This post has been a year in the making!  One year ago…Anthony Anderson…did a post on growing Goji and Incan Berries....check it out..here.  He challenged people to seek out Goji and Incan Berries and to GROW them..not just buy them online.  Thanks for ALWAYS inspiring us here in Utah..Anthony!!

Taking him up on the challenge was fun…and proved to be a great learning lesson that is now being applied to most of the things we’re growing from seed.

Here’s the photo journey that started about a year ago now.  These little ladies just want to GROW…but…we stacked the cards in our favor by providing them some HUGE minerals and lots of LOVE!!

There are many different ways to germinate seeds, like all things.  Here’s the method we’re using.  The goal was to get the plants to uptake as many minerals as they possibly could…creating VIBRANT, STRONG, and HEALTHY plants!!

One of the gojis, this morning, March 21st 2010

Have FUN…growing your own Gojis…or whatever you choose to grow.  The ocean water, in my opinion, is the secret sauce, in the whole process.  It gives them exactly what they need from the get go.  The rest of the process..is just a whole lotta fun…seeing what you can do to help the little guys GROW!!  They enjoy your company just about more than anything!!

Then again…you can probably just stick the little guys in the ground and they’ll grow just as well…hahaha.  Seriously!

Now..just two more years or so..and we might get some berries!!

Of all the gardeners and growers of things…David Wolfe…is one of the MOST inspiring and illuminating examples… of how I want to LIVE and GROW!!   Check out his NoniLand agricultural research center in Hawaii!  He’s using ocean water,  rock dust, and many other Ormus elements…in his soil.  This “gardener“…is a true teacher..and one of my heroes..thank you..DAVID!

“If you want to view paradise..simply look around and view it.”

- Willy Wonka

ALOHA…made this video a few months back..to share how I amended the SOIL in our square foot garden beds, after the summer crop.  So..it’s a little old, but still relevant.  I’ll be shooting some Winter updates soon..and show the GROWTH!!  They’re all GROWING again..now that the sun is rising higher in it’s path each day.  VERY grateful for the SUN!

The cold is fine..but no SUN…makes it hard to grow much at all!!  Glad it’s back up there!  Digging swales and planting seeds again!

SO many ways to tend your soil..this is just one of them.  Hope everyone’s having fun tending to theirs.  I’m going to keep playing around with different things like greensand, kelp, the list goes..on!  Such a fun experiment..and the plants love you…and you feel LOVE…while playing with them!

Things used to amend the SOIL: 

AZOMITE
(Great ROCK DUST that..adds trace minerals back..the worms love it!)

RED WIGGLERS
(Beautiful Bacteria!)

COMPOST
(make your own..throw some worms and Azomite in there..to help you work the pile..!)

OCEAN WATER
(diluted 2000)ppm  …adds all “known” and ”unknown” trace minerals/ormus minerals back!

….for more info on SOIL…creating it…amending it and tending to it…

YOU’LL LOVE…both these books!!  SO much info..the kind of books you can read over and over and over..and still catch new insights every time!!

 

The sprouting/ocean room, perfect climate conditions!

There seems to be a connection to ocean water and growing healthy food, of therapeutic quality!  

 Dr. Gabriel Cousens mentions using ocean water, in “Spiritual Nutrition” and says they use ocean water exclusively at the Tree of Life Center in Patagonia, Arizona.  It’s working so well, that interns from around the world have started going there to learn more.  He references the work of Dr. Maynard Murray, in “Sea Energy Agriculture, for where to learn more about using ocean water in farming.  So we did!  We picked up a copy of Murray’s book and another book on the subject, called Fertility from the Ocean Deep, by Charles Walters.

After reading and applying the work found in  ”Sea Energy Agriculture” by Dr. Maynard Murray, and “Fertility from the Ocean Deep” by Charles Walters, we’re convinced it’s profoundly true! 

So here’s the connection…………if you feed your soil minerals……..plants pick up the minerals from the soil………if people and animals then eat the plants……… they get the perfect quantity of minerals…… in the perfect form,  prepared for them by the plant. 

Great mineralization means healthy plants and healthy people!

 

The Ocean Room / Sprout Room...growing anemones and tomatoes.

According to Dr. Murray, if you visualize for a moment that minerals found in the soil are little rubies and gems, then, you can imagine plants for a moment as “little miners” or extractors of these minerals.  He said it’s easy to then visualize the gardner as the caretaker of the ”mine” or ”soil” and how each different plant the gardener puts in the soil mines specific minerals through it’s roots and into itself.  Gardners, in this case, are more caretakers of the soil and have the responsibility of replenishing it with minerals if they want strong crops!   It’s a fun visualization because literally, that’s whats happening.  As crops grow, they leech minerals out of the the soil eventually leaving the ground they’re in…depleted of these life giving minerals.  The farmer is extracting the minerals/gems out of the “mine/soil”, not with his pick, but with his plants!  

These “minerals” are the major and minor trace minerals we know as Calcium, Phosphorus, Potassium, Iodine..etc… the periodic chart from science class!   They’re also known as Macronutrients and Micronutrients. 

Either way…..the minerals are gone, unless you give them back to the soil somehow.  There are many methods to keep minerals in the soil, from green manures, to using seaweed, to using rock powders.  All which we’ll check into in later posts!

 

Heirloom tomato seedlings... sprouting in ocean water & coconut coir!

