Food and Cities

An excellent video from the TED series.

Foraging for Wild Edible Plants – Print Your Own Pocket Handbook

If you’re anything like me, do you walk through the lanes, pathways and woods and see the lush green growth that nature has provided, and wonder what plants you can eat or might be useful in some other way? The answer comes in the form of this handy and inexpensive downloadable guide that you can print yourself – The Handy Foraging Companion and Hedgerow Herbal from ‘Judy of the Woods‘.

Just £3.95  

This latest version of The Handy Foraging Companion And Hedgerow Herbal comes in a portable post card size. The downloadable and easy to print feature-laden guide contains a list of over 350 edible plants in a handy format, as well as detailed illustrated profiles on over 50 common edible plants of Britain and Northern Europe. More

Climate Camp 2008

Sunday August 3rd is the official start of Climate Camp 2008 at Kingsnorth in Kent. I wish I was able to go but work and other commitments means I can’t, which is a shame ;-(

On Wednesday afternoon, a hundred climate campers secretly converged and occupied the site for this year’s Camp for Climate Action, a kilometer away Kingnorth power station.

Dozens of marquees were slowly put up, neighbourhoods arrived from all over the country, solar panels popped up, a central kitchen dished out three delicious meals a day and compost toilets were being built. A vision of a sustainable self- managed world is being put together piece by piece in a field in Kent, less than 45 minutes from London. All are welcome to come down as soon as they can to join in with the creation of Climate Camp 2008, in preparation for the opening on Sunday, 3rd August, when hundreds more will come and begin the week of workshops and action preparations. More

Moving Sustainability Forward

I’m a fan of the video’s produced by PeakMoment on YouTube. They have interviewed loads of interesting people and projects, but the latest one really hit home about the philosophy of extending the environmental and sustainability movement to a broader audience.

They interviewed Alan Seid of Bellingham Co-housing Community (in the USA). You can watch the YouTube video below, under which are some of my highlights.

Alan suggested that the word ’sustainable’ has different meaning to different people. His view is that sustainability is something that would enable man to survive indefinitely, and as such involves looking at the whole environment, but also looking within people and understanding where people are ‘at’.

In order to reach the goal of sustainability, we have to work collectively – creating mutual understanding without coercing people. Human consciousness grows from Ego-Centric to Ethno-Centric to World-Centric (where Ego-Centric is all about ‘me’, Ethno-Centric is about people ‘like me’ and World-Centric is a holistic view of all things and people).

Alan identifies that one of the problems in getting the average person to be aware of sustainability is a psychological one; for example, recycling helps with a small (5-10%) amount of solid waste flow, but helps with 75% of people’s guilt. In other words people feel they have done alot when they haven’t, but telling them this is not easy!

It is therefore important to reach people at the right level to match their own world view. The ‘message’ needs to be framed correctly to match the audience, and in some cases, this means re-framing the same message to target different audiences who are motivated by different factors.

Environmentalists also need to remember that they are not perfect. Everyone needs to be open minded and to learn and progress themselves – it is easy to the ego to take over!

Finally, Alan talks about the importance of information sharing and communication with all interested parties (stakeholders) regarding whatever issue is being discussed.

The man who would feed the world

As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle

On a visit to the University of California Santa Cruz’s Farm and Garden a few years ago, I met an apprentice who was trying to grow an entire year’s food supply in one small corner of the farm. He planted wheat, corn, beans, potatoes and a variety of salad crops.

Although it would be several months before the first harvest, he had already put himself on a diet consisting only of the food growing in his garden. He looked skinny, but not malnourished, on his diet of bread made from wheat he ground himself, dried beans and canned tomatoes.

“The only thing this diet lacks,” he told me, “is a good source of vitamin B12. It’s hard to get enough B12 from vegetables.”

I pointed out that his diet was also deficient in chocolate, decaf lattes and fettuccine alfredo, three items I considered essential to my own health and well-being. He just laughed, shrugged his shoulders, and went back to sowing beans.

I didn’t know it at the time, but this earnest young apprentice was a disciple of John Jeavons, organic gardening expert and author of “How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible On Less Land Than You Can Imagine.”

For more than 30 years Jeavons has been preaching the benefits of small- scale, sustainable farming. Now, on a farm just outside Willits, Jeavons operates the nonprofit Ecology Action and teaches his methods to gardeners from as far away as Siberia, Africa and Latin America.

