The Gardeners' World

CAFO's Can Kill You - No Joke.

2011-02-25T22:24:00.000Z

Flies and cockroaches carry antibiotic-resistant bacteria from factory farms, study finds

25 FEB 2011 3:24 PM

A fly's paradise: Near a giant hog factory in North Carolina, downed pigs fester while sprayers spread untreated manure onto fields.Photo: Steve WingWhat sort of antibiotic-resistant pathogens are growing on factory farms, along with all the cheap pork chops and chicken wings? And what level of threat do they pose to our health?

Well, we know that in total, factory-farm animals consume a jaw-dropping four times as many antibiotics as do people in the United States, thanks to diligent reporting by Maryn McKenna andRalph Loglisci and work by Rep. Louise Slaughter(D-N.Y.).

And we know that a kind of antibiotic-resistant staph infection called MRSA now kills more people than AIDS -- and infects people who never set foot in a hospital, which is the site where MRSA is thought to have originated. We also know, due to the stellar work of Iowa State University researcher Tara Smith, that pigs in confined animal feedlot operations, and the workers who tend them, routinely carry MRSA strains (her paper can be found here).

We also know that, by the FDA's own reckoning, meat on grocery store shelves is routinely infected by pathogens resistant to multiple antibiotics (again, McKenna's work brought the FDA's perhaps intentionally obscure report to light).

And now we know of yet another means by which antibiotic-resistant nasties can make their way from meat factories into the broader community: through the cockroaches and flies drawn to the titanic amounts of manure produced on factory farms. For a paper published last month in the journal Microbiology, researchers from North Carolina State and Kansas State universities took one for the team -- i.e., the public. They did something few of us would want to do: rounded up common flies and roaches hanging around factory hog farms, and tested them to see what kinds of bacteria they were harboring.

Their finding? More than 90 percent of the insects sampled carried forms of the bacteria Enterococci that are resistant to at least one common antibiotic, and often more than one.

Read the rest here.

Boycott Land O'Lakes - GMO Pushers

2011-02-25T21:30:00.000Z

Hay Now — It’s Boycott Time: Land O’Lakes, This Means You!

By Citizens for Safe Food and Feed

Farm Wars

By now you’ve heard how President Obama and his Monsanto Administration have plowed through approvals of three more genetically engineered products, including GE alfalfa. Well, here’s something else you should know:

To produce its Round-Up Ready Alfalfa seeds, Monsanto partnered with a company called Forage Genetics International, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Land O’Lakes dairy co-op. That’s right, Land O’Lakes stands to make a fortune from polluting our food supply with untested and unlabeled GMOs.

To protest, you could sign one of the many petitions going around that will likely just be ignored. But there’s another way to show your disapproval of genetically engineered Round-Up Ready Alfalfa: Boycott all Land O’Lakes products — its butter, cheese, eggs, speads, margarine, seasonings, creams, cocoa and cappuccino mixes, sour cream and milk. All of them.

You have the power to economically punish Land O’Lakes — the owner of Forage Genetics, Monsanto’s partner in crime — for its role in polluting the food chain with untested and unlabeled GMOs, increasing the use of toxic glyphosate herbicide, and potentially destroying the organic beef and dairy feed market by loudly refusing to support Land O’Lakes with your dollars.

Tell all your friends to go to all the supermarkets in their area and let the check-out clerks know that they’re boycotting Land O’Lakes products until they are out of the GMO business, loud enough for other shoppers to hear. And next, stop by the store manager’s desk and tell him about the boycott.

Send Land O’Lakes and other companies a clear message: HAY you — We’re FED UP with GMOs in our food supply!

And to make sure Land O’Lakes knows why its sales are down, contact its president and CEO Chris Policinski and let him know you won’t be buying Land O’Lakes products anymore because you don’t want genetically engineered food or animal feed:

Chris Policinski
President and CEO
Land O’Lakes
4001 Lexington Avenue
Arden Hills, MN 55126-2998
651/481-2222

Spread the word…

Meet the World's Smartest Farmer - Joel Salatin

2010-01-24T19:31:00.000Z

Nutrient-Dense Manifesto

2010-01-05T04:03:00.001Z

A complete version of this document can be found at
http://www.nutrient-dense.info/docs/NDManifesto.pdf

Take Action for Soil, Health, Food Quality and the Future of Farming

VISION: A New Green Revolution

To restore human health by renewing the minerals and life in soils to optimize the nutrient quality of food.
To support farmers to apply biological principles of 21st century agriculture in effective soil stewardship.
To create Standards, Certification and Marketing to deliver authentic Nutrient-Dense foods to consumers.

CAUSE & CONDITIONS: Where we are, how we got here

WHEREAS six of the ten leading causes of death are due to food quality and diet;
WHEREAS the nutrient content of foods is 15 to 75% less than 50 years ago when the USDA began publishing data;
WHEREAS food today has low nutrient density due to poor nutritional practices of farmers who grow that food;
WHEREAS most farmland is deficient in minerals, trace elements, other essential nutrients, and soil microbiology;
WHEREAS 20th Century farmers used large amounts of refined fertilizers with only a few nutrients, and neglected the many other nutrients that are essential to health at parts per million, parts per billion, or even less;
WHEREAS no quality standard exists in the marketplace to identify foods with superior nutrition;
WHEREAS “certified organic” food does not offer any assurance of higher nutrient density or flavor;
WHEREAS we have technology to grow more nutritious, better tasting crops without toxins and greenhouse gases;
WHEREAS tens of thousands of acres of Nutrient-Dense foods are already growing in America;
WHEREAS still are using 20th Century thinking to address our 21st Century challenges;

THEREFORE, WE RESOLVE TO DO WHAT IT TAKES TO REACH OUR OBJECTIVES Of Higher Food Quality Standards

Advocate the interconnections of soil fertility, food quality and human health
Teach growers the biological methods and materials of 21st Century agriculture
Improve the mineral balance of our soils
Optimize the nutrient content of our foods
Increase production of Nutrient-Dense foods
Publish Standards & Practices for Nutrient-Dense production
Marketplace certification of Nutrient-Dense food & producers
Expand marketing & promotion for Nutrient-Dense food
Educate consumers about Nutrient-Dense quality Standards
Research to document the values of Nutrient Dense Foods
Form a national Nutrient-Dense organization
Hold a national Nutrient-Dense conference

PRINCIPLES: Guiding Insights

Soil Stewardship: living community of the soil food web
Biological Agriculture: from chemical to ecological paradigm
Carbon-Negative Food: sequester CO2 from the atmosphere
Community-Supportive: Locally Integrated Food & Energy
Member Involvement: initiative from the ground up
Community Building: personal & professional relationships
Mutual Empowerment: grassroots change by we, the people
Transparency: open communication & full disclosure
Openness: information exchange & public online database

Monsanto's Phosphorus Theft

2009-12-07T20:00:00.000Z

Phosphate processing plant in
Soda Springs, USA, operated by Monsanto.
Source: The Center for Land Use Interpretation

Idaho black rock phosphate, and phosphorus in general, is a finite and limited primary plant nutrient. Monsanto, instead of leaving it alone so it can be conserved and made available for use by generations of America's sustainable and organic farmers, turns it into the herbicide Roundup.

Next to clean water, phosphorus will be one the inexorable limits to human occupancy on this planet” wrote Bill Mollison in Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual more than 20 years ago .

Peak Phosphorus barely registers alongside it’s more gregarious, attention-getting bigger brother, Peak Oil. Yet, the implications are even more dramatic. While both peaks are associated with massive food shortages, unmitigated Peak Phosphorus would easily win the award for best disaster.

The latest research tells us that Peak Phosphorus is an issue we cannot afford to ignore any more:

… a global production peak of phosphate rock is estimated to occur around 2033. While this may seem in the distant future, there are currently no alternatives on the market today that could replace phosphate rock on any significant scale. New infrastructure and institutional arrangements required could take decades to develop.

While all the world’s farmers require access to phosphorus fertilizers, the major phosphate rock reserves are under the control of a small number of countries including China, Morocco and the US. China recently imposed a 135% export tariff on phosphate rock essentially preventing any from leaving the country. Reserves in the U.S. are calculated to be depleted within 30 years. Morocco currently occupies Western Sahara and its massive phosphate rock reserves, contrary to UN resolutions. – Western Sahara Resource Watch

From the Times Online:

Battered by soaring fertiliser prices and rioting rice farmers, the global food industry may also have to deal with a potentially catastrophic future shortage of phosphorus, scientists say.

Researchers in Australia, Europe and the United States have given warning that the element, which is essential to all living things, is at the heart of modern farming and has no synthetic alternative, is being mined, used and wasted as never before.

Massive inefficiencies in the “farm-to-fork” processing of food and the soaring appetite for meat and dairy produce across Asia is stoking demand for phosphorus faster and further than anyone had predicted. “Peak phosphorus”, say scientists, could hit the world in just 30 years. Crop-based biofuels, whose production methods and usage suck phosphorus out of the agricultural system in unprecedented volumes, have, researchers in Brazil say, made the problem many times worse. Already, India is running low on matches as factories run short of phosphorus; the Brazilian Government has spoken of a need to nationalise privately held mines that supply the fertiliser industry and Swedish scientists are busily redesigning toilets to separate and collect urine in an attempt to conserve the precious element.

Dana Cordell, a senior researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology in Sydney, said: “Quite simply, without phosphorus we cannot produce food. At current rates, reserves will be depleted in the next 50 to 100 years.

Human excreta (urine and feces) are renewable and readily available sources of phosphorus.
Urine is essentially sterile and contains plant-available nutrients (P,N,K) in the correct ratio.Treatment and reuse is very simple and the World Health Organization has published 'guidelines for the safe use of wastewater, excreta and greywater.

More that 50% of the worlds’ population are now living in urban centers, and in the next 50 years 90% of the new population are expected to reside in urban slums. Urine is the largest single source of P emerging from human settlements.

According to some studies in Sweden and Zimbabwe, the nutrients in one person's urine are sufficient to produce 50-100% of the food requirements for another person. Combined with other organic sources like manure and food waste, the phosphorus value in urine and feces can essentially replace the demand for phosphate rock. In 2000, the global population produced 3 million tonnes of phosphorus from urine and feces alone.

Monsanto Claus

2009-12-02T18:22:00.001Z

Latest Posts at Permaculture & Regenerative Design News

2009-11-30T18:23:00.003Z

Starting Tomatoes and Peppers from Seed

2009-04-05T17:29:00.009+01:00

Starting warm season vegetables such as tomatoes and peppers from seed is easy. And though there is a little time involved, the savings will be enormous. Here in the Mid Atlantic area we are perhaps two weeks late on starting the seed, but this should be of little concern for the tomatoes will catch up, and the peppers loath cold nights in May. We are planning on planting in late May so this will be just right. Growing plants from seed enables a certainty of variety; gives you, the gardener, a greater range of choices, and provides less chance of disease, insects and weeds.

The tomato seeds need to be kept warm and should begin to germinate in 10 days or so. The peppers depending on whether they are sweet or hot may take up to 14 days or more. We use a peat based seed mix for the tomatoes and sometime the little expandable peat pots. For the peppers we split the difference and fill the bottom of our seeding containers with a seed-peat mix and the top inch or so with cactus soil. The soil is sandy where the peppers grow wild, so this just seems to make sense. Bottom heat is good; lack of heat will lengthen germination times.

