Tag: Brix

Eating Nutrient Dense Foods – The Role of Brix is Not What We Thought

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Testing fruits and vegetables for brix, the percent sugar, does not appear to be as reliable a method for testing their mineral density as previously thought. International Ag Labs released a report earlier this year in which they tested butternut squash samples for nutrient density from 29 different sources. Unfortunately, I was not able to find the explanation of the nutrient density standard that was used to rank the samples. However, the results show some interesting things:
The brix reading does not correlate with protein content.
The brix reading does not correlate with calcium content.
The brix reading does not seem to correlate with any other mineral content.

What this report shows is that testing the brix of fruits and vegetables produced by someone else, such as from the grocery store or from a farmer’s market, or even from your own garden, is not a reliable indicator of nutrient density. However, that does not mean that testing the brix content is worthless. In general, a higher brix squash tended to have a higher mineral content. Also, this test was an evaluation of only butternut squashes and not all fruits and vegetables.

Last summer, I started questioning the accuracy of testing fruits and vegetables for brix to find the mineral content. Our green beans were only 7 brix (between good and average on the brix chart with 10 being excellent), but the yield was incredible, and the taste was some of the best I had ever eaten and the beans were very tender. The leaves of the green bean plants were 15 brix. I did a little testing and found that doubling the moisture content cuts the brix reading in half. Cutting the moisture content in half doubles the brix reading. Therefore, knowing the moisture content (dry matter percent) is important if you are comparing the brix between two fruits or vegetables grown in two different locations.

But! Before you throw out your refractometer as a worthless test instrument, the refractometer is an important test instrument in your garden. If you can get the brix of the leaf of the plants above 12 brix, the bugs will pretty much leave the plants alone. You can test the plants to make sure that any nutritional spray, such as milk, honey and egg spray, is increasing the brix reading in the leaf. Also, if you have put down soft rock phosphate and high calcium limestone on your garden, you know that the minerals are there at a higher level, even if the brix reading of the vegetables does not test in the excellent range, especially if the leaves of the plant test 12 brix or higher.

This summer, it has been difficult to keep the brix reading of the leaf high because of all the rain and cloudy weather that we have had. It is the sun shining on the leaf that helps make the sugar in the leaf. We have had a lot more problems with Japanese beetles this year, and I believe it is because of all the rainy weather.

The squash study by International Ag Labs highlights the importance of growing our own food or purchasing it from someone we know who has put the minerals into the soil. Eating nutrient dense foods is not as easy to accomplish as we would like it to be, but it is vitally important for our health.

The results of the butternut squash study can be found at this link:
http://marketgardens.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Compiled-Butternut-Squash-Data.pdf

To Plow or Not to Plow, That is the Question!

By Myron Horst

Note: Whether you garden or farm or not, I believe that you will find this article interesting. The subject “To plow or not to plow” is a much more important subject than what most of us realize. There is a surprising conclusion.

In farming and in gardening there are opposing voices, those saying that the ground should not be plowed or tilled and others saying that the soil should be plowed. Both methods appear to work, but which one is the best? One of the challenges in life is discerning the best solution to take.  There are many things in life that “work” and highly educated people promote them as being the answer, but in the end there are consequences or side effects that outweigh the good. It is also important to ask the question: “It is better as compared to what”. For our family, we are not just interested in producing food to eat, we also want to produce the most nutrient dense food that we can.

No-till farming has been growing in practice here in the U.S. The method used by most farmers today is to spray Roundup to kill the cover crop or weeds that have grown in the stubble of the previous crop. The new crop seeds are planted with a special no-till planter through the dead plant mat that is left on the ground. No-till farming has enabled farmers to be able to farm a considerably larger number of acres because all they have to do is spray and plant. No plowing and no cultivating.

For me, the subject to plow or not to plow came up again this past winter when we watched the video “Back to Eden.” It was a documentary of a man who had an impressive looking garden. The documentary had excellent pictures of beautiful plants. Most of the shots were close up and it looked impressive. He did not plow or till, but used a mulch layer on the ground to suppress the weeds and build a rich black soil. He had been gardening this way for a number of years and was getting good results. The method of gardening was presented as God’s method, and as an almost no work garden. I was convinced enough to try it on some of our vegetables.  A lot of Bible verses were quoted throughout the video. But is he right?

I found a website, called “Farming God’s Way”. It is an organization that is teaching African farmers how to farm and to provide for their families. They too advocate not plowing and putting down a layer of mulch. They call the mulch layer “God’s blanket”. They intersperse the teaching on the farming method with Bible verses. It sounds like a very Biblical method. But are they right?

The voices cautioning that the ground should not be plowed or tilled have been around for a long time. Newman Turner and Ruth Stout from years ago both strongly recommended that the ground should not be plowed.

