The Soil Daily- January 17, 2015

"Our soils are in danger because of expanding cities, deforestation, unsustainable land use and management practices, pollution, overgrazing and climate change. The current rate of soil degradation ..." More


The Soil Daily

When The Trees Stopped Talking with People

Long ago, when the world was new and there was only one small village, Father Oak and Mother Ash would, once every three months, walk to the village so they could talk with the people living there.

Mother Ash and Father Oak would share the tales of the forest, and all who lived there, with the people. The people listened carefully and with respect. When the trees stopped speaking, the people would begin, informing the trees about events in the village, births, deaths, marriages and so on.

 The people would then ask the trees for their permission to enter the forest and gather nuts and berries, to hunt, fish and cut what wood they needed.

The people helped the forest to thrive because they only took trees from stands that were overcrowded and there were too many trees bunched together. This made it difficult for any trees to flourish; the people and the trees and, all that was, lived in Harmony.

to be continued.

The Cob Cottage

Are you ready for the Cob Cottage? This is a building method so old and so simple that it has been all but forgotten in the rush to synthetics. A cob cottage, cobb, however, might be the ultimate expression of ecological design, a structure so attuned to its surroundings that its creators refer to it as "an ecstatic house."

The Hand Sculpted House.

Ecocentrism

Ecocentrism is how I view the world we inhabit, in other words, non-living things are of equal value to living things, and that the functioning ecosystem is the most important. Consider soil, soil is created through the interaction of rocks and weather, without soil we would not have vegetation, at least as we know and depend upon it.

The stories I will be sharing here are set within this context.

Companion Planting

Next Friday Jan 16, I will look at companion planting.

Companion planting is the idea that certain plants are planted close to other certain plants there will be a mutual benefits to the plants.

Are You Biocentric, Ecocentric or Anthropocentric?

Biocentrism puts living beings—animals, humans, plants—as the most important.

 Ecocentrism notes that non-living things are of equal value to living things, and that the functioning ecosystem is the most important.

 Anthropocentrism values human beings alone above all else. (courtesy David Suzuki & Facebook)

What do you believe?

2015 Year of the Soil

I maintain two blogs, this one From My Garden, is connected to my weekly column is the local community newspaper, the Tribune. Each week, I will preview here, what the following week's article will be.

 For example, 2015 is the Year of the Soil. 2015 has been declared the International Year of Soils by the 68th UN General Assembly (A/RES/68/232).  The IYS aims to be a platform for raising awareness of the importance of soils for food security and essential eco-system functions. 


My other blog, The Permaculture Gardener, concerns storytelling, permaculture and the nature of reality.