DIY Seed Starting Kits

Learn how to make biodegradable seed starting kits out of newspaper.

Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!

Singapore’s Vertical-Farms

In Singapore, the challenge of feeding a growing population is pushing the concept of urban farming to new heights. A super-efficient vertical farming system is producing greens for 5 million residents.

“Can we supply enough food for everyone on the planet?” is a question plaguing leaders around the world. In Singapore SkyGreen offers one example of how this might be possible, “not just technically, but economically”. By increasing their food security while reducing the impact of food production on global climate change, SkyGreen is 10 times more productive per square foot than conventional farming.

Consider the Source

Consider the First Source!

When we align our objectives with the Divine will, when we strive for the attainment of a worthy goal, when we begin our work with a well defined plan, and when we have ability to work together with others effectively, we have already achieved the trajectory for success. For we know that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Learn how to enjoy boundless opportunity and unlimited progress!

Beehive in a Jar

Have the rows of organic honey jars at the farmers market got you thinking about starting your own backyard beehive? If you live in a suburban area, you may think that starting a beehive cannot be done. However a common suburban backyard can be a perfect place for beehives if done correctly and you do a bit of research and planning before ordering your bees and supplies. It is actually a very simple and easy process with the right tools.

Mason jars are a staple of the self-sufficient lifestyle. They can be used to serve, grow, or preserve many things, but this is the first time we’ve seen them used as a home for honey bees. It’s easy to turn some scrap wood and quart-sized big mouth jars into unique hives that allow you to watch the bees as they bottle your honey!

Consider the Source

Consider the First Source!

More about God’s Handiwork!

Collapsable Photobioreactor

“We scaled up our novel photobioreactor design and conducted independent functionality tests that confirmed the unit’s robustness,” said Proterro CEO Kef Kasdin. “The modular photobioreactors, which are made from off-the-shelf materials, including polyethylene, can withstand category 1 hurricane winds,” she explained, adding, “Because of the materials used and the innovative design, we also have been able to validate low fabrication costs.”

Consider the Source

Gardens in Space

Sustaining Life with micro-algae and flat panel reactors. This is where so-called life-sustaining circulatory systems come into play. Already, on the International Space Station (ISS), researchers have started reconstituting all kinds of things.

But the ISS has it easy: it’s relatively close to Earth. Several times a year it receives fresh provisions of food and water. But if people start traveling farther away from Earth, they’ll have to survive without the luxury of regular, fresh supplies.
And that’s why Jens Bretschneider at the Institute for Space Systems in Stuttgart is looking for new solutions. His team thinks the answer lies in biological systems, like micro-algae: “They make it possible to collect exhaled CO2 and create new oxygen, and at the same time build up biomass stocks.”

Brettschneider is working with a see-through plexiglass tank through which green water runs which bubbles away as exhaled air passes through it. “This tank is a flat panel reactor, with which we can cultivate algae on Earth in an efficient way,” Brettschneider says. “The advantage is that the gas is mixing with the algae constantly. That gives us a large contact area. We agitate the algae so that they move towards the light, and then move away from the light again – and that encourages them to grow faster.”

Consider the Source

Tooling Up for Hydroponics

Does Anyone Wanna’ Go Dance Upon the Roof?

Humans have grown plants atop structures since antiquity. The ziggurats of ancient Mesopotamia (4th millennium BC–600 BC) had plantings of trees and shrubs on aboveground terraces. An example in Roman times was the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii, which had an elevated terrace where plants were grown. A roof garden has also been discovered around an audience hall in Roman-Byzantine Caesarea. The medieval Egyptian city of Fustat had a number of high-rise buildings that Nasir Khusraw in the early 11th century described as rising up to 14 stories, with roof gardens on the top story complete with ox-drawn water wheels for irrigating them.

