21 Sep Tue 2010
S.Florida Lazyman/woman Organic Urban"Virtual" Farming!
The sun is cooking the lawn grass and the water sprinkler is hiking the water bill.Here in S.Florida there are plenty of heat and but not much to eat from the lawn grass garden.Introducing the Lazyman gardening :
There are plenty of fruit berries and vines and more of the incredible edible wild crafted food growing in the backyards or the wild that is waiting for a harvest ...But it is like crying in the wilderness.No one is hearing me(Reason:Lot of people who live in Florida are seniors...I am one tooo, who can not afford anymore to buy hearing aids devices thanks to the deep recession or its new NICKNAME: Abreviation DDT or Abridged full name:Double Dip......precion Trouble!)
Lazy gardners like to hire someone to do the donkey work of hard digging and weeding.But now with an economic crunch that is breaking our backs already without even trying to dig in the garden .Also, it is harder to find someone like a cheap migrant farmer to do the donkey work either, after the infamous Arizona Law took effect and scared away almost half of the illegal immigrants .
So , here comes an genious idea to harvest without even doing any farming or gardening WORK.Call it the lazyman gardening way(Get Something for Nothing !).Just by going to the wilderness (Developers did not leave much though)in S.Florida and start picking some the most nutritious harvests like:Saw Palmetto,Sea Grapes,wild grapes,Calalo(wild spinach) and Sarase.Just to mention a few.But , hold on: Do not attempt to do it on your own and end up picking some poisonous berries, instead.Always have some one knowledgable with you .I recommend a Florida Master Gardener( I am one of them), or an Urban Organic Community /Backyard Farmer ( I am one of them too!)....Hey:By the way ,I am open for being hired!Got papers , a shovel and Hell yeh..I am ready to travel-if you only send me a prepaid two way open ticket!
There are more ways to farm the lazymans way...Stay tuned if you are one of them.Speaking of the devil makes me obliged to stop here as the lazy gardners do not like to work their eyes reading ..either...
So here is a suggestion:Buy my upcoming book(Not available in ACTUAL print yet !But available at a VIRTUAL BOOKSTORE near you -open to the public only during grave yard shift hours )titled:HOW TO GARDEN THE CRAZY/LAZYMAN'S WAY .
Read it before you go to bed.Put it under your pillow and go to sleep.You will be doing much of night time gardening and harvesting all what you like in your dream..offcourse....See...no hard gardening work done!
I call it Virtual Gardening!May be some one will steel my idea or even beleive it.I got to go now....Caution:Do not buy my virtual book nor do what the lazyman virtual gardener tellsl you!
Otherwise you will end up being invited to a "dinner for schmucks".
Happy Actual Gardening!
20 Sep Mon 2010
Is Senate voting to pass Safety Bill S 510 this week?Are small farmers and advocates telling untruths when speaking their opinions?Is there bias agianst small farmers in main stream media rerporting?
Do not miss this article.It is a must read by all who vote ,eat,produce and grow food - especially by small farmers and advocates ..They are being allegedly labelled as speaking of UNTRUTHS when expressing opinions about the Food safety Bill now speculated to go to the floor for voting this week as per NYT article below mentioned..
How about alleged biased reporting against small farmers and advocates ?
Let the PEOPLE KNOW what is missing and who are to blame and why the bill has been stalling for two years without being passed?Why now suddenly it might be put to a quick vote , without allowing more debate about certain measures ...?Guess who is pushing for the bill pass??The Democrats ? Guess who is pushing to stop it? Republicans? UNBELEIVABLE until you read it with your own eyes.Are you voting this coming November? Any body home small farmers?????It is time to be serious and start taking care of business before late.
Here is an excerpt , blaming small farmers advocates among others opposing the Food Safety bill, from a recent NYT article on Sunday September 19th,2010.Check the whole article and find out for yourself who to blame :
Qoute:"The blame lies with a tight Senate calendar,a stubborn senator from Oklahomaand ,an unusual coalition of left-and right wing advocates for small farmers who have mounted a surprisingly effective Internet campaign.Their email-messages warned ,among other untruths,that the bill would outlaw organic farming".
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/health/policy/19food.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=food%20safety%bill&st=cse
What do small farmers have to say before the bill passes the floor this week in case it was put for vote as speculated ?
09 Aug Mon 2010
OIL SPILL IS GONE RIGHT? Guess who got it? CRABS! Any one Food safety Bill This Election excluding oil spill sea foods??
There is a saying since time of old: If you want to learn more what is happening at your country, try to read the news from abroad!
Here are some news from China about the oil spill.They are spelling where did the oil go: C.R.A.B.
Read more down below as reported by AP in the China News(some how Hard to find it in US NEWS? ):
AP – FILE - In this July 15, 2010 file photo, freshly sorted blue crabs sit in a box in Hopedale, La. Researchers …
Slideshow:Gulf Coast Oil Spill
Play Video Video:Is Gulf Seafood Safe to Eat? ABC News
Play Video Energy & Oil Video:New Threat to Oil: Iran CNBC
BARATARIA, La. – To assess how heavy a blow the BP oil spill has dealt the Gulf of Mexico, researchers are closely watching a staple of the seafood industry and primary indicator of the ecosystem's health: the blue crab.
