What to Plant in May

from ufseeds: Finally warm temperatures are here to stay and you don't have to worry about that frost. You may think it's too late to grow all your favorite vegetables from seed but warm May temperatures have made the soil perfect for sowing seeds.

Warm soil will allow for fast germination and growing plants. Good choices are summertime kitchen garden staples like squash, beans, cucumbers and melons.

Feds sting Amish farmer selling raw milk locally

from washingtontimes: A yearlong sting operation, including aliases, a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and surreptitious purchases from an Amish farm in Pennsylvania, culminated in the federal government announcing this week that it has gone to court to stop Rainbow Acres Farm from selling its contraband to willing customers in the Washington area.

The product in question: unpasteurized milk.

It’s a battle that’s been going on behind the scenes for years, with natural foods advocates arguing that raw milk, as it’s also known, is healthier than the pasteurized product, while the Food and Drug Administration says raw milk can carry harmful bacteria such as salmonella, E. coli and listeria.

“It is the FDA’s position that raw milk should never be consumed,” said Tamara N. Ward, spokeswoman for the FDA, whose investigators have been looking into Rainbow Acres for months, and who finally last week filed a 10-page complaint in federal court in Pennsylvania seeking an order to stop the farm from shipping across state lines any more raw milk or dairy products made from it.

Real Food, Real Farmers, Real Community

from localharvest: The best organic food is what's grown closest to you. Use our website to find farmers' markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area, where you can buy produce, grass-fed meats, and many other goodies. Want to support this great web site? Shop in our catalog for things you can't find locally!

There are almost two million farms in the USA. About 80% of those are small farms, and a large percentage are family owned. More and more of these farmers are now selling their products directly to the public. They do this via CSA programs, Farmers' Markets, Food Coops, u-picks, farm stands, and other direct marketing channels. Would you like to support your local farmer? Use our map to find a small farm near you!

Large scale chemical agriculture is poisoning our soils and our water, and weakening our communities. By buying direct from a family farm you can help put a stop to this unfortunate trend. By buying organic produce from your local farmer, you are working to maintain a healthy environment, a vibrant community, and a strong and sustainable local economy for you and your kids to thrive in.

Selecting a site for your new garden

from examiner: During World War II, Americans were encouraged to grow a “Victory Garden” in their backyard. The idea being that a home garden would help offset shortages in farm production, food processing, and transportation.

If you're concerned about the quality, availability and high price of supermarket produce, you may want to consider starting a new garden or expanding your existing garden.

A vegetable garden not only decreases the strain on your pocketbook, it promotes a healthy lifestyle. Home-grown vegetables taste better than store-bought. They are fresher and have a higher nutritional value. By growing your own, you'll know if there are any extra additives such as fertilizers or pesticides used.

A garden also has intrinsic value. It is an active sport that can be enjoyed by the whole family. A well-tended vegetable garden is an attractive addition to any yard, porch, balcony, or window box. And, a garden will always give you something to talk about with friends and neighbors.

ALL allotments under threat

from farminmypocket: The UK government is quietly undertaking a review of ‘statutory burdens’ (things that they must do, by law) on local authorities, to enable them to cut costs. That’s a good thing in principle, but finding that the provision of allotments is up for grabs is a bit of a shock. The UK government is willing to sell off cherished public assets to save very small amounts of money, as demonstrated by the recent forestry fiasco. Also, anyone in politics will tell you that local authorities (LAs) don’t always act in the best interests of the people they are supposed to be serving.

Demand for allotments is at an all-time high, and many areas have quite breathtaking waiting lists. If the requirement goes, there will be a virtual freeze on new allotment provision. As leases expire, many LAs may refuse to renew them in order to free up the land for housing, office space or car parks. City allotmenteering could gradually become a thing of the past, and a third of a million allotment holders could find themselves standing in line to buy their fruit and veg at Tesco like everybody else.

14 Tips for Starting Your Own Seeds

from organicgardening: Ensure that your plants are organic from start to finish by starting your own seeds.

