Donna Beckman Memorial Environmental Research University.  rev3

A project of the Beckman home-based education, now in its 2nd 3rd of a Century. 34 years and going.

Welcome budding ranchers, farmers and hobby gardeners!  The beauty about being a lifelong learner is we help each other; your brags are okay but this isn’t a competition, nor a participation ribbon; tell us your successes and just as important, your failures.

After all, Edison showed us 117 ways NOT to invent an incandescent filament; little did he know, the LEDs would supercede him.  But, this is NOT the IndoctriNation nation but those dedicated to the Truth, in Creation, Eternity…in Life.

 

Memorial Day, 2018  2/3rd way thru spring.

Going off the StatersVons grid for veggies.  We still have some extra tomato plants (text me if you want some, while supplies last; here’s hoping the zucchinis and giant

sunflowers many of you, my coop friends and real estate clients have going, are doing well.   We will be starting the next round of zucchinis

 

The kids have some awesome raised gardens underway; my PVC Tomato garden this year is going nuts; first tomato off the plant today!  Two years ago, 220 pounds of OC Red (tomatoes), last year nada much.  But this year, trying to beat the record.

Remember, my real estate clients get surprise gifts of bird droppings (uhm, eggs), tomatoes and Zuccs from time to time.  Remind me if you are interested.

What’s a PVC garden? 

Instead of drip, we laid out a reusable above ground 20 bubbler grid of pvc, risers and

hose coupling.  This year innovation was solid weed cloth, laid out the pvc, cut out the tomato spots, planted the tomatoes and on the way.

Last winter, I cut these into four sections and tossed them on the roof; you’ll get decades of use.  PVC (TY fossil oil!) is still inexpensive and you glue them back together.  Also, you can put valves in-line so certain sections can be turned off when not planted.

Watering is soooo tedious?  Oh yeah!?  Quarter turn on the hose bib for 90 seconds in the morning; then again at night.  So, less than 5 minutes of laser directed watering per day, no water waste, we should soon see enough Romas and beefsteak to please my niece Niki’s penchant for canning and anyone else.  (just a side benefit of Millennium 3 Real Estate’s pursuit of the healthiest clients on earth).  Slight use of Miracle Grow, minimal weeding and tying, and

God does the rest of the work.  Yes, we use photosynthesis and welcome Carbon Dioxide so we can, you know, EAT!  Email questions or comment below.

Homeschoolers Project for spring/summer: the Three Sisters easy garden.  No pesticides needed.

Three hundred years ago, when early American colonists took a look at the food gardens in Native American villages, they often saw a unique companion planting plan – corn, pole beans and pumpkins or squash being grown together in the same plot.

 

It is a great way to have your kids during summer (break if you take one from school) watch their garden grow.  It, like the PVC garden, is scalar.  Also, like the phototropic nature of giant sunflowers, where the plant naturally follows the sun during the day, it teaches an aspect of nutrition, healthy plant interaction and they can eat what they grow.

From Farmers Almanac:

By the time European settlers arrived in America in the early 1600s, the Iroquois had been growing the “three sisters” for over three centuries. The vegetable trio sustained the Native Americans both physically and spiritually. In legend, the plants were a gift from the gods, always to be grown together, eaten together, and celebrated together.

Each of the sisters contributes something to the planting. Together, the sisters provide a balanced diet from a single planting.

• As older sisters often do, the corn offers the beans needed support.
• The beans, the giving sister, pull nitrogen from the air and bring it to the soil for the benefit of all three.
• As the beans grow through the tangle of squash vines and wind their way up the cornstalks into the sunlight, they hold the sisters close together.
• The large leaves of the sprawling squash protect the threesome by creating living mulch that shades the soil, keeping it cool and moist and preventing weeds.
• The prickly squash leaves also keep away raccoons, which don’t like to step on them.

Together, the three sisters provide both sustainable soil fertility as well as a healthy diet. Perfection!

TIPS FOR GROWING THE THREE SISTERS

• To try them in your garden, in spring, prepare the soil by adding fish scraps or wood ash to increase fertility, if desired.
• Make a mound of soil about a foot high and four feet wide.
• When the danger of frost has passed, plant the corn in the mound. Sow six kernels of corn an inch deep and about ten inches apart in a circle of about 2 feet in diameter.
• When the corn is about 5 inches tall, plant four bean seeds, evenly spaced, around each stalk. About a week later, plant six squash seeds, evenly spaced, around the perimeter of the mound.  Or use starters from the Beckman.  I will be planting another tray of zuccs and ? squash.  Whattya want?

My horticultural experts, go for it!  Modify as you desire. You might plant marigolds around the outside and if you have more land, scalar away.  Google Australia 3 sisters if looking for a lesson plan enhancement, LLLearners!

Environmental Research suggestions: 

Love to have yours and will add to next edition.

Quick summary of our conservational environmental progress.

The Beckman ranch is empty nesting with 7 amazing kids, who are big now; down to two finishing high school.  Four post college, one in.  Not doing diapers anymore.

