The Feed Store 109

The maypop shows, however, that localism need not mean confining oneself to an austere and moralistic diet. If I cannot grow bananas and mangoes in the Ozarks, I can nonetheless…

This is a description of small-town life and the help you can expect to receive from people not conditioned to give strangers the finger.

Better dumb guineas than no guineas at all.

I have come down with a severe case of confirmation bias. I count myself as one of those who believe that contact with the earth is a good thing. In…

The locust tree is a rare symbol of Christmas and Easter as one.

This year an unexpected autumn snow blanketed our farm.  In the days that followed, single-digit temperatures secured its place in the landscape, and another, lighter snowfall would later strengthen winter’s…

The presence of a mature orchard is a sign of the longevity of the farm and the temperance and patience of its farmers.

"I dipped the now limp turkey into a cauldron of boiling water, plucked its feathers and gutted it. On a chilly afternoon, it felt perfectly natural and pleasurable to warm…

Little do I know that in a few days I will have died properly: by explosion.

"Anyone who does much language study knows that training your ear to hear the language spoken correctly is half the battle of language acquisition. If you know what sounds right,…

But on this day, I am the louse. It’s my “impudence” and “cursed speed” that has made me break what little union I had with my fellow mortals.

I thus find myself in the odd position of resisting romanticism while, nevertheless, hoping that future conditions will create that temptation.

In my efforts to point people to various methodologies of eco-agriculture I often encounter those who dispute these approaches. One of the frequent refrains I hear is, “We can’t go…

I’m prone to say that the gardening year resembles nothing so much as a succession of heartbreaks, and while it’s possible that this sentiment reveals more about the gardener than…

At age 12, our daughter discovered that our front yard could be more than a place to turn cartwheels. It was also an evergreen source of income. I’d gladly pay…

For most of my adult life I’ve considered myself a birder. Some people say “bird-watcher,” but for me that term conjures up the sort of goofy-looking eccentrics you see in…

My grandfathers’ lives had a greater degree of integrity than mine. By integrity I do not mean the suggestion of morality and righteousness frequently invoked by politicians. That brand of…

Put in a garden and watch it come to life.

I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river Is a strong brown god— . . . Unhonoured, unpropitiated By worshippers of the machine, but waiting,…

As Edward Abbey said, “When a man’s best friend is a dog, then that dog has a problem.”

Gardeners are a modest and sober breed, not much given to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life. We are generally free…

It is natural and normal, when looking at big problems, to look for big answers. Problems do not come much bigger than the subject of Eric Holt-Giménez’s new book, whose driving…

I have just planted two apple trees from what my local nursery calls their “Posterity Collection,” heritage varieties grafted onto a slower-growing but durable and long-lived rootstock so that the trees…

In the spring of this year, some students and I created a modest Heritage Garden—420 square feet of raised beds built from two-by-twelves and filled with a topsoil and compost…