Garden update & harvest 7/29/13

7/29/13 - Calendula, Collard and cucumber row

7/29/13 - Dino kale and 2 mastery plants given to me by another gardener

7/29/13 -  Row of 16 Tomato plants

7/29/13 - lettuce, Swiss chard, dino kale and Red Russian kale

7/29/13 - SE view of garden

7/29/13 - lettuce already getting very tall!

 7/29/13 - Corno di toro rosso pepper

 7/29/13 - White Habanero pepper

 7/29/13 - Curled Scotch kale and Red Russian kale

 7/29/13 - Swiss Chard

1st tomato plant -  Oxheart Tomato

2nd tomato plant - Chocolate tomato

3rd tomato plant - Ananas Noire tomato

4th tomato plant - Rainbow tomato

 5th tomato plant - Brandywine

 6th tomato plant - Chocolate cherry tomato

 7th tomato plant - Chocolate cherry tomato

 8th tomato plant - Chocolate cherry tomato

 9th tomato plant - Burpee tomato

 10th tomato plant - Oxheart tomato

 11th tomato plant - Chocolate cherry tomato

 12th tomato plant - Ananas Noire tomato

 13th tomato plant -  Beefsteak tomato

 14th tomato plant - Chocolate tomato

 15th tomato plant - Cherokee tomato

 16th tomato plant - Cherokee Purple tomato

7/29/13 - Today's harvest - lettuces

 7/29/13 - Today's harvest - Red Russian kale, Curled Scotch kale, Dino kale, 1 zucchini (9th total) , 1cucumber (13 total)

 7/29/13 - Red Russian kale leaves get huge

 7/29/13 - Beautifully blistered dino kale leaves

7/29/13 - Black Beauty zucchini

Garden harvest 7/27/13

 7/27/13 - Today's harvest - Giant Collards, 2 Black Beauty zucchinis (8 total), Sugar Ann Snap peas and 1 cucumber (12 total)

 7/27/13 - Today's harvest Zucchini are all big!

21 Ways To Detox Your Home

By Dr. Frank Lipman 
Many of us have done a detox in order to eliminate internal toxins from our body, but how many of us do anything about the toxins in our homes? Common household and body care products are increasingly being found to have negative health effects on the nervous and immune systems, and on our reproductive, endocrine, cardiovascular, and respiratory systems.

Why is detoxing your home essential? 

The average home contains up to 1,000 chemicals, many of which we're unable to see, smell or taste. While these chemicals may be tolerated individually and in small doses, problems can arise when one is exposed to them in combination or in larger doses.

Everyone’s tolerance level is different depending on genetics, nutritional status and previous contacts with chemicals, but the negative effects of household toxins are often compounded by the use of other drugs, especially the habitual use of alcohol, or prescription or recreational drugs.

Indoor air is about three times more polluted than outdoor air. Home insulation, so wonderful for keeping our homes warm in winter and cool in summer, doesn’t allow fresh air in, so we’re constantly breathing in the same stale air. Wall to wall carpeting keeps us cozy, but can introduce a myriad of toxins to our well insulated homes. It can also trap dirt, fleas, dust, dust-mites and lead.

Many of the cleaning products we use to clean our furniture, bathrooms, and windows are full of toxic chemicals, some of which do not even appear on the labels. Similarly with the many personal-care care products we put on our skin and the pet-care products we use on our pets.

Most tick and flea products contain active ingredients and solvents that might cause cancer in animals. Also, substantial human exposure is possible by absorption through the skin, while playing with and handling the pet.

The pesticides we use on our gardens eliminate not only plant pests, but also most of the insects that are beneficial to help control these pests. Of the 30 most commonly used lawn chemicals, 19 have studies pointing toward cancer and 15 are known to cause nervous system poisoning.

This is not to say that we should not keep our houses comfortable and clean and our yards looking good. What’s important is to understand that how we do this can have an important impact on our health. Abundant toxins can and do lead to health problems.

Taking more care to reduce our exposure to both internal and external toxins, by detoxing our bodies and our living space allows the body’s own detoxification to function more efficiently. This strengthens our resilience to the daily onslaught of factors impacting our health.

