lot of Luffa

Luffa harvest time! 

Some of my Luffas start rotting. This may be due to animal interactions or some bug. I'm not sure yet. Could be something else entirely. 

I harvested some of these early. The later harvests are a tougher sponge. 

I got somewhere round 50 my first harvest, there is still a lot more on the vine. It's under what I projected but still a lot more than last year. 

The thing is, the grower gets the slime! 

So the luffa has a slime all over it and the younger sponges you can squeeze a lot of that slime juice out.

It doesn't keep long, and Luffas are quick to rot in general if not processed quickly. 

The slime makes my skin and hair feel amazing. I get slime all over me during harvest, juice em over my head even. 

My larger ones were about the size of an ax handle in length. 

After the sponges are cleaned and mostly de seeded I string them on a line. 

]

Chopped to useful size pieces. 

Partway through the processing. This can be a time consuming process. 

Seeds get thumped out into a jar. I ended up not doing this with all of them, just got enough for next season for me and a bunch to share with friends. I figure I'll collect more seeds with the 2nd harvest. 

Seed jar. The mouth is just about as wide as the Luffa I grow typically get so I can thump them out on the rim.

Hanging up to dry. 

Made a drying rack out of bamboo. 

Takes longer than I thought to process, I need to come up with new methods.

Seeds

Pre cut unpeeled luffa

The more golden the better haha, Depends on what you want really. 

Washing the Luffa. Sticking my hands up to my elbows in that slime water was great. That slime, it puts me in a good mood for whatever reason. 

Some of the seeds floated to the top. The white ones were from the sponges that I harvested early. 

                                             Put a flat strainer in the sink to catch seeds. This is my 2nd season harvesting Luffa so I'm still on the learning curve. I could just look up how to go about it and I do sometimes on other crops. However I find that I learn more when I just play with it. I feel like I gain a deeper understanding of how the plant works. Sure it means I loose a lot of crops but it's cheaper than college haha. Experience is worth a lot more than book smarts anyhow.

These Luffa Sponges may one day be for sale. If or when that happens I'll post a link.


                                                    Word of wisdom for the day - 
  Pleasure is a beautiful harlot sitting in her chariot—
The four wheels are pride, gluttony, lust and foolishness. 
The two horses are prosperity and abundance.
The two drivers are idleness and security.
Her attendants and followers are guilt, grief, shame, 
    and often death and damnation!(taken from apples of gold)


Vid of the day

Papaya

Papaya, oh so good. 

I spit the seeds out in the mulch around my garden wherever I want them. It's an easy way to plant but I've had to pull out several hundred to thin areas. 

Great for digestion. Contains Papain which is a natural meat tenderizer and helps digest proteins. The Papain is more concentrated in the unripe papaya. 

  

Sap from a papaya or papaya tree can cause you to go blind if it gets in your eyes. Best to rinse out your eyes for a good long while if you do. 

Breakfast of champs. 

Words of wisdom. 

EAT PAPAYA
:)

New camera!!!... again. Odds and ins

This is honey taken from a hive at one of my jobs. Got stung 5 times during the process. One when I found them in the compost container. 1 when I tried unsuccessfully to take the lid off. 2 from stepping barefoot on bees in the grass. Some of them were on the honey that fell to the ground, mostly cause I have never harvested honey before and didn't really know what I was doing. The last one was when I was picking bees off the honeycomb and a bee got stuck to my finger cause of all the honey. I gave most to the person who owned the place but came away with a decent bit and fresh honeycomb, this is the little that's left. :) 

I'm happy to report that I was able to successfully relocate the hive to a better safer location. I'll likely check again on the status of the hive. 

 You don't need a fancy bee suit or fog equipment to work with bees. Sure these things can help you not get stung but I was able to harvest from this very large hive. Each chunk of hive was about a foot wide and tall but only a few inch thick per panel x about 4 panels.  I didn't get stung much and when I did it was due to my own carelessness.   I did it in a cut off tshirt, cut off pj pants, barefoot and my superman pj pants tied around ears, nose and mouth so they wouldn't go in those. The trick is to be. It's a calm state, relaxed, patient, gentle. The bees sense it or something. Sure I had them all over me and had to gently pick them off but all in all it's not "hard" by any means. You can also use this trick to remove wasp nests from near doorways and such. If you happen on a hive and get stung once immediately freeze and get calm.  Often you won't get stung again if you do this, then slowly back away. So remember, be the bee. Practicing being is good. As long as it's not causing you to neglect responsibilities or preventing you from owning your mistakes.

Some palm stocks, they look like bamboo but are solid and heavy. A lady who had me cutting them back for her told me that they last for about 2 years untreated. One is now a pull up bar.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the rest yet, For now they are drying. 

                                           I may start a movement blog before too long.

