Schefflera digitata effective against Athlete's Foot

I can confirm from personal experimentation on many occasions that the New Zealand native plant Schefflera digitata (Patate, Pate, Seven Finger) is extremely effective against athlete's foot.

I just put some leaves in a blender with water, then immediately applied the water to the infected skin with an artist's paint brush. The itching stopped almost immediately. In my opinion it is more effective, especially quicker, than treatment obtained from a chemist. I then kept the juice in the fridge, it remained effective for many months, perhaps more than six months. The long term solution to the problem, however, was to stop wearing a particular pair of old shoes which I used for going into the bush.

It also worked against an ear infection, though again, the permanent, simpler solution was avoiding the cause, in this case keeping my ears above water when washing hair. Finally, this liquid also appears to have cured an identified scalp condition that consisted of itchy and slightly painful areas of skin (when touched) on the top of the head where hair was growing, perhaps they are all much the same condition.

It was reported in 1979 that the leaves contain falcarindiol, known to be effective against "common dermatophyte fungi" (1) including athlete's foot and ringworm. It is not clear to me that the plant was used as a herbal remedy for athletes foot before this, there is a report from 1991 recommending the water steeped in the leaves for "athletes foot and ringworm" (2), but this use may be derived from the scientific finding mentioned.

There is a report from 1848 (1,2) stating Maori used the sap for "scrofulous sores and ringworm" which could include athlete's foot. Perhaps this disease was not even present in Pre-European Maori society because early Maori footwear may not have provided a conducive environment, so it was not an issue.

This plant has the ability to grow under the full shade of larger canopy trees, worth considering as a rare full shade crop. I've nibbled and swallowed very small quantities of the soft young leaves form time to time, even though I've found no reports they are edible (or toxic). They have a mild, pleasant, slightly peppery flavor, not at all bitter like the reportedly edible young leaves of the related Five Finger (Pseudopanax arboreus or Whauwhaupaku) (3) which I enjoy regularly.

An interesting thing I happened to notice about Five Finger is a transparent jelly which can sometimes be found in reasonable quantities on the stem. I don't know what it is, exactly when or why it's there, similar exudations occur on other plants after injury from insect attack, perhaps that's it. The jelly tastes exactly the same as the leaves, bitter but interesting. I've ingesting very small amounts from time to time, finally quite a bit on one occasion, it appears harmless. Seems to me it might have a future as an interesting & unusual food if safety could be determined for sure and a way of inducing/controlling jelly production could be found.

I also tried the easily eaten soft young leaves and stems of the highly attractive Pseudopanax laetus, both raw and cooked they produced a mild burning sensation at the top of the throat, won't be the first time I've been burned by beauty.

1. New Zealand Medicinal Plants. Brooker, Cambie, Cooper 1981 pg 95
2. Maori Healing and Herbal. Riley 1994 pg 330
3. A Field Guide to the Native Edible Plants of New Zealand. Crowe. 1981 pg 153

Epiphytic Watercress ??

 Seems a little odd. A Watercress seeding apparently growing as an epiphyte (air plant) in a bottomless free-draining container suspended on a house, alongside an epiphytic cactus.

Perhaps it likes combination of good aeration (they don't like sitting in poorly aerated water) and high rainfall over winter. It found it's way up there from a tub below with watercress in it. The seedling is of course small, I'd be surprised if it reaches a useful size.

Cooking Tiger Worms So Not Tough & Rubbery

The following is the result of experiments with cooking Tiger Worms (Eisenia fetida, also called Compost Worms) so they will not be tough & rubbery as they are after being prepared  by boiling alone. I also wanted to bypass giving them cornmeal to purge them which all recipes I could find recommend.

Step 1: Collecting worms from worm farm (on right: brand name Worm Cafe). Often worms will bunch together in "orgies" making collection easier. Mmmmmm yummy.

Step 2. Wash worms using a sieve, pick out debris if there is any. 

Step 3. Place worms in a container. This is a commercial plastic container for supplying live mealworms, presumably small holes in the lid are an effective & necessary way of providing fresh air for breathing. I then put the container in a dark place, as these worms hate light, for 4 days. I wash the worms once a day so they don't eat their own waste (I don't know if this is necessary, they don't seem to be interested in doing this from my observation, but an easy precaution to take). 

I simply fasted the worms, didn't give them cornmeal as usually recommended, I'm interested in eating worms for maximizing self-sufficiency, buying cornmeal from a shop seemed a silly excess for someone trying to be reasonably self-sufficient.

