Alfred Reed Bishop and Doris William Butler

The picture above is the very tap root of Bishop's Homegrown/Face Of The Earth Seed. My grandparents shortly after moving to Pekin Indiana from Greensburg KY in 1947 where they purchased the farm that is now Bishop's Homegrown. This picture was taken in Pekin in front of the old co-op next to the old railroad depot, neither of which exist today.

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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Corn Shelling Table.

As those who came to the Homegrown Goodness seed swap can attest, I didn't have the best set up for shelling and grinding corn as I had thrown together a quick "dofer" to get me through until I had time to set up something a bit more permanent. This past week I did just that making use of one of my 4x4x4 crates along with a corn sheller I bought at a yardsale for $10 and a mill that was sent to me by my good friend Hayne. We took a few quick pics to show off our new set up and thought we'd share with you.









The turkeys, guineas, and goats seem to really love the Amanda Palmer corn. The corn allows us to explore the completion of many cycles here on farm. Seed to seed, animal feed converted to human feed, seed converted to human feed, and of course the cobs are also used for bedding in the turkey/guinea and chicken coops which we then compost and use to grow more food!

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Updates coming soon.

Just a general update really. The seed swap and Homegrown Goodness get together went off really well and despite the small turnout there were some excellent trades and friendships forged and I once again broke my own rule by aquiring new to me tomatoes from the excellen Maria of Blue Ribbon Tomatoes. At least they are all appalachian heirlooms with presumably some history in the Ohio Valley as well though. I wish we would have gotten more of the hardcore survivalist plant breeders out to the meeting but that can always happen at future get togethers. At the moment I believe there is one being planned for New York next year, which would be excellent given the awesome abundance of foodies, gardeners, farmers, and plant breeders in that region paired with the local agricultural history of the area!

I have been fighting a sinus infection all week which has caused me to look deeper into herbal cures and folk medicine, something I've known a little about (in terms of Ohio Valley Native American folk cures) most of my life. I'm anxious to learn more and to know more and am looking for excellent pharmocopeia books (want to donate?) and seeds for useful medicinal herbs of all types at the moment. Of course the blog here will like always follow my learning experience to a T!

I've also been building a "make do" blacksmith forge the past few weeks using almost exclusively found materials, due to the sinus infection I have not yet fired it up or taken photos or given the relevant information on the project yet, but it is something you can all look forward to in the coming weeks as I teach myself this valuable artform in preperation for the antique blacksmithing tools and supplies being passed on to me from my grandfather in the coming months.

Prior to the seed CSA begining distribution of seeds and the electronic cataloug I should mention that the blog site will get a much needed redisign utilizing the fantastic artwork that the amazing Mary Deem is creating for Face Of The Earth seed! Her artwork is next to none and her friendship is worth more than it's weight in gold, silver, and platinum! Along with this redisign this fall I will be interviewing the excellent and influential Joe Oconnel/Elephant Micah, who's music you should not only check out but you should support. I will also be reviewing Carol Deppes amazing new book and interviewing her as well.

For now it's off to attempt to get myself well and get caught up on all the millions of things that must be done including expanding the chicken flock, the rabbit herd, the seed supply, and more!

So many things to do in this lifetime and only a handful of time for it all!

Oh, also, if anyone wants to get me a subscription to Acres USA it would be worth a 50.00 subscription to the seed CSA to me and I would be greatly appreciative. Just make sure to e-mail me and let me know at bishopshomegrown@gmail.com and have it sent to:
Alan Bishop
5604 S. State Rd. 60
Pekin IN 47165


Thanks guys!

-Alan

Thanksgiving Turkeys and Composting worms for sale.

With fall quickly approaching we thought now was an important time to let local customers know that there is no better time than now to get your orders in for Thanksgiving turkeys which will go quickly!

We have a very limited supply of Free Range, Heritage, Eco-logically grown turkeys for Thanksgiving this year. These birds are a wondeful link between our agricultural and cullinary past with an equal ratio of dark to white meat and a flavor which you simply will not find in any sore bought bird. Period. Our birds are allowed free range all day and are only cooped at night. They are feed only with feed grown and milled by us or by a local miller using only non GMO components and no chemicals or hormones ever. We hatch and raise these birds from our own eco-logically grown breeding flock and we can voutch for the quality.

Most birds this season will be either of Naragansette, Bourban Red, Blue Slate, or Midget White heritage stock. Prices are base on size; medium (8-16) for 50.00 or large (16 plus) for 75.00. All orders must be prepaid and arrangements must be made with us to pick up the bird the day of slaughter here at our farm in Pekin Indiana in order to meet Indiana Poultry laws. No birds will be delivered period!


