[Photo credit: ground cherry/husk tomato, By annethelibrarian on Flickr]

What makes it toxic?

Solanine belongs to a family of poisons called glycoalkaloids that are commonly found in the nightshade family.  Glycoalkaloids (alkaloids + sugars) are potentially toxic.  They cause a burning feeling in mouth and side of tongue and have a bitter taste.   Solanine acts as a natural defense from being eaten by herbivores.  It can be found in any part of the plant.  Solanine is the reason why one should avoid eating potato tubers that started to turn green because they have been exposed to light.  Light increases solanine production to protect the exposed tuber from being eaten.(1)

Solanine toxicity

Common effects of solanine poisoning can be stomach cramps, nausea, throwing up, diarrhea, irregular heartbeat, dizziness, and headaches.  More severe effects can be dilated pupils, fever, hallucination, loss of sensation, paralysis, jaundice, hypothermia, and death.(1)

So what parts of the ground cherry are toxic?

I will post some links below to some of the sources I found discussing the toxicity of the ground cherry (Physalis pruinosa).  All sources I could find were consistent on stating that the leaves, stems, calyx (paper husk around fruit) are toxic.  As far as the toxicity of the fruit, Plants for a Future states that the fruit is not toxic and does not specify ripeness of the fruit.(2)  Poisonous Plants of North Carolina as well as a number of other sources state that the unripe fruit is toxic.(3)

It has been suggested that the lowest dose of solanine to cause nausea in an adult is 25mg and a 400 mg dose of solanine to be potentially fatal for an adult.(1)  This doesn’t translate to me how much of a ground cherry plant (leaf, stem, calyx, unripe fruit, etc) it would take to make one feel the symptoms of solanine’s toxicity.  My question would be how much (mg) of solanine is found in a part (leaf) of a ground cherry?  I’m concluding from the resources I have found that one should avoid ingesting any amounts of the leaf, stem, calyx, and (for now) unripe fruit of any ground cherry species (Physalis spp.)

Please feel free to leave a comment on any experience, opinion, or sources concerning ground cherry toxicity.

Sources

(1) Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanine

(2) Plants for a Future, http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Physalis+pruinosa

(3) Poisonous Plants of North Carolina, http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/poison/Physasp.htm

Salad Greens Polyculture

We grew 2 beds of what I call the salad greens polyculture.  It was kind of modeled after the two polycultures described in Gaia’s Garden (Ianto Evans and Jajarkot’s advanced).  These beds consisted of:

• lettuce mix
• radishes
• onions
• kale
• swiss chard
• cilantro
• dill
• carrots
• spinach
• fava beans
• parsnip
• beets
• nasturtiums
• broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage transplants

All the vegetable and herb seeds were sowed by broadcasting to create a dense cover.  As radishes and lettuce was harvested the broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower transplants were added in the openings.  The vegetables that did not germinate well or grow well in this polyculture were parsnips, carrots, onions, and swiss chard.  The transplants didn’t do all that well once put into the ground.  I think I started them much to earlier.  Over all I think we had limited success with this polyculture.  Because of spotty germination in some areas we had a problem with competition with grasses and weeds.

This year I plan to add some greens to hopefully create a much denser ground cover.  I also plan to start the broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower seedlings in succession to have transplants that will be ready for transplant at different time intervals.

4 Sisters Guild

The 4 sisters guild consists of corn, pole beans, squash, and cleome.  The corn stalks support the pole beans, the beans fix nitrogen, the squash forms a ground cover, and the cleome attracts beneficial insects.  I used a mix of regular sweet corn, dent corn, pole beans, scarlet runner beans, squash varieties, watermelon, pumpkin, melon, and volunteering cleome.  I have tried this guild many times and have never been very successful.  There are 2 main reasons why I have had limited success.  First is squash bugs and squash vine borers.  We have been gardening here for six seasons now.  The only time we have had strong squash plants that can withstand the onslaught of the squash bugs and squash vine borers is when we had chickens and used the chicken tractors on the beds to have the chickens work up the beds and deposit manure.  We haven’t had chickens for 3 years now but we will be getting some soon.  Hopefully our squash, watermelon, and pumpkins will be much more stronger and can cope with the pests.  I’ll also be using butternut winter squash, luffa gourd, and tromboncino squash and harvesting them in their immature stage as a substitute to crookneck and zucchini squash (C. pepo).  These species are much more resistant to squash bugs and squash vine borers.