Bamboo, it's dried for general use but not cured so it will rot after a season. How fast things break down really depends on how alive your place is. My place eats things. during the rainy season it's not uncommon to see 12 or more different types of mushrooms on a brief walk down many of the paths. 

Words of wisdom - 

If you have trouble forgiving try to picture yourself doing nice things for that person if you saw them. Like helping them if they had a flat tire. It helps remove some of the bitterness and encourages compassion.  It's not to say you should include someone in your life who has a pattern of evil that your unwilling to tolerate. If a person will likely harm you again if given the slightest chance sometimes its best if they stay away. Forgiveness,love, and compassion are the feelings to aim for when thinking of them even if they are out of your life. 

Banana

Special thanks to Gypsy-Sprite photography for taking pics of my banana clusters.

I had the opportunity to revisit a job site where I had dumped a lot of pond weeds into a clump of banana trees. The owner reported that they had the largest harvest with the largest bananas they had seen out of their patch. I enjoy growing banana trees. I think there is something comforting about being around plants that are obviously filled with water. It's a sign to our primal side that one of the major survival needs is near at hand even if it's harder to actually get to. Being filled with water they make a great firebreak. Counties with a lot of wild fires would do well to plant permanent fire breaks using water filled plants They have to clear a lot of ditches and water ways anyway so the natural fertilizer is already there. Then the county could have a profit off of their land instead of it simply being a liability with increased risk of fire damage. It would also greatly reduce the number of bananas imported thus boosting local economy and reducing pollution.  This of course will only really work in the proper zones. Banana trees don't do well with cold partly because of the large water content.                                      

 

So here's what others have tried that works great. Dig a 3 ft deep 6 ft across circle. Fill the hole with logs and other compost. Plant banana trees around the outside of the hole and then just chop and drop all the leafs in the middle and keep adding compost when you have it. That should give you a large harvest. Use the flowers for eating, just remove the hard thing and the balloon looking thing and soak in lime water first (or lemon). Use the big purple petals or whatever they are as you would a paper bowl or plate. Really cuts down having to do dishes and they compost nicely. Use green bananas in your soups and just about any way you would use a potato while accounting for the varied flavor. Use banana peels on some insect bites, I hear rumor that it can help with the brown recluse bite. If anyone knows from experience or hearing about an actual experience then please let me know. Bananas are great to freeze. The trunks of the banana trees make great punching bags after you have cut the trees down. (it's common to cut a tree down after it fruits.) The fibers are strong, I've witnessed them holding about 200 pounds. Of course that was a good strip of it. If you chop them in half in one swing with the machete then look on your blade you will often see white fibers that when blended together are roughly as strong as wool. If you see someone throwing out banana tree stumps grab em up! They are heavy but if you plant the stump again and wait it will normally kick out a few banana pups thus allowing you to start a banana farm of your own. Trim lower leafs that are blocking light to lower plants or aren't getting much light due to the new leafs. Also trimming leafs on the fruiting side can help balance the trees weight and make it less likely to fall down with the weight of the fruit. Correcting a lean early can really go a long way in preventing a tree from falling right before you get the fruit. 

Word of wisdom

Listen to the sounds of nature, even if your in the city.  

Video of the day

back again

Well it's been a bit since I posted, it's been a crazy few months. I've been going through a lot in my personal life but things are slowly getting better again. Seasons. Change.

The lessons I'm learning from my gardens almost defy being put into words. 

roof view showing the poor quality of my camera. Papaya here. Papaya leaf stems make good spoons and chopsticks. Papaya leaf is great for cooking meats. Papaya leaf has a lot of other perks. Here is the first link that caught my eye on a quick google search of benefits.  15 uses for papaya leaf

I use them in my soups a lot. Papaya is easy to grow also. 

I'm going to keep it short today.  

Word of wisdom for the day: 

Plants show their fruits in time, people do to.

Vid of the day. 

Slime mold

Smart slime. 

This is a small patch that I found growing in my garden. It's been growing off and on in my garden for a few years now. Te larger patches here are 2 to three ft wide

Just before the spore state. 

A bad pic but I think I just need a better camera to capture all the detail. 

 This stuff does better at transit problem solving than some engineers. 

                                   The vid has the info on this post. Cheers!

  My friend found this little guy kickin around the garden and finally got a picture of him.

His body is about 6 inch long without the tail. 

Word of wisdom:

 study the simple things to understand the complex. 

Vid of the day

                                             

New project!

9 acres.

This will be my first larger project and I'm rather excited about it all. This project aim is to reach the surrounding community and help bridge the gaps and differences between races. The goal is to turn it into a food forest but in a way that complements local ecology. Some will be left natural to preserve natural biodiversity. The Church group that owns it owns 15 foot into the creek. the creek is fresh water mostly but during high tide it's brackish. This will be a great opportunity to increase the fish population as well as the populations of cleaning organisms such as clams and other shellfish. There is one alligator that hangs out further back. I think it's probably 6 to 7 ft long. I'll have to be mindful when we get pigs and goats as gators are well known for eating animals that get near the bank. A lot of little dogs have gone missing in this state. A quick google search will bring up many headlines.