Get your order in quickly as these will be spoken for fast and the quantity is very limited. Orders can be placed by e-mailing bishops homegrown @gmail.com (no spaces in e-mail but craigslist won't allow me to post the correct e-mail) or calling us at:
Alan Bishop
812-967-2073

Calling and getting your order in and paid for quickly is the only sure way to ensure one of these beautiful and wonderful tasting birds can and will grace that special place on your family table come Thanksgiving. Experience what the pilgrims knew as a turkey this year and not the same old bland white turkey you buy at the store every season.


Also, we will only be offering composting worms until the end of October since the cool weather slows down their reproductive rate considerably, so if you are interested in learning about vermicomposting now is the time to place your order. And remember you can call us at anytime with questions about your herd.

Howdy folks!

We have one heck of a deal on composting/fishing worms for those of you out there so inclined. These little guys are excellent for breaking down organic matter into a rich garden fertilizer of unaccelled quality. We gather four gallons (in a bucket for convinience) of bedding, eggs, castings, and worms for 20.00! You won't find a better deal. This worms are adapted to the unique conditions provided by the compost they live in and will adapt well to your bin situation. They also make fantastic fish bait, particularly for pan fish. Taking care of them is a breeze, just keep them moist and lime the bin with dolomite lime once every few weeks and feed them table scraps, animal manures, or plant residues and they will be as happy as can be. We have been vermicomposting for five years now and can and will answer most any question you might have about the process. Feel free to give us a call or e-mail us:
Alan:
812-967-2073
bishops homegrown @gmail.com (no spaces in the e-mail address, craiglsit won't let me post the correct address)

and be sure to check out our plant breeding/gardening/vermiculture blog at homegrowngoodness.blogspot.com

We also have some half barrels (made of plastic) set up and ready to go for worm composting, get the bucket of worms and barrel for 30.00

There is not a better deal out there!

Hope to hear from you soon.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Can Eco-Ag feed the world?

This by far is the best article I have read in quite some time. If you have never picked up a copy of any of Joe Salatin's books or Acres USA now is the time. Like I have screamed a million times before; Wake up motherfuckers!

http://www.acresusa.com/toolbox/reprints/sept10_Salatin.pdf

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Seed Living.

I was sent a link to this site back in the summer and had been meaning to place it on the blog for quite some time without having much of a chance due to the ongoing long list of to do's both here on the net as well as here on the farm in reality land.

Anyhow, it seems like a good little program and there is quite a bit of information on the site related to seeds and permacuture and I wanted to pass it on. When I reboot the blog site later this fall I'll place a permanent link on the right hand side bar.

Check it out:
http://www.seedliving.ca/

In other news, anybody want to buy me a subscription to Acres USA? LOL, I hate being broke.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Thoughts on blackberries.

I've been working on increasing blackberry stocks the past couple days, taking root cuttings of my two accessions of white blackberry, propigating Siskiyou dewberry, and examining local farms for older type commercial berries as well. Eventually I hope to have enough of all of my favored varieties and unique traited varieties to begin to sell some nursery stock, but it's going to take a year or two.

When I was about seven or eight I remember taking a trip to Greensburg Kentucky for a family reunion (this is where my fathers side of the family is from) and stoping at a great uncles home where there was a wonderful set of blackberry trellis' covered from end to end with the most richly flavored blackberries that I have ever enjoyed in my life. They were absolutely covered with huge and heavy thorns but were loaded to the point of breaking branches and I remember eating so many I very nearly made myself sick, I also remember repaying those berries with much of my own blood due to my eagerness of picking them (nature often demands sacrifices illproportionate to the amount of biomass consumed! Early life lesson). The variety was Lawtons (or New Rochelle, depending on how ethical you are about respecting the real discoverer of the variety) a name that I know and have known because I can very clearly recall the dialoug between my grandparents and a great aunt and uncle. I have carried that name with me from that age until now, always planning to secure stock for said berry at some point in the future, particularly after some of the more pressing needs of the farm were met.

This past week I placed an order for 25 New Rochelle plants from Arkansas berry farm and am anxiously awaiting arrival of the stock to be planted in our cedar trellis system as well as in a side field made up of sub prime soil where they can easilly be controled with the bushhog. I look forward to the day when I can provide myself with the Edenic bliss I experienced that day in Greensburg and I also have plans to begin propigating this variety to make it available to my local bio-region in the near future. The interesting thing about the Lawton is that it is one of the two parents that were involved in the cross made by Luther Burbank which gave rise to the Snowbank/Iceberg lines as well (the other was a second wild sport called Crystal White, even though it's appearance was more of a champaigne color). More than likely I will find this to my aid in procuring larger specimens of my own snowbank fruit via pollination from the Lawton parent.

