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Stevia: You Don't Have to Pay 5 Bucks For 50 Packets

The answer is, yes. You can grow Stevia natively and it's well worth it due to it's general uses for sweetening and as leaf that can brew it's own unique sweet tea. As a weak perennial, this plant requires re-planting every 2 years, however, it takes up far less room than Sorghum, and is more feasible than Sugar Cane. While Stevia is native to the tropics, if you apply the same techniques as a zucchini or cucumber vine, such as making a raised mound before planting, you can water frequently, which the plant requires, but avoid rotting of the roots.

From Stevia.Com:

While tolerant of most soil types, Stevia prefers a sandy loam or loam. Any well-drained soil that produces a good crop of vegetables should work fine. Incorporating organic matter is the best way to improve heavy, high clay soils. A rich compost made with leaves, grass, hay, kitchen waste, manure, and other organic residues will improve soil structure and supply nutrients. Finished compost may be tilled, disked, or spaded into the soil before planting or used as a mulch later on. A "green manure" crop the previous year such as oats, rye, or legumes will also improve heavy soils. Stevia occurs naturally on soils of pH 4 to 5, but thrives with soil pH as high as 7.5. However, Stevia does not tolerate saline soils (Shock, 1982).

While a good compost usually satisfies nutrient requirements, soil testing or plant symptoms may alert you to deficiencies. Mark Langan of Mulberry Creek HerbFarm recommends low nitrogen or organic fertilizers. Excess nitrogen promotes rank growth with poor flavor. Bone meal, blood meal, cottonseed meal, guano, or dried manure provide nitrogen that is released slowly. Rock phosphate or bone meal provide phosphorous. Greensand is a good source of potassium. Rock phosphate, bone meal, and greensand offer a wide range of trace minerals. For maximum nutrient availability, work organic fertilizers into the soil a few months before planting, or mix with compost. For poor fertility soils, Blas Oddone (1997) of Guarani Botanicals, Inc. recommends incorporating 6 to 7 pounds of cattle manure per square yard. When using chemical fertilizers, a low nitrogen formula such as 6-24-24 is recommended in a split application - at planting time and again in mid summer. (Columbus, 1997). Steve Marsden of Herbal Advantage, Inc. simply uses a balanced vegetable fertilizer at the dose and intervals recommended on the container for vegetables.

Another time we will get into using Stevia as a sweetener in it's raw state.

Soda Tax: Cutting Off An Arm Because You Scraped Your Elbow

Soda Tax. It was all the rage a month or two ago. The argument was: Sugary sweet stuff causes diabetes, therefore, sugary sweet stuff should be taxed. The argument is seriously flawed. Take a gander at the ingredient of the average bottle of pop:

Pepsi is made with carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, caramel color, sugar, phosphoric acid, caffeine, citric acid and natural flavors. A can of Pepsi (12 fl ounces) has 41 grams of carbohydrates (all from sugar), 30 mg of sodium, 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of protein, 38 mg of caffeine and 150 calories. The caffeine-free Pepsi-Cola contains the same ingredients but without the caffeine. -Wikipedia

Key ingredient: Corn Syrup, not sugar. 95% of your soda makers use this ingredient, and if you read the following article, this is your biggest diabetes contributor:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 23, 2007) — Researchers have found new evidence that soft drinks sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) may contribute to the development of diabetes, particularly in children. In a laboratory study of commonly consumed carbonated beverages, the scientists found that drinks containing the syrup had high levels of reactive compounds that have been shown by others to have the potential to trigger cell and tissue damage that could cause the disease, which is at epidemic levels.

Recently, PepsiCo unleashed Pepsi Throwback on the public to an overwhelming response. Try and find a case of Throwback and you soon found yourself store-hopping because most shelves were bare. Why? First, the soda did not have the trademark lingering after-burn that corn syrup leaves behind. It was light, clean, refreshing. There was applause from American Sugar Growers, and they asked Pepsi to make it permanent. They also said they could supply the demand the old / new formula would cause.

The Bottom Line is our FDA creates about 80% of our health issues. One could argue doing so ensures higher prescription sales as people get older, therefore creating a long-term need that also in turn creates profit. It's business. After an hour's worth of research regarding the preservatives in American's foods, one soon concludes these preservatives are poisoning us. It appears to be both a deliberate vicious circle and a Pandora's Box.

Is Soda the culprit? In point of fact, no, it is not. The chemicals used to cut corners and preserve the contents are. Fresh Foods that don't sit on a shelf are both better for you, and free of these chemicals. Therefore, technically, the makers of said products are the culprits. In essence, the FDA should ultimately tax itself.

