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blueandyellowmakes

Author • Speaker • Homesteader
Executive director of the utopianseedproject
The Whole Okra, 2020 James Beard Awardee

The tiniest frog 🐸

The tiniest frog 🐸

Today is the day! Our first (but not last) officia

Today is the day! Our first (but not last) official garden party. Please come and show your support for all the hard work of our garden volunteers, the fantastic contributions of our founding sponsors, and the beautiful collaboration with Leicester Library and Friends of Leicester Library.

There will be live music, light refreshments, children's activities, and a chance to learn more about the garden. It'll also be a soft launch of the Seed Library, so feel free to bring spare seeds and speak to Monica.

Bring a friend, carpool if you can! @leicestergivinggarden

#givinggarden #gardening #leicesternc #garden #community #asheville

When weeds are taller than people. #farming

When weeds are taller than people.

#farming

Enjoying some delicious food at @bottleriot from @

Enjoying some delicious food at @bottleriot from @ladies.who.brunch.popup

F**k colonialism. Also, happy Juneteenth. Also, ha

F**k colonialism. Also, happy Juneteenth. Also, happy Father's Day.

Just finished Slaves for Peanuts by @jorilewis and found this passage very powerful:

The peanuts they bought from the merchants were rarely the best. "The seeds delivered to him [the borrowing farmer] are not chosen from among the most beautiful," wrote one agronomist. "And very often, he is even given more or less damaged batches, which would have been barely accepted by the European factories."
And just like that, many farmers would get caught in a system of credit that wove a web of dependence around them and would not soon let go. The economic imperatives of the market itself were leading to what another agronomist called "a reverse selection."
"Here's the real cause of peanut degradation," he wrote. "You couldn't find a better one if you tried to systematically degrade the crop."
This was all the more tragic considering that, after the foreign seed trials had come to nothing, a new group of researchers had started to suggest something radical: that, in normal times, Senegal's seeds were just fine, better than fine, in fact. They said that peanut seeds in Senegal, through the ingenuity of generations of nameless African farmers, had been shaped and molded for their particular environments.
Whereas early merchants and colonial officials had often said that the peanut grew almost spontaneously, perfect, as they said, for the laziest of growers, one botanist in the early 20th century tried to disabuse them of that notion. "One must be profoundly ignorant," he wrote, "or have a profoundly contemptuous attitude towards the Black race, to declare, as has so often been done, that the native of West Africa is a lazy man, unfit even to work the land. After having traveled in the rainy season through the great plains of Kajoor covered, on thousands and thousands of hectares in one piece, with peanut plantations.. we remain full of admiration for the Blacks who accomplished these agricultural works with rudimentary means."
They had, every season, selected seeds from the most productive and most robust plants, gradually creating landraces, varieties that were adapted to each micro region.

#peanuts

Garlic harvested and hung for drying at the @leice

Garlic harvested and hung for drying at the @leicestergivinggarden

#givinggarden #garlic #foodforall #communitygarlic #communitysupported

This dude was chowing down on some late night egg

This dude was chowing down on some late night egg snacks. I had one chicken awake and whinging about it while everyone else (including Roseberry the Rooster) slept. I was grateful for the heads up, but if you've ever tried moving a possum who doesn't want to move then you'll appreciate the challenge of getting him out of the coop. I ended up trapping him in a bucket and throwing him over the fence. I love possums for insect cleanup, but they're a chicken pest for sure.

#possum #sostrong #hitmyselfinthefacewithastick

First time visiting the Ozarks in Missouri. I was

First time visiting the Ozarks in Missouri. I was teaching a class at @bakercreekseeds Summer Festival on Saving and Savoring Vegetables of the South (I focused on okra and collards and got to talk about the work we're doing with @utopianseedproject and @heirloomcollards).

Highlights included hanging out with Deb and Fitz and hearing them talk about their heirloom watermelon hunting adventures! I'm looking forward to reading more of @southern_grit_magazine. It was also fun to spend time with sustainability activist, April Jones, and chat about food systems, seed sovereignty and sustainability. AND there was a British (for real) food truck selling homemade pasties that actually tasted like home 😍
I was very excited to stumble upon a goumi berry growing from a seedling with berries at least twice the size I've ever seen on a goumi. Jere Gettle promised me a rooted cutting...

As you can see from the photo it was insanely hot - 97F by one measure. 104F in one of the greenhouses and that was with huge fans and heavy shade cloth.

Gratitude to Baker Creek for the invite and hosting, lots of fun despite partially melting!