The second reason are raccoons.  Every year raccoons trash my corn and any other crop growing with it.  I have half of our vegetable garden fenced in to detour our rottweiler from cutting across the garden.  I plan on totally fencing in the vegetable garden area this year and hanging some pie pans to possible scare them away.  If that doesn’t work I will be setting out some traps and figuring out how to best cook raccoon.

Tomato, Bush Bean, Basil Polyculture

In a 3′x10′ bed, this polyculture consisted of 4 tomato plants spaced evenly down the center of the bed with bush beans planted along the edges of the beds and a group of basil planted between each tomato plant.  Balsam and cleome also volunteered throughout the beds.  I had a bit of problem with blight this year but overall this polyculture performed well.

Pepper Okra Polyculture

This polyculture though successful was much more of a one way benefit for the peppers.  The pepper transplants were planted in the bed with okra direct seeded in between.  In late spring through early summer the okra was still small enough so that the peppers could get plenty of sun exposure.  As the heat of summer set in the fast growing okra quickly grew taller than the pepper plants and provide some much appreciated shade in the evenings to the peppers.  The okra also acted as a support to the peppers so there was no need to cage or stake them.  Volunteering cleome and balsam was allowed to grow and attracted beneficial insects.

If you have any experience with any of these plants in polycultures or polycultures in general please leave a comment.

Borax

When one uses borax in diy home cleaning recipes, you are not using an organic solution. Borax is toxic.  It is many times less toxic than bleach though.  Also known as sodium borate, sodium tertraborate, and disodium tetraborate; borax is a white powdery mineral with many uses.  It deodorizes, disinfects, and removes stains.  Even though borax has very low toxicity, you should always rinse the surface after using to eliminate the residue, especially in areas that could come into contact with food or food preparation items.  NEVER INGEST BORAX.  As stated above always rinse areas after cleaning with borax cleaning solutions to decrease exposure.  AS WITH ALL TOXIC CHEMICALS, ALWAYS KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN.  Borax can be purchased at most grocery or hardware stores for about $3.

Baking Soda

Baking Soda is the salt form of sodium bicarbonate.  It is very safe and has a range of applications in cooking, personal hygiene, and as a cleaning agent.  It deodorizes, whitens,  and scours.

White Vinegar

Most everyone is familiar with vinegar.  It is a very organic (safe) alternative for cleaning and is used to disinfect and remove stains.

Lemon Juice

Another organic cleaning solution, lemon juice removes stains and deodorizes.

DIY All-Purpose Cleaner

• 1 24 oz spray bottle
• 2 tablespoons of borax
• Add the borax to the spray bottle, fill with hot water to dissolve the borax.
• Use as you would a typical all-purpose cleaner
• Avoid wood surfaces

DIY Glass Cleaner

• 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
• 2 cups water
• 4 drops of liquid soap
• old newspaper (optional)
• 1 spary bottle
• Mix lemon juice, water, and liquid soap in a spray bottle
• Using an old newspaper to wipe glass clean results in streak free glass and is a great way to reuse old newspaper

DIY Drain-O

• 1/2 cup baking soda
• 1/2 cup of white vinegar
• Boiling water
• Mix 1/2 cup of baking soda with water to make a liquid paste and pour this in to slow draining drains
• Slowly pour in vinegar and let the mixture dissolve
• Pour in a pot of boiling water and let it work for about 30 minutes
• Repeat if necessary

These are a few simple DIY home cleaning recipes that we have tried and like.  We plan on trying others that we have found.  The next DIY home cleaning recipe will be making our own laundry detergent.  I’ll get a post out as soon as we try it.

As always thanks for reading and if you have any DIY home cleaning recipes please leave a comment.  Also please follow us through one of our social media sites or email.

[Soil cube tool with wooden tong]

Soil Cube Tool

The soil cube tool is used to make approximately 2″ soil blocks for starting seedlings.  You put your soil in a container, scope the soil into the soil chambers, compress the cubes using the push bar, then lift the soil cube tool to release the soil block.  It seems simple enough, but it really does take some practice to get the technique down.  My first tray of 32 soil blocks were usable but did not come out as nice even blocks.  As I got into the next tray of 32, I really started to get the technique down.

[First 2 trays of soil blocks created using the soil cube tool]

Why Use Soil Blocks for Starting Seedlings

Soil blocks created using the soil cube tool are suppose to decrease the shock on the seedling when transplanting it outdoors in the garden.  As opposed to starting your seedlings in plastic containers, Jiffy pots, Jiffy pellets, etc, Deeply Rooted Organics claim that the seedling roots won’t penetrate the outside of the soil block.  The soil block acts as the container and the growing medium.  When its time to transplant, you just dig your hole in the garden bed and place the soil block in it.