These are some fuzzy pics but this is some of the view I wake up to every morning. 

Sweet potato, Hibiscus acetosella (a popular edible and my largest seller when I sell at farmers markets. Banana trees, and a lot of other stuff. 

White sweet potato and regular sweet potato. 

Words of wisdom. 

So I was hanging out with my cat and my cat seemed to know a lot about how to move it's body. He's been training since he was a kitten. Therein is the secret to becoming a master of your own body. Train daily. Train nightly. Push yourself and don't get stagnant. 

Vid of the day. 

new camera

Well stuff got crazy since my last post. It's been an interesting journey. I have a new camera again! 
Yellow slime mold. I hear this mold is intelligent and can learn. I haven't tested that myself yet but I do enjoy simply seeing it. My camera doesn't really do it anything close to justice.  Some treat slime mold as a garden pest but I treat it like the beautiful art piece it is.


I walk this trail near daily. It's a small trail but it smells amazing. Its made out of Cuban oregano for the most part but there are many other plants mixed in.


The purple is "white sweet potato" the sweetness kicks in a little after you bite into it. The grass is lemon grass, Skeeters hate it so I try to keep a lot of it around.  A hodgepodge of other plants that are edible.


Biggest garden lesson of the year so far - Put standing water UNDER the soil. Coconut shells make good bowls or bamboo can be cut to make large cups. You can use clay or other things also but just don't be the person who puts plastic in the soil. If you put the coconut shells or bamboo under the soil cup side up it holds water under the soil. Then even in a dry spell your plants will thrive while your neighbors wilt. I imagine this could become a lawn care business overnight. Imagine whole cities not using sprinklers to water their lawn or at least not often. I don't have time to get caught up in money and stuff so take these ideas and use them. I don't care if I don't see a dime from it, if it helps everyone or someone I'll get paid in the nonlinear economy in due time.

Papaya leaf! haha they turn a nice yellow when they first start to die and progress into a brown. 

Word of wisdom for the day-

Follow God even when you don't understand. It's worth it in the end. 

Vid for the day

sink water

Some parts of the country have been getting an excessive amount of rain. As for FL we had a bit of a dry spell where I'm at so I decided to work on irrigation. 

Most of what I have can survive a dry season due to the gardening methods I use. There are however a few places that don't hold water so well as the soil is still rather poor. 

This is a utility sink I found in the trash somewhere. I made a stand for it and hooked it up to the well water. I put it in a location that is frequented frequently so it gets used often. 

So where does the water go after it drains? 

To water my plants! :)

Drainage waters this and allows for me to add liquid organic fertilizers such as coffee grounds. to the mix. 

This bed was fairly recently planted so many of the starts haven't taken off yet. I'll have to do an update to show the progress of the bed. I didn't really take much care of this area before so much. 

I set up the drain on this sink (I have another sink that has similar function) to go through this bucket first. The idea is that I'd have less chance of the lines getting clogged this way. I think I like the direct rout a bit better but a bucket is a great way to connect many lines together if you don't have all the right attachments. 

Using old hose and a knife I made quite a bit of drip line. Old hoses that leak or are missing the connectors can be quite useful. The flexibility makes it easier when your plants don't grow in a strait line. 

That sink also waters this. I'll have to show an update on this one also.

                                                     So if you can link your sinks and showers up right you can water your whole garden daily with your normal activities. Just be sure to use biodegradable nontoxic soaps and cleaners. It's stupid not to anyway. Why people love to spray poison into the air they breath is beyond me. I never did figure that one out. Why they would pollute the water with such toxic chemicals is beyond me also. If your the type of person who likes to put toxins on your skin, in your food, in your hair, in your lungs, on your children, in your drinking water, then you may want to skip utilizing your waste water in this way. If you mostly don't use harmful chemicals however you could just put an option so you can send it to the yard or to never never land where all our water normally goes.

Words of wisdom

 In a garden things can change quite a bit from year to year. Don't make the mistake of getting stuck in a rut. Roll with the changes. In a society so bent on permanent unchanging things it's easy to be disconnected from reality. Also gardens are not instant. I see a lot of people go and buy full size plants so they can have an instant garden. Sure that works and you can get some fruit here and there but your going to miss out on a lot of lessons that way. Your going to miss out on the process and sometimes understand that is more valuable then the food you grow.

mural mural on the wall

               Some of my artwork, this was taken with my computer webcam as the other is still missing.
I decided to go ahead and restart blogging even without a good camera.
Well it's been a dry season but an educational one. More updates soon to come.


                                                             Words of wisdom
                                      What increases as you use it? Knowledge and a few other things.





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