JUST finished making a quart of a wonderful tasting new hot sauce: 1/2 ripe papaya, 1 peeled Meyer's Lemon, sea salt, roasted sesame oil, handful of green and red "Filipino Mexican Tree Peppers", 2 frozen Raja Puri bananas, several cloves of garlic all run through the blender and poured into a jar just emptied of a previous batch of green papaya kimchi to inoculate this sauce. I'll give it at least a week on my kitchen counter to ferment.

I've been saying for 25 years now..."Give Pee A Chance"!

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/04/05/urine-crops-fertilizer.aspx?x_cid=20141028_ranart_urine-crops-fertilizer_facebookdoc

For the umpteenth time, every single freakin' trash tree in my long southeast bed in back has been cut down to a stub. Now that the vast number of trees they suckered from in the lot east of me has (apparently) been removed, I'd reluctantly made peace with using a topical application of RoundUp on the inevitable regrowth from the stubs. But before I make that huge compromise of my values I'm trying something that occurred to me.....make a STRONG solution of potassium chloride (40 lb. bags at Lowe's water softener dept.....I buy torn marked down bags to give to my bananas) and spray it on the new growth since it is a true salt. If that fails, I'll try putting a few cups of the granules on each stub to leach down to the root zone. I've been fighting these suckers from that east lot since 1998 and I want them GONE!

The lot east of me is now cleared of that FOREST of trash trees!

Cracker's fur grows so fast and he is so heat sensitive, but once again the $148 professional clippers barely made a dent with the guides on, so for the third time I scalped him with the naked clipper...he cooperated wonderfully this time. Plus this time I did a better job of keeping it more even. Amazing how much fur came off. He is very heat sensitive so I think I will do this every 6 weeks or so. The first two times he struggled the whole time to get away...this time he calmly laid down, first on his belly, then on his back...I bet it took little more than 5 minutes. Mary Jo was right.....$148 for professional clippers as the groomer wanted $90 per hair cut!

I dump the fur in compost barrels as a nitrogen source.

If none of the 4-5 Creole garlics I am trialing here set bulbs I'll be curious if it is due to my security lights and that of my neighbors plus two street lights as I gather that day length is the issue with alliums failing to bulb in Florida. A few of the folks I shared cloves with live in rural areas where I'm guessing there may be less light pollution. I guess we'll know by late next spring. I purchased the 4 in the pic from a family garlic farm out West, plus last July bought at Publix a garlic with purplish paper imported from Mexico...I call it "Publix Purple" and cloves are now planted along the outside rim of the baby pool garden that is home to my Allium canadense for several years now. "Cuban Purple" is now up and growing in another baby pool garden.

Lots of folks have tons of green papay now after that wet summer and are wondering how to use some as they wait for some to ripen. I use them to make excellent kimchi that has been a real hit at potlucks, like to add raw chunks to salads and stir fry and soups, have also pickled them with ginger roots. I also add them to smoothies as a very nutritious thickener. Just be sure to remove the peel and seeds as they are very bitter.

The Magenta Spreen lambs quarters that I got seeds of from ROOTS and that is now 6 feet tall in a back porch Water Wise Container Garden, has begun budding up just as Craig Hepworth said should happen...he says to expect it to self sow maniacally. And the self sown "Lagos Spinach" (Celosia argentea?) that Tom Carroll shared seeds of at a potluck here a few years ago that have thrived in 18 gallon Water Wise Container Gardens in my back east bed all summer have now begun to form bloom spikes....the edible leaves are so attractive as are the blooms that I'll scatter seeds in my front beds. Both are high in oxalates so I simmer the leaves in salted water with butter or coconut oil for 10-15 minutes before serving.

I love pickled ginger with home made sushi or even as a snack, but most have artificial sweeteners added, some have artificial color too. For a fraction of the cost of one bottle of store bought I made two quarts. I took someone's advice and added carrot for color and crunch. I opened up one jar last night...I can't believe how good it turned out! Not a fermented food this time, more along the line of refrigerator pickles. Now that I am growing 3 plants of culinary ginger, and one of galangal ginger in four 1/3 barrel Water Wise Container Gardens beneath my avocado tree, within a year I should never have to buy it again.

Spraying Coke Classic on the weeds yesterday morning as a possible weed killer had no effect. Since it is 10X more acidic than white vinegar, I'll use the 2nd two liter bottle to make a scaled down version of that original home made weed killer with Dawn and Epsom salts that did quite a good job on my bricks driveway. But I'll wait until after Tuesday's rains. Paul Zmoda suggested I try the Coke when he saw I was seeking out phosphoric acid as a possible weed killer....Coke Classic has a pH of just 2.5 because of it. I've used it to remove mineral build up in my toilet bowl.

Josh Jamison is a brilliant, passionate and truly decent young man who embraces and exudes the very best of both permaculture and his Christian faith. It is always a joy to see him and his delightful wife Emily at gardeners' gatherings.

http://highlandstoday.com/list/highlands-agri-leader-news/taking-the-fight-against-hunger-to-heart-20140925/

This article came out in today's Tampa Tribune!

http://tbo.com/south-shore/this-guys-a-master-of-many-things-20141008/

I tried this recipe often seen on FB some weeks back, barely worked. Late yesterday I sprayed the rest but this time as a coarse vs. fine spray so I could get the sprayer empty to next try ZEP Shower and Tile Cleaner based on glycolic acid made from sugar cane...even though it rained lightly and briefly about 2 hours after I sprayed, today, 24 hours later, the amount of browning is very encouraging.

Many people here plant the seeds in the spring, especially if they once gardened up north, but they are a cool weather winter annual here. After all that rain, vast numbers of self sown nasturtium seeds from last spring are popping up in two street beds and should grow like crazy after this first wave of cooler weather coming this weekend. My favorite annual winter flower by far, edible too. The paradox is that a hard frost or freeze (more common in rural areas) can kill them. My favorite variety since the 80s is 'Dwarf Jewel Mix', which can be gotten by the pound from a great company in Golden, Colorado, that I've dealt with happily since the 1990s, Applewood Seeds Company.

http://www.applewoodseed.com/

It took about a 10 day ferment outdoors, but my first ever batch of kanji kvass came out great. And just like the sites say, the chunks of beet and carrot are great "pickles".

http://www.aartibatavia.com/blog/carrot-beet-probiotic-beverage-aka-gajar-beet-ki-kanji/

After previous failed efforts to grow Magenta Spreen Goosefoot here in Tampa, I finally have success from one seedling in a Water Wise Container Garden made from a scavenged plastic tray. I got the seeds at ROOTS in St. Pete....just one seedling came up, and it sulked until I started peeing on the soil a few times per month, then it took off. Here it is next to a 4 foot ruler on October 1. It is high in oxalates so I eat the leaves only after a few minutes of boiling....very mild and tender, similar to spinach. I'm expecting a kagillion seeds from this plant. In Denver so many Chenopods thrive in the wild, plus in my gardens there the related DELICIOUS 'Golden Orach' utterly thrived....I just might try 'Golden Orach' a third time in Tampa after this success with Magenta Spreen.