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Help Yourself and Your Local Farmer!

Posted by Brande on March 1, 2011
in Gardening, Health & Garden Tuesday

I love fresh fruits and vegatables in the summer! I understand there are many reasons for not planting your own garden. My family lives in a condo, to me patio tomatoes and hanging strawberries are ok, but not my idea of a garden. I want peppers, corn, lettuce, blue berries, mmmm…My family deserves these beautiful fruits and vegetables, instead of the processed or greenhouse grown ones!

I found a website last year, www.localharvest.org they offer many different options for obtaining just about anything farm grown! When your on that site check out the CSA tab or Community Supported Agriculture. You pay a certain amount each year, depending on the farm and each week (usually the end of May until October) get wonderful in season fruits and vegetables. FRESH from their gardens!

Here’s what the website said about the benefits for you and your local farmer:

Advantages for farmers:

Get to spend time marketing the food early in the year, before their 16 hour days in the field begin
Receive payment early in the season, which helps with the farm’s cash flow
Have an opportunity to get to know the people who eat the food they grow

Advantages for consumers:

Eat ultra-fresh food, with all the flavor and vitamin benefits
Get exposed to new vegetables and new ways of cooking
Usually get to visit the farm at least once a season
Find that kids typically favor food from “their” farm – even veggies they’ve never been known to eat
Develop a relationship with the farmer who grows their food and learn more about how food is grown

So, help yourself and your local farmer! I’ll be picking up my basket of goodies starting in May!

See Brande’s bio on our writers page.

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Green and Clean Mom – Get Dirty

Posted by html404 on February 22, 2011
in Gardening, Health & Garden Tuesday

It has been a while since I posted anything garden related so when I came across Green and Clean Mom last week, I joined her ning website and discovered her Get Dirty group, which is exciting because then I can talk gardening and farming without anyone getting sick of me (hopefully!)

www.greenandcleanmom.org
Community where the Get Dirty Group is: http://greenandcleanmom.ning.com/group/getdirty?xg_source=activity

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Tell the EPA to Ban Bee-Killing Pesticides!

Posted by html404 on January 20, 2011
in Gardening, Movies

You can tell by the topics I am covering this week that I am in farm mode but these issues are very important to our family and ideally, they should be to everyone who eats. Bees are another important creature to the basic survival of our food system and pesticides are destroying them. The video below is of a beekeeper:

Get involved!

Thanks to FRESH for sharing this information.

[1] Researchers Find “Alarming” Decline in Bumblebees

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=12545468

[2]“Nicotine Bees” Population Restored With Neonicotinoids Ban

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/05/nicotine-bees-population-restored-with-neonicotinoids-ban.php

[3]EPA Leaked memo

http://www.panna.org/sites/default/files/Memo_Nov2010_Clothianidin.pdf

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Health & Garden Tuesday: CSA Course Scholarships

Posted by html404 on November 23, 2010
in Gardening, Health & Garden Tuesday, Health and Nutrition

A couple of weeks ago we got word that we received a $320 scholarship to a CSA Course at Michael Fields Agricultural Institute in Wisconsin. A CSA, for those unfamiliar with the term is:

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has become a popular way for consumers to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer. Here are the basics: a farmer offers a certain number of “shares” to the public. Typically the share consists of a box of vegetables, but other farm products may be included. Interested consumers purchase a share (aka a “membership” or a “subscription”) and in return receive a box (bag, basket) of seasonal produce each week throughout the farming season.

Plus, we had an educational scholarship of $150 granted to us as well, making an $800 course much more affordable to say the least!

I started last week and thoroughly enjoyed the first class.

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Gardening Tuesday: Indoor Gardening

Posted by Bobbie Gould on October 19, 2010
in Gardening, Health & Garden Tuesday

If you want to maintain your garden as an organic one, then studying how to create and keep a compost heap is necessary. If you don’t want to bother with that and you have a small garden patch, then you can buy natural and organic fertilizer. You can collect tips from internet, or family members. It just takes a bit of space, lots of love and care and a little water and food, and your garden will be your pride and source of better health. It also provides some exercise, so that’s an added benefit! Many plants are suitable and capable of growing in small plots in soils of poor fertility, including even contaminated soils, or those suffering from high levels of leaching.

Vitamins and minerals are very essential to growing kids that’s why moms have to know the right food to feed their little ones with. Grow foods, as the name suggests, makes people grow. These are dairy products like milk, margarine, yogurt, and the protein-rich ones like pork, fish, etc. These foods make the bones and muscles stronger. These foods could help your child run faster and allows him or her to be able to do a lot of other activities.