And speaking of being late, the onions are in, but the potatoes still wait for this afternoon’s gardening. Last year we tried to go organic and of course lost our potatoes mid season to the dreaded Colorado potato beetle. This year we shall try lightly dusting the leaves with pulverized lime and see if we can ward off the voracious appetite of the pest. The radishes are up, and I suspect the beets are too, so its time to plant another row or two for later harvest.

All of this while I await the tractor repair man; I thought that after four years of starting spring with flat tires I had overcome this nuisance…but no..took the tractor forth..drove it 500 meters from the barn and…voila…a new

old flat tire.

A Farm for the Future

2009-03-18T03:34:00.002Z

Wildlife film maker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family's farm in Devon into a low energy farm for the future, and discovers that nature holds the key. With her father close to retirement, Rebecca returns to her family's wildlife-friendly farm in Devon, to become the next generation to farm the land.

But last year's high fuel prices were a wake-up call for Rebecca. Realising that all food production in the UK is completely dependent on abundant cheap fossil fuel, particularly oil, she sets out to discover just how secure this oil supply is. Alarmed by the answers, she explores ways of farming without using fossil fuel. With the help of pioneering farmers and growers, Rebecca learns that it is actually nature that holds the key to farming in a low-energy future.

The following from Tree Hugger:

Film Maker Explores Post-Oil Farming
Last week I wrote about a BBC documentary which I hadn't seen, but the green scene in the UK was all a flutter over. A Farm for the Future explores nature film maker Rebecca Hosking's return to her small family farm and her search for a post-fossil fuel agriculture. I've since seen the film, and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in food and farming - come to think of it, I'd recommend it to anyone who eats. But for those without the time or means to watch it, Rebecca has also written an excellent article in the Daily Mail newspaper about her quest for truly sustainable agriculture.

Rebecca's work (who incidentally is also responsible for a plastic bag ban in her home town!) is not just remarkable for the content she is covering - but the venues in which it is being aired too. To have a half-hour documentary devoted to peak oil, agriculture and alternatives like forest gardening and permaculture appear on prime time BBC is a telling sign of the times. But to also have an article in the Daily Mail - hardly the bastion of environmental radicalism - is dynamite.

There is no doubt in my mind that Rebecca is opening a lot of eyes to the unsustainability of our present food system. Take this excerpt from Rebecca's conversation with permaculture guru Patrick Whitefield [Disclaimer: Patrick is a former teacher and friend of mine]:

But it will work only if we have a lot more growers. Some reports estimate it's going to take as many as 12 million, although currently we have 11million gardeners. A food-growing system based on natural ecology appeals to my naturalist side. But the farmer's daughter in me needed a bit more convincing. Could permaculture feed Britain? I asked Patrick Whitefield, Britain's leading expert in permaculture.
'Good question,' he said. 'A better question would be, "Can present methods go on feeding Britain?" In the long term, it is certain that present methods can't because they are so entirely dependent on fossil-fuel energy. So we haven't got any choice other than to find something different.'

The more permaculture people I met, the more hopeful I became that we can find a way out of this mess if we start preparing for peak oil now.

Along the way, Rebecca also meets Ben and Charlotte Hollins - the brother and sister team who now run the innovative Fordhall Farm in Shropshire - and talks about their nature-based no-till pasture system; she talks with peak oil experts Richard Heinberg and Colin Campbell; visits Martin Crawford of the Agroforestry Research Trust and explores the small holding of Chris and Lynn Dixon - who have pioneered their low input, biodiverse permaculture-based land management techniques in the hills of Wales for years.

For folks like me who have long followed permaculture and other sustainable, but often marginalized, food movements, it's really incredible to see voices like this getting a wide and receptive audience. Now we just have to see how many folks are willing to roll up their sleeves, get their hands dirty, and start planting.

Vegetables: a Gardener's Delight

2009-02-27T13:43:00.001Z

In good times or bad, a vegetable garden fits the bill. Growing your own means you know what is on the final product label; you know if there are chemical additives in your salad. Your own vegetable garden allows you to decide whether you will share the potato crop with the Colorado potato beetle or choose to pick each bug by hand or apply chemicals for control. You will get a first hand lesson at crop production yields. Vegetable gardens can be found in the country and in the center of cities; they know no economic boundaries. They can be as large as you can tend, or as small as fits your needs. A vegetable garden can be found in an apartment balcony over looking a city center, in a pot on a back yard deck, or in a suburban landscape. Vegetable gardens can be laid out in straight rows or combined with flowers for cuttings; vegetable gardens are both productive harvest centers and ornamental creations of beauty. Cherry tomatoes can be planted among the flowers of summer, the varying colors of the fruits picked to eat right off the vine while tending to the daylilies or summer phlox.

Vegetable gardens are inclusive providing opportunity for children to participate, to grow radishes from seed, to plant pumpkins to care for until Halloween. Vegetable gardens are a family activity whether a single pot with parsley and herbs on a patio or a large adventure in the side garden of a home. Vegetable gardens are about sharing the excess of summer and winter squash sure to come when the harvest exceeds the plan. There is little more joyful than planting a seed and tending to its need and knowing in return that it will provide for maximum return with only minimal care. Just add sunlight, water and attention.
Now is the time to finish your plan; in Maryland potato planting comes on St Patrick’s Day and I will get ahead of the beetles this year for sure!

"Planting Dates For Vegetable Crops in Maryland"
http://www.hgic.umd.edu/_media/documents/hg16_000.pdf

Find the Ecovillage where you are...

2009-02-25T18:38:00.001Z

Good news from friend and colleague (once long-term editor of Communities Magazine and author of Creating A Life Together and Finding Community) Diana Christian (and previously fellow ecovillager at Earthaven) who writes (at her excellent new website, Ecovillage News):

I’m publishing Ecovillages as a free, bimonthly newsletter in order to encourage and inspire ecovillage projects with news about what ecovillages are doing worldwide. People seem to love photos and stories about how others are succeeding in good work. Ecovillages will bring you stories about successful projects in every issue, and practical, how-to information, too.

From six to eight articles will appear in each issue, in a variety of topics. Here are the kinds of articles and ongoing columns you'll find:

I’m especially keen on stimulating more interest in ecovillages in North America, ideally with news of what people are doing elsewhere. You’ll find stories about ecovillage projects in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Russia, South America, Australia and New Zealand, southern Asia, China, and Japan. (We’re everywhere!)

Be Fruitful and Mulch Apply

2009-02-14T18:32:00.002Z

SHEET MULCHING
A few simple directions
Michael Pilarski, Friends of the Trees Society (2/3/03 edition)
The most effective sheet mulches are roundish in outline and at least 10 feet or more in diameter to minimize edge which can be invaded by rhizomatous weeds.
1). First chop down existing vegetation as close to the ground as feasible. Leave the chopped material as the first layer.
2) Plant any trees or shrubs desired (if any) in the area to be sheet mulched.
3) Water thoroughly unless the ground is moist from rain or winter melt-off.
4) Spread layer of rich material such as manure, compost or mushroom compost, lawn clippings, fresh green leafy matter,
5) A good addition if available is to add trace mineral rock dusts such as rock phosphate, limestone, dolomite, greensand or humates depending on the soil.
6) Add handfuls of red wiggler worm inoculum (contains eggs as well as actual worms) at regular intervals. Not entirely necessary but they help break down the lower layers of the sheet mulch faster.
7) Cardboard layer. 2 to 3 layers thick, overlapped like shingles. Full coverage. Pull the cardboard within a few inches of any tree stems which have been planted.
8) Chip layer. Broken down is better then fresh material but both will do. Deciduous trees are
better than coniferous trees but both will do. Biomass from less polluted areas are preferable than from more polluted sources. Leaves, needles, twigs, and bark are better than the actual woody trunk chips. The finer the grind the better. Use whatever you can get, as long as it doesn’t have weed seeds in it.
9) Poke planting holes all the way through the sheet mulch with a heavy steel bar or a pick. Make a planting pocket in the hole and fill it with some good soil and then transplant herb plants or vegetable starts or flowers that you wish to plant. Water in thoroughly and remulch up to their stems.
10) Monitor the planting and pull the occasional weed which pokes its head up through planting holes, or around trees. After a few months the cardboard will decay to the point where weeds will gradually begin to emerge though the sheet mulch. It is easy to pull these shoots out if monitored frequently. The mulch can be renewed once or twice a year to maintain its effectiveness.

Non-violent communication for peak oil preparation

2009-02-02T03:33:00.001Z

Getting Your Family on Board With Food Storage

Sharon Astyk January 27th, 2009

Ok, I’ve convinced you - you need a reserve of food, you want to learn to can and dehydrate, you want to start eating more local foods. But you haven’t done anything yet, because, well, the rest of your household isn’t on board. Before you go there, you need to convince them. So I offer up this handy guide of answers to common protests about food storage and preservation. I also offer up some suggestions on what not to say, just in case you need them, mostly because that part was fun for me to write ;-).

Protest #1: It will be too expensive!

Bad answer: “But honey, the world is going to come to an end soon, and male life expectancy is going to drop into the 50s, so you won’t need your retirement savings anyway. Let’s spend it on food so I have something to eat in my old age.”

Good answer: “I’m glad you are so concerned about our finances, and I share your concern. I think in the longer term this will save us money, allowing us to buy food at lower bulk prices and when it is at its cheapest, and thus will insulate us from rising prices. But let’s sit down and make a budget for what we think it is appropriate to spend on food storage.”

Protest #2: No one has time to can and preserve food anymore! Isn’t that a leftover form the bad old days?

Bad answer: “Of course you’ll have time to do it, sweetie - can’t you get up before the kids do to make pickles? You already get 5 hours of sleep a night, so what’s the problem? Here, read this woman’s blog and you’ll start feeling guilty that you don’t love the kids enough to make your own salsa.”

Good answer: “What I think will end up happening is that we’ll save time later from effort spent now - and we’ll know that our food supply is nutritious and safe - I don’t feel good giving the kids processed foods with all the recalls and contaminations. But let’s definitely start slowly - I’ll make some sauerkraut, and then if you think we should, we’ll look into plans for a dehydrator. But we’ll do it together.

Protest #3: Where are we going to put all that stuff? There’s no way it will fit!

Bad answer: “On those shelves where you keep all your old vinyl records, silly. As soon as I get that stuff out to the trash, we’ll be ready to build our pantry.”

Good answer: “I think there’s some unused space in that guest room, and if I clean out this closet, I know we could put shelves up and store some food. I guess I should think about cleaning out some of my junk, right?”

Protest #4: Storing food is for wacko-survivalist types - that’s not us.

Bad answer: “Oh, didn’t you read that stuff by Nostradamus that I gave you? Oh, and do you know how to use an uzi?”

Good answer: “No, storing food is what my grandmother did to get through the great depression. It is pretty normal, actually - so normal that FEMA and the American Red Cross recommend that every American store some food.”

Protest #5: Nobody in our house is going to eat Garbanzo beans. I’m certainly not going to - they make we want to puke!

