Neil's Neighborhood

• garlic
• gut biome
• May 13, 2025

Garlic – The magic plant for a fabulously healthy gut biome

Hello Garlic growers and friendsI have been exchanging information with Garlic Growers and related folks from manyregions for a very long time.The common or “fixed” variable is that all the original genetics or seed come from MySeeds (heads and cloves) grown in Bovina, NY. For the newer, or not as deeply involved folks, Garlic may be the most magnificent gift you give yourself, when you considerchoosing one plant embodying the essence of what a ‘gift’ is. A short dissertation about the almost magical properties of this ancient herb is that thereare hundreds of variations. My wife thinks that we have grown over 40 cultivars inquantities but have tried and definitely tasted well over 50. In 34 years I have about 16-18that we consider ‘main’ varieties (cultivars) and every year I try to propagate a few more.This year we have 18 main (between 40 and 150) all stars and trying to propagate another9. Probably around 1800+ Heads. This year my fellow scientist Barbara wanted me toenlarge a bunch of tiny size samples into our usual huge and delicious characteristics.This is only a hobby and a source of Gift Giving. We give about 30 friends and relatives 2or so heads of between 9 and 15 cultivars as a once a year: birthday, X-mas, Holidays,remembrance; whatever! Giving a box of chocolates would be much easier, cheaper andless time consuming, but giving a bunch of health, taste from ’sweat equity’, THAT is agift. I am amused by knowledge. It seems I realize how little I know the more I try to learn.Every year I try to remind my Grower friends about important times to check ‘waypoints’or gestation milestones. I also get amused when people say growing garlic is veryeasy??? Yes, garlic is easy, great Garlic is a pain and requires a lot of work. Think aboutit, what crop takes Planting in Oct-Nov (About 4 of us are in zone 4-5, some South, some‘beachy’ areas, some middle climates, etc.). My area is 2,000’ in Ski area, some say I livein Southern Siberia. We ‘pull’ and start to cure in July and don’t get fully ‘ripe’ untilSeptember…11 months! Garlic takes longer for full gestation than a human baby! Over the years I curated, tried, and culled my tastes to grow Only Hard Neck and only 4subspecies (mainly). Many reasons…taste is #1. There is a huge difference in wines,beers, Vodkas, etc. as well as many spices and foods of all types. My #2 reason is health.Garlic has 130 or so Sulphur compounds and Garlic is a primary PREbiotic (onion,asparagus, leeks and Garlic). Garlic is especially powerful as a sort of ‘fertilizer’ for theother Probiotics, and Gut Health is the primary ’nutrition network’ for the immunesystem. I can get extremely technical but just as a hint; my major studies for 40 years have to dowith Serotonin…a very difficult to understand neurotransmitter that is made in the Gutand only about 1% in the brain. However, serotonin is a primary factor in our ‘feeling ofhappiness’ (or not - depression). I have a fairly extensive background in CognitivePsychology. The Gut Biome has a direct link to our brain (called the second brain) andanything that makes our gut happy is a very good thing. There is a reason for other‘health benefits’ besides purely physical.  OK, back to the dirt part: Garlic has a Symbiotic relationship with mycorrhizal activity.The roots of Garlics are tiny, maybe 6-7 inches. However, they are an atom bomb worthof Nutrients. They have an exchange relationship with hyphae bringing elements frommany levels and distance. Garlic is a magnet for so many trace elements that we reallydon’t know enough about its arcane medicinal abilities yet. Many years ago our group tried mixing in Pro Mix BX as a starter for establishing a“Mushroom” network (I spoke with the chief ’scientist’ as I’m a very careful [skeptical]researcher). We used mushroom compost, maybe BS to a degree, however, better thannothing. Years ago, I tried Activated Biochar to 2 of 5 beds; it seemed to make adifference and now all my beds have Activated (must be activated as it will sequesternutrients instead of storing and dissipating them over time).  Liquid Fish emulsion is amust early in season and before ’Scapes’ appear. For some strange reason, Garlic LovesSeafood? Kelp, seaweed, shells of Lobster/crabs…anything from a Sea source? Every year I try something in a controlled manner. This one is a ’strange’ experimenthowever. I’m trying half beds of the same cultivar (about 8 or so?) where I’m using a topdressing between rows of this “raised bed soil”. Yes, I’m adding a ’soil’ between rowsand only place it on the East Half (3 beds are 100% full sun, 2 have full sun only afterabout 11 am (east side is retarded sun wise). I did this East soil experiments in all 5 bedsof selected cultivars. I’ll report back in July! I won’t bore you with last year’s lush beds. I have some quick shots. Also, a little bit of agratuitous shot of a huge Dandelion (should be a ‘pin up model’ in a Landscapers lockerroom?) IN Asparagus beds. Very difficult to mess around in asparagus beds as they havemassive (we have 5 20-35 yr old beds) roots systems. As I mentioned: PREBIOTICS are garlic, Onion, Asparagus and Leeks…we grow LOTSof them except Leek. Your gut is your doctor and drug store.