Fresh and nutritious produce for the participating gardeners or families. If organic methods are used, then the produce is much healthier than any commercially grown vegetables. Foods grown organically restrict the use of pesticides and insecticides and other synthetic chemicals. Likewise, animals grown organically are not regularly given antibiotics and other medication which enters the food supply and may be ingested by human consumers. Instead, organic farmers use renewable resources to grow their vegetables, fruits and animal sources. Indoor garden offers some perks that you can’t get from outdoor gardening. However, just as there are perks, there are also drawbacks. This article will examine both. You will also find places to situate your indoor garden, what types of flowers and plants you can grow, as well as some gardening tips to help your indoor garden flourish.

Some typical indoor garden plants that require low to medium light are Philodendrons, Cyclamens, African violets, Boston ferns, and Creeping Fig. Along with the Boston fern, there are many types of ferns that require low to medium light levels and are a beautiful addition to an indoor garden. A helpful tip is that darker leaved plants typically need less light that their lighter leaved cousins. You should then decide location for the placement of the pots. The lights that the plant would receive are yet another necessity of your indoor garden that you must consider at all cost. However, you need to be careful of the heat and warmth your plant would be getting from the surrounding atmosphere because you might find yourself in the need of proper ventilation along with it as well at some stage. Another indoor gardening idea is that you may wish to place your plants at different places around your house, so you benefit from colors and well-oxygenated air throughout the house. However, when growing plants like this, you have to ensure that they will constantly have enough light, warmth and humidity.

Happy Gardening!

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Monday Motivation

Posted by html404 on October 18, 2010
in Blog Stuff, Family Stuff, Gardening, Monday Motivation

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Last week’s Monday Motivation:

~ My husband and I have an appointment with the Executive Director of a farm incubator program that we are interested in. This meeting went better than I expected feeling rather unprepared. Now to finish our business plan!

~ We really need to do our end of season garden clean up! My husband has been battling a cold but is feeling better so we should be able to do the garden this weekend. The weekend weather turned out great and everyone was healthy so we were able to accomplish quite a bit in this area.

~ Swim lessons for the children. We decided to take advantage of the YMCA’s no enrollment fee (at least for this month as we test drive this membership thing) and have been swimming every day since Friday. Yes, even I went swimming once. The children love it. I am hesitant to take Sir Eats Alot in the pool at his young age or else I would be in there as much as the other children. I grew up swimming all the time. My mom tells me that my sisters and I were swimming by four. We’ve been swimming most days and only one child has been complaining about it and lessons. I think our four year old and two year old could take off swimming any time. They just need to gain more confidence and arm strength.

So I actually exercised! My goal is to get exercise while teaching my children how to swim. All of them are at different levels but for not growing up swimming I think they are all doing great. It’s exciting that we can share the love of swimming together. Yep, I swam again, but this out of shape mama needs to go slow. Not as young as I use to be, unfortunately. But I am loving our family time at the YMCA.

Other than that I am just trying to manage home, children, homeschooling and work. It is definitely a juggling act. That’s why I may be taking most of November off from most of my work-at-home responsibilities except for one client whose busiest season is Christmas. I need to regroup and refocus a bit and hope that time off will help. Still juggling!

This week’s Motivation:

~ This week we have a mommy blogging event that TheMotherhood.com and Wendy’s have coordinated. So we will be going to lunch with grandma and other mommy bloggers.

~ We also have another CRAFT (Collaborative Regional Agricultural Farmer Training) Field Day to attend. Looking forward to that.

~ Writing our business plan and submitting it is a priority so we can see where it takes us and hopefully allow us to plan for the approaching new year.

~ De-junk. Organize. We already have two big bags and a box to giveaway and I hope to have more before Vietnam Vets pick up comes this week. We just don’t want to be cleaning stuff we don’t need. It is so crucial for our sanity to get down to bare minimum. Just the basics here please. But do you know how hard it is? Hard. Believe me! If you are the praying kind, please pray that we discover what our bare minimum is for our family and home.