About six years ago, our family went to visit the Rodale Institute’s organic research farm in Pennsylvania for their farm open house. I was very interested in their no-till system that appeared to be a real answer. They had developed an organic no-till system that did not use chemicals. They invented a large roller that would roll the cover crop and kill it by crimping the plants. The roller was mounted on the front of the tractor and a no-till corn planter was pulled behind the tractor for a one pass planting. The cover crop created a mat, or mulch layer that helped conserve moisture and provided nitrogen for the crop. I was impressed with the system and we went back the next year to learn more. That year I was not as impressed. There were a number of problems that they had not been able to fix and the yields were not as good as conventional tilling.

On the other side of the subject is the teaching of Carey Reams. Reams stressed the importance of plowing to reverse the calcium and phosphates in the soil. Calcium tends to move down in the soil which is evidenced by stalactites and stalagmites in caverns. Phosphates tend to rise to the top where they can be washed into streams and rivers. By turning the soil over, the calcium is kept in the topsoil layer and the phosphates are buried back in the soil. Calcium is an important element in producing nutrient dense, high brix food.

So which method is best, to plow or not to plow? For me as a farmer in researching a farming method, I like to go to the oldest agricultural book, the Bible, and see what it says. On this subject it opened a window into a totally new perspective for me, that enabled me to see the collision course that farming is on today.

About the Garden of Eden it says this: Genesis 2:15 “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.”

  • The Hebrew word translated “dress” means to till. Even in the garden of Eden it was necessary to cultivate.

In Ezekiel 36:34-35a it says that plowing and cultivation was an important part in the land becoming like the garden of Eden. “And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. 35 And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden”;

  • Tilling, or plowing appears to be an important part of creating a fertile and very productive field or garden.

Isaiah 28:23-26 It says this: “Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech. 24 Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground? 25 When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place? 26 For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.”

  • Plowing produces clods of earth. Cultivation breaks up the clods.
  • This passage says that God’s method is to plow the soil – the opposite of what the Back to Eden film said, and the Farming God’s Way states. In my research, on almost every subject, I have found Christians saying and believing opposite things to be true. It can be confusing and misleading if you take what one person says without checking things out yourself.

The oldest agricultural book has some strong words about no-till farming and this is what opens the window to a bigger perspective of the subject.

Proverbs 12:11 He that tills his land shall be satisfied with bread: but he that follows vain person is void of understanding.

Proverbs 28:19 He that tills his land shall have plenty of bread: but he that follows after vain persons shall have poverty enough.

  • Plowing and cultivation are important for success in farming and in gardening to produce an abundant crop.
  • “No-till” is following “vain” persons who think that they know and have the answers, but in the end it results in poverty.

So, is the old agricultural book right? Is no-till following vain persons? Does no-till result in poverty? There are some interesting things that have come out recently.

Rodale Institute, about a month ago, released the yield data for their 2011 yield trials of conventional tillage and their no-till system. The conventional tillage system yielded 95 bushels of corn per acre and 39 bushels of soybeans per acre. The no-till system yielded less than half the yield of corn even though more seeds had been planted per acre – only 40 bushels of corn per acre. The no-till soybeans only yielded 20 bushels per acre. Only half the yield with no-till is a sure way to poverty. http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20120627_challenging-yields-challenging-weather

In conventional farming, no-till comes in a package. It requires the use of lots of chemicals – Roundup to kill the grasses and weeds, GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) seeds to resist the Roundup, pesticides and fungicides to kill the bugs and fungus because the crops are so low brix that the bugs and fungus try to eat it up to return it to the soil. No-till is a method that is promoted by the Monsanto Corporation who gives huge donations to many of the big university agricultural departments. So, of course, the no-till trials show the no-till advantage. But one thing to remember is to ask the question: “No-till is better as compared to what?”. They are not comparing no-till to properly remineralized, plowed, and cultivated soil, and they are not looking at the long term effects of the whole no-till system. They are looking primarily at short term crop yield comparisions.

The no-till revolution has resulted in a very high percentage of conventional soybeans and corn being genetically modified to resist Roundup. A New York Times article talking about GMO Roundup Ready crops says: “Those crops made it so easy for farmers to control weeds by spraying glyphosate [Roundup] that Roundup Ready crops now account for about 90 percent of soybeans and around 70 percent of the corn and cotton grown in the United States. And use of glyphosate skyrocketed, at the expense of rival herbicides.” They go on to say how super weeds are becoming resistant to Roundup, and Dow Corning is looking for approval for their GMO corn that is resistant to 2,4, D (an ingredient in Agent Orange) so that 2,4,D can be sprayed after the corn comes up, instead of Roundup to control the Roundup resistant super weeds.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/26/business/energy-environment/dow-weed-killer-runs-into-opposition.html?pagewanted=all

We can see, that at the heart of the GMO controversy is actually the question, “To plow or not to plow?” No-till has resulted in GMO seeds being used in a high percentage of our crops. What is the effect of GMO grain? Does it improve health or destroy it? Just released this fall is a French study on the long term feeding of GMO grains to rats. The rats grew huge tumors and 70% of the females died. If you have not seen the pictures of the rats, the pictures are worth a thousand words. You can see the pictures at:
http://www.naturalnews.com/037249_GMO_study_cancer_tumors_organ_damage.html