There are many things you can do to detox your home, some more practical than others. Here are 20 tips to get started:

1. No shoes in the house! That's how a lot of household dirt, pesticides and lead come enter, via your shoes. Go barefoot or wear slippers once you're home.

2.  Place floor mats vertically by your entryways to wipe your shoes. This way, more dirt and residue from your shoes stays outside on the mat

3. Keep the air clean. Keep your windows and doors open as much as possible to ventilate. Use green plants as natural air detoxifiers. Remove odors with baking soda. Use fresh flowers or bowls of herbs like rosemary and sage to add a pleasant fragrance to rooms. Have your air ducts and vents cleaned with nontoxic cleaners. Get a portable air purifier, especially for the bedrooms.

4. Switch from the standard household cleaning products to cleaner and greener ones. These don’t damage your health or the environment’s as much and work as well as the mass marketed ones. You can also use basic ingredients you have around the house, for instance, vinegar in place of bleach, baking soda to scrub your tiles and hydrogen peroxide to remove stains. According to Annie Bond, the author of Better Basics For The Home, she can clean anything with water and these five basic ingredients: 

• Baking Soda
• Washing Soda
• Distilled White Vinegar
• Vegetable based liquid Soap (eg Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint Soap) 
• Tea Tree oil

5. Replace your skin care and personal products with less toxic and chemical free options. Deodorant, toothpaste, cosmetics, hair products, nail polish and perfumes are often loaded with toxins. Learn how to identify them and avoid them.

6. Use plastics wisely. Some contain Bisphenol A (BPA), which is linked to cancer, and Phtalates, which are linked to endocrine and developmental problems. Avoid plastic food packaging (when you can). Don’t wrap food in plastic, and don’t microwave food in plastic containers. Choose baby bottles made from glass or BPA-free plastic. Avoid vinyl teethers for your baby. Stay away from children’s toys marked with a “3″ or “PVC.” Avoid plastic shower curtains.

7.  Avoid non stick pans, pots, bakeware and utensils. Teflon contains perfluorinated chemicals (PFC’s), which have been linked to cancer and developmental problems. Here are some better options. 

8. Keep house dust to a minimum, as more dust means more toxins. Mop all surfaces at least once a week. Use a vacuum cleaner (with a HEPA filter, preferably) for your carpets. HEPA-filter vacuums capture the widest range of particles and get rid of allergens.

9. Avoid excess moisture, as it encourages the growth of mold and mildew. Check areas for moisture accumulation or leaks, particularly basements. Clean surfaces where mold usually grows, such as around showers and tubs and beneath sinks.

10. Get a shower filter, as many of the contaminants in tap water become gases at room temperature. A shower filter can help keep these toxins from becoming airborne.

11. Get a water filter, as more than 700 chemicals have been identified in drinking water. Filtering your tap water is better than drinking bottled water.

12. Avoid stain-guarded clothing, furniture and carpets, due to the presence of PFCs. Wrinkle-free and permanent press fabrics (used in clothing and bedding) commonly contain formaldehyde. Opt for untreated fabrics whenever possible.

13. Be conscious of toxins in carpeting, especially in products made from synthetic materials. Use natural fiber wool and cotton rugs. If possible, replace your wall-to-wall carpeting with hardwood floors, all natural linoleum or ceramic tiles. Use nontoxic glues, adhesives, stains or sealers for installation.

14. Use non toxic sealers. Or replace particleboard walls, floors or cabinets (which often contain formaldehyde, which can emit irritating and unhealthy fumes for decades). Avoid plywood, fiberglass, fiberboard and paneling. 

15. Go green with pet care. Avoid harmful pet-care products and avoid toxic pest control, including traditional termite exterminators. 

16. Keep your lawn safe. Replace toxic lawn and garden pesticides and herbicides with less harmful natural ones.

17. Tell the dry cleaner not to use the plastic wrap or remove it as soon as possible. The plastic traps the dry cleaning chemicals on clothes and in your closet. Let your dry cleaning air out (preferably outside) before storing it. Use “wet cleaning” if you're lucky enough to have it in your area.

18. Use low VOC, low odor latex (water based) paint. Open all windows to ventilate properly when painting indoors.

19. Have your house checked for carbon monoxide leaks. These are most commonly found in leaking gas stoves, gas fireplaces, furnaces, chimneys, and gas water heaters.

