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Jane’s Garden Links
Farms & Gardens are the lifeblood of our world. Please support diversification by planting a garden, joining a community garden, supporting csa's, farmers markets and sustainable farm projects. Use the following links to help you plant your seeds. May we restore the Garden!
Abundant Life Seed Foundation
 This foundation, now reorganized as the Organic Seed Alliance is a wonderful non profit organization from whom I have purchased heirloom and hard to find seed varieties in the past. In fact many of my perennial herb beds were started from their seeds. Sadly, last summer they had a fire in their seed warehouse.
“The fire destroyed our entire operations – most of our seed archive, a rare library of books, education and research materials, and the seed inventory of the both the catalog business and the World Seed Fund (WSF). We did have offsite backup of customer data, financials and of a small percentage of the seed archive." If you have seed you have purchased from Abundant Life that you would like to donate to rebuild the archive please give them a list of that seed, or if you want to join the Seed Growers Network, you can contact them at the address below. Or you can read more about them on this page here using this link.
Organic Seed Alliance
P.O. Box 772
Port Townsend, WA 98368
360-385-7192
fax 360-385-7455
or send an email to info@abundantlifeseed.com
Amy Goldman’s Heirloom Vegetable Garden & Website
Heirloom Vegetables are worth saving and reintroducing to the American publics’ palate both on the table, in the garden and on the farm. Amy Goldman has done much to reintroduce the healthy, delicious and often disease resistant heirloom varieties of many fruits & vegetables, particularly melons & squashes. Learn how to save your own seed at Amy’s website. She also has a wonderful link list of articles she's written & a great bibliography, and you can see videos of Martha Stewart and PBS touring Amy's beautiful garden.
Aurora Farms, Seeds, Workshops & More
Buy high quality Aurora Farms biodynamic seeds for your own garden or as Life affirming gift to friends. Barbara & Woody with their life long experience in farming & agriculture offer wonderful hands-on workshops to help heal your land! They offer composting workshops and stewardship consultations and flower essence healing kits.
Bill Mollison, Father of Permaculture
 Bill Mollison is the original creator of Permaculture down under, and founder of the Permaculture Institute in Australia. It is somewhat confusing to try and find an official Bill Mollison website. At this point in history, Permaculture has thankfully taken off and there are many different curriculums available, not all of them the Mollison system. You can read an introductory biography of Dr. Bill Mollison at The Future Designers website in Australia. Next you can read the Introduction to Permaculture written by Bill Mollison at Communication for a Sustainable Future. The CSF website is devoted to online education and shared resources. They have a great section on permaculture and an extraordinary list of discussion lists, articles and spiritual education resources as well at this excellent educational website.
Bio-Dynamic Agriculture: An Introduction
This free hyper-text linked online book, written by Dr. Herbert Koepf, Dr. Bo Pettersson, and Dr. Wolfgang Schaumann, and published by The Anthroposophic Press, in Spring Valley, New York.
“The bio-dynamic movement proceeded from a cycle of eight lectures given by Rudolf Steiner at the farm of the Koberwitz estate in Silesia in 1924. Steiner (1861-1925) became known before the turn of the century as a philosopher and editor of Goethe's scientific writings. Subsequently he worked toward a formulation of anthroposophical spiritual science. This provided a foundation for a number of culturally fruitful impulses that are now developing independently in many countries, in the Waldorf or Steiner education, in medicine, pharmacy, the Christian Community, the social sciences, and in the arts of eurythmy, speech formation, drama, painting, sculpture, etc.”
Biodynamic agriculture is a system of organic farming that treats the farm as a living entity, a self-sustaining bio-system, and sees the farmer’s consciousness as a vital element in that system. Biodynamic agriculture utilizes astrology to synchronize farming practices with the cycles of the cosmos, which regulate the energetic forces that vivify plants and animals alike. In addition, biodynamic farming utilizes a variety of special herbal and animal based preparations introduced by Steiner to restore the vitality of topsoil, which is degraded through modern farming practices and general environmental degradation.
Discover the biodynamic method, learn about the farm organism, discover practical methods to increase soil fertility and improve plant life, how to use biodynamic preparations and sprays, techniques of biodynamic animal husbandry and grain production, and a how-to guide for family gardens, orchards and vineyards. And there’s much, much more.