Last week Russia halted all imports of GMO grain after the French study came out. http://rt.com/business/news/russia-monsanto-corn-ban-005/

We see a progression of following “vain” persons promoting no-till. No-till requires the use of herbicides, such as Roundup. The use of Roundup results in the need for GMO crops. GMO grains have the potential of resulting in cancer. But that is not all. There are more consequences of following “vain” persons:

The United Nations in a report states that the suicide rate for farmers worldwide is higher than for non-farmers. In the Midwest of the U.S. where most of the corn, wheat, and soybeans are grown, suicide rates among male farmers are two times higher than the general population! This is a sad and telling statistic. No-till farming has not resulted in grain farmers becoming more successful. They have become more dependent on the big corporations and the chemicals and seeds that they sell. The more dependent that they have become, the more it drains their wallet. Finally, in despair and financial hopelessness they commit suicide.
http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/csd/csd16/PF/presentations/farmers_relief.pdf

The suicide rate among farmers dependent on Monsanto is highlighted by the suicide problem among farmers in India. The Infowars.com website reports that in India every 30 minutes another farmer commits suicide. Over 250,000 farmers have committed suicide in India alone in the last 16 years! They often committed the act by drinking the same insecticide that Monsanto supplied them with. http://www.infowars.com/monsantos-gmo-seeds-contributing-to-farmer-suicides-every-30-minutes/

The Hindustan Times reports: “India’s Bt cotton dream is going terribly wrong. For the first time, farmer suicides, including those in 2011-12, have been linked to the declining performance of the much hyped genetically modified (GM) variety adopted by 90% of the country’s cotton-growers since being allowed a decade ago. Policymakers have hailed Bt cotton as a success story but a January 9 internal advisory, a copy of which is with HT, sent out to cotton-growing states by the agriculture ministry presents a grim scenario. ‘Cotton farmers are in a deep crisis since shifting to Bt cotton. The state of farmer suicides in 2011-12 has been particularly severe among Bt cotton farmers,’ says the advisory.  Bt cotton’s success, it appears, lasted merely five years. Since then, yields have been falling and pest attacks going up.” http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/Business/Ministry-blames-Bt-cotton-for-farmer-suicides/Article1-830798.aspx

As I reflect on the above information, I realize that what that old agricultural book said: “He that tills his land shall have plenty of bread: but he that follows after vain persons shall have poverty enough.” is more accurate and not as radical as what it first sounds. The long term results of no-till is not sustainable because of its heavy dependance on chemicals and GMO seeds and the poverty that they bring with them, not only to the farmer, but also to those who eat the GMO grains. Healthcare costs have skyrocketed in recent years and are draining the wallets of the consumer, bringing them poverty and dependance on the government to supply healthcare.

It is helpful to be able to step back and see the bigger picture. In the end, the big corporations such as Monsanto and Dow Corning will fail because their products are not sustainable and end in poverty. It all goes back to a subject that at first appears to be relatively unimportant – To Plow or Not to Plow — That is the Question!

Weeds in the Garden

by Myron Horst

I have observed that it is easy for gardeners to get focused on the wrong things in gardening. Weeds are one of those things. I have observed people going to great lengths and expense to control weeds, as if gardening is all about controlling weeds, rather than producing an abundant crop of nutrient dense food. Controlling weeds becomes a big burden for them and takes the fun away from gardening. Weeds and grasses can be an important fertilizer, they can be a curse, or they can be a lesser part of the gardening experience.

This past winter, someone sent us the link to the “Back to Eden” video. It is the story of a man who implemented a method of gardening very similar to the Ruth Stout method of using mulch to control weeds, except he used a lot of Bible verses to make it sound like it was God’s method of gardening. It was an impressive video with great pictures of beautiful plants. He portrayed his method as an almost no work method of gardening. We decided to try the method on two rows in each of our gardens. It was not “no work” gardening!! It was a lot of work loading the wood chips into wheel barrows and wheeling it into the garden and spreading it. I was glad we did not have to cover both of our gardens with wood chips.

Recently I looked at the “Back to Eden” garden again and realized that it was only about 1/3 the size of our smaller garden and 1/6 the size of our large garden. I was surprised at how few plants he really had in the garden. There was a lot of space between the plants. What is easy to do on a very small scale in a hobby garden for fresh eating can become very labor intensive if you are trying to grow most of your food. If we are going to produce enough health giving food to sustain ourselves and our family, there has to be a better way.

Carey Reams, who discovered how to grow high quality, nutrient dense food, said that one of the best ways to control weeds is to plant rows close together so that the plants shade out the weeds. We have tried that method for the last several years and it has worked very well for us. It has allowed us to spend little time on weeding. We now spend much more time harvesting than weeding. We garden intensively in rows.

The first thing is to get the right nutrients in the soil. We spread about an inch and a half of composted chicken manure on the garden in the fall and plowed it under. Each year we put down some soft rock phosphate and high calcium limestone. The first year, put down about 50 lbs of soft rock phosphate per 1000 square feet and 100 lbs of high calcium limestone per 100 square feet. Each year after that a smaller quantity of each should be put down to replace what was removed and depleted during the year.

