My Ohio Garden Chores in Late April

What I am doing for my garden update:

1) I cut a sweet potato in half today (from last year’s garden) and I am letting the cut cure. Then I will place the cut directly on soil in a pot inside the house. It will go wild with shoots, which I will snap off of the tater and put in a water vase. Within two weeks of that it will have rooted sufficiently and it should be ready to plant… I do this bare rooted.They are pretty temperature sensitive though, so be careful of your timing on planting in the garden. I also like them in containers for trailing foliage.

2) Dear hubby bought me seed potatoes, grade A. So I will have to cut them up and let them cure after rolling them in sulfur, to prevent rotting, for a couple of days. Then they will get planted every 1.5 ft apart in a deeply worked row of the garden that usually gets infringed by shade earlier in the fall, due to the seasonal changing sun position. It won’t bother them though as they will have died off around that time already.
I actually prefer grade B potatoes as they are smaller and then you don’t have to cut and cure them, just plant them as they come.

3) I am still running wheelbarrow loads of rabbit manure to the garden and covering the soil with a tarp to warm it up, speed up mulch breakdown and cut down on weeds.

4) Dear hubby also picked up a cold-frame from the side of the road meant for trash pick-up (old windows on frame still) and I will start lettuce and mustard greens asap under it.

5) Looming clean-up remains for the strawberry bed for spring production… I’ve been considering scrapping them for all the work and little produce you get if you try to do them organically here in Ohio… and I want a sweeter variety. Any suggestions?

6) I am still removing Sun-chokes/Jerusalem artichokes and feeding them to my rabbits. I’d like to move them all down to the creek-side since they are native, and let them do their thing down there…

7) If you haven’t done it already,  get a soil testing kit at a greenhouse to see how your proposed garden area needs amended (what you need to add to it). Grab Jerry Baker’s Garden Secrets for do-able natural amendments… though I’m not too convinced on the  efficacy of his tonics.

Herping for Fun

It’s about that time of year… to go herping(in the Northern states or high altitudes)!!! Herping is searching for herps (amphibians and reptiles). Anybody interested? A low-lying wetlands park would be perfect. Equipment needed: boots & willingness to get muddy… small nets would really help out too & pan to observe them in. An identification guide would also come in handy. I can’t wait! I could hear the Bufo americanus singing this afternoon. This would be great for homeschoolers needing hands on biology experience… coming soon, morel season!
Side note, I have now procurred a contract for raw cow’s milk through a herd share! I made delicious butter today in a mixer from the cream off of the top… sigh 🙂

Quick Chemistry Quip for Nutrition: AB ≠ A ≠ A + B

 

Water (H2O, essential ingredient to life and 60-70% of your body) is not the same as oxygen (O2 needed for respiration but toxic in too high or low of levels). You take oxygen and ad 4 measly hydrogens and you get water. You can breathe oxygen, in the right proportions and live happily. Add those hydrogen atoms and you die… unless you drink it. Route of exposure is central to toxicity.

Neither is oxygen (O2) or water (H2O) the same as hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Add one more oxygen to water and you get a wonderful toxin, made especially in your cells to kill invaders before spitting them out(1) or to commit suicide if the cell ‘decides’ something has gone wrong with themself (say cancer)(2)… a “for the greater good” decision for the community of cells that make up the whole person… you.

It really ‘gets my goat’ when doctor advise against or for certain foods because they believe they are quoting real evidence (what they refer to as “evidence based medicine.”(3)). I mean, the reality is that they are often telling you… “Don’t eat item A…” because somewhere… there is a study which said “AB” was bad for you. That is like saying, “Don’t breathe oxygen ever,” because they read a study which showed how detrimental it was to breathe water.

Even substances which have the exact amount of particular molecules can have vastly different consequences in the body if they are merely rearranged. Think of a paddle wheel at a grist mill. Take that same paddle and make it so it only will turn in the opposite direction of normal. Will that grist mill continue to function? No. It won’t.

So the point is… any ingredient which has its chemical structure altered, can no longer be considered the same ingredient! It may be derived from that same source… but I can derive distilled water from milk, and it is not the same. Or, I can make butter from the cream from that milk… still, very different in how it is used and I didn’t even add any molecules to make it. So to say that soybean oil, after being hydrogenated, is merely hydrogenated soybean oil… is fallacy and deceit. The same goes for lard. When you read how bad lard is for you, do they specify that it is the hydrogenated product of chemical processes to create a different substance which still, falsely, retains the name of lard, or was it rendered from fat by merely heating it enough to separate the oil from the flesh? A ≠ AB.

Always look, listen and research critically, asking these important specific questions when any statement is made.

So that is why a doctor may tell you not to eat coconut oil if you have heart disease, even though studies show how beneficial it can be (4). Or not to eat lard (5) if you have diabetes, when there are also studies that support it (6).

 

1. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080102134129.htm

2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19723104

3. http://www.cochrane.org/about-us/evidence-based-health-care

4. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0009912004001201

5. http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/17752774/reload=0;jsessionid=oWg4jiX8Ul5CX3xzUr79.18

6. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1460-9568.2005.04125.x/abstract;jsessionid=1634196F8DD0946FBE83BA3EB10D3F25.f03t04?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false