Things You Might Not Think Can Mess Up a Garden

 

Many landscapers and homeowners use tree bark and pine straw as mulch, to suppress weeds and help beautify flower beds. But these types of mulch are not good for a vegetable garden.

If you've ever wondered why most farmers and vegetable gardeners don't use mulch (and why we don't put bark and pine straw in a compost pile), here are a few reasons why.

 

Things You Might Not Think Can Mess Up a Garden

 

 

1. Pine-tree bark, cones, and/or straw (or mulch in general): Tree barks can hold larva from beetles and other insects that destroy garden plants. The pinewood beetle (or pine-sawyer beetle) especially can be a problem in places like Colorado (where much mulch is made). Many trees have developed a resistance to symptoms that that beetle causes, so mulch businesses don't always know when a mulch may be infected with beetle larva. In my experience, even a reputable company can wind up selling products that have beetle larva. 

Although the pinewood beetle only attacks certain evergreen plants, the pinewood beetle can be a double threat, because it also may deposit microscopic nematodes on tree bark. These nematodes can quickly kill some evergreen plants. 

Similarly, other mulches can carry other beetle larva and other kinds of destructive nematodes, including larva and nematodes that are a threat to fruit, vegetable, and some ornamental plant growing. So, avoid mulches and soils with wood or straw that can harbor larva and nemas. Or, to become familiar with which woods and straws are most likely safe, contact your local agricultural extension office, or look up info from ag extensions online.

2. Diseased Leaves and Diseased Fruits: Often, plant leaves (and fruits like pecans) can carry spores of powdery mildew and fungal scab, both of which can destroy a fruit and vegetable garden in late spring and summer. Some ag extensions recommend burning such diseased plant matter, to avoid long-term problems. (And note: Powdery mildew often can't be seen by the bare eye until late spring and summer, so, when you do see that problem, it helps to keep those trees or other plants in mind, so that you can rake up and throw away their leaves as soon as they fall each year.)  

3. Diseased Soil: Be careful about moving soils from one place to another. If you know there is a problem like fungal blight or bad nematodes in soil in a certain area, don't move that soil around to other places. Instead, leave the soil in place, and plant lots of nematode-killing marigolds during the spring. Then, cover the problem area with black plastic for several months through the summer, leaving the marigold roots in ground under the plastic. The natural chemicals from the marigold roots, and the lack of rainwater and oxygen under the plastic in summer, should help mitigate the problem. Then, when planting in that area, plant something that's resistant to the nematodes. Asparagus roots repel the nemas that attack tomato roots, for example.

4. Store-bought Potatoes and Store-bought Onions or Garlic: Don't compost nor plant potatoes nor potato skins from the produce section of a grocery store, and don't compost nor plant onions, garlic skins nor garlic cloves from the produce section of a grocery store. Potato blight, and stem and bulb nematodes found in store-bought garlic and onions, are common problems on farms that sell the produce we buy from grocers. So, find seed potatoes and onions in garden shops, and mail-order your garlic. Garden-shop potatoes, onions, and garlic are usually certified disease free.

5. Synthetic Chemical Pesticides: Manmade (or unnatural) pesticides have the potential to kill insects that help a garden thrive. Pollinators include bees and wasps, both or which can die from the wrong kinds of pesticides. Earthworms also can die out from pesticide use. (In fact, earthworms sometimes don't even tolerate heavy amounts of natural citrus peels in a compost!) Not only are synthetic pesticides (and toxic amounts of natural chemicals) bad for garden growing; they're bad for anyone who eats garden vegetables and herbs.

So, what's good in a garden? What actually serves as garden helpers?

That's a long list! But just a few garden helpers include

• eggshells (washed with plain dish soap, rinsed, air dried, and ground in a blender);
• pumpkin seeds (air dried, and ground in a blender);
• banana peels (chopped);
• peanut hulls (and other safe recommendations for aerating soil and composting);
• chicken poop (sun dried/completely cured: found in some store-bought garden soils) Don't use poop from a person nor a dog nor a cat for gardening, no matter how dry or old the poop is!;
• fish emulsion;
• safe amounts of plain sulfur (Read information from agricultural extensions, for more about how to safely use sulfur.);
• hay from a farm or straw from wheat, in order to mulch, if you feel you just have to mulch!