Weeks ago, before engineers pumped in mud and cement to plug the gusher, scientists began finding specks of oil in crab larvae plucked from waters across the Gulf coast.
The government said last week that three-quarters of the spilled oil has been removed or naturally dissipated from the water. But the crab larvae discovery was an ominous sign that crude had already infiltrated the Gulf's vast food web — and could affect it for years to come.
"It would suggest the oil has reached a position where it can start moving up the food chain instead of just hanging in the water," said Bob Thomas, a biologist at Loyola University in New Orleans. "Something likely will eat those oiled larvae ... and then that animal will be eaten by something bigger and so on."
Tiny creatures might take in such low amounts of oil that they could survive, Thomas said. But those at the top of the chain, such as dolphins and tuna, could get fatal "megadoses."
Marine biologists routinely gather shellfish for study. Since the spill began, many of the crab larvae collected have had the distinctive orange oil droplets, said Harriet Perry, a biologist with the University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Coast Research Laboratory.
"In my 42 years of studying crabs I've never seen this," Perry said.
She wouldn't estimate how much of the crab larvae are contaminated overall, but said about 40 percent of the area they are known to inhabit has been affected by oil from the spill.
While fish can metabolize dispersant and oil, crabs may accumulate the hydrocarbons, which could harm their ability to reproduce, Perry told Science.
She told the magazine there are two encouraging signs for the wild larvae — they are alive when collected and may lose oil droplets when they molt.
Tulane University researchers are investigating whether the splotches also contain toxic chemical dispersants that were spread to break up the oil but have reached no conclusions, biologist Caz Taylor said.
If large numbers of blue crab larvae are tainted, their population is virtually certain to take a hit over the next year and perhaps longer, scientists say. The spawning season occurs between April and October, but the peak months are in July and August.
How large the die-off would be is unclear, Perry said. An estimated 207 million gallons of oil have spewed into the Gulf since an April 20 drilling rig explosion triggered the spill, and thousands of gallons of dispersant chemicals have been dumped.
Scientists will be focusing on crabs because they're a "keystone species" that play a crucial role in the food web as both predator and prey, Perry said.
Richard Condrey, a Louisiana State University oceanographer, said the crabs are "a living repository of information on the health of the environment."
Named for the light-blue tint of their claws, the crabs have thick shells and 10 legs, allowing them to swim and scuttle across bottomlands. As adults, they live in the Gulf's bays and estuaries amid marshes that offer protection and abundant food, including snails, tiny shellfish, plants and even smaller crabs. In turn, they provide sustenance for a variety of wildlife, from redfish to raccoons and whooping cranes.
Adults could be harmed by direct contact with oil and from eating polluted food. But scientists are particularly worried about the vulnerable larvae.
That's because females don't lay their eggs in sheltered places, but in areas where estuaries meet the open sea. Condrey discovered several years ago that some even deposit offspring on shoals miles offshore in the Gulf.
The larvae grow as they drift with the currents back toward the estuaries for a month or longer. Many are eaten by predators, and only a handful of the 3 million or so eggs from a single female live to adulthood.
But their survival could drop even lower if the larvae run into oil and dispersants.
"Crabs are very abundant. I don't think we're looking at extinction or anything close to it," said Taylor, one of the researchers who discovered the orange spots.
Still, crabs and other estuary-dependent species such as shrimp and red snapper could feel the effects of remnants of the spill for years, Perry said.
"There could be some mortality, but how much is impossible to say at this point," said Vince Guillory, biologist manager with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
Perry, Taylor and Condrey will be among scientists monitoring crabs for negative effects such as population drop-offs and damage to reproductive capabilities and growth rates.
Crabs are big business in the region. In Louisiana alone, some 33 million pounds are harvested annually, generating nearly $300 million in economic activity, Guillory said.
Blue crabs are harvested year-round, but summer and early fall are peak months for harvesting, Guillory said.
Prices for live blue crab generally have gone up, partly because of the Louisiana catch scaling back due to fishing closures, said Steve Hedlund, editor of SeafoodSource.com, a website that covers the global seafood industry.
Fishermen who can make a six-figure income off crabs in a good year now are now idled — and worried about the future.
"If they'd let us go out and fish today, we'd probably catch crabs," said Glen Despaux, 37, who sets his traps in Louisiana's Barataria Bay. "But what's going to happen next year, if this water is polluted and it's killing the eggs and the larvae? I think it's going to be a long-term problem."
06 Aug Fri 2010
A heat TSUNAMI ?Look out for crop thermal protection solutions if any!
There are explosions in the sun that some are nick naming them :Heat Tsunamis".
We are experiencing this kind of heat here in Florida .How about you?
Any releifs for farmers who lose their crops due to the Heat Tsunami?
In Russia and Euorpe ,the heat and fires are eating up the wheat crops and triggering a wheat price increase that was never met in recent memory since the 70's.
