Seed Saving Blog

It is so empowering and liberating to plant the seeds you have collected! Seeing them germinate, sprout and become edible wonders is the most beautiful process on earth. We have been collecting and saving our seeds since a little before we left Hawaii, many did not make it however with all of the transit, humidity and a few punctured bags...but we have almost a hundred different seeds that are growing and being prepared to plant. We will now be keeping a detailed list of our plants on the blog. Limon has set his ultimate goal at 1,000 diverse plants! Also, from every batch of seeds we dry and save, we label, date and store them in our "seed catalog" for future propagation and general data. This is very laborious and kind of a pain when all you want to do is make dinner and you get to sit there cleaning the seeds our of all the veggies for a half hour- but trust me- it's worth it.

Every seed is a challenge to sack but cucumbers, tomatoes and hot chilies are by far the worst. For these you let the pulp and seeds ferment for 3-4 days then strain them and let them dry. Most things are fine to sun dry but not these- chill dry in the shade with lots of air flow or they will start to rot. Most things germinate nicely with a wet paper towel, but I prefer to start everything in my little dirt seed-starters in the greenhouse so they can have a week to get strong before the face the wind. I cleaned about 20 chilies, a rare heirloom that's as big as

ahi chombo dulce but bright yellow and as hot as a habanero. I had no idea they were that hot and wore no gloves. I literally had pink burning skin on my fingers for a day and a half! So con

cuidado! The salsa I made it a beautiful color and the hottest thing you've ever tasted! Today I also started the globe watermelon I ate last week, perfectly round (almost personal-size) sweet and lots of seeds. Can't wait for those!

Don't be a slave to big agro! Save seeds at home with every meal- especially when you find something really delicious- shouldn't you get to eat that again? Viva semillas!

Limon:

"Where am I going to sleep tonight? Who cares! What is the world doing? Have new gods been discovered, new laws, new freedoms? Who cares! But up here the primrose is blossoming and bearing silver fuzz on it's leaves, and the light sweet wind is singing below me in poplars, and between my eyes and heaven a dark golden bee is hovering and humming- I care about that. It is humming the song of happiness, humming the song of eternity. Its song is my history of the world." - Wandering, Hesse

The Big Fast

So wow. We have been in the yellow house for almost 2 weeks now. Our rental options faulted by a week and we camped on the land in our greenhouse for a week- it was rough but we made it-

and honestly it was very peaceful and we got a lot of work done. Shiva is in heat for the first time and attracting every dirty, mangy mut in a 5 mi radius! It really tested our fence and we found all the holes after a few nights. One night i left a pot of chicken soup boiling on the fire for the morning and Shiva and a friend up-sided my soup, stole the pechugas of chicken and I can only imagine proceeded to have a rowdy chicken eating-dog sex party all night. We're praying she's not preggers and are going to take her to be neutered.

So once we moved in next door (so cool) we started detox and fasting, I made it 7 days this time. Wow. Once you set your mind to it it's not impossible and if you're in tune with your body you know when it's ready, or when it's begging! My body was so ready so it was an easier transition. The first couple days are always hard and at the end when you start to get your hunger back and you have to ease back into it with straight teas, raw and fresh juices and then finally vegan meals. Yesterday I made eggplant parmigianno and we celebrated our return to the world of cheese!

So for the first days I eased myself down with lime juice, honey with propoleos (polen etc.), teas of lemongrass, lime leaves, ginger, and garlic, cayenne, and flax. We made purees of water, beet,

carrot, celery, spinach etc. We ate raw garlic- try this! whew.... and ginger and drank a lot of water, green tea, red rooibos tea (thanks Rob!), black lychee tea and lots of sage tea. Limon also got a plant that grows like a weed here, they say it cleans your blood- and much more- but it tastes terrible, lots of that too.

Once you peel away the layers its so refreshing, you feel so clean. The first hardest thing is the carbs- refined white flour, rice whatever. After this maybe you crave some fat, any kind, animal fat... a glass of wine...something...but then the worst darkest hardest thing to cut- SUGAR. You would kill for sugar- just a spoonful of honey, a flake of dark chocolate, a glass of agua de pipa

(coconut water) anything, but you persevere and after that last cruel day you're free. You crave nothing. It's total liberation. You don't need or want a thing. The next 4 days of my fast we amazing, I meditated, watched a lot of movies, read, walked, gardened. It was amazing. Once I started to feel weak I started introducing calories again slowly, just raw veggie juice, lime and teas, no honey at first, then with time, fruit juices, pinapple, watermelon, orange, avocado, and then finally whole foods again. What a wild ride. You need a peaceful environment, time and the right state of mind- and this is truly a gift everyone should give themselves. Fasting can save your life- and if you'd like more info there's a book by this name- check it out! Not to mention- you loose an average of 2lbs per day!

Fence con't

The fence is just gorgeous. Seeing the way the light changes during the hours of the day is inspiring. It creates its own shade but let's the breeze through. My beans have all sprouted successfully and are about 3" after a week. I built 2' beds with river rocks and the topsoil from the fence digging all around the perimeter (well i'm halfway through...) for the beans, other vines: squash, watermelon,

chayote, chilies hot and sweet and various local flowers. Of course Shiva's favorite place to sleep! The greenhouse is amazing for germination and sprouting- we had a slight ventilation problem, although the mesh does breathe- it's not enough so we opened up another door on the opposite side for cross-ventilation. Hopefully the breeze will keep the flow and we won't need to install fans. Our Paiu plant had a small fungus infection but we moved it outside near the coffee and it's doing great.

We are waiting for our reclaimed felled teak, eucalyptus and ceder to come in December before we can start the cabin. It's being certified reclaimed so the paper work is taking some time. It's a really good thing however, the gov. makes sure all wood cutting is legit and no wood is cut from the many reserves and forests. It's tempting for the indigenous people to sell their trees but this keeps black-

market wood sales in check and promotes recovery of fallen trees. They literally pull over all trucks carrying wood, a small victory for the pathetic panamanian government. We had another lead on some felled pine from our friend Jose, so Limon is taking a trip down to the Frontera to settle up- it looks like we can just pay to load the wood and transport it back to the land (roughly $300-400 for 3,000+').

Usually wood goes for between $1-2 per foot so a real steal!

We saw a nice wood cabin nearby that used the rounded outer edges of the trees which is a large part of what we'll be getting, it's beautifully rustic. We figure we can build the first 2-3' of the foundation and walls with all the river rocks we have and minimal cement- we've seen quite a few examples around we like. And the roof is going to be a living sod roof with self-irrigation and water-catching. We're going to install a small solar shower and a compost toilet off of the back of the cabin, both of which we have already practiced (a couple prototypes...) and are comfortable constructing.

It's so funny when you walk up to the land now it looks like an old Spanish fort, with the huge Panamanian flag dead center on a 25' bamboo pole and the impenetrable bamboo circa. It's quite formidable and impressive.