There also is such a thing as a beetle that is good for gardening. For example:

• ladybugs, and
• rove beetles!

Rove beetles can look kind of unhelpful or

destructive, but they really are garden helpers.

 

 

 

 

 

Healing on Holidays: How a Fast-food Trip May Help

I'm not an expert on family healing, but I know it's not good pretending to be okay if you're not.

Pretending isn't the way to healing.

That's only one thought that's led me to think about how the end-of-year holidays can naturally be a challenge, and how, when there are extenuating circumstances, those normal challenges can be all-the-less healing.

So, this Thanksgiving, I decided not to fight feeling poorly in order to gather for a big meal. Instead, I thought about where life needed the most healing, and I decided to try to get myself together and work on beginning to heal by taking small steps.

I decided to ask just two or three people who have been of special concern, for a trip to a fast-food place that has Christian ownership. That wouldn't have been like going to church, but that might have been a good first step.

The good in going for a quick meal in a sun-filled place, where the food isn't very remarkable and the meal doesn't take long to eat, is that

• The short trip and sunlight can help to ease tensions.
• Food, television, and the whole family don't become distractions.
• Problems associated with being at home are more at a distance, mentally.
• The Christian environment doesn't make prayer awkward, and doesn't pressure anyone to feel like there's the imperative to be together in a possibly troubling church setting.
• No one feels obligated to sit together for long.
• Prayer can be offered freely and more individually.

These thoughts of heart didn't bear fruit for me this Thanksgiving. But, with prayer, maybe one day, some good can come of what I'm thinking.

An Ounce of Prevention, Only with Caution

Some articles on the internet help us understand there are herbs and foods that can help support our overall health, and can offer an ounce of prevention when it comes to warding off simple infections (as in healing an uninfected insect bite, or more quickly recovering from a mild bladder inflection).

But serious diseases, including cancer, and even staph infections, need diagnoses and treatment by qualified medical practitioners. So, articles like this are misleading and can even be dangerous:

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/314366.php

It's true that frankincense was a cleansing agent in ancient times, and that it may have been used to wash Jesus as a baby. But, when it comes to serious matters of health, we need doctors and pharmacists.

If frankincense has anti-cancer properties, that's for scientists and pharmaceutical companies to work on in laboratories. That's not for us to dabble with in community.

Anyhow, I found that article about frankincense when I was trying to confirm something I suspect about a plant other than the frankincense tree. I was looking for something very specific about the plant we call "lemongrass."

Some articles, on the internet, suggest lemongrass heals staph infections; BUT THAT IS NOT THE TRUTH.

Although lemongrass is perfectly safe when cooked in Asian, Indian, and other sauces, I suspect that, if uncooked (in a tea, for example), lemongrass should be used seldom. I think there can be a danger in putting it on open wounds, and a danger in drinking it in tea, if you are immune-depressed or very sick.

So, for me, lemongrass is best used to discourage mosquitoes, outdoors!

... What I mean about there being potential danger in using lemongrass on wounds, oral sores, or internally, is that it kills white blood cells. At least one scientific study says it lowers white-blood-cell production: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25162916. Although this article doesn't explain that lemongrass actually kills white blood cells, other studies and articles do a better job explaining how lemongrass affects white blood cells.

It's really a shame, but I think someone got the idea that lemongrass heals staph because it reduces puss and inflammation. But, again, lemongrass does not cure staph; and only reducing the puss and inflammation of staph is NOT a good thing.

The puss and inflammation of a serious staph infection, comes from white blood cells doing their job. White blood cells try to fight infection.

When lemongrass reduces white-blood-cell activity, there may be fewer symptoms of an infection (for example, less puss), but the infection is still there.

Not only is the infection still there, but, without the white cell activity, the infection may more easily spread; the infection may even become resistant to antibiotics (making it possibly deadly, in some cases), which is why I was very cautious when I began taking personal notes about lemongrass.

