Force Plants into Hibernation

I've got a little problem. The onions and beets I planted for seed died over the winter (I still have one onion, but that's not enough) so I won't have seed for beets or onions next year. I'm going to try something this year that I've thought of before but never actually did. I'm going to wait until the bulbs of this year's plants are about an inch in diameter and then pull them and try to force them into hibernation. If it works, I should be able to get small amounts of seed this year. Not as much as I'd like, but a little. I'll give updates later this year.

The other problem with doing it this way is that I can't choose the plants for seed--I have to just use whatever I get rather than using the largest bulbs. Next year I'm going to pull the seed beets and onions and keep them in storage. Hopefully that way they'll have a better chance of surviving.

Herbs are up!

It's spring again, so you're likely going to hear more from me. This week I need to thin the yarrow--the root-mass is about three feet across and I'll probably end up throwing most of it away. I want three pieces so I'll thin one back each year rather than messing with a massive plant every three years.

So (in the herb garden, not including what I have in the rest of the yard) I have chives, catnip, yarrow, horehound, tarragon, lemon-balm, lavender, basil, valerian, foxglove and parsley. Anything decorative or ground-coverish is in other areas. The mints are in their own pots, along with the thyme and the tansy.

The rosemary died over the winter and I'm actually thinking of getting rid of the horehound, planting something else there. Not sure what, yet.

The space is about 10 feet x 20, so there's a nice aisle down the middle. I'm trying to decide whether or not to stagger it and use that space--I'd lose my path, but have room for more plants. I have three spaces left in my herb garden if I don't decide to go in that direction.

Come to think of it, I'm going to go up and tear out a horehound bush.

Part 2: The Brain; Your Best Frenemy

By the time a fetus is three weeks old, the brain is fully functional. That doesn't mean full formed, but functional. It is in operational control of the autonomic system (heart, lungs, etc) and is sending nerve impulses to the extremities. It is also able to learn.

During this time the brain learns that it is warm, it is cared for, it has no worries. Then it's kicked out into this cold dry environment where it has to fend for itself. Put me back! Don't make me do this! Depending on the circumstances, a child quickly learns to cry when it's uncomfortable. The brain learns that in order to get what it wants all it has to do is make a fuss. Lovely thought.

But the brain is unformed. It doesn't understand cause and effect, doesn't understand that once it starts a chain reaction it can't choose the consequences.

And this, unfortunately, it will never learn.

Now understanding that this is all my own opinion, what would happen if you started getting a cold and told your brain out loud, "Brain, I do not have time for this cold. Put it off to the weekend."

Skeptical? You might find yourself surprised.

What if you said (again out loud) "Brain, I want to climb Mount Everest." Well, the brain doesn't really know what Mount Everest is. It might have pictures, it might have a vague understanding of "Big," but it can't carry you bodily to Mount Everest so that you can climb it. What it can do is push you into seeing ways that your dream might be possible. Or it might send you a nightmare of climbing some unknown mountain in the dark.

Your brain is your best frenemy. It makes everything possible, from the feeling in the soles of your feet to the playing of a concert. It also makes (or at least starts) every reaction that creates illness or health in the human body.

But as I said before, it doesn't understand cause and effect. "She needs down time" might seem to the brain to be a perfect excuse to let microbes run rampant, resulting in a cold that lasts weeks and puts you flat on your back. "He's doing something he doesn't like" might seem sufficient to create a chemical reaction that results in repeated panic attacks. Once these things start, it's much harder to make them stop. The Brain does not understand this. It's a computer, and can only put out what goes in. Most rational cognition takes place on another level entirely.

Part 1: Mind Games

Can I just say I hate needles? Still, one of the simplest ways to serve other people is to give blood or platelets.

I started giving blood regularly when I was eighteen, just barely starting college. Years later I learned that I could give platelets and watch a movie while donating. Fun! Then one day, I went to give blood and the woman asking all the questions asked me if I'd been feeling weak.

No. I had a lot of energy, felt completely fine, but she said my iron count was so low that if it went down any more they'd send me to the emergency room.