Bad answer:”Oh, you’ll eat those beans, young lady, or you’ll spend the rest of your life in your room!”

Good answer: “Ok, you don’t like chickpeas. That’s ok - what would you suggest we get instead? Would you like to come with me to the bulk store and help me pick out some storage food? It needs to be about 1/3 protein sources to grains - what would you suggest?”

Protest #6: I don’t want to think about bad stuff that might happen, or be reminded of it!

Bad answer: “Ok, you don’t have to. But have you ever seen this great website, The Automatic Earth?”

Good Answer: “But remember, we’re not just storing food for bad times, we’re storing food so that we can save money, go shopping less, have more time for each other, and so we have to worry less about money.”

Protest #7: Things will never get bad enough that we need our stored food, so what’s the point?

Bad Answer: ”I expect things to get so bad that we seriously consider whether or not to eat the hamsters - probably by next Friday. After Pookie and Herman, the neighbors will be next.”

Good Answer: “Well, this is really about a whole way of eating - not just storing food for an emergency. So no matter what happens, we come out ahead - we have the food, and it will get eaten.

Protest #8: Ok, I’m willing to think about some food storage, but storing water? That’s for whack jobs.

Bad Answer: “Ok, well I’m storing water for me, and if anything bad happens, I’m just going to sit there watching you shrivel up.”

Good Answer: “Remember the floods in the midwest this summer? A lot of areas had contaminated water, and I don’t really want to go for days with no water to wash hands in or to cook with. All we’ve got to do is take these recycled soda bottles and fill them with water and a couple of drops of bleach, to know that we won’t be in that position.”

Protest #9: Home preserved food isn’t safe - I heard about someone who died from eating home canned food.

Bad Answer: “Oh, you are right. Let’s only eat industrially packaged food with lots of peanut butter in it.”

Good Answer: “It is true that unsafe canning practices occasionally result in home canned food hurting or killing someone. But think of all the trouble we’ve had with the industrial food system - the melamine in dog food, botulism in canned chili, salmonella and ecoli on tons of things. I agree we have to be very careful, especially when pressure canning, and I plan to be. But we can preserve our own in lots of ways that are completely safe, and overall, home preserved food is actually safer, not to mention more nutritious, than commercial canned food.

Protest #10: There are so many things about this that are hard - it takes time, energy, new tools, money. It may be a good idea, but why would you want to take it on?

Bad Answer: “Because Sharon (yes, that woman on the blog you call “the nutjob”) says I should - she fed me the zombie paste, and now I have no will of my own.”

Good Answer: “Because I think we deserve better food than we’re getting. I want it to taste better, I want the money we spend to help do things we’re proud of. I want to depend on ourselves more and on corporations less. I want us to be healthier, and I want us to work together on this as a family. I want us to feel like when we are eating, we’re doing something good - for us and the world.”

Agicultural Sanity for A Change

2009-01-31T17:48:00.001Z

An Interview with Wes Jackson (at Counterpunch)

Future Farming By ROBERT JENSEN

As everyone scrambles for a solution to the crises in the nation’s economy, Wes Jackson suggests we look to nature’s economy for some of the answers. With everyone focused on a stimulus package in the short term, he counsels that we pay more attention to the soil over the long haul.

“We live off of what comes out of the soil, not what’s in the bank,” said Jackson, president of The Land Institute. “If we squander the ecological capital of the soil, the capital on paper won’t much matter.”

Jackson doesn’t minimize the threat of the current financial problems but argues that the new administration should consider a “50-year farm bill,” which he and the writer/farmer Wendell Berry proposed in a New York Times op/ed earlier this month.

Central to such a bill would be soil. A plan for sustainable agriculture capable of producing healthful food has to come to solve the twin problems of soil erosion and contamination, said Jackson, who co-founded the research center in 1976 after leaving his job as an environmental studies professor at California State University-Sacramento.

Jackson believes that a key part of the solution is in approaches to growing food that mimic nature instead of trying to subdue it. While Jackson and his fellow researchers at The Land Institute continue their work on Natural Systems Agriculture, he also ponders how to turn the possibilities into policy. He spoke with me from his office in Salina, Kansas.

Read the rest....

You Don't Have to Work So Hard

2009-01-13T04:26:00.001Z

No Dig Gardens

Clean, green and chemical free

No dig gardens are the quickest, easiest way to get home grown vegetables on your dinner table.

No dig gardening or a raised garden bed, consists of layering organic materials on top of the soil to create a nutrient rich environment for your plants, in this case, vegetables.

Urban Farming Links - Wisconsin, Chicago, etc.

2009-01-11T04:24:00.001Z

Milwaukee and Greater Wisconsin

Alterra Coffee

Family Farm Defenders

Fondy Food Center

Hunger Task Force

Michael Fields Agricultural Institute

Milwaukee Office of Environmental Sustainability

Milwaukee Renaissance

Milwaukee Urban Agriculture Network

Neu Erth Worm Farm

Oneida Community Integrated Food System

Outpost Natural Foods Cooperative

Sixteenth Street Community Health Center

Slow Food Wisconsin Southeast

UW Cooperative Extension

Urban Aquaculture Center

Urban Ecology Center

Walnut Way Conservation Corp

Chicagoland

Advocates for Urban Agriculture

After School Matters

Angelic Organics Learning Center

Chicago Botanic Gardens

Chicago Park District

City Farm

Common Threads

Family Farmed

Fourth Presbyterian Church

God’s Gang

Goodness Greenness

Greater Chicago Food Depository

Healthy Schools Campaign

Healthy South Chicago

Honey Coop

Kitchen Chicago

NeighborSpace

New Leaf Natural Grocery

Organic School Project

Seven Generations Ahead

Sustain

The Talking Farm

National and International Groups

Added-Value, Brooklyn, NY

Afri-Can Food Basket, Toronto, ON

The Brotherhood SisterSol, New York, NY

Community Food Security Coalition

East New York Farms, Brooklyn, NY

The Food Project, Lincoln, MA

Food Share, Toronto, ON

Growing Hope, Ypsilanti, MI

The Humane Metropolis

Heine Brothers Coffee, Louisville, KY

Just Food, New York City, NY

Massachusetts Avenue Project, Buffalo, NY

New Orleans Food and Farm Network, New Orleans, LA

People’s Grocery, Oakland, CA

ReVision Urban Farm, Dorchester, MA

Rooted in Community, Washington, D.C.

The South Plains Food Bank, Lubbock, TX

GM’s Bust Turns Detroit Into Urban Prairie of Vacant-Lot Farms

2008-12-18T20:38:00.001Z

General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., and Chrysler LLC are fighting for their lives. Large stretches of Detroit are already dead.

With enough abandoned lots to fill the city of San Francisco, Motown is 138 square miles divided between expanses of decay and emptiness and tracts of still-functioning communities and commercial areas. Close to six barren acres of an estimated 17,000 have already been turned into 500 “mini- farms,” demonstrating the lengths to which planners will go to make land productive.

A land bank the city created in July would coordinate the project if approved by Washington. These clearinghouses for vacant lots make it easier and cheaper for developers to invest in urban areas. Parcels in a similar program in Cleveland sold for as little as $1 as long as buyers agreed to maintain the property and pay taxes.

“We’re looking at pretty innovative ideas,” said George Jackson, Detroit Economic Growth’s chief executive.

One is urban farming. In many parts of Detroit, land that once held houses now grows cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and collard greens.

The city has more than 500 gardens and “we plan to triple that every year,” said Michael Travis, deputy director of Urban Farming, a Detroit-based nonprofit corporation that helps clear land and provides topsoil and fertilizer.

See complete article here.

Food Democracy Now

2008-12-17T13:28:00.001Z

Take a moment and add your name to the list of endorsers (of the following letter) which includes: Michael Pollan, Judy Wicks, Wes Jackson, Wendell Berry, Alice Waters, Bill McKibben, Rosiland Creasy, John Jeavons, Frances Moore Lappe, Winona LaDuke, Cathrine Sneed, Ralph Paige and many other people of organic influence. Let's get a secretary of agriculture who understands ecological farming.
Thanks,
Keith

Dear President-Elect Obama,

We congratulate you on your historic victory and welcome the change that your election promises to usher in for our nation. As leaders in the sustainable agriculture and rural advocacy community we supported you in record numbers during the caucus, primary and general election because of the family farm-friendly policies that you advocated during your campaign.

As our nation’s future president, we hope that you will take our concerns under advisement when nominating our next Secretary of Agriculture because of the crucial role this Secretary will play in revitalizing our rural economies, protecting our nation’s food supply and our environment, improving human health and well-being, rescuing the independent family farmer, and creating a sustainable renewable energy future.

We believe that our nation is at a critical juncture in regard to agriculture and its impact on the environment and that our next Secretary of Agriculture must have a broad vision for our collective future that is greater than what past appointments have called for.

Presently, farmers face serious challenges in terms of the high costs of energy, inputs and land, as well as continually having to fight an economic system and legislative policies that undermine their ability to compete in the open market. The current system unnaturally favors economies of scale, consolidation and market concentration and the allocation of massive subsidies for commodities, all of which benefit the interests of corporate agribusiness over the livelihoods of farm families.

In addition, America must come to understand the environmental and human health implications of industrialized agriculture. From rising childhood and adult obesity to issues of food safety, global warming and air and water pollution, we believe our next Secretary of Agriculture must have a vision that calls for: recreating regional food systems, supporting the growth of humane, natural and organic farms, and protecting the environment, biodiversity and the health of our children while implementing policies that place conservation, soil health, animal welfare and worker’s rights as well as sustainable renewable energy near the top of their agenda.

Today we have a nutritional and environmental deficit that is as real and as great as that of our national debt and must be addressed with forward thinking and bold, decisive action. To deal with this crisis, our next Secretary of Agriculture must work to advance a new era of sustainability in agriculture, humane husbandry, food and renewable energy production that revitalizes our nation’s soil, air and water while stimulating opportunities for new farmers to return to the land.

We believe that a new administration should address our nation’s growing health problems by promoting a children’s school lunch program that incorporates more healthy food choices, including the creation of opportunities for schools to purchase food from local sources that place a high emphasis on nutrition and sustainable farming practices. We recognize that our children’s health is our nation’s future and that currently schools are unable to meet these needs because they do not have the financial resources to invest in better food choices. We believe this reflects and is in line with your emphasis on childhood education as a child’s health and nutrition are fundamental to their academic success.

We understand that this is a tall order, but one that is consistent with the values and policies that you advocated for in your bid for the White House. We realize that more conventional candidates are likely under consideration; however, we feel strongly that the next head of the USDA should have a significant grassroots background in promoting sustainable agriculture to create a prosperous future for rural America and a healthy future for all of America’s citizens.

With this in mind, we are offering a list of leaders who have demonstrated a commitment to the goals that you articulated during your campaign and we encourage you to consider them for the role of Secretary of Agriculture.
The Sustainable Choice for the Next U.S. Secretary of Agriculture

1. Gus Schumacher, Former Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Former Massachusetts Commissioner of Agriculture.
2. Chuck Hassebrook, Executive Director, Center for Rural Affairs, Lyons, NE.
3. Sarah Vogel, former two-term Commissioner of Agriculture for the State of North Dakota, attorney, Bismarck, ND.
4. Fred Kirschenmann, organic farmer, Distinguished Fellow, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Ames, IA and President, Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, Pocantico Hills, NY.
5. Mark Ritchie, current Minnesota Secretary of State, former policy analyst in Minnesota’s Department of Agriculture under Governor Rudy Perpich, co-founder of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
6. Neil Hamilton, attorney, Dwight D. Opperman Chair of Law and Professor of Law and Director, Agricultural Law Center, Drake University, Des Moines, IA.