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Gardening Tuesday: Recalls

Posted by Bobbie Gould on October 12, 2010
in Gardening, Health & Garden Tuesday

Have you ever wondered why there are so many, many recalls in food and drug products in this industry? Some of those reasons are that food is being produced wrong! We are putting drugs, homicides, and bacterias in our foods! Our ancestors would turn in their graves at the way food is produced now! It may taste good now but in the end it is bad for you! What are some ways to protect your family from these things here are some tips to help:

* Buy locally grown food as much as possible. Local Harvest has some wonderful resources on locally grown food and where to find it. Buying locally reduces the risk of getting food poisoning and sickness! Now by locally I donâ€™t mean your local grocery store, no I mean your local organic farmers market.

* Donâ€™t buy milk that has homicides and growth hormones.

* Buy farm raised grass fed beef donâ€™t buy that disgusting store bought stuff! In the united states alone just in March 2010 their was a meat out break see this map here telling how many states got salmonella poisoning!

* Wash your fruits and vegetables with soap and hot water. Even salad I donâ€™t want to gross you out but their was a news flash on contaminated salad.

* Always wash down counters, knives, and dishes that have come in contact with raw meat. This can spread salmonella poisoning, and E Coli.

* Know your ingredients. Read labels, ingredients such as GMS, High Fructose, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Asppertain, and Natural Flavors, all contain yucky and bad ingredients, GMS,Â these as well as High Fructose Corn Syrup have been linked to mercury, and causes of Autism. You may have seen the commercials on TV for High Fructose Corn Syrup being the same as sugar but, that is not true! Read these articles here, here, and here.

The Corn Refiners Association decided to ‘show’ high-fructose corn syrup was as safe as sugar. It’s no different than the Tobacco industry telling us nicotine isn’t addictive.Â What they didn’t tell you is it’s banned in places like Canada and Europe. You can even buy sodas in Mexico without it in since they don’t have American lobbyists writing their laws.

If you can’t see that they are using the same tactics as the Tobacco Industry used in the past you are completely blind. Taken from TrueChristianDOTcom’s Youtube Channel.”

* Some people claim that soy is good for you but that is not true! Did you know that Soybeans are one of the most heavily sprayed pesticides in the United States and Canada alone? Don’t buy soy products unless they have been organically grown and sprayed with no pesticides.

* Know your facts watch movies like The World According To Monsanto, Food Inc, and The Future Of Food. Read books on healthy living and eating. And most importantly you donâ€™t have to be vegan to eat healthy!

Egg Stand

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Gardening Tuesday: Gardening And Essential Oils Part 2

Posted by Bobbie Gould on October 5, 2010
in Gardening, Health & Garden Tuesday

Here is part two of Gardening and Essential Oils read part 1 here.

Part 2 of Gardening and Essential Oils is all about things that bug us around the house and garden. Part 2 also covers natural and safe pest control and natural insecticides with essential oils.

Thank you to Dr. David Stewart for this information!

Essential Oils For Things that Bug You
By David Stewart, Ph.D., R.A.

Among the many chemicals in our industrial environment that get into our systems and make us sick are the pesticides we use in our homes. We use them because they are toxic to the creatures that bug us, but they are also toxic to us! Sometimes the toxicity is immediately apparent: we get a headache, get sick or feel nauseous from the fumes or other contact.

Sometimes the toxicity is subtle and can accumulate resulting in chronic complaints and disorders (including allergies, cancer and miscarriages that can be serious and even deadly over time. Sometimes we even put poisons on our pets to deal with ticks and fleas, not realizing that these substances are not healthy for us not our animals.

How to Use Oils for Pest Control

As Young Living Essential Oils users, we don’t need poisons to kill pests. We can repel them (and even sometimes kill them) with substances that are not only harmless to us, but are actually healthful to us. Below is a list of oils that will solve most of your pest problems around the house.

And how do you use them? One way is to get a pistol-grip squirt bottle. Mix a few drops of the oil with some water, shake it up, and start firing. If you have bugs on your plants, like aphids on your roses, you can squirt the leaves and drive the bugs away with no harm to your plant. You can do the same with the other pests. As for ants, you can smear a line of peppermint or spearmint across your kitchen counter or floor and the ants won’t cross it. If you already have a line of ants invading your house, just draw a line of oil across them and they will turn back. It is fun to watch! And as for flies, you can knock them dead right out of the air with one shot from your pistol grip.

