How to grow beetroot

Why it is more important to buy food that is freshly picked than certified organic

Food production has been pushed further and further away from populated areas because of the high cost of land and rates. This means that the food you buy has to be picked, transported and stored before it is available for you to buy. This can sometimes take several days. One of the most valuable things a retail store should tell you about the food you are buying, is the date the food was picked because food deteriorates rapidly. It may look good, but it will have little or no food value. Leafy greens deteriorate even more when they are washed in solutions containing anti-rotting chemicals like chlorine and packaged in sealed bags containing gases, which keep it looking good. It deteriorates rapidly when it is processed by being cut up into convenient sizes and packaged in neat containers. When food is processed like this it quickly loses critical enzymes and vitamins. The best food you can buy is the food that is grown locally using organic methods, and is available for sale as soon as possible after it is picked. You will taste the difference. It will have more flavour and will last much longer. Written by Bev Buckley For more information go to http://www.growinghealthyorganicfood.com/course1

Why Organic Certification is not necessarily the answer to ensure good quality food.

Organic certification implies that food grown under this label is grown without the use of chemical fertilizers and agricultural poisons but it doesn't automatically allow you to assume that it is necessarily nutrient-rich or of high quality. The organic industry is based on building up the soil by increasing humus levels and nutrient levels. The nutrients we are talking about aren't just the major ones like phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen, but the much larger range of nutrients such as selenium, boron, molybdenum and silicon. There are more than 70 trace elements that are essential for good plant health and these need to be added to the soil regularly and monitored as well. When applying for certification, organic growers need to do a soil test but no one checks whether, once certification is given, nutrient deficiencies in the soil are rectified or if there is regular input of nutrients to replace those that are taken up by the vegetables and trees that are grown in the soil. There is no on-going monitoring of the mineral levels, vitamins and amino acids in organic food in spite of the fact that these are really important in maintaining human health. We have never applied for organic certification because we have always been aware of the deficiencies in the organic certification process. We know our food is of extremely high standard because we monitor soil nutrient levels by doing soil tests regularly. Our soil organic levels are over 14% which is quite exceptional. Because our buyers respect the quality of the food we produce, know that it is freshly picked and full of nutrients when they buy it, we sell everything we grow on our Community Farm. Our only problem is that we can't grow enough to meet demand. Written by Bev Buckley For more information goto http://www.growinghealthyorganicfood.com/course1

Growing blueberries

Blueberries are bushes that grow up to 2 metres tall. Some are much smaller. There are a number of varieties and they have different growing habits and the berries ripen at different times of the year. In their natural state, blueberries grow wild in deciduous forests where they get plenty of sunshine in winter when the trees lose their leaves. This type of natural habitat needs to be replicated if you want to grow blueberries successfully. For fruit to ripen you will need to grow your blueberries where they have at lease half a day of sunlight and protection from strong wind is desirable. Soils underneath forests are generally acidic with a pH between 4.5 and 5.5. If your soil has a higher pH than this, you have to work to lower it. The reason for this is that blueberries are one of the few plants that require aluminium to grow and aluminium can only be absorbed when the soil pH is below 5.5. It is the aluminium that explains the blue colour of the fruit. To lower soil pH add aluminium and where possible add other fertilizers in a sulphate form eg potassium sulphate. You can buy aluminium at your local hardware store as "alum". This is the same substance you use to turn hydrangeas blue. Adding peat moss, sawdust, pine bark and/or pine needles also helps to reduce soil pH levels. In a coniferous forest, the soil beneath the trees contains large amounts of organic material because the trees lose their leaves every year and layer upon layer of decaying leaf matter builds up. Before you plant your blueberries, make sure you add large amount of organic matter to the soil in the form of woodchips, sawdust, pine bark and leaves and use these same materials to keep the ground around the bushes well mulched. Deep mulch layers retain moisture, which is important because blueberry bushes are shallow rooted so they dry out easily. Ideally, you should prepare your soil six months before planting your blueberry bushes. In a forest setting, trees send their roots deep into the soil, allowing passage for air. In your blueberry area, high levels of organic matter incorporated into your soil will help with soil aeration and planting your bushes on mounds or ridges also helps. A sandy soil is preferable to a clayey loam. Planting Blueberries Prepare your soil well in advance. If you are planting several bushes, make trenches and ridges. Dig a planting hole on the mound. Tease out the roots and spread over a small mound. Fill hole with peat moss/soil mixture and pat down firmly. Dilute liquid kelp or fulvic acid with water (50/1 ratio) and water the plant generously This helps to reduce transplant shock. Add compost and peat moss to both the mound area and the trench taking care not to build up the mulch around the trunk. Watering and Fertilizing Blueberries Blueberries are shallow rooted and don't like to dry out. During the growing season, water twice a week. Water more if conditions are hot and dry. Generously apply compost and animal manure (cow, goat or horse but not chicken) to ensure a good harvest. A slow release azalea plant food can be used two or three times a year but do not overdo the amount used. Alternatively, use seaweed or fish emulsion. The rule for blueberries is to use fertilizer sparingly. Pruning. Prune in winter. Prune out spindly, weak growth and keep the centre open. Plants respond to hard cut back and produce bigger, juicier berries. Written by Bev Buckley For more information visit www.growinghealthyoganicfood.com/course1

