GoodGNUs

Growing rare veg - some resources

• Agroforestry Research Trust
  Seeds, plants, research, publications, courses
  (tags: seedcatalogue gardening horticulture plants permaculture veg fruit)
• Victoriana Nursery Gardens - Quality Seeds & Plants
  (tags: seedcatalogue veg gardening horticulture permaculture)
• Flowering plant seed price-lists
  (tags: seedcatalogue horticulture permaculture gardening veg)
• J. L. Hudson, Seedsman
  (tags: seedcatalogue veg gardening biodiversity permaculture horticulture)
• Dreschflegel-Bio-Saatgut - Direktversand - Biologisches Saatgut
  (tags: seedcatalogue gardening veg)
• The Green Living Forum • View forum - Permaculture
  (tags: permaculture resource forum)
• deNieuweTuin
  (tags: seedcatalogue veg)
• Graines Baumaux : graines de semences florales et potagères
  (tags: seedcatalogue veg)
• Vegetable Seeds : Pea seeds
  Very tempted by “Champion of England ” Tall Pea, and much else from their excellent range :)
  (tags: seed seedcatalogue horticulture permaculture gardening veg)
  
• Amaranth:_Modern_Prospects_for an Ancient Crop (BOSTID, 1984, 74 p.)
  & this was the inspiration for my 1994 dissertation
  (tags: amaranth amaranthus grain permaculture horticulture agriculture)
• Permanent Publications Publications 1
  Been thinking a lot about low-impact buildings since my last visit to the CAT bookshop. Still saving for a plot of land :)
  (tags: land building selfbuild lowimpact ecobuild eco permaculture)
• Lost Crops of Africa: Volume I: Grains
  I once wrote a short dissertation on one of the lost crops of the Incas (Amaranth). Looking for time to get back over the Atlantic & read about some of our hemisphere’s old grains
  (tags: permaculture grains ethnobotany food crops eco horticulture agriculture gardening)

Saturday saw the annual Chorlton Big Green Festival, one of the country’s largest Green Fairs, and this year blessed with a stall from Manchester Free Software (MFS).

Those of us volunteering to staff the MFS Stall had a great time - not just enjoying the vegan food and drink of the Fair, and catching up with old friends from Manchester’s numerous environmental groups in attendance, but from several hours of talking to the general public about software freedom.

While MFS membership is heavy in Unix admins and programmers, the group is about the philosophy of software freedom, not playing with technology - thus we all enjoyed engaging with the public on why freedom matters in software. Passers by ranged from committed Ubuntu users to those without a computer at home, yet nearly all were responsive to the principle of software built on values of community, education, and sharing knowledge.

Freedom in the 3rd Sector

Indeed, it continues to remain a puzzle why so many in the charity sector actively campaign against Free Software solutions, and promote the sector’s continued reliance on an unsustainable model of dependence on a few tax-subsidised, private companies.

These are issues I hope to tease out a little in my talk on Free Software in the UK Voluntary Sector, and why you should care, at MFS’s 20th April meeting. I’d welcome people with a wide range of views to come along and debate the issue afterwards.

FeedingManchester #3

Just back from Feeding Manchester #3, an attempt to co-ordinate everyone in the business of sustainable food production in the city, and keep the city council and its ambitious plans for local food on track. Although I do a bit of sustainable and community IT in Hulme, and social media training in the Northern Quarter and elsewhere, I was really there on behalf of Congleton Sustainability Group and of Sandbach Re-Imagined, to see what could be learnt.

And while yes, there was a lot to be learnt (which you’re probably best finding - as it appears over the next few days - on the Kindling Trust website), and I was able to offer some points (despite my rural perspective ;)  - the best thing I heard today has to be comments from Lydia of Sustainable Levenshulme Underground Gardeners, that many of these local efforts to tidy up one’s patch and grow food there for the community are oppositional, and “kind of naughty”, and the fun can go when the authorities are involved, as it’s no longer “fun and a bit deviant”.

If you’re based in Manchester, and concerned with local food, you might like to join in before Feeding Manchester #4 in the summer but, wherever you are, stay naughty, and happy St Valentine’s Day ;-)

• BBC - BBC Radio 4 Programmes - Costing the Earth, The New Diggers
  Dig for victory - faced with a collapsing economy & ecology, what better response than growing, preserving and sharing abundance?
  (tags: localfood GuerillaGardening FIxTheFoodChain BBC food sustainability permaculture selfreliance organic commons diy csa transition)

Wonderful to be spending a bit more time at horticulture and permaculture again - both with looking at the IT systems for Gaia University and, more practically, getting back into a bit of Edible Landscaping work. Yesterday I gave a talk on Edible Landscaping at Soutport Flower Show. It’s adapted from the 3 hour Edible Landscaping course I ran at HDRA in the mid-90s, and as I feel much useful content is omitted to makethe talk, I’m putting links to useful sites and books below (and in the comments) over the next few days.

The talk will also run today at 2.30pm (come along at 1pm to hear David Bellamy!), and tomorrow at 11.30am.

Books

Plants for a Future: Edible and Useful Plants for a Healthier World

Creative Vegetable Gardening Joy Larkcom

Nowtopia: How Pirate Programmers, Outlaw Bicyclists and Vacant-lot Gardeners Are Inventing the Future Today. by Chris Carlsson

Websites

Heritage Seed Library - old & endangered varieties of vegetable seed

Plants for a Future - practical experiences with 7000 different useful & edible plants growing in the UK