I've also been evaluating the properties of many blackberries; thornless, thorned, and wild, in order to identify traits which might be used to create new cultivars in the futre, as it stands at the moment a few ounces of seed from various University of Arkansas projects are stratifying in preperation for the 2011 season and I anticipate a great diversity of phenotypes and genotypes with an excellent chance at producing something totally worthwhile. At some point in the future it would be nice to produce some more white and yellow fruited mutants with an emphasis on thornless accessions as well as dewberry type white and yellow accessions, I have the genetic material on hand and am more than ready to devote a number of years to the work of procuring such wonderful oddities if only fate and science will deal me the correct hand to make such miracles into logical realities.

For those interested in learning more about the New Rochelle berry, this is a wonderful resource, it's interesting to read just how excited the advertisers and procurers of this new variety were way back then, of course the New Rochelle was really the first true cultivated and mass grown blackberry variety of any real value:
http://chestofbooks.com/gardening-horticulture/Journal-1/Rochelle-Blackberry.html

My good friend Michael Dunn was also kind enough to share with me a variety he aquired from a farm which used to be an orchard. Although we are unaware of the true identity of the variety, it is heavily thorned with very petite leaves and is apparently a heavy bearer of fruit of great quality. The story relayed to Michael has them being plantd back in the 1940's and was planted as a commercial crop. There are very few choices for what it could be but I'll refrain from identifying it just yet at least until it bears fruit.

Even though I have not seen it's fruiting merits just yet, there is something to be said for the germplasm giving the time of year it was dug, coupled with the heat and wind and drought experienced the last few days as well as it's amazing ability to survive being dug out with so little root in tact. Michael had to use a pick axe to even get into the ground to remove the plants and though mine have allowed their leaves to brown after being planted in the trellis system they have already begun to send out new buds. Survivalism is a must for any plant on this farm as has been explained her via the blog the past four years.

More to come in intervening years.

-Alan

Amanda Palmer Corn as Human food!

It's a nice thought to share the same thing for breakfast that your livestock are enjoying! Wow, never really thought I'd say that, but I did.

We have been cooking quite a bit with our new Amanda Palmer composite field corn variety. Grits of all types, mush, cornbread (torillas and other products still to come this fall and winter) and are really loving the unique and rich flavor of this wonderful corn. We have noticed that the Tuxpeno germplasm gives us something very unique in terms of flavor when ground with the other components of Amanda Palmer, something we can't quite put our finger on, but this meal differs in many substantial ways from flint, flour, or dent corn meal.

The interesting thing is I'm usually not a big fan of cornbread, but this cornbread gives me something to get excited about, I had noticed a somewhat semi sweet flavor in the ground meal as I first began processing it, presuming a good portion of it had been imparted by the inclusion of Daemon Morgans Kentucky Butcher corn which seemed in many instances to show the phenotype and characterestics of a corn carrying the SU7 gene, but grinding pure Kentucky Butcher doesn't give near the same results. The meal from Amanda Palmer retains mostly a yellow coloration with flakes of red and blue and ocassionally pink in the mixture and creates a wonderful smelling, nutty flavored, and fantastically textured corn bread wonderful for all ocassions. We even made a bit of dessert cornbread by adding a few chocolate chips to the mix here and there and Kim had the foresight the other night while making vegetable stew from scratch to include some fantastic cheddar cheese spread in a thin layer on top of the cornbread mix and then covered with a slight layer of mix. How wonderful it is indeed.

The grits come out wonderfully sticky and a bit chewy, the way I like them to be, they are fantastic with just a small amount of salt and pepper with a piece of cheese on top or used as a breakfast cereal with a bit of honey and cinnamon.

For those who will make it out to the seed swap this Saturday we will be bringing a pan or two of this special cornbread with us and will have plenty of seed available as well.

Hudson Valley Seed Library

Came across this interesting link in my e-mail today and am really diging what these guys are doing. I think it's absolutely wonderful that so many bio-regionally focused seed companies, trading opporotunities, and projects are making themselves so visable in these days, this is exactly what we will all need if we are going to ultimately not only survive and adapt to the changing patterns of the world, but to also Live (surviving and living are too different things)!

If your in New York this would be a fantastic resource for you to check out!
http://www.seedlibrary.org/learn/aboutus/

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Other reasons for growing corn....

The other day I posted a little diatribe about growing corn for self sufficiency, using the example of the Russian wheat export ban and general shortage to make my point. I was in a hurry so I didn't have a lot of time to expound on the other virtues of corn over the "old world" grains.

Corn is an incredibly diverse species. There is something for almost everyone within the corn genome. Wax corn, Flour Corn, Flint Corn, Dent Corn, Parch Corn, Pop Corn, Sweet Corn, Early Season, Mid Season, Late Season, Drought Tolerance, Cold Tolerance, adaptations to lowlands, midlands, highlands, tropical locales and more.

