- Do my eyes deceive me? Exhortation not to forget farms during biodiversity festivities.
- Edible Geography does Mexico City. Oh to be in DF on the 9th.
- What do Benin farmers want out of their chickens? Clue: it wont be easy.
- Is marama bean the next big thing? Probably not, but check it out anyway.
- New Biosphere Reserve protects wild coffee.
- Uber-blogger Tom Barnett tackles sweet potato breeding. Sweet potato wins.
Nibbles: Roses, Stripe Rust, Cuba, Carnival, India, GCARD, Urban ag, Genetic diversity and herbivory, Biocultural diversity
- The wages of Kenyan rose growers increase 22% — to $59 a month. Sinful.
- Wheat stripe rust uses sex to break down barriers.
- Q&A with Cuban whiz Humberto Ríos.
- Latest Carnival of Evolution is up; we’re the only ag, alas.
- Proposed agricultural biodiversity heritage sites in India. (Is this new?)
- Investing in Underutilised Crops to Achieve Food Security. A report from the CGARD conference in March.
- The Hanging Gardens of Kenya.
- Living in genetic mixtures helps plants against herbivores. No, really.
- “Restoring human cultures to the web of life.”
Nibbles: Figs, strawberries, seed bombs, micronutrients^2, conservation, saffron
- Lloyd Kreizter gives a fig. And then some.
- Strawberries for spacepeople?
- Calling all garden guerillas. You can now buy seed bombs.
- Nicola at Edible Geography takes orange-fleshed people to a whole new level.
- BMGF takes photo story of orange-fleshed sweet potatoes to a whole new level.
- How to preserve biodiversity: take a cutting of it.
- Kashmiri saffron is beset on all sides … but help is at hand.
School gardens
[I]nstead of building up and knocking down an army of straw men from a distance, Luke Tsai actually visited the [Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, California] garden to see how it works and talked to the teachers and principal about the Edible Schoolyard.
What a strange idea, to go and look at something you’re reporting on and see what the people involved make of it, rather than just using your own gut feelings. But Luke Tsai did just that before he wrote about The Edible Schoolyard. Let’s hope this kind of effort never catches on. The Ethicurean wrote about Tsai’s piece and gives lots of context and links.
May Day Guerilla Gardening
There’s something satisfying about a bunch of guerilla gardeners unilaterally declaring 1 May to be International Sunflower Guerilla Gardening Day. Not for them the stuffy business of official approval and endless process. Just go ahead and do it. Today!
Alas, the process of informing people who might be interested seems also to be an ignored part of the process. Or maybe it’s just us. Anyway, unprepared for an actual act of guerilla gardening, I instead dedicated myself to transplanting half a dozen Black Magic sunflower seedlings. Maybe when they’re a bit bigger and sturdier I’ll consider sending a couple off to fight the good fight. And they are wild relatives.
Before:
After:
