Tag Archives: agriculture

3101, 2019

Organics for the Care for our Common Home

debs/ January 31, 2019

This semester I have the opportunity to formalize some of my past year’s gardening experience by taking the Organic Master Gardener online course through Gaia College. This weekend I had the privilege of attending Guelph Organic Conference. Both activities were mutually informative and are giving me a lot to think about (so much so that I have to write about it!) and I am so grateful that my employers would sponsor my personal and professional development in these ways.

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3008, 2018

Field Notes from this Season of Vegetable Growing

debs/ August 30, 2018

In the days following our high school graduation, my friends and I sat in a circle on a patch of lawn beside the school’s science wing where so many memories were made, feeling the weight of going our separate ways and savouring the last moments of normalcy. One of us suggested that we go around the circle brainstorming/imagining each others’ futures–where would so-and-so be in 10 years time?  For some, we could unanimously envision specific accomplishments and lifestyles. Other futures provoked theory and debate, or teasing and banter.

My future? It drew blanks.

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1506, 2018

WWOOFing in Norway: Odds and Ends

debs/ June 15, 2018

It’s been almost a year since I went to the conference in Munich that started all this and I’m getting self-conscious and kind of ashamed that I am still writing about a 2 month experience over a > 6 month time span … almost 12 months later ….

To put this post in perspective, this (probably the last) part of a series of posts about WWOOFing in Norway so far:

This post will be a compilation of micro-stories that fell through the cracks.

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0203, 2018

Food Forestry in Gjøvik

debs/ March 2, 2018

Our first expansion project in Gjøvik was to help expand the Food Forest.

The idea of the Food Forest (or Forest Garden) is to look to a naturally occurring forest as inspiration for how vegetation should be organized in a garden. Notice all the diversity and connections that exist in a forest:  multiple levels of shrubbery, thick hummus that keeps water in the soil, animal life, perennials that grow deep roots in a forest.

Our permaculture peeps see the connections and positive feedback loops between all the aforementioned components and are inspired to replicate this system using edible plants. By intentionally planting layers of mutually beneficial, edible and non-invasive perennials, they hope to improve soil quality and create a resilient food system that requires less manual inputs over time. “Harvesting” would be more akin to “foraging” in a forest of food like this!

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2310, 2017

Agrotechnooptimism

debs/ October 23, 2017

The techno-optimism in agrotechnology makes me a little queezy.

At first, the image of the vertical gardens of produce grown in abandoned urban spaces seems like such an attractive idea. One can only imagine how I fawned when my eager mind saw a possible union between community-based agriculture, environmental conscientiousness, and engineering.

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