 DIY Seed Starting Soil Mix

I used a recipe for mixing my own seed starting soil that was very similar to the one provide when one purchases the soil cube tool.  Here is the seed starting soil mix I used:

• 3 parts peat moss
• 1 part sand
• 1 part perlite
• 1 part garden soil
• 2 parts well composted manure
• add water until the mix has an oatmeal consistency

I know these aren’t some of the most self-sufficient, sustainable ingredients but this is what we will use for now.  Eventually I would like to experiment with using garden soil and other medium found on our own property, like stump dirt.  I always prefer to sow seeds outdoors if possible instead of indoors.  Plants started from seeds sown outside seem to be much stronger and healthier to me.  The seeds that were sown in the soil blocks were 32 Yellow of Parma Onions and 32 Red Wethersfield Onions.  I started these onions indoors by seed and will probably plant another 50-60 onions outside from sets around March 1st.

If you have any experience using the soil cube tool, feel free to leave a comment to let us know how it worked for you.

 [Photo Credit, Soil by John!!! under Creative Commons License]

Sustainable Soil Management

Sustainable soil management practices are techniques used to build soil using products and byproducts from your own property or a local source that is added directly to the soil for long term benifit.  These add fertilizer, organic matter, and build soil structure.

Composting

Many gardeners are very familiar with composting.  Composting can be complex or as simple as piling together your kitchen, garden, and yard waste and waiting for it to break down.  I add compost to my garden beds in the spring.  I add about 1/4 inch of compost on most of my beds and do some additional side dressing later if I still have compost available.

Mulching

Adding mulch to garden beds is our number one way at building soil.  In the fall we add shredded leaves.  In the spring and summer we purchase straw from local sources and add thick layers to garden beds.  I also add shredded paper, grass clipping, small tree twigs, and tree bark.  These break down and add organic matter to the soil.

Sheet Mulching/ Composting in Place

Sheet mulching or composting in place replicates natures way of building soil from the top down by adding layers on layers of organic matter that slowly break down.  The simplistic method of sheet mulching is to apply a weed-suppressing layer, most commonly cardboard and newspapers.  Then you add a foot or more of organic mulch.

Hugelkultur

Hugelkultur is a great technique to make use of down tree limbs, sticks, and prunings.  Mound up a large amount of woody material 2-5 ft high and 4-8 ft long.  Then add layers of organic matter and soil if possible.  I like to dig the hugelkulturs that I construct.  I dig down about 1 1/2 ft.  I then add the woody material in the pit, add organic matter, and finally add the soil that was removed.  This techniques keep one from having to import soil from offsite.

Cover Crops

Cover crops are plant crops planted specifically to provide mulch.  These crops shade the soil from sun and protect the soil from weathering.  Cover crops can be legumes, non-legumes, perennials, and/or annuals.  They can be under sown with fruit and vegetables to act as a living mulch, cut in place and place the residue on the soil surface, or lightly till the cover crops into the top layers of the soil.  Cover crops are excellent for long term fertility in a food forest or orchard.  Refer to Managing Cover Crops Profitably for an excellent resource for information on specific species.

No-till

Tilling destroys soil structure.  It releases a blast of nutrients that is immensely beneficial to crops for the first season or two.  But tilling releases more nutrients than the plants can use and the rest gets leached away by rainfall.  Then one must work to replenish  the soil of its nutrients and organic matter.

Though this might sound contradicting to the above, I usually use a technique called double digging when constructing new garden beds.  I double dig the bed initially to build it, then I practice a no-till after that.

Chop and Drop

Chop and Drop is basically a technique used with cover crops and some other soft-leafed plants.  Clovers, buckwheat, vetch, oats, wheat, artichokes, rhubarb, comfrey, and Jerusalem artichoke, make mulch very fast and are great for this technique.  One can cut these plants before they seed and either drop them in place or place them wherever mulch is needed.

Chicken Tractors

Chicken tractors are small lightweight bottomless enclosures that can safely protect and contain a few chickens.  These structures are easily moved around on garden beds, in areas where you would like to build a garden bed, or within an forest garden.  The chickens will scratch, till, weed, and manure the soil.  I move a tractor around as need to clean up a bed from weeds or a cover crop or I might leave it in place for a while adding straw and leaves daily to build a sheet mulch.

