Your Questions About Gardening

GardenersCardiff answers:

I think that you need to define what type of transcendentalists you are referring to. The term makes me think of the American Transcendentalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, James Freeman Clarke and Amos Bronson Alcott. Their “revolution” was within literature, philosophy, spirituality and religion and they were creating an American identity that set them free from the British predecessors. While their philosophy of freedom included nature it was not a a back to nature philosophy as I recall it. Nature was part of the spiritual experience but they had no main goal to grow their own food, make their own clothes and so on.

Thoreau did give it a try and lived of the land for over two years while isolating himself from his earlier everyday life, but the main goal was to step to the side and reflect on society from the outside rather than form a new way of life. He grows beans, he sees hunting and eating meat as primal and he thinks that moving beyond that will make you a better and superior (modern) human. The whole experience was an experiment to him that he never took seriously.

GardenersCardiff answers:

Start with some tomatoes – they are pretty easy to grow but usually started in april or may & harvested in June – also peppers are good for the summer – the hotter the better – eggplants, squash, zucchini are all very easy – to grow root veggies like potatoes or onions you need space & till up the soil to allow for growth, also garlic is good – all ingredients for most dishes. Peas & beans are easy too but need a fence or trellis to vine on. Best place to get info is from the local Extension Agency – they can tell you everything you need about gardening in your area. Also how to treat the soil and what type pesticides to use & NOT to use on food. Right now go ahead & start some herbs in small planters you can transplant or when they seed plant those outdoors – good luck and enjoy your garden !

GardenersCardiff answers:

I have done in Many places ,now in the Humid tropics its mostly fruit trees.bananas ,Guañabana ,pine apple,vanilla vines ,camottes,nanchis,mangos etc
but here is some info on home grown food.

ORGANIC VEGETABLES

At home you can grow vegetables intensively and quite cheaply using your own wastes and by products and plantig for mulch

MULCH

The best in the world is the manure that comes from earth worms,if you mulch your garden you will get worms automatically

All manure is good to add ,cow,rabbit, and horse is the mildest and you can put it on directly.
Chicken is more acidy and is best to mix with saw dust or earth ,

You cannot put too much manure in your garden,it will just get richer and richer,

But to prevent smell mix it well with the ground or with something else before you put it on, like sand or earth or sawdust

Uric acid or nitrogen is good ,this is animal urine,
Farmers now put gutters in their stables to collect it and put it on the land especially for the grassy type species.

Cut down the weeds before they produce seeds and leave them where they fall,they will cover the ground and put even more organic matter on top,

You can use saw dust,leaves green or dry,and when you plant make a little space and plant in the mulch.this is the easiest quickest and by far most benificial way,for the quality of you soil.

To prevent weeds from coming all you have to do it turn out the lights,you can even use cardboard or black plastic(this is good for strawberries because they will rot if they touch humid ground,and the bugs can get to them).

What you do is to cover the ground with mulch which is the same principal as compost but it includes the whole garden surface

The top part of the soil where the topsoil is being produced houses a world or microbiotic life.

Mulch is organic material green or dry that covers the ground,the thicker the better the composting process will turn it in to black topsoil

The humidity is preserved underneath and promotes the devellopment of worms(their exists no better compost than their excrements)and a variety of micro biotic life which together with the mulch produce more topsoil.

The mulch also keeps the ground temperature even and guards against the impact of the rain ,which would other wise brings salt to the surfave if on unprotected land

Mulch also prevents the soil from drying out because of the sun and, lay it open to wind erosian.

Do not use chemicals because the water will wash them into the ground and if enough people did that, you would be guilty of helping to contaminate subteranean water suplies that other people could be pumping up to drink

COMPOST
make a compost heap to accomodate al the organic rubbish that you end up with ,both from the garden and the house,all organic material is good for compost,eggshells,wood,
paper,bones,leaves,pine needles
sawdust,old clothes ,the dead cat,toilet paper
etc.

70 %of contamination comes from organic wastes that are mixed with the plastics etc.

HOW
Dig a shallow hole ,bowel shaped about 2 or 3 square meters ,have it in a shady place,like under a tree or built a little roof.