Sitting in his kitchen one afternoon, Jeavons shows me snapshots from those workshops.

The students stand in a circle around him while he demonstrates his soil preparation technique. He is a distinguished fellow of 60-something who manages, in his trademark tweed coat and cap, to make digging in the dirt look elegant.

In fact, he looks more like an Ivy League professor than an organic gardening visionary, and it is easy to see how he could be effective in both worlds: He recently presided over a worldwide food and soil conference at UC Davis in which farmers and scientists came together to address the looming food shortage that is the focus of Jeavon’s work today.

Jeavons sets the photographs aside and recalls the question that led to the development of his farming techniques.

“In the early 1970s, I went to the San Joaquin Valley, where approximately 30 percent of the food in the United States was being grown at the time, and I asked farmers this question: “What is the smallest area you can grow all your food and income on?’ And they said, “Well, we don’t know, but if it’s a good year, if you have a thousand acres of wheat, you’ll be able to pay your bills. ‘”

“I realized that if I wanted to know the answer to my question, it was ‘tag- you’re it.’”

By 1972, Jeavons had formed Ecology Action and was farming nearly four acres in Palo Alto. Alan Chadwick, pioneer of the French intensive/biodynamic method of farming, came up from Santa Cruz to teach classes. The first edition of “How to Grow More Vegetables” was published two years later. At last, Jeavons was finding answers to the question he’d been asking farmers for years.

“It takes about 15,000 to 30,000 square feet of land to feed one person the average U.S. diet,” he says. “I’ve figured out how to get it down to 4,000 square feet. How? I focus on growing soil, not crops.”

Jeavons took the best of Chadwick’s intensive farming techniques, including double-digging, composting and closely-spaced planting, and added a few ideas of his own.

An organic farm should be a closed system, he reasoned. Off-the-farm inputs like manure, bagged compost, alfalfa meal and liquid kelp all require additional land, water and resources to produce. That, in Jeavon’s view, is hardly sustainable agriculture.

“We have an opportunity to grow very high yields using a fraction of the resources. One of the ways we do this is by growing all the organic matter that we need in the garden, or on the farm, that’s producing the food.”

This closed-system concept is the hallmark of Jeavons’s Grow Biointensive method, a term he registered as a trademark in 1999. It allows farmers to grow large quantities of food with few expenses beyond seeds and manual tools.

And Jeavon’s method is about more than dirt-under-the-nails farming; he has 30 years’ worth of data to back him up. Each edition of “How to Grow More Vegetables” contains more statistical data than the one before: In the latest edition, for instance, you can calculate the precise number of beet seeds you’ll need to grow 30 pounds of beets, along with the protein and calorie content, space requirements, and the percentage of the harvest (i.e., trimmings and inedible portions) that can be returned to the soil as compost.

While this approach may be an interesting experiment for a university student, it could be a matter of survival for people all over the world.

Conventional farming practices, Jeavons explains, deplete the soil of nutrients and lead to wind and water erosion. In the face of increasing populations and a dwindling supply of farmable land, he sees his approach as a sustainable, soil-friendly way to feed the world.

“So we’re talking not just about this fantastic technique for raising really tasty fresh food with only a fraction of the resources, but we’re talking about rebuilding soil. With our methods, you can actually build up to 20 pounds of farmable soil for every pound of food eaten.”

Jeavons gets up from his kitchen table and leads me outside, where we walk down a sunny slope to the mini-farm he and his apprentices tend.

He moved Ecology Action to this site outside Willits in 1982. The nonprofit’s Common Ground Garden Supply store is still located in Palo Alto, but it is here, in Willits, where he teaches most of his workshops, conducts research, and oversees the day-to-day operations of the Bountiful Garden catalog business.

Farming conditions in Willits are far from perfect, but Jeavons sees a benefit to the difficult site. In the new edition of “How to Grow More Vegetables,” he writes that the “heavy winter rains, prolonged summer droughts, short growing season, steep slopes, and depleted rocky soil are similar in many ways to those in countries where Ecology Action’s work is having its most dramatic impact.”

We stand on a rise above his terraced farm. Nestled in the center is a familiar sight: a large circular garden planted with all the crops that would be required to feed one person for one year.

I have begun to recognize the typical Jeavons garden: It is densely planted with carbon crops like corn, wheat and millet that are important food sources but also produce plenty of high-carbon scraps for the compost pile.