Are there any suggestions to help farmers cope with the unprecednted heat waves that are spreading all over our globe from Africa to Asia, Europe and the Americas?Where are the alerts from the United Nations?I beleive we need a "Farmer Watch Board" that focusses on protecting crops from intermittent weather and other natural catastrophes.
Expect more heat as tghe Sun Tsunamis continue to bubble up more explosions that are affecting mother earth and father farmer!
Meanwhile, we are crying for HELP!
03 Aug Tue 2010
History repeating itself.Small Farmers back in the Great Depression and NOW.What is the difference?.
Depression and recession farming is not a joke.The time has come for small farmers to get their rights established and farms and work protected .
I want to share with you a story of a farmer back from the Great Depression period as narrated in the famous and hard to find book:THE GREAT DEPRESSION, by David Shannon.Try to find it and get some precious lessons narrated by an eye witness .. :THE FARMER IN THE DEPRESSION...A story of a farmer named Ole Swanson printed in the New York Times in September 25,1932 ...If you have access for the archives go ahead and check it out .Of not here is a glimpse summary from what I concluded reading it...It tells the tale of the farmers back then and how thety struggled.
That farmer renter of 35 years bought the farm of his deceased father and got entangled in the mortagage and insurance process that we all know .When times went bad and he could not stand up for his financial commitments to the BANKS AND THE INSURANCE COMPANY YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED.HE LOST THE FARM.hE BECAME A RENTER AGAIN .
BACK TO OUR TIME AND THE STORY THAT SURFACED TWO WEEKS AGO FROM THE FIRING OF MS SHERRODS A WORKER FOR THE USDA ...MORE DETAILS IN MY PREVIOUS ARTICLE WITH A VIDEO CLIP..FARMERS ARE STILL LOSING THEIR LAND AND THE COLOR OF THEIR SKIN DOES NOT MATTER EITHER.AS MS SHERRODS PUT IT:IT IS BETWEEN THOSE WHO HAVE AND THOSE WHO DO NOT HAVE" SO TO SPEAK.
Back to our days.
Heard the latest news about Wheat prices and the draught and fires in Russia ?
Who stands for the small farmer is the question that was and will ever be?
21 Jul Wed 2010
Remember the movie that never made it to a theatre near you:OUTFOXED?Now it is playing back or shall we say PAYING BACK..but in a different story.Will the future reliable news come from bloggers?
I really want to share with you some news as they were told to us, how an official who works for USDA and has a say on many of FARMERS LIVES gets FIRED one day then gets HIRED the next day because of how we PAINT THEIR PICTURE to the public ?It is said that "TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE"..How about half truths or deceptions?Will they set us on the path to SLAVERY ?
Here is how one video "short cut snap" was revealed to the American people and painted -or shall we say "TAINTED "?-an official who is a good government employee -( working while a woman and black) -resulting in her being FIRED?( or forced to resign,whichever applies to your mind) yesterday,then HIRED today BUT aftter the FULL STORY/VIDEO was told /released to the public.Yesterday was FIRED,I qoute:"
Then she was offered a REHIRE as per the acj blogger, below mentioned , thay reported the story in a different WAY, the least to say-I qoute ajc:
In the curious case of Shirley Sherrod, let’s see the whole tape
7:31 am July 20, 2010, by Jay
A couple of folks in comments yesterday brought up the case of USDA official Shirley Sherrod, a black woman caught on tape at an NAACP meeting here in Georgia apparently bragging about being less than diligent in helping a white farmer. The folks at Big Government posted a portion of her speech as part of the running feud between the NAACP and the Tea Party over which organization is more racist.
By the end of the day Monday, Sherrod had been forced to resign her post, and NAACP President Ben Jealous had released a statement agreeing with the forced resignation:
“Racism is about the abuse of power. Sherrod had it in her position at USDA. According to her remarks, she mistreated a white farmer in need of assistance because of his race.
We are appalled by her actions, just as we are with abuses of power against farmers of color and female farmers.
Her actions were shameful. While she went on to explain in the story that she ultimately realized her mistake, as well as the common predicament of working people of all races, she gave no indication she had attempted to right the wrong she had done to this man.”
(UPDATE: The NAACP has now pulled that statement from its website.)
After watching the video Monday evening, I wrote in comments that “what Sherrod says in that video — and what she apparently did — are deeply troubling… She might very well have earned a firing. But I’d like to see that rest of that video as well, because at the point it abruptly ends, she appears to be saying that it’s wrong to think in terms of black and white, that she came to see things as more accurately divided between poor and rich than by race.”
As I also noted, the folks at Big Government seem to have the whole video, since they also posted another segment, and it would be useful to see the rest of it. "
Today :She is offered to be REHIRED.I qoute ajc blogger for quick reference:"
http://blogs.ajc.com/2010/07/21/obama-administration-apologizes-offers-to-rehire-sherod/
Qoute:'
Obama administration apologizes, offers to rehire Sherrod
5:14 pm July 21, 2010, by Jay
In his just-concluded press conference, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has publicly apologized to Shirley Sherrod for acting much too hastily, and without full possession of the facts. He seems to have taken his mistakes to heart, and his regret seems sincere.
The department has also offered to rehire Sherrod, an offer that she is reportedly considering.
