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dung beetle rolling dung ball
Dung beetles are important insects that help dramatically with the decomposition of animal manure. Both adults and larvae consume large amounts of dung. There are several different species; some live in woodlands and others dwell in pastures. They are a great help in aerating soil, decomposing manure, and adding nutrients to the soil. By aiding decomposition of manure patties, the reduce pasture fouling and encourage more grass and forbes to grow.
Here is a cute, short video that shows a bit of how dung beetles operate and how persistant they are.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfUf5IawJ30
Many small dairy and beef herds still use pastures to provide the major part of their nutritional forage. More cattle producers are using daily rotations on their pastures. The cattle are moved every 1-4 days to new paddocks. Dung beetles help speed the decomposition and encourage good nutrient distribution. This practice of moving the cattle daily, or even weekly, minimizes overgrazing and helps the pastures be more productive without outside fertilizers.
Pesticides, on pastures or animals have a buy viagra strong negative impact on dung beetle population. If you do not use pesticides, check the manure patties for little black or brown beetles that burrow in the patties. They take the manure down into the soil, helping put the nutrients where they do the most good.
We
have also used cow manure as fertilizer in our heirloom gardens.
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given a choice, cattle eat the non-GMO corn and leave the genetically modified corn alone. cialis online Watch this video and see. http://vimeo.com/22416828 Then judge for yourself. Are you wise to continue eating
GMO foods? Or is it time to demand that we have that choice? Study the guide at www.non-GMOshoppingguide.com.
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to start our heirlooms from seed. There just aren’t that many heirloom vegetable starts available loca
lly. I can grow better quality starts that I can buy, for the most part. It costs quite a bit less even if you buy the potting soil. When you buy potting soil, do not skimp. We grow alot of starts so we buy several large bags of potting soil. WE get it from a company that supplies commercial growers. They cannot afford to use poor ingrediants. They would not get any reorders. Ask at local nurseries to find what they recommend and use themselves.
I want to offer you an option to buying potting soil.
1 bucket of each of the following: coarse vermiculite, coarse sand, decomposed leaf mold and good garden soil. The last two should be screened through 1/4 inch mesh. Add a cup of lime and a half bucket of screened charcoal from the wood stove or fireplace. Also add 2 cups of fertilizer.
Here are your fertilizer options:
4 parts composted leaf mold, 3 parts wood ashes, 2 parts bone meal, and 1 part blood meal. Mix and measure out 2 cups for your potting soil.
Our soil is always low on nitrogen, so I prefer to use this recipe:
4 parts leaf mold, 3 parts wood ashes, 2 parts bone meal, and 3 parts blood meal.
Either one of these mixes added to your potting soil will give your plants a very good start. You can also use them at half strength for monthly feedings.
Start with good quality heirloom seeds and you will have good quality heirloom vegetables to harvest.
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The new food safe
ty bills have nothing in them to protect you. They protect the big industry in their push for genetically modified foods. The law requirements are so one sided, that the average small organic farmer will not be able to stay in business. In India, the price of cotton seed went from 5 rupees to 3600 rupees per kilogram for Bt cotton. India says 84,000 farmers have committed suicide because they cannot compete.
US Government has spent 3-5 billion per year to prop up prices of GM crops that nobody wanted.
Watch this 14 minute video about genetically modified foods. It will help you understand many things including the fertility issue. It is a fascinating video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAL_AMdMXqY&feature=player_embedded
You begin to understand why we are so passionate about getting heirloom garden seeds into your hands! Be the future leader in your community.
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in GMO’s. Almost all animal feed cosists of GMO corn and soybeans. This modifies all meats, eggs,
and dairy from these animals.
About half the sugar comes from genetically modified sugar beets. Only “cane sugar”, which is not from sugar beets, is NOT genetically modified. We strongly suggest you watch this video. Then check out and support California’s Proposition 37 which requires GMO labeling on food products in California.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvU2yH4IpBo&feature=related
Of course, I highly recommend that you begin growing your own vegetables from heirloom seed. The sooner, the better!
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We all know “you are what you eat.” Now there is scientific evidence that this is biochemically true. Altered DNA are now found in the organs of the eater. This DNA begins to program your body in ways that do not enhance life. It is likely that this is one of the causes of infertility. This process regulates the target genes in mammals and changes the expressions of the purposes of your body functions.
You are absorbing information that can alter the communication and expression of your cells. The more genetically modified food you consume, the less human you will become. By eating Bt corn, you might become a person who is coded to produce insecticide in your own body, just like the Bt corn is programed. These genetic modifications can pass through your digestion, and you can become a pesticide factory.
Watch this 13 minute video
by Mike Adams from Natural News, to understand more clearly why you must avoid GMO’s and grow your own food with heirloom seeds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-IJikX1144&feature=related
There is more about this in an article in The Atlantic:
We encourage you to grow your own and to buy local.
]]>l use — if it wants to.” So says Mark Bittman of the New York Times. Read this short article about the trial that was done on 22 acres in Iowa. They used three different models .
“The longer rotations produced better yields of both corn and soy, reduced the need for nitrogen fertilizer and herbicides by up to 88 percent, reduced the amounts of toxins in groundwater 200-fold
and didn’t reduce profits by a single cent.”
