Hemp describes low tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) strains of the plant Cannabis sativa. Of the approximately 2,000 cannabis plants varieties known, 90% contain only low-grade THC and are used for their fiber, seeds, paper, textiles, clothing, biodegradable plastics, construction and medicinal oils. Hemp is one of the earliest domesticated plants.
Hemp is thus legally grown in many countries across the world including Spain, China, Japan, Korea, France, and Ireland.
Hemp is one of the faster growing biomasses known and requires few pesticides and no herbicides.
What is the difference between industrial hemp and marijuana?
Cannabis sativa L. subsp. sativa var. sativa is the variety grown for industrial use, while C. sativa subsp. indica generally has poor fiber quality and is primarily used for recreational and medicinal purposes. Oilseed and fiber varieties of Cannabis (industrial hemp) produce only minute amounts of THC, not enough for any psychoactive effects. Typically, hemp contains below 0.3% THC, while cultivars of Cannabis grown for recreational use can contain anywhere from 2% to over 20%.
Hemp seeds as food
Hemp seeds can be eaten raw, ground into a meal, sprouted, made into hemp milk (akin to soy milk), prepared as tea, and used in baking. Dehulled hemp seed is the whole seed without the mineral rich outer shell.
“California Olive Ranch oil held its own against top-flight Italian oils, showing a promising balance of golden, buttery smoothness and peppery acidity.” Oct 2011
Here are some videos from The California Olive Ranch YouTube channel:
- 30% peat moss or coco coir
- 30% perlite or vermiculite
- 30% compost or soil
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Original post:
Miracle Gro Organic Choice is probably the best. It costs $9.77 at Home Depot:
The Vigoro brand organic soil mix was easier to find but it has more wooden chunks than Miracle Gro organic mix:
This is regular, not organic, soil mix (shown below). I selected organic soil instead of this one:
I did not buy a potting mix (shown below) but garden soil.
Tomatoes in raised garden beds (after 3 months).
Slideshow:
Related video and reading:
Best Source of Garden Soil to Grow Your Vegetables. - YouTube http://goo.gl/1875b
Secret Recipe For Drought Tolerant Container Garden Soil Mix http://goo.gl/dWuNq
Making a Raised-Bed Garden - Gardening Articles :: Edibles :: Vegetables :: National Gardening Association - http://goo.gl/wuXKi
Best Source of Garden Soil to Grow Your Vegetables. - YouTube http://goo.gl/FxsPm
The "Lifetime" Raised Garden Bed Kit contains a clear vinyl plastic tent enclosure and two 4 x 4 garden beds that can be used separately or stacked for an extra-deep bed. It is designed with 8 easy-to-assemble interlocking panels of polyethylene plastic with rust-resistant screws. It won't rot or attract insects like raised garden beds made out of timber.
The interlocking panels create the sidewalls and a weed barrier (not included) creates the bottom of this raised garden bed. This prevents weeds and underground pests from invading your garden. With raised beds you can easily customize the soil to your plants, so you won't be at the mercy of the natural soil conditions in your area.
Because the soil isn't compacted from being walked upon, a raised garden bed doesn't require tilling and provides more efficient drainage. Plant placement is done differently in a raised bed, and this allows you to grow five times as many crops as traditional gardening because it uses 20% of the space of single-row gardens. You'll also appreciate that the interlocking panels give you the option to disassemble and relocate your garden bed if you move or simply want to change your landscaping design. Cost: $99 at Costco, $150 at Amazon. The weed barrier is about $10 at Home Depot and Amazon.
Here is the covered garden bed:
Opened cover:
Tomato and pepper plants from Home Depot:
Growing garlic plants with some onions. The garlic is ready when it has 3 leaves. Here are some Green Garlic Recipes for Health - NYTimes http://goo.gl/wY7gK
The garlic (grown from cloves from Costco) did very well, especially compared to the onions purchased from Home Depot:
Covered and uncovered garden beds. The plastic covers is available for only one bed in the Costco package:
DIY greenhouse and irrigation system for the raised bed
I first saw this in the Square Foot Gardening book, and here is a summary from the Popular Mechanics website: Use galvanized pipe straps to mount 1-in. PVC pipe inside the bed walls. Cut ½-in. flexible PVC tubing twice as long as the beds' width. Bend it, mount it and clip a cover in place.