Start your own seeds and you can be sure that your plants have been raised organically from first to last. And by sprouting and nursing your own seedlings, you don't have to wait for warm weather to get your hands dirty. Best of all, starting your own seeds is easy and fun. Here's how to get started now:

Place sure bets
Some plants lend themselves to home germination better than others. Surefire vegetables include basil, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, chives, leeks, lettuce, onions, peppers, and tomatoes. Some reliable annual flowers are alyssum, cosmos, marigolds, and zinnias. Perennials include Shasta daisies, columbines, and hollyhocks.

Get the timing down
To calculate when to sow your seeds, go to our seed-starting chart, print it out and then fill in the blanks. Then you will have a planting plan you can follow through the season.

Gather containers
Reuse last year's nursery flats if you have some around. Otherwise, any container 2 or 3 inches deep will do. Punch holes for drainage into the bottom of containers and set them into trays. Protect against plant disease by thoroughly cleaning all used containers: Wash them in hot, soapy water, and rinse with a dilute solution of household bleach and water. If you want a less-irritating substitute for the bleach, use distilled white vinegar.

How naturopaths can survive states criminalizing alternative medicine

from foodfreedom: An amendment to North Carolina’s Unauthorized Practice of Medicine Act would have changed the original bill (SB 31) from making alternative medicine a felony to a Class 1 Misdemeanor. Violators would face jail time after a first conviction. However, on April 14, the amendment failed. The bill has gone back to committee for further clarification and possible redraft.

Section 90-19, Practicing without license; penalties of NC’s General Statutes provides a list of exemptions. The only section potentially relating to homeopaths, naturopaths, and herbalists, by my lay reading of it, is (c)(5), which exempts:

“The treatment of the sick or suffering by mental or spiritual means without the use of any drugs or other material means.”

According to Medicine.net, homeopaths use minute quantities of drugs; naturopaths use physical forces such as heat, water, light, air and massage, but may also recommend herbs or drugs; and herbalists use herbs to treat medical conditions. All of these constitute “material means” which will be criminalized in North Carolina’s code, if S.B. 31 passes in its current form.

18 of Nature’s Most Powerful Medicinal Plants

from webecoist: From marijuana to catnip, there are hundreds of remarkably common herbs, flowers, berries and plants that serve all kinds of important medicinal and health purposes that might surprise you: anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, insect repellent, antiseptic, expectorant, antibacterial, detoxification, fever reduction, antihistamine and pain relief. Here are eighteen potent medical plants you’re likely to find in the wild – or even someone’s backyard – that can help with minor injuries, scrapes, bites and pains.*

Marijuana

Seriously. Though marijuana is still illegal in the United States, it is legal in 12 states for medicinal purposes, and if a case of poison ivy in the woods isn’t a medicinal purpose, what is? Marijuana was *mostly* legal until 1970 when it became classified as a hard drug. No one thought of it as a dangerous or illicit drug until the 20th century; in fact, hemp was George Washington’s primary crop and Thomas Jefferson’s secondary crop. The Declaration of Independence is written on it; the Gutenberg Bible was printed on hemp, too. There’s actually an environmental dimension to legalizing marijuana – hemp is a remarkable and renewable plant, offering all kinds of foodstuff and product uses that surpass cotton and plastic. But health benefits are well documented, from depression and anxiety relief to reduced blood pressure, pain alleviation and glaucoma treatment. It is not addictive, does not kill brain cells and is not a “gateway” drug – in fact, when pot is more available, studies show that the use of hard drugs like heroin and cocaine actually decreases. The bottom line for hikers: when your leg is broken from a misjudged boulder hopping attempt (pain) and a bear has eaten your friend (depression) and you’re lost because you forgot the compass (dumbass), consult the cannabis.

Ireland Says Not In This Country: Bans Genetically Modified Crops

from treehugger: Prince Charles has called it the "biggest environmental disaster of all time", while Monsanto and others maintain it's safe for humans and the environment. Genetically modified foods are a contentious issue, but Ireland is erring on the side of caution, placing a ban on growing any genetically modified crops.

