Planting by the phase of the moon April 2010

Last Quarter To New Moon: Do Not Plant

Full Moon To New Moon: Plow, Cultivate, weed and reap. 

New Moon April 14th

Harvesting poppy's

This is the second year that the investment of $4 into poppy seed has multiplies into glory!

This is what I get to see when walking out my front door. This morning my kids wanted to go to the bus stop on their own (just 5 houses down) so I had to go harvest the poppy of course to keep my eye on them so I know they are safe on the school bus.

The poppy having exploded with bloom now have many many seed pods that have matured. It is essential to continuous blooming to harvest off the pods. Now they are called poppy for a few good reasons. When you remove the pods they literally POP off. When the pods dry they actually do pop to disperse the seed. The seed does really pop out of the pod. As the pod dries it curls and then bursts.

It was so peaceful sitting there an hour listening to the music of the bees as they enjoyed to blooms. They are so calm and I feel calm around them. I was thinking about how folks are so scared of them. They are so beautiful and duty compels them to task. They tend the pollination we so need to sustain life here. Folks just go indiscriminately killing off the living things. One day like the si-fi movies , I wonder if they will just kill it all off.  No fresh harvests of fruits or vegetables no tree nuts or vines fruited. No olive trees for oil. May it never be in my grand children's life time. Fear God lest it might be in our own.
They sang to me working right along side of me. We worked peacefully together. No FEAR. Life is like that the fear all around us, waiting to see how we might respond to it...respect or destruction. Living with fear as a mentor. You see when the sun gets brighter on the flower the bees get very busy in that place, out of respect I move onto the flowers in the shade. They come to me and then move onto the places I am not. We have NO NEED to harm each other for we have mutual respect toward each other.

These are the pods, as they are harvested the plants are recharged to flower all the more for they no longer extend the energy making seed.

First of many harvests.

There is 3-4 pounds of pods = perhaps 1/4 cup of tiny poppy seed.

Think the little black seed you so often see on bread.

Now I can plant these this fall or bake with them.

However be warned that if your employer drug tests it could show a positive for opiate if you bake with poppy or even purchase breads with poppies on them. We have never had to have such labs but I have heard tales of such woes.

Those mischievous gnomes!

Morning harvest

The reward of a mornings work.

Click any image to enlarge

Hens a laying...

Borage in the lettuce bed. Lots of pollinators enjoying it.

This the east facing lettuce bed. I had to take this way back.

Clippings of the flowers are in a bucket of water.

Look at the size of that stalk!

Borage in the sun...

The Swiss chard, spinach, chive, brocolli are all thriving well.

As is the margeram and camomile's at the far end.

Looking toward the west side of the shed...

The bok choy in flower (for seed) is hiding behind the other borage that was trimmed after this shot.

The celery and the beets foreground.

Bok choy seed stalks, there are several plants still growing yet.

The broccoli it is now mostly gone to seed, save for a few heads left yet on side shoots.

This seed stalk healthy is harvested to dry for nest season.

Now this like to kill me. 

Yes folks those are the steel arbor sections you gave us. I saw this in my minds eye, suppose sometimes I ought not to pay attention to that minds eye but this time...well it is the cats meow

5 tomato plants here

 one heirloom brandiwine

2 yellow pear

100's a salad red

one beef steak for burgers in the summer

Now flowers over here will yield many good pollinators and lots of summer tomato.

Another borage

French marigold, seed pod heads in hand are hard to see.

Harvest to scatter this week.

Kale trimmed and carrots harvested left soil to till to plant the onions.

A few here and a few down on the other side of the kale.

now a little bit of blood meal and some nice light potting soil mixed in to my well composted earth...

Onions to harvest end of summer for the fall and winter months.

I got the hoses coiled and boy is my back tired from that one. One of the many skills gained in childhood working in the family gas station. I often got stuck with that job. Taught me well though.

This guy was laughing at me and causing mischief the whole time I am sure of it!

Noticed him as I was getting ready to close the work down.

Now how did those kids get up there?

The old braniwine heirloom made it through the winter. 

It was given a bit of Epsom salt and some bone meal to get the issues under control.

You see the other gnome?

this is broccoli raab seed almost ready to shell and store for next season.

Now I did this once had all of these folded after washing them. With some confusion over dew point thinking it was low temp to come one night I laid them out to cover. Now they will need attention again.

The tomato field got a good layer of chicken dung and pine shavings.

Well better get on with the day.

I have had a good 45 minute rest. 

Ye ha!

Planting by the phase of the moon Febuary 2010 zone 8

Full to new              Jan 30 to Feb 13th           Plow, Cultivate, weed and reap.

New to 1st Quarter  Feb 13, to Feb 21st           Good for Planting above-ground crops with       outside seeds,
flowering annuals.    


First quarter to full    Feb 21st to Feb 28th        Good for planting above ground crops with inside seeds.

Daily store of greens

 

 lettuce, corn salad

  

 turnips harvested today

  

 broccoli raab

  

kale

  

bok choy , celery , lettuce

  

 celery, beets

  

 spinach, chive

  

 Swiss chard

Supper in the garden

Is Genetically Modified Corn Toxic?

By Michael Reilly | Sat Jan 23, 2010 07:13 PM ET

In the United States, we grow and eat corn whose genes have been tweaked to make the plants more resistant to pests and pesticides. Most European countries don't, largely because the citizenry fears it isn't safe. But try as scientists might, they haven't been able to find any good reason why we shouldn't eat genetically modified (GM) food.
Until now. Maybe. A new analysis of data released by Monsanto pried from Monsanto's lawyers' cold dead hands by a tag-team of legal experts at Greenpeace and other groups suggests there may be something to the idea that we shouldn't be eating maize that's had its DNA messed with.
The study found that three strains of modded crops -- MON 810 and MON 863, which are resistant to pests, and NK 603, which is foritified to withstand weed killer -- significantly disrupted the blood chemistry of rats who ate them. According to an article in New Scientist:

With each of the three strains of maize, researchers say they found unusual concentrations of hormones and other compounds in the blood and urine of the tested rats, suggesting each strain impaired kidney and liver function. By the end of the trials, the female rats that were fed MON 863 had elevated blood-sugar levels and raised concentrations of fatty substances called triglycerides. Both are potential precursors of diabetes, according to [lead author Gilles-Eric Séralini of the University of Caen in France].

...

"What we've shown is clearly not proof of toxicity, but signs of toxicity," says Seralini. "I'm sure there's no acute toxicity, but who's to say there are no chronic effects?"

The researchers are suggesting that if the GM corn has the same affect in humans that is does in rats, we're unknowingly taxing our kidneys and livers, and probably raising the risk of damaging those organs.
But as is often the case in these type of reports, the conclusions aren't terribly convincing. For one, the effects are barely statistically significant, and the article goes on to say that independent toxicologists who saw the paper said Seralini was reading too much into the results.
So we're left with ambiguity. Terrific.
There's just one thing I want to know: why do activist groups have to team up to force Monsanto to release tests showing whether or not GM food is toxic? Shouldn't food have to be demonstrably NON-poisonous before anyone is allow to start feeding it to people??
Source: New Scientist
Image: Texas A&M University

"Least-known Bird" Has Been Found

Researchers at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have found the breeding area of the elusive large-billed reed warbler. That's a big deal, because according to BirdLife International, the species is the world's "least-known bird."

The distinction may sound ominous, but it's also impressive considering the amount of time that has gone between warbler sightings. After the first specimen was discovered in India in 1867, it took well over a hundred years to find the second -- another single bird found in Thailand in 2006.