Bad Soil Into Good Soil

You can correct bad soil by making it good. Here are some tips from About.com:

How Do You Know if You Have Bad Soil
The only definitive way to know for sure is to have it tested. Your Cooperative Extension probably provides this service for a nominal fee. Many nurseries also test soil.

A quick guestimate of your soils health can be made by looking at your plants health. If they are thriving, don’t fix what isn’t broken. If your plants are languishing, yellowing or otherwise looking sickly or you feel like you are forever feeding them, it would be worth testing your soil.

Making Good Soil
If your pH is off, you will get a recommendation for adding either lime, to raise the alkalinity, or sulfur, to lower the pH. This is easy enough to do and should be done in stages, so as not to shock the plants. Generally it is recommended that you not add more than 5 pounds of lime or sulfur per 100 sq. ft. of existing garden. If you were wise enough to test your soil before putting in a garden or lawn, go ahead and dump in the whole recommended amount.

Adding Nutrients
If you find you need to add nutrients to your soil, you’ll have the choice of organic or inorganic. Inorganic fertilizer has some pluses in its favor. It is usually cheaper than organic fertilizer and it acts more quickly. However, it does nothing for the soil and in some cases actually damages the soil with its higher salt content. So inorganic fertilizers don’t actually amend the soil, they simply feed the plant. It is kind of like a human being trying to survive on vitamin supplements and no substantial food. There have also been some recent studies that claim plants build up a resistance to inorganic fertilizers and require more and more of them to get the same results.

That organic fertilizers are slower acting is actually a good thing. They release their nutrients over a period of time. There are many good complete organic fertilizers on the market. A complete fertilizer is one that contains all three primary nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. See How To Read a Fertilizer Label for more information on that. You can also get supplemental nutrition from products like manure and fish emulsion for nitrogen, bone meal for phosphorus and wood ashes for potassium. If you’ve had your soil tested, you’ll know what you need to add.

Adding Organic Matter
Back to organic matter, this is the only amendment that aids both the fertility and the texture of the soil. Whether it’s animal manure or plant humus, you will be feeding the soil and the whole ecosystem that exists there. The soil in turn will feed your plants.

There are many types of organic matter.

* Compost makes an excellent amendment and if you are composting your garden waste, it’s free.
* Manure can often be obtained from local farms and stables. Manure should be composted and decomposed until it turns dark, crumbly and odorless. Fresh manure has too much ammonia in it and can burn your plants and offend your neighbors.
* Peat moss is cheap and works well to loosen the soil. It is also very dusty. Wet it first to make it easier to work with.
* You can even work grass clipping and other debris directly into the garden bed to decompose slowly. Be sure whatever you put down is free of seed.
* Cover crops or green manure are crops grown on unused soil with the intent of tilling them in and letting them decompose in the garden. The roots keep the soil loosened as they grow and the plants suppress weeds. Cover crops from the legume family, like clover and vetch, also add nitrogen to the soil.

Bottom Line
Adjusting you soils pH, fertility and texture to your plants liking is the final say in making good soil. Your plants will determine what your soil’s pH should be. Organic matter will improve the soil in the long run. All soil will benefit from the addition of organic matter. How well your soil incorporates the organic matter will determine how much supplemental feeding will be necessary.

Don't let someone tell you you have to find another area. You live where you live, so make it work.

A Basic Stirling Engine.

Watch this video and imagine the possibilities with this very "primitive" technology. This one generates a small amount of electricity.

The Mythical "Crisis Garden" Meets The Truth

I think anyone who frequents Talk Radio, especially Glenn Beck, has heard the "1 acre Crisis Garden Starter Kit". The website looks like it was designed by a 5th grader, and the price is high. $300.00 to be exact.

The pull is that the seeds in this starter kit are non hybrid, meaning the 2nd generation seeds coming from the resulting plant life in your first garden and be planted to successfully grow more plants, and so forth and so on. So, where did this entrepreneur get his seeds?

