In the spirit of the season, I thought I would point you in the direction of free downloads and useful sites on the internet.
So first of all, here's a site that gives the best 1001 albums that Rob Wood pointed out to me:
http://www.radio3net.ro/dbalbums/albume1001/page:1
If you rig your computer to an amplifier and speaker system you can play them until the cows come home.
Then there is a site with a huge archive of movies that you can watch for free:
http://www.watch-movies-online.tv/movies/top/
Here are a couple of useful book sources:
GREEN UP!
Agnes Gautier
Free download: http://www.cdf.org.uk/web/guest/publication?id=142955
Green Up! provides community groups with everything they need to work productively with their councils on environmental and sustainability issues. It is full of tips from community groups who are successfully working with their council on issues relating to sustainability, climate change, the environment and energy.
It contains several practical examples from groups such as local Transition Towns, civic societies and faith groups. The guide explains terms commonly used by councils to help local groups better understand ‘council speak’. Best of all it is free.
Next:
The Handbook of Sustainability Literacy: multimedia version. Edited by Poppy Villiers-Stuart and Arran Stibbe
http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/stibbe-handbook-of-sustainability
You can browse this online resource by chapters from the paperback, additional chapters as well as Video interviews.
In this ground-breaking book, leading sustainability educators are joined by literary critics, permaculturalists, ecologists, artists, journalists, engineers, mathematicians and philosophers in a deep reflection on the skills people need to survive and thrive in the challenging conditions of the 21st century. Responding to the threats of climate change, peak oil, resource depletion, economic uncertainty and energy insecurity demands the utmost in creativity, ingenuity and new ways of thinking in order to reinvent both self and society. The book covers a wide range of skills and attributes from technology appraisal to ecological intelligence, and includes active learning exercises to help develop those skills.
If you have the post-Christmas blues here's my favourite two Ted.com talks:
By piecing together a complex ecological puzzle, biologist Willie Smits has found a way to re-grow clearcut rainforest in Borneo, saving local orangutans - and creating a thrilling blueprint for restoring fragile ecosystems.
http://www.ted.com/talks/willie_smits_restores_a_rainforest.html
Then there is an all time favourite talk that is both funny and deeply wise:
Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice – and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.
http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html
I love Wendell Berry's poems so here is a link to some good'uns:
http://www.poemhunter.com/wendell-berry/
... and one here...
What We Need Is Here
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.
Wendell Berry
Lastly, I'll leave you with some good cheer.
"How big am I? As an individual, five foot two and whistling. At a government level, I find I’ve shrunk, smaller than the X on my ballot paper. But at a community level, I can breathe in five river-sources and breathe out three miles of green valleys."
Kirkpatrick Sale
Happy New Year. May 2010 be a watershed for human beings. May we become more kind... to ourselves, to each other, to our Planet Earth.
Maddy Harland is editor of Permaculture Magazine - inspiration for sustainable living
Tuesday, 29 December 2009
Monday, 21 December 2009
Breaking Through the Ring-Pass-Knot
You could be excused for feeling despondent about the results of the Copenhagen Summit, even if you knew in the dark recesses of your mind that it was unlikely that the G nations would set no urgent deadline to sign a real climate treaty. Big polluters like China and the US wanted a weak deal, and potential champions like Europe, Brazil and South Africa didn't fight hard enough to stop them.
The fact that our atmospheric CO2 levels are on the threshold of dangerous doesn’t mean we are collectively able to shake off our current economic worldview yet. The mindset that fuels the global industrial system is fiercely holding on to ‘business as usual’. But it is often during the death throes that the grip appears to be strongest.
Cast your mind back to the last climate change summit in July 2005. That was when 7/7 occurred. Yes, suicide bombing in central London was horrible, terrifying and shocking but the event effectively sidelined the talks from our screens and pretty much neutralised their significance to the nation. Most people got caught up in the terrorism mindset.
Why is it, I ask, that when the world’s nations meet to talk about climate change in 2009, the media sidelines the summit and bleats on obsessively about the BA industrial dispute or the fact that Eurostar is unable to function because of the weather? It is because they too are in the pocket of the industrial growth model.
Although the myth that the industrial growth model is enduring as the only way we can live on this planet, I see a powerful shift occurring behind the scenes and with ‘ordinary’ people, and these people are plainly not represented by politicians or the mainstream media.
There were thousands of vigils, rallies and protests, hundreds of thousands of phone calls, and millions of petition signatures, all going on behind the camera, unreported by the likes of CNN or the BBC. Here’s one example of the huge surge of international concern:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/after_copenhagen
Inevitably, there were also many incidents of police violence against ordinary people who were in Copenhagen to mark the gravity of the situation by their presence. These too were unreported by the media.
Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu personally appealed to everyone to take up the torch of causes past and never give up. I believe this message is critical at this time. We cannot afford to be pessimistic and feel humanity has signed its own death warrant, along with the death warrants of countless other species on our planet.
I believe that there are solutions out there and that permaculture is a powerful one. Stephen Fry’s 'How To Repair the World' reafforestation slide show on uTube is an indicator of a powerful global movement that is gaining pace. The most important thing we can do is hold on to a positive, solution-orientated vision and refine our thinking and our actions.
A key factor in maintaining one’s personal vision is to find people of like-mind – not to be isolated and alone – as we all need psychological support and encouragement. We need to learn to co-operate and to share resources and information. This is vital for building community resilience.
Our task is to focus on how we can become more self-reliant and resilient as individuals, families and communities and to share this information with whoever will use it. We need to support and encourage each other. The joy of it is that not only is it a positive, life-enhancing way to live, it is also a better, saner way to live as well and it will prepare us for the unquestionable global changes that are heading our way.
Maddy Harland is the editor of Permaculture Magazine – inspiration for sustainable living
The fact that our atmospheric CO2 levels are on the threshold of dangerous doesn’t mean we are collectively able to shake off our current economic worldview yet. The mindset that fuels the global industrial system is fiercely holding on to ‘business as usual’. But it is often during the death throes that the grip appears to be strongest.
Cast your mind back to the last climate change summit in July 2005. That was when 7/7 occurred. Yes, suicide bombing in central London was horrible, terrifying and shocking but the event effectively sidelined the talks from our screens and pretty much neutralised their significance to the nation. Most people got caught up in the terrorism mindset.
Why is it, I ask, that when the world’s nations meet to talk about climate change in 2009, the media sidelines the summit and bleats on obsessively about the BA industrial dispute or the fact that Eurostar is unable to function because of the weather? It is because they too are in the pocket of the industrial growth model.
Although the myth that the industrial growth model is enduring as the only way we can live on this planet, I see a powerful shift occurring behind the scenes and with ‘ordinary’ people, and these people are plainly not represented by politicians or the mainstream media.
There were thousands of vigils, rallies and protests, hundreds of thousands of phone calls, and millions of petition signatures, all going on behind the camera, unreported by the likes of CNN or the BBC. Here’s one example of the huge surge of international concern:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/after_copenhagen
Inevitably, there were also many incidents of police violence against ordinary people who were in Copenhagen to mark the gravity of the situation by their presence. These too were unreported by the media.
Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu personally appealed to everyone to take up the torch of causes past and never give up. I believe this message is critical at this time. We cannot afford to be pessimistic and feel humanity has signed its own death warrant, along with the death warrants of countless other species on our planet.
I believe that there are solutions out there and that permaculture is a powerful one. Stephen Fry’s 'How To Repair the World' reafforestation slide show on uTube is an indicator of a powerful global movement that is gaining pace. The most important thing we can do is hold on to a positive, solution-orientated vision and refine our thinking and our actions.
A key factor in maintaining one’s personal vision is to find people of like-mind – not to be isolated and alone – as we all need psychological support and encouragement. We need to learn to co-operate and to share resources and information. This is vital for building community resilience.
Our task is to focus on how we can become more self-reliant and resilient as individuals, families and communities and to share this information with whoever will use it. We need to support and encourage each other. The joy of it is that not only is it a positive, life-enhancing way to live, it is also a better, saner way to live as well and it will prepare us for the unquestionable global changes that are heading our way.
Maddy Harland is the editor of Permaculture Magazine – inspiration for sustainable living
Monday, 14 December 2009
Andean Vegetables & A Full Life
We ate the anonymous sweet potatoes that featured in my last blog. They were indeed sweet and had a subtle flavour, slightly perfumed, and unlike the shop bought ones. It was also time to dig up the Oca (Oxalis tuberosa). This is a tuber root crop from the Andes that is now grown commercially in New Zealand. I had first heard of it from Ken Fern, author of Plants For A Future, a book we published years ago but is as perennial as grass. It is all about useful and edible plants that are often little known and deserve more attention. I had always been interested in the idea of Andean food plants so when Tim Green gave me some seedlings I accepted them with pleasure.
Oca belongs to the wood sorrel family and has pretty clover-like leaves. I popped in a few experimental plants last June in a small corner of the kitchen garden (rather late really, April after the last frost would have been better). I should have earthed up the stalks like potatoes more than I did but I had planted them as deep as possible in a raised bed (about 6 cm) and hoped for the best. They tolerate shade which is useful. You are meant to keep them growing long into late autumn. I didn’t protect them from frost and so they were hit by the end of November. That stops the tubers growing.
I lifted a couple of weeks later. (This time of year is so busy at work that there is little time for gardening. Here's Tim sending a pallet of our new books to our London distributor!) Having said all this, I had a reasonable crop.
We have eaten some already. They are very pretty pink tubers and have a crisp flavour, caused by the oxalic acid. We roasted them but you can eat them raw or in a stir fry. They have a waxy skin so don’t need peeling. Apparently leaving them in the sun for a few days sweetens their flavour so they are sitting on the window sill next to the Christmas tree.
I wouldn’t claim that they out-yield the humble spud but they are a nice change and fun to grow. I am going to save some of the smaller tubers and pot them on in February and find a little space for them next year.
Apart from lifting Oca, I also planted my broad beans. This year I have chosen the variety, Super Aquadulce, from Chase Organics. They are described as ‘Superb long pods with 8-9 good flavoured beans in each. Compact plants grow to 75cm tall. The hardiest variety for autumn or early spring sowing.’ I have grown a few cardboard varieties in the past and also suffered from leggy plants that need support so I rather fancy compact plants with a good flavour for next year.
It was blissful outside, unusually warm and sheltered for December. The sweet pepper is still surviving in the greenhouse and the Cape Gooseberry (Physallis peruvian) is actually flowering in the border by the passive solar kitchen. It will be a miracle if it fruits.
Next weekend is for planting some exciting new trees and undercover from the Agroforestry Research Trust catalogue in the forest garden and the last of the bulbs in the spring meadow.
I finally came inside when it was getting dark and watched a bit of Ray Mears’ Bushcraft programme about him bivvying outside in Spring. He was extolling the virtues of sleeping outside in all four seasons, claiming we miss three quarters if our life outside if we don’t. I don’t think I fancy kipping outside in mid Winter but I certainly intend to put my dear old dad’s hat on, an old pair of merino wool lined shoes and a warm fleece and get out into the garden all year round, whatever the weather. It’s the happiest place to be and my deepening connection with the natural world continues to grow, reminding me of the work pioneered by Joanna Macy:
The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth is not that we are on the way to destroying the world – we've actually been on the way for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millenia-long sleep, to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves and each other.
Maddy Harland is editor of Permaculture Magazine – Inspiration for Sustainable Living
Oca belongs to the wood sorrel family and has pretty clover-like leaves. I popped in a few experimental plants last June in a small corner of the kitchen garden (rather late really, April after the last frost would have been better). I should have earthed up the stalks like potatoes more than I did but I had planted them as deep as possible in a raised bed (about 6 cm) and hoped for the best. They tolerate shade which is useful. You are meant to keep them growing long into late autumn. I didn’t protect them from frost and so they were hit by the end of November. That stops the tubers growing.
I lifted a couple of weeks later. (This time of year is so busy at work that there is little time for gardening. Here's Tim sending a pallet of our new books to our London distributor!) Having said all this, I had a reasonable crop.We have eaten some already. They are very pretty pink tubers and have a crisp flavour, caused by the oxalic acid. We roasted them but you can eat them raw or in a stir fry. They have a waxy skin so don’t need peeling. Apparently leaving them in the sun for a few days sweetens their flavour so they are sitting on the window sill next to the Christmas tree.
I wouldn’t claim that they out-yield the humble spud but they are a nice change and fun to grow. I am going to save some of the smaller tubers and pot them on in February and find a little space for them next year.
Apart from lifting Oca, I also planted my broad beans. This year I have chosen the variety, Super Aquadulce, from Chase Organics. They are described as ‘Superb long pods with 8-9 good flavoured beans in each. Compact plants grow to 75cm tall. The hardiest variety for autumn or early spring sowing.’ I have grown a few cardboard varieties in the past and also suffered from leggy plants that need support so I rather fancy compact plants with a good flavour for next year.
It was blissful outside, unusually warm and sheltered for December. The sweet pepper is still surviving in the greenhouse and the Cape Gooseberry (Physallis peruvian) is actually flowering in the border by the passive solar kitchen. It will be a miracle if it fruits.
