So, this is what you do. Plant a cherry tree. Leave it or fifty years. Over time, it is fifty feet high, and her daughters have formed a grove, around her. They […]
Hazelnut-Cherry Hybrid
Food, Land and Slavery in British Columbia
It is time to talk about slavery. This form of violence takes many forms. Some are slavery of people to other people, which is terrible, slavery of people to the settler state, […]
Harvesting Fire
Even ladybird shows us the true nature of big sagebrush: it is fire, standing. Look at her flames and coals! Traditionally, big sage was used to start fires, even of wet wood, […]
Learning to Live in Time: A Journey into Indigenous Agriculture
It is an intriguing question that sits in my house today: What does agriculture look like when conducted in “time” rather than in “space”. To show you how hard this is, here […]
An Agricultural Run-off Solution That Doesn’t Foul Wetlands and Beaches
Wetlands are used in 21st century Canadian society to absorb nitrogen run-off from agriculture, to purify run-off from roads and sidewalks, to strip winter street snow of its road salt (my city […]
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!
Industrial Agriculture is Unethical
Earth, or machine. One increases diversity. One reduces it. Or is it so? When the Syilx managed these grasslands with fire and selective harvesting methods, they increased species diversity. The species-rich landscape that the […]
The Ethics of Water in the Okanagan
For the last week, I’ve been displaying new crops for the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia and the Okanogan Valley in Washington. These crops will allow food production to continue in the […]
