Overcoming addictive behaviour part 2

St. John's Wort

Following my last somewhat negative page on addictive behavior, in which I characterized it as a number of very undesirable mind sets, and pointed out its huge drain on planetary resources, here is the good news.

Addictive behaviors can be over come.In my opinion a broad range of approaches can be of use here, and I would like to suggest a selection with out going into any great detail at this stage.
 1. Work on your mind, Catch, analyse and Reject all negative, selfish and generally unhelpful thoughts and communications.
2. Selecting your company can also be very helpful here.
3. In place of negative thinking, cultivate positive thoughts. For example think of things you are grateful for,  celebrate progress you are making, be grateful  for support from your friends and allies, and encourage them in their progress. Be clean, tidy and efficient. Be optimistic.
4. Engage in a challenging but worthwhile project.
5. Get help , remember you cant do it alone ,but only you can do it. Get a support group appropriate to your stage of development, and what you are trying to do. I'm thinking initially of twelve step groups. Sometimes, you might have to form your own group. For instance recently I pulled together a seed swap group,  which I am proud of.

6.There are various herbs which can help to calm down an addiction, or an addictive restless mind. Sage, Thyme, St Johns Wort, Chamomile, Calendula, Spearmint and Centurion are common and available ones. Get professional advice,read books or do internet research.which leads on to another useful practice learn how to study give yourself time every day , or at least a couple of set timed during the week dedicated to study and learning.

Then there are the simple things of life. 

• Drink at least two liters of  clean water a day.
• look after yourself, by preparing healthy nutritious food.
• Regularly take exercise .
•  Every day practice conscious breathing. That is calmly take ten deep inhalations and exhalations this will be very useful in the inevitable crisis you will have to face in the future.
•  Avoid processed drinks and food like poison.
•  Get into a regular pattern of exercise.walking jogging swimming cycling yoga are all good,
•  Get into a lifestyle where good hard work produces good useful things. For instance take up gardening or foraging, cycle to work. Heat your home with wood you collect cut and chop, take up wood work, it depends partly what your interests are where your talents lie.

All in all its mostly about installing helpful wholesome things in your life and rejecting things that you recognise are no longer useful.there are a lot of suggestions here. there is no point trying to install them into your life all at once.Its a gradual process. As long as you are making progress that's fine.
something else that can be useful,is to get a teacher or councilor or  a life coach for instance Skip Archimedies is an amazing teacher/healer/life coach, and his services can be found at www.skiparchimedes.com/em

That's all for today . Ill just finish with this hope for you . Believe in yourself . You can Do it .

Eddie

Saving vegetable seeds from the wild

Most of our cultivated vegetables have been carefully selected over many generations of plants for the required qualities. This is why they have the appearance texture and flavour that they do,and is the reason why we need to carefully select the best vegetables of there type if we want to grow them on to save there seeds for the next year. However there are exceptions.Salsify and Scortzoa as they are grown on the vegetable plot are very similar to their wild brothers or sisters.There are at this point in time no real varieties , just species,which makes it very easy to save seeds from them from year to year or even just collect them from the hedge rows and field edges where they continue to grow.here is a picture of them growing to seed in my allotment. they are the fluffy , blow away seeds in the foreground the seeds further back are spinage . collecting the seeds couldn't be easier. on a dry day simply grasp the seed head with your hand . If they are ripe they will pull away quite easily .then just put them in your back pocket until you get home to store them properly. by the time you get home they will have separated from the fluff quite effectively.They can be quite abundant June and July.so it is easy to collect your seeds for planting early autumn or next spring.  salsify is reputed to be very rich in assimilable iron and mineral . the green leaves can be added to salads through the summer and autumn the long roots can be harvested through the autumn and winter. Is there a use for the
seeds I don't personally know of one .If you do please enlighten us all Eddie

Changing the Addictive Mind Set
part 1

Have you ever struggled to overcome an addiction or compulsive behaviour?

Have you ever succeeded but still felt anxious that the addiction would come back or be replaced with another?

This is because struggling repeatedly with addictions, we come to realise that there is an addictive mind set which is prone to addiction and other destructive behaviours and events.
This is not difficult to understand as the addictive mind is easy to describe .......lacking self esteem, evasive, manipulative, aggressive, blaming others, refusing to take responsibility,complaining and sympathy seeking.

It is also easy to see how this mind set will lead quickly to addiction, isolation and sorrow. The difficulty comes in recognising that I might have a mind like that or that some part of my mind could be responding in this way. Also one might not know what if anything can be done about it.

What has this you might be asking , got to do with saving the planet? 

Apart from being very destructive in your personal world, addiction when measured across the entire population is hugely depletive of resources, creating a demand above and beyond the simple demands of survival and comfort, apart from the drain on physical resources, is the drain on human creativity and energy, which we are surly going to need if we are to get through the current crisis... also the mind set of addiction is one of greed, which also allows for such things as chemical farming, domination of heavy industry and the arms race and indeed war itself. 

Considering all these things, addictive behaviour measured across the population is a major environmental problem, on par with misuse of human manure, the nuclear arms race, oil pollution etc. By combating your addictive behaviour, you are doing yourself and the planet a huge favour, and for this reason I am going to come back to this issue many times, and I invite you to input any thoughts and suggestions of your own.
By the way ,if you recognise any of these traits, in your self , if you are wondering what you could possibly do about it, firstly i sincerely recognise, and salute your courage. secondly i would encourage you to look at overcoming addictions part two in this blog
 Eddie 

Composting

Heres a thing about composting, I am often asked "are black composting bins any good?"

.My own personal preference is home made bins, made from scrap wood, for general purpose household and gardening organic waste, or even a freestanding heap for larger amounts.

So I wouldn't go out and buy a black bin. However, if you have one and want to use it they have distinct advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is that being black they convert sunlight to heat which can accelerate the early stages of composting. On the other hand, being non porous they can cause the whole thing to acidify and to lose nutriment in the form of run off, so be careful to use a good amount of areating bulky material (which will fill your bin very quickly another possible down side).

Here's a picture of a couple of finished bins with an extra spin.

Finished bins with potatoes

Dry Herb Harvest

Dry Herb Harvest

Here`s another use for a trampoline.sun drying herbs for winter use.here we have dandelion greens, Alconet,stinging nettle tops and arch angle. Its easy .

• Dry excess moisture in the sun 
• put into a paper bag, 
• shaking every day until completely dry and crisp.
• then seal in jam jars or reseal bags.

 they can be used as a tea, or blended to a fine powder to be added to juices smoothies or food for a mineral, vitamin rich boost. what's more its locally produced.

An invitation to forage

Get your greens from the wild: Part one.

I enjoy being outdoors not just for the fresh air, sunshine and exercise but also to supplement my diet in a exciting and sustainable way.

I have experience in sourcing seasonal wild edible plants.

Ramson:

Ranson is in the garlic family 

  


I have enjoyed eating this plant for a couple of weeks. Ramson is a Spring tonic, it grows in broad-leaf woodland - sometimes abundantly. 

Get your greens from the wild: Part two.

Linden or Lime Tree


The Lime tree of northern Europe is not a citrus tree, . it is so named because of a pronounced stringiness if the bark, which used to be used to make line , hence the name lime, or in German linden.. the blossom of the tree is very nectar rich and attracts bees. It can be collected for a flavorful nerve tonic tea. however i value this tree at this time of year for its edible Green leaves which have an excellent flavor and texture . . it remains good to eat longer into the summer than the other well known salad trees like beech hazel and elm which quickly toughen. it is mucilaginous indicating its relatively high protein content. All in all a very useful and accessible spring /summer addition to your daily salad.

Lime tree leaves

Wild oats and false oats

false oats

At this point some of you might be thinking that we are not going to satisfy our hunger with a few green leaves. Well, if you have a juicer you can concentrate nutriments from your green leaves. Further more you can exploit some extremely nutritious plants.

This weekend past, I was using my hand juicer to process that most nutritious of plants, the grasses, and I had great results with false oats and wild oats. This time of year while the seed heads are still green the juice has a milky quality. Somewhat reminiscent of packaged oat milk, but greener, sweeter and of course much fresher - definitely superior to the packaged product. 

I also made a good milky drink with other grasses, but some grasses were too fibrous to get through the juicer with ease, although the addition of nettles and chickweed helped. Also I put a few thistles through the juicer to good effect. Furthermore juicers remember this, there are no poisons grasses there are no poisons thistles, so if you want to be experimental with your juicer, this is a good place to start.

An Introduction

My name is Eddie Morgan. I am an organic gardener/permaculturalist, dedicated to learning and teaching on any aspect of rehabilitating the planet. I have experience of gardening and foraging in both hot dry climates and cold wet places too.I have lived in urban environments ,(born in central london),and lived in some of the remotest locations in u.k. and spain. I am very keen to share knowledge and information so please please leave comments.please write down your dreams for a sustainable planet.hints observations and hopes are all welcome. Anything interesting that comes to me I will post up on the blog.