Center for Urban Agriculture at Fairview Gardens
Based on one of the oldest organic farms in California, located 100 miles north of Los Angeles, The Center for Urban Agriculture at Fairview Gardens has become an internationally respected model for small scale urban food production, agricultural land preservation, farm-based education, and the integration of farms and the communities that they serve. Take a virtual tour of the gardens, sign up for classes, workshops and programs at the gardens, or check out the opportunities for kids to attend summer camp.
Chiron Communications
 A New Mexico based author, Reiki Master, Yoga instructor and cosmic astrologer, Steven McFadden has written hundreds of magazine articles, and eight non-fiction books, including: Legend of the Rainbow Warriors; Profiles in Wisdom: Native Elders Speak About the Earth; The Little Book of Native American Wisdom; Teach Us To Number Our Days; and Farms of Tomorrow Revisited. Steve has written a great article about the birth of community sponsored agriculture for Rodale Press and has a new book out, Farms of Tomorrow Revisited. The Chiron Communique email newsletter has deep wisdom and useful insights about earth changes, cosmic cycles, and how to live in harmony with the web of life.
Ecology Action
John Jeavons is the director of Ecology Action, an environmental research and education organization in Northern California which was formed in 1970 and has since helped revolutionize sustainable mini-farming around the world. With biointensive sustainable mini-farming, a farmer can produce 2 to 6 times the yield compared to commercial agriculture, while using 67%-88% less water, 99% less energy and 50%-100% less purchased organic fertilizer per unit of yield compared with commercial agriculture. It is a method that allows gardeners and farmers to transform scarcity into abundance.
Attend biointensive workshops at Ecology Action’s California gardens or in Mexico, and buy open-pollinated heirloom quality seed for vegetables, herbs, flowers, and grains, and green manures, compost and carbon crops from the nonprofit Bountiful Gardens project.
The Evolution of Seed Plants
An incredible web-based resource with a multitude of links and pictures detailing the evolution of seed plants for a course in biology at Ohio State University.
Fresh & Local CSA
Farmer Allan has started The Fresh and Local CSA which “is located 8 miles from the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers at Harpers Ferry, just off the confluence of Rt230 and Flowing Springs Road (2 miles south of Shepherdstown, West Virginia)”. Allan offers a wonderful variety of foods in his CSA as well as an abundance of educational opportunities bringing in innovative farmers and researchers to speak locally about their work. He sponsors a lively biodynamic conference each fall with such farming and nutrition luminaries as Sally Fallon from the Weston Price Foundation & well respected Joel Salatin.
Garuda
 Glen Atkinson is a biodynamic farmer and astrologer in New Zealand who’s deep understanding of the Austrian spiritual scientist Rudolf Steiner, has led to his work using his homeopathic essences that he has developed on farms and gardens as well as with people. His website is full of wonderful articles about astrology as well as an essay “Biodynamics Decoded” and cool charts and graphs to help you visualize some of these concepts.
GlobalCircle.net
This site promotes local self-sufficiency, community survival, practical skills, and simple, sustainable living. Great resources on gardening, food plants, permaculture, organic and biodynamic farming, family farming, soil ph , groceries, co-ops and community sponsored agriculture.
Hawthorne Valley Farm & Waldorf School
Located in beautiful ColumbiaCounty in upstate New York a couple of hours from NYC, is this biodynamic working farm, which is part of the Hawthorne Valley Association, a non profit which is “dedicated to agriculture, education, and the arts. Other branches of the Association include a kindergarten through twelfth grade Waldorf School, the Adonis Press (publishers of books on Goethean science and other selected titles), and the Visiting Students Program, which brings children from schools throughout the Northeast to spend a week on the Farm.” You can find out about their apprenticeship program and their other educational programs.
Curtis and I love to shop at the wonderful farm store, especially to buy their biodynamic sour dough breads and homemade saurkraut and we love attending their autumn festival where you can sample wonderful cooked foods, meet the neighbors and very talented craft and cottage industry folks along with other local farmers who all sell their wares. If you have kids, it looks like they like the hay rides too! And of course, many of you know them by their rich and delicious yogurt which is thankfully available in the nearby health food stores.
