Roberto pokachinni

A former partner of mine was a massage therapist.  When she was in training, she learned that technique, and explained it to me.  When she got home, from practical training, or when she began employment, my job was to pour out the bins full of water, just as you described.  One with Ice, and other just cool enough that you could enter it's heat without being too hot.  As a railway labourer, I have used the technique often to very good effect on my tired, over-stimulated muscles.  

Ok.  Thanks Sharol.  I do have plenty of rue growing in my garden.  My mother planted it to ward off deer.  It didn't stop the deer.  But oh well.  I had not heard of Rue's effectiveness with ligaments.  Great to know.

I have used the hot cold treatment to help relieve tense overworked muscles before, but hadn't thought of it for a sprain.  Will try that.

Although I am still working, the wrist is tensor wrapped to immobilize it, so that it, the joint, is still fairly rested.  I do have wild arnica and feral st johns wort as well, in my area, and I'm hoping to get some growing on my property,  

Welcome back Sharol Tilgner

Hi.

At Christmas time I fell on some ice and landed on my hand.  

It has taken a long time to heal... but I haven't done anything for it.  It aches in the wrist in two positions.

On Friday I decided to get Xrayed.  yikes.  Always kinda freaks me out to do that, for some reason.  I wanted to make sure hat there was no fracture.

Anyway, it's a sprain.  

I was given some commercial preparation and tensor bandages by the good doctor, but I would rather heal such things with herbs in the future.

I have comfrey in the ground, but it was recently -40 C, so I'd need a jackhammer to get some!

So what herbal preparations do you recommend for the future, particularly those which grow in Zone 3?  

I've never used coir, but I have a feeling that it is high in carbon.  That was my thinking.  It will draw nitrogen into it.  Microbes need nitrogen to make carbon into useful soil.  Left as a mulch on the surface, no problem, or at least very minimal, but mixed in, high carbon substances can cause nitrogen deficiencies.

You need a certain amount of consistent moisture in your soil system to ensure growth.

It's difficult to guess as to what is wrong.

Chemicals (even chemical fertilizers)  can play nasty games with microbial communities, and plant uptake of nutrients.

It could be that a lot more organic matter in the form of compost needs to be added to the surface layers, and some compost tea might be beneficial in order to get the microbial community to grow to necessary proportions.

There is a whole forum on Permies with a lot of threads about this type of farming.  Here's the forum Asian Natural Farming

Many things come to mind when reading your thread.

Those beds are definitely awkwardly big.  What sort of walkways did you build?  

Leaching is an issue with too much irrigation or rain.  

Did all the soil come from the same place?  

What was it's history before you got involved with it?

Could there be chemical contaminants?

What is the strata that the beds are sitting on top of?

Have you tested the soil for mineral deficiencies or ph?

Which green manure crops did you use?

How well did the green manure grow?  This might give an indication as to what it needs.

What is the mulch you mention?  

What was the form of the coir?  If it was too course and was mixed in, it could be robbing your soil of nitrogen and other nutrients necessary for plant growth.

 

Chicken manure is pretty rich.  Some call it hot because it sort of burns the roots of young seedlings.  If you don't wait, that is the potential risk.  You might want to broadfork it and then plant a cover crop of oats to sort of neutralize it into a mellower form.  It might be fine, depending on how much manure is in place, but grasses seem to be able to handle it regardless.  

One thing that you could do is rake up the area to get the concentrated manure and some of the thatch and debris left-overs from the area, put that in your compost (where you gain the nutrients from the manure and nutralize it into an even more beneficial form), while putting other compost back on the land to broadfork in and plant into.  Then you can plant anything, I'd think.      

a slurry on its own for the same purpose?  

was more what I was thinking.  Or just chopped up and let the bugs do it for you.  I know a guy in Arizona who did this with priclkly pear leaves

Geoff Lawton mentions using gels to help soils retain their water (and thus, likely, nutrients) in dryland conditions.  You might be able to experiment with using mashed aloe in your garden soils.