With the exception of far northern areas of the globe corn can be grown just about anywhere. There are corns that will grow and mature a food/feed crop in only 55 days (Bear Island) and those which will grow in the low or high dessert with annual rainfall that would be the death of most other crops. Some of the South Western germplasm can even be planted up to ninteen inches deep taking advantage of the bedrock water drainage from summer melting of snowpack on mountainsides a great distance away.

Corn is the only true grain that is exceptionally easy to harvest and doesn't stand near as much of a chance of a complete loss (winds/shattring, birds) as so many of the psuedo grains and other easy to harvest grains like Quinoa, Amaranth, Sunflowers, Sorghum and Millet. Any one who can walk a corn field and pull a cob down can harvest as many acres as he/she is willing to work with and capable of finding fertile land for. Seed selection and nutrition criteria is encoded visually for us in the cob itself, given uniform fertility and growth conditions it is easy to look at plants and cobs and make determinations about what best represents what we may like in the crop. The very kernels show us their nutritional value in color (amino acids) texture, and sometimes even in oil content.

Draft animals and tractors are not needed to raise corn (but they do help) and specialized cleaning equipment is not necessary either. In terms of quantity of grain and often quality even the worst strains of corn tend to outyeild and outperform even the best of the old world grains. Corn is grain on a handle, no threshing required.

Many corns even give us the ability to store them for long periods of time in simple "cribs" or roped together by the husk or using commonly availabe cordage to hang them in out of the way places and far away from the mice. They provide an excellen source of protein which doesn't corrupt unless exposed to water and our ground and not used in a timely fashion.

Corn is also incredibly easy to cross and make selections from, giving rise to many new types with unique characteristics and adaptations, it is easy to personalize and has been the inroads to helping develop new plant breeders. The breeders develop the corn and the corn gives us the Gnosis to delve deeper into the breeding of other crops.

It's genome is shown to us in it's most fundamental raw state via the grain itself. Multi color corns always give me the impression of a genetic chart and in some ways it can be said that I have used such "implied" information to move my own projects forward in a way that couldn't be done with any other fruit or vegetable.

Of course this isn't to say there aren't negatives. Space is the big one, the next limiting factor is soil fertility as corn in general is a heavy feeder, however strides have been made in recent years in selecting corn that performs near optimally in poor soils, utilizing larger root systems and nitrogen efficiency and one can always fall back on that incredibly advanced yet wonderfully primitive "three sisters" concept. Of course there are animal and insect pests, but one would be sure to find those in near every crop worthy of human consumption.

Corn is a uniquely American grain, it represents our new world heritage in a way those old world grains can only immitate.

If ever there were a time to experiment with this crop the time is now.

Don't be afraid to breed something new either. Too often people forget, even if you are only saving garden seeds you are still subconciously (or conciously) making selections. Evolution never stands still and no crop is ever "maintained" for long in it's current condition. Even clonal crops undergo ocassional somatic mutation giving rise to many new kinds on a continual basis.

More evidence of how the law mostly works in favor of the criminals in New Amerika.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2010/09/07/long-island-man-arrested-for-defending-home-with-ak-47/

Yeah, well I got news for any would be thugs in my area, come around here acting like a thug, threatining my family, my very soul and spirit and I'll do far more than shoot at the grass. That is not a promise, it's a guarantee.

Things are bad in this country and getting worse by the minuite. It's not a partisan politics thing, it's a power trip thing. Like I've said before, they want us all at each others throats for the most arbitrary and useless of reasons; race, religion, philosophy. It's all as Maynard James Keenan so elequently put it "A bulshit, three ring, circuis, sideshow of freaks."

Once your awake to the manipulation around you, sometimes you become so disgusted by the ignorance of the mass manipulated public that you start to syphathize with those in power about ignorant solutions such as a one child policy, zero growth and population reduction. But it's a non-starter. You have to fight that primitive reptilian piece of your brain, the one that tells you to hate and fear everything, and embrace the one that tells you to be open and to love and to embrace the positive aspects of humanity. That said, put on your big boy britches, pull 'em up real high and tight and be prepared for the ride on the shitstorm rollercoaster that the next few years of life in the dwindling light that once was our country will bring. You don't fight a hungry lion with a steak hanging around your neck and you can't protect your family from the demons by pretending the words "please just stop and think about what you are doing" will protect you.

