A new series begins today on Landraces – crops perpetuated by seed saved from year to year, and by this means adapting to local conditions. Related: What are landraces? Landrace 1 – bere.
Author: gs
Art and science
Science and Art working together through a Dundee CECHR Change Maker Workshop, organised by artist Jean Duncan, hosted at the Living Field cabins and garden on 2 October 2014: food security, environmental degradation, sustainable agriculture. More to follow.
Glorious irregularity
Nine apples from a tree. Not that old, planted around 1995 as a 4-foot whip – a seedling ‘crab’ but not one of the wild ones, more an improved form, not grafted, but now 20 years old next year and a tree …
… and for the last 10 years, yielding at the equinox a mass of fruit, no two apples the same, some fairly symmetrical, most a bit skewed, some easily bruised on the fall, yet none wasted, all eatable raw but better stewed for 10 minutes and then eaten straight or with grated nutmeg or immersed in custard – an earthy, apply delight, what apples should be.
Ps. The Cairn o’ Mhor winery and cider makers, based on the Carse of Gowrie, are looking for apples this autumn. If you have any spare contact them, details at http://www.cairnomohr.com
Autumn equinox
Descriptions at The Year. A quick look at images from other quarter days – winter solstice, XQ1, spring equinox, XQ2, summer solstice, XQ3, XQ4.
Inle still
The cultivated lake-gardens of Inle is the first in a series on ‘water-fields’ on the new Living Field web site. See Water-field.
Fiberoptic 2
Reflection in water of bamboo matting on the wall of a stilt house, Inle Lake, Burma (Myanmar) 2014. ….. first you grow your bamboo, then cut it into near-flat strips, then weave it into a tough fabric, then fix it to wooden or bamboo poles to form a screen or wall … on a house, built on bamboo poles, driven into the mud of a lake. See also Fiberoptic … Fiberoptic 3 …
Night harvesting
Blue feast
Flower head of chicory (Cichorium intybus) with four insects, the small one perhaps grazing pollen, the others going for the rich centre and trampling the (male) pollen bearing anthers held bifurcating on thin blue-lined tubes and curling inwards like muscle-flexing stick-men
… on an organic farm, East Lothian, 15 August 2014 (Image by Squire).