I've long intended to find out more about its effects on white blood cells, and I've avoided the lemongrass in our yard for that reason.

My approach to lemongrass is to use it with caution — or with knowledge.

One thing I know about lemongrass is that it can be added to bathwater or applied to unbroken skin as a kind of disinfectant, without becoming a health threat to someone who is immune-depressed. And lemongrass can be used in that same way to shoo away mosquitoes when we're outside, by rubbing the ground lemongrass on our skin.

And, again, it also discourages mosquitoes from taking up residence in a yard, in the first place.

The bottom line is to be knowledgeable and not accept everything you see on the internet, no matter how often something appears on the internet. Some salesmen are pretty good about putting misinformation out there about what they believe should be the next big thing to sale. Apparently, some of those folk have flooded the internet with news about how red-blood-cell production increases when people drink lemongrass tea, not taking into account that the red blood cells partly may be more plentiful because white-blood-cell counts are being wiped out — dangerously!

That's not to say every herbal trend is dangerous or bogus. It's absolutely true that daily consumption of pure black teas and pure green teas can help guard some types of cells from the threat of cancer (as part of a proper diet and appropriate medical care).

And there are many fruits and vegetables that also discourage inflammation and cancers, when eaten regularly as part of a balance diet.

... We just have to be knowledgeable, as well as cautious — and blessed in having caring, knowledgeable help from health-care providers.

Thank Heaven for the Help We Have in Foods

I'm ashamed when I think about this.

Whenever I'm reminded that, as as child, I contradicted my stepmom, I'm ashamed.

I was a child and had no business thinking my stepmom was doing something silly. I thought regularly drinking cranberry juice to help prevent certain ailments was only a wives-tale; and that's what I told my stepmom. But it was a doctor who had told my stepmom to drink real cranberry juice regularly.

And, today, I'm thankful to know better than I did then.

Today, I know that real cranberry juice can help prevent serious, serious problems, not just the  problem most folk are probably familiar with now.

For example, when body yeast becomes so much a problem that it thins the intestine, that yeast can cause "leaky gut," releasing bacteria into the bloodstream. But elements of cranberries help coat the intestine — not just the bladder — helping block irritation that leads to infection.

Of course, working with a doctor, taking the right prescriptions, eliminating wrong activities and foods in life, also are important to healing any health problem. But God also has given us some things in nature to help ease and even prevent health ailments.

The key, though, is including healthy ways in our everyday lives, not just every once in a while.

What got me thinking about all this is a healthy cookbook I just read. It's called Gout Cookbook, by HR Research Alliance.

I don't agree with how the cookbook's authors use the popular expression that some people have times of gout flare-ups. The gout crystals that form around joints don't flare up; the crystals just form, so that there is new gout (new crystals) causing problems for the patient, or something is going on with that patient to aggravate areas surrounding old crystals.

But once I got past kind of cringing at calling new and worsening gout a "flare," and once I got past the book's implication that food remedies are almost like a cure, I really liked this book, a lot (never mind the misspelled word!).

This book is encouraging. It's a really helpful, useful, and possibly life-changing book that I hope I can order as a gift one day, for someone.

And, because of it, I felt inspired, today, to put together a list of a few things I've learned about helpful supplements for meals. Not everything on the list appears in that cookbook, but the list does rely on a lot of what I learned from the book.

With hope someone can use this, day to day.

But remember: Always talk with your doctor to be sure you're not eating or drinking too much of anything that may adversely affect your health or contradict your medications!

Our hope is in Jesus, instead of in food.
But thank Heaven His love made food to be a help.

God is Always Good

I was all ready, today, to encourage you, and to encourage myself, through this post.

But, as Jesus might say, the good in me for this post seems like it's been snatched away by a foul-hearted enemy who daily, and even hourly, seeks how to defile anything we're thankful for, and how to swoop in and devour whatever it is he sees or wants.

What I wanted to share, today, from a heart that's long been pure is thoughts about how not to grow too weary.