I think it’s fair to say that Vilsack and the administration overreacted, out of fear and ignorance, and were “snookered” by Andrew Breitbart and others, as the NAACP put it. The secretary has now apologized, as has the NAACP. The actual perpetrators of the fraud have not followed suit, and almost certainly will never do so.
Sherrod gets a chance to tell her side of the story in an AJC story by Marcus Garner:
“But Tuesday morning, Sherrod said what online viewers weren’t told in reports posted throughout the day Monday was that the tale she told at the banquet happened 24 years ago — before she got the USDA job — when she worked with the Georgia field office for the Federation of Southern Cooperative/Land Assistance Fund.
Sherrod said the short video clip excluded the breadth of the story about how she eventually worked with the man over a two-year period to help ward off foreclosure of his farm, and how she eventually became friends with the farmer and his wife.
“And I went on to work with many more white farmers,” she said. “The story helped me realize that race is not the issue, it’s about the people who have and the people who don’t. When I speak to groups, I try to speak about getting beyond the issue of race.”
So let’s see the rest of the tape, Big Government. Was Sherrod giggling among black folk about the time she put it to the white man, as the leaked excerpt suggests, or was the tape a deceptively edited excerpt of a longer story about getting beyond the issue of race, as she claims?
Let’s see the tape. The evidence apparently exists to settle the question. Cough it up." Unqoute.
Telling the truth is always the way for FREEDOM , half truths or deceptions are the way for SLAVERY.Do not underestimate the power of a blogger..in this case an "ajc" blogg!To focuss or not to focuss is the question!
Small Farmers:Expect new visitors named "Restaurant chefs"
It used to be that farmers are the last ones to know who is buying their produce.Not any more.
The NYT has just reported in an articler how the case is being reversed and how restaurant owners and chefs are now flocking to local farmers to order their produce via a hand shake not over the phone or fax.
Seeing vegetables in the field is beleiving .The need now is growing to find out WHERE the PRODUCE is coming from not HOW and WHAT the MENUs are! Restaurants are now connecting DIRECT to local to the local farmer not the food chain distributor or the grocery store that are importing their produce from Mexico or God knows where!
Catering for LOOKS and TASTE!????UH UH UUUUH!EYWEEEEEH!I do not think so!
Check out today's NYT article (qouted below for quick reference):Qoute NYT:"
"Now, Chefs Court Farmers for the Best Ingredients
Ariane Daguin, owner of D’Artagnan, introduces Lucy Benno to a chick at Griggstown Quail Farm.
By GLENN COLLINS
MIDDLEBURGH, N.Y.
Richard Perry/The New York Times
Jacob Hooper of Barber Farms shows Lucy’s father, Jonathan Benno, right, chef of the new Lincoln Center restaurant, one of the farm’s conehead cabbages.
THE former commandant of the elysian kitchen of Per Se, Jonathan Benno, was bouncing in the muddy bed of a Chevy pickup as it navigated 180 acres of vegetables at Barber Farms. It lurched to a stop before a row of weird, pointy-headed cabbages.
“Now, this interests me,” he said.
Jacob Hooper, the farm’s manager, plucked one and handed it to Mr. Benno, who nibbled a leaf and said, “It’s like a hearty lettuce, very mild.” The name of the cabbage, Caraflex, was unfamiliar, but he registered its taste for some future menu item.
Minutes later, Mr. Hooper was explaining how he protects his raspberries from fall frost. “Well, you can sign me up for raspberries in November,” the chef said with some excitement, and perhaps a hint of skepticism.
Mr. Benno’s field trip was no pastoral ramble. It was a crucial stop in his yearlong quest to open a $20-million restaurant at Lincoln Center in September. Once, farmers begged top chefs to give their produce a whirl. But with carrots, corn and tomatoes being accorded the fanatical attention once reserved for foie gras and truffles, chefs now come knocking.
Logic might suggest that it is easier these days for serious kitchens to find excellence. “But it gets harder for us,” said Michael White, the chef and an owner of Marea, along with Alto and Convivio, all in Manhattan, “since now, so many chefs are in competition for the same high-end ingredients.”
Visits to specialty farms in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania have become as much a part of the run-up to a high-stakes opening as picking a restaurant’s china — or its name.
Speaking of which, after months of debate, the restaurant finally has one: Lincoln. (This is the third in a series of articles about Mr. Benno and the Lincoln Center restaurant; the second focused on the search for a name.)
“Lincoln is readily identifiable and recognizable,” said Reynold Levy, president of Lincoln Center, “and like our arts center, the name Lincoln will be a powerful brand.” It is not, however, Italian.
“Zagat lists some 370 Italian restaurants in New York, and I didn’t want ours to become the 371st with an Italian name,” said Nick Valenti, chief executive of the Patina Restaurant Group, which will operate Lincoln. “You don’t need an Italian name to be Italian.”
But you do need vegetables. “It’s not enough now to pick up the phone and say to a distributor: ‘What have you got? O.K., give me a case.’ Now you want to see,” said Mr. Benno, 40. “You want to go there. They get to know us, and they see the possibilities for us. And for them.”