20. Check radon levels in poorly ventilated basements that have cracked walls and or floors.  Radon is an odorless gas that forms as uranium in rocks and soil breaks down. Radon is linked to lung cancer

21. Avoid toxic people. And finally, no amount of environmental toxins are as important as emotional toxicity. You can do all the above, but if your house is full of anger, resentment, jealousy, unhappiness and a lack of love, compassion and forgiveness, the house will remain toxic.

We can reduce our risk of chronic illness by limiting our exposure to these toxins but don’t let this become an obsession, which can cause so much stress that it creates more of a negative impact on your health than the toxins themselves.

Dehydration

Are You Chronically Dehydrated?

by Phillip Day - Investigative Journalist & Founder of "The Campaign For Truth In Medicine"
As Featured in Food Matters

"Chronic pains of the body which cannot easily be explained as injury or infection, should first and foremost be interpreted as signals of chronic water shortage in the area where the pain is registered. These pain signals should first be considered and excluded as primary indicators for dehydration of the body before any other complicated procedures are forced on the patient." - Dr F Batmanghelidj

The human body is a bio-electrical water machine that requires a quart a day for every 50 lbs of body weight. The blood alone is made up of a large percentage of watery serum. The lymph fluids which transport waste and nutrients, comprising four times the volume of blood in the body, are made from the water we consume. Every cell that makes us who we are literally owes its life to an adequate supply of fresh, clean water.

When the body does not receive a constant, reliable supply of water, it has to ration what is available and cut back on certain functions to make the supply go round. Essential systems like the brain are prioritised, others are impaired or cut back until the brain has decided a reliable source of water has been garnered.

Here's the rub. Most citizens have become chronically and dangerously dehydrated (especially the elderly), since we decided water was too bland to drink and ignored it in favour of tea, coffee, beer, wine, addictive sodas, flavoured water and other chemical-laced water alternatives. A disastrous and dangerous move for the body and society's health in general, to be sure, compounded further since most doctors today cannot readily identify the many water-deficient diseases and associated pains. Thus the underlying dehydration process continues to wreak its havoc while the inevitable drugs given will switch off the warning signals (symptoms).

Consider the following conditions:

• Heartburn,
  
• arthritis,
  
• lupus,
  
• asthma,
  
• 'high cholesterol',
  
• high blood pressure,
  
• heart disease,
  
• cancer formation,
  
• hot flushes and menstrual problems,
  
• obesity,
  
• allergies,
  
• bulimia,
  
• chronic fatigue syndrome,
  
• ME,
  
• angina,
  
• lower back pain,
  
• gout,
  
• kidney stones,
  
• skin disorders,
  
• diabetes,
  
• fungal/yeast overgrowth,
  
• multiple sclerosis,
  
• migraine headaches,
  
• general aches and pains,
  
• morning sickness,
  
• depression,
  
• heavy/burdensome periods,
  
• colitis,
  
• dyspepsia and
  
• peptic ulcers...

Are all of these conditions linked to a chronic state of dehydration?

World-renowned water expert Dr Fereydoon Batmanghelidj, in his latest bestseller, Water and Salt - Your Healers From Within, maintains that the above conditions are the body's many cries for water, complaints dramatically improved with a consistent and long-term intake of the fresh, clean water. Dr Batman's timely work has helped thousands quash long-term health problems effortlessly and inexpensively.

He writes: "The report of my having successfully treated with water more than three thousand people with symptoms and clinical signs of peptic ulcer disease was published in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology in June 1983. I came away from that experience with the understanding that the people I treated were thirsty, and I uncovered the phenomenon that 'pain' in the body indicates thirst, even though the condition is classified as a disease." Water is used by the body for digestion, detoxifying cells, watering the lungs, lubricating joints, keeping the body alkalized and a host of cleaning duties.

Many warning signals ('symptoms') arise out of the body's inability to neutralize or rid itself of acid, a common enough complaint given the number of antacids sold around the world each day.

'I drink coffee, tea, diet sodas, beer and a host of other liquids. They contain water, don't they?'

