Welcome to the Living Field web site
Latest ….. Bere – a delicious journey of discovery by Ruth Watson ….. North Coast Visiting – notes on the NCVC at Thurso … Farming Fit for the Future exhibition on regenerative agriculture …..and looking back 250 years how Fit was post-improvement farming ….. lessons from the Living Pavilion 2019 Melbourne Australia ….. Humus miraculum-Nature under screen exhibition Cahors France …. VESS Bruce Ball’s visual evaluation of soil structure …. Legume pages at the 5000-Years project are being revamped ….. Edible fungi club – new interest at the Living Field by Gill Banks ….. Ad Gefrin | Yeavering notes on the new museum and archaeological site in Northumberland ….. Huntly mapping project Land use, climate change and food ….. New Growers network for bere the barley landrace ….. All Among the Barley – history of a song by Russ Clare ….. Giant rice grain sculptures Singapore …. Plant Atlas 2020 by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland ……
Places surrounded by hills, such as Loch an Eilein near Aviemore, can receive the first direct rays of the sun long after official sunrise. On 17 December, four days before the winter solstice, the first rays glanced off the water at about 10.30, sunrise was 100 minutes earlier.
… continued …..
Inverness Botanics and some notes on the local climate at 57N ….. Interested in Ecological Restoration? Get involved with SER Europe ….. and drawings of Pictish Beasts by Kathryn Owen ….. James Hutton’s Unconformity on Arran …. Ancient grains – much missed by the editor so he grew his own .…. Medicinal forage Kinloss Abbey Moray ..… Owlbirds – update from Kit Martin on her moth project …. Global wheat a summary of who grows what ….. Making ink from oak galls by Jean Duncan ….. Ancient and modern – techniques with wool in textile art by Ruth Black ….
The Living Field has been run since 2001 by staff at the James Hutton Institute, Dundee, UK. We work through outreach, education and shared experience to promote sustainable production of food and other products from the land.
When the sun falls below the horizon, it still illuminates earthly objects during twilight, which is divided into civil, nautical and astronomical phases of increasing darkness. When there is little or no cloud, people can usually still ‘see’ through civil and into nautical twilight, when the trees above were photographed on the Carse of Gowrie. More on twilight at Through the Solstice.
Origins and content
The web site opened in spring 2014 to celebrate 10 years of the Living Field Garden. New sowings and plantings stopped during the pandemic. The Living Field now operates through its wider community, exploring sustainable use of land and natural products.
The sites hosts ‘Pages’ and ‘Posts’. The main Pages are listed in the upper header/menu shown above the header image. Each page has a set of sub-pages dealing with different aspects of the main topic. Pages are not static in that the content may be revised and new sub-pages added.
The Common Reed (Phragmites australis) forms extensive beds along the Tay estuary, mostly by the north bank, but fragments of its tall stems get washed up most places along the estuary, including here on the south side by Newburgh, where they formed dense mats above the mud in shapes swirled by the tides. The left hand one is in its natural colour, the other two modified (www.livingfield.co.uk).
Posts include articles, photographs, art and craft – some written by Hutton Institute people but many contributed by the wider Living Field community. Recent posts are listed in the right-hand menu. By June 2023 there were over 240 posts – they can be viewed in the month by month archive at the bottom of the menu.
We hope you enjoy visiting the site. You will find a summary of current activities and collaborations in the list lower down this page under Regular Content.
The vale of Strathmore, rich in agricultural for millenia, is watered by many rivers flowing down and south into the River Isla from high land to the north. Late autumn and early winter 2012 was among the wettest in recent decades, causing extensive flooding, as here, a little before sunset on the last day of a year.
Regular content
- New articles, opinion pieces, photographs and art work are published under Posts, the most recent listed in the right-hand margin.
- The News page links to what’s going on in the Living Field project and other matters topical.
- Climate and sustainable food is a new series of articles covering climate and production, past events and trends, current status and action for the future. The series will continue during 2024.
- The Garden relates the evolving habitats and and living plant exhibits in what has been the centrepiece of the project, created in a corner of the Institute’s farm in 2004. Activity in the garden was suspended during lockdown and most parts of it have now ‘gone wild’.
To see all the pages and posts relevant to a topic, enter a word in ‘search’, also in the right-hand menu.
Fungi spend most of their time unseen in soil and decaying matter, powering our ecosystems, but come into the light in forms such as mushrooms and, as here, multi-coloured plates.
- The Year records the seasonal cycle in the croplands through the quarter days and cross quarter days. Various posts connect to it, for example on daylength in the north.
- 5000 years is a long term project on the innovations that have sustained life in the maritime croplands and more widely since the neolithic. We with 5000-Plants – fibres, dyes, weeds, and coming soon – cereals and legumes. The 5000 years pages are connected to many Posts written by growers, artists and craft workers.
- People profiles collaborations with the Living Field in art and science, including Jean Duncan (archaeology, food, Capsella), Tina Scopa (plant pressing workshops) and the family of Slovenian artist Vida Fakin.
The Living Field recalls here the skills of Caroline Hyde-Brown who crafts paper, pots and other articles using plant-based products. Some of her work appeared on the Living Field web in 2021 at Repurposing grass pea ….
Contacts
The Living Field exists through the efforts of many people. For more information on its origin, aims and charitable funding, please see Origins of the Living Field and About.
Gladys wright, who had been involved since the beginning of the Living Field in 2001, retired from the James Hutton at the end of 2019. From a muddy field describes her contributions to the project.
All enquiries on the Living Field project, garden, CD, study centre, web site, The Year, the 5000 Years project: Geoff Squire at geoff.squire@hutton.ac.uk or geoff.squire@outlook.com.
The Living Field garden installed this large wood sculpture of a dragonfly in the centre of the meadow. The sculpture was made and donated to the Living Field by Dave Roberts of the Hutton Institute, Dundee. Here it was, a few minutes before sunset at the winter solstice, 21 December 2017.
Photographs
All images on this site are taken and prepared by the Living Field team unless stated otherwise. Please respect our ownership of these images . The Living Field is funded by charities and is not profit-making.
Photographs on this Welcome page change with the turning of the year.
A selection of images and quotes are given in the right-hand menu – they will also change with the year.
