Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
It was an odd paradox that led author Michael Pollan to write a book about cooking: How was it, he wondered, that in an era when Americans were buying more and more pre-packaged, ready-to-eat food, they were spending more time watching programs about cooking on television?
The problem here is, that we’ve switched from a closed loop system where the waste from the farm house goes into the farm yard and all the phosphorus can recycle, to a linear system where the phosphorus gets mined…
How I’m using the scientific method to learn how to grow the most food possible in my backyard, and how other people can do so as well.
Food and other organic material (by which I mean yard waste and prunings) make up a whopping 25 percent of New York’s residential waste stream: that’s a huge amount to potentially divert from landfills and incinerators. Compost it instead and we’d be saving the city money (New York spends more than $330 million a year hauling waste to landfills) and avoiding the generation of the greenhouse gas methane, which is produced when organic material rots in the airless confines of a dump.
If flocks of city-dwellers will trek to steep hillside paddies to work in the damp spring weather, then nothing seems impossible.
A delightful and thoroughly enjoyable read: in my many years of reading environmental books there aren’t many I could say that about. I found The Seed Undergound on a table at the home of a member of Transition Mar Vista/Venice, at an open house (open garden) as part of last month’s 100+ home Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase.
I have ruminated enough times on this blog about climate change that it should no longer pop up its ugly head, and yet it never ceases to amaze me as to how well it lends itself to a quick article. As homesteaders, so many of our daily activities lead to the out-of-doors, and therefore keeps us connected to nature and all her changing faces.
The Edible Bus Stop (EBS) is a gardening project trying to transform neglected spaces throughout London into vibrant green patches of community engagement. The project is due to launch May 18, 2013 at the Grand Opening event, ‘Donate a Plant’ at the Landor Road Garden.
Regardless of terminology, one point is writ clear: the most technologically and economically advanced cultures in the world have the highest rates of food waste on the planet
As Detroit recovers from staggering unemployment due to the mass exodus of the auto industry, small business creation is now being touted by many locals as a better solution for resiliency, higher wages and employment stability than big business recruitment. But starting a new business from a dream with little business experience can be daunting, especially without the capital to carry you through early mistakes.
In a rural area in the former East Germany, late summer 2009: Shimmering heat, the intense odor of fermenting fruits is in the air. A tree covered with hundreds of juicy pears, and a foot-high layer of rotting fruit on the ground. A stone’s throw away – plums, mirabelles, elder bushes and every now and then an apple tree along the path, maybe of an old, rare variety. An abundance of fresh fruit – in normal seasons, much more than needed to feed birds, insects and other animals – forgotten, abandoned, unused.
As soon as we step out of our homes in pursuit of food, we cross an energy threshold that is worth considering.