A study at the National Research Council of Canada showed the differences between roofs with gardens and roofs without gardens against temperature. The study shows temperature effects on different layers of each roof at different times of the day. Roof gardens are obviously very beneficial in reducing the effects of temperature against roofs without gardens. “If widely adopted, rooftop gardens could reduce the urban heat island, which would decrease smog episodes, problems associated with heat stress and further lower energy consumption.”
Consider the Source

Tooling Up for Hydroponics

Consider the First Source!

“The foxes have holes, and the birds of heaven have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head,” and so it is today for many of his followers. Despite all the warnings about the snares laid by moneylenders, despite the fact that gage mort is literally translated as a pledge to give up one’s life, millions have lost their homes through mortgage exploits, and their quality of life through the service of debt.

Find Out How to Get Your Life Back!

Attracting Hummingbirds

These hummingbird favorites are easy to plant and they will animate your garden in the most delightful way.

Agastache: Quickly becoming a summer favorite, this perennial has fragrant foliage and spiky flowers of pink, purple, blue, red and orange.

Hollyhock: Plant these and you’ll have sensational spires of flowers. A classic cottage garden plant that’s very easy to grow.

Alstroemeria: A favorite cut flower because they last so long. Lots of colors and plants of different sizes. Leave some for the hummingbirds!

Milkweed: Colorful and easy to grow. Yellow and orange/red are most popular. You’ll get lots of butterfly visitors, too.

Lion’s tail: Tall spikes of orange flowers appear on this shrubby perennial. Easy to grow.

Salvia: Lots of choices — all with colorful flowers. Many with richly fragrant foliage.

Pyrostegia: You’ll have cascades of orange flowers blooming fall through winter. Sometimes called flame vine.

Abutilon: Flowering maples produce beautiful bells of red, yellow, white, salmon and pink. They tolerate some shade.

Butterfly bush: Spectacular spikes of purple, pink, white and lavender. Cut back after blooming to get more blossoms. Of course butterflies love this shrub too. Plant the new dwarf forms if you have a small space.

Hibiscus: A favorite shrub in San Diego. Gorgeous, shiny, evergreen foliage and stunning flowers in warm weather. ‘Tradewinds’ is a new dwarf shrub reaching only 3 feet in height.

Lantana: So many colors, so many forms—from low, trailing types to small rounded shrubs. So easy to grow, too. Cut it back every winter to keep it clean and tidy.

Lavender: Take your pick; they’re all good. Fernleaf, Spanish and French lavenders bloom almost year-round.

Leucophyllum: Texas ranger, an evergreen shrub, has gorgeous silver foliage and violet or magenta flowers. If it begins to look a little rangy, cut it almost to the ground.

Rosemary: Bulletproof plants that trail, mound or grow upright, depending on the variety. You must let them bloom if you want hummingbird visits.

Trumpet vine: Included here are blood-red, vanilla, and royal trumpet vines—three different species of distictis. All have glorious trumpet flowers on beautiful, rich green foliage.

Building with Bioreactor Facade

An experimental apartment building in Hamburg, Germany is harnessing the power of the sun to generate power, but not in the way you expect. Photovoltaic cells are totally yesterdays news — the BIQ building gathers power using a bioreactor façade packed full of microalgae.

Large clear panels on the front of the building are where the microalgae are growing. These microscopic organisms behave like any other plant. They absorb sunlight, process carbon dioxide, and produce oxygen. The algae flourish in a regular cycle, with the mature plants being harvested on occasion.

The process is highly efficient as it results in no additional carbon output, and algae produce more biomass by area than any other plant. Any light that is not absorbed by the algae can be captured by the façade and used to directly heat water or air when it’s chilly out. Failing either of those immediate needs, the heat can be piped down into borehole heat exchangers (an 80-meter deep hole filled with brine) for later use.

Tooling Up for Hydroponics

Vegan? Watch Your Protein Levels.

If you are a vegan or vegetarian with a secret stash of candy, jelly beans or dark chocolate, join the club. A constant craving for carbs with occasional headaches, muscle or joint pain may be due to a slight deficiency of protein.

