Pawpaw Paradise: The Banana of the North
As I write this, snow covers the ground amid a landscape resembling the tundra. Many bird species have migrated south, departing this frigid region for more mild climes. Waterways glaze over their surfaces with the pale luster of ice. And my banana trees rise through the snow just like the more familiar apples, pears and peaches.
The Forest Farm: Clothing the Earth with Trees
There is a scene from the 1984 adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol“ in which Scrooge is talking to Bob Cratchit about the use of clothing instead of coal to keep warm. “Garments were invented by the human race as protection against the cold. Once purchased, they may be used indefinitely for the purpose for which they were intended. Coal burns. Coal is momentary, coal is expensive“. Now, all symbolism of his greed aside, it is actually a great point
The Terrible Plight of the Chestnut Blight
All it took was one generation and an entire culture shifted. One generation of an imported fungus to spread like wild-fire. One generation of people born after it’s demise for it to be nearly forgotten. And now, one generation at a time, to help bring them back.
Permaculture Principles: A Grower’s Guide
Permaculture. Perhaps you’ve heard the word before, perhaps not. Although the word itself is relatively new, the practices that define it have been around for as long as humans have been cultivating plants. Indeed, it has been the primary agricultural system around the world for most of that time, only recently being upended by the corporate industrial/chemical farms. To farm in a permaculture sense is to work WITH the landscape, rather than against it.