Flax is beautiful. The seeds grow heavy and lower the seed to the ground. Mice eat the seed there. And then it lifts up again, through the snow! These aren’t seeds that […]
The Gift Culture of the Grasslands
Grassland Bycatch
Bycatch is all that stuff in the sea that deserves its own life, is caught when fishers are trying to snag something or other, and is thrown back overboard dead. It’s a […]
Irrigation the Other Way
Rather than pumps and pipes and all those expensive systems, why not just lay out the land in flats and catch the snow? Because the effects are short-lived? Well, then amplify them. […]
Wild Watercress for the Okanagan
Here’s a ditch that the city scraped out last spring. It has grown back with watercress, as you can see, probably from contaminated equipment. But look at it! Growing away despite the […]
Rototilling 101
First, plant some flowers. Watch them grow. Nice, eh! Bees will burrow into the soil and lay their eggs. Nicer yet! Voles will come and root around, as voles will do. By […]
Spring Begins for the Saskatoons
Sure, there’s snow, and some Saskatoon buds are closed tightly… … but others are not. The one below is on the same bush, but out in the sun, and hormonally a little […]
Mutant Apples
Mutation is not a bad thing. A lot of the flavour of apples is in the skin. The skin changes, subtly changing the flavour. The yellow on the Royal Gala apple below […]
Whole Worlds Hidden from the Settler Gaze
Under the snow, it’s spring. Under stone, it’s the same. Where the sun intensifies and molten water collects, it’s spring. This is when the rock is mined for nutrients that feed the […]
Green Onions for New Year’s
Got your Welsh onions yet? The know no seasons. They push living out of the dead Earth. Which is, accordingly, not dead. Very Celtic, that!
Winter Tomatoes Make the Best Sauce
Two months ago, we picked these beauties. They were all very green then. I deviated from Ricardo’s instructions and flavoured it with a red onion, a red clove of garlic, Winter Savoury, […]