Next weekend is for planting some exciting new trees and undercover from the Agroforestry Research Trust catalogue in the forest garden and the last of the bulbs in the spring meadow.
I finally came inside when it was getting dark and watched a bit of Ray Mears’ Bushcraft programme about him bivvying outside in Spring. He was extolling the virtues of sleeping outside in all four seasons, claiming we miss three quarters if our life outside if we don’t. I don’t think I fancy kipping outside in mid Winter but I certainly intend to put my dear old dad’s hat on, an old pair of merino wool lined shoes and a warm fleece and get out into the garden all year round, whatever the weather. It’s the happiest place to be and my deepening connection with the natural world continues to grow, reminding me of the work pioneered by Joanna Macy:The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth is not that we are on the way to destroying the world – we've actually been on the way for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millenia-long sleep, to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves and each other.
Maddy Harland is editor of Permaculture Magazine – Inspiration for Sustainable Living
Monday, 7 December 2009
Sweet Potatoes - Grown by Neglect
I finally dug my sweet potatoes up on December 6th. I had planted six slips given to me by Emma Cooper The Alternative Kitchen Garden author. She made them herself, from a sweet potato from Jungle Seeds, and she wasn’t told the variety. I had planted them in June in a sunny corner of my raised veg beds. This is late because our last heavy frosts are in early May. I didn’t cover them in clear plastic or even plant them through black plastic to keep them warm. I just bunged them in and forgot about them.
I didn’t hold out much hope for the crop as I had heard they needed protection from the frost as well as molly coddling with plastic sheeting or a cloche. Our first hard frost Monday 26th November in Hampshire and it duly killed the foliage. When we finally lifted them we were pleasantly surprised. The tubers aren’t enormous but the yield was respectable and they are of a useable size.
I have put them inside to dry before I store them (otherwise they go rotten) and I have potted up a few small tubers that had roots and shoots and put them away from frost in the potting shed by the window. A few other small ones are also being dried. I will try and make slips from them in the spring by putting their ends in water. Then I can give some back to Emma.
Because my family love sweet potatoes and because my attempt at growing by neglect was successful, I have decided to surrender some greenhouse or cold frame space to them and grow them under cover next year. I will also feed them and make sure they have regular water, especially in the autumn as that is when the tubers swell.
Based on my early experience, I would recommend growing sweet potato to anyone with room in a polytunnel, greenhouse or cold frame or in a warm sunny bed. I think it is worth protecting them to extend the season.
Next weekend I’ll be harvesting the Oca, a South American tuber, that Tim Green gave me. Tim was one of the filmmakers of The Farm for a Future and has a lovely experimental plot in Devon. He has been particularly successful with Effective Microorganisms and woodchip, another experiment on my 2010 list. Our Ocas seem to be a reasonable size too. I look forward to tasting them.
To me gardening is one of the most joyful activity possible in life (apart from making love and fabulous food, the end result of growing, of course!). Ordering seeds and planning new projects in the depth of dark mid winter has to be the best Prozac money can buy. I visualise all the lovely plants I am going to grow, plan my beds and potter about in showers of rain and patchy sun between shed, greenhouse and beds. I even love the frost as it cleanses the soil and breaks it up into loamy tilth for next year's seeds. Whilst the robin follows my every move, I remember the warm summer sun and the happiness of time spent watching plants grow.
Maddy Harland is editor of Permaculture Magazine
Maddy and Tim and their forest garden will be featured on a new BBC Gardener’s World six part series presented by Alys Fowler in early 2010.
I didn’t hold out much hope for the crop as I had heard they needed protection from the frost as well as molly coddling with plastic sheeting or a cloche. Our first hard frost Monday 26th November in Hampshire and it duly killed the foliage. When we finally lifted them we were pleasantly surprised. The tubers aren’t enormous but the yield was respectable and they are of a useable size.
I have put them inside to dry before I store them (otherwise they go rotten) and I have potted up a few small tubers that had roots and shoots and put them away from frost in the potting shed by the window. A few other small ones are also being dried. I will try and make slips from them in the spring by putting their ends in water. Then I can give some back to Emma.Because my family love sweet potatoes and because my attempt at growing by neglect was successful, I have decided to surrender some greenhouse or cold frame space to them and grow them under cover next year. I will also feed them and make sure they have regular water, especially in the autumn as that is when the tubers swell.