Iroquois White Corn
[Note: Unfortunately, John Mohawk has sadly passed on as of Dec. 12, 2006. He will be missed by many. You can read an obituary online in Indian Country Today. I am not sure if the white corn is still availabale on the market for the public, but Satya Center is investigating whether it still is being produced for the Restaurant Market, the Slow Food groups & the public. Stay tuned. In the meantime, get yourself some good fresh ground corn meal & use Jane's recipes below for a tasty treat.]  Read about this wonderful heirloom corn grown for centuries by the Iroquois people, now re-introduced through the efforts of Slow Food, John Mohawk, a Turtle Clan Seneca (who initiated an Iroquois Food and Farming project back in the 1970’s) and the Pinewoods Community Farming group on the reservation in Western New York. In the 1990’s, the Iroquois growers, academics and others involved in sustainable farming and preservation of heirloom foods grew alarmed as they faced the extinction of this heritage food. Through much effort, a small amount of the corn is available to order. You can read more about this project at the wonderful Bioneers website or find Jane's cornmeal recipes here.
Josephine Porter Institute for Applied Biodynamics
JPI is a non-profit organization has carried on the work of it’s namesake for nearly 30 years, making biodynamic agricultural preparations as indicated in the agriculture lectures given by Rudolf Steiner in Europe in the 1920’s, when he noticed the way that the first chemical fertilizers being used were devitalizing the soils and livestock crops. His work with these preparations is continued here in the United States by Hugh Courtney, who apprenticed with Josephine Porter and created JPI after her death in Woolwine, Virginia where they are “dedicated to making biodynamic preparations, and conducting biodynamic agricultural research and education. JPI's efforts are concentrated in the areas of biodynamic agriculture, horticulture and forestry”.
Find out about their workshops, get information for ordering preps, books and get a brief history & explanation of the various biodynamic plant preparations.
Maharishi Vedic Organic Agriculture Institute
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s system of Vedic organic agriculture goes beyond traditional organic growing practices, and incorporates methods for perfecting the consciousness of the farmer, according to principles articulated in India’s sacred Vedic literature. The use of sacred Vedic sounds, Vedic astrology and meditation on the part of the farmer are considered vital to the success of the farm and the healthy vitality of the plants being grown. The consciousness of the farmer is considered a vital element in successful Vedic organic farming. This belief is shared by biodynamic farmers, operating in the West, who utilize techniques introduced by German mystic, artist, and spiritual teacher Rudolf Steiner. In addition, Vedic organic agricultural practices, like biodynamic farming, attempt to enliven the intelligence and vitality within plants themselves, by harmonizing farming practices with natural law and cosmic forces that form and sustain growing plants and the living communal biosystem that constitutes a working farm.
An extensive educational section of the website provides a wealth of articles concerning this practice.
Marian Farms
 Marian Farms, started in 1990, is a 80-acre Biodynamic farm in the central San Joaquin Valley of California. Started by Gena Nonini, when she left her job as an export commodity trader with a Fortune 500 company to form Marian Trading Ltd. “Changing market circumstances, coupled with a changing heart, altered the face of Marian Trading Ltd. Beginning in 1995, Marian Trading Ltd. added the name of Marian Farms to its listing, and the main focus of the company quickly turned to farming, marketing and distributing their own products. Three years prior to the shift in business focus, Gena was introduced to Biodynamics. This introduction quickly led to travels overseas to see first hand the practices and effects of Biodynamics in a viable production setting. The first set of Biodynamic preparations was used in December 1992.”
You can really taste the difference in the food from Marian Farms. Curtis and I love to eat and share the high vitality raisins they produce, and I use their amazing grape alcohol in my cottage apothecary products. Visit this website and learn about biodynamic preparations and see beautiful photos of a working biodynamic farm. There are useful biodynamic working definitions, product information and a CSA you can join!
Natural Science Organics
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| S.Storch's beautiful Natural Science Organics logo | "The mission of Natural Science Organics is to bring the most advanced and practical methods of earth healing technologies to the fields of agri-culture, horti-culture, composting, turf grass management, hydro-ponics and aqua-culture. With NSO's methods and powerful, vigorous microbes site regeneration is quick and effective." Stephen Storch, the President of NSO offers consulting services to remediate your land and also has created biodynamic remedies and field sprays to help produce the best soil structure. You can have him bring his exclusive water dynamizer to your land, to potentize the biodynamic preps quickly & efficiently. You can also buy the bd preps directly from him. Check out his great photos of dynamized water in his stirring machine at his website.
