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Post by synergy on Jan 14, 2011 23:24:21 GMT -5
I am not supporting fast food places anyways. I miss the self indulgance of having the convenience of fast foods . But they are not making money off me selling GMO or any other low end food for profit.
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Post by synergy on Jan 13, 2011 20:39:28 GMT -5
Here is an entertaining website representing an integrated grass fed animals free ranging with chickens, bees etc. in Australia. Well worth the time to explore this website as an inspiration as to what an integrated system needs for healthy animal production that can be married with plant production etc. www.mcnf.com.au/
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Post by synergy on Jan 13, 2011 20:31:27 GMT -5
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Post by synergy on Jan 13, 2011 20:19:19 GMT -5
hmm, we attract amazing slugs and snails here . When I lived in the city the Potuguese famillies would harvest snails from the vacant lot next door . I was thinking of digging some water catchment ponds and stock some feeder gold fish, tadpoles, snails to start an ongoing population and make sort of a duck and goose environment but they would be small ponds and ditches , I don't have a large property. I am building beehives and putting in salt licks to funnel visiting deer away from my gardens out to the pasture area. If you make an ideal and synergistic environment I would think some animals would free range well. Snail growing here: www.fastonline.org/CD3WD_40/CD3WD/AGRIC/FB33FE/EN/B98_3.HTM#B98_3_10 If you hit the home highlight there are tons of refernces , some to rare animals raised abroad, microlivestock , lots on edible plants etc. www.fastonline.org/CD3WD_40/CD3WD/INDEX.HTM
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Post by synergy on Jan 13, 2011 14:06:18 GMT -5
I tend to think there are so many undesirable fringe aspects when it is an illegal, resource intensive, for profit venture. On the other hand that frenchman who grew it to deworm his ducks and smoked some , well that is just good permaculture to my way of thinking . I seem to deplore one and celebrate the other.
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Post by synergy on Jan 12, 2011 1:15:49 GMT -5
As scattered as this may sound, I want to try to build a top Bar hive or two myself . I have no bee experience but figured my first goal would be letting them have a healthy colony pollinating the landscape and if I never got honey till I had more equipment or experience later that would be fine, but eventually I would like the benefit of pollen , royal jelly , honey and wax.
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Post by synergy on Jan 12, 2011 1:05:05 GMT -5
Oh good grief, do they have no better sense of what is a legitmate thing to spend time pursuing ? I use a single heat lamp warming up horses backs and chicks. Even if they found a tiny cluster of plants under a single light is even that worth pursing when they have bigger fish to fry?
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Post by synergy on Jan 5, 2011 19:15:31 GMT -5
In this day and age I think non modified , organically home grown food and the endeavour of gardening and who it makes us as people, are as important to me as commodity prices. I am not proud of jewellry or vehicles, I am proud of the produce of my sweat and the fact i can live a lifestyle and steward a garden that is significantly less toxic than most. Certainly food security is now a looming issue. I pause to wonder if that is a rising concern on this forum because we are gardening or if we are gardening because of that concern. But undoubtedly many of you sound like you are adapting to being in a prepper mentality , I know I am and I just started waking up to that point a year ago. Most of you seem steaped in gardening experience and so i am a little surprised this hits home with so many on this forum but then again it should. I am one too for expanding what I grow for my own family and working hard at trying to reduce fossil fuel dependency and live entirely differently than I was raised and differently than everything I see around me, which is why I ended up looking to forums like this.
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Post by synergy on Jan 4, 2011 21:24:50 GMT -5
I wonder if for calories put in, if insects would be good protein ? Snails sound about my speed.
I am currently raising the finest nut, seed and grain fed squirrels around, in the interest of food security , when there are food shortages, that population will be quickly decimated for stew.
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Post by synergy on Dec 29, 2010 21:21:53 GMT -5
I have bartered horse semen for both hay and carpentry and made fabulous friends in the process . Both times I put my end of the deal forward first in good faith and was not dissappointed. Later I started a seed saving and plant swap with these same horse breeders. Barter stays alive and well in British Columbia
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Post by synergy on Dec 14, 2010 23:33:34 GMT -5
Thank you Johno, and I really enjoyed your blog entries.
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Post by synergy on Dec 14, 2010 23:25:54 GMT -5
Oh my goodness ! We can likely not even imagine the reprecussions to global air and water currents possibly being altered, phytoplankton die off , water levels rising and reprecussions all the way up the food chain. It is simplistic to think we will simply enjoy a warmer climate. Change is a dynamic already in play and it may hold some nasty surprises.
I am absolutely out of my realm gardening but i am trying to build my soils and symbiotic relationships on the farm, increase biodiversity here and optimize food production and energy conservation and alternatives with whatever scant resources i can. I am wondering about using salvaged mirrors and reflective surfaces to aid in growing things to extend seasons and increase yields but it always seems optimizing the soil is fundamental.
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Post by synergy on Dec 14, 2010 18:39:37 GMT -5
On other You tube videos concerning compost tea they use other aerator stones sold in the aquarium industry and that is what I would try as well. I agree , just because he capitolizes on his success does not mean he does not have some good points to offer. Even his innoculent may be a superior blend. But it was pointed out to me by someone lving in Alaska that his cold weather type crops thrive in those conditions for many gardeners in that area in part due to increased length of days in a short growing season and microclimate, also he alludes that his healthier crops have less bugs but they pointed out there are less bugs altogether due to the winter and that insects are not as pestulent as we may percieve yet he credits his method without crediting that aspect of his climate. So his reporting may be biased to his benefit. However it really struck me, as I tend to forget, how production could be increased with greater fertility and how deceived our farming industry is with the never ending cycles destroying soil microbial life and depleting fertility only to profit selling their engineered seeds, poisons and fertilizers. My question was also answered about why I see no mulch. The soils there warmed from the solar exposure and mulch would actually insulate sunlight from penetrating and warming the soil. Sorry I am such a novice trying to figure out food production. I am thinking of soil as containing living symbiotic relationships . I am thinking organisms being sometimes delicate and succeptible to sunlight, temperature, maybe even oxygen like sperm and also sperm is time sensitive so I wonder if that comes into play in soil fertility as there would be lifecycles we may not fully understand? In my mind I am trying to understand how charred wood fibre might due to PH or ability to trap air or other gas particles somehow made it superior to the practice of burying logs into dirt beds.
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Post by synergy on Dec 14, 2010 16:08:01 GMT -5
I'd laugh my butt off if some big corporate like Monsanto was moving in on the mary jane seed monopoly. So the seed is selectively bred to be female for production? Is that very achievable for small scale growers ? I think I need to have a better idea of reproduction ... obviously practice did not make perfect...
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Post by synergy on Dec 14, 2010 13:57:38 GMT -5
With the expectation of olives, well small commercial enterprises are producing crops here in Coastal British Columbia and Oregon , so you can google and read about their varieties they imported. I have posted it on here somewhere before. We are 7b on climate charts so hardiness is not the toughest but we get isolated bouts to minus 16 celsius and I am told to minius 20 .
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