Went to look up solar energy stuff on youtube tonight and this was popping up all over.

http://youtu.be/itPR3zaAS7E

Hey Johnny just start one.  Ours are organized by a local non-profit.  One of the banks has a large parking lot, and they let the farmers set up stands there.  Some of the others in the area use parking lots of farm/tractor stores, empty fields.  Even seen one outside a organic store.  Should talk to churches. They have great parking lots with little use on saturdays.

I've noticed a lot of fisheries here in Kansas sell tilapia.  They are advertised as a natural way to keep the weeds down in your pond, then once fall comes they die in the cold water and become food for the bass and catfish.  They sell them for $8 each.

So a few weeks ago, JM posted a video link on facebook, which had a guy building a solar dehydrator.  I've looked at, and read about these for a while now. The basic idea with them, is that you build a box, add duct work, paint them black and cover with a window or plastic sheet.  You set these outside at an angle, facing south, and air enters the bottom of the ducts and as the sun heats up the duct, the air rises up and into your house.

Most of the time, people use empty pop or beer cans to build the duct.  I'm not that crafty, so I used guttering down spouts.  I cut one 10 ft spout into 3 equal lengths, built the box and painted it.  Sat that outside and got a 30 degree rise in temps.  Now I'm going to tear it apart, pipe all my ducts into one stream, so I can hopefully get a better/efficient system.  As is, I could use this as a solar dehydrator, but I'm all for experimenting with it and maybe add it to the chicken coop or a greenhouse this winter.  My father-in-law is even interested enough to possibly add a larger system to the house.  I put up a video on youtube, but I shoot things with my phone and the audio is awful, but it gives you an idea on it.


http://youtu.be/4wY5VS7FvLs

I needed that, thanks.

I was talking to my grandma last night and we where talking about gardening and the summer heat.  She told me that she thinks we'll have an early winter because the crickets are already out.  I remembered you saying that with the solar cycle being extra long we'd have long winters and short hot summers, and I was telling her about it.  She thought that was neat and agreed with it, since we did have a long cold winter, almost no fall and defiantly no spring this year either.

So theres an old farmer trick to guessing if you'd have an early winter.  Watcj when the crickets come out 

thanks for the site.  After looking it over, I've decided to go talk to a nursery and get their suggestions.  Some else told me to look at a site for dr. dirt and he suggested a type of clay mixed into compost tea for these bugs.  Did harvest the potatoes though and wasn't as much of a harvest that I would have liked.  But I do have about 10 lbs of Irish potatoes.

Well I'm about to go harvest some potatoes.  Over the last week I have just gotten swarmed by blister beetles and they've pretty much ate all the leaves off the potato plants.  I figure I'll harvest and then do something I don't really want to do, spray sevin to kill off the overload of bugs. Have to wait till the temp comes down a little though.

Are any of you going through a heat wave?  We just broke a record, 111 yesterday.  It was 104 when I got home at 6 today.  This whole summer has just been hot.  Normally we wouldn't hit 100 till around this time, but we hit 100 by the end of may.

I've been doing the onions too, just because of this show.  Never would have thought of it.  Thanks JM and Queen for the good ideas.

OMG what is that woman thinking lol.  Grow food, make it where neighbor hood kids can come and help and see the process of where food comes from.  Have something that isn't sucking up endless amount of water just so its green.  And just think, the White House has a garden in its FRONT yard.

Liked this and thought I'd share it. 

<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/saP_Dcgtg5w" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


I remember a past show about Korean farmer adding molasses or something to his compost.  Same type of idea here.

I have thought about doing that. My chickens don't like Theo layer mix and will do anything to get out of their run to eat fresh greens. Before i just left for vacation I added grass clipping and scratch to the layer pellets. Rabbit food would be a good way to get greens during the winter 

Holy basil hmmmm.  It's funny I had just seen something else about that lol. It sure does look super good. It even helps balance blood sugar levels. It amazes me how not one doctor can or will offer any of this information to their patients. This is my first year growing any herbs. I'm think I need to expand and grow many other types. the wife and kids are bug sweet tea drinkers. Maybe I will get them all to switch as I find more flavorful herbal teas that boost their health.

Cheeta good time to get to know that neighbor. Find out if they even know what they got there.

Hey Ggirl.

Most of what I've found is that they use white mulberry tree leaves.  I don't have a white mulberry tree, but one that starts off looking white then turns purplish when ripe. I use leaves from it and a black mulberry tree and I can see the effects.  Pakistani mulberry would be awesome.  When we move, I plan on planting some of those too.  Nice big berries.  I don't see anything that warns people to only use the white mulberry leaves, so it sounds like it all would work. 

I've been taking the tea for close to 2 weeks.  Its been a great asset to my diabetes.  I've cut my insulin in half.  I drink it at lunch and supper and have just been amazed.  I've been experimenting with other herbs that I'm growing to give the tea more flavor and power.  I add mint for taste and overall good health, and Sage.  Sage is supposed to be good at lowering blood sugar levels too, and the one time I added it to my mulberry I was very impressed.  We had pizza one night, and I'd normally need to take 18 units of insulin, but I took 5.  Three hours later my blood sugar was 132 which is perfect.

You can also look for mulberry extract that's in a pill form.  I told a coworker about it since he's also a diabetic and he found some at a local GNC store.  I would also think that some organic/health stores would also have it in their medical areas.  There's also plenty of sites online that sell the tea form if you don't have access.

Hey everyone.  I'm not the best poster on any forums.  Always in and out, but when ever I find something interesting or need some good information I find that you guys are a great audience.

So now is the season for mulberries.  Last year I moved out to this property and I found 5 mulberry trees around the edges.  3 black mulberries and two that look white but turn slightly purple when ripe.  Even though there are 5 trees I only get a decent harvest from 2 of them.  So I've been studying mulberries off and on ever since.  The berries like any other are very good for ya.  They have more potassium than bananas, full of antioxidants and vitamins.

I'm starting to realize thought that the leaf is the best part of the the tree.  It can be dried and made into a tea.  It taste like a green tea, slightly sweet.  Chinese have used it for over 5000 yrs as a medical herb for a long list of aliments.  Japan and Thailand scientist have studied it and shown it to help lower high blood pressure and even cholesterol.It helps the digestive system, good for kidney and liver functions.  The list goes on and on.

I've found two bits regarding research for diabetes, which I am a type 1 diabetic for 18 yrs now.  A 2008 University of Minnesota study showed that it helps to balance blood sugar levels.  It can help reduce the spikes of post meal blood sugar levels by 44%.  Another study said that it has a chemical that basically bonds to carbohydrates and changes or blocks them (too much medical jargon confused me at 1 am)  resulting in as much of a 25% reduction in absorption.  High carbohydrates, means lots of sugar put into the blood stream.

My wife learned about a study of calcium and milk.  Milk is full of protein and your body uses more energy to break down the protein than what it gives back.  In this study, women who consistently drank milk, lost calcium.  The mulberry tea has twice the amount of calcium of milk, and since its a vegetable source, your body easily breaks it down for use.

I've drank the tea 4 times over the last week.  Of those times that I drank it, I did notice a change in my blood sugar levels.  Yesterday I tried the hardest part, I drank some after lunch and didn't take a shot, just to see how fast of a spike I got.  Eventually I did have to take a shot, but the spike was slow.  To me it sure does helps reduce uncontrolled levels, just have to watch the opposet effects of sugar levels going too low with my insulin shots.

So there you have my new little post.  I'm gonna make a youtube video about this and other stuff.