It's funny, the other day after posting the piece on the discovery channel shooter I thought for sure that I'd rile some people up, the funny thing is I got more support for that one tiny snippet of political diatribe than I ever have from anything else. People see that true solutions are hidden from us and are obscured by the facist rhetoric that has become the new green revolution. People aren't stupid, I never stop believing that, brainwashed possibly, but never stupid. The basis of all that makes us human is ingrained in all of us, even if it is obscured by the scar tissue that is harsh reality, should we choose to tear through that, to let it be replaced with gnosis (knowledge) of what we truly are and where we came from/where we could go while always remembering how we got the scars in the first place, we come to a plce of enlightenment. Not the Illumination spoken of by those pupet masters that pull the strings of our corporate state, but true Illumination (from whatever godhead and or other universal force you choose to believe in).


Funny thing is, today I came accross an article on Prison Planet about the elite and these members of the new green (eugenicist) revolution and just how much they have in common with the brainwashing (or is that brainwashed, MK ultra or Monarch?) legend that is Charles Manson. Just look up videos of interviews with Manson, or his official web-site. Read how the rhetoric reads just like any piece of "white paper" trash that Cass Sunstein would have written, or any diatribe that was spouted at the Copenhagen climate summit a while back. That speaks to the absolute insanity of these people, I say people in a hessitant voice as it may be argued that their lack of realizing the beauty of human life and the positive possibilities for it's future and general theorizing about folks like us being sub-human could speak more to their being more or less human than us perhaps? Oh, thats right, they already have a movement for that, it's called Transhumanism. Google it, be shocked. Same people as those mentioned above.

And make no mistake, they aren't going to stop until they either get what they want or people wake up and fight back. The economy is gone and it isn't coming back, at least not the way you've always known it. Be prepared for what is coming, learn to be as self sufficient as possible, practice those things which do enrich and respect the earth and the soil, and stop listening to all the talking heads on the television pushing their fear and their hatred, their destructive tendancies passed down to them from their masters onto you. Fuck them. Fuck the system. Don't be a part of it. Fight it with all of your will. With every last bit of your soul and your spirit. Love and be loved, make tribes, and share what and who you are with the world. Don't ever be afraid, just be ready for anything and everything and prepared to deal with the ramifications of your actions.

George Carlin "got it", I wish he would have "got it" way earlier in his life (Thank Bill Hicks for waking him up). I don't share George Carlin's negative outlook, but on the face of it, his reason's and the truth do line up like a worldwide eclipse.



Bill Hicks "got it", he always got it, and quite often he took it and ran with it to the positive side of the coin, but like all humans he could fall into the pit that was negativity. It's hard to stay positive when so many aren't listening. If you could combine Hicks and Carlin into an entity interested in sustainable farming you would have some combination approaching the man I try to be.
There is a point!

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Why we should all be growing corn.

By now I'm sure you have all heard the reports out of Russia about the amazing heat wave and crazy wildfires. What you may not have heard is that Russia has now shut down all exports of wheat. Big deal right? Indeed it is. Russia is the third largest producer of wheat in the world behind Canada and the U.S. Now that all that wheat is off the market, what do you think is going to happen to the price of grain and grain based products? Pair this with the falling value of the dollar and you can just imagine the rampant inflation that is coming.

Originally the ban only extended to the end of December of 2010. As of this week it's been extended until next harvest season when it MIGHT be lifted.

Be safe my friends, be prepared for anything in this world.
Events such as these are exactly why I am so focused on breeding heavily adapted and genetically diverse varieties. It speaks to the very soul of the work I am doing.

Heritage Turkeys for Thanksgiving!

We have a very limited supply of Free Range, Heritage, Eco-logically grown turkeys for Thanksgiving this year. These birds are a wondeful link between our agricultural and cullinary past with an equal ratio of dark to white meat and a flavor which you simply will not find in any sore bought bird. Period. Our birds are allowed free range all day and are only cooped at night. They are feed only with feed grown and milled by us or by a local miller using only non GMO components and no chemicals or hormones ever. We hatch and raise these birds from our own eco-logically grown breeding flock and we can voutch for the quality.

Most birds this season will be either of Naragansette, Bourban Red, Blue Slate, or Midget White heritage stock. Prices are base on size; medium (12-16) for 50.00 or large (16 plus) for 75.00. All orders must be prepaid and arrangements must be made with us to pick up the bird the day of slaughter here at our farm in Pekin Indiana in order to meet Indiana Poultry laws. No birds will be delivered period!


Get your order in quickly as these will be spoken for fast and the quantity is very limited. Orders can be placed by e-mailing bishopshomegrown@gmail.com or calling us at:
Alan Bishop
812-967-2073

Calling and getting your order in and paid for quickly is the only sure way to ensure one of these beautiful and wonderful tasting birds can and will grace that special place on your family table come Thanksgiving. Experience what the pilgrims knew as a turkey this year and not the same old bland white turkey you buy at the store every season.

