Something uplifting, amazing, inspiring to watch.
Archives for category: Permaculture
I’m so excited about this new book Radical Mycology, the literary embodiment of an inspiring website.
Here’s a fantastic and quite tantalising glimpse into the book from the great teachers at Milkwood Permaculture . I really appreciate all the photos of pages inside the book, especially the ones of the impressive Table of Contents.
Have a listen to Peter McCoy and get yourself inspired. I certainly am. I don’t know how to have the time to take on a major new interest, but if I find it, this will be it.
Enjoy the Guardian podcast above with Jane Perrone, Anni Kelsey and Martin Crawford Thanks to Anni for her wonderful blog where I first saw this. Inspiring and eas(ier) gardening, climate friendly and cheaper, plus interesting, tasty things to eat.
Well, maybe you feel a little longing when you look at photos of lots of your friends in a city where you used to live. You see their beautiful children, and the making an event of a day pressing apples, fruit that they’ve grown in orchards they’ve planted with love. Everybody’s pitching in and working toge ther and it’s a productive food-preparation idyll there in suburban Oxford.
Was just out in the cool, long-light evening, turning the compost with a garden fork and musing on decay. When I see worms in bins, garden beds or in the soil, I imagine a better future in which that zoological multitude replenishes and renews the earth of Earth. Recent research is telling us how important earthworms are in the carbon cycle and offer some positive news regarding climate change. Read the rest of this entry »
Just learned about this group called Depave. They de-pave and spread the word. “Asphalt be gone”: reclaim and reimagine community life; storm water absorption as climate chaos brings record rainfall; play areas; growing beds; “a better urban environment for all living things.” Of course the more soil that is living soil, the better for any hopes for the climate as well.
Sing it, switching the lyrics thus: “Depave parking lot, put up a paradise”
“I wanted to be kissed by hummingbirds every day,” says Ron Finley. “I wanted to see butterflies. I wanted to smell lavender, and jasmine, and rosemary. That’s where it started.”
In case you missed it, as I somehow did, you can watch his amazing TED Talk on his website.
“Funny thing, the drive-through is killing more people than the drive-by.”
He’s got a vision of cities and how people and plants can live in them. He is all about health for people, for ecology, and for beauty.
“The problem is the solution. Food is the problem, food is the solution.”
“Gardening is the most therapeutic and defiant act you can do, especially in the inner city. Plus you get strawberries.”
“The funny thing about sustainability, you have to sustain it.”
Ron Finley has the gift of energy and the gift to inspire, and a boundless supply of fantastic one-liners. He’s the kind of DIY-meets-Social Change that brings hope.
Here I am in the ripeness of middle age, learning for the first time about Ruth Stout, practitioner of the “no-work garden,” and author of books with titles like How to have a Green Thumb without an Aching Back, Gardening Without Work, and Don’t Forget to Smile: How to Stay Sane and Fit Over Ninety. Since watching this video a few days ago, I’ve been completely inspired to do my own thing and be less vulnerable to other people’s opinions, and to let go of instructioning others (i.e. my kids) quite so much. Ruth Stout is hereby entering my Pantheon of Fabulous Role-Models. Read the rest of this entry »
Time flies! Just before New Years our family visited our friends near Manchester. I’ve been meaning to write about ginkgo nuts.
Atsuko is a dear friend and a foodie and always makes the effort to introduce me to something new and delicious, often from her Japanese cuisine of birth. Here she is with my daughter and two Buddhas feelin’ the Christmas spirit.
I find this film about Sea Kale and Turkish Rocket entrancing– simultaneously soothing yet stimulating to watch. Found it on the great blog Paradise Lot. Just noticed they have a book I’d very much like to read.
As the days become longer, and we enjoy the remaining days of the winter season, we have this important time to reflect on the past year, and what the warmer days of spring and summer hold. Winter is a wonderful time to contemplate our lives, and consider the… read full article
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