This is a common and dangerous misconception. Many of today's designer drinks are diuretic in their effect (water-expelling) because their mostly acidic compositions require the body to give up water and alkalizing minerals to eliminate their harmful residues. Diet sodas especially are harmful in that they require large amounts of body-water to neutralize the phosphoric acid component (2.8 pH). Cells that started off healthy and 'plum-like' shrivel to prunes as water, the stuff of life, is progressively denied them. The sick in our hospitals are fed the sodas, tea and coffee they ask for in woeful ignorance of the damage wrought to the micro cell-world within them.

Batmanghelidj's extraordinary work should rightly be considered by a mainstream medical community ever fixated on the drug cure. Below is a summary of body functions and that rely on an adequate intake of water:

Brain function:

The brain comprises 2% of the body's total weight, yet receives 15-20% of the blood supply, mostly comprised of water. Dehydration will affect cognitive ability drastically, and, through histamine's action, can create depressive states (many anti-depressant medications are anti-histamines).

Bone function:

Bones require plentiful supplies of water. 75% of the weight of the upper body, for instance, is supported by the water core contained within the fifth lumbar disc, the remaining 25% by muscle fibers around the spine.

Nerve function:

Microstreams exist along the length of nerves which transport nutrients and conduct energy along microtubules to the synapses to transmit messages. Dehydration disrupts proper nerve function, resulting in the sensation of pain.

Hydrolysis:

Water, far from being an inert solvent, is intricately involved in the body's water-dependent chemical reactions. Lack of water means incomplete or faulty metabolic processes, with obvious implications for continued health and well-being. Proteins and enzymes, for instance, do not function as well in acidic solutions of higher viscosity (stickiness) where the body is dehydrated.

Cellular energy:

As water is drawn through the cell membrane, its osmotic flow generates a voltage gradient which can be used in the manufacture of ATP and GTP energy. Dehydration will obviously affect the proper functioning of cells and even kill them.

Histamine:

This neurotransmitter plays a major role in activating systems which encourage water intake when dehydration is detected. Functions in the body which consume large quantities of water are cut back, namely the bronchial tubes constricted to cut down on water use in the lungs; increased peristalsis in the bowels to wring more water out of fecal material, and so on. Other signs of histamine's activity, namely allergies, asthma, depression and chronic pains, are interpreted by the physician as 'disease' and treated with anti-histamines, pain-killers (analgesics), etc. Thus the signals of thirst are turned off and the dehydration state continues unabated.

Dyspepsia (heartburn/reflux):

Over time, this can lead to ulceration and even cancer. Dr Batmanghelidj recommends that these conditions - also gastritis and duodenitis - be treated with water alone as they are one of the body's major thirst signals. Arrested in his native Iran by the Revolutionary Council during the troubles of the late 1970's, Dr B was confined to Evin prison, Tehran, during which time he successfully treated with water alone over three thousand people complaining of dyspeptic pain and associated symptoms.

Digestion:

Requires plentiful supplies of water. The stomach relies on mucus lining the walls to shield it from the effects of the stomach's hydrochloric acid. A bicarbonate solution is produced from the cells in the lining which neutralizes any acid attempting to break through the mucus. Water is needed to maintain this effective defense system. Too little water, and the mucus barrier is ineffectual, the acid will penetrate and will lead to pain. Ideally, water should be consumed half an hour before a meal, in time to anticipate the production of digestive acid from glands in the stomach wall.

Ulcers:

Often located at the valve between the stomach and duodenum. Said to be caused by curved bacteria known as helicobacters. Yet many people have helicobacters in their small intestine, yet not all of them suffer from ulcers. Histamine-producing nerves are located at this site, which monitor the through-put of acidic food chyme from the stomach into the intestine. Histamine has growth-hormone effects on these micro-organisms, resulting in small intestine bacterial overgrowths (SIBOs). Once again, an adequate regime of water intake will allow all the functions relating to digestion to normalize. Prolonged water intake should therefore be considered before more drastic drug treatments are entered into.

Monster zucchini

 18 inches and 5 lbs of Zucchini

lovely inside! Even the seeds were light and dender

 the smaller half barely fit to shred...had to cut it in half half way through shredding it

 shredding....

 One half filled a Huge bowl!

 delicious!

The whole zucchini shredded into 2 medium bowls and one large one

I then salted and squeezed out as much liquid as I could...then froze 2 medium zip lock bags and left a bowl full to continue draining for fritters tomorrow

Garden update & harvest 7/24/13