To learn more about our Eco-Logically manged farm check out homegrowngoodness.blogspot.com

Homegrown Goodness Seed Exchange and Meetup!

Homegrown Goodness Seed Exchange/Cook Out.


Meeting at Bishop's Homegrown 5604 S. State Rd. 60 Pekin IN 47165

Hello friends,

don't forget the upcoming Homegrown Goodness/Hip-Gnosis Seed Development Seed Exchange, meet up, and cook out! Lot's of folks from the homegrown goodness messageboard at alanbishop.proboards60.com will be there including a number of seed savers, plant breeders, and in general self sufficient afficianados. Bring some seeds, extra tools, books, or your hobbies to demonstrate or trade or just bring yourself for a go...odtime to be had by all. There will be lots of seeds and other goods for exchange, but also just plain good company, good food, good friends, and information exchange!

We will be meeting here at Bishop's Homegrown at 10:00 AM on Saturday September the 18'th where we will take a short tour of the farm and talk a bit about plant breeding, vermiculture, and breeding and raising heritage turkeys before we head out to Salem to check out Old Settlers Days to give the out of towners a taste of local culture and history. Bring a bit of cash as we will likely be eating lunch at the festival. We plan on heading to Karen Padgetts house in Paoli Indiana at around 2:00 p.m. where we will host the seed exchange and get together and eat supper. Plenty of activities are planned and it should be a great time. Karen has a wonderful perrinial garden and is full of information about all things ornamental, as well her husband is known locally for the quality of his rabbit breeding stock and is also a fantastic source for information.

If you live locally and aren't coming from out of town, feel free to bring a covered dish. If you can't meet up until later in the evening at Karen's feel free to e-mail her or send her a private message via facebook or homegrown goodness regarding directions to her home.

We hope to see all of you there!

Your Friend,
Alan Reed Bishop

please RSVP as soon as possible so we can get an idea of who is coming.

Directions:
From Louisville Kentucky take I-65 North to exit 7 (Salem/Hamburg) Turn left onto hwy 60 to interesection of 111 and 60, turn right and continue on 60. Follow 60 for 18 miles which will bring you to Borden Indiana. Continue on 60 through Borden for five miles which will bring you to Pekin. We are located about a mile on the other side of Pekin. On your left will be a small service garage called Northside Automotive, on your right immediately afterword is a road called Powers road. Turn onto powers and hang an immediate left into the driveway that runs paralell to the railraod (between the railroad and the hwy). Follow the driveway around the white house on the corner and all the way to the back (about a quarter mile), we are the last house on top of the hill. You should see greenhouses and turkeys running around. If you need any help finding us, call 812-967-2073.
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From Indianapolis Indiana:

I-70 E toward I-65/COLUMBUS OH

Merge onto I-65 S via EXIT 80 toward Lousiville
...
Take the IN-56 W exit, EXIT 29B, turn right toward Salem

Follow to intersection of 56/60 in Salem, turn left and follow around Salem town square (1/2 way around) and exit square.
Come to Intersection of 60 and 135, turn left onto 60
follow for about eight miles.

Drive is on the left directly before Northside Automotive Garge on the right side of 60. Turn onto powers road and immediately turn left into the driveway that runs parallel to the railroad tracks (in between the tracks and the hw).
Follow the driveway around the white house on the corner and all the way to the back (about a quarter mile), we are the last house on top of the hill. You should see greenhouses and turkeys running around. If you need any help finding us, call 812-967-2073.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Eco-Terrorism.

Oh how the tables do turn.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/2/headlines/armed_suspect_killed_after_taking_hostages_at_discovery_channel

If the precident is that these people can associate people like me with terrorism simply for questioning my government and the events of 9/11 then I am fairly sure that this means that Al Gore, Prince Charles, and Cass Sunstein are all terrorists for putting forth the type of propaganda that led to these events.

The false "green" movement is a human hating eugenicist movement, bankrolled by those in power, the same ones who keep you tied up in the false left right paradigm. Wishing for the downfall of humanity and believing humanity is nothing mor...e than a virus is a self defeating and self degrading thought process that has been firmly rooted in new "green" consumerism lining the pockets of the same businessmen and elites that have maniupulated us for a hundred or more years.

The very basis of this type of thinking comes from the people who are manipulating you. They legitamately believe that you are not human, that they are more human than you, and that you are using their resources, make no mistake, they want us all gone and dead while meanwhile true green alternatives and lifestyles do exist and are practiced in the form of self sustainable agriculture based on principals that are proven to work.

Instead you've been sold on being parasite and "overpopulated" while the true solution has been hidden from you.

The first "green revolution" in the 40's and 50's gave us the excuse. War doesn't kill enough people, chemicals however are efficient and we can deliver them through food via agriculture. This is the next step.