In the spring, we rototill the garden and plant the rows of green beans, corn, and other row veggies in rows 24 inches apart. The potatoes we plant 30 inches apart. This spring we made the mistake of planting some of the sweet corn 30 inches apart. That allowed significantly more grasses and weeds to grow. The rest of the story we will tell in pictures.

After the plants emerge, we use this small tiller to cultivate out the small weeds. It has only a 14 inch tilling width and easily goes down the rows planted 24 inches apart. It only takes about an hour and a half to till a 1/4 acre garden. We then hoe out the weeds in the row. In the sweet corn and potatoes we cover the small weeds as we hill the corn or potatoes. It is much faster than hoeing out the weeds. About a week or so later, we run the tiller between the rows again. This is the last time it needs to be tilled. By then the plants are starting to shade out the space between the rows and the weeds don’t have a chance.


This is 10 rows of green beans 50 feet long. There are another two rows of green beans that are to the right of the picture.  Notice how the rows have grown together, shading out the weeds and shading the ground from the sun and reducing the drying out of the soil. When a wider row spacing is used, it allows sunlight to reach the soil and germinate lots of weed seeds. The ground has the desire to always be covered.


Does planting the rows close together reduce the yield? Not if there are enough nutrients in the soil. The first picking of green beans was four buckets. The second picking was last Monday with about 13 buckets of green beans.


The third picking on Friday produced another 15 1/2 buckets of green beans. The beans had very few bug holes and when cooked were tender and delicious; nothing like what you buy in the store. The yield so far is the equivalent of 5.6 tons per acre and there are still more beans growing on the plants. Cathy and the girls canned about 200 quarts of beans and froze another 100 quarts. We all helped pick and snap the beans. It took much longer to pick the beans than what we had spent total in weeding. The outdoor canner was great because the ladies could can 26 quarts at a time and it kept the heat out of the house.


The zucchini was planted in a row and the squash and pumpkins to the left were planted 5 feet apart in each direction. That is a 6′ step ladder with a sprinkler on top which shows how tall the squash plants are. I am realizing that watering the garden before it gets really dry is an important part of controlling weeds because it allows the vegetable plants to continue growing rapidly and stay ahead of the weeds.


This picture illustrates the goal with weeds: make the weeds unhealthy and the vegetable plants healthy. The weed in the center is bug eaten and the beets are strong and healthy. Too often, it is the opposite. The key is learning how to feed the vegetables and not the weeds. Nitrogen will make weeds grow just as fast or faster than the vegetable plants that we want. Too much nitrogen attracts bugs to the plants we want. Soft rock phosphate and high calcium limestone are important elements in the soil. It is also important to foliar feed the plants with a spray each week to keep the brix of the leaf above 12 so that the bugs leave it alone and go after the weeds. The foliar sprays that we use are in this article: http://www.jehovahjirehfarm.com/articles/2010/07/13/an-incredible-substance-raw-milk/

This year we also discovered another foliar spray that dramatically raised the brix of our pasture grasses and some plants in the garden. It is important to test how a foliar spray is working by testing the sap of a plant leaf with a refractometer. The same spray can cause the brix to drop in some plants and raise it in another. The formula is 4 of our raw pasture raised eggs and a tablespoon of feed grade molasses in a gallon of water. It puts a glossy shine on the leaves.


Weeds and grasses are an excellent fertilizer, as the trees in our American chestnut orchard illustrate. These trees were planted as nuts only five years ago. The gate is about 9 1/2 feet high to the cross bar. The trees have grown so dense that it is difficult to walk through the orchard. We repeatedly hear that it is important to keep the weeds down so that they don’t compete with the plants that we want. You often see orchards where they have sprayed RoundUp under the trees to control the grass and weeds. We did the opposite in this orchard. When the trees were smaller, we allowed the grass and weeds to grow 1 1/2 to 2 feet tall before we mowed it. It was not unusual for some of the grass to be above the hood of the lawn tractor. What we were doing was building topsoil with the grass. The roots of the grass go down about the same distance as what the plant is tall. When it is mowed off, the roots of the plant die off until they are about the same size as the plant that is above the ground. Those decaying roots made topsoil to the depth of two feet. By repeatedly allowing the weeds and grass to grow tall and mowing them off year after year, it created a soil that allowed the chestnut trees to grow rapidly. The same principle can be applied in the garden. After a crop is harvested for the year, rather than tilling up the ground and letting the ground be bare, allow the weeds and grass to grow, but mow them off before they produce seeds. Use the weeds to your advantage.

An Incredible Substance – Raw Milk

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Raw milk is a much more valuable substance than what most people realize. Everything that we have fed it to has become more healthy. Our family consumes about 7 to 10 gallons of the stuff a week. The yogurt that we make with it is usually mild and not very tart. We noticed a difference in our children’s health one winter when our cow was not producing milk. The children had more sickness, colds, etc. than they had other years when our cows were producing milk.

