I have experienced mixed results with community projects. One food Co-op I helped start is still going strong. Another failed after many years. Some collectives of people living near each other dissolved over time. Others have gone on for multiple generations. Some community gardens flourish while others peter out. So, I was particularly interested to… (read more)
the study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena, especially in relation to climate and plant and animal life. Buttercups, Arrow Leaf Balsam Root, Oregon grape, forsythia… the signs of Spring’s arrival are hard to miss. Yellow flowers bloom early. Normally people just recognize the changes of the season without much fuss. Plants flowering one species after another is… (read more)
Almost everyone likes sweet things, often to our detriment. Nevertheless sugars are an important source of energy for people, animals and microbes. In the wine-making business, the sugar content of grapes is key to whether a wine will be dry or sweet, also to how well it will keep. The brix scale is a standard… (read more)
Maple samaras released on January 1st, 2019 It’s too dark in the mornings and evenings to do much work outside. Long needles on the pine trees have turned brown and rain down with every gust of wind. Yellow leaves are joining them. The very long “Indian Summer” has turned cold and wet. It makes me… (read more)
Most of us have been bitten or worse by a variety of insects, bees, ants, ticks, spiders… They are the essence of “being bugged”. The usual response is fight or flight, (see Tina Tolliver Matney’s article on Yellow Jackets in the August, North Columbia Monthly.) As a farmer, insects can be much worse than annoying. … (read more)
My farm (and we could insert several other enterprises here) seems to run mostly in crisis-managementmode. The best laid plans (assuming that you have actual plans and not just good intentions) often go astray. The Spring is too wet. The Summer is too hot. The supply chain is slow and expensive… It’s not like you… (read more)
“It’s a jungle out there.” That’s what I was thinking as I prepared to cut down the vegetation between the last two rows of my vineyard. Purple Vetch was draped from one side to another. Yellow Sweet clover grew taller than my head. My feet were tangled in everything underneath. This very wet spring has… (read more)
How Sweet It Is The quest for evidence-based information is ongoing. So are the efforts to dismiss it. As Yuval Noah Harari pointed out, science is based on the admission of ignorance. With science, as soon as you think you know something new, other scientists are going to poke holes in your ideas and try… (read more)
When I was a younger and less knowledgeable gardener I tried starting apple trees by planting seeds. Johnny Apple Seed right?! It didn’t go very well and I asked Larry Geno, who owned Bear Creek Nursery at the time about how to do that. He laughed in my face and proceeded to tell me that… (read more)
Astute readers will remember that in the January Issue of the North Columbia Monthly, after a lengthy description of the travails I experienced in setting up a microscope attached to my computer, I expected similar problems getting to know how to use a digital PH meter. Truthfully, using the PH meter was not too bad. … (read more)