Ireland will ban growing of GM crops, and a voluntary GM-free label can be placed on all animal products such as meat, poultry, eggs, fish, crustaceans, and dairy that are raised with GM-free feed, according to a GM-Free Ireland press release. Ireland joins Japan and Egypt as one of the few but growing number of countries that have banned the cultivation of GM crops.

Oakland Gardener Questions Need For Permit To Sell Produce

from sfgate: Novella Carpenter took over a vacant lot on a hardscrabble corner of West Oakland eight years ago and turned it into a working farm of vegetables, goats, rabbits and, sometimes, pigs.

Carpenter milked goats, made cheese and ate much of the produce. She also wrote a popular book, "Farm City," about the experience and became an icon of the Bay Area's urban farming movement.

But the future of her Ghost Town Farm is in question. This week, Oakland officials suggested it may need to close. The reason: She sells excess produce and needs a costly permit to do so.

"It seems ridiculous," said Carpenter, 38. "I need a conditional use permit to sell chard?"

The news stunned the region's urban farmers and their supporters, who questioned how a fundamental human task that goes back millennia could become illegal.

"It's incredibly sad that people can't grow food and sell it to folks," said Barbara Finnin, executive director of City Slicker Farms, an Oakland nonprofit that runs produce markets and helps people start their own urban farms.

The Garden Of Eden - Adam Purple Podcast

from harveywang: Adam Purple (rev. les ego) is a social activist, philosopher, and urban gardener/revolutionary. He created the world-famous eARThWORK, The Garden of Eden, which flourished on Manhattan’s Lower East Side from 1975-1986. He is also the author-inventor of ZENtences!, an exponential (non-linear) book. A unique copy of this work may be studied in the Miniature Collection, Rare Books Division, New York Public Library. His social activism continues online today with the ‘speciesurvivalibrary’ Yahoo! Group, which can be joined by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com.

Adam Purple talks about his life, work, and the future of huWOmankind (species survival) in this 40-minute interview. By the early 1970’s, much of Manhattans’s Lower East Side had become a desolate, crime-ridden place. In the midst of this, Adam Purple started a garden in the backyard of his tenement building at 184 Forsyth Street. In time, the surrounding tenements were torn down and Purple’s world-famous eARThWORK, The Garden of Eden, grew to 15,000 square feet and included 45 fruit and nut trees. He carted off tons of refuse and created virgin topsoil with horse manure from Central Park as well as his own “night soil.” To create the Garden, he used simple tools and raw muscle power. Adam “zenvisioned” the Garden expanding until it replaced the asphalt and skyscrapers of New York. Though the city was presented with numerous alternatives that would have spared it or incorporated it into the new structure, The Garden of Eden was bulldozed in 1986 to make way for a federally funded housing project, which did not include an apartment for Adam or space for a new garden. To view a gallery of photographs of the Garden, visit: http://www.eclectart.com/gardenofeden.html.

42 Flowers You Can Eat

from mnn: Adding flowers to your food can be a nice addition of color and flavor, but be sure to follow these tips for eating flowers safely.

The culinary use of flowers dates back thousands of years to the Chinese, Greek and Romans. Many cultures use flowers in their traditional cooking — think of squash blossoms in Italian food and rose petals in Indian food.

Adding flowers to your food can be a nice way to add color, flavor and a little whimsy. Some are spicy, and some herbacious, while others are floral and fragrant. The range is surprising.

It’s not uncommon to see flower petals used in salads, teas, and as garnish for desserts, but they inspire creative uses as well — roll spicy ones (like chive blossoms) into handmade pasta dough, incorporate floral ones into homemade ice cream, pickle flower buds (like nasturtium) to make ersatz capers, use them to make a floral simple syrup for use in lemonade or cocktails. (See a recipe for Dandelion Syrup here.) I once stuffed gladiolus following a recipe for stuffed squash blossoms — a little out-there, I know, but they were great. So many possibilities…

Garden as if your life depended on it, because it will

from foodfreedom: Spring has sprung—at least south of the northern tier of states where snow still has a ban on it—and the grass has ‘riz. And so has the price of most foods, which is particularly devastating just now when so many Americans are unemployed, underemployed, retired or retiring, on declining or fixed incomes and are having to choose between paying their mortgages, credit card bills, car payments, and medical and utility bills and eating enough and healthily. Many are eating more fast food, prepared foods, junk food—all of which are also becoming more expensive—or less food.