How to grow blueberries

Free energy

I've just returned from the coal and gas fields of central Queensland.  It is wonderful to see the revitalisation of towns over a wide area but I would be much happier if that activity were directed to something other than extracting and selling Australia's energy resources, ruining productive land and possibly polluting vast underground water supplies that are essential to our agricultural industry. 

As politicians congratulate themselves for taking measures that ensure a "prosperous" Australian economy, we are hell bent on depriving future generations of their inheritance as fast as possible.   This is called "progress".  Instead of spending millions on research designed to sequester coal-generated carbon in an effort to make coal mining "acceptable", we could instead be fostering research and development of free energy.

Development of such technology infers paradigm-shifting breakthroughs that have the potential to restructure the world's economic framework, giving greater independence to individuals.  It has the potential to reduce the power of centralised governments and transfer it to local communities.  It could mean the elimination of poverty.  With unlimited, virtually free, non-polluting energy, the world would be a very different place.  Instead of polluting our air and water by the use of fossil fuels, we would have the energy to clean up the damage that we have already done.  Instead of turning productive farmland into wasteland through mining we could restore it and use it again for productive purposes.

Is cheap, non-polluting energy just a pipe dream?  I don't believe it is and I believe we are closer to actually having it than many would have us believe.

The Energy Catalyzer (E-Cat) is just one example of a technology that has been developed and is now in the testing stage with extremely promising results.  Tests undertaken by Defence and Energy Department bureaucracies show that the technology works.  Developed in Italy by Andrea Rossi the E-Cat uses tiny ((1.5 grams) amounts of nickel powder, hydrogen gas and undisclosed catalysts to produce mini-nuclear reactions from a portable reactor that is about the same size as a cell battery.  Massive releases of heat energy occur in the process: enough to power a home or a car for a raw materials cost of less than $2 per year. Most importantly, it is safe.

What cold fusion promises is something extremely rare: impossible technology that could underpin a more prosperous world because the benefits will be many times as significant as those of cheap oil but without the drawbacks.

Cold fusion isn't the only example of clean, renewal, affordable energy systems being developed.  Paramahansa Tewari, electrical engineering graduate from Banaras Engineering College, India has recently taken out a patent for a Space Power Generator, which generates energy from a vacuum.

The world's situation looks pretty bleak at present, but there are significant signs that things are changing.  The development of free energy technology is just one of the many highly significant breakthroughs that are happening. "Caterpillars into Butterflies" outlines new developments that have occurred in a variety of areas and explains what you can do to help make the world a better place.   "Caterpillars into Butterflies" is available as a downloadable e-book for $7 from www.growinghealthyorganicfood.com

Bev Buckley.

Food growing facts you may not know.

Do you know that plants grow exponentially?

Let me explain.








Plants are programmed to double in size every few days and with growth come the various stages: germination, maturity and reproduction.