Specific Oils for Specific Insects

ANTS
Peppermint
Spearmint

APHIDS
Cedarwood
Hyssop
Peppermint
Spearmint

BEETLES
Peppermint
Thyme

CATERPILLARS
Spearmint
Peppermint

CHIGGERS
Lavender
Lemongrass
Sage
Thyme

CUTWORM
Thyme
Sage

FLEAS
Peppermint
Lemongrass
Spearmint
Lavender

FLIES
Lavender
Peppermint
Rosemary
Sage

GNATS
Patchouli
Spearmint

LICE
Cedarwood
Peppermint
Spearmint

MOSQUITOES
Lavender
Lemongrass

MOTHS
Cedarwood
Hyssop
Lavender
Peppermint
Spearmint

PLANT LICE
Peppermint
Spearmint

SLUGS
Cedarwood
Hyssop
Pine

SNAILS
Cedarwood
Pine
Patchouli

SPIDERS
Peppermint
Spearmint

TICKS
Lavender
Lemongrass
Sage
Thyme

WEEVILS
Cedarwood
Patchouli
Sandalwood

A Brown Recluse Experiment

Seeing how squirting a peppermint-water spray would kill flies in mid-air, I wondered what pure oil would do. So I did an experiment on a brown recluse spider. I captured a live one in a jar and carefully placed one drop of peppermint on one side. The pure peppermint repelled the spider sho crowded to the other side to avoid the oil. When I tipped the jar to force the spider to fall into the oil, it merely squirmed and got away, still repelled by the oil, but not apparently harmed. Then I put a drop of water with the oil and tipped the jar so that the spider slid into the water and oil together and, instantly, it shriveled up and died.

Conclusion: The oil alone is an insect repellant. Combined with water, it is an insecticide.

Safe Insect Repellants

As far as repellants go, when you go into the woods and fields, put a little lavender around your ankles, wrists, and waist-band and you won’t have to worry about chiggers or ticks (or Lyme Disease of Rocky Mountain Spotted Tick Fever). Lemongrass, sage, or thyme would work, too, but might irritate your skin so put it on your pant cuffs and shirt sleeves.

As for your pets, you can put oils such as Purification around their necks and backs, but watch to keep oils from around their eyes.

So there you have it. Non-toxic pest control.

You can view this and other interesting articles on essential oils by Dr. David Stewart at www.raindroptraining.com

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Gardening Tuesday: Gardening And Essential Oils

Posted by Bobbie Gould on September 28, 2010
in Gardening, Health & Garden Tuesday

We thought we would share this with you for next year’s gardening season.

Whether it is bugs, molds, aphids, or healthy soil, therapeutic grade essential oils will help you garden without the use of toxic chemicals that not only weaken your plants immune system (making them even more susceptible to disease and bugs), but leave nasty side effects for you, the consumer of these plants.

Below are some testimonials of different things people have used, and how they have used them. Interestingly, the Thieves Household Cleaner, which contains the Thieves essential oils blend in it, is one of the most popular, effective and simplest solutions to most garden problems!

I have to tell you about my Thieves Household Cleaner experience!
I went out to my garden one day and to my utter dismay, found my beans
absolutely COVERED with Japanese beetles….like there were TOO MANY
TO COUNT!!!!! I ran back to my house, dumped some THC
(Thieves Household Cleaner) (about ¼ cup) into a 32 oz spray bottle
and added water and ran back out to start spraying.
Well, after two quart bottles of the THC mixture and
darkness falling, I determined I’d done all I could do. Next morning,
I went out to check on things and …lo and behold….MANY, MANY, MANY
DEAD BEETLES on the ground under the bean plants. Now I could
actually count how many were still alive so I got me another spray
bottle and sprayed the remaining beetles. When I found them on my
blackberries and lounging around in the Marigold blossoms (!!), I
decided I needed a bigger sprayer. I continue to spray my garden
EVERY DAY with a generous amount of THC mixture; the plants look
wonderful and I’m managing to stay ahead of the beetles.
Love that THIEVES HOUSEHOLD CLEANER and all the other Thieves
products!! ~ Abundant blessings, Elaine
————————————————————————————————————-

Since we are on the subject of Thieves, I have a great testimonial
regarding the new Thieves Cleaner. I have four fuchsia “trees” next to the
sidewalk leading up to my front door. About a month ago I noticed that the
leaves were curling and the plants did not look healthy. I took a few
leaves to the nursery and they diagnosed it as “fuchsia mites” and
recommended a chemical pesticide. They didn’t know of any natural remedies
to this problem. Since I am an organic gardener, I just couldn’t bring
myself to buy it.

