Garden log 310509

End of may and the garden is coming along nicely . The tomatoes , bean and zucchini doing very well though only the zucchini has any fruit , lots of flowers on tomatoes . Fruit trees are coming along as well . We have added a grape vine and passionflower to the garden .


Zucchini living up to its reputation of being a fast mover , giant blooms , took me my surprise . I harvested the first zucchini yesterday but for some reason it was a bit soft at the tip .

Planting log 090408

Photos of the garden, everything looking very much not there but the tank for the greywater system is in place , there is tons of organic stuff in the beds , had to do a lot of digging to take out stones and concrete from the soil but from now on it is going to be a no dig garden with organic mulch .

The Pomegranate


The strawberries along with chickpea

Herbs

Lemon

Almonds

Beds with mulch and the greywater filter

The Plum tree hasn't shown any inclination to acknowledge it is spring.

Planting log 01.04.09

Planting so far:
Trees planted on 15th Mar 09
Almond
Lemon
Plum
Pomegranate
The Pomegranate is reasonably big , can expect fruit next year.
Cost of trees 300 shekels
Herbs
Mint
Sage
Zatar
Zuta
Cost of herbs 20 shekels
Seeds
My first set of seeds were dug up by the cats , the nicely dug soil to hard to resist I guess .SO another planting session on 31.03.04
Cucumber
Capsicum
Chillies
Lettuce
Rokat
Melon
Watermelon
Zucchini
Parsley
Cost of seeds 40 shekels

Now I have to think of a nasty contraption to keep the cats out of my seedlings , something that gives them a vicious poke that scares the living daylight muha-ha-ha-ha..........

Food

For the last couple of months I have been reading voraciously about food , organic , backyard , the ills of industrial monocultures , Fukuoka , Geoff Lawton , the broken nutrient cycles , Monsanto , the Future of food , Permaculture , Bill Mollison, Emilia Hazelip and more . It is quite clear that my mind is made up , industrial production of food is bad for me and my family and the environment . So time to take the plunge seriously into growing my own food or part of it and at the same time utilize wastes that we create in a manner that is not only non destructive but also adds to the immediate environment . Not that this is the first time I am trying to do so , I have at least two seasons of growing but not producing anything with my blessed black thumb but I believe I have reached a point where I have enough know how to do it better . We will be using greywater from our bath , composting all our kitchen and yard wastes and using a lot of mulch .

Would you give up on meat ?

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Shun meat, says UN climate chief

It's very rare when the UN tries to influence what we eat but it seems we hav come to a juncture where even the UN which has takes a back seat on the worst possible tragedies also wakes up and feels it is important to make a statement .
A kilogram of meat ,from a cow or similar animal, requires approximately 8 kgs of feed , a kg of chicken requires about 3 kgs . Quite naturally this vegetable fees has to grow somewhere , so it either is grown in arable land or forest land that is cleared to make room for growing it . Every acre of forestland cleared amounts to a significant amount of carbon that was sequestered being released into the atmosphere . Also the gut of the livestock produces a high volume of methane , a greenhouse gas worse than carbon dioxide , so when they said that sheep farting in Australia caused the ozone hole , there was a lot of truth in it .
Besides there is a significant amount of hormones and other chemicals being pumped into the animals to produce more and produce fast and to remain disease free in cramped conditions that are conducive to disease .
And if anyone had any misconceptions that animals reared for slaughter have a great life , check up a local abattoir to see for yourself .

I eat meat and I would not tell anyone not to eat meat but for one's health , for the health of the planet and for the sake of the poor animals , it is best to consume lesser meat .