Sometimes you just have to get a bit imaginative with it, like this Alaskan resident.
Using old guttering provides the perfect depth for lettuce, spring onions, radishes, some cute little Parisian market carrots and most of your herbs. It’s easy maintenance and a great way to recycle.
How does your garden grow? (Juneau Empire via Make)
(via Lifehacker)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Twenty-six elementary schoolchildren wielded shovels, rakes, pitchforks and wheelbarrows to help first lady Michelle Obama break ground on the first day of spring for a produce and herb garden on the White House grounds.
Crops to be planted in the coming weeks on the 1,100-square-foot, L-shaped patch near the fountain on the South Lawn include spinach, broccoli, various lettuces, kale and collard greens, assorted herbs and blueberries, blackberries and raspberries.
There will also be a beehive.
(via Transition Towns Kapiti)
“Reading material in Crawley’s brand new library building is not restricted to the pages of the books on its shelves, thanks to a series of typographic tree sculptures created by artist Gordon Young and a team of collaborators that includes design studio Why Not Associates…”
— Images and beautiful tree pictures at the Creative Review Blog.
I’m a firm believer that there needs to be a lot more variety in gaming. Flower, a soon-to-be-released ‘zen game’ for the PlayStation 3 certainly ticks that box.
“You are a gust of wind inside a flower’s dream and you must carry petals to other flowers in order to progress to the end of the level.”
Sounds lovely doesn’t it. Maybe Sony is trying to lure Olivia Newton-John away from Nintendo.
Watch the video here. Via Treehugger
Terrific work is happening in the recording of traditional food knowledge (TFK) from indigenous people around the world. TFK refers to the cultural tradition of sharing food, recipes and cooking skills and techniques and passing down that collective wisdom through generations. I see this as a very important for two reasons:
1 – To help populations regain their connection to the land, keep their traditional knowledge and reclaim their identity, health and mana.
2 – I’d like to believe that it’s now pretty well understood that many modern intensive-agricultural methods aren’t beneficial to the environment or mankind. We need to take a look at different ways people beneficially work with the land and apply some of the lessons to our own little piece of the earth.
Indigenous Nutrition is a fantastic website with seven quality webisodes exploring the traditional knowledge of seven different peoples, and what they’re doing to keep it. The focus is primarily on health issues. This is an excellent resource and will hopefully inspire others to do similar things within their communities.
From a New Zealand viewpoint, Te Ara covers Māori food production economics and The National Library does a brief introduction to traditional knowledge. The Māori Plant Use database allows easy access to records on traditional uses of NZ native plants. The same people (Maanaki Whenua, who incidentally have a wonderful bookstore) also provide excellent information on harakeke (NZ flax, Phormium spp.).
A lot of work is being done in this area and it would be great to see more resources online in the near future. If you’ve got any great links in this area, please share in the comments.
Drinking or giving Ata Rangi’s Crimson Pinot supports Project Crimson and cleverly combines two of my personal great loves into one activity.
Ata Rangi makes some of the best red wine I’ve ever tasted. As a former bar manager, I’ve tasted a lot of wine – and I love Ata Rangi.
Help support Project Crimson‘s efforts to maintain, protect and restore stands of the NZ pohutukawa and it’s relative the beautiful rata by sipping damned fine NZ wine. Your friends and family will love you for it.
Always looking for new and novel ways to garden and eat, I’m thrilled to have found these great kits fromMushroom Gourmet. Complete with really good instructions and everything you need to be growing these little blighters. I’ll let you know in about 2 weeks just how fabulous this kit is. Yum, I can’t wait! I’m super excited at being able to cross something else off my weekly shopping list.
Beautiful botanical and bird prints on teatowels or t-shirts would make a wonderful gift for the plant lover in your life. This very talented Kiwi lass prints strong images of NZ native plants and birds to make striking pieces. I think she’s choice!
This is so much better then having piles of plastic plants pots cluttering the garden shed. Make individual seedling pots from recycled newspapers when you need them with this great little set.
One of my botany heroes is Tony Foster. He’s been studying, caring for, guiding through and teaching about the New Zealand bush for over 30 years. I’m sure that this long-awaited book will be brimming with the same kind of quality content and beautiful images that his Bushman’s Friend blog and native plants site has already delivered. Can’t wait to get my hands on a copy.