“Farmers are the heroes.” ~ Rhett Brian Burning is an age-old practice to clear the fields of the remains of last year’s crops, and it makes plowing and seeding much easier. However, poet and journalist Rhett Brian reports, “At roughly the same time each year, 2 million farmers across Punjab and Haryana set their […]
Category Archives: soil
“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 […]
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark!” ~ Hamlet by William Shakespeare I’m not sure how I started composting. Maybe it was just a result of not wanting to have stinky things in the trash so I didn’t have to take it out so often. I also dislike the idea of raking up […]
“I think idly about maybe, just maybe, this year I might just walk the talk and grow a natural yard, my own version of rewilding. Let nature have its way and see what evolves. After all, nature was here first and maybe she knows best what to do here.” ~ Steve Tarlton Every spring, […]
People tend to see gardening as a hobby — an activity — but I think it’s primarily a relationship. Many gardeners speak of the importance of feeling part of something larger than themselves … This feeling of being part of the web of life. ~ Margaret Roach, quoting Dr. Sue Stuart-Smith The web of […]
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. […]
Leaves are covering the yards, the garden plants are slowly (or, if a freeze, quickly) dying, and the squirrel-mutilated faces on pumpkins are moldering across front porches everywhere. It’s the perfect time to start your garden compost pile! Composting is an age-old practice to conserve the nutrients that nature provides. Normally, trees, shrubs and grasses […]
“Regenerative gardening means practicing gardening in a holistic way that regenerates the soil, our bodies, our living environment, and our planet,” says Shangwen Chiu Kennedy, a landscape and urban designer. “It focuses on putting nutrients back into the soil, resulting in plants capturing and storing carbon from atmospheric CO2 in the soil while also improving soil health, […]
With sea levels expected to rise 3 to 6 feet by the end of the century, coastal communities are moving fast to construct major shoreline projects to protect themselves. As the size of these projects expands, the primary building materials — dirt and mud — are getting scarce. ~ Lauren Sommer Mud puddles, muddy […]
“When we sow a seed, we plant a narrative of future possibility,” ~ Sue Stuart-Smith Yes, things are kind of crappy right now. We’ve got this incredibly bad pandemic keeping us mostly housebound for the last year and killing hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions worldwide. We’ve had four years of white supremacy, […]
Writes of Nature 