The first stage of growth is not normally seen. It is when the seed sends out roots whose job is to collect food for the plant so that it can grow. At every stage of the plant's life thee is an equivalent growth of roots under the ground as there is volume of leaves and stalks above the ground.

Once the plant has established its life support root system, it starts to grow above the ground. A plant may double in size every three or four days. When the plant is tiny, you don't notice a great change. A plant that is one centimetre tall is very little different from a plant that is two centimetres tall. However, the same growth rate occurs for the plant's whole life cycle. In the same time period of 3 - 4 days that it took to grow from one centimetre to two centimetres, a plant that is 15 centimetres tall and 10 centimetres across, will grow to 30 centimetres tall and 20 centimetres across and if that plant is programmed to start producing fruit or seeds when the plant gets to be 15 centimetres tall, that fruit will grow in those same few days. A broccoli head will double in size every couple of days for 6 or 9 days and then will start to produce flowers.

The speed that plants mature and start to produce edible fruit, leaves and seeds catches most new gardeners by surprise. It seems to take so long for the plants to start looking like the vegetables they planned to grow, that they think it is going to take forever for them to produce edible food.

Wrong! Plants mature in a very short space of time and there is only a relatively short period of time for harvesting. Zucchinis, for example, double in size overnight if left unpicked and quickly become more like torpedoes than food.

At our community farm, I see many of our new members totally surprised to find that they have missed their harvest. The vegetables that seemed to take so long to grow rapidly matured when they just weren't watching! Troy and Shona, in the picture below, keep a close eye on what's happening in their own personal vegetable gardens at the Castelen Community Farm and harvest a bountiful supply of vegetables ever week from just a tiny plot of land. This is just one of the advantages of being a Community Farm member.














If you want to take full advantage of your garden's produce remember to visit your garden regularly, pick the delicious vegetables that are ready and eat them as soon as possible because the nutrient value of vegetables starts dropping as soon as they are picked. You'll be amazed at the difference in taste between a just picked cauliflower and one that has been sitting on the supermarket shelf for a week.