In some American towns, and not just impoverished backwaters, as many as 30 percent of residents can’t afford to feed themselves and their families sufficiently, let alone nutritiously. Here in the Piedmont Triad of North Carolina where I live it’s 25 percent. Across the country one out of six of the elderly suffers from malnutrition and hunger. And the number of children served one or two of their heartiest, healthiest meals by their schools grows annually as the number of them living at poverty levels tops twenty percent. Thirty-seven million Americans rely on food banks that now routinely sport half-empty shelves and report near-empty bank accounts. And this is a prosperous nation!

Why Gardening Makes You Happy and Cures Depression

from permaculture: While mental health experts warn about depression as a global epidemic, other researchers are discovering ways we trigger our natural production of happy chemicals that keep depression at bay, with surprising results. All you need to do is get your fingers dirty and harvest your own food.

In recent years I’ve come across two completely independent bits of research that identified key environmental triggers for two important chemicals that boost our immune system and keep us happy - serotonin and dopamine. 

What fascinated me as a permaculturist and gardener were that the environmental triggers happen in the garden when you handle the soil and harvest your crops.

Getting down and dirty is the best ‘upper’ – Serotonin

Getting your hands dirty in the garden can increase your serotonin levels – contact with soil and a specific soil bacteria, Mycobacterium vaccae, triggers the release of serotonin in our brain according to research. Serotonin is a happy chemical, a natural anti-depressant and strengthens the immune system. Lack of serotonin in the brain causes depression.

Alchemy in the Garden

from villagehealthservices: The garden has always been a source of inspiration and base material for preparing Alchemical substances, but the techniques of Alchemy are not so commonly used in cultivating the garden itself. Most folks would agree that regardless of what you might be making, the quality of the material you start with, always plays a role in the quality of the finished product. Alchemy strives to elevate and enervate plants and minerals to create medicines, and there is no reason why we shouldn’t attempt to do the same with our base materials. After all, plants are living beings, and the more life force we cultivate in them, the more they can offer for human transformation. In a sense, it pays serious dividends in our medicines, if we invest in biological capital.

There are many techniques the gardener can use to build physical and energetic capacity in our fields. Alchemic techniques are paralleled in the garden with processes like culturing native microflora(Fermentation), extracting minerals for soil building (Digestion and Fixation), and making homeopathic remedies (Calcination). Similar to Alchemy, minding the stars has always been of critical importance to farmers and gardeners, and I recommend the practice as essential for optimum success. Direct connections between Alchemy and gardening are not straight out of tradition, but do share many similar techniques and perspectives. I have collected in the following, some of the most relevant agricultural concepts to Alchemy and Spagyrics, as well as directions for various garden preparations.

How To Grow Strawberries

from cityfoodgrowers: One of the joys of organic gardening is the strawberry patch. It’s a wonderful treat to wander down to the patch after a day's work in the garden and have an exquisite tasting strawberry. Strawberries grow in a diverse range of climates and need care to grow well. You will soon find that with appropriate care, your strawberry patch will need to get bigger.

It’s unfortunate that such a wonderfully nutritious and sweet tasting fruit is often turned into big red tasteless mush by chemical farming. The number of times I have heard people say over the last few years that the strawberries they buy from supermarkets have no taste is disturbing. And yet, strawberries are not that hard to grow, so there is no excuse for buying the tasteless ones. Why not grown your own and then share your healthy strawberry runners with your neighbours and friends.

Here are some tips on growing your own strawberries and you can also hear more tips and see my strawberry patch in our short movie on how to grow strawberries.