This philosophy leads to only one thing, self serving human hatred and death as so well illustrated in the above article.

Oh, and if you think for a second your in their "club", think again.

They think of you as nothing more than a "useless eater". We as a people are dying because of 'engineered" crisis situations. Our health has declined because of bad food ...and worse ideas, our population no longer grows because of fertility issues caused by the bad food and the proliferation of "population control" based firlmly and deeply in the root of eugenics, dreamt up by the same people who gave us Hitler. Look up what country that idea came from as well as comments from the founder of planned parenthood, the rockerfellers and rothschilds.

By the time I was in school certain teachers had already grasped on to these "holier than thou" ideas and were quite proficient in indoctrinating my generation in this "humans are evil" bullshit bable.

What I am attempting to do with plant b...reeding is to improve health, improve the ability of this world to feed us self suffient and fortified food stuffs while also maintaining soil fertility and bio diversity. I am preparing myself and my seed stocks for whatever may come in the next 50 years. When it all comes crashing down via natural climate change, engineered pandemics, the crash of the economy, or revolution I will not die born!

They will us everything they can to divide us as a people. Race Wars and Religious Wars included, and they are using it via the Mexican drug wars, immigration, abortion amongst minorities (pushing the population control agenda) and keeping the friction between the worlds major religions at an all time high.

Me, I think we are all human. I love the diversity, I love the idea of us being the tribe that we were meant to be.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Breeding Priority Number 1: corn



There is no doubt that American industry has an unhealthy obsession with corn, given all the transnational corporations interests in multitudes of monocroping, gene patenting, and modification. That said, it's not the corn in itself that is unhealthy, only the way it is grown in deficient ground further raping the soil of vital nutrition, selected only for production not human sustenance, and modified via lab rats working within the boundaries of a misunderstanding of the most basic of premises in genetics.

Corn is survival food, even in it's most basic forms, the smallest of corn ears are still a great improvement in terms of grain quantity and yield over any and all of the old world crops. The corn genome on it's own is an amazing thing, nearly twice the size of the human genome and incredibly diverse, but so few now days are "playing" with the genes that will give rise to new survival food crops derived from those genes; digestibility, protein content, duality of use, vitamin and amino acid content. This is why corn has become my primary interest in breeding, with brassicas and perennial crops in a close second place.

I thought I'd take a second to make a few notes about some of the corn breeding work and germplasm we hope to persue in the coming couple years.

Waxy corn is a particularly interesting variation on corn, discovered in Asia and used in modern times mostly as an industrial additive, it is an excellent source of 100% Amylopectin starch, the same starch found in Tapioca. There is some evidence that this corn was selected in China long before the arrival of Columbus in the new world, lending even more credence to the now accepted fact that the Chinese were making the trip to the new world long before the previously accepted timeline. "Glutinous" or "Waxy" starches have been selected in many food crops throughout China for their "sticky" properties for centuries, glutinous rice is probably the most well known.

Waxy corns make much more efficient feed for animals and have a multitude of culinary uses, most of the waxy varieties I have seen give the appearance of parching or flour corns. Their productivity is reduced 5-10% less of modern dent corns, but the feed efficiency more than makes up for this.

I had been looking for a source for waxy germplasm to run some breeding tests for a number of years, though there were many sources in Asia, most of them required a bank draft and phytosanitary certificate to order, and being short on time and money, as well as trusting of a bank draft in Asia I chose for a long time not to order any of this valuable germplasm. Recently however my good friend Castenea over at Homegrown Goodness ordered a few pounds of three separate varieties, two OP types and one hybrid and sent them to me. A most amazing gift indeed and next year they will be grown and evaluated for on farm human and animal feed. I can't thank Castanea enough for this gift. I was also sent a couple pounds of a 90 day yellow dent from the same source. All four of the corns are 90 days to maturity so dancing around cross pollination issues should be fun, fortunately I have neighboring farms which I can cowbird to in exchange for bushoging and clearing the land.

From the research I have conducted thus far it is apparently practical and possible to maintain a Su1 or Se corn that also contains the WX trait. The possiblities of new Astronomy Domine X Waxy germplasm based cultivars are nearly endless.

I've also been discussing corn varieties with my good friends Stuart Pollack as well as Tom Kleffman (Darwinslair). Tom has an intense interest in some of the old Oscar H. Will varieties as well as many other short season corns and has grown several interesting accessions out this year, including a wonderful grow out of Bear Island and Painted Mountain, two corns I gave a go this year but unfortunately lost to raccoons due to the short height of the ears. His enthusiasm for old corn varieties got me interested in tracking down a few more for myself and today I came across and absolute treasure trove of corn varieties, including many old Oscar H. Will varieties, these varieties may be marginal in my Southern Indiana climate, but I think that there are genes in some of these varieties that I might find of use in the near future.

