May 1st. May Day. Beltane. Not much celebrated in the western world after the mid 20th century because Soviet Russia aka USSR used it for military parades. Remember those photographs of missiles and tanks rumbling down Main Street Moscow? That was the May Day Parade. The Novelist and Poet Margaret Atwood used it as a…
A real life example. An entire community in England has rallied around this simple idea and changed their world. Take a moment and watch this.
Double Digging, Intensive Gardening, French Bio-intensive, whatever current buzzword is trotted out to sell the latest gardening book. The most sacred of sacred cows. And a complete waste of your time and effort. Compost Myth-busting returns! Digging and especially Double Digging (turning the soil completely over) is a backbreaking waste of time. Digging destroys the delicate soil structure which…
There is something which happens to us mid-January. Almost a form of insanity which creeps into our lives, specifically mine. The moment the first Seeds of Change catalog comes in the mail. The Winter ritual of perusing seed catalogs and planning of the beds begins. Dreaming of the perfect garden. Exotic vegetables, fruit, and berries filling…
I could barely sleep last night because of this. Manifesto alert, proceed at your own risk. Everything we post about here on Backyard Ecosystem. Everything underlying the movement toward greening our cites over the last several decades. The very title of the excellent book written by Erik and Kelly over at the blog formerly known as Homegrown…
We love having plants indoors, especially vegetables. They make the indoors a refuge in the darker winter months and whet the appetite for outdoor gardening in the spring. A lot of indoor greenery definitely improve our mood in the bleak, frozen winter. Beyond just starting seedlings indoors, there are several things we grow strictly indoors or longer term in pots…
Backyard Ecosystem began as an expression of my determination to make a difference in our own backyard. Literally and metaphorically making a difference at the micro level of my yard and to operate at macro level of treating the entire planet as something I am an integral part of and whose destiny is shaped everyday by what I do in my corner of the world.
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