Transforming Barren Land Into Fertile Ground
If you were to choose a place to plant your dream vegetable garden, it would probably not be in the foothills of the Grampian Mountains in Strathardle, Perthshire, Scotland. The upland site is infertile, acidic and exposed to severe weather. Around 85 percent of Scotland is classified by the European Union as a “less-favoured area” for farming, and this region, plagued by lifeless, silty soil and boulders, falls right into that category.
Yet it was exactly here that Cameron and Moira Thomson settled and decided to become self-sufficient by creating their own garden, ...
Remineralizing the Landscape: Creating Fecundity in the Garden
Landscape professionals each year put countless amounts of plants in the ground. Their success and their client’s happiness requires that these plants establish themselves quickly and then grow with vigor. Consequently, any experienced landscape professional attends to each plant’s requirements, working hard to make sure each plant gets exactly what it needs. This usually means focusing on fertilization and pH requirements while locating each plant in a spot where it will get the necessary amounts of moisture and light for it to feel at home. All these considerations ...
Maximizing Nutrition in Backyard Gardens
by Ben Grosscup
(forthcoming) Massachusetts Organic Food Guide, 2009-10
Is it possible to grow food with exquisite flavor, beautiful shine, extraordinary nutrition, and extended shelf-life? According to growers who have done it, not only can farm-sized growing operations do it, but with the right tools and knowledge, people can do it in their own backyards. Practitioners of this kind of growing say their goal is to maximize crop nutrient density - the amount of nutrition per volume of crop - and that this can be done in a manner entirely consistent with certified organic ...
Earthworms and Bacteria Enjoy a Symbiotic Relationship with Rockdust
The Eco-Logic of Vermiculture
By Uday Bhawalker
Each organism has a role and occupies a niche. In fact, shown by the Russian ecologist, Gause, about 30 years ago that each niche has only one organism with its specific food. If another organism is introduced, it either gets wiped out or creates its own micro-niche by living symbiotically with the first, for example, by using the waste matter of the first organism as food.
Ecology of worm bins
Let us use eco-logic to understand the ecology (ecology: the relationship between organisms and their environment) of worm bins. ...
The Greening of the Nevada Prison System
The Greening of the Nevada Prison System project is a pilot program that intends to develop sources of woody biomass feedstocks for conversion into biofuels, biopower, and biobased products through a comprehensive program that advances the use of fast growing trees in enriched soil conditions along with better forest/woodlot management. The economics of this integrated system are enhanced by innovative production systems, low cost labor including prison inmates, and creative technologies such as remineralization.
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Swedish Recognition for SEER Rockdust Magic
The fast growing popularity of the soil remineralizing SEER Rockdust has spread across the North Sea to Sweden.
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Restoring Our Earth to Vibrant Health
by Don Weaver
“Healing the damage of industrial civilization is the task of our generation.” —Leonardo DiCaprio
“Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” —Aldo Leopold
“Our life on Earth is a fellowship of being, and there can be neither prosperity nor survival for those whose practices continually violate the laws of interdependent ...
Ocean Arks Carbon Sequestering Project: A Forest in Costa Rica
Agroforestry Project in Costa Rica: Food, Fuels & Income to Sustain Local Communities
By John Todd
Project manager William Turley showing one year old Jatropha fruit
Almost a year ago we embarked upon a long hoped for dream. Our Costa Rica based colleagues and partners, long term New Alchemist William Turley and his green- thumbed wife Angie Sanchez are planting trees on their land on the deforested lower slopes of the Volcano Miravalles in Guanacaste. Our plan is to replace formerly forested, overgrazed grasslands there with a working landscape of trees. The land is ...
Forests of Champions
A Conversation with Tree Farmer David Milarch Who Sees New Hope in Old Giants.
By David Yarrow
We can dream the future,
we can talk about the future,
we can visualize the future,
but if we really want a future,
we must act.
Christmas Eve, 1996, I interviewed David Milarch, founder of the Michigan Champion Tree Project. Tall, bearded, with stout limbs and a thick trunk, he looks like a latter day Paul Bunyan. Or a full size chestnut tree in flesh and blood. But his lumberjack physique is dwarfed by his immense ideas - and his ardent ...
People Planting Paradise: Stephan Reeve on Maui
In October 2001 I made my 3rd trip to Maui to visit my good friend, dedicated horticulturist, and tree planter, Stephan Reeve, who, like me, is a long-time health and raw-organic foods enthusiast. His "Fruition" orchard-farm project is an inspiring ecological model.
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