Herbal Medicine: How to Harvest And Use Aloe Vera

from youtube: "Herbal Doc" demonstrates how to harvest and use Aloe Vera, a common house plant with some amazing health-giving properties. 

Aloe Vera (especially Aloe Barbadensis Miller) is often called the medicinal plant, as it provides many health benefits. It contains 19 of 20 amino acids, a large range of vitamins & minerals. 

Aloe has anti-inflammatory & anti-viral effects on our body. Beside boosting our energy and strengthening our immune system, Aloe Vera also helps our digestive system. 

As some side effects of drinking Aloe Vera on a regular basis, you may end up having beautiful & younger looking skin, healthy hair & nails with, overall youthful body!

Proposed legislation would make most gardens and farms illegal

from permaculture.com: This proposed legislation would make most permaculturists, farmers, gardeners and bush regenerators criminals. Many native wattles (Acacia spp), an extensive list of legumes including the Leopard tree, Honey Locust, wisteria and cattle forage plants like Desmodium, wetland plants such as the Common Rush (Phragmites), and common pasture grasses (Phalaris spp), even the iceplants in your Granny's rock garden would be effected by the legislation. Having 10 of any of these plants would be considered a trafficable quantity and cause you to be charged and convicted with a federal drugs conviction and criminal record. Submissions need to be sent in before 11 March 2011 to stop this absurd legislation.

How To Build a Self-Feeding Fire - Wilderness Survival Skills

from youtube: In this video and article Paul Sheiter from HedgehogLeatherworks demonstrates a technique for building a fire structure that will burn continuously and does not require ANY managing. This is a great method to know if you need the heat from a fire while you are sleeping, but do not want to wake up repeatedly during the night to add more wood.

Guerilla Gardener Movement Takes Root In L.A. Area

from latimes: Stealth growers seed or plant on land that doesn't belong to them. The result? Plants that beautify or yield crops in otherwise neglected or vacant spaces. BRIMMING with lime-hued succulents and a lush collection of agaves, one shooting spiky leaves 10 feet into the air, it's a head-turning garden smack in the middle of Long Beach's asphalt jungle. But the gardener who designed it doesn't want you to know his last name, since his handiwork isn't exactly legit. It's on a traffic island he commandeered. "The city wasn't doing anything with it, and I had a bunch of extra plants," says Scott, as we tour the garden, cars whooshing by on both sides of Loynes Drive. Scott is a guerrilla gardener, a member of a burgeoning movement of green enthusiasts who plant without approval on land that's not theirs. In London, Berlin, Miami, San Francisco and Southern California, these free-range tillers are sowing a new kind of flower power. In nighttime planting parties or solo "seed bombing" runs, they aim to turn neglected public space and vacant lots into floral or food outposts.

"J" - The Terraformist's Guide To Survival On The Free Zone

from oraclebroadcasting: Interesting times we live in - devastation, wars and riots across the globe. How are we to handle this situation? "J" The Terraformists talks with Freeman about how to survive this catastrophic times and how to do "terrafoming" and create a new Garden of Eden. "If we stop spending so much money on wars, we could take all that money and build 'Aquaponics' systems", "J" says.

How Tao Salt is Made

bioprin.posterous: I often get asked why 200g of Tao Salt costs $500. This is less than a cup weighing in at about 7 oz. (Also see: Why Tao Salt is Considered the "Elixir of Immortality") In ancient times, emperors begged the enlightened masters of their day for just a pinch of it. Today only those who are educated in longevity make the stretch for Tao Salt. The production process for it has not changed in millenia. And over that time, Asian cultures have referred to it as the "Elixir of Immortality."

I have been made aware Posterous was shut down in April 2013.

Posterous is shutting down: here are the best alternatives 

Black garlic - Welcome to a whole new world of flavor

from blackgarlic: Introducing a simple food with a wonderfully complex flavor. Black garlic is sweet meets savory, a perfect mix of molasses-like richness and tangy garlic undertones. It has a tender, almost jelly-like texture with a melt-in-your-mouth consistency similar to a soft dried fruit. Hard to believe, but true. It’s as delicious as it is unique.

HOMEGROWN REVOLUTION - Radical Change Taking Root

from youtube: Path to Freedom presents 'A Homegrown Revolution' A collaboration of selective media clips which feature their urban homestead and farm which focus on the need of radical action -- growing food in the city. This self produced, short music video was shown at Peter Seller's Cultural Art's class at UCLA followed by a short presentation by urban farmer, Jules Dervaes founder of Path to Freedom. The class focus was on the art of slow food and among other guests invited were Michael Pollan, Alice Waters and Eric Schlosser. Like Victory Gardens of yesteryear, start your own homegrown revolution, grow your own food in your back or front yard.

Since the early 80's the Dervaes family has slowly transformed their ordinary city lot into a self sufficient urban homestead.

Health Benefit Of Blackberries ... Potent Free Radical Scavengers Boosting Your Immune System!

from antioxidants-guide: In the 'best antioxidants' league table, blackberries are right up there. In fact they are probably in the top ten. As we know, antioxidants are fighters of free radicals. Blackberries are jam-packed with polyphenols and anthocyanins ... what do they do?

Well they can help to prevent cancer and heart disease. Black-berries are grown all over the world and they have been known in the past by many names, such as brambleberries, brumblekites and lawers!Just so you don't get confused (and it's easy to) .. blackberries are not the same as and are different from black raspberries. They altogether taste different and blackberries have a solid center, whereas raspberries are hollow when picked.

Ok back to the health benefit of blackberries. They measure up very well on the ORAC list too. These amazing berries deliver a whopping 2036 units per 100 grams. Very impressive indeed. We are told that a good method to identify an antioxidant-rich fruit or vegetable is by it's dense and dark colours, well just study a blackberry, it passes that test ... hands down.

2,000 Year Old Food Forest in Morocco

from youtube: One of the extras featured on Geoff Lawton's DVD "Establishing a Food Forest" the Permaculture Way available from www.permaculture.org,au More info: http://www.ecofilms.com.au/ The location of the Food Forest known to the local population as Paradise Valley is about 12km inland from Tamraght on the coast of Morocco below the Grissafane Mountain Range. See Flashtoonz.com for map details.

The GM genocide: Thousands of Indian farmers are committing suicide after using genetically modified crops

from dailymail: When Prince Charles claimed thousands of Indian farmers were killing themselves after using GM crops, he was branded a scaremonger. In fact, as this chilling dispatch reveals, it's even WORSE than he feared. The children were inconsolable. Mute with shock and fighting back tears, they huddled beside their mother as friends and neighbors prepared their father's body for cremation on a blazing bonfire built on the cracked, barren fields near their home. As flames consumed the corpse, Ganjanan, 12, and Kalpana, 14, faced a grim future. While Shankara Mandaukar had hoped his son and daughter would have a better life under India's economic boom, they now face working as slave labour for a few pence a day. Landless and homeless, they will be the lowest of the low.

The Future Of Food (Full Documentary)

from topdocumentaryfilms: There is a revolution happening in the farm fields and on the dinner tables of America — a revolution that is transforming the very nature of the food we eat. The Future of Food offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade. From the prairies of Saskatchewan, Canada to the fields of Oaxaca, Mexico, this film gives a voice to farmers whose lives and livelihoods have been negatively impacted by this new technology. The health implications, government policies and push towards globalization are all part of the reason why many people are alarmed by the introduction of genetically altered crops into our food supply.

The Articultores: Secret Seeders Plant Veggies for Inner-City Poor

from takepart: Rebels with green thumbs are giving Buenos Aires an up-from-the-roots makeover, turning a city known for Eva Peron and the Tango into one giant organic farm to help feed portenos (as the city's residents are known). The Articultores—roughly translated to Arty Farmers—are throwing down thousands of veggie seeds in neglected parks and verges. The "seed bombs"— essentially seeds packed with mud—started dropping in 2009. The group says it is teaching the masses to collaboratively cultivate open spaces to combat rising food prices and wean the populace off traditional supermarkets. Its website boasts a stylized manifesto that proclaims (in Spanish) "I know you/I know/where I come from/I help/help me/I live here/I care/I learn/I eat/as others see me.""Our goal is for people to find carrots, courgettes or quinoa when they take a stroll ... and we want to show them how to care after the crops," a coordinator told Reuters.

Adam Purple is a social activist, philosopher, and urban gardener/revolutionary

from zentences: Adam Purple is a social activist, philosopher, and urban gardener/revolutionary. He created the world-famous eARThWORK, The Garden of Eden, which flourished on Manhattan’s Lower East Side from 1975-1986. He is also the author-inventor of of ZENtences!, an exponential (non-linear) book. A unique copy of this work may be studied in the Miniature Collection, Rare Books Division, New York Public Library. His social activism continues online today with the ‘speciesurvivalibrary’ Yahoo! Group, which can be joined by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com. Adam Purple talks about his life, work, and the future of huWOmankind (species survival) in this 40-minute interview. By the early 1970’s, much of Manhattans’s Lower East Side had become a desolate, crime-ridden place. In the midst of this, Adam Purple started a garden in the backyard of his tenement building at 184 Forsyth Street. In time, the surrounding tenements were torn down and Purple’s world-famous eARThWORK, The Garden of Eden, grew to 15,000 square feet and included 45 fruit and nut trees. He carted off tons of refuse and created virgin topsoil with horse manure from Central Park as well as his own “night soil.” To create the Garden, he used simple tools and raw muscle power. Adam “zenvisioned” the Garden expanding until it replaced the asphalt and skyscrapers of New York. Though the city was presented with numerous alternatives that would have spared it or incorporated it into the new structure, The Garden of Eden was bulldozed in 1986 to make way for a federally funded housing project, which did not include an apartment for Adam or space for a new garden.

The Garden of Eden - NYC eARThWORK by Artist Adam Purple

from zentences: Though The Garden of Eden was tragically and purposefully destroyed on 8 January 1986 to make way for a building, we are pleased to present some wonderful photographs of this eARThWORK in progress and in its full glory. Created out of twice-sifted brick rubble, horse manure bicycled from "Zentral" Park, and potash made on-site, its artist "zenvisioned" it "as ultimately expanding through contiguous area to a 'Great Circle' hemispheric sculpture." The Garden of Eden adorned Manhattan's Lower East Side for more than 11 years.