Step 4. Place worms in pot of boiling water for 5-15 minutes ( based on fact that 3-4 minutes recommended time for boiling untreated water to kill all potentially harmful micro-organisms). Presumably just putting worms in boiling water is considered a sufficiently humane way to dispatch them, it's done with lobsters, they can be frozen first if not.

Step 5. After boiling the worms can be eaten but they are tough, rubbery and average in flavor.

Step 6.  I roasted them for 15-20 minutes at 220 C (428 F) on an oven tray, without water or oil, until they were crispy. You should probably check often for when they're just getting crisp. They are no longer rubbery at this stage, easily eaten, tasting something like prawns in my opinion. The prawn-like flavor and crispy texture combine to make them very similar to prawn crackers, I think good enough to consider as a regular food item, though I've only done it twice so far. 

They do have a lingering smoky, perhaps earthy, strong cheesy, aftertaste that stays in the mouth for over an hour. Not an unpleasant taste but a little odd, a potential drawback worth trying to eliminate - unless it becomes an acquired taste, there are stranger ones. I will probably experiment with eating something after it to "clear the palate". 

I also fried some in olive oil, this also made them crispy, they tasted more like octopus this way, not as nice I thought. Also buying olive oil seemed an unnecessary, avoidable, dependence for someone trying to maximize self-sufficiency.  The aftertaste seemed to be even stronger with frying.

Final dish consisted of more roast worms than the few pictured above, I was enjoying them so much I forgot to take the photo till almost too late.

Conclusion

Tiger worms may be worth considering as a way of providing your own protein rich (ref 1) and tasty meat if you live on a small, e.g., suburban, section. Tiger worms also contain vitamin B12 (cobalamin) (ref 2) so are possibly the easiest ways of producing this essential vitamin in a small space with little skill, presumably with less ethical concerns than farming and slaughtering more intelligent and sentient animals.

Because they eat decomposing material, apparently usually at the bottom, or close to the bottom, of the food chain, they are presumably amongst the most energy efficient ways of producing meat possible (I actually find food chain hierarchies a little confusing, I assume if they're eating something from the "bottom" of the food chain like a plant they are energy efficient, if they're eating something at the "top" like a dead person, which is perfectly natural of course, they are inefficient, I don't know if they would then also be considered to be at the "top".) Presumably they are able to produce more meat in a given amount of space than carnivores or perhaps even herbivores. Certainly the reproduction rate of Tiger Worms is legendary, especially if well managed. Other edible consumers of decomposing material such as the American Cockroach and meal worms, also known for very high reproduction rates, are presumably worth trying for the super-efficient small-scale production of meat.

I suppose vegetarianism may be the most energy efficient way to maximize food production in a small space, which I might resort to, though these creature do use a resource plants don't and provide a byproduct plants can use, as well as providing the essential vitamin B12 (ref 2), rarely if ever available from plants. It's possible creatures like this combined with plants are more productive than plants alone and they do use spaces plants don't, namely dark places.

Also if you're in a suburb probably no one will seriously object to you eating these. They'll think it's disgusting but that's probably better than being known for slaughtering (invariably cute) micro-livestock likely to be available like bunnies. People in the country wont care a toss about you slaughtering animals for food but city dwellers, especially children, will probably have more trouble with it. Reminding them their insulated industrial way of life is slaughtering the planet is unlikely to help.  

Refs: 

1.The Worm Book. Loren Nancarrow and Janet Hogan Taylor. 1998. Ten Speed Press.

2. Production of feed protein from animal waste by earthworms. C.A. Edwards. 1985. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences

Vol. 310, No. 1144, Technology in the 1990s: Agriculture and Food (Sep. 12, 1985), pp. 299-307 (9 pages)

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.1985.0120

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2396435

Opinion: Top Gear Needs an Environmental Warning.

I think the BBC show Top Gear should have a warning, like tobacco warnings, concerning the extremely serious environmental hazards cars pose, such as global warming. If not I don't see why the BBC couldn't and shouldn't be sued just like tobacco companies for not advising consumers of the hazards the products they masterfully promote pose. Given cars threaten the survival of humanity I expect the BBC could be sued for inconceivably more than big tobacco.

Even though environmental dangers of cars do infrequently appear in the news (so it could be argued people already know about it) I think a warning is still needed because the show relentlessly asserts it is great to simply have an infantile, unthinking, unquestioning, carefree, impulsive enthusiasm for cars. By appealing to primitive impulses (using extremely expensive and expertly made productions) the show bypasses the rational frontal cortex of the brain, a clear environmental warning with each show would balance this. In my view Top Gear is playing a strategic role in destroying the health of the planet in a totally irresponsible and seemingly highly calculated way, exploiting and dragging down the (formerly) impeccable reputation of the BBC.

