Category: Seeds

How to Harvest Your Own Seeds from Fruit and Vegetables for Propagation into Nursery

October 12, 2015 by Angeline White & filed under Food & Food Support Systems, General, How to, Plant Systems, Plants, Seeds

Harvesting your own seeds from fruit and vegetables for propagation into a nursery significantly reduces your costs by over 50 percent. In order to reap the maximum benefit, you must give your plants the help they need to produce healthy seeds. Harvesting and storage techniques require particular attention because they impact seed quality. To achieve the best results, one must harvest at the right time, clean with the proper techniques, […]

Why Are We Being Fed By A Poison Expert?

September 13, 2015 by The Permaculture Research Insitute & filed under Community, Economics, Food & Food Support Systems, General, Plants, Population, Seeds, Society

While we have made a strong effort to put forward strongly positive articles on this site, we will share this very good presentation video by “The Undercurrent” The video is courtesy of their Youtube Channel “The Undercurrent” Is the ‘old’ Monsanto, the one responsible for producing Agent Orange, PCB’s and DDT and a terrible record at covering up and denying the tragedies that have resulted from their use, the same […]

Why I am cycling around Haiti planting trees

August 12, 2015 by Conor OHiggins & filed under General, Plants, Seeds

For the past year, I have had the privilege of working with grassroots organizations in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, on issues of food security, urban gardening, and environmental protection. I have seen first-hand the Haitian spirit of ‘konbit’, an untranslatable word referring to the coming-together of a community to work for a common goal. I have seen people with no funding from aid organizations or the government, with only the resources […]

The Value and Significance of Saving Seeds and How it Benefits You

May 11, 2015 by Michael Lee & filed under Food & Food Support Systems, General, Plants, Seeds

In agriculture, sometimes even the simplest of concepts can encourage better practice and dramatically improve the qualities of your produce. Back in June 2014 I decided to hop on the bandwagon after a good friend of mine (and much better agriculturalist), recommended I start to save seeds for the benefit of both myself and my customers. Now over the years I have grown a wide variety of food, so I […]

Transitioning from Groceries to Garden

March 7, 2015 by Jonathon Engels & filed under Community, Design, Food & Food Support Systems, Markets & Outlets, Plants, Seeds

In Memory of Anna, Forever My Sweet Potato Last year, about this time, my wife and Emma and I agreed to take up a project in Panama. We were given six months, a small budget to feed volunteers, and a good plot of land—roughly an acre—to grow on. There were lots of things either already in place: mangoes, limes, plantains, water apples, and a papaya tree shooting through the greenhouse […]

Varieties, Additives and Sourcing: What’s Happening with your food?

January 19, 2015 by Charlotte Ashwanden & filed under Community, Food & Food Support Systems, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Plant Systems, Plants, Processing & Food Preservation, Seeds, Trees

Photography by Ingrid Pullen Eating: one of the most simple and basic human activities. Yet as our food systems become increasingly more mechanised and complicated, this simple act begins to carry with it a whole spectrum of messages. When you lift that juicy apple to your lips, do you think about which chemicals were used to make it so perfectly red? How many miles has it been traveling in order […]

Seed Saving, Part 2: Practical Ways to Save Seed

November 14, 2014 by Charlotte Ashwanden & filed under Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Seeds

Saving wildflower seeds can be a great way to spread biodiversity – like this selection harvested by Josie Jeffrey Having learned some background knowledge on why you would want to save seeds in the first place (see Part I), you may now be wondering how to go about doing it. There are many ways to do this, and though it can be as simple as keeping a few leftover tomato […]

Protecting Seeds and Their Stories: The Sacred in Everyday Life

November 10, 2014 by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee & filed under DVDs/Books, Plants, Seeds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJkEFN7lqqc The recent UN Climate Change Summit, the marches in New York and around the world, once again brought into our collective consciousness the need for real change. As did the shocking news of the global loss of species. The vital need to protect our ecosystems is part of a cry that embraces the whole earth, from the smallest creature to the vast oceans. And in the midst of this […]

Linux for Lettuce

November 4, 2014 by Lisa Hamilton & filed under Community Projects, GMOs, Seeds

Revolutionizing American agribusiness from the ground up, one seed at a time Photo: Dave Calder From a distance, Jim Myers looks like an ordinary farmer. Most autumn mornings, he stands thigh-deep in a field of wet broccoli, beheading each plant with a single, sure swipe of his harvest knife. But under his waders are office clothes, and on his wrist is an oversized digital watch with a push-button calculator on […]

Beware the Corporate Takeover of Seed Under Many Guises

October 22, 2014 by I-SIS & filed under Biodiversity, Economics, Food Shortages, Seeds

New and existing legislations and treaties are increasingly restricting people’s food rights and eroding agricultural biodiversity in favour of a handful of big seed corporations that are already monopolizing the world’s seeds. by Dr Eva Sirinathsinghji The UK hosted a festival across the country to celebrate and honour the humble seed. In London, the Lambeth Garden Museum hosted farmers, growers, food sovereignty campaigners, artists and chefs for 2 days of […]

Seed Saving, Part 1: Seedy Issues

October 18, 2014 by Charlotte Ashwanden & filed under Seeds

For many interested in permaculture, one of the first and perhaps simplest joys of becoming more involved in holistic design is the experience of being able to harvest something which you have grown yourself; whether it is pesto made of basil from your window-sill or a forest garden so packed with fruit, nuts and climbing vines that you are not sure what you will do with them all. If you […]

Report on 5-Day Permaculture Workshop for the Etse Fewus Herbalists Association in Fitch, North Soha, Ethiopia: Part 2

October 17, 2014 by Alex McCausland & filed under Aid Projects, Community Projects, Compost, Courses/Workshops, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Nurseries & Propogation, Seeds, Soil Conservation, Soil Rehabilitation, Trees

Continuing from Part 1. Sunday 21/09/14: Day 4 The group were very happy with the biole preparations we did on day 3. They were amazed that we could make fertilizer out of basic farmyard trash when they had all been paying though the nose for imported chemicals for the past years. So riding this wave of enthusiasm I hoped we would make good progress in covering the material today. Unfortunately […]