We feed the baby chicks raw milk and it has made a significant difference in their health. The chickens grow much better and we have very few die. The milk also seems to make the chicken meat more tender. We have found that calves and lambs that we bottle feed do much better on raw milk than on milk replacer. Raw milk is one of the best protein sources for laying hens. We don’t give the hens milk very often because we do not have enough extra milk, but we have used it when a flock was not doing as well as it should, and they improved with the raw milk added to their feed.

Last summer we discovered another valuable use for raw milk. In our garden, there were a number of different types of vegetables that were low brix. We tried different types of foliar sprays that should have raised the brix. Instead, they lowered the brix. The Brix Talk discussion board did not have any solutions. I couldn’t find a solution anywhere. So I asked God to show me what to do. He brought to my mind that in the Bible the Land of Canaan (what is now Israel) was called a land flowing with milk and honey. I always assumed it meant that it was a very productive area that produced a lot of milk and honey. This time the thought that came to me was, "What if milk and honey put on the plants would make them more productive?" I did a test and sprayed some milk and honey on various plants in the garden. About an hour later I tested the brix. To my surprise and joy the brix had risen 3 brix on most of the plants. The brix of clover raised from 8 brix to 13 brix. We have used the milk and honey spray on our garden this year with excellent results.

When the brix (sugar and mineral content) of the leaf of a plant is above 12 brix, insects will leave the plant alone. The high sugar content of the plant causes alcohol to be produced in an insect when it eats the high brix plant. It gives the bug diarrhea which results in dehydration and death. We had heard that when the vegetables in a garden are high brix, the insects will leave the vegetables alone and start attacking the weeds. We found it to be true. Insects attack plants that are low quality. In poor soil the weeds are higher brix and the vegetables are low brix. When the plants have the right amount of calcium and phosphates the opposite occurs. The weeds are low brix and are attacked by the bugs and the vegetables are high brix and the bugs leave them alone. Conventional agriculture mindset is to spray anti-life chemicals on the plant to kill the bugs, and then feed the poor nutritional quality vegetables to us. The following pictures show some weeds that the insects were eating.


The bugs attacked the weeds in the corn patch. The brix of the corn leaves was 15 brix.


Japanese beetles were eating on the weed in the center of this picture which was in the potatoes. We did not have any problem with potato beetles eating the potato plants. The brix of the potato leaves was about 12 brix.

We had a problem with the Japanese beetles eating our grapevines. After we sprayed the grapevines twice with milk and honey about a week apart, the beetles left. The milk and honey mix that we use is:
3 1/2 gallons of water
1/2 gallon of raw skim milk
1 cup of honey

I put the milk and honey spray in a pump up bug sprayer and sprayed the plants. It might be possible to get the same results without using the honey. I have not experimented with that yet.

Recently I read an article in a farming magazine, The Stockman Grass Farmer, about a dairy farm in Nebraska that had raw skim milk that was a waste product from making butter and cheese. To get rid of the milk, the farmer applied it to his pastures. He found that where he applied milk it made a significant improvement. It significantly increased the microbes in the soil and the growth of the grass. Further test plots showed that the raw milk applied once, at the rate of three gallons per acre, increased the yield of the hay by 1200 pounds per acre! Their conclusion was that raw milk could be worth two to three more times more money as fertilizer!


Several weeks ago we bought another cow – a Guernsey. Why a Guernsey?

One reason is that my grandfather had a purebred Guernsey dairy herd and sold "Golden Guernsey" raw milk. My father talked about how good the golden Guernsey milk was. We found that we like it better than our Jersey milk. But the real reason that we wanted a Guernsey is that some recent research has found that there are two different types of milk protein – A1 beta casein milk protein, and A2 beta casein milk protein. The A1 beta casein is what most people who have casein intolerance are allergic to. Goat and sheep milk are A2 beta casein. There is a "controversial" claim, based on 16 years research, that the A1 beta casein which is drunk by most people in the US could be a cause of diabetes, heart disease, autism, and schizophrenia in people with immune deficiencies. It is also claimed that the A2 beta casein does not cause these problems. Research has showed that 96% of the Guernsey breed of cows have the A2 beta casein, while the Holstein (black and white) breed from which most of the milk in the US is produced, has the A1 milk protein. Obviously this is very damaging information for the dairy industry and there has been considerable attempt to suppress the information about A2 milk.

For more information read
http://www.naturalnews.com/026684_cows_diabetes_protein.html or the
book Devil in the Milk by Keith Woodford.

Another use for milk is to help a person refuse what is bad and choose what is good. In the Bible, Isaiah 7:15 says that Jesus would eat butter and honey so that He would know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. That is one of the benefits of adequate calcium in the diet. I have heard that the proper type of calcium, according to a person’s body’s need, can help an alcoholic give up alcohol, or a smoker give up cigarettes. The proper calciums can also help children calm down and be well behaved without the use of mood altering drugs.

Raw milk can also be used to cure a number of chronic diseases. The Weston A Price Foundation has a very interesting article about raw milk being used to cure a number of different diseases. http://www.realmilk.com/milkcure.html Recently we purchased the book Milk Diet as a Remedy for Chronic Disease, by Dr. Charles Sanford Porter. It is a reprint of a book that was originally printed in 1905. This book goes into great detail about how to conduct a milk fast to cure sickness.