The symptoms of a severe protein deficiency include:

Edema (swelling)
Thinning brittle hair and/or hair loss
Ridges in finger and toe nails
Skin rashes; dry skin
Weakness
Constant Fatigue
Muscle soreness and cramps
Slow healing
Skin ulcers
Sleep issues
Frequent headache
Nausea
Fainting
Depression/anxiety

Sooo, what can we do to reverse this condition? Carnivores and omnivores simply chow down on anything that moves. Vegans and vegetarians have a slightly more complicated problem, but one that’s nonetheless manageable. Here’s a list of protein sources found in Kingdom Plantae:

Seeds, sprouted
Nuts
Beans
Lentils
Whole grains (in order from highest to lowest protein content): Wheat, amaranth, oats, rye, triticale, teff, spelt, wild rice, barley, buckwheat, quinoa, millet, sorghum, corn, rice.
Soy
Peas
Peanuts
Spinach
Potato
Sweet potato
Algae
Seaweed

Consider the Source

Facts About Insulation and Mold

Understanding the Causes of Fungi Growth in Building Structures

Mold – What is it? Where is it found? Why the Concern?

Molds are microscopic fungi that live on organic matter. Most molds produce spores, which can be air-borne, water-borne, or insect-borne and are highly adapted to grow and rapidly reproduce under the right conditions. Mold spores are found in virtually every environment indoors and outdoors, and as a result, we all encounter mold spores daily. These spores may enter homes and buildings through air infiltration such as windows, doors, heating, ventilation, air conditioning systems, or by attaching themselves to people, clothing, and pets thus bringing mold spores indoors. You could also get redirected here for help with getting your air conditioner fixed. Mold spores are ready to spring to life as a growing colony if they are provided with three primary conditions:

A temperature range between 47-120 degrees F.
Nutrients (something to eat- organic matter).
Moisture/Water.

Two of these three supporting conditions for mold growth (temperature and nutrients) are a part of most buildings. Regarding temperature, our buildings are kept at temperatures that can encourage mold reproduction. Regarding nutrients, our buildings are built with and furnished with suitable organic nutrients that encourage mold to grow. An example of suitable organic materials which could provide nutrients for mold growth include: carpet, fabric, upholstery, paper and paper products,

cardboard, ceiling tiles, drywall, wood, and wood products, dust, paints, and wallpaper. The missing ingredient in most buildings for mold growth is moisture/water.Given humid or wet conditions, molds will naturally grow in an indoor environment. In Canadian homes over 270 species of mold have been identified.¹ It’s not that all molds are bad, they can be useful to people, for example, Penicillin is obtained from a mold. Nor does mold exposure always present a health problem indoors.
According to a Questions & Answers Fact Sheet from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) on Stachybotrys chartarum and other molds, they reported, “There are very few case reports that toxic molds (those containing certain mycotoxins) inside homes can cause unique or rare, health conditions such as pulmonary hemorrhage or memory loss. These case reports are rare, and a causal link between the presence of the toxic mold and these conditions has not been proven.” ²
With this in mind it is important to understand there are potential health effects from mold in homes and buildings that might pose health problems to people sensitive to molds.
Because two of the three conditions for mold growth exist in our homes, mold growth can occur where there is excessive moisture, such as where leakage may have occurred in walls, roofs, potted plants, or where there has been flooding.

The Truth about Mold Growth on Insulation

Highly publicized cases of mold growth in homes and buildings have led to confusion. For example, consider the nationally televised case in Dripping Springs, Texas where Stachybotrys mold growth resulted in a home being destroyed. In this case mold was growing on building materials such as drywall, the floor substrate and the fiberglass insulation, but the problem was not the building materials but the water, which led to the growth of the mold. Regarding this case, Dr. Straus appearing on 48 Hours said, “mold most commonly grows as a result of water damage.” One TV segment, showed workers in space suits removing mold contaminated fiberglass insulation batts with the voiceovers referring to mold growing on cellulose. While the term “cellulose” probably meant the kraft-faced backing on the fiberglass batts, or the dust in the fiberglass some took it to mean cellulose insulation even though there was none shown, only fiberglass!Here’s where the confusion comes, cellulose is a favorite nourishment for mold growth, while cellulose insulation does not promote mold growth. Cellulose is the primary cellular makeup of any wood product and can be found in: cardboard, ceiling tiles, drywall, dust, the kraft-facing on fiberglass insulation, etc.. The dictionary definition of cellulose is:

“A polysaccharide (C₆H₁₀O₅)_n,of glucose units that constitutes the chief part of the cell walls of plants, occurs naturally in such fibrous products as cotton and kapok, and is the raw material of many manufactured goods (as paper, rayon, and cellophane)”³

Another recent cause for confusion was fostered by CertainTeed Corporation who was recently sued for misrepresentation about the St. Charles East High School near Chicago. The school was closed due to mold problems. The information distributed by CertainTeed was fabricated to make people believe the mold was the result of cellulose insulation wall-spray when, in fact, there was no cellulose insulation in the building–and the mold was on fiberglass!⁴

Under extreme conditions mold can grow on cellulose insulation, however if that were to occur mold would likely be growing on everything else in sight.

Jeffrey C. May author of “My House is Killing Me!” is a home inspector and is well known for his investigations into homes with poor indoor air quality. He wrote, “The DUST in all fiberglass insulation is an excellent source of mold nutrients… I find that approximately 70% of all unfaced basement ceiling and crawl space fiberglass is severely contaminated with growing mold…“

In a discussion about mold Jeffrey was asked, “What does your book say about cellulose insulation? How about wet spray cellulose insulation that is sprayed into wall cavities?”

Jeffrey replied, “I have not looked at samples of wet sprayed material but I have looked at quite a few samples of blown-in ceiling and wall insulation.…I have yet to see a moldy cellulose insulation sample. …in general, blown-in cellulose insulation, surprisingly, is not found moldy.” ⁵

Both fiberglass and rockwool insulation (inorganic materials) have been tested. In the rockwool insulation tests showed enough nutrients to keep mold spores alive, probably from dust in the mineral fibers. In the fiberglass insulation mold growth was found but it could not be determined if it was growing on the binder or on the dirt collected within the insulation.⁶ To date the serious reported cases of mold growth in insulation have all involved fiberglass.

The Insulation Contractors Report January/ February 2002 issue, in an article entitled, “Mold: The Enemy Within”, reported that, “Ninety-eight percent of the moisture that enters a building cavity and condenses is from an air leakage mechanism…. An airtight building will prevent moisture from entering the assembly…” ⁷

If this is true, then the cellulose-insulated building will provide a major inhibitor to mold growth because it significantly reduces air leakage and results in a more airtight building thus preventing moisture, which is needed for mold growth, from entering the assembly! According the University of Colorado study Fiberglass vs. Cellulose Installed Performance “Cellulose cuts air infiltration 38% better than fiberglass!”

Cellulose Wall-Spray

Cellulose Insulation Does Not Cause Moisture Problems

Cellulose Wall-Spray when installed should not be wet! Sometimes cellulose insulation wall-spray has been referred to as “wet-spray” (as in the quote below), but Cellulose Insulation Wall-Spray should not and does not need to be installed wet. When properly installed an accurate term to describe the product would be moist or damp.One important study of wall-spray clearly demonstrated that the moisture added during the installation of cellulose wall-spray does dry and does not cause moisture problems. Building Envelope Engineering in Calgary, Alberta has completed a full year detailed study of the “drying of wet-cellulose and the moisture content of wall framing and sheathing.” The construction of the home in the research consisted of 2×6 studs 16″ o.c. and the cellulose insulation was installed at 2.9 lb/ft3 density and 53% moisture content (wet weight)*.

