HOW REVOLUTIONARY ARE WE FEELING at the moment? If not sufficiently so to occupy Wall Street or another downtown, then what about to occupy our front yards (and side yards and backyards and decks and balconies) with food gardens? In this talk at the TED-Dirigo conference (dirigo is the state motto of Maine, where the conference was held, and means, appropriately, “I lead”), Kitchen Gardeners International founder Roger Doiron proposes we help solve the earth’s biggest problem–food supply–one subversive plot at a time. Are you in?
FROM THE WEEKLY PODCAST
smarter fall (and spring) cleanup, with doug tallamy
WHEN I TALKED to Doug Tallamy in February around the publication date of his latest book, “Nature’s Best Hope,” I didn’t want to go on and on about the advice in it regarding smart fall cleanup, which is one of the ways I know I’ve dramatically shifted the way I manage my own garden compared to 10 or even five years ago. But we were looking ahead to spring then, not fall.
I’m grateful that Doug returned to the podcast in autumn to do just that. Want to plan your most ecologically minded garden cleanup ever, and understand the consequences of each potential action you can take—including next spring?
The subtitle of University of Delaware professor Doug Tallamy’s recent book, “Nature’s Best Hope,” is “A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard.” Meaning: The choices we make all year-round, including the very important one of how we clean up, can help counteract an overdeveloped, fragmented landscape that puts the food web to the test. You and I are nature’s best hope, and I’m glad Doug joined me again to help us learn to support it.
(Stream it below, read the illustrated transcript or subscribe free.)
Great video. You are an urban subversive Margaret. Well done.
Keep on spreading the news.
This was my second season gardening (I’m new to owning dirt and oh so happy for it). Front yard edibles-I broke it slowly to my neighborhood, yams (beautiful leaves), various peppers, snap peas , a few basil and one Mortgage Lifter tomato. Next year, who knows…….
I am so in!
Yes, I’m in!
I don’t understand why so many people go to work all day to pay the grocery bills, when they can stay at home a little more of the time and grow their own groceries.
Thanks for exposure to the video. Our front yard produces asparagus, strawberries,
peas, sweet potatos, radishes, lettuce….all tucked in amongst our perennials, trees and shrubs. It’s quiet subversion, with a giant metal chicken sculpture. My attempt of spreading the word includes always bringing a very “Martha” basket of fresh homegrown veggies, backyard eggs, pickles, etc as a gift to whomever we are visiting. The ogles and awes fill me with pride and everyone just lights up. Sharing something so viscerally good inspires everyone.
Spread the word, and love, and magic, of growing and giving away real food.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Greg
I’m all in. This year the peppers grew in pots in front, with the rest of the veggies in raised beds in both side yards. Each year I appropriate a little more space for veggies. I’m doing it gradually to help make it a less painful to my husband, a/k/a The Lawn Man. Lucky for him it’s too shady for veggies in the back yard. :)
I’m in! (And I’m already a member of Kitchen Gardens International… yay Roger Doiron!)
Please count me in! One garden plot at a time.
Good food for thought.
Yesssss!!!! Thank you for sharing this. BTW: Terrific blog — I have learned so much here.
Happy that you like it, Kristine. A very kind reader of A Way to Garden alerted me to it, so that was the tipoff, which I was grateful for myself.