Sign Now

Permaculture solves problems - got any problems?

2008-12-12T05:21:00.001Z

These are some of the services offered by well-trained, skilled and practiced permaculture designers. The following example introduces a variety of projects / services offered by friend and fellow designer Larry Santoyo and the consortium of designers that work with him via Earth Flow Design Works.

The Home Ecosystem
New construction and renovation projects. Designs that integrate the function & beauty of interior environments with the function & beauty of the exterior environments. Consulting & Design includes green interiors, edible landscaping, natural cooling & heating, alternative energy, roofwater collection, greywater sytems and more...

[Most landscapes, buildings, and life circumstances are (often literally) dripping with possibilities and yields that most people completely overlook. You may be wealthier than you think....Talk to someone trained to notice these things....Even better, get yourself trained! K]

Green/Real Estate Development...
Our green building consulting services use unique and rigorous Permaculture Design Guidelines, along with the US Green Building Council's LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). Ecological and economical investment opportunities in sustainable homesteads and acreage, green homes and commercial properties are available.

[Most homes can be enormously improved by reevaluation and redesign. A good Permaculture Design team could save you buckets of federal "reserve" notes. K]

Permaculture Design Certificate Courses
& Advanced Permaculture Design Training...
Our teaching team includes the most experienced Permaculture Instructors and recognized leaders in the World-Wide Sustainability Movement. Our Courses are conducted all over the world, in cooperation with citizen groups, government and non-government groups, universities and environmental organizations.

[More permaculture teachers these days are working with colleges and universities, municipalities and, in a few instances, national governments. After almost 30 years Permaculture is making a difference on a fairly large scale. Stay tuned.....K]

Land Search
Place to Practice & Practice to Place...
Consulting & Design services assist homeowners, ecoVillagers, land managers, farmers and ranchers with Sustainable Development Guidelines. Finding and developing the "best use" practices for any given site -and- for matching "ideally suited" properties with proposed practices, saves time, money and natural resources.

[Get yourself connected to land and earth, even if it's pots on a balcony or rooftop gardens. Remember, a concrete wall can be a huge trellis for grapes.....or kiwis........K]

Localize Enterprise!
Green Business Development...
Consulting and planning services assist developers and business owners to create facilities, practices and products that strive for excellence with a "Triple Bottom Line" approach: the Economic, Social and Ecological factors that enhance prosperity, empower local communities and re-generate natural resources.

[See APPLE (Alliance for a Post-Petroleum Local Economy - Bloomington, IN) K]

Deep Green & Natural Building...
Ancient Methods for Modern Elegance. Mud and straw, sand and stone are the time-tested building traditions of people on nearly every continent. Updated techniques are examined and explored through hands-on workshops, and demonstrated through design and construction services.

[Many people don't know that they could build their own houses relatively cheaply from local materials. The Permaculture Design Course opens up many of these options. K]

Village Permaculture...
In association with The Permaculture Institute (USA) and Pattern Literacy, EarthFlow works together with Peace Corp Volunteers, NGO's, local farmers and government officials. The focus of Permaculture projects in Jamaica and in the Maya Mountains of Southern Belize is education, community development and sustainable agriculture.

[Often, when it comes to living sustainably, we can point to many cultures FAR MORE stable and adaptable than American culture. Maybe we should learn more about this before we wreck any more foreign lands and cultures with Our Empire. I think we should start seeing other people....K]

Back to the City Permaculture...
Los Angeles, California has become our training ground for implementing City Permaculture strategies. Making cities more sustainable is the best way to ensure the protection of all wilderness and conserve natural habitats world-wide. EarthFlow Design Works promotes urban and rural enterprise links to help create food & resource security.

[Cities have abundant resources when they are not squandered and degraded...principal among them is people. Empowered people can revision, redesign, and revitalize their cities making them cheaper to run and maintain and more fun to live in. You can learn these things.....uh, better hurry. K]

Restorative and Regenerative Agriculture...
Sustainable and organic agriculture efforts are dramatically enhanced by Permaculture & Keyline Design Guidelines. Management and land use practices conserve water and build soil. Helping growers transition from a chemical-based monoculture production to integrated polycultural systems is key in recreating global health and moderating climate change.

[Cuba, for example, HAD to adapt to peak oil by learning to farm organically when the Soviet Union collapsed and the US embargo persisted. Now Havana grows more than half of its food within the city limits and the country is largely food self-sufficient. K]

Swan Song for the Lawn...
Edible and Incredible Environments. Workshops assist Homeowners and train School Teachers how to convert resource-consuming lawns into ever-evolving food and resource systems. Culinary and nutritional information is also provided.

[The nation needs about 10,000,000 new farmers in the next decade to supply the shortfall when food becomes too expensive to ship all over the world. Many millions of people will lose their jobs in the next few years. We NEED to turn at least some of them into managers of small-scale highly intensive diversified urban and suburban polycultures. Are you up for it? TAKE A PERMACULTURE DESIGN COURSE for starters. Rise up against the forces of Lawn Order...K]

Peak-Oil/Energy Descent...
Working for a Fear Free Future!
Networking seminars offer practical information and strategies for organizing and empowering local community groups to help transition from a consumer lifestyle to a more localized and sustainable conserver lifestyle.

[Get a LIFE...style.....try out a 'conservatism' your kids might admire...Remember the FIRST permaculture principle.....,"Get help!" K]

The MicroVillage Network...
Connecting People to People and People to Place. A Product, Service and Skills Bank for local community groups to find green businesses, create local currency networks and provide links to contacts and information for Land Access and Land Partnerships.

[I think we're grown up enough to tell the truth about money....WE'RE the currency. We need a few systems to manage the enormous variety of exchanges possible between people. We actually need far fewer federal "reserve" notes than we think! (IF we think.) K]

EcoVillage & Community Design...
Green and natural building techniques for EcoVillage infrastructure layout, design and construction, as well as strategies for community economic security. EarthFlow also conducts workshops for effectively dealing with human dynamics, and the all-important "social architecture", to help ensure community responsibility, security and longevity.

[Hint...Many of the ecovillages of tomorrow are already built...they're called neighborhoods. What's missing is a bit of organizing, cooperating, planting and sharing...oh, and take down some of the fences...and collect water....and...and...and... K]

Food Forestry: a BioDiversity Imperative...
School Yards, Backyards, City Streets, Farms and Orchards can all become "Forests of Food." Integrated multi-level production, even on the smallest scale, can provide food, fuel and fiber, create wildlife habitat -and help cool the Earth.

[Think about it...schools, churches, corporate "parks", land everywhere becoming fruitful to provide for those that use the facilities...Duhhhh!....What's stopping us? K]

Biodiversity Nursery
Specializing in Rare and Exotic Fruits and cool summer climate edibles and herbs from the highland Cloud Forests and beyond. Yacon, Achira, Pepinos, Celeriac, spineless fruiting Opuntia and more...

[translate / transpose for your particular region / climate zone. K]

International Year of the Potato

2008-12-11T05:23:00.001Z

Potato varieties

Although the potato cultivated worldwide belongs to just one botanical species, Solanum tuberosum, the tubers come in thousands of varieties with great differences in size, shape, colour, texture, cooking characteristics and taste. Here's a small sample of potato diversity.


1. Atahualpa Bred in Peru, a high yielding variety good for both baking and frying	2. Nicola Widely grown Dutch variety, one of the best for boiling, also good in salads	3. Russet Burbank The classic American potato, excellent for baking and french fries

4. Lapin puikula Grown in Finland for centuries, in fields bathed in the light of the midnight sun	5. Yukon Gold A Canadian potato with buttery yellow flesh suitable for frying, boiling, mashing	6. Tubira CIP-bred variety grown in West Africa. White flesh, pink skin, and good yielding

7. Vitelotte A gourmet French variety prized for its deep blue skin and violet flesh	8. Royal Jersey From the Isle of Jersey: the only UK vegetable with an EU designation-of-origin	9. Kipfler Hails from Germany. Elongated with cream flesh, popular in salads

10. Papa colorada Brought to the Canary Islands by passing Spanish ships in 1567	11. Maris Bard Bred in the UK, a white variety with a soft waxy texture good for boiling	12. Désirée Red-skinned, with yellow flesh and a distinctive flavour.

13. Spunta Another popular commercial tuber, good for boiling and roasting	14. Mondial A Dutch potato with smooth good looks. Boils and mashes well	15. Unknown From Chile, one of more than 5 000 native varieties still grown in the Andes

Garden Helpers: Will Work for Food

2008-12-03T05:20:00.001Z

Plants That Attract Beneficial Insects
Nature is filled with "good bugs", crawling and flying creatures whose diet consists mainly of the pests that ravage garden plants. Here is a list of those good bugs and the plants that they like to visit for food and shelter. Intersperse these plants among the "problem pest areas" in your yard. Remember, though: Many chemical sprays work on both bad and good bugs. To keep the good bugs in your yard, eliminate insecticide use in the areas where they live and work.

Check out the lists here.

New Sharon Astyk Book!!!

2008-11-13T15:58:00.001Z

A Nation of Farmers: Defeating the Food Crisis On American Soil

by Sharon Astyk

Once we could fill our grocery carts with cheap and plentiful food, but not anymore. Cheap food has gone the way of cheap oil. Climate change is already reducing crop yields worldwide. The cost of flying in food from far away and shipping it across the country in refrigerated trucks is rapidly becoming unviable. Cars and cows increasingly devour grain harvests, sending prices skyrocketing. More Americans than ever before require food stamps and food pantries just to get by, and a worldwide food crisis is unfolding, overseas and in our kitchens.

We can keep hunger from stalking our families, but doing so will require a fundamental shift in our approach to field and table. A Nation of Farmers examines the limits and dangers of the globalized food system and shows how returning to the basics is our best hope. The book includes in-depth guidelines for:

Creating resilient local food systems
Growing, cooking, and eating sustainably and naturally
Becoming part of the solution to the food crisis

The book argues that we need to make self-provisioning, once the most ordinary of human activities, central to our lives. The results will be better food, better health, better security, and freedom from corporations that don’t have our interests at heart.

This is critical reading for anyone who eats and cares about high-quality food.

Sharon Astyk farms in New York, and is the author of Depletion and Abundance.

Aaron Newton is a sustainable systems land planner in North Carolina, and is the founding editor of Groovy Green.

Relocalize your culture!

2008-10-30T16:42:00.001Z

permacultureprinciples.com

2008-10-28T01:17:00.001Z

Permaculture is a design system based on ethics and principles which can be used to establish, design, manage and improve all efforts made by individuals, households and communities towards a sustainable future.

This site explores the 'essence of permaculture' in a simple and clear way, expanding on the work of co-originator of the permaculture concept, David Holmgren.