Raw milk can also be an important survival food. It is a food that can be produced fresh every day year round and consumed without further cooking or processing. This idea came from the Bible, Isaiah 7:21-22: "And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep; And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land."

Raw milk is a valuable substance. It is unfortunate that it is illegal to buy or sell raw milk here in Maryland. Perhaps some day…

Update, August 9th:

One thing I failed to mention in last month’s article is that the milk and honey foliar spray did not work for us on green beans. It actually decreased the brix. The foliar spray that we use on our beans is:
4 gallons of water
12 tbsp molasses – we use feed grade
16 oz. Cola soda – a source of phosphoric acid
4 tsp hydrated lime
10 tbsp liquid fish
4tbsp seaweed powder
8 oz. apple cider vinegar
1 tsp sea salt

We also alternate the above foliar spray with milk and honey on our sweet corn. Our sweet corn was 26 brix this year. 24 brix or higher is in the excellent range.

The Most Important Plant Food – In Your Face and You Can’t See It!

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The most important and needed plant food is everywhere. You can’t see it, but you can feel it. You can’t control it or buy it, but it is available for free everywhere. It is as light as the wind, but it makes trees weigh many tons. After I found out what the most needed plant food was, it has totally changed the way I look at plants and think about feeding them.

Over and over I ask God to teach me how to farm, and He has been teaching me some things that I find very exciting. I do not want to take the credit for what I am learning and sharing with you. I did not grow up on a farm, nor am I smart enough to discover the things I am learning on my own. God is the one who is showing me how to put together the different "pieces of the puzzle" that others have found so that I can see the bigger picture. The more I learn, the more I realize that farming is one of the most unexplored frontiers when it comes to understanding how to raise plants and animals so that they have the highest nutrient value that produces the greatest health and longevity for us as people.

At least 80% of the nutrients that a plant needs to grow comes from the air. Air is the most important and needed plant food. I first learned about this concept from Carey Reams who discovered it a number of years ago from his research. Recently I was reading in the 2005 edition of Biological Science by Scott Freeman. In the early 1600’s Jean-Baptiste van Helmont planted a five pound willow sapling in 200 pounds of soil in a container. He predicted that the soil mass would decrease by the same amount that the plant mass increased. After 5 years, the tree weighed 169 lbs, 3oz. The soil weighed 199lbs, 14oz. He concluded that since the soil had not significantly decreased, the additional 164lbs 3oz of tree had come from the water. Later research has found that conclusion to be incorrect and that most of the mass of the tree came from the air, most of it being carbon dioxide.

This past week Cathy and I celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary. We went over to beautiful West Virginia and drove through parts of the Monongahela National Forest and surrounding areas. One of the places that I wanted to show Cathy was the Dolly Sods Wilderness area. I had visited it 30 years ago as a teenager when our family vacationed in the area. Dolly Sods is a unique area. It is a high plateau with a cool climate. The tundra-like landscape is described as similar to parts of Alaska and Canada. It receives as much as 290 inches of snow each winter. 30 years ago, most of the trees were short and scrawny and appeared to be struggling for survival in the harsh climate. Many of the trees had branches only on the east side because of the strong winds from the west. Large rocks were visible everywhere.

Last week, I was surprised at the change that had occurred in 30 years’ time. Only a few of the trees had branches only on the east side. In most of Dolly Sods, the vegetation was lush and dense. The land is healing itself. As we thought about it, we realized that the healing to the soil was coming from the air. A bit of history of Dolly Sods will shed more light on the nutrients coming from the air.

The history is drawn from the wikipedia.org article on Dolly Sods.

In 1852, Dolly Sods was described as a tract of land entirely uninhabited, and so savage and inaccessible that it had rarely been penetrated even by the most adventurous. Settlers on its borders spoke of it with a sort of fear as they described it filled with bears, panthers, and impassable mountain laurel thickets that had caused hunters who had ventured too far to perish. The area was covered mostly by a dense Red Spruce and Hemlock forest. Some of the trees measured 12 feet in diameter. Years of accumulated needles from these trees created a thick soil humus seven to nine feet deep!! (Note where the deep top soil had come from, not the ground or fertilizer applied to the soil, but from the air! The nutrients that the trees took in from the air grew the spruce needles and when the needles dropped to the ground they increased the depth of the topsoil.)

In the late 1800’s, logging moved into Dolly Sods, and the huge trees were cut down. The thick soil humus dried out and sparks from railroad locomotives, logger’s fires, etc. started fires which burned the humus in the soil. Fires repeatedly swept through the area in the 1910’s until the deep seven to nine foot deep humus topsoil had burned down to rock leaving a thin layer of soil.

As I viewed Dolly Sods this past week it was another object lesson to me that plants do take in nutrients from the air and in the process can enrich the soil so that the plants can have the deep topsoil that they need for the nutrients that they get from the soil. It was also an object lesson to me that when we don’t understand how plants work, we can be very destructive like the loggers were and like chemical agriculture is today. If the loggers had understood how plants work, trees could have been harvested from Dolly Sods and the area managed in such a way that would have produced incredible amounts of lumber indefinitely. Unfortunately, ignorance is not bliss. It is very destructive.


