“For gardeners, this is the season of lists and callow hopefulness: hundreds of thousands of bewitched readers are poring over their catalogues, making lists for their seed and plant orders, and dreaming their dreams,” ~ Katherine S. White, A Romp in the Garden, The New Yorker Magazine Every winter the Nichol’s Garden Catalog arrives to […]
Category Archives: food
“’Taliban farming’ — pointlessly hostile to the natural world … It’s got no food. It’s been flailed within an inch of its life.” ~ Jake Fiennes “I think the tide has gone out on the agricultural system we have. I think that’s over. If you look at where the science is going, we have […]
As a kid, my family was well-off enough that food was plentiful, and our mother was a great Southern cook. Our dad also cooked — primarily the game we collected by hunting or fishing. Between having great food available and being a big kid, I have always been a ‘hearty’ eater. Nonetheless, there have been […]
“It is reported that this Fruit (avocado) provokes to Lust, and therefore is said to be much esteemed by the Spaniards” ~ English explorer and naturalist William Dampier, 1685 As a kid in Texas, I was exposed to lots of vegetables and fruits that we didn’t see in the TV shows. For example, we […]
Every summer, the Golden farmer’s market opens in the lot next to the library, a few blocks from our house. Early in June the selections are somewhat limited, focusing mostly on the breads, canned items, herbs and spices, root crops, leaf veggies and fruits and veggies imported from Arizona. By the end of June, though, […]
Gardening isn’t about plants, it’s about everything else: the soil, the insects, the birds, mammals and reptiles, and how you sit in this world. The plants are the final flourish, the gift of reciprocity from all the others. ~ Alys Fowler The weather seems to have turned from winter to the beginnings of spring. […]
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare We called them ‘doodle bugs,’ but a girl I knew called them ‘rolly-pollys.’ When in college, I learned they were actually ‘wood lice’ or the singular, ‘woodlouse.’ Wikipedia lists about fifty other names for these guys, not including […]
“By composting, you reduce your carbon and financial footprint; your waste doesn’t have to be transported, nor do you have to buy nutrients in. By embracing rot, you will start to see failure in a new light …” ~ Alys Fowler When I first started my vegetable garden, nearly forty years ago, I made […]
Superweeds “I’ve never been trained as an evolutionary biologist — you know, formally — but basically, what I feel like I try to do in my career is try to stop evolution,” Pat Tranel, a crop scientist says. “And it’s a pretty powerful force. It’s pretty hard to stop.” ~ H. Claire Brown We’ve […]
“In 2020, locusts have swarmed in large numbers in dozens of countries, including Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Somalia, Eritrea, India, Pakistan, Iran, Yemen, Oman and Saudi Arabia. When swarms affect several countries at once in very large numbers, it is known as a plague.” ~ David Njagi This summer, the seventeen-year eruption of cicadas will […]
Writes of Nature 