Thursday, March 11, 2010
   
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Vegetable Planning

Vegetable Gardening Made Easy
Garden planning specialists GrowVeg.com have just launched a series of online guides to growing fruit, vegetables and herbs in your own garden.

 
More and more people are experiencing the thrill of growing their own fresh produce yet the specialist knowledge required to succeed at this can be daunting.  Not only do different vegetables need sowing and planting at specific times but they also need spacing correctly, planting in the correct position and protecting from pests.  The techniques vary from plant to plant and just knowing when to feed or harvest them can often save your whole crop from spoiling.

Plant grow guides


To make the process simple, GrowVeg.com have created a series of free online ‘GrowGuides’ listing all the important information for more than 90 fruit, vegetables and herbs from their extensive database.   Each plant contains a full listing of all the vital factors that enable it to be grown successfully together with information on troubleshooting and harvesting.


As well as the plant information, gardeners can add their own growing tips and advice.  The thousands of people who use GrowVeg.com will be using this to build up a repository of all the shared gardening knowledge about each crop along with helpful ways to grow them.

 
To complement this there are a series of GrowGuide articles written by gardening experts.  These cover topics such as Controlling Pests, Starting a New Plot and Gardening with Children.


GARDEN PLANNING TOOL – FREE TRIAL

The new GrowGuides can also work in conjunction with GrowVeg.com’s unique Garden Planning Tool which is used by gardeners to organise their vegetable plots.  This online software makes it simple to create plans, print customised planting calendars and rotate crops from year to year.  Gardeners can opt to receive email reminders of when to sow and plant each of their vegetables and these link directly to the GrowGuide plant pages.  Getting organised in the garden has never been so easy!

 

Free 30 day trial

 

 

 

 

 

Eco Domain Names for sale

Eco Domain Names for sale

Buying a domain to sum up your business or interest is important.

A good domain help you:

1. Improve Your Marketing and Visibility.

2. Build Credibility.

3. Protect Your Brand.

4. Acquire More Traffic for your site.

5. Invest for the future.

We have a few domain names here that are of environmental and ethical interest that are for sale through Sedo…….

BuyEco.net

Ecomise.com

EcoTourismIreland.com

GardenDesignIreland.com

GreenTourismIreland.com

Groconomy.com

GrowEco.com

HomeHemp.com

Irish-wind.com

Vegite.com

Vegitec.com

Wateire.com

Here are some more sites of interest that are also for sale through Sedo……

AddFinder.com

Arthursday.com

BargainRails.com

BetaValu.com

Ciair.com

Deck6.com

Eirest.com

FlagWorld.org

i-why.com

intey.com

Irelandi.com

Irish-sport.com

Irishown.com

Mediagb.com

Mediash.com

Musicclouds.com

Now1.net

Orgaincs.com

RegisteredSeller.com

SingleFigures.com

SportingTimes.net

Stoppingin.com

Treatingyou.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

entry number 1

By Anon...

 

In 5 years time we will be well in to or will have past what is known as “peak oil”. What does that mean to you and me?.......

Well obviously your petrol/diesel is going to cost more………well that’s only a small part of it!!. Forget peak oil just for a moment but instead just look at the political situation of the world concerning energy…boring I know but like it or not it will affect every corner of your lives from this day onwards.

The oil producers now know that they are king because until 10 years ago the main people who wanted oil was just really the western countries amounting to or up to 700 million consumers approximately. But since then well over 1 billion Chinese and possibly over 1 billion Indians and quite a few hundreds of millions of people elsewhere around the world are also demanding the same oil we use. So up until 10 years ago when our economies had a hiccup the price of oil plummeted as there was no demand but now it doesn’t fall very far and it is also now very firmly on a steady rise, in fact it has already doubled in price since January, and those oil producers who want to make as much money as possible from whatever means they can by increasing the price have openly stated they want the price of oil to be between 250 – 400 dollars per barrel. 12 months ago you were paying 1.45 euro per litre because oil was 140 dollars per barrel, so what price will you be paying for your fuel if the price of oil goes to 250-400 dollars per barrel,……2 maybe 3 euro’s per litre ?

What the hell as this got to do with food or organic food ???........The answer is quite a lot and for many reasons in Ireland. Bagged fertiliser and chemicals for spraying vegetables are all made from or/and using oil, whether it be in the raw materials or in the fuel to transport and manufacture and apply these products. So very soon organic food which doesn’t use these products will or could possibly be cheaper than food produced by using these products and also “local produce” will come into its own, as food which has travelled many miles will become unviable because of fuel costs and various governments who want to raise yet more tax to feed their greedy little ways by bringing in “eco-taxes” or “carbon taxes” in pretence of caring for the environment. Chemical companies may scheme and fight to discredit or stop anything that stops the huge income from selling chemicals to the agricultural industry, but their hands may be tied by the oil producers and the world wide demand for fuel, so maybe we may soon see new strains of diseases and pests appearing……I wonder from where???? All in all your food costs are going to rise steeply very soon and that’s before anybody has mentioned the environment or population levels.