Based on my early experience, I would recommend growing sweet potato to anyone with room in a polytunnel, greenhouse or cold frame or in a warm sunny bed. I think it is worth protecting them to extend the season.
Next weekend I’ll be harvesting the Oca, a South American tuber, that Tim Green gave me. Tim was one of the filmmakers of The Farm for a Future and has a lovely experimental plot in Devon. He has been particularly successful with Effective Microorganisms and woodchip, another experiment on my 2010 list. Our Ocas seem to be a reasonable size too. I look forward to tasting them.
To me gardening is one of the most joyful activity possible in life (apart from making love and fabulous food, the end result of growing, of course!). Ordering seeds and planning new projects in the depth of dark mid winter has to be the best Prozac money can buy. I visualise all the lovely plants I am going to grow, plan my beds and potter about in showers of rain and patchy sun between shed, greenhouse and beds. I even love the frost as it cleanses the soil and breaks it up into loamy tilth for next year's seeds. Whilst the robin follows my every move, I remember the warm summer sun and the happiness of time spent watching plants grow.
Maddy Harland is editor of Permaculture Magazine
Maddy and Tim and their forest garden will be featured on a new BBC Gardener’s World six part series presented by Alys Fowler in early 2010.
Friday, 4 December 2009
HOW THE RIPPLE EFFECT CAN CHANGE THE WORLD
I have met some wonderful people in my life and have been inspired by their positive vision and dedication to creating a better world. They seem unfettered by the usual constraints that prevent people from turning their lives into an adventure. I have also experienced some amazing synchronicities. I love it when they happen. They make me feel like I am in the flow with the great interconnected web of life.
This month I would like to tell you the story of one visionary woman I have met, a lady called June Walker in Malawi. I will start at the beginning, so I hope you are sitting comfortably...
My parents brought me up from birth as a Quaker and sent me to Quaker schools for my education. The Quakers taught me the value of silence, the shallowness of materialism and the imperative of social justice. Whilst at a Quaker school in York I met a young man who lived in an exotic sounding place called Monkey Bay in Malawi. Fast-forward twenty years, I am now the editor of Permaculture Magazine and I come across a woman from Monkey Bay with the same surname. She is, I learn, no less than the mother of my old school friend. Ever since then June Walker and I have kept in touch and I have slowly learned more about her. She is a woman of extraordinary dedication and vision.
A Permaculture oasis
June, and her late husband, Brian, left England in 1957 to live in what was Nyasaland. After 13 years in overseas development and 13 different houses they decided to settle down in Monkey Bay. Rather than buying a prime agricultural site to build their house on, Brian and June decided to buy a hectare of rocky land near a village on Lake Malawi. They didn’t want to deprive villagers of land that could grow maize and so they learnt how to plant into bedrock and created their very own permaculture oasis in the southern hemisphere that has since become a guiding light to many.
The house itself is an inspiration. Instead of expensive air conditioning and other western technologies, they designed and built a cool house. Through draughts for permanent, free air-flows are created by using inexpensive air blocks instead of glass windows in the walls where the rain does not fall, and there are no windows at all in the very hot areas at the east and west of the house. A pond catches the roof water, which becomes their air conditioner when they open the windows when it is hot. They have solar water heaters, too.
Seeds for the future
June’s passion has been to reverse the so-called ‘Green Revolution’ in Malawi that dissuaded Malawians from growing their own native foods and encouraged a dependence on western crops and F1 hybrid or GM seeds. These crops are expensive, require pesticides and inorganic fertilisers and rarely fill the hungry gap. By contrast, a mixture of traditional food crops all year round and the seeds can be saved by the grower and planted in the next season for free. June has tirelessly written traditional cookbooks and encouraged a gardening revolution in her country to reverse industrialised agriculture. You could say she is the mother of permaculture in Malawi.
A few years ago, with the AIDS epidemic leaving so many orphaned children, famine struck Malawi. June was convinced that it was seeds and information that was needed long term, not just the usual Western-style aid with its imported unsustainable agricultural techniques. June asked me for help, so I sent out a call to Permaculture Magazine readers. My wonderful friends from the Real Seed Company, who were then living in Spain, sent me some seeds that they felt would thrive in arid Malawi.