Over half of the garden is devoted to these seed and grain crops. Another third is given over to high-calorie root crops like potatoes, parsnips and turnips. These crops store well and produce a large amount of calories in a relatively small space.

That leaves only a few small beds for the vegetables that occupy most ordinary gardens: tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce and broccoli.

Still, Jeavons tells me, thanks to closely spaced plantings and compost- enriched, double-dug beds, these smaller beds produce enough vitamins and minerals to sustain a person for a year.

It’s late in the afternoon. All this talk of food production has made me hungry. Back at his office, Jeavons has stacks of research papers and pages of statistics to give me. But for the moment, we are two gardeners in early spring, looking down on the beds of young fava beans, onions, lettuce and herbs. And like any other gardener, Jeavons is eager to show off his work.

“Come down to the garden,” he says. “There’s a few things here I want you to taste.”

EIGHT STEPS TO GROW BIOINTENSIVE GARDENING

• Double-dug, raised beds. Loosening the soil to a depth of 24 inches allows roots to penetrate more deeply and creates a raised bed effect. John Jeavons’ video “Dig It” demonstrates an Aikido-style movement that makes double-digging almost effortless.
• Composting. A healthy compost pile is key to replenishing the soil.
• Intensive planting. “Ignore the spacing instructions that come with your seeds,” Jeavons told me. Plant seedlings so close that when they are mature, the leaves touch. This keeps soil moist and prevents weeds from sprouting.
• Companion planting. Green beans love strawberries, corn provides shade to cucumbers, and fast-maturing radishes grow well in between slower-growing carrots.
• Carbon farming. Corn, millet and oats, along with other seed and grain crops, make up an important part of the diet and provide plenty of high-carbon additions to the compost pile.
• Calorie farming. Growing a year’s food supply means focusing on high- calorie, space-efficient foods like potatoes and parsnips.
• Open-pollinated seeds. Special hybrids aren’t needed in healthy soil, Jeavons says. Using open-pollinated seeds like the ones offered in his Bountiful Gardens Catalog helps preserve genetic diversity.
• Use the whole method. Jeavons emphasizes that high yields come from using all Grow Biointensive components together.

Karuna

On 25th November, five of us from WM PermaNetwork (West Midlands Permaculture Network) visited Karuna, a few miles south of Shrewsbury. Karuna is an 18 acre site, overlooking Long Mynd and has been owned by Janta and Merav and their two children for a year or so. Since taking over the land, which had been used for horses and sheep over the years, they have planted over 5,000 trees.

Amazingly, some of the local people don’t seem to like trees and continue to cause problems for Karuna. I despair when people look at monocultural fields all planted with a single type of plant, or a field of sheep and say that is nature, or consider it to be the natural landscape! The natural landscape of the UK is trees and shrubs, and whilst mankind needs fields to grow food to survive, we should be working towards restoring as much land as possible to it’s original wooded state.

Due to suspected poisoning of some of the newly planted trees at Karuna, Janta took the decision to move onto the land and is currently residing in a former showman’s trailer, without any mains services. Janta and his family are living lightly on the land, but are under the threat of a planning enforcement notice (unauthorised ‘change of use’ for the land, from agricultural to mixed agricultural and dwelling) which, if enforced, would mean they have to leave their home.

The text below was written by Janta and Merav as an introduction to Karuna and their motives for developing it.

Plant Karuna for the Planet
(true sustainability for Shropshire)

Karuna is a Sanskrit word meaning compassion. In “Island” a novel by Aldous Huxley (his last novel) Karuna was a place where people are kind and happy, they have equally without mediocrity, compassion as well as intellect and science side by side with art. Islands happen to be our favourite places.

Karuna is located within an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB) at Picklescott, on the lower slopes of the Long Mynd, it faces out towards stupendous far reaching open views of the Stretton Hills and surrounding countryside.

The soil at Karuna is fertile, the area was once covered in trees, it is now naked compared to what it once was. Being lovers of trees and the land we have a desire to restore a small part of it.

Trees are one of the most important assets on the planet, contributing to the solutions of many of the problems that challenge humankind. Trees make a positive impact on the environment, playing a vital role in the battle to reduce global warming; they take in carbon dioxide and give out oxygen, they offer a means to meet the needs of an exploding global population from the finite resources of the planet; maintain water supplies, check soil floods and soil erosion. As trees are permanent crops, their cultivation does not require regular ploughing which damages soil structure. Life on our planet could not exist without trees and yet vast tracts of forests across the globe are being destroyed!

