Back in action with mycology in a permacultured community

If one can follow in detail some very careful steps in starting up mushroom growing especially on a farm and even more so on a farm with permaculture as part of its design, you can feed a whole bunch of people using what you may otherwise throw away.  While growing mushrooms the left overs from the production become some of the best compost and soil producer on earth.  It may be a science to know too much but you may regulate how much and what you need to know.

We encountered a great set of videos that are the best introduction to general mushroom knowledge based on a community/collective farm in New Hampshire called D-Acres dacres.org which is among the best community projects we have encountered in this English speaking universe.  We hope you find the videos informative and get you started on something

https://youtu.be/y8sm1uDPWj8 

Current events and the state of the world

It has been a very sad August when we allow the media to affect us.  Thousands of people dying unnecessarily, in war and conflict, in protests and on the streets, from Missouri to Gaza, from Kurdistan to Damascus, from Donetsk to Santiago, armies, states, police, brutally slaughter their perceived enemies. In Syria the latest count of deaths since the uprising begun has reached 170,000 people and with the ISIS the numbers are climbing.  In Gaza 2,100 is the last count in a few weeks.  In Ukraine it is questionable what the numbers are but lately different sides refer to 2,000.  In Africa the numbers are never so important to the western media to report, until the Ebola epidemic  came and the media took an interest as far as this epidemic may cause a threat elsewhere.  Yet there is one constant statistic that not many are reporting in the mass media.  Over 60,000 people a day, nearly half being children, are dying from the simple cause of the lack of nutrients and clean water.  Meanwhile if one is to divide the annual world production of corn (alone) by the population one will find the corn produced alone can prevent death from hunger.  An enormous amount of food is produced worldwide, maybe "too much" according to economists who are waged by corporations that benefit from the rise of the price of commodities.

Mushrooms, how much we don't know

If the study of mushrooms is a science in itself it may be the youngest science yet.  There is such a vast amount to study around mushrooms that indeed we (humans) may be just barely scratching the surface of this science.  As there is very little knowledge around the subject in-house we thought it would be a good excuse to utilize this opportunity to share this learning experience with others who may find an interest.  The process of learning something collectively without the assistance of experts is slightly different and it may be even more objective when a wide spectrum of information as a library is available.  When information does not exist the process becomes science in its true basis.

As we generally avoid encyclopedic interest in learning (learning for leisure or to satisfy personal curiosity) as such may only be expressed by an individual not a community or other group, learning about mushrooms, how to choose them, how to grow them, cook/eat them, use them for other purposes, making paper for example, or medical/health reasons, seemed as worthwhile.  In the most introductory reading we have found yet it would be hard to imagine a community that wouldn't need to learn about mushrooms.

A good thing to grow on sunny dry warmer climates

The Grand Amaranth Experiment

Of all the grain crops, amaranth has to be the easiest to turn into something that you can eat.  If you have ever wondered how to add a cereal crop to your garden, consider amaranth.  This versatile, beautiful, and easy to grow plant can add another dimension to gardening.  Unlike wheat or oats, where you need to cut the stalks, thresh the grain and then grind it into flour, amaranth literally falls from the seed heads ready to eat.

I started this experiment last year with a small test crop just to get an idea of what to expect.  Andrew Still of the Seed Ambassadors spoke highly of amaranth and gave me a few seeds of Copperhead, an ornamental yet grain producing variety.  There are two or three species of grain amaranth, Amaranthus caudatus, and Amaranthus cruentus (Copperhead is this species) being the most important, each of which encompasses many varieties.  Most of the amaranth varieties have purple or red hues in the plant stalks and leaves as well as brilliantly colored flowers.  Copperhead is an exception with rust and copper tones in the stems and flowers.  The common commercial variety called Plainsman is a hybrid of two other species,  Amaranthus hypochondriacus, from Mexico and Amaranthus hybridus, from Pakistan.

The Monster is Right on Top of Us

Argentine Protesters vs Monsanto:

By Fabiana Frayssinet Reprint  

MALVINAS ARGENTINAS, Córdoba, Argentina , Dec 2 2013 (IPS) - The people of this working-class suburb of Córdoba in Argentina’s central farming belt stoically put up with the spraying of the weed-killer glyphosate on the fields surrounding their neighbourhood. But the last straw was when U.S. biotech giant Monsanto showed up to build a seed plant.

The creator of glyphosate, whose trademark is Roundup, and one of the world’s leading producers of genetically modified seeds, Monsanto is building one of its biggest plants to process transgenic corn seed in Malvinas Argentinas, this poor community of 15,000 people 17 km east of the capital of the province of Córdoba.

Land Degradation

Author: Dr Eureta Rosenberg

What is it?

The experts disagree on how to define land degradation and associated processes such as desertification, but as an issue it is not difficult to understand. Land degradation occurs when the economic and biological productivity of land is lost, primarily through human activities. This can happen, for example, when:

• Fertile soils erode away,
• Indigenous trees are removed,
• Alien plants invade an area,
• Farm land is used for housing,
• Soils become salty through poor irrigation, or
• Soils are degraded by acid pollution and heavy metal contamination.

The loss of productive land obviously affects farming and rural communities. As the land degrades, more fertiliser, machinery and supplementary feeds are needed and the cost of production increases. Small-scale, subsistence farmers are often unable to meet extra costs and even large-scale, commercial farmers can find that farming becomes impossible. As a result, farm workers and others may be forced to move to towns and cities, only to face unemployment and poverty.