Calendar & Diary Review - Kirsten Bradley

How good are these? You probably don't know, so I'll tell you - they're great! Oh and though this looks like a shameless plug saying, basically, *buy stuff*, I'm afraid I have to mention it because they really are splendid. And really, how many other 2009 diaries will you find that contain the gruff but pertinent quote:

"there are two sorts of people in this world - those who poo in drinking water, and those who don't..."

See the full review here.

The 12 permaculture design principles are thinking tools, that when used together, allow us to creatively re-design our environment and our behaviour in a world of less energy and resources.

These principles are seen as universal, although the methods used to express them will vary greatly according to the place and situation. They are applicable to our personal, economic, social and political reorganisation as illustrated in the permaculture flower.

The ethical foundation of permaculture guides the use of these design tools, ensuring that they are used in appropriate ways.

Each principle can be thought of as a door that opens into whole systems thinking, providing a different perspective that can be understood at varying levels of depth and application.

Crisis Shopping

2008-10-08T20:10:00.001+01:00

Sharon has a unique skill in making light of desperate situations while simultaneously being extremely helpful. Enjoy....and act! Keith Johnson

Crisis Shopping: Food Storage When You Haven’t Been Storing Food

by Sharon Astyk October 2nd, 2008

Several readers have asked me to do a piece on what to do if you have been procrastinating about food storage, but plan to stock up before the end of the world (I’ve heard that Paulson and Bernanke have scheduled that for this weekend, but it could potentially be moved due to a conflict with some other disaster ;-).) So for all you procrastinators out there, here are my suggestions.

Now let’s note - my first suggestion is not to procrastinate. Because unless you are fairly well off, procrastinating and buying a lot of food probably means putting it on your credit card and paying it off. Not only is this extremely risky (I would not bet on any version of the apocalypse that doesn’t actually involve real zombies to get you off the hook with your credit card - and I’m pretty sure that they have zombie collection agents already, so maybe not even then.), it means that you will pay interest on the food, thus mitigating much of the benefit of even having it. But I do also know that sometimes one gets a big check, bonus, windfall, sells something or maybe the food is worth the price. So let’s assume that you all know better, and are doing it anyway.

Let us also assume that you are doing this shortly before everyone else starts their panic buying or shortly after (which makes it harder and makes the selection of stores more crucial), and that one or two stop shopping is the name of the game - you need to get as much that is useful as possible, as quickly as possible, perhaps not using much gas. So let’s start with where to shop.

My top few choices, in no particular order:

1. BJs/Sams Club/Costco: This is probably the most accessible (ie, lots of people have these reasonably nearby) and has most of the things you’ll really want. The downside is that often the bulk prices aren’t really very much or at all cheaper than smaller sizes, that the warehouses are huge and shopping there annoying and that they probably won’t have anything ethnic, or a large selection of nutritious things. Also will probably be mobbed if there’s a real or perceived immanent crisis. My tip for shopping here: if there isn’t an immanent apocalypse, you can probably get a free 1 shot membership to do a stockup even if you can’t/don’t want to pay the fee - they usually offer trials, and if you say you’d like to check it out, this can often be arranged.

2. An Asian grocery store of some sort. Best grain source for rice and often some kinds of noodles in quantity and quality, often have large quanties of spices and useful flavorings quite cheaply. The downside is that unless you cook asian food you will be confronted by many unfamiliar items, and you may find yourself with all the ingredients for Nasi Goreng, or Palak Paneer and no recipes, or idea whether you like it ;-). Also, not common in areas without large Asian or Indian subcontinental populations, so it might not be available. Tip for shopping here: go when it is quiet (weekends are tough) and ask for help - there’s usually someone who can help you figure out what you are buying.

3. A feed store. If a panic has already begun, this might actually be your best bet for getting large quantities of edible grains and pet food (plus livestock feed if you’ve got this). If you buy organic, whole feed grains, they should be adequate for human eating - and they come in 50lb quantities. Pick up your emergency supply of dog or cat food, some seeds for spring, and cracked corn and whole oats for you (and your horses). The downside: feed grains may not be especially tasty, organic feed is pricey, feed mixes may have things you don’t want, unless you live in a reasonably rural area, there probably won’t be one. Tip for shopping here: human consumption grains would be a better choice - save this option for food for yourself for a true crisis.

4. A coop or bulk food store. Coops are great because they tend to be run by good people and have reasonable prices. Privately owned bulk food stores also have good stuff - the thing is, most of these won’t have large quantities of staples in large bags - you’ll have to empty out the bins or place an order in advance. Still, not a bad place to get unusual ingredients, seasonings, yeasts, salt, nutritional supplements and meet special dietary needs. Tip for shopping here - you might ask if they have any bulk grains they can sell in larger quantities lying around - instead of asking for “50lbs of wheat” you might come at it the other way, asking what they’ve got a lot of.

5. Odd lots store/dollar stores: These are unlikely to have large quantities of things, but if you’ve got a big enough vehicle, you might be able to buy a pallet load of weird cereal by a a manufacturer you’ve never heard of for $1 box. These are good places to get canned goods and to pick up bug out bag foods that are light, nutritionally dense and portable. Soap and shampoo are often cheap here as well, and you may be able to get a few needed household goods, a couple of extra flashlights and whatever. Tips for shopping here: if you see something you want, snag it then - inventory changes fast.

6. Supermarkets - this is the classic crisis food shopping space, and the one that tends to get ripped into pieces until all that is left is Preparation H. These are to be avoided if you can avoid them during an actual crisis. If not, get there as early as you can, avoid the bottled water aisle (store some water in empty bottles instead and save your money for food). If you must hit one of these, choose one with a health food section and bulk bins, and ideally, a supercenter sort of thing, where you can also pick up anything else you need. Tip: Even if the crisis is likely to be long term, most people see supermarkets as a place to get short term needs met - so you are likely to find that staple foods and things like vitamins sell worse than boxed chocolate chip cookies. This is good, since you want more staples than cookies.

7. Drugstores, hardware stores, etc…: I’ve included these because you may have to stop at one - you may need a refill of your medication, to fix up the family first aid kit, or to buy flashlights. If you do need to stop, and are doing them in a rush, take a couple of minutes and think about other needs you might meet in such a place - drugstores may have some food and cheap spices, hardware stores may have other useful things at reasonable prices, like seeds. I’m not saying you should buy everything in sight, just working under the assumption that you may be able to make a limited number of stops. Generally speaking, though, if you can, you might want to consolidate trips the other way, and get your meds at a place that also primarily sells food.

Ok, now what to get. This assumes you mostly eat a regular American style diet (which ideally you don’t), that we shouldn’t push you too hard, and that you will be shopping at the above sorts of stores. That is, if you normally eat a lot of dal or mung bean noodles, please do add them to your plan. This is meant to cover mainstream ground - it is not meant to imply optimalization.

Here’s what I’d concentrate on. I am not including quantities here, because I don’t know how much you can afford, how big your household is, etc… What you should do is get as much as you can afford/haul and *manage* without spoilage. That means, get only what you can find a safe, bug and rodent proof spot for.

I’m also assuming that you don’t have a lot of fancy equipment - ie, I think life would be better for you if you had a grain grinder, but I’m going to assume no.

1. Vitamins. Get enough for everyone in the household. Regular, generic mulivites are fine, and any special supplement you take (although if these are optional luxuries and money is tight, forego the vitamin E capsules for more food instead). Yes, it is better to get your nutrients from food, but this is important. Also make sure you pick up children’s or prenatal vitamins if anyone in your household has a special need for these. You might also want to pick up a couple of bottles of vitamin C tablets.

2. Rice - as much brown rice as you can eat (and remember, you may be eating a lot more of it than you have been) in 3 months, plus as much white rice as you can. Why rice? It is widely available - even supermarkets sell it in 10 or 20lb bags in many cases. It is comparatively cheap, it is hypo-allergenic (ie, nearly everyone can eat it including infants and the ill), and it is familiar to people in just about every culture in the world. Brown rice is dramatically more nutritious, but it is also prone to spoilage - maximum storage is about 1 year, and it often goes rancid before that. A not-insignificant percentage of the population can’t taste rancidity in grains at all, so won’t know if the rice is still good to eat. So it is safest to get a short time supply of brown rice, and then mostly use white rice (supplemented with more nutritous grains).

2. Flour - get as much whole wheat flour as you can use in 6 months, and then get unbleached white flour. Again, you’ll be using the less nutritious form of the grain, but at least you’ll have food.

3. Rolled or steel cut oats. Get as many packages as you can. These are fairly nutritious and will help balance out some of the white stuff in your diet. This is breakfast.

4. Legumes: These include beans, split peas, lentils, cowpeas, pigeon peas, etc… Buy 1/3 of the weight of your combined grains (flour, oats and rice) in dry form. Check out the ethnic foods section for large quantities. These will provide protein, fiber and a host of other goodies. Don’t be afraid to try unfamiliar things here - they have a fairly wide taste range, but if you can eat one, you can eat another.

5. Something that sprouts. If you get stuck eating off your stored food in the winter or a summer dry season, when not much is going on, sprouts can save you. Ideally, you’d have a variety, from broccoli to onion to mung bean… In reality, you may not have much of a choice. But a lot of things in the bulk bins at whole foods or your health store, or available other places will sprout. They include whole wheat, alfalfa sprouts (just make sure you aren’t getting seed that is treated, and only use organic), untreated sunflower seeds, and a host of designated sprouting seeds. Nutrionally, if I had a choice I’d get broccoli, alfalfa and sunflower, as well as wheat, but you’ll be fine with just one.

5. Some other protein food - unless you are quite odd, you probably will not enjoy rice and beans for dinner, bread and beans for lunch and oatmeal for breakfast every day. You will be fine eating this - maybe even healthier, but you would be happier if you had something with a bit more fat, flavor and protein density, particularly if you are shifting from an average American diet. You do not need a lot of this - you might prefer a lot, but it

Best choices:

1. Whole nuts, flaxseeds or sunflower seeds in the shell

2. Peanut butter. Not the natural stuff - you want it shelf stable and in large quantities.

3. Canned fish - don’t overdo this if you have kids, are pregnant or nursing. But canned fish does have important nutrients, is tasty and makes people happy. Canned wild salmon is lowest in mercury, but can have high levels of PCBs. Don’t forget sardines, mackerel and other unusual fishes. Don’t go crazy also because it isn’t good for what’s left of the oceans, but occasional fish is good.

4. Shelf stable tofu, dried tofu sticks (asian groceries) or other stable soy protein.

5. Canned meat - I’m not a big fan of this, generally speaking, because unless you have a ton of money, canned meat is always from horrible sources, often troublesome in environmental ways, and doesn’t taste good. But others love their spam, and I won’t try and turn you away from it. Again, though, you don’t need that much - think occasional treat, and enjoy the flavoring and fat.

6. Fat: Olive oil in metal tins keeps several years if kept cool - that’s what I’d get of the choices available, with a bit of coconut oil to provide a tasty, shelf stable fat for piecrusts and “butter.” If you have to go cheap, get what you can afford that’s not too awful.