Written by Bev Buckley Visit learn more

How to increase the profit from your garden or small farm

How to increase the profit from your garden or small farm NOW! (growing vegetables, fruits, nuts, berries or herbs).
As the world population escalates, food prices will rise. This trend will be reinforced by rising oil & gas prices (mainstream agriculture is dependent on oil & gas for transport, fertilizers, herbicides & pesticides). Therefore there is a great business opportunity in growing food. Over the past 18 months, I have been doing a study that takes over 100 of the main food crops and assesses and compares their profitability. This is a brief discussion paper giving you a preview. Clearly more money will be made growing the most profitable crops and this study provides you with over 100 crops ranked in terms of profitability. The crops are also categorized according to their climate suitability, so you can find for example which are the most profitable crops in the tropics, temperate or cold climates. What then are the key factors that affect profitability when growing crops? Clearly your choice of crops is fundamental to your financial success. The other factor you have to evaluate is the market demand for the crops you select and your ability to reach that market. You then need to be able to grow the crops. This subject and an overview of over 140 popular crops is covered in my book called “Growing Healthy” subtitled “How to make over $100,000 p.a. on five acres growing fruit and vegetables organically”. This book is available from the website www.growinghealthyorganicfood.com (see book 1) . For even more detail on growing effectively we have 12 monthly lessons on nature’s twelve universal principles of organic food growing. See course 1 at www.growinghealthyorganicfood.com . The other key topic in assessing profitability is cost. There are capital items like land & equipment & buildings. There are the variable costs of seeds, seedlings, fertilizers, watering, pruning & weeding, soil preparation, planting & harvesting, cleaning & packing, transport & marketing. In most of these there is a labour component and this is generally the big cost. Labour costs vary hugely around the world, where the lesser developed countries such as China & India have a big cost advantage and in the western world USA is generally much lower than say the UK or Australia. These factors and others are assessed crop by crop in my study. But for now here are some quick effective ways to improve your profitability immediately: 1. Temperature has a major impact on growth—too hot or too cold stops growth dead in its tracks for most plants. So if you are in an area that gets extreme hot temperatures (over 30 degrees C) you can improve production by using a shadehouse in the summer. Depending on the size of the area you grow in this can be a small homemade device with cloth draped over wood or plastic poles or a large walk in shadehouse with sprinklers. If you live in cold climates that get frosts or snow, then you can improve productivity and lengthen your growing season by using a greenhouse in the winter. 2. Another key factor that impacts profitability is the length of time from planting to maturity and harvesting. Fruit & nut trees for example typically take 3 years or even longer to bear a crop and then it is often then only a small crop and may take 4 to 7 years before full production is achieved. And then you get only one crop a year from most fruit trees. Fruits & nuts payoff is good longer term as the labour component is lower than for vegetables & herbs. 3. However, if you want a quick return on your investment forget fruit & nut trees. You need to focus on vegetables, herbs and berries. The typical vegetable takes 3 months to maturity. Time and cashflow are major factors in profitability, so how about these:months to grow and many of them can be grown several times a year (depending on the length of your growing season). Some vegetables you can pick many times from the one plant---it just keeps producing! 4. Let’s get specific: (a) Rhubarb is a magic crop to grow. I can pick up to 8 times in a year off the one plant. We have of course a particularly long growing season of 10 to 12 months a year, but even in a shorter growing season area you can pick every 5 to 6 weeks once the plant is mature. (b) There are some other crops that you can pick up to five times from the one plant—namely zucchini, kale and silver beet or swiss chard. (c) The other recommendation is to go for crops with the shortest time from planting Zucchini 7 weeks Radish 7 weeks Silver beet 8 weeks Lettuce 9 weeks Broccoli 10 weeks Carrots 11 weeks The exact time will vary slightly with different varieties and the weather. Conclusion: If you try some of the above recommendations you cannot help but improve your return from your activities on your garden or small farm. At least they will make it easier to cut down on your food bills by selling your excess produce nore readily! However this brief free report cannot cover all the details of growing and marketing your crops. If you want more I have recently produced a short 12 week program that does all this. It is now available as course 2 on the home page of our website: go to http://www.growinghealthyorganicfood.com/course2. This program provides a comparative analysis of the profitability of over 100 crops including helping you set up a step by step business plan to maximize the return on your land size and specific climate. This training program also gives you the use of a profitability calculator where you can input your own figures to calculate the specific profitability of a crop you grow in your climate, with your local pricing and local cost of labour and the growing time of the particular variety that you have chosen. Best wishes, Geoff Buckley.

What are the most important minerals?

Creating and maintaining a healthy balanced soil is crucial to success in growing crops organically. The father of soil science is Professor William Albrecht who studied soils all around the world all his life. He demonstrated that in terms of volume the major elements are calcium, magnesium and potassium. Nitrogen, phophorus and silcon are also significant.
Later research shows that volume is not the only important factor. Individual elements whilst small in quantity can be essential catalysts to the many chemical/biological processes that take place in plants such as photosynthesis. There is a heirarchy of elements needed for these processes to work in plants and this might also apply in humans. (I have added the most common natural food source for us in brackets).
Sulphur is necessary as a catalyst for all the reactions that begin with boron and end with potassium. This is apparently the biochemical sequence of nutrition in plants. The 8 elements in sequence are:
1.Boron (lettuce)
2.Silica (brazil nuts)
3.Calcium (broad beans & watercress)
4.Nitrogen (cucumber)
5.Magnesium (Beans, poppyseed & spinach)
6.Phosphorus (Beetroot)
7.Carbon (vitamin C)
8. Potassium (Lettuce)
There are 92 elements that make up the earth and the human body and not a lot is known about all the minor trace elements. I believe they all play a role and as an example who has heard of yttrium? This element created a three-fold increase in the lifespan of test animals!! Yttrium is found in cabbage, lettuce and tomatoes (if grown in soils that contain yttrium). Lettuce should contain many of the above important minerals and has become one of my favourite foods!!
Geoff Buckley Click here for more information on creating a healthy balanced soil.

community farm

Mark Slattery

Growing carrots