Books
I've published five books on the practical aspects of gardening, which are described on my books page.
I am currently working up a proposal for a sort of oral history of the development of organic agriculture (especially in the USA) that would focus on the different views of what organic agriculture should look like as it becomes a larger part of the food system. Having been involved for 35 years, I have watched the differences develop between "pure organic," "local" and "organic mainstream" (just to choose three terms)...and I know many of the proponents of each vision. They are for the most part very articulate in their differing views and thus ideal candidates for an oral history approach...and this is something that needs to be done so as to clarify the choices we, as a movement, face going forward.
I am also puttering away on a book of related essays about what we might call the more "Zen" aspects of horticulture, especially vegetable growing. It will be linked to a web version of my earlier books that would provide the kind of "tips and tricks" that many beginning gardeners take as a substitute for the deeper understanding of natural processes that, as we might say, "turn a brown thumb into a green thumb." They'll get those practical tips on the web and their smart phone and their garden smarts from the essays.
Articles
I've published articles in most of the major US gardening magazines over the years, and on the articles page are clips of the opening pages of a few dozen. Full length clips are available on request. The most recent articles were for Martha Stewart Living and The American Gardener in 2006, and one for Martha Stewart Living in early 2008. I have not been very active as a freelancer the past few years as went back to school for a Masters Degree, and along with my full time job developing our local food system, that kept me pretty busy! I did produce a column for a regional online magazine until recently (see below).
I am available for particular assignments, however, and specialize in helping editors fill last minute gaps in editorial, as long as the topic is within my area of expertise.
Essays & Papers
For a while a few years back I attended scholarly conferences in the food / agriculture / nature area and was invited to present papers. The essays and papers page has a couple that attracted a fair amount of attention at the time. I am currently working on some others, but the inception of blogging in 2004 took away some of the energy I used to devote to that.
Online Writing
I've had a blog -- actually several blogs -- for more than ten years now. I actually started my first blog back before the idea of an online discourse split into Forums, Blogs and Wikis. In those days, an ongoing, knowledge based record was called a K-Log, for "knowledge log." My earliest, still around in a hugely transformed fashion, is called Garden Klog; it will be further transformed over the next few months as it is merged with the Wiki-sort of site that I am developing from my earlier garden books.
I have not had nearly the time I want to keep up with some of these blogs, but I do find they offer an ideal way to keep track of my different intellectual interests. I also wrote a column for the online magazine Fluent over the last two years called Agri:culture. You can find links to some of these articles and blogs in the left column.
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