The July 16 episode of Living on Earth had two interesting food-related pieces, each accompanied by a transcript and MP3 download: The wide sargasso seizure: The first covered sargassum seaweed, the primary vegetation that collects in the Sargasso Sea, an area of calm waters in the Atlantic Ocean. Most of this seaweed comes from the Gulf of Mexico, where it is currently …  Read More →

As an apartment-dweller, I know the frustration of not having enough soil to call my own for a garden. (Why do you think I garden in other people’s yards?) For many years, I’ve had a small assembly of various-sized pots to keep some of my favorite herbs close at hand, and I’ve even tried growing the occasional vegetable in such containers as well. More urban dwellers — especially those in apartments or condos, living... 

Sweet talk : In early 2008, Honest Tea sold a minority stake, for $43 million, to Coca-Cola. As this interesting NY Times Small Business article notes,  Read More →

Let’s rurbalize it!: While “farming is the new golf,” in terms of surburban developments incorporating communal food-growing operations into their scope, urban planner Daniel Nairn sees many more advantages to embedding such land use into the fabric of a dense city block. In this interesting concept for a ‘garden block,’ he shows how agriculture could be woven into an urban landscape, not as a “stand-alone community... 

Before Local Roots Market opened late last year, we expected gaps in the products offered. One specific category of products –- cheese –- kept us from limiting our definition of “local” to “within 100 miles” as we weren’t sure how many cheesemakers we would find in the area. Boy, were we wrong. Turns out that the most recent addition to a stellar collection of Ohio artisan cheesemakers is well within …  Read More →

Off to war against the weed-lurking worms. (Steph Larsen photos) I’m at war with the common stalk borer. As much as I believe in sustainability and chemical-free agriculture in theory, I’ve never been more tempted to use insecticides as I am right now. For years, the signature for my email has been a quote from the agtivist-scientist Vandana Shiva , “Sustainability begins with peace with the Earth.” Contrary to current... 

Cluck, cluck, cluck. Bwaak! These are not sounds I expect to hear on a stroll in my North Oakland, Calif. neighborhood — the usual soundtrack is more like thumping bass, sirens, and the rattle of fast-food paper bags. And yet chickens are pecking in backyards on practically every block, in converted sheds and rickety but raccoon-proof enclosures. Where I live, it’s mostly a matter of economics: chicken feed is cheap, and fresh, tasty... 

Ever since taking a cartography class in graduate school, I’ve had a penchant for maps. Full of information, they elegantly highlight places and ideas that we may have missed otherwise. As a visual person, I can appreciate the splashes of color and clean designs. But not all maps are visual. We can create sound maps by closing our eyes, listening to the sounds we hear, and mapping them in relation to ourselves. Doing so can …  Read More →

With a terrible economy and lots of coverage of gardening in the mass media, more and more Americans are growing food in home and community gardens. According to a 2009 survey, almost a third of American households intended to grow food that year, a 19% increase over 2008. These numbers and many more can be found in the National Gardening Association’s “Impact of Home and Community Gardening in America” ( PDF ), one of the documents... 

As you may have guessed by now, I love to bake. And since part of my self-employment now entails baking goods to sell at Local Roots , I’m keenly interested both in sourcing what grains and flours I can find locally — as well as growing what I can. Thanks to the inspiration offered by Gene Logsdon in his ” Small-Scale Grain Raising ” ( reviewed last year ), I started growing buckwheat , a flavor most people know only through... 

Kid-food confidential : Anthony Bourdain may love foie gras, loathe Alice Waters and vegetarians, and enjoy tipping other sacred sustainable-foodie cows, but a recent excerpt from his new memoir, ” Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook ” reveals that he’s two grassfed-beef burgers away from getting his food-movement draft card. See, Bourdain’s a dad now, and like many people who claimed... 

Hype haymaker : “The sustainable agriculture world is abuzz today with news of the Supreme Court’s ruling regarding an earlier lawsuit, brought by alfalfa farmers, that sought to stop any planting of Monsanto’s genetically engineered Roundup Ready alfalfa seed. While the press coverage heralds the ruling as a decisive victory for Monsanto, a close reading shows that, in fact, it’s a fairly significant win for opponents of... 

(Steph Larsen photos) Everyone knows the Boy Scouts’ motto: Be Prepared. While my immediate inclination is to ask “For what?”, it’s as good a command as any to live by. One at which I failed miserably last week. I came home from work and went out to the sheep paddocks to make sure they looked healthy and had enough water and grass. When I got there, I was confronted by a complete surprise: a tiny newborn lamb, unsteady... 

Thanks in part to a lawsuit from the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and Waterkeeper Alliance, the EPA has agreed to increase its oversight of manure discharges from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)*. The EPA estimates that CAFOs in the U.S.generate three times more bodily waste than humans do, yet CAFOs have virtually no waste treatment facilities. The lawsuit was brought in response to an EPA rule** that allowed CAFOs... 

Children of the teosinte :  Even though maize ( Zea mays ) is perhaps the most important crop in the Americas (for better or worse), until recently, we didn’t know where it came from and when it was domesticated. Research by botanists, geneticists and archeologists has finally found the answers in a grass called teosinte, a river valley in southern Mexico, and tools that date back to 8,700 years ago. Teosinte has been a leading contender...