It is not enough to criticise the felling of tropical forests – we should all be working to restore our own forests, take positive action towards a sustainable future, by working with nature rather than against it.

At Karuna, an 18 acre site, three separate woodlands (approx 9 acres) of over 50 species were planted in the winter 2006, this year there has been additional planting, including many traditional fruit trees, nitrogen fixing trees, plants and herbs, thus laying the foundations for agroforestry and forest gardening using permaculture and natural farming techniques/principles for production of fruits, nuts, vegetables and medicinal plants, based on interaction between different life forms in order to stimulate and support one another (symbiosis).

The project exists to demonstrate that sustainable land management is the only way forward if the present climate crisis is to be reversed. That is if there is to be any future for our children.

We know, from studying the rocks of our planet, that there was once a time when life did not exist here. Man, in seeing himself separate from nature and taking from it as he pleases is destroying all forms of life as he goes. If he does not change he will soon destroy himself.

Karuna possesses deep mystical magic in its soil, it has great potential, it gives out signals and speaks to those who are receptive to its almost forgotten language. The land is calling out to be healed and be given the opportunity to heal. These two exist side by side. We have chosen to respond to the calling of “the one” at the particular energy spot in order to share our love of the natural world, especially with our children.

Traditionally small wooded areas were often managed on the outer edge of the village, not simply for their raw materials and medicines. Trees offer us the opportunity to recognise inner peace and understanding when we place ourselves quietly amongst them. Developing and raising awareness of sustainability, climate change, wildlife conservation, holistic healing and art are the projects deepest concerns.

There is no better way to reach others than by example, and to offer the opportunity for all of us to develop through direct experience and serve human ends harmlessly while creating conditions conducive to all life.

The positive impact upon wildlife at Karuna is already apparent, Hawks gather in greater numbers to feed upon the increased mice population, due to the long grass between the newly planted woodlands. Threatened species like the once common sparrow also feed from the grass seeds. Hares too take advantage of this valuable situation, the tufts of grass offer herbs a protective environment to thrive in, out of the wind. There is a priority to develop sustainable biodiversity awareness at Karuna and links with local schools and educational groups are being made.

We need to get back to our heritage – our birthright – the land. Karuna aims to fulfill the opportunity for people to lovingly care for the earth which brings us into life, nourishes and sustains us, and ultimately takes us back again.

Agriculture is the very basis of our existence and is likely to go on being so, if we are to survive at all. Even agricultural ‘experts’ can now see and admit that the present system of agriculture in the west is unsustainable. It depends entirely on oil. There is now an agricultural depression, and this industry completely hooked on sophisticated machinery and huge chemical inputs is finding it very hard to carry on. We can make better choices!

The project embraces permaculture techniques, especially temperate Forest Gardening. Robert Hart, Shropshire’s own world famous pioneer in Temperate Climate Forest Gardening, is a great inspiration to us and is held dear in our hearts. Forest Gardening supports the Raw Food Diet (the original diet of humankind). This diet is radically environmentally friendly, any minimal waste created through it is easily recycled into compost. Through adopting this natural diet we save on energy that gets wasted through cooking, a process which robs us of our food’s nutritional value. Eating raw fruits, vegetables, and other plant foods is a major solution to world pollution. Landfills are filled with products directly or indirectly related to cooked and processed foods, such as: packaging, wrappers, bags, old stoves. microwaves etc. The supply system is also dependent at every turn on massive use of motor transport (oil) which poisons and pollutes the environment we live in, the air we breathe.

We hope that the community will benefit from fruit and vegetables organically grown on a small scale at Karuna and sold at the local farmers market in the not too distant future and possibly serve as an additional top-up for existing organic box schemes in the area. We are informed that there simply isn’t enough local organic fruit and veg supply.

The project demonstrates… A) How people can take responsibility for themselves by producing some of their own food, and B) that food they aren’t able to grow is best grown as locally as possible, with no harmful chemicals in its growing or storage.

Buying food that travels unnecessarily funds the polluting , poisoning process that is destroying the quality of our children’s future. Example: an apple flown from South Africa and consumed in Britain puts 600 times more pollution into the air we breathe than an apple grown and eaten in Britain. Apply this logic to all the food transported unnecessarily and the environmental damage is obviously horrendous… beware of food miles!