Top chefs can’t be lip-service locavores any longer. “Our customers travel to food and wine festivals,” Mr. White said, “and food devotees are more and more aware of the sourcing of products.” At the table, they can even surf the Web on their iPhones to check out the provenance of the steak, the chicken and the chicory.
The chef Daniel Boulud said that his relationship with some farmers goes back decades, and “they know our priorities and we know theirs,” he said. “We never argue about the price, and we support them in the hard times.”
To Mr. Benno, “This is not about currying favor, it is about developing a relationship. In this business, it’s about the handshake — looking them in the eye.” For there is an urgent new restaurant reality: “These days, carrots are in the ground Friday and on the plate Saturday night,” he said.
Locally, the farm-to-table revolution has seen an explosion of “varieties that have different color, flavor and cooking characteristics, instead of ordinary varieties chosen for their ease of shipping and stacking characteristics,” said John J. Mishanec, a specialist for the Cornell University Cooperative Extension program who has spent decades working to improve local farmers’ practices.
As Mr. White said, “You always want to be an innovator, and some farmers do, too.”
And so, he has scoured Italian Web sites to order spigarelli, arugula and radicchio seeds, and has asked farmers — including Rick Bishop of Mountain Sweet Berry Farm in Roscoe, N.Y. — to grow them. And Mr. Boulud has beaten the local bushes for sweet French radishes and cardoons.
Beyond this, given the explosion of farmers’ markets, ingredient-hungry chefs have to travel farther to get what they want, said Mr. Mishanec. It can be easier for small growers to sell in farmers’ markets for immediate cash — and often more per pound — than extending restaurants credit for 30 days, said Jim Barber, whose family has inhabited the Middleburgh farm for 153 years. " Unqoute.
17 Jul Sat 2010
A Community Garden gets an Involuntary pesticide spray and is asked to remove sprayed fruits and vegetables by you know who!.Will the Food Safety bill affect/take away your backyard vegetable garden and your green /farmer market stand?
A local community garden that does not allow its members to use synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers , gets an INVOLANTARY pesticide spray and is asked to remove fruits and vegetables from the garden.
Thus,raising questions about the "who" has the right to grow and harvest and spray on a private property and stirring disgruntled emotions among some of the community garden members, who grow their own organic food to survive after they lost jobs and you name it.. Now some of them are losing their own grown FOOD , after they have been denied FOOD STAMPS previously and now offered FREE PESTICIDES on their organically grown food! Imagine this happens to you.What would you do?
This is being done while the Safety S 510 is still -not approved as LAW yet- but waiting on the floors of the House and the Senate .Imagine what will happen when it is APPROVED becomes LAW?Where have you been all this time ?Just chit chatting about the weather and which chicken is laying eggs and which one is not?Have you had a chance to check it out?Do you know who are sponsoring and who are opposing it?
Is the S 510 Food Safety Bill going to make you -your food/ farm/garden/farmersmarket- more safe at growing or marketing your own produce ?Here is a chance for you to get all the answers and post all the questions that are in your mind.Check out the below web link.Be proactive and do not procrastinate about your rights. You know what to do!
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-510
Small farmers :Wake up NOW and speak up for your rights .Make your voice COUNT this coming NOVEMBER!
13 Jul Tue 2010
United Farm Workers say:TAKE OUR JOBS! MSNBC survey puts farmers at lowest paid jobs in the nation!
Farmers unite.The November election is imminent.Get your name on the ballots and send a message to the nation.There are plenty ofbankers, lawyers ,corporate CEO s and Monsanto insiders and officials already present in the key Adricultural positions but not a single URBAN ORGANIC FARMER?Why are we so excluded,silent ,timid and so shy to apply for government positions and bring our voice to the legislature as representatives of the US farmers nationwide?
Check out the last MSNBC survey for the lowest paid jobs in US.Farmers are among the lowest eight category including cashiers , movie ushers and dish washers!
Why do we rate so low among the professions while we are so stratigically important for food security?What happens when the illegal farmers are sent back home thanks to the late Arizona Immigration Law ?We will be dependent on importing our food from countries like Brazil and Mexico etc..
Hear what the president of the United Farm Workers says at the bellow web link:
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20100709_united-farm-workers-say-take-our-jobs
Let us not talk politics or racial profiling for a moment and focuss on our rights to have representatives of Small Farmers at the Congress and the Senate this coming election.We need professional Organic Farmers in the office and we need them now before thesmall farmers rights are gone with the wind.
Let there be a Farmers Bill of Rights.Let there be laws to protect the farm land from development.Let there be ...let there be...youy name it!
This November vote for a real Organic Urban Local Farmer Near You!
12 Jul Mon 2010
Solving the HOMELESS DILEMMA:GET THEM TO WORK IN FARMS and COMMUNITY GARDENS !
I had the opportunity to see and witness on site how a homeless group took advantage of a group -of churches -that was trying to help by providing them food , access to their center and offered them many other services as well .All of them were white ,middle age men and women and had addictions ranging from alcohol to drugs .
They robbed the place.I got robbed too.The Sheriff was called in finally after the situation went out of control.
