Dryland Tree and Shrub Establishment

Establishing Trees and Shrubs on dry lands requires water-smart methods like including hydrogel filled irrigation tubes with transplants.

Dryland tree and shrub establishment can be tricky because young seedlings and transplants need to stay moist. In EPISODE 10  we look at simple strategies you can use to ensure your dryland plantings live, grow, and feed your soil.  These strategies protect biodiversity and help restore the environmental cornerstone of healthy food systems. Wondering if dryland … Read more

Why Keep Native Plants on Your Farm or Garden

Podcast describes Reasons for Native Plants

Reasons to include native plants are abundant. Listen to this week’s episode to learn why we include native plants on our farm.   Can you benefit from using natives in your farm or garden?   Description LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Medicinal Herb eBook and Newsletter Signup USDA Plants Database (Unaffiliated Public Website) ABOUT EPISODE … Read more

Keeping Soils Healthy Through the Winter

Podcast Transcript Are You Tending Your Soil Microbes as Winter Approaches? As the days are getting shorter and the weather’s getting colder, it’s tempting to put your farm or garden soil on the back burner, so to speak, and start thinking about: how to store all the produce you just harvested who to invite over … Read more

Healthy Food Systems and Economic Growth

This image illustrates the ideal relationship between food systems, free trade, and government. A small government sits on top of a large free trade system that sits above an even larger food system.

Podcast Transcript: Hello, Last week I promised to elaborate on my cornerstones model and to explain how healthy food systems fuel growth throughout the economy. A Clean Environment Comes First Whenever I introduce the cornerstones, I always start with the environment. The reason I do this is because the environment came first. The natural resource … Read more

The Cornerstones of Healthy Food Systems are Hidden Behind Society’s Magic Eye

(podcast transcript) The Cornerstones (that Build Healthy Food Systems) are Hard to See Thank you for tuning in to episode one, where I’m going to explain why gaining access to safe. healthy food is really a simple process,  0nce you focus on setting the cornerstones in place. The problem keeping so many of us from … Read more

Recognizing the Complexity of Biological Cascades

This image shows water cascading over a waterfall. Just as the water that falls is hard to reverse, actions in biology can trigger reactions that are difficult to change.

  What do pollution, obesity, livestock production, and the COVID-19 pandemic have in common?  According to the cornerstones model of healthy food systems, each of these factors plays into the security and sustainability of the food webs we rely on to maintain food security, health, and prosperity.  Other factors are involved of course, but for … Read more