This is by no means a complete list of soil building techniques.  I make use of all these, but if I really need to add some quick fertility to an area I would rely on the organic fertilizer recipe that I linked to above instead of using chemical fertilizers.  If your going to use fertilizer use that recipe and create your own.  I highly advise avoiding synthetic chemical fertilizers all together.  If you are not already using some of the techniques above, consider researching and trying some of these sustainable soil management practices.

Here are a few resources that will be beneficial in your research of these practices

 Eco Scale Test

It’s a simple test.  Do you spend less than the average American on electricity?  Paul’s post states that the average American household spends $1000/month per adult for electricity with heat and $250/month per adult without heat.  This does not include kids in the home.  Basically Paul states that if you have kids and you want to call yourself eco you should keep your energy consumption down due to overpopulation.  So if you spend less on electricity than the average American, you can call yourself eco (at least eco level 1), if not then you might have some work to do.

We are Eco Poser

I really don’t claim to be “eco” or an environmentalist or “green” for that matter.  But we are following a path to become more sustainable, to live more within our means, and to live more in touch with the natural environment.  But we failed the eco scale test pretty bad.  Our household (2 adults, 2 teenagers, and 1 five year old) would need to spend less than $2000 on electricity with heat.  For 2011 we spend $2725 on electricity.

I agree with Paul that this is a simple acceptable measure of one’s eco level.  It’s a good place to start.  If the average American does in fact spend $1000/year per adult on electricity with heat, then I think our environmentally mindful household should definitely be trying to spend less if we are to call ourselves eco.  So what steps can we begin to take to lower our energy usage?

“Most of our pollution problems are rooted in the source of our energy use. Pollution and war are the two biggest side effects. People who really care about humanity and the earth, will use (I think) less than average.” – Paul Wheaton, Testing to see if you are an eco poser

 

Reducing Our Electricity Usage

We need to try to reduce our electricity usage to decrease the amount we pay for electricity by about $725.  I’m not really sure if we will be able to accomplish this.  When you are dealing with change within a family unit, it should be gradual.

I plan on first monitoring our daily kw usage by reading the meter everyday.  I should probably also chart the outside temperature with the kw usage.  This will keep us more aware of our kw usage.

Our laundry is another area we will try to save money on.  By using the laundry cost calculator (see results in the figure below, Case A) it estimated that we spend $363/year on laundry.  Wow!  By making a few changes (Case B below) it’s estimated that we can reduce our laundry costs to about $178.  That’s an estimated savings of $185/year.

The main factors we changed for potential savings are only washing in cold water, making an effort to hang more laundry on our clothes line, making our own laundry detergent, and trying to reduce the number of loads we wash per week.  In order to compensate for using the clothes line more, I just adjusted the calculators dryer time to 30 minute dry times instead of 45 minutes.  We could potentially see more savings.  I plan on trying to not wash my clothes as often to reduce loads per week, and encourage the family to reuse bath towels when possible.

Last year we had a couple of months  in the winter were our electric bill was $400 – $600 for a month’s bill.  We found out that our unit needed to be replaced so we replaced it with a heat pump unit.  This should save us at least $400 – $500.

I think the Wheaton Eco Test is a good simple way to test were one falls on the eco scale. Whatever that means to you is for you to judge.  As Paul states in his post, it would be very complicated to come up with a test or model to accurately measure all aspects of a person’s lifestyle to measure where they fall on an eco scale.  I plan on keeping a daily log of our kw usage and will document it in a monthly post for this year.  I hope with the steps mentioned above, being more aware of turning of lights when not being used, and just being more aware of our kw usage, we can get below $2000 for our electric costs this year.

[Use your imagination to find workout equipment in the outdoors.  Here is my outdoors stairsmaster.]

Self Sufficient Fitness

I categorize this as self sufficient because I’m doing my workout at a state park which is free for the public to use.  These outdoor workouts could just as easily be done at a local city park if you live in a urban area or even probably around your neighborhood.  If you live in a rural area with access to a small amount of land this workout would be just as easy.  I’m not dropping my gym membership because the rest of my family uses it, but one could easily save the monthly cost of a gym membership by working out outdoors.

Outdoor Workouts

Doing my workout outdoors felt great.  It was like being on an intense hike.  I felt like I was just running through the woods playing.  Getting a good workout along with being in the outdoors with fresh air was a much better alternative to the gym.

