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.

Call-out for actions and manifestations on the 22 February 2014 !

Thursday 6 February 2014, by zadist

All the versions of this article: [English] [français]

Resistance and Sabotage !
This call-out is motivated by:

=> the call-out of the NoTAV movement at Val di Susa in Italy calling for a national day (22 02 2014) of mobilisation and action, each one in their area, city, environment.
=> the call-out of the ZAD movement at Notre-dame-des-Landes in France calling for a national manifestation in Nantes, France

This is a call-out for actions and manifestations on the 22 February 2014 !

• A day of action and sabotage to abolish all those megalomaniacs, devastating projects with the illusions of a durable development, green capitalism, geo-engeenering !
• A day of action and sabotage to regain our freedom and rights to take decisions about our own lives, our environment, our planet,( in a emancipated manner), instead of those in position of global decision-making, who are using the flag of democracy to impose their society of totalitarian power.
• A day of action and sabotage to bring to a halt the destructions and exploitation of entire species, the waste of tons of raw materials and natural resources everyday, justified by the term ’public interest’, while behind it there’s only money, profit and capital.
• A day of action and in solidarity with all those who fight, and for all those that lost their freedom and especially all those that are oppressed or imprisoned as "terrorists" or as simple delinquents.
• A day of action and convergence with all those struggles heading for a different world, where life and common values are worth more than money, competition and dominance.

No border ! No Nation ! No Pasaran ! No more BULLSHIT !

From the ZAD to Val Susa ! From Hambacher Forst to Square Taksim ? From Calais to Lampedusa Hambourg to Exarchia From Heathrow to Atenco From Valogne to Wendland From Niscemi to Mayo Monte Belo to Khimki Fukushima to Tshernobyle From prison to prison

Resistance et Sabotage !

How a mining conflict led to the political emancipation of a community in Northern Greece.

#Skouries - a story of political emancipation

February 19, 2014   x-pressed.org

Author: Evi Papada  

Source: FROM THE GREEK STREETS

 

Mining conflicts are increasingly surfacing globally due to complains over mines and pollution of water, soil and land occupied as well as over transport and waste disposal. The Skouries forest in Halkidiki has been at the center of a hot dispute between the mining company, Hellas Gold, a subsidiary of the Canadian mining giant Eldorado Gold and local communities. The company claims that an ambitious plan for mining of gold and copper in the area- including deforestation and open pit mining with excavation and everyday use of explosives- will benefit the region through the creation of some 5,000 direct and indirect jobs, while local residents argue that the planned investment will cause considerable damage to the environment and livelihoods, resulting to many more jobs losses in the existing sectors of the local economy (farming, pasture land, fisheries, beekeeping, food processing and tourism). The residents’ claims are supported by research conducted by various independent scientific institutions including the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Technical Chamber of Macedonia. In addition to legitimacy questions underpinning the transfer of mining rights from the Greek state to the aforementioned company [1], the Environmental Impact Assessment produced by El Dorado has been found to contain gross methodological discrepancies and whilst the public consultation process could be at best described as cosmetic [2].

From Fire to Autonomy: Zapatistas, 20 Years of Walking Slowly

Saturday, 25 January 2014 09:28  

By Andalusia Knoll and Itandehui Reyes,  truth-out.org

Note: truth-out does great work in sharing knowledge about the reasons we should not yet give up any struggle.  In this great piece one should not overlook this paragraph:
mandar obedenciedo (command by obeying): to serve and not be served; represent and not supplant; build and not destroy; propose and not impose; and convince, not defeat, from below not above.

Speaking in the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico, on a cold drizzly New Year's Eve, the Zapatista Comandante Hortensia addressed the crowd: "Twenty-five or 30 years ago we were completely deceived, manipulated, subjugated, forgotten, drowned in ignorance and misery." She was communicating the official words of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) on the 20th anniversary of their rebellion, when thousands of indigenous people rose up in arms, took over dozens of major towns and villages in this southern state, and declared "enough is enough, never again will there be a homeland that doesn't include us."
Comandante Hortensia went on to explain how over the past two decades, they have constructed their own autonomous government, complete with their own health and education system, based in the indigenous traditions of their ancestors. Despite the continual efforts of the "neoliberal bad government" to displace them from their land, the Zapatistas have successfully recuperated thousands of acres of land on which they have constructed communities that are governed "from the bottom up." Community members participate in rotating government positions that operate under the democratic principle of "mandar obedeciendo" (commanding by obeying).

ZAD, France: This is not a camp

Translated by resistrA http://resistra.espivblogs.net/2014/01/zad-france-this-is-not-a-camp/

Jan 27 2014

it’s a pirate look-out

Following various announcements for a possible start of construction of the Notre Dame des Landes airport, a series of articles were released in the press that pretty much regurgitated copy-pasted clichés. One of these articles caught our attention notably. In almost all the articles that would preach the possible eviction and the final catastrophe of ZAD we read “200 people, alter-globalists, continue to camp in ZAD.” The figure might seem rough. The term “alter-globalists” is not a term that the people who chose to fight against the airport and the world of “development” would embrace. But we don’t give a damn about that! For now we will hang on to the bad joke that describes what’s happening here as “camping”.

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.