One of the ways of the Holy Spirit, that I've discovered over the past week or so, has been helpful to me in ways only Heaven may understand.

Do you remember how Jesus delayed going to see his friend Lazarus, who was dying? I don't know what Jesus was attending to at that time, but I know He once told someone to let the dead bury the dead.

For the life of me, I do not understand how anyone works in professions that daily require handling of the dead.

The spiritual passage of a saint from the earth realm to Heaven is precious as precious can be, in the eyes of Heaven. But physical death itself is so grievous. And, when an enemy wants home to become synonymous with physical death, and the handling of such, that enemy is hellbent on destroying heart and home.

So, I've found out the way to deal with that kind of scheme of the the enemy is to ignore the hell, ignore the horror that hell is forcing into your home, inasmuch as possible.

Pace yourself. Be patient in each task before you. Keep purpose in heart. Ignore the enemy.

Know that you live clean, that God has made the way, and that you've attended to clean living faithfully. (Satan is forever the liar.)

Know that witchcraft and hell has no place in your heart. Work on cleaning up whatever hell has done, in order of priority. Do not neglect yourself.

Rest your mind on God's word. Remain in prayer.

Then, when you've gathered your strength in Christ again, when you've gotten yourself and the better part of your living quarters together, for both your sanity and for the good of family, then tend to the hell or death that hell means to consume your heart and mind.

Keep your eye on the prize.

Know that the battle is not against flesh and blood, but is against a real wickedness that's on the rise.

And know that, no matter how much in authority any hell may become, God is still good; and so is home.

What a Blessing: Thankful for BBQ Sauce

I thank Heaven we live in a blessed nation, where we each can do things a little differently. And I'm thankful we always have blessed one another with all kinds of useful ideas.

In south Louisiana, people from many backgrounds (French, Spanish, Caribbean, African, Asian, Native American) historically shared ideas and arrived at eclectic of ways of cooking.

That history isn't in all ways good. But faithfulness has always overcome any evil of history — there, like anywhere else. And, whenever southern parts of the state have flooded, I've felt a little helpless.

There are so many good people there. ...

Years ago, someone from south Texas came to visit my elders, at least a couple of times in my witness. This visitor brought homemade jam each of the two times, and we learned about the loquat tree, which grows in abundance in south Texas.

I think the loquat may be an ingredient in a powder drink-mix that was popular when I was a child. That drink was the closest I was to being allowed, on a daily basis, to have something sweet, beyond dessert at school.

As an adult, I really appreciate sweets that are not super-sweet, especially if I know there's something healthy about a sweet.

So, I was thankful to find a way to make a healthy BBQ sauce this week, just using the few little things that may be in a pantry and fridge.

One of the things I made use of was Ms. Cynthia's* homemade jam from 2015. The jam does not include loquats. It has figs and strawberries. But any homemade jam or preserves, would have been good (rhubarb and strawberries comes to mind).

This is what I did to make a BBQ sauce:

• I cooked maybe three short stalks of celery in some vegetable oil with about two tablespoons of ginger root and four cloves of garlic, all chopped. What a blessing that both fresh ginger root and garlic are anti-inflammatory and immune boosting, something that probably was important to my elders' well-being in cooking with garlic almost daily. Celery is good for us, too.
• I decided to make the sauce in a kind of south-Asian way, using a few little spices still in our kitchen in lean times. Each spice is anti-oxidant in nature, a boost in battles against cancer. I stirred in less than a teaspoon each of ground mustard, cumin, and turmeric, while the vegetables were still simmering.
• I added maybe two or three teaspoons of red pepper flakes that I roughly chopped in a coffee-bean grinder. And I added in regular black pepper and a little onion powder.
• Then, I stirred in a 6-ounce can of tomato paste and probably six or so tablespoons of the old fruit jam, and let the pan keep warm over low heat.

I didn't do quite as well with the meat itself.

I'm not in practice of cooking pork, or any meat that doesn't have the immune-building micro-nutrients that are in baked or broiled chicken. There were long years when I even took a hiatus from pork for faith reasons, in consideration of neighbors and people I prayed for overseas.