Criminal behavior flourishes with NO WORK, drug,alchohol,smoking addictions .Most of the homeless are pan handlers. I tried to let one help out in the garden picking pine tree cones prior to mowing the area ,after stalking and asking me for money,he showed resistance for work and took off abruptly , with some of my personal belongings gone as well .
He simply did not show any inclinations to physical work after so many years of easy access for food stamps, church food offered in an A/C and recreation center comfortable setting (and offcourse free accomodations in the woods)..He once told me that he saw another homeless stealing a bicycle and did neither stop or report him.They have a brotherhood like affiliation to protect each others .They do not like police either.They beleive in taking the law into their own hands.He himself carried a weapon in his bag(he showed me a BIG knife which really scared and intimidated me).
While at the garden he complained to me that his helongings were thrown away into the canal by another homeless guy whom he said he knew and was going to get revenge .I tried to remind him about how we need to forgive each others .He said he only beleives in the eye for an eye law.
Simply , they were fed for free.Most of them also had access for food stamps.The money they pan handled- or laid hands on- went to buy beer, cigarettes and other illegal stuff to feed their addictions.There was no program on hand by then to rehabilitate them.Most had criminal records
One time ago a man ,who lived in a neglected neighborhood where once I kept a community garden,came to me complaining about his wife who keeps giving him hard time and harasing him at home so he ends up beating her, then she calls the police and he ends up in jail.
I suggested that he comes to me next time she gives him hard time without beating her.He did.I assigned a plot for him to grow vegetables and provided the seeds.The situation changed after he was given a plot to tend and retreat from a domestic argument. Instead of beating his wife he simply took his frustrations off by digging , weeding and spending time at the garden.The criminal behavior was gone .So,if we can provide similar PRODUCTIVE GARDENING opportunities for the homeless to work- under guidance and supervision of a rehabilitation program- in community gardens to produce their own ORGANIC food and eat healthy diets instead of all the junk food and other intoxicating addictives, their life style could change for the better.
There are so many empty lots that could be transformed into productive gardens.There are so many churches , other private non-profit and government organizations with lands donated or available to them or are sitting idle.Why not start programs of PLACING the homeless into work at community gardens and get them trained on farming jobs to heal their addictions first and then let them work at farms to replace the illegal immigrants who soon will be going back home once the ARIZONA LAW becomes nationally applied!
Gardening is a proven therapy in Japan and Sweden.At least we can try to bring the homeless and the gardens meet and see what happens .Idle hands of homeless men and women plus addictions make criminal behavior possible.Busy productive hands , in the garden make, ORGANIC harvests flourish and crimes vanish.Give it a try!
07 Jul Wed 2010
Burning oil pumping more carbon ,climate change and crop failures ,are they related?Feel the record breaking heat yet?
I live in Florida Tropics and I was so worried about the oil spill in the gulf that I was contemplating to volunteer to join the clean up crews..
Until I read the story of Drew Wheelan.He was doing a coverage of the Gulf oil spill in Louisiana ,got pulled over by the cops and his camera was weilded . .He ended up being diagnosed with pneumonia ,he says.
He asks the question whether the Chemical Dispersant Coreexit used in the Gulf oil spill ,had anything to do with the diagnosis?Very interesting story by an eye witness.Check details at below links :
http://birding.typepad.com/gulf/2010/06/diagnosis-pneumonia-lets-hope-thats-all.html?sms_ss=email
http://motherjones.com/rights-stuff/2010/06/BP-louisiana-police-stop-activist
This brings the question whether climate change has anything to do with the carbon dioxide rising persentage in the atmosphere, due to man made effects like burning fossil fuel raising carbon dioxide levels and CROP FAILURES?
As an urban farmer who experienced crop failures this year due to the extreme intermitent hot/cold change in temperatures here in the S.Florida sub tropics agricultural zone ,I want to share with you what the BRITISH GUARDIAN (guardian.co.uk/environment/food shortage articlicle/09)reported last year about the effects of Climate Change in the tropics and sub-tropics.They predicted crop failures( which has started to happen on small scale as far as I know).
Here is the report/article qouted for quick reference:I qoute the GUARDIAN ":
Billions face food shortages, study warns
• Climate change may ruin farming in tropics by 2100
• Record temperatures to become normal in Europe
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- Ian Sample, science correspondent
- The Guardian, Friday 9 January 2009
- Article history
Half of the world's population could face severe food shortages by the end of the century as rising temperatures take their toll on farmers' crops, scientists have warned.
Harvests of staple food crops such as rice and maize could fall by between 20% and 40% as a result of higher temperatures during the growing season in the tropics and subtropics. Warmer temperatures in the region are also expected to increase the risk of drought, cutting crop losses further, according to a new study.
The worst of the food shortages are expected to hit the poor, densely inhabited regions of the equatorial belt, where demand for food is already soaring because of a rapid growth in population.
A study in the US journal Science found there was a 90% chance that by the end of the century, the coolest temperatures in the tropics during the crop growing season would exceed the hottest temperatures recorded between 1900 and 2006.
More temperate regions such as Europe could expect to see previous record temperatures become the norm by 2100.