The research results as reviewed in Energy Design Update stated, “A whole-house monitoring project of wet-spray cellulose has shown that when properly applied, the insulation can dry properly with or without a polyethylene vapor retarder and should not cause moisture problems in walls.”The review concluded with praise and a qualification- “the results of this study are certainly good news, showing that wet-sprayed walls will dry adequately even with a polyethylene vapor retarder installed…. These studies underscore the need for proper moisture loading during installation and perhaps extra consideration when wet-spray cellulose is used in humid climates, where the drying potential is limited.”⁸
*53% moisture is excessively high for Applegate trained professionals.

Mold Prevention & Control

Knowledge is Key for Preventing & Controlling Mold

Mold prevention strategies focus on moisture control. The presence of mold is a sign that there is too much moisture or water. Mold needs moisture to grow. Controlling the moisture and keeping the living area dry prevents the growth of mold. If we keep things dry, molds do not grow. It’s helpful to keep humidity levels indoors below 40%, at this level mold growth can be slowed and generally prevented unless there is a water leakage problem.⁹ According to the information available from the CDC “Questions and Answers Fact Sheet:” “What should people do if they determine they have Stachybotrys chartarum (Stachybotrys atra) in their buildings or homes? Mold growing in homes and buildings, whether it is Stachybotrys chartarum (Stachybotrys atra) or other molds, indicates that there is a problem with water or moisture. This is the first problem that needs to be addressed.” ¹⁰Regarding mold prevention and keeping our buildings dry it’s helpful to keep in the mind the sources that most commonly bring in or keep moisture in our homes and buildings.

These sources for moisture need to be understood, discovered and controlled they include:

Ground water (including snow melt, rain)
Humid air entering the home and condensing on cooler surface
Interior moisture from human bodies, cooking, bathrooms, unvented clothes dryers, etc. ¹¹

Keeping outdoor moisture and high humidity outside of our indoor living environment and exhausting interior high humidity to the outdoors will contribute to avoiding mold growth in our homes and buildings.
If you discover mold inside what should you do? How do you get the molds out of buildings, including homes, schools, and places of employment? According to the National Center for Environmental Health, “In most cases mold can be removed by a thorough cleaning with bleach and water.” ¹²

Summary

To date the serious reported cases of mold growth in insulation have all involved fiberglass, but no insulation or building materials are in themselves the cause for mold growth.The key to stopping mold growth in our buildings is halting moisture; mold and fungus problems aren’t inherent in a building that is relatively dry.
From Dan Lea, “The key point of all this is that mold is everywhere in the environment. Given

heat, moisture and organic material it will grow. Fiberglass and other inorganic materials quickly become coated with organic materials. Fiberglass contains no fungicidal additives, so it soon becomes a very hospitable environment for fungal growth because of air infiltration which may lead to moisture migration. All the misinformation spread by the fiberglass people and “experts” can’t change the basic fact that cellulose insulation does not cause problems with mold.

Sources
1. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, About Your House. “The Condominium Owner’s Guide to Mold”
2. National Center for Environmental Health. “Stachybotrys Chartarum and Other Molds” www.cde.gov/nceh.
3. Webster; Merrion. “Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary” 1985. p. 220
4. Plache. CertainTeed Corporation, Valley Forge, PA “NOTICE” July 12, 2001

5. May. Indoor Air Quality, www.yahoogroups.com Dec. 7, 2001
6. Lea, Cellulose Manufacturers Association. “The Mold Saga” Jan. 3, 2002
7. Nicklas, Insulation Contractors Report. “Mold: The Enemy Within” Jan. 2002 p. 4
8. Nisson, Energy Design Update. “Moisture Control for Homes” 1997, p. 41
9. National Center for Environmental Health. “Molds in the Environment” www.cde.gov/nceh

10. National Center for Environmental Health. “Stachybotrys Chartarum www.cde.gov/nceh
11. Healthhouse. “Basement Moisture” www.healthhouse.org/tipsheets
12. National Center for Environmental Health. “Stachybotrys Chartarum and Other Molds” www.cde.gov/nceh p. 3
13. Lea, Cellulose Insulation Manufacturers Association. Personal Correspondence. Jan 2002