Growing Ginger Root - Zingiber Officinale (True Ginger)

from tropicalpermaculture: 'The easiest way to get started growing ginger root is to get a few fresh rhizomes of someone who does grow ginger, at the time when the plant re-shoots anyway (early spring). Otherwise just buy some at the shops at that time.

Make sure you select fresh, plump rhizomes.

Look for pieces with well developed "eyes" or growth buds. (The buds look like little horns at the end of a piece or "finger")

Some people recommend to soak the rhizomes in water over night. That's not a bad idea, since shop bought ginger might have been treated with a growth retardant.

I also read the advice to sit rhizomes in water until they sprout roots. That's nonsense. Your ginger plant will be much happier if the roots are in the ground and can breathe right from the start, rather than having to deal with the transplanting shock and the change in conditions. If the ground is moist and warm they will root very easily.

Whether you grow your ginger root in a pot or in the ground, you do need really good soil to start with. It needs to be rich enough to feed your ginger (you can always add some fertiliser, see below), it needs to hold enough moisture so it doesn't dry out, but it needs to be free draining so the ginger roots don't become water logged.

Good compost is of course ideal. I use a mix of one part of my best compost with one part of my sandy garden soil. The compost supplies the nutrition and holds water, and the sand/loam makes sure the mix drains freely.

If your garden has reasonable soil just dig in some compost and that should be good enough. If your soil is too heavy you can make a raised bed or a small hill or ridge to improve drainage...'

Vegetables With A Past

from punkrockgardens: Part of what I love about gardening is the connection to the past I experience as I step away from my computer and sink into the ancient activity of tending plants.

I love working with antique tools. I conjure the energy and memory of the gardeners and farmers who were first to

use those tools. Important to my backwards time travel through gardening, is growing vegetables with a past.

I grow heirloom vegetables from seed. That said, I have to admit, I don’t understand every detail about how heirloom seeds are different than others. It’s pretty complex. I know heirloom seeds are older varieties.

There are several schools of thought about how long a variety needs to be around before it can be called an heirloom. Some think the seeds need a demonstrated lineage going back at least one hundred years. Others say an heirloom seed is one that has been handed down in a family from generation to generation. I personally believe that a seed can be qualified as an heirloom if it was around pre-WW2.

Green Harmony (Gynura) Anti Viral Herb

Green Harmony Anti Viral Herb - 

Grow it fresh in your home, consume it everyday, and keep the viruses away. 

When consumed the scavenging and attacking qualities of Green Harmony can be compared to eating an army of white cells that go to work on cleaning up all the bacteria, viruses, fungus, mold, and whatever else is moving around in your blood.

Green Harmony (Gynura Procumbens) has been used as folk medicine for hundreds of years in many  Asian countries and Africa to treat diabetes, cancer, HIV, Herpes 1 & 2, lower blood pressure, and normalize lipid cholesterol's.

It has also been demonstrated to be an anti-inflammatory agent in lab testing. Easy to grow, your entire family can be eating it in a matter of days. 
It multiplies quickly so you can share plants with your friends and relatives.

Win the Revolution in the Comfort of your Own Home

from vigilantcitizen: "Many people who visit this site ask “What should we do about this?”. 

Some criticize those who spend time seeking information, blaming them (even calling them cowards) for not taking part of a violent revolution. 

While I used to believe that taking the streets and shoving police in riot gear was the epitome of change, I’ve understood that it is not. 

Real revolution can happen while you’re sitting at home, wearing sweatpants and petting your cat. Is there something less threatening than a person in sweatpants petting a cat? No. But if this person understands the system’s traps and pitfalls, it can become the elite’s worst nightmare. 

Here’s an article that perfectly puts into words this concept." Believe it or not, growing your own food or visiting your local farmers market is more revolutionary and constructive than burning down your own city and killing security forces. 

As Washington plunges the Middle East and North Africa into chaos, and city by city collapses into the hands of globalist stooges, many have mistakenly interpreted this “change” as a positive transformation.