Stuart runs afewgoodplants.com a small but wonderful seed company where he produces selected seed of varieties he has found that do well in his garden. I consider Stuart a part of the now growing bio-regional seed movement, small seed companies catering specifically to the bio-region which they inhabit, something I hope to see expand and become a "web" of useful local varieties and locally adapted strains of said varieties. This year I grew out a crop of seed of Astronomy Domine and Long Island seed (small) to sell as my first commercial crop to Stuart. Knowing that I would just invest the money back into seed I decided instead to save him some money and myself some time and facilitate a seed for seed trade, requesting a shipment from high mowing seed of Roy's Calais flint corn.

Roy's Calais, is a supposed Abanaki tribe heirloom which survived the year without a summer and probably by extension saved many human lives in that terrible year. A small flint corn at 90 days to maturity it is made up of red, yellow, and sometimes orange ears of flint corn. For as long as I can remember here locally southern dents have been the preferred field corns and information regarding the agronomics of the local native American populations is scarce, but I have always had a theory that 200 years ago this would have been quite a different case, with flint corn predominating, given the storage of ears in the ground/mold issues, the moist climate and insect damage issues, it only makes sense to me that more than likely the local natives chose instead to grow flints. The sheer storability and hardness of flint corns has recently attracted my attention to them over the dent corn lines, why fight with insects and molds should we find our self in a survival situation by maintaining those soft dent genes when we instead can produce a grain that can be stored easily in a moist, bug infested climate? Roy's Calais fits the survival bill in many ways and there is still a great deal of diversity within the crop giving us ideal opportunity for making selections from an existing cultivar. Stuart also mentioned Kuscik corn, a corn apparently based on the genetics of Roy's Calais and Wapsie Valley and another of the many we will grow out and evaluate next season.

Amanda Palmer corn updates.





Finally finished cleaning corn seed for the year. The shear amount of Amanda Palmer ears we chose to clean for seed by hand shelling was daunting in and of itself, particulary when pilled onto the daily list of chores to do on the farm on top of preparing for fall and winter, planting and harvesting other seeds, researching new varieties and histories all while trying to find time to build a new shed for farm equipement and cut fire wood.

All in all we produced well over 100 lbs of seed for this season. We have also been hand grinding grits and meal from this corn as well as shelling it as the primary food stuff for our turkey genepool, rabbits, and goats. I can't even begin to explain the amount of respect I have for the Native Americans and later settlers who ground their own corn. Even with the convinience of a modern hand cranked sheller, grinding corn by hand is no easy prospect; four times through the mill for grits, five times for meal, and it's still a bit "gritty". But the taste is fantastic, rich, nutty, real corn flavor, the addition of Tuxpeno germplasm adds something that I just can't quite pinpoint at the momnent in terms of taste. Right now the freezer is stacked with over 50 lbs of meal and grits and we had a wonderful serving of Amanda Palmer grits with fried rabbit last night, some of the best grits I've ever had, certainly better than anything you'll ever find at the store.

I'm also exceptionally pleased with the agronomic performance of this new synthetic population, lots of strong, stiff stalks, many prolific (2 ears or more stalks), large ears, good cool and wet soil germination, and excellent drought tolerance. Granted this is the first year for the inter maraige of these varieties, but the potential for some truly amazing future varieties is here. This is the field corn sister of my Astronomy Domine sweet corn. I've noticed a definite preference by the turkeys for red kernels and tuxpeno influenced kernels, more to come on that soon.

Above you can also a pic from last week of the corn crib, it's a bit more full than that now, the storage room for the corn/feed alone makes all the trouble of taking it down and putting it back up well worth while, later this fall we will be buying about 20-40 bushels of OP corn from a friend. Next season we hopefully will not have to buy any supplimentary feed.

Our goal is to allow the Amanda Palmer genepool and the Kiva turkey genepool to co-evolve with one another. Feeding the turkeys and ourselves the corn, recycling the cobs into turkey bedding, composting the bedding and manure, using the compost for AP fertilizer, and saving the seeds from AP for replanting, eating the turkeys; this is true self sufficient farming.

In the top picture you can see an outstanding Edamame Soybean selection which showed outstanding production qualities, we have been saving seed from our huge Edamame grex over the past few days as well, selecting the most productive and disease tolerant plants we find, we have been in drought for the last month and a half so drought tolerance and stress is already there and these were planted on completely unamended red clay, so low soil fertility is also automatically selected for. I also snaped a quick picture of one of the Rio Grande wild turkeys checking things out while I pick the edamame pods.