When medicine willow (the apricot-coloured one below) grows in deep shade, it collects a deep, reductive power. It is not the leaves you harvest but the inner bark, but it forms in […]
Porcupine’s Favourite Colour
The Paradise Apple, Modern Farming and the Apple of the Celts
All apple trees are grafted on a root. The tree is chosen for its apples and the root for its growth characteristics. These days, an apple called M9, for Malling 9, after […]
The First Net Maker is the Sea
Floats and everything. Human creativity is often only an act of environmental-belonging, like a grouse hiding its chicks in grass. It is the act of using the eyes as fingers for the […]
It is Time to Make a Saskatoon Pie
This is the best harvest in 25 years. And you get the bonus of the robins scolding you, but there’s enough to share. If not a pie, then just saskatoons with your […]
Solar Tides
Morning Glory in the morning. Morning Glory in the evening. A Plant Doesn’t Have to Be Edible to Be Useful! If you plant morning glory (or let the weeds grow, as these […]
Footprints in the Interface: A Permaculture Model
Look at these choke cherries, living in the zone between the grass and the aspens. In the perfect water zone where birds that pass between trees (for shelter) and grass (for […]
Please, Please, Please Don’t Plant That Lavender!
If you plant that lavender, the crab spiders will have nowhere to go, and they are the wolves of this ecosystem. Removing the top predator from a chain, in this case a […]
We Are All Dressing in Our Finery Now and Waiting for the Feast
We are all just waiting now … … waiting… waiting…waiting… …turning around and waiting some more …… OK, sure, maybe getting a little impatient … … and thin … … maybe a […]
No Mulch or Tillage on This Soil, Please
A living skin, however, is what the climate of the grasslands east of the coastal stratovolcanoes calls for. Anything else is quite the ongoing struggle. Whew. Save your back, eh!
Not Just Another Pretty Face
A lovely day for bumble bees. The beauty hangout today is the vetch on the hill. Pretty nice for an escapee from a hay bale! And of course, the queen of the […]
