Growing Chillie (or is it growing chili?) Peppers

Enough with theory and political food for thought, spring is springing up all around us (except for you poor folks way up north). It is time to leave the books and pencils (remember those?) and go out and do some work. If you procrastinate now by mid-fall you will be cursing yourselves for not starting out earlier. Some of the things we have been experimenting with (other than quinoa and amaranth as evident throughout our site) is peppers. We eat many different peppers in many different ways.

Hot peppers need some extra time to grow and produce their best so we start with them earlier. Depending on weather we may start indoors as the seeds need a certain warm temperature to germinate. Then we take the plants out once they pop up and make a temporary greenhouse out of PVC pipe and clear plastic. If you are in a sunny part of the world even if it is cold a small greenhouse sturdy enough to resist wind and just big enough to clear the plants before the temperature will warm up is sufficient. Here we found a good article with the same permaculture tendencies we have, about the tricks of planting chili peppers.

Quinoa & Amaranth can feed the world.

Republished from DailyKos Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 01:00 PM PDT

Amaranth can feed the world..

by Demfem

Amaranth grain

This is a diary which will try to bring to the attention of those that are interested in food resources a grain that may well be what saves the human race from starving to death. It is an ancientt grain, grown by early American civilizations. The article linked above, one of many that I will be using, says

Amaranth has a long and interesting history in Mexico where it's been grown and harvested for thousands of years by the Mayan and Incan civilizations. The Aztecs believed Amaranth had magical properties that would give them amazing strength.

Because it was important culturally to the Aztecs, the conquistadors did their best to eradicate it. Fortunately for us, they were not entirely successful. I say fortunately because it may be the grain that saves us from mass starvation on a global scale.
More below the fold..

Amaranth is a very interesting plant. It will grow just about anywhere, under conditions that would kill any other food plant. It needs a little water when planted and can do without until harvest if necessary. Amaranth will grow in poor soil, in rich soil, and in rocky or clayey soil that other crops will not grow in.
Mixed with corn flour or meal, amaranth flour or meal, is a complete food for humans. It has all the proteins and amino acids the human body requires for maintenance.
Amaranth is also a dual crop, the grain is a foodstuff for people, the stalks and leaves combined with corn stalks and leaves, are a complete feed for livestock. It can be fed in round bales or as silage.

Amaranth puts nitrogen back into the soil naturally, eliminating the need for artificial nitrates which run off and pollute the water ways. A field can be kept in good shape by rotating amaranth with corn without adding any artificial fertilizer.

We are simply republishing this article and we are in search of similar.  We have to eventually cross some of this information with other sources for validity.

Living off the land: How much land?

Posted on Saturday, May 5, 2012 by Thoreau | 3 Comments

Suppose that you can no longer rely on any consistent source of food, other than what you can grow on your own land. Your stored food supplies have been exhausted. Some disaster has wreaked havoc with the commercial food supply. How much land would you need to grow ALL of your own food? For this particular article, I’m setting aside the question of raising your own chickens, fish, goats, cattle, pigs, etc. For the sake of simplicity, let’s consider how much land it would take to grow a complete vegetarian diet, per person. Now I’m not a vegetarian, but I eat a fairly healthy diet, and if the necessity arises, I’d adapt.
Certain assumptions are necessary to this type of calculation. For example, we have to estimate the total calories per day per person, and the percent of calories attributed to protein, fat, and carbohydrates. [Technically, what we call 'calories' are kilocalories (kcal).] The USDA nutrition labels assume 1800 kcal per day for an adult woman and 2200 kcal per day for an adult man. So the average is that ubiquitous 2000 kcal diet figure found on so many product labels. I suggest that this figure is ridiculously low for anyone who is growing all of his or her own food, largely by manual labor. My target for kcal per day is 2740, which is one million kcal per year per person — a nice round figure, and plenty of calories for a non-sedentary lifestyle. If you think that my numbers are off by, say, 10 or 20%, you can easily increase or decrease the final tally by 10 or 20% to get a result that you prefer.