[Lake overlook:  Scenery like this only adds to the great workout and fresh air]

Though a lot less structured than a typical gym workout, there is some structure to an outdoor workout.  Checkout the link to the article above for some expert knowledge of fitness, but my workout plan consists of these highlights

• a minimal 2x/week
• Day 1 (Monday) consists of a warmup, sprints, jogging, walking, pushups and dips
• Day 2 (Thursday) consists of a warmup, sprints, jogging, walking, pullups, bodyweight squats, and lunges.
• the warmup is less than 5 minutes
• sprints, jogging, and walking are in between main bodyweight exercises based on how I feel (some days more walking, some days more sprinting)
• my bodyweight exercises are starting out at 10 reps x 3 sets.  Adjust as necessarily. If 10 reps is not challenging for you increase until the numbers feel right for your fitness level.  10 x 3 is just a suggested starting point.

It seems easy enough to use.  There is a plastic cap underneath the top that twists off to allow it to be filled.  Fill only half way to allow for pressure build up when pumped.  Replace the top, pump, and spray.

So I wanted to share this because I’m guessing since it’s a non-aerosol can that it’s better for the environment.  Those aerosol olive oil spray cans have soy and anti-foaming propellants, and may contain milk and wheat.  This way you will be spraying pure olive oil.  Plus I’m hoping it will save us some money by not having to purchase new cans.

1.  Buy a Generator

We will be finally purchasing a generator.  I plan on purchasing one from Lowes (probably a Troy Bilt) at around 6000W.  Luckily he have not had many prolonged power outages the last couple of years.  But we have experienced outages ranging from a couple of days to month in the past.

2.  Help Tracy get her children’s custom clothing business going by helping with her website.

My wife Tracy, just recently resigned from her job as a social worker.  She is starting a business making custom children’s clothes, which she plans to sell locally and online.  My job will be to get her a website set up so that she can sell her products online.  She is creating great products, I just hope I can hold up my part of the business.

3.  Renovate and expand the old chicken coop to get it ready for chickens

We haven’t had chickens since 2008.  We will be purchasing a layer flock and maybe some others to experiment with butchering.  I need to move, renovate and expand the old coop.  We will be practicing a paddock shift system as well as making use of a chicken tractor.

4.  Fence in forest garden/pasture for chickens

Last year I started converting a small area of fruit trees into a food forest.  This year I plan on continuing to add to the food forest as well as convert portions of it as pasture for the chickens.

5.  Continue to build forest garden

As I mentioned above I plan on continuing to add to the forest garden.  I plan on making an  entire post on this soon, but in short, we currently have 2 apple trees, 1 peach tree, and a cherry tree.  In the understory, I have 2 gooseberries, horseradish, sunchokes, comfrey, and some mint species.  I plan on adding some blueberries, dwarf fruit trees, and some perennial vegetables.

6.  Finish screening in the front porch

Last fall I started screening in the front porch.  Our plan is to create an outside area that is considerable cooler in the summer and provides protection form the biting flies and mosquitoes.

7.  Build a herb spiral

This is the most well known and typical permaculture project, and I’ve never created one. My plan is to build a hugelkultur herb spiral. Why not?

8.  Create a new garden area in zone 1, closer to the house

We need to dedicate our 18 beds in our main garden to the staples (potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, onions, peppers, corn, squash, etc.).  This garden area isn’t far from our house but we need an area close for salad greens, some herbs, a couple of tomato plants, and stuff we use on a daily basis.  If I can’t get it ready in the spring I plan on getting it ready in the fall of 2012 and ready for 2013.

9.  Get some pigs

We want to get a couple of pigs and raise them til they are ready for slaughter to provide for a more healthy source for our pork products (bacon, sausage, pork chops).  In 2011 we bought a cow and had it processed.  We also have venison.  Adding the chickens and the pigs will help us become much more self sufficient with our meat sources (besides fish).

10.  Finish fencing in garden

We have a rottweiler who likes to dig occasionally.  Enough said.

Other noteworthy projects:

make better use of cover crops, create a buffer area around main garden to keep evil grass from creeping in, learn to butcher chickens, and continue to experiment with polycultres

Fried Venison Liver and Onions

Stuff you will need:

• 1 venison liver, sliced or cut into bite size pieces
• about 1 1/2 cups of milk
• about 1/4 cup of real butter
• 1 large onion sliced into rings
• 2 cups of all-purpose flour, seasoned to taste with salt and pepper