"The stress on global food production from temperatures alone is going to be huge, and that doesn't take into account water supplies stressed by the higher temperatures," said David Battisti, at the University of Washington, who led the study.
Battisti and Rosamond Naylor, at Stanford University in California, combined climate models from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and historical examples of the impact of heatwaves on agriculture, and found severe food shortages were likely to become more common.
Among the periods they examined was the record heatwave across western Europe in 2003, which killed an estimated 52,000 people and also cut yields of wheat and fodder by a third. In 1972, a prolonged hot summer in south-east Ukraine and south-west Russia saw temperatures rise by between 2C and 4C above the norm, driving down wheat and coarse grain yields for the whole of the USSR by 13%. The disruption affected the global cereal market for two years.
Naylor, who is director of food security and the environment at Stanford, said the study emphasised the need for countries to invest in adapting to a changing climate. To develop new crops to withstand higher temperatures could take decades, she added.
"When we looked at our historical examples there were ways to address the problem within a given year," Naylor said. "People could always turn somewhere else to find food. But in the future there's not going to be any place to turn unless we rethink our food supplies."
The tropics and subtropics, which stretch from the southern US to northern Argentina and southern Brazil, from northern India and southern China to southern Australia, and cover all of Africa, are currently home to 3 billion people. Future temperature rises are expected to have a greater impact in the tropics because the crops grown there are less resilient to changes in climate.
According to the study, many local populations now live on less than £1.30 a day and depend on agriculture. The need for food is due to become more urgent as populations are expected to nearly double by the end of the century.
"When all the signs point in the same direction, and in this case it's a bad direction, you pretty much know what's going to happen," Battisti said. "You're talking about hundreds of millions of additional people looking for food because they won't be able to find it where they find it now.
"You can let it happen and painfully adapt, or you can plan for it. You could also mitigate [climate change] and not let it happen in the first place, but we're not doing a very good job of that."
Naylor added: "We have to be rethinking agriculture systems as a whole, not only thinking about new varieties [of crops], but also recognising that many people will just move out of agriculture, and even move from the lands where they live now."
In many countries, a combination of poor farming practices and deforestation, exacerbated by climate change, may steadily degrade soil fertility, leaving vast areas unsuitable for crops or grazing. In 2007, scientists warned that poor soil fertility meant a global food crisis was likely in the next half-century." Unqoute.
29 Jun Tue 2010
This 4th of July :Declare your FOOD INDEPENDENCE from GMO ,Big Agri Corporartions and fossil fuel agricultural derivartives
Most of us farmers and gardeners go with the flow as far as what is the status qua of agriculture.Unless we change the way we think by awakening our quest for sustainability and "fossil fule" free agriculture.
Oil now is contaminating our water resources whether on land or sea.The rush for declaring our food independence from chemically produced produce is now being accelerated by the Gulf Oil Spill.
Hands in the Sands is a new organization that is opposing fossil fuel and ocean oil drilling.They dio not have a web site yet , but they are gathering crowds here at the Florida and beyond beaches .
Here in Florida we do feel the burden of the oil spill not just on our beaches and tourist attractions, but also in our homes and farms as well.
People may have observed that the seafood that they used to buy locally here in the Gulf coast are dwindling especially oysters and shells etc..Food harvested from the ocean is now becoming scarce and pollured by the recent Gulf oil spill.
Farmers and farms are already being downsized and vanishing by the ecconomic crunch not to mention the oil spill which is now obliterating the Tourist industry which is second to farming.
Markets ,malls, beaches and restaurants are closing .We feal the brunt and the heat of the summer both financially and physically.We need help and we need it soon before the rest of what is still holding on is gone.
We in Florida are surrounded by the Gulf coast where the oil spill is busy changing the ocean of water into and ocean of oil and the East coast where it is connected to the west coast by the gulf stream .A new tropical storm now is forming in the west coast and the Hurricane season has just began.Imagine your life being squeezed by a Hurricane season and an Oil spill that has been active and pouring oil since last April and counting.
This Independence day we need to celebrate in a different way.We need to declare our INDEPENDENCE from oil and fossil fuel agricultural derivatives like chemical fertilizers and pesticides.We need to start growing our own food in our own back yards.We need to stop our cravings for drugs and alchohol and other man made and packaged food laden with chemical additives that were given the right to be there in order to preserve shelf life but shorten our own .
Farmers now are fighting back for their rights to grow seeds of their own choice that are not owned and patented by a few corporations that put a control on farmers making a living.
For the first time in US history farmers are now being heard .Their greivances now are being investigated .Lately the government has started a series of workshops to listen to farmers concerns .
There are significant decline in farmers and farms.There are monopolies by giant Agri corporations.There are patented seeds that are owned by those few corporations..there are more and more constraints on agricultural competition.For all of this , now farmers are uniting for their rights and the government is lending them an ear.More details below on :US Farmers Oppose 'Big Ag'in Anti Trust Hearing."in the down below web link@:
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/US_farmers_oppose_big_ag.php
Have a Happy 4th.