Wow. Um... So I walked away (deferred for the first time) and halfway back to class I suddenly felt weak and tired. I sat down on a bench and slept for three hours, missed several classes. Until that moment, I had no idea that being low on iron might be any kind of problem. She said I should feel weak--I started feeling weak. She said I should be tired--I started feeling tired.

Years later I was giving platelets and one of the phlebotomists (which sounds like something that grows in a diseased swamp) told me about a citrate reaction--she becomes short of breath, her fingers and toes go numb and start to cramp...Can you see the punchline? Half an hour later, boom, I was having the identical reaction. It had never occurred to me previously that a reaction to donating platelets was possible. I think it stems from my dislike of needles....and the brain's desire to give me what it thinks I want.

The role of the brain in our health is interesting, and I think it has far more to say on this subject than most of us want to admit.

1 The Brain is lazy. If there's a way to get out of doing something, it will take that path
2 The Brain is in control. Not only in control of the autonomics but also pain impulses, the use of nutrients and many other processes
3 The Brain is not an autonomous organ. If you tell it what to do, it will try to obey
4 The Brain will try to give you what it thinks you want or need

When I was going to college I always got sick over spring break, without fail. For some reason I never got sick during the school year. Always on the breaks. Was this because the germs were only present during the two weeks prior to the breaks? Somehow I don't think so. Was it because my immunity slowly ground down during the school year? Maybe, but that doesn't account for the fact that I was always healthy again by the time classes started.

The fact is, I knew I didn't have time to be sick. I had classes to be to, tests to take. I couldn't be down for any length of time. So if I started to get a sniffle, I told my brain to stop it and forged on.

Did it work? Is illness all psychosomatic? If we knew how, could we stop illness, aging, diabetes, cancer?

I think to some extent this may be exactly the case. The problem is, where do we draw the line?

Next week I will discuss "The Brain: Your Best Frenemy"

Garlic Update

I started harvesting my garlic, and it looks like I still have a lot of adjustments to make. The garlic cloves on the outside are from last year's spring crop (average size). The garlic cloves on the inside were grown on my windowsill.

One that is slightly larger is still in the moss. These are from the first planting; I waited until the roots were well developed and then let the moss dry out. The second planting appears to be doing much better, although the skins of the old cloves are rotting rather than drying and falling off. I have to wipe it off.

One thing I notice is that the roots are growing straight down and the base of the bulb is larger than it should be. You can see in the picture that the root area at the base of the bulb is about the same size on all four. This suggests to me that the bulb should be much larger but something failed. Nutrients? Water? We'll see how the second planting turns out. That will give me a better idea of what's going on.

I'm going to try vegetable grafting this spring.

My health diagram

Many years ago I learned that I loved diagramming sentences. The idea that a sentence had an easily discernible and LOGICAL structure was amazing. Being able to take a sentence apart and figure out which pieces were most important, to build a skeleton with the pieces, made me giggle. Literally.

The ability to diagram sentences has no logical use in this world, but I can use the diagram structure in other ways. For example, if I have a serious cough. How did it begin? After exercising. (Assumption, lung irritation) Why did it begin? Unknown.

Symptoms are the second step of the diagram. The main line (the sentence core, the subject of the sentence) is the cough. That's what I'm trying to remedy.



Is it worse at night or during the day? Worse at night

Is it worse standing or lying down? Lying down

Is it worse outside or inside? Inside

Is it worse at home or at work? Neither

Does exercise aggravate it? Yes

Lots of etcetera; whatever questions the situation calls for. If I determine that there may be an emotional connection I use different questions and go deeper.

In this way I can construct an assumption of what is causing this cough. Along the way I can come up with possible remediations, things that will make the cough easier to deal with such as sleeping partially upright or taking antihistamines. [*** see below.]

Based on the information as I built my diagram, this does not seem to be disease related. If the diagram indicated it was worse at work or at home I could suggest that the cause was environmental (such as mold, or temperature). If it got worse when the air quality was lower I could suggest that it was related to that. If it's not environmental, I go on to the next level.