7. Dried fruit - if you are at a Sam’s Club type-place, you can buy big sealed bags of dried raisins or cranberries or something. Otherwise, you can take what’s available at the dollar stores or go hunting in the bulk bins. You want this for nutritional reasons, and so that you don’t get so constipated you can’t breathe. Also good for kids, to help them transition, or picky adults who are kind of like kids.

8. Powdered milk, soy, or rice milk. This is for calcium, protein to enable you to bake, to add creaminess to things, etc…. It will never taste like real milk, but you can live with it. It lasts a long time, and you can use it baking if nothing happens, so you might as well get as much as you can.

9. Salt - get a bunch, iodized for eating (you only need a little of this - and if you don’t want to store iodized salt or want something better, you can also buy dulse or kelp supplements to meet this need, but the easiest, most stable source is iodized salt) and uniodized for preserving, livestock if you’ve got it, brushing teeth, etc… This is cheap, and necessary to life.

10. Sweeteners - unless you have weaned yourself off of this entirely, you will want these. Sugar is probably cheapest, a lot of bulk honey is watered down or sugar syruped up. But you can use maple syrup, sugar, sorghum or whatever is most easily available. You may also need to stretch it - so work on reducing sugar now. We don’t need anywhere near as much as we eat.

11. Canned vitamin rich vegetables. Get a couple of flats each of pumpkin/squash/sweet potatoes, and some kind of canned green (mustard or turnip greens hold together better than spinach). If you are used to eating fresh, these will not taste as good as fresh - but can be mixed into things in the background to add nutrition. Make sure that you use the liquid from the greens as well. Some canned fruit is nice too, if you have room/can afford it. Canned pineapple is, to my mind, the best tasting commercially canned fruit.

Alternately (and better), you might be able to hit a farmstand and get sweet potatoes, cabbage and turnips, which would be much better for you, tastier and local, but the assumption of this discussion is that you aren’t doing that. Still, if there’s anyway to buy fresh food that can be root cellared, you’ll be a lot happier than relying on canned veggies.

12. Something(s) to flavor water/powdered milk. This depends on your preference, but if you are using non-traditional water sources, or drinking powdered milk for the first time, making it taste better will be worth a lot. Plus, if you are a tea or coffee person, you will be sad without them. So get vacuum packed cans of coffee, or lots of tea, cocoa. And if you have kids, or vitamin C worries, or the water tastes horrible, you might want to get some Tang or HiC powdered drink mix. The stuff is icky, but will add some sweetness, and also some nutrition, while covering the taste of bad water.

13. This is controversial, but you might want some alcohol. There are a couple of reasons. First, if things are bad enough and you have no major responsibilities, you might want to get drunk. Second, and more practically, a small amount of alcohol in your water will kill many bacteria, and is safer than inadequately filtered water. Oh, and you can probably use it like money to get other things.

14. Lots of seasonings. Varying your meals is key. Buy lots of spices, and you may also want ketchup, mustard, hot sauce, chili-garlic paste, fermented black beans, chutney, worcestershire…whatever. Depending on what you can afford and where you are, don’t forget this.

15. Get some treats. You will need them. So put some smoked oysters, a few bags of chocolate chips, some beef jerky, peanut brittle - whatever you or your family crave. I’d also suggest some kind of small candy that stores fairly well (we use those tiny dum-dum lollipops which come in bags of a zillion) to be doled out as rewards for children who are eating their new diet reasonably graciously and responding to their new reality - they are small and sweet and ease transitions. Adults might need other bribes. Also, don’t forget the ingredients for your special Easter bread, matza balls, or whatever other special occasions your family will still want to remember.

16. Some things that are dense and require minimal cooking in case you have to evacuate or if you are under stress - some ramen, some dried fruit, energy bars, instant bean soups, canned soup, etc…

Then add some extra batteries (if you aren’t already stocked), gas for the car and the can, a way to cook without power (sterno, camp stove, woodstove, more propane for the grill), and water purifiers (it will be easiest if you get this first). Ta da! You are ready for the zombies!

Sharon

Washing Away

2008-10-01T03:35:00.001+01:00

Soil Erosion Worse than Ever and Still Increasing

Our Good Earth

The future rests on the soil beneath our feet.

By Charles C. Mann (author of EXCELLENT book, 1491)

Photograph by Jim Richardson

On a warm September day, farmers from all over the state gather around the enormous machines. Combines, balers, rippers, cultivators, diskers, tractors of every variety—all can be found at the annual Wisconsin Farm Technology Days show. But the stars of the show are the great harvesters, looming over the crowd. They have names like hot rods—the Claas Jaguar 970, the Krone BiG X 1000—and are painted with colors bright as fireworks. The machines weigh 15 tons apiece and have tires tall as a tall man. When I visited Wisconsin Farm Technology Days last year, John Deere was letting visitors test its 8530 tractor, an electromechanical marvel so sophisticated that I had no idea how to operate it. Not to worry: The tractor drove itself, navigating by satellite. I sat high and happy in the air-conditioned bridge, while beneath my feet vast wheels rolled over the earth.

The farmers grin as they watch the machines thunder through the cornfields. In the long run, though, they may be destroying their livelihoods. Midwestern topsoil, some of the finest cropland in the world, is made up of loose, heterogeneous clumps with plenty of air pockets between them. Big, heavy machines like the harvesters mash wet soil into an undifferentiated, nigh impenetrable slab—a process called compaction. Roots can't penetrate compacted ground; water can't drain into the earth and instead runs off, causing erosion. And because compaction can occur deep in the ground, it can take decades to reverse. Farm-equipment companies, aware of the problem, put huge tires on their machines to spread out the impact. And farmers are using satellite navigation to confine vehicles to specific paths, leaving the rest of the soil untouched. Nonetheless, this kind of compaction remains a serious issue—at least in nations where farmers can afford $400,000 harvesters.

Our species is rapidly trashing an area the size of the United States and Canada combined.

Read the rest here.

Eating local food

2008-07-09T12:25:00.000+01:00

This is a piece I initially wrote in early July for my own blog, inspired by an Eat Local! Challenge.

I love the idea of local food (and growing my own) -- the benefits are clear in dinner tonight, a lovely squash medley with garlic, a fresh tomato, basil, garlic and onion sauce (all homegrown) for some homemade semolina pasta, and some baked chicken.

Our regional Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (North and South Carolina, USA) has issued an eating local challenge for the week of July 7-13 -- for folks to try to eat locally as much as possible (more challenging here in the Southeast than in some parts of the U.S.)

The chicken was probably from somewhere regional (there are lots of chicken farms in the Carolinas), but it wasn't organic or free-range, the eggs in the pasta were from regional free-range chickens, but the wheat flour was from a midwestern source (King Arthur flour). The tarragon and thyme that flavored the chicken was homegrown. But the black pepper came from the other side of the world, and the coffee I had this morning came from South or Central America or Africa. And the 'big organic' milk I had in my coffee was certainly a mixture of milk from a variety of sources, and probably not regional at all. And the parmesan cheese we sprinkled on our pasta was American-made, but certainly not local, and the Braeburn apple that I ate after lunch was from Washington State, and the raisins and nuts in the homemade whole-grain bread in my sandwich was certainly from California, but the tomato was homegrown, but the lettuce came from California, too. The fresh mozzarella was produced by a New Jersey-based company.

For lunch, my gardening companion had leftover organic brown rice (probably grown in the Central Valley of California), with leftover corn (grown somewhere in the Southeast), with pesto made from roasted cherry peppers (origin unknown), homegrown garlic, balsamic vinegar from Italy, pecans from the local coop (presumably from the Southeastern U.S.), cilantro from somewhere in the U.S., and grated parmesan (maybe from Wisconsin?), and a bit of the fresh mozzarella. Hmmm. It's illuminating to be mindful of where our food comes from! I remember seeing some years ago in a Central Market in Austin, Texas garlic labeled as from Argentina, and finding it a revelation. We import garlic from Argentina? Who knew? Of course, now we're much more aware of how much food is imported from all sorts of places (I saw Chinese garlic in a local produce market).

I can't help but think that we've had world trade in food and spices for centuries, if not millenia for good reason. But eating more locally is always a good thing, and there's no reason to have out-of season grapes flown in from South America considered as a 'staple'. Or to mindlessly buy whatever is available, just because it's there.

Transforming Your Urban Backyard

2008-06-28T16:37:00.001+01:00

Transforming Your Urban Backyard

Posted in Land, Urban Projects by Mal McKenna on the June 26th, 2008

Many people living in the suburbs and cities would like to ‘have a go’ at living a more sustainable and satisfying life and yet are daunted by what they view as lack of space and appropriate surroundings. It is easy to say “I just don’t have the space here!” or “Oh, my soil is terrible - I couldn’t grow a thing!” One of the enjoyable aspects of permaculture design is the challenge of recognising ‘problems’ and turning them into solutions. Sometimes all it takes is a shift in perception to turn a frustrating obstacle into a much needed asset.

by Mal McKenna and Phil Dickie

Most of us would probably prefer to impose our designs on grand vistas of idyllic acreage. However, most of us also have to make do with something much smaller, like a suburban backyard. If this is a matter of great regret remember it is also a peculiarly affluent First World perspective - we live in a world where many have no choice but to live off far less than a quarter acre and many for whom even this is an impossible aspiration.

How do you make the best of a backyard garden? Ultimately, it is your experiment; there is no universal backyard plan. As every yard will be different it is totally up to you or your family to decide what you would like to create. You may wish to begin with small projects such as creating a suntrap to give you a warm place to sit and have your breakfast on chilly mornings - even to provide your breakfast if you grow the right species. You could also plan a shady nook for those hot summer days, maybe in the form of a shade tree, maybe a small pergola covered in juicy grapes. The following tips and inspirations, derived from experience both tragic and comical, might help in whatever backyard transformation you may choose.

Starting Out

In this society, gardening is a big business burdened with experts telling you what you need to do and most importantly, what you need to buy, spray, spread, plant and so on ad infinitum. Balls! - It is your backyard and gardening is not about feeding the economic machinery. Think of gardening as contemplative fun, productive and meaningful labour and a place to escape the manufactured stresses of everyday life. Go and sit in it, and get a feel for it. Before you know it you are starting to evolve the plan.

The Plan

Elements to consider include aspect, climate, your time, budget, needs and future plans and, most important in the city, your neighbours. Shade is often a constraint in built-up areas - give some thought to the extra shade you will create when all those fruit trees grow.

Consider the existing structures and features. Are you happy with their placements? Are they productive and useful - or are they dysfunctional and a maintenance hassle? Translate your ideas and feeling onto a piece of paper or several pieces of paper. Draw in what exists and what will stay, as well as such constraints as windblown or shaded areas. Then allocate general areas for trees, annual vegetables, animals, access paths and other needs such as clothes lines and play areas. Don’t go overboard on function - humanity has aesthetic and spiritual needs as well. Exotica such as herb spirals, mandala gardens, banana circles, ponds and bird baths can be a combination of the aesthetic and the functional.

If you need ideas there is a wealth of knowledge in books, magazines, and other people’s experience to help you draw up a plan. Send away for seed catalogues, visit local nurseries. Talk to your friends and neighbours, find out what grows well in your area. Visit other lots and take note of the structures and gardens. Observe why the connections between some components work well and others don’t. Note where your friends spend most of their time in their lots, and why. Observation at this point is the key.