23 Jun Wed 2010
Unconventionalgardens series -II.Spiritual gardens:The Zen and the Gesthsemane
In the east , gardens are considered as a sacred place to meditate and pray.A place sacred for the Spirit as well as to the body to eat from and find medicinal herbs to treat diseases.The Greeks are famous for their gardens in the middle of their homes .The garden was not outside .It was inside the house surrounded with walls.The famous gardens of Lefkara in Cyprus stand as of today as a wittness.
On the meditation part we can mention the ZEN gardens.
Zen Buddhism has been a big influence in creating the ZEN gardens.The most famous Zen garden is in Japan:"The Karesansui Zen Garden at Ryoan-Ji Temple .
Zen gardens use stones .They are a place that combines art with nature .A perfect place for meditation.
As for the early christians , we notice that prayers were held in the gardens to commemorate the Gesthsemane Garden where Jesus Christ was praying before he was taken for Crucifiction .The place of his crucifiction was also the same place were he was praying.
During our present day we notice that in the VATICAN, the pope has a special garden where he also prays.
Gardens are used as a therapeutic place in Japan and Finland, where patients at hospitals are taken to plant,harvest and meditate and heal.
In our yards we grow lawns and the time is ripe to transform those lawns into sacred gardens that nourish boith the body and spirit.
Happy Gardening, AMEN!
22 Jun Tue 2010
Land land every where , but no farmers to grow food.Is FAMINE on the way to US?
I have noticed recently a trend which is worth mentioning here in Florida.There is an exodus of Farms and Farmers .Last week there was an auction to sell the equipments of a farm that was in business since the 1930s for example.
More and more migrant farmers are starting to migrate back home encouraged by the increase of American owened farms that are now taking root in Mexico where the labor is cheap and the farmers are LEGAL citizens of MEXICO.
Another trend which I have noticed is the increase of interest in starting community gardens and private vegetable gardens in the backyards of home owners who know nothing about farming.Guess who are the home owners?The most affluent and the most informed .They are sensing that something is going to happen in the near future and food will be scarce and hard to get just like a hard currency.
I happened to fall on an articla by Richard Heinberg:Fifty million farmers whic is worth checking out at:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Archives2008/Heinbergfiftymillion.html
Mr Heinberg speculates that famine is on the way and cites four main reasons :
1-"Looming fuel shortage.
2-Shortage of farmers.
3-Scarcity of fresh water.
4-Climate change."
I am having a deluge of questions about how to start growing our own food.There are shortages of programs to educate the public and the reason why not so many are interested to teach here in Florida is :People have no clue about Tropical farming" and if they have it they have no financial stimulus or budget to carry on doing it.
Nobody really cares about migrant farmers and how they are treated ( near slavery conditions ,no medical insurance,no fair wages,no fair housing,etc..), but everybody cares about eating no matter what junk or chemical and pesticide rich produce ..Once the migrant farmers are gone ,and Arizona Law is just the tip of the iceburg of what is following and being now cooked on low fire.We are known worldwise for being unilateral,shoot first then ask questions.Invade and destroy first then start construction,negotiations and dialogue.
Do we have the alternative resources and programs to replace the migrant farmers and farms ?That is the question we need to address before we fire ...then hire.
The time is ripe to appoint an Urban Farmer Secretery who is not affiliated or connected to the Big Agri Business, but rather to the small urban farmers that are now sprouting like crazy all over US .
The reason:People sense that something dramatic is going to happen to their food. To Change the Course , we need Courage .To get the right thing done ,we need men and women of Courage to lead period.
18 Jun Fri 2010
Unconventional gardening Series-I. Sprouting.
The sun is blazing here in the summer of S .Florida .The garden is simmering and the vegetables are being cooked alive outside. Just kidding? Organic gardening in the hot summer offers limited harvests in the outdoors. Eating organic vegetables now costs a fortune when visiting the health food store and with this kind of economy that is squeezing our hard earned dollars , an alternative is sought to save both on the grocery bill and the medical bill in case of a sun stroke! The Indoor Sprouting Garden offers us a chance to eat more of organic food with less money and effort.
History of Sprouting: Sprouting is as ancient as biblical times and beyond. The yellow emperor of china wrote about sprouting in the Chinese materia medica . The Father of Medicine Hippocrates prescribed sprouts to be used as food for medicine.
We can find evidence of sprouts being used in our modern 21st century from both sides as we notice that the authentic Chinese cuisine still uses soy bean sprouts in traditional Chinese dishes.
The famous late Ann Wigmor, the founder of Hippocrates Health Institute in Boston, used sprouts and raw foods in her food regimen programs which are still being used as of today. Benefits of Sprouts:
1-Sprouts are rich in vitamins, minerals and enzymes.
2-Sprouts are alkaline foods that boost the immune system.
3-Sprouts are easy to grow and harvest indoors as well as outdoors.
4-Sprouts which include: Seeds, grains and legumes rid the body of toxins and wastes, maintain health and homeostasis, are concentrated sources of: fiber, protein, starch and chlorophyll rich in oxygen and iron deemed necessary for the body to produce hemoglobin.
5-Sprouts are easy to prepare at home using simple kitchen ware like a vessel or jar,cheese cloth ,water and seeds/grains /legumes.
Happy Sprouting