That's my opinion. I'm not the slightest bit interested in suing the BBC myself, I'm simply hoping to  alert them to this danger. Also please note I am not suggesting in any way the content of the show should be changed, only that it needs to be accompanied by a strong environmental warning. A similar message has been sent to the BBC.

I'm not against cars, I'm against addiction to the power of cars, both at the individual level and at the societal level, in terms of urban and rural design for instance which makes it virtually impossible to do anything without transportation. The cure for car addiction would in my opinion consist largely of much greater self-reliance for homesteads, suburbs, cities and regions, still supported by transportation and trade with other regions. I don't really see this as something government can or should force on people, they'll have to decide to do this for themselves if it's going to happen.

If car addiction can be brought mostly under control we would not need to try to preserve our overconsumption by trying to invent new "green" vehicles we can keep abusing at the same rates, as non-addicted car usage levels would probably be at an environmentally safe level. It would also mean enough petrol for thousands of years, many say we may never come up with a more efficient energy source, better to conserve it until we do.

A common feature of addictions is they are "sticky", users perceive that other significant people are doing it, addiction is "social" (D Thompson. The Fix. 2013) this is how shows like "Top Gear" contribute strategically to addiction to the power of cars. 

Pukeko takes liking to Water-garden in Wellington Central

Pukeko standing & dining on Asian culinary herb Water Dropwort (Oenanthe javanica) growing in an old bath in my garden in Wellington Central, New Zealand.

This Pukeko (Porphyrio porhyrio) has been staying in my garden for several weeks, apparently attracted by my tubs and baths filled with water and edible aquatic plants. Pukeko are normally a swamp bird, I've never seen or heard of one in Wellington Central before( the garden is 20 min walk from downtown), though there is is a lot of native bush around.

So far it has been completely quiet, but apparently can be quite noisy when living in groups, for this reason I've decided against experimenting with them as livestock... not fair on neighbors in densely populated areas (car noise & pollution no problem!)

  

Avocado Tree producing in Wellington, New Zealand

It is commonly (though not universally) believed Avocados (Persea americana) cannot fruit in the cool temperate climate of  New Zealand's capital. 

This is a more cold tolerant variety, the 'Bacon' (it doesn't taste like Bacon, it's named after it's breeder). It grows happily in an unusually cold Central Wellington Valley,taking frost down to -3 C  (26.6 F).  I tried the more common variety 'Hass', usually reported to tolerate temperatures to around 0 C, it died the first winter (because most of Wellington is frost free 'Hass' might work in most places). If your first attempt at growing Avocados doesn't work, it might just be you need a more cold tolerant variety, 'Mexicola' takes frosts down to around -7 C (19.4 F) !

This tree started bearing after around 7 years, it flowered for three years without producing any fruit , it is only six feet tall. The fruits appear to be rather small, but very tasty, they took about a year to ripen. The flowers probably self pollinated, an example of the fact that Avocados do not need a pollinator in cool climates.       

Dovecote with rat-proof metal flashing

French Mondain and racing Pigeons in a Dovecote (pigeon-house) with metal flashing added after rats climbed up the neighboring Hops vine and beheaded squab (baby pigeons) to get to the grain in their gizzard. 

Rats can't grip on metal but they are lateral thinkers & acrobats I don't know for sure if this is full proof against them but seems to discourage, have not had any trouble with them since, feeding pigeons in the morning and learning to give them just enough grain so there isn't stuff lying around to attract scavengers like rats* is also helpful, along with old fashioned traps, placed where the pigeons can't reach(!).  

*Afterthought 5 years on. It looks as though accidentally leaving food out overnight may have also resulted in a stoat being attracted to the area, getting a taste for the feed, then stalking and killing an adult pigeon away from the dove cote to get more.  I'm guessing not a rat because they rarely attack mature birds. I suppose the bird may have died naturally and was then decapitated.

It appears to me pigeons are probably really suited to areas with open ground like lawns or pavement and possibly instinctively prefer this. They can see a predator coming where there are no bushes and herbs growing. They occur naturally in these sorts of places, not in bush or scrub or food gardens.  

** 10 years later update. I left this property 3 years ago. The racing pigeons have not been feed since but have continued to use the dovecote for breeding . I don't know where they've been getting food, perhaps from the city about 2 miles away. So it is possible to get squab for human food without feeding your pigeons anything, at least once they've gotten used to the dovecote and possibly as long as there is a city nearby but it would be worth trying in the country too.