Last week, June wrote, ‘Just to let you know that I gave thanks this morning for you and the Real Seed people for the seeds you sent me more years ago than you can remember. I was walking round the garden with my three guys as the rains have just started and they were busy picking very dark green leaves from a low-lying form of Amaranthus which I recognised from the collection of seeds you sent. These continue to self seed still and are invaluable at the end of the dry season when fresh greens are really scarce. There is also a seven foot high golden Amaranth from South Africa which is still in leaf. One of the great things about permaculture is its ripple effects – they really do help to change the world, don’t they?’
June’s lifelong desire has been to see hunger as a thing of the past in Malawi, a country where over 600 foods can grow throughout the year. Many of these foods are also used for medicines through the ANAMED (Action for Natural Medicine) programme. She has been a vital instrument in achieving food security in Malawi. We need pioneering, positive, freedom loving June Walkers in every country of the world so that we can all relearn how to grow, cook and eat our sustainable native foods.
Anyone for nettle soup?!
Maddy Harland, editor of Permaculture Magazine
This month I would like to tell you the story of one visionary woman I have met, a lady called June Walker in Malawi. I will start at the beginning, so I hope you are sitting comfortably...
My parents brought me up from birth as a Quaker and sent me to Quaker schools for my education. The Quakers taught me the value of silence, the shallowness of materialism and the imperative of social justice. Whilst at a Quaker school in York I met a young man who lived in an exotic sounding place called Monkey Bay in Malawi. Fast-forward twenty years, I am now the editor of Permaculture Magazine and I come across a woman from Monkey Bay with the same surname. She is, I learn, no less than the mother of my old school friend. Ever since then June Walker and I have kept in touch and I have slowly learned more about her. She is a woman of extraordinary dedication and vision.
A Permaculture oasis
June, and her late husband, Brian, left England in 1957 to live in what was Nyasaland. After 13 years in overseas development and 13 different houses they decided to settle down in Monkey Bay. Rather than buying a prime agricultural site to build their house on, Brian and June decided to buy a hectare of rocky land near a village on Lake Malawi. They didn’t want to deprive villagers of land that could grow maize and so they learnt how to plant into bedrock and created their very own permaculture oasis in the southern hemisphere that has since become a guiding light to many.
The house itself is an inspiration. Instead of expensive air conditioning and other western technologies, they designed and built a cool house. Through draughts for permanent, free air-flows are created by using inexpensive air blocks instead of glass windows in the walls where the rain does not fall, and there are no windows at all in the very hot areas at the east and west of the house. A pond catches the roof water, which becomes their air conditioner when they open the windows when it is hot. They have solar water heaters, too.
Seeds for the future
June’s passion has been to reverse the so-called ‘Green Revolution’ in Malawi that dissuaded Malawians from growing their own native foods and encouraged a dependence on western crops and F1 hybrid or GM seeds. These crops are expensive, require pesticides and inorganic fertilisers and rarely fill the hungry gap. By contrast, a mixture of traditional food crops all year round and the seeds can be saved by the grower and planted in the next season for free. June has tirelessly written traditional cookbooks and encouraged a gardening revolution in her country to reverse industrialised agriculture. You could say she is the mother of permaculture in Malawi.
A few years ago, with the AIDS epidemic leaving so many orphaned children, famine struck Malawi. June was convinced that it was seeds and information that was needed long term, not just the usual Western-style aid with its imported unsustainable agricultural techniques. June asked me for help, so I sent out a call to Permaculture Magazine readers. My wonderful friends from the Real Seed Company, who were then living in Spain, sent me some seeds that they felt would thrive in arid Malawi.
Last week, June wrote, ‘Just to let you know that I gave thanks this morning for you and the Real Seed people for the seeds you sent me more years ago than you can remember. I was walking round the garden with my three guys as the rains have just started and they were busy picking very dark green leaves from a low-lying form of Amaranthus which I recognised from the collection of seeds you sent. These continue to self seed still and are invaluable at the end of the dry season when fresh greens are really scarce. There is also a seven foot high golden Amaranth from South Africa which is still in leaf. One of the great things about permaculture is its ripple effects – they really do help to change the world, don’t they?’
June’s lifelong desire has been to see hunger as a thing of the past in Malawi, a country where over 600 foods can grow throughout the year. Many of these foods are also used for medicines through the ANAMED (Action for Natural Medicine) programme. She has been a vital instrument in achieving food security in Malawi. We need pioneering, positive, freedom loving June Walkers in every country of the world so that we can all relearn how to grow, cook and eat our sustainable native foods.
Anyone for nettle soup?!
Maddy Harland, editor of Permaculture Magazine
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