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• April 3, 2023

Growing and Gardening Fulfills Many Human Needs

Enjoy a real Garden of Eden at your own home. Let usimagine a world of beauty and bounty. For a few minutesthink about what a Garden of Eden means in terms of allbliss and no work. What is the difference between thismagical world of just the bounty and what we have actuallyexperienced for the last millennia? What inspires us? Whatcold, hard reality invades our happy thoughts of joy andsatisfaction? It is the understanding that many hours of hardwork are required to yield the many rewards obtained fromour gardens. If we consider the human being IN nature, with the absolutebasics being health and joy, human are, in a sense, agarden. We are vertebrates, and this is an importantfundamental term for later discussion. We have an amazingimmune system that is both a hospital and pharmacy builtwithin us. We have a nervous system that is designed towork with a proper balance of electrolytes. We are blessedwith all the basic structures from our genetic makeup to befully functioning humans. However, all the fuel andlubrication comes from what we choose to ingest, and howmuch attention we pay to our physical activities. Humansthrive when eating healthy food and exercising muscles. The lesson learned from this perfect world thinking is thatbeing in a garden environment is a natural state – a state ofhealth. We understand that this makes sense, and yet therehas always been a caveat, a universe of reasons, problems,and finally excuses, why we don’t engage in one of nature’soptimal activities; the best activity to promote health as wellas feelings of well-being and joy is gardening, yet manystand back envisioning sore backs and knees.Let us analyze what work means in a garden. Exercise is aform of work, and typically we consider exercise to besomething positive. The Greek root for the word work is“ergo”. which we often hear inappropriately used to describemany items and tools as “ergonomic”. In a few moments Iwill address the true meaning of “ergonomic design” as itapplies to garden tools. For now, let us list all the tasks thatrequire the type of heavy, physical work which often detersus from engaging in what can be a healthy activity:Lifting rocksLifting weedsLifting invasive rootsLifting root cropsLifting shrubsLifting over-wintered plant stumpsLifting plants, transplantingLifting grasses to start a gardenNotice there is a theme here? 90% of this work is the hardstuff, the cringe worthy body movements that actuallycreate many legitimate concerns about safety, accidentsleading to infirmity, and injury. 90% of these tasks entail LIFTING. What if there was a tool,constructed in the proper sense of “true ergonomics”, that isa force multiplier by design. The technical function of a truetool is a device that delivers mechanical advantage (not justan extension of one’s body). For a thousand years or morehumans have used shovels and forks as an extension ofTHEIR BODIES, hurting themselves in the process. The EarthLifter Tool (ELT) is a true ergonomic tool in the sense thatthe tool has a built-in mechanical advantage envisioned byArchimedes over 20 centuries ago. The Earth Lifter ToolLIFTS with gravity, not against it. The ELT takes ¼ theeffort, the power, and the strength to complete the taskslisted above, which we consider difficult, hard, heavy, andonerous. The tool does the most difficult