One website shows a purchase of a decent starter pack for under 50$ which entails:

01. Slenderette Bush Beans or Contender Bush Beans, 2 oz
02. Golden Wax Beans, 2 oz
03. Green Arrow Peas or Early Frosty Peas, 2 oz
04. Golden Bantam Sweet Corn, 2 oz
05. Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans, 2 oz
06. Detroit Dark Red Beets, 1/8 oz
07. Nantes Coreless Carrots, 1/8 oz
08. Marketmore 76 Cucumber, 1/8 oz
09. Cherry Belle Radish, 1/8 oz
10. Bloomsdale Long Standing Spinach, 1/8 oz
11. Waltham 29 Broccoli, 1/8 oz
12. Copenhagen Market Early Cabbage, 1/8 oz
13. Hales Best Jumbo Cantaloupe, 1/8 oz
14. Green Flesh Honey Dew Melon, 1/8 oz
15. Iceberg Head Lettuce, 1/8 oz
16. Super Sioux Heirloom Tomato or Rutgers Heirloom Tomato, 1/2 gram
17. Beafsteak Tomato, 1/2 gram
18. Sugar Pie Pumpkin, 1/8 oz
19. Golden Zucchini, 1/8 oz
20. Crimson Sweet Watermelon, 1/8 oz
21. Bouquet Dill, 1/8 oz
22. California Wonder Bell Peppers or Yolo Wonder Bell Peppers, 1/8 oz
23. National Pickling Cucumber, 1/8 oz
24. Prizehead Leaf Lettuce or Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce, 1/8 oz
25. Country Gentlemen Shoepeg White Sweet Corn, 2 oz
26. Jalapeno Hot Peppers (SHU = 4,500), 1/8 oz
27. Long Island Improved Brussels Sprouts, 1/8 oz
28. Tennessee Red Valencia Peanuts, 2 oz
29. Heirloom Navy (White) Beans, 2 oz

Naturally, each year the offspring will produce 10X more seeds, so an initial investment in the beginning is ok, even for someone looking to avoid having to purchase seeds year after year which would minimalize your goal to be self-sufficient. In just 1 year you could triple the size of your harvest and save that 300$ for something more worth while. Non-Hybrid Seeds will store for years, unlike their common counterparts.

A few decent seed bank websites:

http://www.internet-grocer.net/seeds.htm

Much bigger starter kit for about 100$ with free shipping, but they advise not planting all 53 seed varieties at once. I don't even know farmers that have this kind of time:
http://www.arkinstitute.com/seed.html

This Website allows single purchases of seeds rather than bulk quantities:
http://www.victoryseeds.com/catalog/main_vegies.html

Diesels = Superior

From Wikipedia:

In the true diesel engine, only air is initially introduced into the combustion chamber. The air is then compressed with a compression ratio typically between 15 and 22 resulting into a 40-bar (4.0 MPa; 580 psi) pressure compared to 8 to 14 bars (0.80 to 1.4 MPa) (about 200 psi) in the petrol engine. This high compression heats the air to 550 °C (1,022 °F). At about this moment, fuel is injected directly into the compressed air in the combustion chamber. This may be into a (typically toroidal) void in the top of the piston or a pre-chamber depending upon the design of the engine. The fuel injector ensures that the fuel is broken down into small droplets, and that the fuel is distributed evenly. The heat of the compressed air vaporizes fuel from the surface of the droplets. The vapour is then ignited by the heat from the compressed air in the combustion chamber, the droplets continue to vaporise from their surfaces and burn, getting smaller, until all the fuel in the droplets has been burnt. The start of vaporisation causes a delay period during ignition, and the characteristic diesel knocking sound as the vapor reaches ignition temperature and causes an abrupt increase in pressure above the piston. The rapid expansion of combustion gases then drives the piston downward, supplying power to the crankshaft.[14]. Model aeroplane engines use a variant of the Diesel principle but premix fuel and air via a carburation system external to the combustion chambers.

As well as the high level of compression allowing combustion to take place without a separate ignition system, a high compression ratio greatly increases the engine's efficiency. Increasing the compression ratio in a spark-ignition engine where fuel and air are mixed before entry to the cylinder is limited by the need to prevent damaging pre-ignition. Since only air is compressed in a diesel engine, and fuel is not introduced into the cylinder until shortly before top dead centre (TDC), premature detonation is not an issue and compression ratios are much higher.

Alot of whiney articles complaining about such issues as noise, oder, and lack of neck-breaking acceleration (untrue in a Turbo Diesel) lead many crtics to dislike, for quite mindless reasons, to dismiss Diesel engines. However, a vehicle like a TDI VW Golf can get 51 MPG average, costs a fraction of an over-priced Hybrid, and uses technology that can be maintained without re-financing your entire life.

In 2010 it was reviewed that Diesel car sales would spike as the infatuation with geeky over-priced hybrids wears off. Older Diesels can be converted with little work to run Bio-Diesel on a variety of oils, including vegetable. This means older Diesel Generators can be adjusted to run on around the farm materials and used for various jobs which could take other more costly materials.

In short, it's time to re-open the file on Diesel usage. It could be well worth a second look.