Ireland is one of those far flung places which thankfully is many miles from huge population areas, but also bringing products to Ireland and transporting them from Ireland is and will be very much more expensive and maybe become unviable for business’s in the future. So perhaps looking to industrialise Ireland with foreign companies producing goods here and then having to expensively transport them to the populated consumers may be a thing of the past. But Ireland is a very rich place in untapped energy from wind and water and also has large areas of land which could be producing timber low quality timber for fuel, all of which will be massively in demand soon and also fetching a premium price with a long lucrative future ahead of it. Ireland also has a growing organic movement producing food which could be on par or even cheaper than other food in what is really only a few years time, and this needs protecting from whatever and whoever wouldn’t want to see it succeed for whatever reason. Everybody agrees that food and energy will be in huge demand in the future and prices will certainly rise to suit.

So more and more of you will be growing your own food and most possibly you will be doing it organically and not just for health reasons………Do you think the days of big players selling food like Tesco’s could be numbered?…….nothing lasts forever and they like you will have to change to suit. Up until recently we spent our money on second houses and cars which have turned out to be a bit of a folly to a lot of people, perhaps a wise decision in the future would be to invest in fuel production and food production. China might be able to supply the world in cheap manufactured goods but even China is trying to source energy for the future and actually goes around the world leasing huge areas of farm land from other countries and installs Chinese farmers to produce food for the growing Chinese population.

That’s how desperate things are and will become worse very soon………depressing isn’t it?....but not if you have a small population…..lots of spare land and are involved with organic food production. Ireland gave away its envied and very lucrative fishing rights to the E.U. 30 years ago, some may say she got the money back in other ways, but those fish would have been worth a pretty penny in a few years time, Ireland must protect what she has left now.

   

Detox yourself

Toxic chemicals are all around us. Not just the visible ones such as tobacco smoke and exhaust fumes, but hundreds of chemicals that go unseen. Carpets and upholstery, industrial glues, paints, cleaning products and even perfumes have ingredients that can harm our immune systems. There are ways in which you can cut down on the contact from toxic chemicals. One example is to make your own surface cleaner (Tea tree and lemon essential oil mixed in water for example) and to go for natural air fresheners instead of chemical ones.

When you cut out chemicals from the house you might feel an improvement in the air quality straight away, check out the Green Clean Book for some ideas.... Other effects are more subtle. It might be a month or two before you realise that you don’t have an afternoon headache or your complexion has cleared up or you can breath easier. Within six months you might find that you react very strongly to the smell of chemical cleaners. Just like perfume we eventually can’t smell it if we are in contact with it for a long period, our bodies become resistant to the odour. You will also find that your nose will be able to detect the nice smells again like fresh flowers and home cooking. This will make you realise how much your sense of smell is dulled by household chemicals.

When certain chemicals are no longer poisoning your system you might find that you become aware of certain foods or smells that make you feel ill. Heed the warnings and cut these out of your diet completely. This is the start of the detoxification process.

DETOXIFICATIONMore ideas for the Green Clean E-Book
During the period of detoxification you need to follow your bodies needs. You might find that you are more tired than usual. Sleep is when your body does its essential maintenance work, so go to bed earlier for a while. Here are some other ways of helping your body.

Change your diet. This doesn’t have to be too drastic. Go for organic fruit and vegetables. A diet low in saturated fat will help to keep toxins from building up in the body. Go for oily fish such as sardines, mackerel, trout, salmon and herring. These contain essential fatty acids that fight the effects of chemical exposure on the body.

Exercise. Choose two or three activities that you enjoy and work these into your schedule each week. Anything that makes you sweat is particularly useful for boosting metabolism and helping the release of toxins through the skin.

Stress relief. The state of your body often reflects the state of your mind. Too much stress will depletes the body of nutrients needed to fight the effects of pollution. Choose activities that get you totally absorbed and allow you to switch off completely for a while. Yoga and meditation can be very relaxing and the deep breathing that is involved will promote the release of toxins via the lungs.

Hydrotherapy. Water in all its states helps to purify the body. Try relaxing in a bath with cider vinegar, epsom salts or sea salt added to the water. These will stimulate the skin to release toxins. If you belong to a health club have a steam sauna and a massage would also be a very good idea!

Plants. Common houseplants can help to remove toxins from indoor air. The most effective ones are aloe vera, English ivy, spider plants, peace lilies, philodendrons, bamboo plants, chrysanthemums and daisies. Each has been shown to remove harmful chemicals such as formaldehyde, benzene and xylene from the air.

SHOPPING
When you shop for cleaning products look out for the ones with the least amount of chemicals present in the list of ingredients. This won’t guarantee that the product doesn’t have harmful irritants in them but it will go some way to relieving the symptoms of industrial poisoning.

FRESH AIR
Here’s an alternative air freshener idea to get you started on the road to a chemical free environment. Mix a 200g box of baking soda with 10-15 drops of you favourite essential oils. Put into a cardboard box, which you can decorate if you wish, or a small dish. Put out of the way and let it get rid of most of the household pongs.

 

   

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