When I got home, I pruned the plants of the curled/diseased leaves then I
took a sprayer bottle and filled it with about an inch of Thieves Cleaner
and the rest with water. I shook it really well and sprayed it on the top
and under the leaves of my fuchsia plants as directed by the nursery for the
chemical pesticide. I did this three days in a row. A couple of days later
I noticed that the plants were not only looking healthy again, but there was
lots of new growth! I have not seen any more curled leaves on my plants and
the plants look healthy again. ~ Blessings, Karen Jenkins-Green
————————————————————————————————————–

GARDEN BUGS:

Hi, I have a little secret. It’s just THIEVES Essential Oil Blend!!! ,I have recently
given out my plant care tips to a lot of my clients who love to see my assorted
plants. Some have actually brought their plants in for me to nurse back to health.

My brother has me come in and take care of his plants at his stores also.
the truth is I’m really not that diligent when it comes to my plants. They
just look great because I use a lot of Thieves. I use Thieves straight out
of the bottle on house plants that tend to get fungus or mold from my kids
over-watering the plants. I used to use it watered down but this proved
ineffective against hearty molds in a warm house in the winter. They flourish
beautifully. I also use cinnamon powder (no sugar folks) mixed into the
soil with some cinnamon oil, thieves or clove oil with Purification around
my rose bushes and my other outside plants to get rid of annoying insects
and aphids that eat away at my plants. My roses and flowers are always hearty
and pesticide free. I recently got a quote for $850 to get rid of my
termites and property, well I just put 2 bottles of each of the following
oils in a bottle of V6 and the termites are all dead and gone. I figured
that this is costly to buy the oils but it beats having to pay some
exterminator to come and make my soil toxic. To me it was worth the shot.
I’m glad I did it because I had the engineer come back to inspect for them
because I was refinancing and wanted another loan to fix my house and my
home is termite and carpenter ant free now!

I used 2 of each Abundance, Thieves, Clove, Cinnamon, Purification, Lemon,
Lemongrass and a large bottle of V6. I put the whole thing in a larger
bottle and I squirt it all around the perimeter of my house and doorstep or
anywhere termites or carpenter ants would love to hide. I also keep a bottle
hooked up to my hose to spray over the base of the property. I just have to
upkeep it periodically and I’m all good!! I use a lot of Purification on my
dogs to keep off all the ticks and fleas. It works on my cats too. ~ Have a fun,
bug-less, pesticide free spring, Nina

* * *

For plants infested with insects, use one of the following essential oils.
Fill a mist spray bottle with 4 oz. of water, add the essential oils and
mist the infested plant. Use as little as possible. Several applications, a
few days apart, may be necessary.

Spearmint: ants, aphids, caterpillars, black flea beetle,
gnats, lice, moths, and plant lice.

Peppermint: ants, aphids, bean beetle, cabbage root fly,
caterpillars, black flee beetle, flies, lice, moths, and plant lice.

Lemongrass: black flea beetle, fleas, mosquitoes, and ticks.

Tansy: black fly, carrot fly, fleas, flies, greenfly,
mosquitoes, and white fly.

Hyssop: aphids, cabbage root fly, moths, and slugs.

Thyme: bean beetle, cabbage root fly, cutworm, and ticks.

Sage: cabbage root fly, cutworm, nematodes, ticks, and white
fly.

Rosemary: cabbage root fly and carrot fly.

Patchouly: gnats, snails, weevils, and woolly aphids.

Pine: slugs, snails, and wooly aphids.

Sandalwood: weevils and wooly aphids.

Our all around favorite is Young Living’s Blend of Purification….we always
have it with us.

Purification: will not only help keep the bugs away, but when
applied to a bite or sting, will neutralize the venom. We have applied a
drop of Purification to wasp, bee, and yellow jacket stings and felt the
pain go away immediately and the swelling subside. The next day, there were
no traces of a sting. It works well for mosquito bites too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thieves Household Cleaner is only $21.50 for a concentrated 14.4 oz. bottle. Very little is needed – just use a little, dilute with water in a spray bottle, and use this for 99% of what you do in your home to clean. Replace toxic products and save money with the Thieves Household Cleaner. Put it on an autoship and save even more, enough to get it for FREE.

These days, between the mosquitoes and bugs I wouldn’t be without it – just for that!
Contact me if you have any questions! Or would like to order some.

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Garden Tuesday: Look What We Have!

Posted by html404 on August 3, 2010
in Gardening, Health & Garden Tuesday

GardenTuesdaysButton

We have been having fun seeing all the different produce that our garden has yielded to us in the past few days, so I thought I would share with you some of what we have been seeing! (and eating! :))

Summer Squash…….

Garden and Blue Car Pictures 012