Bad news for our veggies.....

I just spoke to a friend yesterday and was told that they passed the irradiation proposal for ALL fruits and veggies. I am trying to find the actual documents online so I can read through them and see what they mean. She was saying that the documents also allude to the issue that everyone with a backyard garden would need a "permit" to grow their own food. Again, until I can find the actual document and read through it I won't know all the facts. But what does this mean for you? If you are interested in organic produce with all the nutrients and vital enzymes that nature intended, you will need to become your own farmer. I will post here once I do find all the data out. But, my friend (who moved from Mesa to Flagstaff a few years ago) has started a community co-op. Each family grows a certain crop and then the group (of about 15 families or so) swaps produce. We will be forced to go back to the day of each community supporting one another and the barter system to get fresh, healthy, organic produce that has not been tampered with. I think most people who have studied this topic understand that the real problem is with cleanliness and with processing (as with almonds) rather than the actual contamination in growing, for the most part. It is the same reason why we have pasteurized milk, not necessarily because the cows were producing bad milk but because the handling and bottling was dirty. Even Louise Pasteur admitted later in his life that pasteurization is not always a good thing. Even for dairy, it kills the good bacteria necessary for easy breakdown of the proteins in the milk. That is why some kids on the autism spectrum (and people not on the spectrum too) who have intolerances to pasteurized milk can tolerate raw dairy. In any event, if this indeed has passed by Codex, this is a very sad day. I find it very disheartening to hear about these organizations making such large decisions for us all (like food irradiation and herbal supplement regulation) without more representation from the people and for the most part, I don't even think most of the population KNOWS about this organization. And yet they have the ability to change our ability to find truly organic, untampered produce. That is sad....


Here is my garden.....and it appears that we will be increasing our crops in the future. We have lettuce, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, cilantro and basil. I will be exploring new ways to add crops to our yard in the future, as well as planting more fruiting trees. I have been meaning to post about the Phoenix Permaculture Guild. They are an AWESOME organization that promotes sustainable gardening in your own yard. They do a bulk order for fruit trees that DO grow in our soil/temps and they even teach you how to plant and prune it. The prices are so cheap. The last two years we have missed the deadline (Nov) but the delivery of trees is in Jan and they usually have extras that they have ordered. I am sure hoping that is true because we need to get some fruit trees going, and in a hurry. They even teach how to have your own "mini" orchard in your own, regular sized home lot. The main guy has an "Urban farm" here in Phoenix with rain water harvesting and crops and teaches YOU to do the same.....smart thing in these times. So any Gilbert ladies (or men) interested in a local co-op, I am totally in to start one of those. We can get a group together and start planning our crops and who will grow what. I will post the links to the Phoenix Permaculture Guild soon too. In the meantime, here is our garden and rain water harvesting barrel that my husband made.

Here is our garden on the side of our house, raised beds to ensure soil quality.

Here is the view from the other side.

Here is a close up of our spinach.

Here is our rain water and AC condensation run off barrel. Have you seen how much water gets produced as condensation from your AC unit in the summer??? It is amazing!!!! We have a bucket that collects it and then we put it into this barrel. It really helps with watering our plants and saves quite a bit of water, which we can all use to save as much as possible. Then when it rains we put out buckets and collect the rain water to put into the barrel as well. Why not use these natural resources as much as possible?