Today’s post at Tasting Cultures on an African-American gourd decorator comes hot on the heels of news of a class on Celtic gourd carving at the Denver Botanic Gardens. Talk about cultural mashups. Oh and there was also the photo I posted a couple of days back. Never rains but it pours. Anyway, if you want to try this at home, be sure to clean the things properly first.
The Museum of the American Indian’s native crop garden
I spent last Saturday morning wondering around downtown Washington DC with a friend waiting for an afternoon flight. The day was bright and pleasant and we took in all the major sights. Including the National Museum of the American Indian, which is a pretty spectacular building on the Mall.
Apparently, the construction of the museum was partially funded by a large donation from a wealthy Native American tribe in Connecticut, whose casinos are clearly quite lucrative. We didn’t have much time to spend inside, unfortunately, but the outside was interesting enough. And not just for the architecture of the building.
A Native American food garden has been planted along the pavement by the side of the building. You can see maize and squash here on the left.
And also tobacco, sunflower and cotton (below).
Further along the pavement there is a nice bit of prairie, with some particularly important medicinal and other useful plants highlighted. All with very informative labels. A really nice idea.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything about this on the museum’s website, so I don’t know whether it is a temporary exhibit or a permanent feature. Anyway, I wonder if the next donation by that Connecticut tribe might be to some of the genebanks which maintain Native American crop germplasm.
Nibbles: ABS, Climate change and crops, Beer proteome, Cattle SNPs, Nepal genebank, Sceletium tortuosum, CBD, Weeds, Vitamin A
- Indian academics voice some reservations about CBD ABS regime. Maybe a multilateral approach would be better?
- CIAT warns about climate change effect on crops. Kenyan farmers know all about that. And Koreans too. Oh, and speaking of kimchi…
- Beer proteome means better beer. Fundamental research indeed.
- Cattle breeds are real. And the gaur?
- Nepal inaugurates genebank.
- San benefit from bioprospecting license for medicinal plant.
- Ahmed Djoghlaf says…
- Weeds? Not weeds. Cities as biodiversity hotspots? Oh I give up.
- Orange cassava due to one amino acid.
Nibbles: Melongena, Nutrition, Wheat, Pavlovsk, Farming, Phosphate, Lesotho, Almonds
- “Its flavor is like the saliva generously exchanged by lovers in kissing.” Yum!
- ECOWAS Nutrition Forum continues to sell “multi-sectoral approach to tackling under-nutrition” in West Africa.
- Six new varieties of wheat in Oman! Splitters rule.
- US scientists urged Russians to save Pavlovsk. Lotta continua.
- And here’s the Russian Housing Development Foundation’s take on the expert report. Lotta continua sempre.
- COPs may come and COPs may go — but will we be ready for the Peasant Olympics in 2012? h/t Miss Hathorn.
- Phosphates in China: waste ’em while you can?
- Book: Conservation agriculture and sustainable crop intensification in Lesotho.
- Australian almond variety not performing this year.
Nibbles: Genebank, Guanaco, Maize, Wild food
- Maintaining a citrus gene bank. Just the book you need if you have to, er, maintain a citrus genebank.
- Guanacos need quiet.
- Don’t understand this piece on maize germplasm conservation and use.
- Indigenous food plants in trouble in the Philippines.