Bryant RedHawk

I truly understand, I think the wheat varieties now grown on the large commercial scale in the USA have been bred to have higher protein content (thus higher gluten than even bread flour or pasta flour).
It does make good sense to cut out one thing at a time to get to what the issue is being caused by.

There are flour types that are no gluten (Bob's Red Mill has more than five available). Oats don't have gluten at all in case you didn't know that.

I'd be willing to bet it is the way wheat is being processed today over the kernel proper, most of the older methods didn't get rid of the germ prior to grinding and that might have something to do with it.
Mostly (for the overall population) I think it is more of a trendy thing than a real health issue such as your family is having to deal with.

We are thinking seriously about growing some of the ancient wheat varieties, especially if I can get more than 50 seeds for a starter crop.
Einkorn is one of the European ancient wheat varieties that has low gluten and what gluten it contains is far easier to digest than any modern wheat gluten.

Good luck Kola, I wish you great success in this battle.

Redhawk

hau R,

Unless people have the rare imuno defect that causes allergic reactions to Wheat proteins (gluten) then leaving them out means less dietary fiber is being consumed by that person needlessly. Wolf went through a period where she thought gluten might be a cause of her problem but the tests showed she was not in that minority of folks that can't digest gluten.

Currently there is a huge number of people depriving them selves because it is "trendy" to be gluten free. This is similar to the big Egg and Butter episodes that bad or incomplete science caused back in the 1970's and continues with many. As it turns out eggs are good for us, and only bad if you over indulge, same for butter, butter is less fattening than the margarine (hydrogenated vegetable oils) which will indeed clog your arteries far faster than using real butter will.

If you have the allergy, then by all means don't eat gluten breads or other flour based items. If you are just leaving it out to be "one in the trend" then you might want to rethink that decision, it might just turn out to be one that bad for health.  Fiber in the diet is very necessary, one of the things it does is keep plaque from building up in the arteries, and most know the other really important thing it does for the digestive system.

Every one should know what their soil base line is when they begin gardening, farming or just putting in a lawn.
If you don't know what you have to start with, how do you expect to fill in the blanks so you are growing great soil?

I have posted up the what and how of soil testing soil testing and I do think that it should be done, especially when you first get on a piece of land.
I also like to test in the fall of every year, just the garden beds (I treat the whole of my acreage and base the amending on what the garden beds tell me is needed).

Redhawk

hau Donald, welcome to permies and I too have used carpet as a mulch layer, I also like it for covering compost heaps.

As long as your carpets are made in NZ I don't think you will have any issues with toxicity, I believe the "glue" they use is natural rubber based and if it is, no worries mate.

Redhawk

Kai Walker wrote:Did you know that humus can last a whopping 1,000 YEARS!

Did you know that humus is a liquid? most people (and this includes some with scientific backgrounds) think that what you get at the end of a composting cycle is humus, it is not, that matter is detritus not humus.
Humus occurs from leachates mixing with bacteria and those bacteria then exude enzymes that break down the components of the leachate and those individual atoms recombine to form humic acids which then react and combine into long chain molecules that is humus.
Humus does last a long time, especially at the clay line horizon since the clay acts like a barrier to downward movement of both detritus and humic acids.

hau Julie, yes you can dust your yard with DE and as long as it remains dry it will help reduce the flea problem. I would dust fairly heavily then anytime it rains dust lightly so there are more days with dry DE in the grass.
Don't forget that as the weather dries so will the DE you have put down, so you might find that you only need one or two applications to get rid of the flea problem

Redhawk

I am so embarrassed, I was referring to photos from another post I was working on at the same time and got them mixed up, my horrible mistake. Thank you for catching that.

Leaf curl can show on fruits either as whitish spots or brownish spots, sometimes these will have the look of a target bullseye.
The application of an aerated compost tea (I use a large aquarium bubble stone and pump to make mine) has stemmed the spread of leaf curl.
It might also be a magnesium and manganese defect in the soil some Epsom salts spread around the tree and watered in is an easy way to make that determination.
If the tree starts to look better inside a week, it is a mineral defect causing the issue.

Redhawk

hau Pusang,  That will work quite well as long as the containers are large enough to support the root system of what is planted in them.
Usually the containers should be able to hold at least 5 gal. of soil per two plants if that helps on sizing the containers better.
Drainage is also a key factor, as is making sure the soil doesn't dry out completely and you will want to use fish emulsion and other "natural" fertilizers about once a month on each container, more often if the plants are heavy fruiters.

N fixers generally utilize a bacteria that forms nodules on the roots for their home and these bacteria gather the nitrogen that is pumped down to them from the leaves.
For most plants it is the leaves that do the nitrogen gathering from the air that passes through their stoma as they go through the process of respiration during daylight hours.
Try to get seeds that have been inoculated, those will already have the right bacteria applied on the exterior of the seed coat.

Redhawk

hau Yoni, sadly that tree is pretty much beyond recovery from your photos.
If you have some good compost that was made with both bacteria and fungi then you could mix a shovel full of that with non chlorine water and add air to that for about 24 hours, then you would strain into a sprayer and spray the tree all over, leaves, branches and trunk, pour the rest into the soil around the base of the tree.
It might need about 10 to 20 gallons to get everything treated well.

I would remove the fruits and look at removing any branches that show signs of bark deterioration before trying to treat the remaining parts of the tree.

I agree with Scott, that looks like root rot has taken hold in a big way. The thing to do is remove the tree and get some good, healthy compost into the area to fight the pathogen(s) that are present.

When you remove that tree, be sure to properly dispose of it far from your other, healthy trees.