Here’s an example from, ”Sea Energy Agriculture” of how many minerals a plant will extract from the soil, if the minerals are present.  Tomatoes will “mine” almost 50 of the known 92 minerals (minor and major).  Sweet potato will mine about 63 minerals.  The grass family (wheat, rye, etc..) will mine all 92 known minerals!   Only if given the opportunity though!  The minerals have to be in the soil first! 

When asked where he would get the minerals to add to the soil, Murray suggested the OCEAN!  Every known mineral is found in the ocean, even gold!   Not just any water, his insights were specific, at least 50 miles from shore…and the water must be collected at 40 ft down and 30 ft up from the ocean floor.  Interesting insights!  Worth checking into….all in these books.

Murray suggested diluting the ocean water to the proper parts per million.  He did numerous tests on many different farms and had huge successess, from increased yield to increased nutritive value.   Huge increases!  Sometime increases in mineral uptake of 300 percent!  The plants just loved it!  So did the animals that ate the plants.   His tests on increased animal health are also in the book.

Black Krim, Cherokee Purple, Prudens Purple, heirloom tomatoes! Growing under a 250 watt metal halide, 10,OOO Kelvin Bulb

With this understanding, he said that we can then start providing the plants with the proper minerals, which, when extracted out of the soil by the plants, they become STRONGER….and are resistant to pests, mold, fungus and disease!

Heirloom Spinach, Kale, Arugula, Nasturtium sprouting in ocean water.

Stronger plants, means more strength, health and vitality in those that eat those plants.  This has been scientifically proven in multiple tests done by Dr. Murray.  He proved that farm animals raised on ocean grown plants didn’t get sick!  They were bigger in size and they were happier! 

Bloomsdale Longstanding Spinach....loving the ocean water!

The Key is the Minerals!  Ocean water just so happens to contain all known minerals!  Most of the World’s soils are depleted of these essential minerals.  Through erosion, bad agricultural practices, etc…soils have slowly become void of life. 

Where there is life giving soil (virgin soil)…farmers usually exploit it with one or two good years of production on the land, and either move on to new land within a few years or watch their crops vitality waste away with each new growing season. 

Just snowed, Feb 7th 2009

Historically, farmers in the U.S. have seen good results these first few years, but then, as the crops they’ve planted pull the minerals out of the soil, farmers begin to add chemicals in the form of (N.P.K) nitrogen, phosphorus nd potassium, only 3 of the 92 known minerals!  Most chemical fertilizer mixes add no more than 12 more of these known minerals!  Farmers have historically been forced to keep buying these chemical fertilizers to see the same production the following year.  Even worse, since the plants are weakened, nature sends in pests to get rid of the plants…..well….. farmers just add more chemicals to fight them off……!

All Ocean-grown plants..keeping warm...under a canopy of snow!

You can see the cycle here……..!    Why not just grow your plants in highly mineralized soil….and when those minerals are depleted…. re-supply the soil with minerals in the form of diluted ocean water?   

Life seems to be there, in the water!

Plenty of Green under here....

One other thing I liked that Dr. Murray mentions is this. 

For humans, the most bio-available form of ingesting these essential minerals is through the consumption of plants.  Not through direct intake of these trace minerals! 

The reason, is that plants, make these minerals more organically available to our bodies, this is one of their beautiful functions! 

This made a lot of sense when I read it, not so much to my science mind, but to my intuition.   The plants are processors of these in-organic minerals.  So the best/deepest way to get mineralized is through eating highly mineralized plant foods!  Foods that had the opportunity to pull up every mineral they could from the soil they were growing in!!!!  The minerals they extracted are now found in their perfect essence in the plant!  Perfect for human consumption!  The plant will not pull up what it and we cannot use!

We’re going to continue using ocean water in growing our food!  It tastes better!   It feels better!

Attempting to undertand why things work from a science perspective is one thing…..it has it’s place………but biting into and tasting for yourself and feeling with your intuition………. ,the food’s vitality…….,for me,….  is the most direct way,  to decide if the food you’re eating is nutritious!  So, next time you bite into a tomato, think about all the minerals that are….or aren’t or could….be there! 

Budding Fig! Blossoming Almond in background!

So where do you get ocean water??  We’ve been using diluted ocean water from growgreens.com…of all the sources out there we like these guys!  They’re using the exact methods described by Dr. Murray and they’re even adding to it.  They’re including the methods of Rudolph Steiner, the Bio Dynamic farming pioneer.  They’re potentiating the mix, using the Bio Dynamic preps. spoken of by Steiner in his famous lectures in the 1920′s and vortexing them in valerian, dandelion, and other such known homeopathic remedies to give us…..

                                                THALASSA MIX

Thalassa Mix, from..GrowGreens.com

We just can’t say enough about this stuff!  We’ve been growing hydroponic wheatgrass, sprouting all of our seeds, fertilizing our gardens, all with with this Thalassa Mix, from growgreens.com!  Since each plant requires a different dilution, we just mix up a batch of spring water, diluted with the proper amount of ocean water, then test with our digital TDS meter for the proper parts per million.   THAT EASY!  Our one gallon container we purchased from growgreens.com is only half way gone!  We’ve used it constantly for almost 8 months.  You only need about one cap full of ocean water per 5 gallons regular water, a little goes a long……way! 

Interestingly, Dr. Maynard Murray died before his ideas could be accepted.  In fact, he died many decades ago.  He lived in a time when chemical companies ruled the earth.  His ideas were conveniently forgotton or laughed at.  Until now….

That’s about it for this overly long post!  More to come on ocean water.  We’ll be doing a post on growing wheat grass very soon.  All you need is a tray and two paper towels, then ……… 

Just add ocean water!  Everythings in the water!