We took out the garbage disposal: try it! It will save you plumbing bills and help your compost pile or tumbler. Recommend a 32 gallon plastic trash can with lid if less room.  We put everything in there (the kids have geotrackers in case they end up inside) to decompose and use in the various gardens.   Something about the circle of life and all.

We have separated shower water from septic waste wherever possible to help the ecology of California, so we have a gray water pit to recycle the water and let it percolate to the water table.

  The reverse osmosis filter waste line goes to the roses; so we get clean drinking water AND water the ornamentals. Easy to do yourself: instead of into the sink drain, you run the tubing elsewhere: RM is the best water and the waste is mineral rich for your plants.

Need explanation, email me at Lenbeckman@M3Real.com or Lenbeckman@gmail.com    714-267-1413

 

All the kids help out on the “ranch”; always remember, the work is NEVER done on a farm or ranch.  It’s ok homeschoolers, too; life’s a journey as much as a destination.

 

Human environmental changes.   Zach is busy with gardens and the bees this spring; recently he rescued a client’s mom from a bee hive in a outdoor cupboard.  His hydroponics and live worm farms are in suspension, since he’s a collegian now.  Larissa, our animal health expert with her BS degree in the vet area, helps with the duties no other Americans will do.   Love these kids.

David has been great at defragging; with his sculpturing degree, he’s back working at the community college in the sculpture lab.  Briana just passed her real estate licensing and will be licensed sometime in June.  Tina and Katie are just you know, awesome.  Tina is busy helping with St Norbert youth ministry Vision; Katie, finished 1st yr confirmation prep and will be at SteubySanDiego this summer with her bestie, Mary Hirota.

Rosie’s fiance just graduated college; Kieran and Rosie are getting married Oct 12th, formerly known as Christopher Columbus day, now God only knows what it’s called.  Hmm, still CColumbus and RoseAngelWed day?

A lady named Miss Mary, whom i will exchange vows with next “May the Fourth be with you!”, is helping with Rosie’s beautiful dress and lot’s of neat prep is underway for the Temecula area wedding of my #7 of 11.

Amanda and Nathan found less expensive digs and live in Houston ($155,000 house) and Ohio ($98,000 1895 era house) respectively; I know, friends, it isn’t that easy for our offspring to afford housing now in Taxifornia.  Oh well, that’s life!  If it matters, this real estate guy understands as well, with some offspring moving west to escape the tenacles of our one party Taxifornian enclaves.  No politics, just fact.  35% gas sales tax RATE, 13% state income and other issues.  maybe relief is coming in 2018 but not holding my CO2 laden breath.  I have ideas for those trying to help their kids get housing and/or encouraging them to be entrepreneurial in their outlook.  Ask and let’s discuss.  Josh is prospering at Servite; Maryann is a great mom like Emily, who is married to Matt now living on an acre in San Diego County.

America is still the land of life, liberty and property (pursuit of happiness in the rewrite before signature because of the slave states).  It is the last covenant and free land on earth.  Not much needed to become Argentina, Venezuela or Cuba.

What is it about great countries ending in “a” that go socialist and/or communist and become sad oppressed lands?  North Korea, too?

The armless egg suppliers are doing well, better fed than most including us humans   We’ve gone LED, rarely use AC or heat au natural, gas that is.  God made the universe for humankind, the ONE RACE remember.  Being good stewards is a great thing, but God values EVERY human more than any animal: it’s us humans that get it mixed up.  Unfortunately the RegLeft is soooo clueless about priorities in Creation.

The first wave, early spring, starters are out in your gardens.  But, fear not, if interested, I will be starting more giant sunflower, zucchini and tomato plants for early summer needs of friends and clients. Text or email if you want a few.

I recommend, as a family, chart out your own environmental plan; every thing you do, homeschoolers, it should be in your dailies; education is not confined to a 20 x 20 room but the world is your classroom.  HQ is still at the home but what an incredible world we have.

Help me debunk the insane kidnapped environmental radicalized vox populi; i recently wrote a rebuttal to Larry Wilson at OCRegister/SCNG about his take on the EPA and will link it.   You train your kids to be critical thinkers, learn true science (not fake med science, for example, where kids are killed before birth for parts) and live a great life serving each other and others in the spirit of Christ.

Donna’s praying for you as are the Cherry Tree Beckman ranchers.  May God bless you mightily.  Enjoy the unofficial start of summer.  And always realize, all these manufactured crises, like global warming, evil fossil fuel, sanctified criminal aliens come from the same people who believe babies are best harvested while in their moms’

wombs and God’s miracle process, called photosynthesis is doo doo pollution to the Regressive Left anarchist chaos agents of destruction.

It IS legal to enjoy life, and not feel guilty we aren’t helping to scoop up LA and San Francisco’s growing pile of human feces and needle collection; there are solutions and the prostiticians are NOT a part of them.  More coming on this at Life Out Loudest.

But thank you to all who have served and did not come home: Memorial Day is for you and thank a veteran just because they deserve an attaperson.  God bless.

Len