But, this week, I had a change in heart, in favor of my freedom in Jesus. And I decided to use the pork ribs that we'd had for a little while. I directly seasoned the meat with salt, black pepper, and paprika.

I decided not to look at cooking instructions but to try to cook through guesswork. So I settled on 350-degrees Fahrenheit as a cooking temperature, knowing a low temperature would be needed to keep protein strands from getting dry and permanently tough.

But something I learned when I looked at actual instructions today, is some folk cook pork for hours, using even lower temperatures. Yikes!

For 350-degrees, it so happens I was in the right range of time with the ribs, but I needed to bake them covered for longer. And I needed to add the sauce at the very end, and put them back in the oven on broil for a short time.

The end result was okay, and I really wanted to send some to an elder's house. But the sauce was so good that neighbors swiped most of it off of the ribs, and left a watery something that tasted mostly like ginger!

While I hope neighbor's have gotten a little health boost from the sauce, I pray they will not do that again.

... Jesus is good, you all.


***

* Name changed for privacy

Odds and Ends

Verse after verse, the Bible isn't always easy to understand. One woman in a Sunday school class said we need to read whole books of the Bible sometimes, in order to put verses in the right context.

In fact, sometimes, we need to be in a Bible study group whose leader knows how one book of the Bible goes together with another. And, of course, we need to be prayerful, expecting Heaven to answer our heartfelt questions.

When some Bible verses haven't made sense to me right away, I've written question marks in the margins. And I've always gotten answers.

Sometimes, puzzling verses have begun to make sense sooner than later. At other times, it's a long while before answers happen.

For example, in Proverbs 30:29-33, it's puzzling that Agur talks about a strutting rooster and a goat, saying three or four things are "stately in their walk."

But Agur is only being sarcastic, saying people may consider a king stately in his walk but that, sometimes, his way is like a rooster or a goat.

Agur was a little like Solomon or whatever person wrote down instructions from Lemuel's mother, in Proverbs 31. The Proverbs 31 writer says a king should give beer to people and let them drink away misery (Proverbs 31:6-7); but the writer was being sarcastic, like Agur was.

The Proverbs 31 writer was talking about how kings used to treat people who are embittered. But the writer goes on to contrast the sarcasm about giving people beer, by describing how a king truly should treat people. The writer says, "Speak up for those who have no voice ... ." (31:8)

Sarcasm sometimes comes from bitterness.

Being embittered, Job complained that the unrighteous heap up riches for nothing (Job 27:16-17). And Job said terrors overtake such people. Job bitterly said people always behave unjustly: The unrighteous heaps it up, "but the righteous will wear it, and the innocent will divide up his silver." (27:17) Job was asking why he should suffer, when other people were so unjust.

It's unsettling, knowing that, even when justice happens, there always seems to be some injustice still in the balance.

When Jesus was crucified, the unrighteous took His clothing, and the unrighteous Judas took the purse of money that people had given the disciples. Judas also took a bribe to betray Jesus.

... One life application, for me, is the observation that, sometimes, when Christians or Jews have been betrayed, Satan also has tried to reverse some promises that appear in scriptures.

It seems Satan thinks he can undo whatsoever is just.

Job, in 26:6, says hell is naked in God's eyes. So, Satan has tried to do a reversal of that justice, through making some Christians and Jews naked, though we shouldn't be (Matthew 25:36).

There are plenty of ungodly reversals of justice in these "last days" we're living through.

But thank Heaven that, in Jesus, "strength and honor" (Proverbs 31) can continue to clothe us, no matter our hardships.

In Jesus, there can be moments of childlike laughter, without fear of the future, a knowing chuckle even when we're not sure of tomorrow. Although we do care and can even be anxious for the fact that some souls may be lost, we try not to despair and completely lose heart.

That's one reason I'm thankful in being able to do the simplest of things. Clothed in my right mind, I'm able to forgive, and to offer my heart.

Faith, not bitterness, is a healer:

Freely ye have received, freely give.

Matthew 10:8

Sometimes, only Heaven knows how much of our hearts we've given.