Karuna is neither politically nor religiously biased as we hope to cross these artificial divides. The project does no have a fixed idea about the multitude of ways it can serve small groups and individuals within the local and broader community.

Karuna is oriented towards the experience of change. We are simply sowing seeds and what is the seeds destiny? We know that any real solutions must embody a change of heart – an emphatic connection with the fullness of life. All of us who preserve the future of life on earth are ‘Bioneers’. Together we are creating an age of restoration, guided by the shared values of interdependence, kinship, cooperation, community and mutual aid. There is a dramatic urgency for us to share ingeniously effective solutions with the widest possible audience, inspiring them to join in this sacred and global work. Your support is needed with advice and assistance in fundraising, practical garden work (aftercare of trees, herbs and shrubs), materials, web site development, constructive creative ideas for new directions within the project etc.

We welcome people who share similar dedicated sympathetic nuturance of nature, and have some vision of creativity. You are invited to offer suggestion as well as participate.

Plant a tree today

Greening the Desert

At a time when the broadcast and print media are full of bad news, especially on the environmental front, it’s really great to hear some good, positive news for a change.

The YouTube video below shows how a project took on 10 acres of flat, hyper-arid desert on the border of Jordan and Israel. The area was 400m below sea level (one of the lowest points on earth), 2km from the Dead Sea and completely salted. With very low rainfall and August temperatures over 50 degrees, the mainstream thought was that the only way to farm was under plastic and with loads of inorganic fertiliser.

They started the project by digging swales that followed the contours of the landscape and enabled water capture over winter, and built up organic debris (mulch) on the banks of the swales. Certain trees were grown on the upper side of the swales that fixed nitrogen, and provided shade from the sun and the wind. The results were amazing and dumbfounded the experts because in the end, they grew things that simply shouldn’t have survived or occured there and managed to reduce the salt levels.

Inspirational!

Reasons to go organic

From the Soil Association (www.soilassociation.org) …

5 reasons to go organic

1. For health – on average organic food contains higher levels of vitamin C, essential minerals and cancer-fighting antioxidants.
2. No nasty additives – amongst the hidden additives banned by the Soil Association are hydrodenated fat, aspartame and monosodium glutamate.
3. Avoids pesticides – over 400 chemicals are routinely used in non-organic farming and residues are often present in non-organic food.
4. High animal welfare – the benefits of the organic approach are recognised by animal welfare organisations and the UK government.
5. Good for wildlife and the environment – Organic farming is better for wildlife, causes lower pollution from sprays and produces less carbon dioxide.

Visit www.whyorganic.org

Five reasons to cotton on to organic textiles

1. Non-organic cotton farming uses one quarter of the world’s pesticides causing damage to the environment, sinking farmers into debt, causing illness and even death.
2. Socially acceptable – organic cotton farmers in developing countries report higher incomes plus using viable alternatives to chemicals protects their health.
3. Avoidance of GM – GM cotton is grown commercially in many countries so choosing organic cotton is the best way to avoid buying GM cotton.
4. Avoid hazardous chemicals – over 8000 chemicals can be used to turn cotton into a t-shirt or duvet cover – the Soil Association organic standards ban the use of any chemicals that are hazardous to the environment or health.
5. No more excuses! stylish organic clothing and household textiles are now widely available so there’s no longer a compromise between style and organic integrity.

Find out more at www.soilassociation.org/textiles

Five reasons to become an organic beauty

1. Trust – look for the Soil Association symbol on organic products to ensure they meet our strict organic standards. Products with the Soil Association symbol may not be as organic as you would like them to be.
2. More than skin deep – we can absorb up to 60% of what we apply to our skin, so if you’re going organic with your food then why not become an organic beauty too?
3. Safety – our precautionary principle means that if there is any doubt about an ingredient, it is banned – so no parabens, phthalates or GM ingredients.
4. How irritating! We ban synthetic fragrences, which have been found to cause one third of all cosmetic allergies and irritating foaming agents like sodium lauryl sulphate.
5. No need to compromise – delicious balms, gorgeous lotions and beautiful baby products are all available and perform so well that there is no need to compromise on performance to become an organic beauty.

Find out more at www.soilassociation.org/healthandbeauty