The structure of the diagram has four sub-clauses; Situation, symptoms, remediation, and diagnosis. There would normally be a fifth clause, treatment, but I don't want anyone accusing me of practicing medicine.

There are three levels to the diagnosis--Disease (external), physical/environmental (internal) or emotional (internal). Technically I could add a few more layers.

Once I determine whether it's physical or mental, internal or external, I have a much better chance of choosing treatments that will work.

Mental is a subject for another post, or maybe a series of them.




***Do not confuse a remediation with a cure. They are totally different things. Many pharmaceuticals are in the remediation category, controlling symptoms but doing nothing for the disease.

The Third Medicine

Once our need for air and water is satisfied, we come to all the other things that make life not only possible, but comfortable.

The food we eat, theoretically, gives us all the nutrients, minerals, vitamins and trace elements to keep the body working at its peak. People who do not get the correct nutrients fall apart slowly. Without sufficient calcium for a growing body the bones are weak. Without enough iron the blood doesn't work right. Many of the minerals and trace elements support the wet cell battery that is the brain.

So the third medicine is food.

The human body was designed for a nomadic or agricultural lifestyle--constant work, enormous amounts of food to fuel the body for the work it was required to do. If a nomad ate a 16 oz steak s/he was getting eight times the nutrients we get from the RDA of two ounces of meat per day. (The RDA is generally based on a sedentary lifestyle.) Our hypothetical nomad would be working off the excess, using it. Mostly in the hunt for more food.

We're barely into the first steps of understanding the human body and what it needs to function.

I have to laugh every time I hear someone say that a particular vitamin or other element "isn't necessary" or "has no function." If that's the case, why does the body create it, store it, or absorb it? It's another way of saying "Ignorance is bliss."

Still, in spite of scientific theory the body will try to tell us what it needs.

To some extent, cravings are the body's way of indicating that something is wrong--it's not getting something it needs, to the point that the "wet cell battery" is running low on power. Unfortunately, without knowing precisely what is needed the brain often creates cravings for things that may be related but not precise.

For example, a child is not getting sufficient potassium in his diet. When the child eats salted potato chips the brain connects the obvious taste of salt (rather than the potato under it) with the nutrient levels returning to normal. It "learns" that salt will solve the problem. There are other elements to this, but it gets the point across.

The next time that child's body runs low on potassium, he's likely to start craving salt.

Nomads ate a very healthy and balanced diet. Green foods and meat were their staples, accompanied by a great deal of exercise. Berries, grains and roots in the proper season, and if they were able to get enough food (which was difficult and time consuming) they would have had all the nutrients they needed.

As a society, we've gotten to the point where we can isolate and concentrate various nutrients, enough in some cases to make up the lack of volume. Supplements are used with wild abandon, and I've been told flatly by certain people that they don't need to eat because they're getting everything they need from the supplements they're taking.

All I can say to that one is "Duh."

Unfortunately, like water and air most of the damage from missing nutrients is done as children. A child refuses to eat any vegetable and the parents don't push it. A child doesn't like milk and the parent doesn't find another source for the nutrients. By the time a child reaches adulthood, many of the problems already exist and are waiting for a trigger.

Chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, diabetes, asthma and many other lifelong ailments could be the result of nutrient deficiencies either as adults or children. It is interesting to me that people find various solutions--exercise, extra calcium, extra vitamin K, etc. One person may "cure" their diabetes with a particular element, while the cure does nothing for another person. We like to see duplicatable solutions, but the fact is that every person with the same chronic illness might have a different cause and therefore a different cure.

The best source for the nutrients remains the food we eat. A balanced diet--including a sufficient amount of protein, grains, vegetables or fruits and fats--will often help or completely eliminate symptoms of diseases we thought insurmountable.

Once we've made sure we're breathing correctly, we're appropriately hydrated and we're eating a balanced diet, if the symptoms remain it's time to do some research and check what other elements we might be missing.

Food is the third medicine.