Acerola Cherry - hardy perrennial superfood

I'm so very pleased with our small harvest of 6 acerola cherries this season.

It didn't fruit previously because I'd neglected everything, but it did survive! What a champion. It is still in a planter bag!

I noticed that fruit eaten earlier had a very strong flavour of Vitamin C, similar to (but nicer than) goji aka wolf berries. As they matured, the flavour became nicer but they are still good younger and if you were unwell, I'd treat this as a supplement :)


They are beautiful, hardy and delicious. Relatively easy to propagate... these are a winner.

Read more online -
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/featured-news/West-Indian-cherry-203857331.html

Self Regulation

I'm confronted by the desire to manage myself. I'm talking about cycling to work, catching public transport, reducing waste and composting.  

Last week I found myself wasting chicken food I'd gotten for free, it had gotten too old. Some days I drive to work simply because I have woken up too late to get a park at the train station. Worst of all, last night the aquaponics began overflowing due to a build up of healthy plant roots in the grow bed! Luckily I happened to hear the fish jumping and was able to save them!

So I'm not going to beat myself up, which can lead to becoming less motivated to act rather than more! I've decided to treat it as a challenging game, with sophisticated nuances and interesting players (my friends and family).

I begun searching the blog-o-sphere for wisdom. How to get results, set a good example and be happy with my efforts? This is challenging ... so let's make it interesting!

I know that one of the Permaculture originators, David Holmgren, has had some experience with us flawed humans. Check out the diagram below at 4 o'clock!

Source

The bible is full of observations and suggestions about how we manage ourselves so that we do what we know is right. We have been dealing with these issues for most if not all of human history.

In the professional world, the most productive people are highly organised, apply self-regulation and select how they will spend their time to get the most 'bang for their buck'.

So where does that leave me? I feel the answer includes not 'rushing' around. Rather, embracing the idiom - 'a stitch in time saves nine'. In being conscious of myself I can:

• Reduce over-stimulation by computer or TV
• Get enough sleep
• Wake 15 minutes earlier (or more)
• Generate a routine & spend time at home

A routine you say? Years ago, Mum gave my husband the 'hot tip' that I do better with routine... and can do anything within it. It's true; when I was at high school I did 6 high school subjects, no sweat; while at uni I held down two jobs, did full time uni, helped run the Christian union and had a boyfriend. Whew! But I had a routine! At some stage, I lost the routine and it felt like everything was falling apart, including my confidence.

I feel it all comes down to being calm and clear thinking! This allows for effective decision making and a 'balanced' life. As an adult now, I finally 'get' it and have certainly got my confidence back and feel as though I should be able to do almost anything... so back to the routine.

Being deliberately slow in changing my routine will make it easier (see 9 o'clock), I'll begin by tweaking my schedule as follows:

• The mornings of my days off will be treats for the chickens with blended fruit we haven't eaten or greens 'weeds' from the garden. I should enjoy this process!
• 2 minutes of aquaponics cleaning on a Saturday morning - risk management!
• Bins and composting on Tuesday nights (before rubbish pick up the next day)

I trust I will find myself living with more integrity and that I will be better equipped to make a difference in our world.

Over and out

Systems Thinking: We are all Environmental Managers

I'm lucky enough to work in an exciting field: tree declines in Western Australia.
During the last 6 months I've been able to have numerous discussions with some brilliant minds and this posting will capture some of this thinking.

I've also been reflecting on being a self-taught learner (autodidact) - which I feel is a very valuable thing to be, if I can claim that status? I admire this sentiment from Margaret Mead: "I learned to observe the world around me, and to note what I saw." The way I see it, we must pay attention, put two and two together and remember what we have learnt.

My big boss took me to the window the other day and pointed out the line of dead trees - Tasmanian Blue Gums. They'd simply run out of ground water. Plenty of other vegetation had survived, but these were the thirsty crowd.

I thought about that, suddenly putting two and two together... humans are using water that the trees have historically counted on to get them through droughts, possibly tipping them over the edge.

Water is important. I looked it up - we humans in Western Australia are using up to 50% ground water in our 'tap' water... leaving that much less for the plants. Bearing in mind we don't draw from every aquifer.

Having been interested in environmental matters for some time, it occurred to me that this was the first time I'd taken the 'lack of water' issue seriously - previously I was always thinking about human need/use. I felt ashamed but then began to realise that this is probably true for most environmentalists. I bumped into Jarred, pastor and peace activist, on the train and he couldn't believe that we use so much ground water. It is interesting to see that for most of us, water is 'out of sight and out of mind', but it can be reconstructed as not simply a commodity but life itself for the various ecological communities we live amongst.

Some weeks have passed since I experienced this paradigm shift. I was discussing this with a guest lecturer who I was lucky enough to hear speak on world food security from a plant pathologists point of view. He mentioned coal seam methane extraction and associated fracturing of the aquifers. Certainly, this is a permanent degradation of the previously separate bodies of water and fossil fuels - to farmers' detriment.

I trust that I can remember this lesson and be a systems thinker and not just a consumer.