Let’s follow a word from the world, as it moves into our bodies and then through them into our social lives. Here is a well. A well, yes. It is a hole […]
Reading Penn Kemp and the World: The Role of Poetry in Civic Planning
Indigenous Culture, Settler Culture and Canada: Agriculture’s Highways and Byways
Harold Innis argued long ago … Societies that depend solely on time-biased media are oral and tribal. Although leadership tends to be hierarchical, time-bound societies may also operate by consensus. Since, in […]
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 […]
A Lousy Apple Year for Vernon
In the local royal gala orchard, long past the renewal date of 10 years for slender spindle high density, high-capital orchards, a snowball bloom has settled out into a lousy crop. The […]
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!
The Year of the Kazillion Cherries Has Begun
When I pruned these trees, the wind was kaboodling down the Similkameen Valley like a grizzly bear made of dry ice. Sawdust was falling in my face from my saw. My feet […]
Getting Down to Some Serious Fun in the Kitchen
There are close to 20,000 acres of wine grapes planted in the ruins of the Okanagan Valley, immensely attractive to tourists and restauranteurs alike. The wine? Well, some is fine and most […]
Our Future is Fruitful
The future opens out of the present. First we see. Then we help others see. Then we build it together. Staghorn Sumac: Our Okanagan Future The future is already here. It is […]
Vertical Lakes, Subsoil Dams and the Bear’s Cold Storage
There was forty centimetres of snow on this draw a couple weeks ago. Don’t think it’s all gone. The shade on the south western slope is keeping it damp in the soil, […]
25% of Fruitgrowing Agricultural Productive Capacity in the Okanagan is Wasted
Here’s an industrial apple plantation after harvest. The trees are in long rain rows to facilitate mechanized farming, using multi-ton tractors and spraying equipment (combined weight of about 5 tonnes). After harvest, […]
Okanagan Okanogan 