This is a view of the north end of Dolly Sods, which is still a lot the same as it was 30 years ago. Note how short the trees are and how they have branches mostly on one side.


This is what most of Dolly Sods looks like today. The trees are getting tall and creating enough wind break that branches grow on all sides of the tree.


The mountain laurel is coming back. It was just starting to bloom last week. It is reported that there are spectacular displays of mountain laurel in bloom in late June. Note how lush it is, and the dense growth of ferns in the foreground.

How we are applying this knowledge here on the farm
In the American chestnut orchard, we have been letting the grass grow a foot or more tall and then mowing it short. The result has been a significant increase in the growth of the grass compared to the pasture outside the chestnut orchard fence. In addition, the chestnut trees have been having significant growth last year and this year. The chestnut orchard has been my classroom where I have been learning some important lessons on how to capture the energy in the air with the grass and put it into the soil to improve the health of the plants so that they can pull more nourishment out of the air.


The American/Chinese cross chestnut trees this spring have showed significant new growth. The light green is the new growth. These three year old trees, planted as nuts in the spring of 2007, added at least two to three feet of growth on each side and in height in the last two months.


We purchased a tractor and a sickle bar mower this spring to mow the pastures so we can build/deepen the topsoil with the mowed grass. Carey Reams found that grass should mowed with a sickle bar mower and not be mowed with a rotary mower if you want to keep the most nutrients from the grass. A rotary mower or bush hog chops up the grass too much, and many of the nutrients in the grass evaporate into the air again and are lost. We mowed a section of pasture last year with a sickle bar mower and left it laying on the ground. The grass grew back with much more growth than where we mowed with a rotary mower.

We have found, too, that mowing the chicken pastures on a regular basis has significantly increased the brix reading of the grass. The higher brix grass has more nutrients, protein, and omega-3’s increasing the nutrient density of our eggs, and chicken and lamb meat.

There is much more about plants getting their nutrients from the air that remains to be discovered and applied. If any of you have a piece of the puzzle, please share it with us. We would be glad to hear about it.

Monsanto – Too Big to Fall?

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Here in the Washington DC area you often hear Monsanto running ads on the radio touting how they are helping farmers feed the world and how they are supporting sustainable agriculture. However, Monsanto is anything but a supporter of sustainable agriculture. They are a giant agricultural chemical and genetically modified (GMO) seed corporation that has done much damage to sustainable agriculture. Many people have lamented how Monsanto has been able to "legally" run rough shod over farmers in developing a monopoly in the agricultural world.

Last month, a little reported, but very significant event happened. France’s Supreme Court ruled against Monsanto, saying that the agrochemical giant had not told the truth about its best selling weed-killer, Roundup. Monsanto had falsely advertised Roundup as being "biodegradeable" and claimed that it "left the soil clean".  Roundup is not biodegradable and it does contaminate the soil.

For years we have been told that when Roundup is sprayed it kills plants, but when the chemical comes in contact with the soil it is neutralized. It has been said so often that many believe it to be true. France’s Supreme Court’s ruling shows proof that Roundup is not neutralized in the soil. The use of Roundup is one of the leading reasons why Monsanto has developed genetically modified seeds. The plants grown from their genetically modified seeds can be sprayed with Roundup and will not die. That enables farmer to spray their fields with Roundup and kill the weeds after the corn or soybeans have come up and not harm the corn or soybeans.

Keep watching. Someday – maybe in the distant future – but someday, Monsanto and their Roundup will likely disappear, never to be seen again.  "I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree.  Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found." (Psalm 37:35-36)

Monsanto’s philosophy is built upon the evolutionary mindset that there is no God and that genetic selection (including genetically modified organisms—GMO’s) is THE answer to improving food production and feeding the world. What is being missed is that while genetic improvement has increased food production, the nutrient density of the food has decreased along with human and animal health. More food has to be consumed to supply the needed nutrients and as a result, obesity is increasing among children. The majority of people and animals today are either on pharmaceutical drugs or natural supplements to try to have some semblance of health. This is a testimony that Monsanto’s method of genetic selection is not THE answer.

God created the soil full of minerals in the Garden of Eden. The soil has been declining ever since. It has been documented that in the last 60 years that the mineral density of the soils has significantly decreased. We need to first rebuild the mineral and organic density of our soil. Then we can select for genetic superiority. The seeds that have been genetically selected by Monsanto to grow in mineral depleted soils do not have the proper genetic expression to grow in nutrient rich soils and produce nutrient dense foods. Many organic farmers and gardeners have discovered this and that is why there is a growing interest in heirloom seeds. The heirloom seeds in improved soils produce higher protein food and nutrient density. Along with the nutrient density is a significantly improved flavor. Our mouths tell us what food is best for our bodies by how good the food tastes.  When a tomato looks like a tomato but acts and tastes more like a tennis ball, you can be sure that that tomato was genetically selected for some other quality than nutrient dense food. Listen to your mouth and eat what is good! If it has a poor taste quality it is poor quality food. That is true of meats and eggs as well.