The major change that is needed buy cialis online is one of mindset. We don’t need to use tons of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides to produce tons of food.
It is quite possible to have a profitable organic farm. I have spoken with many of them from across the country. Yes, their neighbors think they are crazy. But as one of them told me, “I have invited my neighbors to come over any time and look at the bottom line.” He was farming without chemicals and doing it profitably. I don’t remember his exact acreage, but it was well over 100 acres. It CAN be done.
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our farmers' market table
A friend of ours does a large farmers’ market. Here is part of her newsletter. We, as consumers, are so concerned if we find an insect in/on our food . I realized that if the bugs don’t want to eat it, at least a few of them, I probably don’t want it either. Because if there are never any insects on the produce, it has probably been sprayed, chmically fertilized, etc to the point that it is not nutritious enough for a bug to eat it. Here is the other side of it:
“Hey Laura, you eat lettuce. Do you find any bugs?”
“I do, but so what? Your lettuce is delicious and it keeps for a week! I made individual salads last week Thursday. Then plans changed and I finally ate the last one today. Green peppers, green onions, radishes; it was still perfect!”
We do our best to keep every little bug here on the farm. As I was rinsing the lettuce this afternoon, (Brrrr! It was wet and cold! But the rain was so wonderfully welcome!) I got to pondering on how commercial veggies are perfect with no sign of an insect anywhere. How is it accomplished?
Organic growers have a few allowable organic remedies. But if we kill a bug it is sure to die INSIDE the head of lettuce. It doesn’t crawl away to the outside edge of the garden and die
there. So how can commercial lettuce never have a bug? Do those fields have no bugs anywhere anytime?
In my memory I can still smell a commercial tomato field out in California many years ago. Henry was hauling semi trailer loads of veggies from CA to Minneapolis. Every week he made the trip. Once a year, each family member had a turn to ride with Dad for a week. As Henry waited for our load of veggies, we parked next to a tomato field. Obviously the harvest was over but there were a few odd and end tomatoes in the field.
Dutifully, I asked and received permission to ‘glean’. They even gave me a box. “Help yourself!”
I meandered into the field, excited to experience a ‘big’ farm. I picked oh, maybe five to seven tomatoes. But I noticed something. There was no life in this field. Not a cricket. Not a grasshopper. No worms. Not a weed. Nothing but dying tomato vines.
The box went next to my feet in the cab of the truck. Several miles later, Henry asked, “When do you plan to eat those tomatoes?”
“I don’t. I keep seeing that totally dead field and I can smell field chemicals on these tomatoes. Next rest area, this box is getting kicked out!”
So, although I am sorry that you may find a bug that I missed in your lettuce, I am not sorry that our veggies don’t smell like chemicals.
And our veggies taste GOOD, too!
Daughter-in-law said she put our carrots in the crock pot with a pot roast. “My gravy was sweet. I didn’t understand why. Then I ate the carrots. Oh, my! Your carrots are SO good! I’m sorry but the carrots from the store taste like wood.”
Sweet!!
One more Market next week!!!
The choice is yours; either buy from an organic grower, or get yourself some heirloom seeds and grow your own!
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Does the public have the right to know what is in their food? Proposition 37 gives California voters the choice of demanding this right. It will be voted on November 6. The scorecard below shows you who favors and
who opposes this proposition. This comes from Food Democracy Now. This is all just one more reason for you to grow your own heirloom vegetables. If you can’t do it now, at least
get yourself a long term storage seed kit so you will have the option in the future.
Years ago, I decided I did not want to can with sugar. My sister-in-law gave me a book called Putting it Up With Honey. I have used honey ever since. I don’t always follow that particular book, but it did give me my start in canning with honey. Early in my career, I worked in a health food store. They sold something called Pomona Pectin. With this pectin, you could make jam with honey, or sugar, or no sweetener at all.
I still use Pomona Pectin. I buy it in bulk and share with like minded friends. My jam sets up 99% of the time. I have made lots of jam/jelly for our family as well as for farmers’ markets. If you prefer to use sugar, you
can use alot less than regular sure-jell type pectin. To make strawberry jam, it calls for 4 cups mashed berries and your choice of 1/2-1 cup honey, or 3/4 – 2 cups sugar. Normal sure jell pectin calls for 5 cups strawberries and 7 cups sugar! That is just way too much for me! I usually use the minimum amount of honey. Then I don’t feel guilty putting lots of jam on our bread. I am eating mostly fruit and that is what I want.
Pomona Pectin is easy to work with if you remember one thing. The pectin must be mixed with sugar or honey before it touches any juice or water. It will not mix smoothly with any liquid. I have made many jams and jellies; strawberry, raspberry, sour cherry, blackberry, blueberry, peach, plum, buffalo berry, rhubarb, hot pepper, kiwi, orange marmalade, peach/cantaloupe, grape, etc.
Check out Pomona Pectin and be ready for jam/jelly making next spring. You can also buy it in your local health food store.
Jams and jellies are a very nice addition to your survival food supply. A few pounds of pectin will last for years. Mine kept for around 10 years until I ran out and had to buy more. It seems expensive, but a little goes a long way. It’s kind of like a long term storage, heirloom seed kit. Get yours now!
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