If you want to taste food grown with Stephen Storch’s Natural Science Organic remedies-the bd compost teas and bd treaments, you can join his wife’s family NOFA certified organic/usda farm CSA called The Green Thumb Farm. You can find them in Huntington, Long Island, New York. Check the Green Thumb website for more information on their drop off sites.
"So that the Earth may be healed. Build your soil ferility through life processes the way Nature intended."
Natural Science Organics at 631-726-6783
Green Thumb Farm at 631-726-1900.
The Organic Seed Alliance & The World Seed Fund
 The World Seed Fund was founded in 1985 to support sustainability and self-sufficiency to individuals, community groups, and organizations that need them most and who cannot afford to purchase them.
Seeds can provide food, medicine, a source of income as well as a means to build pride, skills and community.
Open-pollinated seeds can be grown to seed then replanted with the assurance of the same yields and the same crops, year after year. This is a contrast to hybrid seed which must be purchased every year because they will not grow true-to-type. Sending open-pollinated seeds and seed saving information contributes to the creation of a local seed source and the improvement of crop varieties that perform well with local environmental conditions (i.e. pests, climate, etc.)
Since the fire, they have shifted their resources more toward education, seed research and charitable distribution. You can also make a donation to this important organization to help them rebuild and continue their work in making open pollinated seed available to poor communities through their World Seed Fund, so that their seed recipients can be self sufficient, growing their own food and medicine and maintaining the ability to gather their own seed to insure future harvests.
The Permaculture Institute (of Northern California)
A group that Starhawk is involved with which offers courses on Permaculture, has beautiful photographic examples of their projects, and also has a non profit in conjunction with the Institute of Noetic Sciences called The Regenerative Design Institute which offers hands on training to “further sustainable & regenerative practices in their personal and professional lives.” Their list of educational alliances & affiliations is awesome and is full of important links for anyone interested in sustainability, organic food, education and planetary activism.
Pfeiffer Center
 “The PfeifferCenter is dedicated to education, research and outreach in farming, gardening and beekeeping. An important goal is to raise awareness of biodynamics as the most holistic approach to caring for the land. Named in honor of Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, a research pioneer in biodynamic agriculture and nutrition, the center cultivates a two-acre biodynamic garden and offers workshops, apprenticeships and a one-year, part-time gardening course.”
You can find out about internships at the website as well as about beekeeper workshops with esteemed beekeeper, educator & program director Gunther Hauk. The PfeifferCenter, a non-profit educational organization is sponsored by the Threefold Educational Foundation and Sunbridge College which has one of our favorite bookstores for buying Steiner and other anthroposophical publications.
Roxbury Farm CSA
 This is the farm CSA that Curtis & I have belonged to since we returned to NYC in 1990. Roxbury is one of the largest CSA’s in the country, and “the first to have a community in New York City.” They “grow vegetables, herbs, melons, and strawberries, for over 750 shareholders representing over 1000 families in four communities--Columbia County, the Capital Region, Westchester County and Manhattan--on 225 acres in Kinderhook, New York.” Jean-Paul Courtens, the farm’s founding farmer is also a well respected educator. Jody Bolluyt became a partner in 2001. She supervises the day to day farm work and is responsible for the harvest management, distribution, and does much of the administrative work of the CSA membership. You’ll find some of their wonderful articles about everything from current events in agriculture to descriptions of daily csa farm life in our global visionaries section of Satya Center.
At the farms beautiful website, you can read about the groundbreaking work (couldn’t resist the pun) in farmland preservation that Jean-Paul has orchestrated along with their land trust partner Equity Trust. You can also read about Equity Trust in the sustainable agriculture section of the Satya Center website.
“The Campaign for Roxbury Farm is a fund raising effort to support our innovative farmland protection project in collaboration with our land trust partner Equity Trust.