Links to articles on Monsanto
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8308903.stm
http://www.midnorthmonitor.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2160916  – An article showing how the "inactive" ingredients, the trade secret ingredients, that make Roundup more potent have been found to cause human liver cells to die.
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20080627/n1

The American Chestnut Orchard

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As many of you know, the American Chestnut Foundation has an American chestnut breeding orchard located here on our farm. Recently a new sign was put up so that you can see where the orchard is located. The orchard is located on the right side of the lane, up the hill behind where the sign is located. The American Chestnut Foundation is working to develop a blight resistant American chestnut tree by cross breeding the American chestnut with the blight resistant Chinese chestnut. The cross bred chestnut trees are then back crossed with an American chestnut a number of times until a blight resistant chestnut tree is obtained that is 15/16 American chestnut. Currently, there are about 500 trees in our orchard. The oldest trees are four years old and the youngest ones were planted this spring.

The American chestnut was at one point the most important tree in the forests from Maine to Georgia. The chestnuts provided abundant food for many species of wildlife. The wood is beautiful and is great for cabinet making and furniture. In addition, the wood is excellent for outdoor projects as well. It has the rot resistance of redwood, but it is much harder and more wear resistant. In 1904 an imported fungus caused a blight which started killing the American chestnut trees. By 1950, approximately four billion trees on some nine million acres of eastern forests had been destroyed by the blight. Only a very few American chestnut trees remain today. When the American chestnut trees died out, a lot of wildlife went with them because a lack of food. The oak tree replaced the chestnut in many areas. However, the acorn does not compare in food value to the chestnut.

Chestnut orchard sign
Chestnut orchard
This is the entrance to the chestnut orchard. Note the deer fence to keep out the deer.

When I do volunteer work, I often feel like I receive a greater blessing than the ones that I help. This has been true in our work in caring for the chestnut orchard the last three years. When we moved here, the chestnut orchard was the worst piece of ground on our farm. The Department of Natural Resources had sprayed RoundUp and killed all the vegetation before they planted the chestnut trees. As a result, instead of grass, it was the most awful plot of thistles and other weeds! The trees grew poorly. For the next two years, I would let the thistles grow until they started making a flower bud, and then I would mow the orchard. I know that some of the people from the American Chestnut Foundation thought that I didn’t mow often enough and that my plan for getting rid of the thistles wouldn’t work.

This year I received the blessing from my labor. I discovered that in taking care of the chestnut orchard I had learned an important lesson on how to take a poor plot of ground and turn it into a highly productive soil. In addition the thistles are gone! The thistle plant is at its weakest point when it is starting to produce a flower. Its energy is being put into making seed rather than into growth. By repeatedly cutting it at that stage it is weakened and eventually killed. The chestnut orchard is now the best plot of ground on our farm. It was in the chestnut orchard that we discovered how to increase the brix (sugar and mineral content) of the pasture. This summer the brix of the clover in the orchard was as high as 17%, up from only 7% last year. We are using what we learned in the chestnut orchard to improve the soil on the rest of the farm.

So how did we improve the soil in the chestnut orchard? We did it by letting the grass grow tall and then mowing it short. The roots on grass go as far down in the soil as the grass is in height above the soil. If the grass is four inches tall, then the roots are about four inches deep. If the grass is a foot tall, then the roots go about a foot deep into the soil. When the grass is cut, the roots die back to the same amount that is left above ground. By waiting until the grass was a foot or more tall before we mowed it, it meant that we were adding a lot of organic matter a foot or more deep into the soil in addition to the grass clippings that were added on top of the soil. In other words, we are creating topsoil a foot or more deep. Not only is organic matter added to the soil, but also carbon is being sequestered in the soil as the roots die back. The grass takes the carbon out of the air in the form of carbon dioxide and puts some of it in the roots.

The results in the chestnut orchard this summer were amazing to me. I noticed significant growth in the trees throughout the summer. Last year the tallest trees that were at the end of their second growing season were about 42 inches tall. Last year the American chestnut foundation said that our orchard was one of the best growing orchards in Maryland. This year, with a similar amount of rainfall, the tallest trees at the end of their second growing season were seven to seven and a half feet tall! This was accomplished without any fertilizer.

So why doesn’t this principle of soil building work on your lawn? It is because a lawn is not left to grow a foot or more tall over and over through out the summer. If a lawn is cut when it is six inches tall, it is only adding organic matter into the top six inches of soil. The deeper the top soil, the better the growth of the plants. That is one reason why raised beds tend to be more productive. They add topsoil on top of the topsoil in the soil which increases the total number of inches of topsoil for the plant to grow in.

Two year old tree
This two year old chestnut tree is 7 1/2 feet tall. The 2×4 is 8 feet long.

Tree planted this spring
This is one of the chestnut trees that was planted as a seed this spring.
You can see Sugarloaf Mountain in the background.