Use clear polyethylene film. Be careful not to bake your plants on warmer days. Remove the cover or slit vents in it to avoid excessive heat buildup. You can use the same pipes tp construct an irrigation system that is spaced 1 foot apart - serving as a grid if you Square Foot Gardening (SFG) system.
The Costco/Lifetime product comes with 2 beds, and one of them has a plastic cover. The least expensive option is a raised wooden bed from Home Depot for $35 (Home Depot offers more than 70 garden beds).
Tomatoes in raised garden beds (after 3 months).
Slideshow:
John from http://www.growingyourgreens.com/ takes you a field trip to Costco to show you a new product they are offering. It's the Lifetime 4' x 4' raised bed kit that comes with two 48"x48"x9" raised beds plus a Green House Dome that allows you to start your growing season earlier:
Explaining more than 100 groundbreaking ideas in the field, The Psychology Book uses accessible text and easy-to-follow graphics and illustrations to explain the complex theoretical and experimental foundations of psychology.
From its philosophical roots through behaviorism, psychotherapy, and developmental psychology, The Psychology Book looks at all the greats from Pavlov and Skinner to Freud and Jung, and is an essential reference for students and anyone with an interest in how the mind works.
To the complete novice, learning about philosophy can be a cause for dread. The Philosophy Book uses innovative graphics and creative typography to help demystify hard-to-grasp concepts for those new to philosophy, cutting through the haze of misunderstanding, untangling knotty theories, and shedding light on abstract concepts. Aimed at anyone with a general interest in how our social, political, and ethical ideas are formed, as well as students of philosophy and politics, The Philosophy Book breathes new life to a subject that is often regarded as esoteric and academic.
This is a beautifully illustrated book, $15.99 at Costco, Hardcover: 208 pages, Publisher: Quercus (September 30, 2010). Recommended.
From Amazon: Science is a visually stunning introduction to all the major scientific disciplines, covering chemistry, physics, geology, biology and cosmology. Piers Bizony begins with physics and the basic building blocks of matter, offering a lucid and usefully illustrated account of the extraordinary and often baffling world of atomic and subatomic particles.
Piers Bizony is an internationally recognized writer on science and film. He is a regular contributor to Focus magazine, The Independent and Wired.
Costco, one of the top 3 warehouse club stores in the U.S. (along with Sam's Club and BJ's), started offering its own private label (Kirkland Signature) line of Handcrafted Beer in 2008 with 4 varieties:
- Pale Ale, top-fermented - Amber Ale, a darker version of pale ale, top-fermented
- Hefeweizen, unfiltered wheat beer, bottom-fermented - German-style Lager ("lager" is "storage" in German), bottom-fermented
As of 2011, the lineup has changed to include all ale type beers:
- Belgian White Ale
- India Pale Ale
- Pale Ale - Amber Ale
This is a brief review of each beer:
- Belgian White Ale (malt beverage brewed with spices) - with oats, wheat and barley malt. Coriander and orange peel are added to create a citrus aroma. It is seasoned with hops from the Yakima Valley in Washington State. This wheat beer is unfiltered (it looks "cloudy"), in the classic Belgian style of "witbier" (white beer). The beer is not bitter at all (relatively speaking), at 10 IBU.
- India Pale Ale - this beer tastes bitter (67 IBU) due to the generous amounts of Anerican hops, including Cascade, Centennial, and Amarillo - it even has a hops drawing on the label. The malts are barley, Munich and English crystal malt.
European Bitterness Units scale, often abbreviated as EBU, is a scale for measuring the perceived bitterness of beer. The scale and method are defined by the European Brewery Convention, and the numerical value should be the same as of the International Bitterness Units scale (IBU), defined in co-operation with the American Society of Brewing Chemists.
The European Brewery Convention also defines units for the colour of beer, for which the abbreviation EBC is used. This should not be confused with the bitterness units.
The International Bittering Units scale, or simply IBU scale, provides a measure of the bitterness of beer, which is provided by the hops used during brewing. Bittering units are measured through the use of a spectrophotometer and solvent extraction.
The bittering effect is less noticeable in beers with a high quantity of malt, so a higher IBU is needed in heavier beers to balance the flavor. For example, an Imperial Stout may have an IBU of 50, but will taste less bitter than an English Bitter with an IBU of 30, because the latter beer uses much less malt than the former. The technical limit for IBU's is around 100; some have tried to surpass this number, but there is no real gauge after 100 IBUs when it comes to taste threshold. Light lagers without much bitterness will generally have 5 IBUs, while an India Pale Ale may have 100 IBUs or more.
