Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
It says in the books that hens have to eat commercial mash to lay a profitable number of eggs. All the farming tradition they know about or been taught says you have to feed mash. Momma fed mash so don’t you dare insult her memory. Ditto for papal infallibility.
Energy used by the US food system accounted for 80% of the increase in American energy use between 1997 and 2002, according to a recent report from the USDA’s Economic Research Service.
May hits us like an ice water dousing on a drowsy morning. It is simultaneously shocking and deeply refreshing. Winter’s leisurely breakfasts are suddenly a thing of the past: Bob and I scarcely have time to join each other for a cup of coffee before we find ourselves on our hands and knees weeding asparagus, donning nets to check on the beehives, pounding posts to trellis new grape vines, digging holes for new fruit trees, or heading down to the farm to make sausage before the farmer’s market starts.
In the past twelve months, ethanol exports from the United States have increased from 4 million gallons in March of ’09 to 46 million gallons in March of this year to places like United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Canada, and the Netherlands. This year’s March figure is about 4 percent of the 12 billion gallons mandated for domestic biofuel use this year. Ethanol producers are thrilled.
-Reflections on an Oil Spill: A New Orleans Native Speaks Out
-Fishgrease: DKos Booming School
-Human Health Tragedy in the Making: Gulf Response Failing to Protect People
-Screw the Environment: BP and the Audacity of Corporate Greed
-‘Culture Integral to Agriculture’
-No-Till Farming Improves Soil Stability, Research Finds
-Is the Urban Farming Movement Here to Stay?
-Fish Are Jumping—Off Assembly Line
-French farmers bring rural reality to Champs Elysées
-Indian State of Kerala Starts 10-Year Conversion to All-Organic Farming
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Most people don’t live in the country, so maybe you live in a flat (apartment) with a balcony, maybe in a narrow row house, maybe you have only thin or contaminated soil, or only asphalt – ten percent of the arable land in the USA has now been paved over. For you, garden beds create an easy way to grow crops almost anywhere.
Bill Wilson and Wayne Weiseman pour their hearts into their permaculture design courses, changing lives as well as landscapes. In a unique format, students do initial course work online and then attend a one week hands-on course. In this chat along with Sivananda Yoga Farm sponsor Vidya Chaitanya, Wayne discusses principles starting with observing elements like wind, water, sun and topography in a specific property. Bill provides alarming information on “peak soil.”
These days the economic news resembles nothing so much as a bad horror movie, with trillions of dollars of bad debt rising from the crypts of banks worldwide to wreak havoc on the living. Like vampires and zombies, undead financial paper can be held at bay with the appropriate tools; the Archdruid explains.
On May 8, 2010, Deconstructing Dinner descended upon the grounds of the Legislature of British Columbia in Victoria where one of the largest rallies of its kind was taking place. The rally was organized as part of the 2.5 week long “Get Out Migration” calling for the removal of open-net salmon farms along the B.C. coast. Between April 21 and May 8, biologist Alexandra Morton travelled from the community of Echo Bay in the Broughton Archipelago and proceeded on foot down Vancouver Island where hundreds of supporters joined her as they approached the BC Legislature. An estimated 4,000 people attended the rally.
My morning survey of the garden reveals that I did it again. The row of early potatoes, finally up, marches straight across the garden until the last four hills and then veers off inexplicably, six inches out of line. I try, I really do, but I am genetically incapable of making a straight row. Yes, I could use stakes and a string but that takes too much time. Who needs perfectly straight rows anyway?
Now that I’m retired from the academic life — or rather, now that I’ve departed the academy in disgust and despair — I no longer spend time in my swivel chair, dispensing information on the telephone or tending to the tender young psyche of an overwrought twenty-something.