work for you.There is a second major concern and consideration. I usedthe term VERTEBRATES, meaning we have a spinal columnthat operates in a certain orientation, forward and back.Visualize the positioning of your spine when you areshoveling snow, or dirt. You bend, then twist, then bend abit more for lifting leverage, then you jerk the weight andsometimes get hung up on roots as you work againstgravity. The spine has buffers between the bony structurescalled discs. Discs were not designed to have such asawkward orientation, especially with forces squeezing themunder a heavy load repetitively. The Earth Lifter Tool notonly multiplies your strength while working with gravity, butmore importantly, it was designed to allow you to work witha healthy and proper orientation of your spine. Once you rupture a disc it doesn’t repair itself, it ispermanent. Why hurt yourself if you don’t have to? Far toomany of us lead a sedentary lifestyle, and too many havejobs where we sit for extended hours in positions that ourspines did not evolve to sustain. The Earth Lifter Tool was originally conceived so that a one-handed person with spinal issues could be enabled to liftpotatoes instead of using a traditional two-handed tool.While improving and developing the engineering, the physicsinnovation of Archimedes was improved by considering thegeometry of Pythagorus, by making a rolling fulcrum. Thisinnovation is very subtle but it adds an arc surface tostabilize and spread forces, converting a wedging tendencyinto a lifting motion . At the same time it creates a shovelingactivity and the force that makes a lifting action possible.This vertical alignment is much gentler on delicate roots,root crops, and tuber plants. Underlying the physics, geometry, proper body orientationand strength multiplying aspects is a single NEW CLASS oftool that does the heavy work. The Earth Lifter is anenabling tool. It allows many who have spine and jointproblems not to hurt themselves. It helps those withdisabilities or other physical challenges to enjoy growingwhat they love again. The human body is basically a vesselfor our Gut Biome. As much as we need exercise, we needwhole foods with a variety of nutrients and roughage to feedthe bacteria which produces most of the complex chemicalsthat make us healthy. Exercise moves our organs and flexesour bones, regulating insulin, feeding our T-cells andmultiplying our stem cells, resulting in the maxim: “Let FoodBe Thy Medicine”. Being in the garden and outdoors in thesun allow our largest organ, our skin, to transform solar raysinto Vitamin D3, a vital component for the immune system. Taking a deeper dive, the ELT, while promoting and assistinggardening, also provides an enormous mental health benefit.It restores those moments of reverie, joy, feelings ofaccomplishment, confidence through competence, and aspiritual alignment with our primordial instinct that tells uswe are a part of nature. The world is filled with too many distractions andinterruptions preventing us from focusing on our innerthoughts. We have a split brain that, more and more, isbeing conditioned to an abstract, regimented, and orderedstructure; follow the rules and get a chemical pleasurereward. However, similar to properly balanced physicalexercise, we need the happiness chemical reward too, whichcomes from a complex activity that fulfills a task. Statedsimply, growing and gardening fulfills many importanthuman needs