Keep the compost moist,have it near a sprinkler or regularly wet it with a garden hose ,dont saturate with water because the worms will leave
or die.

You can add a little lime at times,cover it with leaves or plastic to keep the moisture in.

We add red earth worms(californiana)which are surface eaters,the more worms, the quicker the decomposition and the richer the compost.

ORGANIC PESTCONTROL

IN AFRICA we had camelions in the kitchen to keep down the flies

In Mexico we got a sort of small lizard that lives on the wall ,and sit near the lamps ,and eat mosquitos all night,

In the mango orchards we release laboratory bred wasps to attack and kill the caterpillars that go for the mangos

There are small chickens, called a silky or bantom or chaparito which are all small chickens that do not scratch ,but run after ,jumping and walking insects,they take care of about 70 percent of all garden pests.

Feasants,guinyfowel,partridge will do the same work
Iguanas kill grashoppers and all kinds of flying insects

Birds we also dont kill
when the passion fruit is ripe ,a little black caterpiller comes and wants to destroy them,luckely a little finch type bird turns up and eats the black caterpillars.

In Mexico we have let mazacoas,which are, python type snakes in to the garden to take care of the rats.

In Africa we released mole snakes into the garden and field to combat the plagues of Norwegian rats that were destroying the fields

Ant eaters and armadillos take care of leafcutting ants that can destroy a large tree in a week.and eat beatles and such

Potbelly pigs and deer and normal pigs are good in an orchard because they eat fallen rotting fruit which breeds a lot of small flies.

In our water reservoirs we put fish to eat the mosquito larvas.

Ihave bred tree frogs from eggs and released them in the garden to eat mosquitos and horse flies.

You can keep a barrel of water and throw in everybodies sigarette buts
this can be used for getting rid of ants

A mixture of green liquid soap with garlic and terpentine also gets rid of a lot of leaf eating pests

Lavendal is good for moulds
and there is a great variety of weeds that acts as pest repellents when ground up (such as Khki boss in South africa )

Marigolds and similar looking flowers around vegetable keep bugs a way

So does garlic ,mint ,spring onions ,oregano ,thyme
when planted near Tomatoes

WATERHARVESTING

In Permaculture the rule is to harvest rain water to the point of Zero runoff.

This means that all of the rain that falls on an area is absorbed by the terrain and not a drop leaves it.

By building dams,ponds or swales, with interconecting ditches,
If there are enough of these ;the places ,where before the rain water ran over the ground into the rivers and on to the sea ,(in a matter of hours or days),

It now runs into absorbant dams or swales and saturates the ground and eventually reaches subteranean water deposits ,taking many months to do so.
Or it fills up ponds that can be used for Aquaculture.

And so a convex situation that repels water is transformed in a concave ,absorbant one and turning the area in to a sponge.

In Spain and Portugal ,which still display many examples of the conquering Moorish influence,One can find many remnants of Waterharvesting,such as aquaducts and tanks underneath the patios ,which collect the rain water from the roofs ,to be used in dryer times.

In Arabia ,on a large scale ,land has been shaped to catch and lead,rain water into sandy areas or to agricultural lands.sand is almost as good as dams because it absorbs water and holds it.(swales)

PERMACULTURE

Permaculture is a world recognised earth friendly movement and tends to include people that practice the concept and are active in the field.

The Permaculture designers manual by Bill Mollison,which cost about 40 dollars.
And is the best all round book you can get,on Environmental design,.(tagiari publishing, tagariadmin@southcom.com.au)

Some other writers that are on the internet are
david Holmgren
Larry Santoyo
Kirk Hanson

Masanobu Fukuaka has written ,
One-Straw Revolution
The Road Back to Nature
The Natural Way of Farming
http://www.context.org/iclib/ic14/fukuok…
Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/masanobu_fu…

Simon Henderson
and Bill Molisson.

A representitive of the concept in USA is
Dan Hemenway at YankeePerm@aol.com
barkingfrogspc@aol.com
http://barkingfrogspc.tripod.com/frames….
Http://csf.colorado.edu/perma/ypc_catalo…