“Equity Trust has provided us with bridge loans to purchase our land; it also receives tax deductible, charitable contributions on our behalf, to repay the loans and finance new farm building construction.
“What makes this project different is the preservation of farmland as farmland, unlike PDR, the acronym for government agency or land trust purchase of a farm's development rights, which protects land only as open space.
“But this farm will remain planted in soil in which dreams of security, sustainability and diversity can be rooted, realized and multiplied. The Roxbury community has made a commitment to raise the money it will take to make the dream real. The total cost of the project is $350,000; we are already more than one-third of the way there. We ask for your help, and your understanding that what is at stake here is not just a piece of earth, but the quality of life on earth.”
If you would like to make a charitable contribution to the Campaign for Roxbury Farm call Jean-Paul at 518-758-8558. All donations are tax-deductible. Please print out the form at the Roxbury Farm website (click on “capital campaign” at the top of the homepage, and then click on “how to donate” also at the top) and mail it with a check payable to The Campaign for Roxbury Farm to our land trust partner, Equity Trust:
Equity Trust, Inc.
PO Box 746
Turners Falls MA 01376
Archived Articles & Newsletters: Roxbury Farm Archive
Waverly Fitzgerald's School of the Seasons
 The School of the Seasons is open to anyone who is weary of the frantic pace of modern life, who wants to slow down, connect with the natural world, and live a life filled with heart and meaning. Each season has its own flavor, captured in the folklore of seasonal holidays, preserved in rituals and recipes, ceremonies and songs.
School of the Seasons helps you connect with the seasons through articles on seasonal crafts and recipes for holiday foods, a correspondence course (with suggestions on spiritual practices and creative pursuits that match the energy of each season) and books on time management and the seasons. Our holiday calendar features moon lore, pagan rituals, saints days and seasonal world holidays.
Waverly's Articles Reprinted at Satya Center Include:
Living In Season: Learning the Names of Plants
Starhawk’s Permaculture
Everyone who is interested in change or has deep love of humanity and Mother Earth should visit Starhawk’s website . Here she shares with us a basic definition of the buzzword “sustainability” , has links to EAT- Earth Activist Trainings, (a Group started by Starhawk, visionary activist with Penny Livingston-Stark, the founder of The Permaculture Institute of Northern California & Erik Ohlson). EAT combines a basic permaculture course with activist trainings and nature observation, all of it grounded in earth-based spirituality” and a must read article explaining why “spiritual people should be politically active”
(All photos this page are by Jane Sherry with the exception of S. Storch's Natural Science Organics' logo.)
Articles:
 A Day in the Life
by Jean Paul Courtens
Read about a real time day in the life of two farmers who bring food grown with love to 850 families in New York. more >>
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 Farming in the Age of Expensive Oil
by Jean Paul Courtens
In this country farmers have to be over 80 years old to remember low-input, diversified farming systems. An organic farmer aks: who will have the knowledge to grow our food in the age of expensive oil, with no fertilizers and pesticides? more >>
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 How to be Fuel and Food Rich During Climate Change
by Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
Biofuels and incineration are bad ideas promoted by big governments. Solar power, anaerobic generation of energy from waste materials, and green algae for carbon capture and sustainable biofuels are good ideas that definitely will work. more >>
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 Living in Season: Learning the Names of Plants
by Waverly Fitzgerald
The Swedish botanist, Carl Linnaeus, was the first person to develop a coherent system for naming plants. His surname means linden tree. I find it amusing to consider how being named for a tree might have influenced Linnaeus in his choice of occupation. His mother wanted him to be a priest but he loved plants and it was said that as a baby he could be calmed by handing him a flower. more >>
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 Organic Production Works
by Rhea Gala
A new study shows organic production outperforms conventional in crop yield, soil fertility, pest reduction and economic return. more >>
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 Plant Medicine
by Jane Sherry
Flowers and seeds, stems and leaves, roots and fruits feed us and clothe us, house and protect us, soothe our fevers and our fears and form the basis of our rituals and celebrations. Plant medicine has helped women and men to conceive life, to nurture life, and to die with grace and dignity. more >>
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 Roxbury Farm Food
by Jody Bolluytby Jean Paul Courtens
Read what it takes to grow organic vegetables for a community supported agriculture farm. more >>
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more articles >> |
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