personal and local situation)
GENERAL PRINCIPLES:
http://savetheplanetandourselves.blogspot.com/
SAVE THE PLANET & OURSELVES
We can't save ourselves at all, if we don't first work on saving the planet. And we can't save the planet, if we don't save ourselves as well. We are the Conscience of Gaia, the Living Planet. Let us be heard! Union Begets Force - So Let's Work Together to Make the Needs of the Planet and of its People Heard! Together, to Inform and to Reform, for ACTION & RESULTS RIGHT NOW! Gaia, our Living Planet NEEDS YOU! And YOU need a healthy Gaia!
(Whether you agree with all the conclusions of our analysis, or even all our premises, or not, is of little importance - we all have our feelings and opinions about this, as it should be. However, it is hard to set aside the general idea that "Saving The Planet" starts in our own backyards, and this, not only figuratively).
(This blog has yet to be edited. Please allow for typos and minor language improprieties.)
A SUCCESSFUL MODEL - PATH TO FREEDOM & THE DERVAES FAMILY. http://pathtofreedom.com/ The first thing to do starts in and with your own backyard or the backyards of friends and/or family. Backyards can easily and very cost-effectively (read -- on a total shoestring, if needs to be) be transformed in a little paradise oasis that can produce 2 to 3 pounds of food per square foot per year, and more. That is, a 1,000 square feet backyard can produce 1 to 1.5 and in fact 2 tons of fresh, wholesome organic food each year, here in Southern California. And this is not at all just theory, you can visit a place right now right here in Pasadena where this was done in 2008: 10,000 pounds of organic food produced on just a 4,000 square feet backyard! This is illustrated at http://www.pathtofreedom.org/
We have a lot more material available, which we intend to organise and make available widely, so anyone so interested can emulate what we do, or inspire themselves from it. For example, we are currently working on organising a major portal site using Drupal, as well as an Article Repository site.
PERMALINK - The permanent link for the present post is: http://victorygardens2.blogspot.com/2009/01/overview-of-ideas-behind-victory.html
SITEMAP FOR VICTORY GARDEN 2.0
SITEMAP FOR VICTORY GARDEN 2.0
The present page will offer a short overview with an active link to all existing posts. It will be updated whenever necessary, at least once a week when new pages are posted. Here are the current posts, with links to many others:
The present page will offer a short overview with an active link to all existing posts. It will be updated whenever necessary, at least once a week when new pages are posted. Here are the current posts, with links to many others:
A CONCEPT FOR WHICH THE TIME HAS COME
Victory Gardens 2.0 is a concept for which the time has come. It is simply the idea that in uncertain times, on the quality of the food supply front as well as on the economic front in a more general way, it is everyone's best interest to emulate what was done during World War II, that is, to plant and harvest their own organic food-producing gardens, at the personal level as well as at the community level.
SITEMAP FOR VICTORY GARDEN 2.0
The page you are reading right now. It will offer a short overview with an active link to all existing posts, and be updated once a week or when necessary.
OVERVIEW OF THE IDEAS BEHIND THE "VICTORY GARDENS 2.0" CONCEPT
with numerous active links to sites and posts.
VICTORY GARDENS 2.0 -- WHY WE SHOULD DO IT - MAINLY THREE REASONS: HEALTH, SAVING THE PLANET, THE ECONOMIC CRISIS
WHO WE ARE, WHAT WE DO, WHY and HOW?
In simple terms,
WHO WE ARE, WHAT WE DO, WHY and HOW? And HOW CAN YOU HELP US?
OUR GOALS - GREEN BUILDINGS & GREEN LIVING
TGB - TRULY GREEN BUILDINGS: The energy and carbon footprint of a "truly green building" is essentially ZERO. Plus, water is no more wasted, but rather immediately recycled on the spot to feed surrounding and integrated building vegetation. Water run-off is allowed to percolate and/or captured, stored for vegetation use when possible. This is not pure theory. It can be done: Some of the current policies of Santa Monica, CA, go in these precise directions.
TGR - TRUE GREEN ROOFS * TGL - TOTALLY GREEN LIVING * TGT - TRULY GREEN TECHNOLOGY
GREEN BUILDING AND GREEN LIVING IS NOT ONLY POSSIBLE, BUT IT IS A PRACTICAL CHOICE WE CAN ALL MAKE TODAY, TOWARD A MUCH MORE RATIONAL, SUSTAINABLE AND COST-EFFECTIVE WAY OF LIVING.
SERENDIPITOUS TIMES
Times of Crisis are times of Change. And when what exists is not that satisfying, times of Change hold great promises. In our own experience, how things fall together nowadays is sometimes nothing shortly of amazing. As we develop this post, we will give some examples of this. In any event, it is now clear that... The time has truly come for a "General Greening".
VICTORY GARDENING 2 & VICTORY GARDENS 2 FAQ
We will add from time to time to this FAQ. If you wish to have a specific question addressed, please ask us in email, or simply by using a "comment". Examples of Questions answered:
Q - Can I use herbicides, pesticides, GMOs, etc, in Victory Gardening?
We will add from time to time to this FAQ. If you wish to have a specific question addressed, please ask us in email, or simply by using a "comment". Examples of Questions answered:
Q - Can I use herbicides, pesticides, GMOs, etc, in Victory Gardening?
Q - What is the view of cutting-edge architects and builders about the idea of Green Buildings, Green Roofs, and Personal Organic Gardening?
Q - Are there SUCCESSFUL MODELS FOR VICTORY GARDENING 2.0?
Q - What is the "Warburg Imperative"?
ANNOUNCING THE VG2 - GARDENER HANDBOOK SERIES
We have created a new blog entirely focused to our coming Gardeners' Handbooks and How To Series. You can find it here: http://vg2gardenerhandbook.blogspot.com/
Best is to start with the following post:
http://vg2gardenerhandbook.blogspot.com/2009/01/sitemap-for-vg2-gardener-handbooks.html
We have created a new blog entirely focused to our coming Gardeners' Handbooks and How To Series. You can find it here: http://vg2gardenerhandbook.blogspot.com/
Best is to start with the following post:
http://vg2gardenerhandbook.blogspot.com/2009/01/sitemap-for-vg2-gardener-handbooks.html
PERMALINK - The permanent link for the present post is: http://victorygardens2.blogspot.com/2009/01/sitemap-for-victory-garden-20.html
A CONCEPT FOR WHICH THE TIME HAS COME
A CONCEPT FOR WHICH THE TIME HAS COME
Victory Gardens 2.0 is a concept for which the time has come. It is simply the idea that in uncertain times, on the quality of the food supply front as well as on the economic front in a more general way, it is everyone's best interest to emulate what was done during World War II, that is, to plant and harvest their own organic food-producing gardens, at the personal level as well as at the community level. A movement that local and state authorities are poised to soon actively support, as they did in the past.
The present blog will focus on presenting the Victory Gardens 2.0 concept, and the different possible avenues to actualize it.
PERMALINK - The permanent link for the present post is: http://victorygardens2.blogspot.com/2009/01/concept-for-which-time-has-come.htm
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