Category: Urban agriculture

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Seed savers take matters into their own hands

In this global world it can be valuable to stop and think for a moment that we share the same problems and solutions. Traditional knowledge and informal seed systems are not the preserve of “resource-poor farmers in marginal areas in developing countries”. They can be just as vital to fatcat hobby gardeners in the richest countries on earth. Seed swaps, where people exchange their seeds and their knowledge, are now common features of garden life around the developed world, and increasing in frequency and importance as gardeners come to value biodiversity.

All of which is prompted by this fine account of a recent Seedy Saturday from Ottawa Hortiphilia. Check it out, and if anyone else has a report on a seed swap, from Mali, Montreal or Morecombe, let us know.

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South Africa turning its back on local greens?

Timbuktu Chronicles pointed me to an interesting allAfrica feature on the organic vegetable revolution sweeping around the edges of Cape Town under the leadership of some formidable grandmothers. Great that such a community-based movement is taking off and making a difference, of course. But it was a bit disappointing for me not to see much evidence in the text and photos that indigenous African vegetables are included in the mix. I know there are dedicated people promoting this neglected agrobiodiversity in South Africa. I’ve worked with some of them. Local leafy greens have become mainstream in countries like Kenya in the past few years: you can buy them nicely packaged in supermarkets now, which was certainly not the case when I lived there in the mid-90s. Is that not happening in South Africa? If not, why not? I hope someone out there can tell us.

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Floral glory

Kabul Flowers A fascinating post over at Human Flower Project takes as its starting point the different cultural aesthetics associated with different styles of flower-arranging, from the all-encompassing European “one of everything” to the zen simplicity of Japanese ikebana. But that’s really all just throat-clearing prior to Julie’s rhapsodizing on flower bouquets in Afghanistan. She wonders what inspired the Afghan style, and whether it has survived. “[W]ith all that’s happened in the past three decades, do flowers in Afghanistan today look anything like Ard’s picture from the early 1970s? Can an aesthetic this original and strong survive thirty years of war?” good question. I have no idea.

Flickr photo by Ard Hesselink, used under a Creative Commons Licence.