Also remember ‘the problem is the solution’ philosophy. Perhaps your lot is concreted and you do not wish to jackhammer any of it to dig in a pond. The solution? Make use of an old bathtub or build your pond on top of the concrete using bricks, rocks and an old tractor or truck tyre.

The Soil

Soil is fundamental but don’t despair if yours is not ideal. Most Australian soils lack something. You can, if you wish, spend hundreds of dollars on soil tests. Alternatively, check out your soil yourself - is it full of life, particularly of the wormy variety? If it is not - it needs organic matter at the very least. Soil pH, or the acidity or the lack thereof, is also important enough to test for because it determines the availability of minerals. Bare soil is a no-no in the tropics and the subtropics, so mulch is important in these areas. Growing your own leguminous mulch is one of the best methods of soil improvement anyway. Think about improving soil quality through what you put on top of the soil and let the earthworms incorporate (an ancient practice going under such modern brand names as sheet mulching, no dig gardening and the magic of mulch).

Loosen compacted soil with a garden fork. Drainage is also important, as most trees like good drainage. Poor drainage may be a matter of poor soil texture (which can be improved) and/or topography (which might be difficult to change). Clay soils might appreciate the addition of sand and vise versa, but it is also hard to go wrong (in the longer term) with the addition of organic matter (general panacea for all soil problems). Rock dusts (quarry wastes) or even soil from somewhere else may supply the minerals that your soil lacks. Soil from elsewhere may also contain microorganisms missing from your soil - if you chance upon a tree growing better than your own of the same variety, take a handful of soil from underneath it and if you are lucky you may have acquired some beneficial bacteria and/or fungi. To a large extent if you look after your soil, your plants will look after themselves.

Getting It All In

In a small area, the main concern is space. Following the recommendations of your local agricultural inspector or the directions on seed packets might leave you just enough room for one small tree and a lettuce plant in a small backyard. However, small areas can be intensively planted as they can be (relatively) intensively cared for. Getting it all in is a matter of going up, going down, going sideways, and going with the flow (the McKenna theory of lateral gardening).

Going Up

This is a matter of using your vertical or high spaces as a growing support (or creating some where they do not exist) Consider even the roof; around the world many do. Overhangs can be the location of hanging trellises. High fences are natural trellises, as are houses and retaining walls, ‘feral’ or pioneer trees, balconies, chook houses, garages or even old clothes lines past their prime. The vine is the plant category invented to take advantage of natural or artificial trellises, to insulate, to shade, to beautify and to cool. Chicken wire, spread over surfaces, hanging down, pinned up or on any type of framework is the substance created to give the vine a home.

Plants of various heights, a balcony, or pots of various heights, can make the most of a scarce commodity like sunlight or horizontal space. Mounds, and such constructions as herb spirals also make the most of space by incorporating a vertical element into an otherwise uninspiring horizontal surface. Trees intent on taking over the yard can be kept small and productive (and their fruit within reach) by being potted, or tip and/or root pruned. Vertical stacking is the technical term for the art of putting things on top of each other - sheet mulching on concrete, vines on trees, beehives on roofs, ponds on top of spirals, gardens on roofs, bureaucrats in big tall buildings in city centres. Often the main limits are a lack of imagination and the willingness to experiment.

Going Down

Underground is the unseen dimension. Some plants feed deep and some feed shallow and so can be planted close together. Not enough soil depth? Why not dig out paths to subsoil level and build up topsoil elsewhere with the soil? Ponds are an obvious way of going down productively; a flow can be created between ponds at different levels. Ponds can also be terraced internally to suit the differing depth requirements of various plants. Water can be an extremely productive medium; rather than persist with a drainage problem area, why not turn it into a water-based garden, digging some areas down to create ponds and raising better drained mounds in other areas. Likewise, where drainage is poor but there is some slope, a chisel plough or like implement can be used to direct subterranean water from where it is not needed to where it might be more useful.

It is preferable to try and trap nutrients and water that naturally escape your system. You can use deep or spike rooted plants which can then be harvested as mulch - leucaena and comfrey are good examples. Water running down a slope to waste may be caught in contour depressions or into a hole to water a specific tree a short distance downhill. In sandy soils, where the water runs straight through, it may pay to bury subterranean water containers. And although it may be heresy to the local council, it is a fact that roof water and many needed nutrients are directed down subterranean pipeways to unproductive or destructive ends in river and seas. If possible this flow should be interrupted and the water tank and occasional piddle in the garden be considered useful subversion.

Going Sideways

This is the art of horizontal stacking, fitting more into less. Classic examples are the keyhole bed or its derivative, the mandala garden, where you get more access with less path; and the banana circle, where a single compost heap and watering point keep multiple plants happy. Edge is a useful concept here; wiggly edges - to ponds, garden beds and any ‘boundary’ - give more horizontal space, greater productivity and more interest to the system. Going sideways is also about connecting the elements and having them serve more than one purpose; as in Bill Mollison’s Parable of the Chicken. A mulberry is both chook and human food - why not plant it in the chook pen? A pigeon pea is potentially food, a mulch source and a soil improver - best incorporated in a garden as all three. It is hard to imagine a more multipurpose object than a chicken - egg and fertiliser producer, weed, pest and scraps eater, garden hoe, pet or, in a mutually exclusive use, Christmas dinner. In a small backyard, totally free-range chickens are usually garden destroyers; some form of confinement in a run is usually necessary.

Companion planting is an example of the same principle - nature seems to demonstrate that monocultures are preferred only by pests and modern agriculture. Background reading, observation around your area and some judicious experimentation are the way to find out what goes with what. Intensive vegetable gardens and mature trees do not generally go together so allow for each separately at the planning stage.

Going With

This is the Zen dimension, making the best of what is or turning problems into solutions. Very few of us inherit a blank slate with perfect soil, aspect and no problem plants, structures, conditions or neighbours. Rather than change the problem soil, why not find plants or uses suited to it, for example, blueberries in acid soil, ponds in poor drainage areas. Problem trees can be ready-made trellises, or can be brought down gradually through top and root pruning and turned into mulch as you go. Excess wind can be diverted to useful purposes as well as being blocked or impeded. Light or dark colouring, whether of leaves or walls, can reflect or absorb sunlight. As for neighbours, very few can remain hostile in the face of gifts of eggs, fruit or honey; this can be a beginning to co-operative actions on other fronts such as noise, traffic and community facilities.

Sometimes, it is just the mindset that is at fault; a whole destructive industry is based on paranoia about weeds, defined as plants we don’t want. However, weeds can also be thought of as soil protectors, indicators or improvers, many are food (for people, chooks, bees and pest predators) and most make good mulch and compost. An even more destructive industry is devoted to pests, seemingly defined as the entire insect population of the planet. Pests can be redefined as a vital signal of imbalance, as a tolerable nuisance on the way to generating its own solution if left alone, as predator (bird, fish, frog, insect and elsewhere, human) food, or as pollinators, scavengers or self motivated secateurs.

In transforming your backyard you may also like to create a recycling system. This may include recycling grey water, food scraps and/or excess produce. If you have space for small animals and/or poultry you will find that they handle most of the scraps, otherwise all scraps can be put in the compost. Chooks do not eat onions, garlic, citrus skins, tea or coffee. Most plain paper can be used for sheet mulching. Leftover cardboard can be used for pathways and other materials which are slow to break down can be ’slow composted’ in a banana or paw paw circle.

Continuing to Learn

This has been but a brief flit through backyard possibilities. Remember, a welter of additional information is available through books, courses and from other backyard gardeners. However, your greatest teacher is likely to be your own backyard - if you get down there and interact with all your senses. Much of the most productive time spent in a garden is not that spent digging and working but that spent sitting and contemplating.

Green leadership

2008-05-11T03:28:00.000+01:00

This is a message that I wrote for the 'About this issue' for an upcoming issue of The Public Garden, the publication of the American Public Gardens Association.

Public gardens are green places, literally, and often serve as green refuges in our cities and suburban landscapes. Many of our gardens have stories that reflect reclamation of degraded landscapes, transformation of open fields to gardens, or restoration of woodland spaces. Our gardens are valued as places of green respite; we’ve reprinted Judy Zuk’s graceful piece about opening the Brooklyn Botanical Garden without charge post September 11 in this issue. I vividly remember visiting the intact mixed hardwood forest preserved as part of the NY Botanical Garden during a week-long educator’s conference and feeling the sense of being home and momentarily away from the hustle and bustle of the city. In urban areas, gardens and parks serve as “green lungs” and even in the most congested and chaotic international cities (I’m thinking about places like Mumbai, Mexico City, and Quito), trees, shrubs, and flowers provide a connection to nature that is otherwise absent.

Most of us think charitably about our institutions’ missions and goals regarding conservation and the environment. After all, what could be ‘greener’ than promoting plants, growing them, and encouraging our visitors to value them. But many of us are now thinking about doing more than that - about how we can encourage our supporters, the participants in our programs, and our visitors to transform their own approaches to living in a more sustainable, and ‘green’ way.

In my state of South Carolina, I’ve taken note of the upcoming statewide Master Gardener Conference, whose theme is Greening Carolina: Creating the Eco-friendly Landscape. The program organizer, a dynamic leader, exemplifies the trajectory from formal gardener to wildlife gardening advocate. The theme of South Carolina’s Spring Midlands Master Gardener Symposium is How Green is your Garden. In our neighboring state of Georgia, an upcoming special lecture at the Atlanta Botanical Garden features speakers that “show how an understanding of natural communities and processes helps gardeners meet the regional challenges of drought, soil, and climate while creating enduringly beautiful, meaningful spaces.”

These are the values that we need in our gardens, and that we need to promote to our communities. Plants from far away places that are well-adapted to whatever climate zones we’re in -- well, why not. But the ones that need to be on life support to survive in our gardens - well, maybe not.

This may mean some choices that aren’t easy to make, but if public gardens don’t provide ‘green leadership’ for visitors, what message do we send?

Perhaps North American gardens have been a bit slower than our international colleagues about putting themselves forward as models of garden stewardship, green practices, and advocates for conservation and restoration.

My experiences attending the International Congress on Botanical Garden Education sponsored by BGCI in New York, at Brooklyn Botanical Garden in 1997, serve as an example. Although I’ve been an environmentalist throughout my life, and an educator with an ecological bent for almost 25 years, I found this conference full of remarkable experiences. A garden educator from England did a program called the Whole World Cake (illustrating the path of global food), which predicted our current American interest in where our food comes from by over a decade. A garden educator from Mexico told me to reduce the slide projector speed to ‘save the bulb’ (who knew?) and an educator from a Nigerian botanical garden talked about not having pencils in his garden classroom. These international perspectives on needs, wants, and concerns regarding environmentalism in garden education programs was clearly way ahead of what we were doing in our North American gardens. A more recent International Congress on Botanical Garden Education in Oxford in September 2006 was full of similar thought-provoking experiences.

This issue reflects a growing awareness that all of our institutions have a significant role to play, not just the conservation gardens, or the gardens that have gifted environmentalists as leaders.

The articles in this issue present a variety of approaches for stepping up our efforts to provide green leadership, through individual staff efforts, inspired leadership from the ‘top’, and efforts encouraged by outside consultants.

Let’s get growing green in all of our gardens!

A new life for canvas totes

2008-04-09T14:12:00.000+01:00

It's a small thing really, and nothing new, but about a year ago, I gathered all of my canvas tote bags, accumulated over years of conference attending, and stationed them behind the seat in my car, for handy use in regular grocery shopping.

In my (less environmentally hip) part of the Southeastern US, I do stand out a bit, as I drag them out, and some of the baggers think I'm eccentric, but others think I'm quite smart... and, I'm sure glad not to have all of those plastic bags to recycle, if they actually ever get to a recycling plant from the grocery store bin.

I feel like I'm setting a good example, and I'm noticing more people using their own bags in the last couple of months, as the issue has been publicized a bit more in the mainstream media here in the U.S. I know those of you in Europe and some other areas in the U.S., and elsewhere, think, geez, I've been doing that for years. But change can be remarkably slow in conservative areas.

Actually, all of our local grocery stores sell reusable nylon logo bags, but I think they're really too small to be much use. My totes have the virtue of having long straps (easy to carry), and being tough and washable. I don't look particularly stylish (they're definitely an assortment of styles and colors).

In the last couple of months, I've been using organic cotton mesh bags from reusablebags.com for produce. There are large and small ones, open and closed mesh. These really elicit comment, but whatever. They work extremely well, are easy to wash when they're dirty, and save me from yet another round of plastic produce bags.

I Miss my Glass of Water!

2008-04-02T07:05:00.000+01:00

Just two years back (i.e. in 2006), I read one column on the UN’s initiative to provide access to safe drinking water to every person in the planet by 2015. For the detailed article, you can read the article “Water policy 'fails world's poor'” at BBC.co.uk. Almost after two years, I don’t think either the UNESCO or the local governing bodies have been able to deal with the water crisis, appropriately. The crisis remains similar as it was before two years rather the situation is getting worse day by day. The reasons behind such failure that have been discussed in the article are all manmade and we human beings have been ignoring this fact again and again. Some of the discussed reasons of the failure of the UN’s Water Policy are mentioned below:

Rapid Changes in Global Climate
Rapid Urbanization
Poor Governance
Illegal Tapping and Leaks

I appreciate the way Barun Mitra (director of Delhi-based think-tank the Liberty Institute) analyzed the UNESCO Water Policy. Of course, we need to deal the crisis in a Bottom-Top approach so that the ground level victims can get benefits from such initiatives. Here follows the map of nations' "Water Footprints":

Though there are some other organizations joined the race to save the water resource and proper management and distribution of safe water, yet the benefits are far away from the deprives. HELP (Hydrology for the Environment, Life and Policy), a joint initiative of the UNESCO and WMO (World Meteorological Organization) taken on the outcomes of the Fifth UNESCO/WMO International Conference on Hydrology (held in February 1999). Here follows the Worldwide HELP Networks:

But there is lot more to do; initiating such programs without proper management can only be resulted in wastage of time, money and resources. We need to work on our side of our own. We need to create micro organizations in our respective localities and have to look after the water management and distribution with the help of departmental authorities. We need to spread the awareness among people regarding how to preserve rain water, how to maintain good sanitation and so on. Otherwise the World War III is inevitable in near future to acquire each other water resources among countries.

Tigers in India – The Lost Glory!

2008-04-01T10:52:00.000+01:00

“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

(William Blake)

If you remember those lines from William Blake, then I’m sure you won’t miss a single opportunity to glorify the Tiger. The Tiger is deeply rooted in our culture and tradition. Almost in all cultures, at least one chapter surely has been devoted to present the glory and grandeur of tiger. As In Chinese philosophy of Taoism, Chang Tao-ling (The founder of the Heavenly Master movement is the semi-legendary Chang Tao Ling) mounts a big cat (most probably a tiger) in his quest to fight evil and seek the essence of life. In Hindu mythology, the Goddess Durga (the symbol of fierce feminine power) rides a fierce whitish golden tiger (somewhere you can see a Lion) gifted to her by Hamialayas. So we can’t ignore the importance the Tiger in human life. Though there are some cases of tiger-attack on human beings and cattle found in the areas situated near the tiger conservations and in most of the cases the tiger has been a victim and the problem has been solved. Lack of food and deforestation has forced tigers to come out of the deep forests and to attack the cattle and human beings. The researchers have found that a tiger territory can range from 10 miles to 20 miles and if the tiger is not hungry, then it never attacks other animals other than any other tiger or similar animal’s intrusion. But tiger poaching has been a persistent crisis in Asia (especially in the South-East Asia and Asian Sub-continent). Despite strict government rules, poachers have been able to kill tigers in numbers. This is happening only because of lack of awareness between tribal people, corruption and high demand tiger parts in foreign market.

Due to its cultural and mythological significance, most people believe that tiger is a great source of curative power. In China still you can find various medicinal and other products made of tiger’s different parts.

In India, tigers are killed and their parts are exported mostly to China and Tibet. You would be surprised to know that there are almost 5000 tigers and in the USA, there are 10, 000 in captivity.

We need to stop these people and this can be achieved by spreading awareness among tribes those who live closer to these animals and understand their activity closely. Tigers too contribute a lot to our ecological system and their disappearance can disturb the whole ecosystem.

Otherwise, the Tiger will be seen only on pictures and researchers will be researching only on the dead and dry parts of the Jungle Beauty.

Thanks for Joining the Battle!

2008-03-31T06:04:00.000+01:00

I’m extremely pleased for your writings at our blog The Gardeners’ World. I hadn’t thought that my attempt to introduce all Garden Lovers at single platform and the way you bloggers turned out is really a great moral boost to the War against Global Warming and Environmental Pollution. I hope more and more bloggers will participate and contribute their valuable thoughts to this blog. Once again, I would like to convey my deep gratitude to Keith, Claire Splan, Ioannis Petrus, lkw, Harvest, K. B., Karen @ Wiggly Wigglers and Special thanks to wild flora for his valuable comments. This blog belongs to all of us and let’s make this blog a great success. You are free to use this platform for your websites’ and blogs’ promotion, too. You just mail me your sites/blogs’ URL and Titles @ cathysimpson@live.com and I’ll add them to the blog.

With Best Regards!

Thanks for the invitation!

2008-03-29T20:56:00.000Z

Just received an invitation to contribute to this blog. Thank you Flora. I'm spending a LOT of time in my greenhouse and, as the days grow warmer, more time in the garden. You can see pix of my greenhouse at

Winter Gardening in Southern Indiana

and more at my blog: Permaculture & Regenerative Design News

Going Dark for Earth Hour

2008-03-29T19:22:00.000Z

Because I believe that small acts can add up to big change, I'm going to participate in Earth Hour tonight by turning off the lights between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. Earth Hour organizers are hoping to increase the level of participation worldwide this year over last year when Earth Hour was first started by the World Wildlife Fund in Sydney, Australia. Turning off the lights for an hour is a small action, but it goes a long way to increase awareness of our energy use and abuse and also of the fact that change can be simple and relatively painless.

Excuse me now while I go hunt for some candles...

Glad to Be Here!

2008-03-29T18:21:00.000Z

Hello, and thanks to Flora for the invitation to join this blog. I love the idea of having a blog focusing on the link between gardening and the environment at large. I've tried to occasionally address topics such as climate change, habitat loss, and other environmental concerns at my garden blog, An Alameda Garden, but these issues are so important, they really do deserve their own platform. In a sense, we gardeners are on the front lines in the battles against environmental destruction. We can see the changes, both good and bad, up close and at ground level. But we can do more than see change; we can be change. And then we can blog about it so change can spread.

Looking forward to many lively discussions ahead!

Why we garden

2008-03-29T14:18:00.000Z

I was reading quite a bit about gardening in a time of climate change last fall, working on an article about gardeners' perspectives. It wasn't a particularly uplifting topic. Thinking about what climate change will mean for our native plants, the plants we can grow in our gardens, wherever we are, and how weather unpredictability will affect the plants (native or not) that we love certainly exacerbates my usual environmental concerns.

But I've found that gardening as restoration (of place and spirit) is an excellent antidote to environmental worries. Transforming our own yard from lawn to wildlife garden has been a remarkable source of satisfaction, and the ability of plants to heal degraded landscapes is something that we can actively embrace.

What I appreciate is the essential ability of gardens to restore patches of earth to support wildlife, and everything associated with a diverse array of plants. I know that we can transform barren spaces to areas that are both lovely and life-sustaining, and that communities, towns, and cities can 'green' themselves by planting a diversity of trees, shrubs, and perennials and encourage gardening for food and wildlife, and become living spaces in the process.

This is a perspective that has grown on me, as a plant ecologist interested in the natural world, and the wild plants and the wonderful diversity of plant communities that still exist on our planet.

I think gardening, and planting, is a way to actively restore our bit of habitat, and maybe more, as we seek to make a difference in how we approach living on the Earth. Nature restores habitat even more effectively if seed sources are available. Everything we plant is helpful in terms of taking up CO2, although I'm hardly worrying about that when I plant something. But by being good stewards of the little patches of earth in which we garden, we CAN make a difference by providing habitat, growing plants that don't need a lot of extra 'stuff' and vegetables (which are waterhogs), but nevertheless are the epitome of local food.

Never too early to Garden

2008-03-29T11:09:00.000Z

My family has been in the garden business since 1881. Five generations accumulate much information of a hands-on nature. Our records and personal memories tell us that, what we call weather, is changing. Once three foot long icicles formed along the edges of our greenhouses. It has been at least thirty years since that happened. Today, the garlic mustard, our mid-Atlantic invasive species de jour is beginning to make its run of dominance in the woodland edges of my community, something I never saw when working and walking with my grandparents.

The Bradford pears are in bloom and so dominate the landscape, that some of our customers, whose landscape literacy is not complete, identify the tree incorrectly and come to the nursery asking for dogwoods, having completely substituted in their minds the correct species for the invasive species.

What has changed to create this wave of invasive species? A cursory reading of gardening literature and scientific reports shows a surface correlation with climate change, specifically an increase in CO2. The explosion of invasive species seems to be tied to the dramatic increase in CO2 which is the primary current villain for the increase in global average temperature.

Our traditional plant choices are changing, as plants once not hardy (could not survive the cold) in Washington DC now grow fine. Obnoxious plants such as poison ivy, a native, now are more toxic. This surge in activity in the garden means that we are spending more time and resources (energy) maintaining the status quo. This increase in energy used to halt change in turn contributes to the release of carbon into the atmosphere.

I look forward to commenting on future postings, and to instigating a few comments a long the way. Ipetrus

2008-03-29T06:57:00.000Z

The Gardeners' World (Presented by The Ecosystem)

Hi Friends!

The blog is on a mission to spread awareness among bloggers around the world regarding Global Warming and Environmental Pollution. I invite interested bloggers to join this blog as a CONTRIBUTOR and post your valuable words to spread awareness. As a first step to this I've searched through several bloggers, selected and invited some of them to contribute to is blog. Hope they would accept my invitation and make the blog a real success. We would also use this platform to promote gardening tips, garden accessories and other garden related things.

Thanks for your kind support and soon we would come up with new postings.