This superfood is a gift from God, and is used to stem malnutrition in communities around the world.
It's a big job, and we're going to need stacks of input, advice and help from our community.
This is a chance to get involved and make a difference.
When we prayed on this, God said "Feed them." I don't know who 'them' is yet, but this will be shown in time.
Well, today's a pretty big day.
We've got seeds coming, which is phenomenal. I've been looking for decent seeds and in Australia, that's pretty hard to find. There's a bunch of old stock that doesn't really produce the way that I'd want. They're fine for a tree in the backyard, but not commercially.
We were looking at the PMK1 and PKM2 hybrid seeds and bringing them in from India. Importing any type of seeds to Australia is tricky most of the time, but they also don't perform as well as the newest of the hybrids, the ODC3. That is pretty much on a limited supply from India only, and we've got the first about 2,000 seeds coming in now. Hopefully, in about a month's time we'll be able to report that the seeds have landed and that will be just nicely at the beginning of our winter, which is the wrong time to be planting ant seeds but I'll get a few going undercover and indoors and get them underway, get a bit of a jump on the beginning of the next season we should have a few little saplings started soon.
The reason for choosing the ODC3s is that they're pretty much the best available at the moment for commercial production. They don't grow as big and lanky and tall as the other Moringa varieties, but because they bush out a lot more at a lower level they tend to give a much better production of leaves (for drying and powder). The concentration of minerals and nutrients in them tends to be a little bit more so you get a better quality crop, which is better again, and the seed pods are ridiculously long and they've got a lot of seeds in each pod and you tend to get more seed pods per tree than with other hybrids, which again works phenomenally.
These are not genetically modified, just hybridized over time through selective growing so we've still got a fully organic, fully original Moringa, but pretty much the best Moringa available at the moment to plant, and that is going to give the best yields.
That's exciting stuff.
Once they arrive we'll be able to start playing with those and we'll be able to see if we're able to get a viable yield out of them, but I'm confident, really confident that the ODCs are going to do well.
That will take about another month, month and a half. So, what's it now? End of April. End of May, beginning June we should be able to report that the seeds have arrived, and 3 weeks later we should have little seedlings. That's two months off.
Which is exciting.
Anyway, that's the update. Chio.
Let's make some Moringa.
First, you need a quarter teaspoon of Moringa (Powder).
Then add as much honey as you wish, or any sweetener. If you're not using sweetener then you can always use water.
Then stir, and keep stirring until it makes a paste. This is very important, otherwise it just doesn't mix well together with the water.
Once your Moringa starts looking like this, you're good and ready to go ahead to the next step.
Slowly add a little water to start off with. Mix that in to make sure the paste is fully dissolved. Now go ahead and top up with the remaining water.
Add your milk of choice, in this case, Almond Milk.
And there you have it, a gorgeous cup of Moringa (Latte).
Enjoy.
Well, a quick update.
There's those little Moringas that have moved indoors, and they're looking pretty sad because they've just been transplanted. They're now up top here, under the lights in a controlled environment, pretty constant 21 degrees. I think they'll survive the winter pretty alright.
This one's already, I don't know if you can see that, got a little bit of a leaf popping out up top there. And those two were cuttings from the tops of these guys that the kids found and insisted in sticking in the ground, so we'll see if they grow, you never know but I'll look after them anyway.
But, yea, that's those five little tubers, so we wish them well.
I've been looking into this and we need worms, a big earthworm farm. Something capable of producing sufficient quantities of worm castings and worm tea.
I found one or two good Youtube videos before of people doing worms in bulk, but I need to actually search for them again and find them, and if anyone has any comments, any experience in worms, please share. I'm not talking about the little 5-gallon worm farms, but decent things at scale where we can have maybe a dozen beds, each 6"x12" or somewhere around there.
I don't know the sizes or anything, we've still got to figure this all out. We're probably looking at the scenario where we fill a shed or an undercover area, possibly do a big array of solar panels, and then use the solar panels as shading and put the worm farm beds under the panels.
Sometimes the days get really hot out here and if you're looking at around 43 degrees Celcius then I don't know if the worms will be able to survive that so we'll probably need some type of ...
I've been thinking about this and probably the best workflow for blog posts on our main website at HisMoringa.com is to actually run the primary as this Locals site and then just do an excerpt from the post as a blog post on the main site and then link the Locals post.
Like that everything remains focussed at Locals and we're able to actually focus the discussion in the Locals community, but still have the relevant content on the website.
I think that will probably work out the best going forward, and then obviously disable comments on the website and direct all comments back to the Locals community.
Let me know if there's any input or if anyone has any other ideas but that seems like the best way to go forward for me.
It's small but exciting.
The little saplings that I thought were doing nothing and were stunted by the heat this summer did stop growing under the ground. They're not dead. They didn't give up. Just look at those beautiful tubers.
That's why I have so much hope for Moringa as a transformative agent here. They're so good in so many ways, and it's almost impossible to kill these little wonders.
Imagine a forest of a few million Moringa trees spanning over what was once an arid desert.
I love these plants.
Our first trial batch of ODC3 seeds have cleared Mumbai sorting and are waiting to be loaded on an aircraft.
If you'd like to track them with us, here's the tracking number:
RM422066591IN
https://www.indiapost.gov.in/_layouts/15/dop.portal.tracking/trackconsignment.aspx
This is so exciting.
With the information going on at the moment about super-foods and how good they are for you it is only fair we truly look at what is Moringa. It is being thrown around lately for all its health benefits but lets dive a little deeper into this green wonder.
So Moringa Oleifera, or Moringa for short, has been known to be called the Tree of Life, Miracle Tree or the Drumstick Tree. All named for the properties it has. Native to India but can now be found in most parts of the world especially in your warmer regions.
What truly is Moringa, to give a short answer, it is a super-food like no other, filled with so many nutritional health benefits and almost all of the plant is edible. Leaving little wastage. The leaves are eaten raw, cooked or dried and powdered. The seed pods are cooked as a vegetable in curries and stews, and the seeds are dried and chewed raw. Dried seeds are pressed for their oil, which is used in everything from lubricating precision watch gears to cosmetics and cooking and ...