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• January 6, 2023

Truth and Soul in the World of Food and Health

This blog post may be seen as a bit complicated when viewing the world of food, health, and exercise. Yet they are all related, and we have been duped, used, and manipulated for many years by the food Industry, or food mafia. Yes, there are 10 million articles and experts and theories about health and nutrition, but one of my areas of expertise is statistics (I was in research for years). What are the top level increasing RATES of disease: Diabetes, heart issues, strokes, inflammation related illness, obesity, and cancer. These diseases are the ones most familiar to us. The common denominators are environmental and man-made toxins that we ingest in one form or another. We 'actively' eat preservatives, emulsifiers, 'additives', polymers (plastics), fertilizers from 'natural' gas, pesticides and many other polysyllabic chemicals in almost everything we ingest. The food industry uses the polite (and deceptive) word PROCESSED. No, I won't go on a screed about the 'modern world' reasoning for chemicals to promote the sale of their rubbish. No, I won't address the “war crimes” of Frito Lay pushing the hard drugs of sugar and salt. I won't even dip into the discussion of industrial meats and how the lands are being used to feed them in a most tortured manner. No, I'm very much into what the immune system is, what it does and what we need to do for optimal health, and to avoid most diseases by having our micro biome be our medical defense system. Let’s think about evolution, a very slow and meandering process. Our 'modern man' biology of the last 40,000 years went from a hunter gatherer diet to, about 10,000 years ago, an agrarian diet. We started to eat stuff that we grew, and therefore didn't depend on what we gathered in the wild, or getting lucky and killing some animal. So, this was a monumental shift in our dietary input, and it took thousands of years. A few hundred years ago we learned to salt fish, dry some meats and 'preserve' some foods in natural ways. Around a hundred years ago we went nuts with chemistry. We created 66,000 polymers (plastic) and dozens of pesticides that just killed everything indiscriminately, including people. The study of “food science” ran amok and Corporations discovered the gold mine of manipulating flavor, exploiting the psychology of hunger, and figuring ways to sell garbage as delicious. Humans have sensory organs that favor salts and sugars. Industrial food marketers used these inputs to turn poisons into profits. NO, this isn't a direct screed about the evils of corporate manipulation of food that is causing disease, killing people prematurely or mass food-related murderer, this is about you and what you can do for your health, and what the real back story is about the Earth Lifter...the Tool as a metaphor. Invention involves connections. Nothing is done in a vacuum. Sometimes there are multiple connections and discoveries that blend like facets of a gem. I needed to somehow 'balance' a terrible accident with gardening by figuring a way to do something that now seems so obvious and correct. I wanted a tool to lift up potatoes, and I didn't think past that at the time. However, when I saw that I didn't have to place my spine in a tremendously dangerous position with my tool (which was also damaged), that was a bonus! I noticed that I was having fun and exercising, even though I was in between numerous operations, and not thinking about exercise. Suddenly I was able to move my body in a healthy manner and I was being productive at the same time. Wow. Besides my hand problem, there is spinal disease, hip replacement, hernias, etc. …. I have not lived a gentle life. What I discovered was not just a cool and satisfying way to pull up potatoes, something I needed for confidence and to feel competent again, it also allowed me to be able to perform many other tasks in our gardens. The ELT allowed me, as a basically one-handed person, to perform most tasks done by a healthy 2 handed person. It ENABLED me as a spinal and joint injured person to be active, functional and productive. This is the underlying MAGIC of this tool. I didn't have an excuse anymore for not doing what I love because, suddenly, there aren't obstacles. This revelation, that I can provide food for the family while exercising and being productive, and having FUN in the process, was an epiphany. Fun when you feel horrible and frustrated is great mental health medicine. My plan was to make a personal tool, or something to overcome my health and body issues, my disability. When I thought about it (I also have a major background in health and engineering) I thought about the big picture - so many folks struggling with diabetes, obesity and conditions that can be resolved by diet and exercise - that maybe this was a metaphor from the heavens, maybe this tool could be the mechanism for others to have a healthy and productive routine as well. This may sound grandiose but follow this reasoning - think BIG PICTURE health and what is required FROM and TO our body - good food and good exercise. What is good food? What is the main purpose of food? It is the nutrient fuel that our body requires for energy and protection. ALL foods flow to the intestines whereby the gut bacteria separates what is needed to be transferred to the liver and other organs, or sent into our blood system (yes, much more complicated). However, in the walls of our intestine is about 70% of our immune system and the bacteria in our gut feeds that system. The health of our immune system comes from the variety and quality of what goes down our throat and is separated by our gut bacteria. The more varied the input of quality foods is, the stronger our immune system works. Having whole foods and foods that don't have chemicals are what makes us healthy. Growing fresh food is actually a double dose of medicine. I'll discuss the human biome and healthy foods in an upcoming blog. Almost as important as quality, growing whole, pure foods can provide an opportunity to exercise....we are animals, we evolved as creatures in motion. Yes, we have not acknowledged this fact in the last 100 years so today spend excessive money on exercise equipment, “health clubs” and sports activity. Most involve spending extra money, most are given up after a few months and most feel like hamster wheels, not productive, seeming like work yet not much is produced and with no residual rewards. Pulling up weeds with the ELT may be the future's Peloton Bike...much less expensive and much more versatile and, as a bonus, you get quality food when you finish exercising. “May food be thy medicine” is 2,000 year old Wisdom....wisdom endures and isn't a fad....it is Truth and Soul.  

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• January 1, 2023

The Right Tool Makes Exercise a Joy!

The gardening limitation is notyour desire, it is your tools.

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