#seed #seedsaving #gardening #farming #watermelons #okra #collards

I'm really enjoying this book by @jorilewis. Excel

I'm really enjoying this book by @jorilewis. Excellently written, mind bogglingly researched, and I'm learning so much about food, slavery, colonialism and peanuts! Half way through and struggling to put it down, which is not something you can always say of nonfiction!

#peanuts #slavesforpeanuts

This is before they got naked and wallowed like pi

This is before they got naked and wallowed like pigs for the afternoon.

#berries #summer

#berries #summer

It's a tough world out there. #groundhogwoes

It's a tough world out there.

#groundhogwoes

Found eating my rue with a bunch of friends. Soon

Found eating my rue with a bunch of friends. Soon to become a beautiful Swallowtail Butterfly.

#swallowtail #caterpillar

Potatoes coming in strong 🥔 #gardening #potato

Potatoes coming in strong 🥔

#gardening
#potatoes

I wonder why no volunteers turned up to our workda

I wonder why no volunteers turned up to our workday last week...

@leicestergivinggarden

#Givinggarden #britishgardeningweather

I'm not sure if I just rescued this wasp (?) from

I'm not sure if I just rescued this wasp (?) from the cats, all the cats from the wasp!

Does anyone know what it is?

Apparently there's a massive frog living in our ba

Apparently there's a massive frog living in our basement. I think he thought that if he stayed really still I wouldn't notice him...

#frog

Chicks, or as Emmy likes to say, chicklings 💛

Chicks, or as Emmy likes to say, chicklings 💛

This cat is basically Emmy's baby!

This cat is basically Emmy's baby!

Things that don't happen in England # 67 - snakes

Things that don't happen in England # 67 - snakes in your living room.

Identified as a juvenile rat snake by my go to herpetologist, @henricrawford

#Snakes

Very excited to get a tub of Green Gumbo from @foo

Very excited to get a tub of Green Gumbo from @foodordeath_ - infamously seen on @bravotopchef just a few weeks ago!

Ashleigh has officially made me a Top Chef convert. Final 6 are facing off TONIGHT. I swear my blood pressure rises a little each week.

#topchef #greengumbo

I'm very proud of the work that we are doing and t

I'm very proud of the work that we are doing and the people I get to work with. If you're in Asheville come and join our Spring Celebration. Tickets via @utopianseedproject Bio.

Regrann @utopianseedproject

Our Trial to Table Spring Celebration is just 12 days away, so grab a ticket via the link in our bio and come taste some delicious food from these three amazing chefs.

Chef Erin Hughes will be serving a sweet desert, while Chef Bailey and Chef Ophus will both be serving two tapas style plates. All dishes are inspired by crops from our farm trials.

We'll also have a purple sweet potato tasting from a @newsproutorganicfarms trial we ran last year.

And @cupatato will be making a debut with sweet potato coffee samples.

Tickets are $35 available via the link in our bio.

#trialtotable #chefs #cooking #trials #farming #eating #asheville #swetpotatoes

The girls made me dinner 💚

The girls made me dinner 💚

The thing I love about growing mushrooms is when y

The thing I love about growing mushrooms is when you totally forget about them and then stumble upon a massive flush!

#Oysters #oystermushrooms #mushrooms #mushroomlogs

Zoe from all angles.

Zoe from all angles.

Instagram post 17921141201364015

Instagram post 17921141201364015

An answer to the popular question, what happens if

An answer to the popular question, what happens if you don't plant out your asparagus crowns in time?

#Asparagus #babyasparagus

Operation befriend a cow continues. I wonder if th

Operation befriend a cow continues. I wonder if they know I once wrote a terrible novel called, Wildcows...

#Cows

Zoe enjoys taking pictures of things 💚

Zoe enjoys taking pictures of things 💚

I'm somewhat shocked to report multiple sightings

I'm somewhat shocked to report multiple sightings of the sun in England. And even more astonishing, beautiful views from the Welsh mountains. My little brother and I spent a blustery day in Snowdonia, one of the mountain ranges I dearly miss and always try to visit when I'm home.

This is a post for Zoe, my amazing, goofy, cheeky,

This is a post for Zoe, my amazing, goofy, cheeky, story-telling, little adventurer.

Dating back to the early 17th Century, the pikelet

Dating back to the early 17th Century, the pikelet is the Welsh version of a crumpet/pancake hybrid.

Any restauranteers want to discuss a British Bakery in Asheville?

I'm thinking a mix of savory crumpets, pasties and sausage rolls along with an authentic selection of sweet treats - Jaffa cakes, battenburg, a selection of biscuits with (free) advice on tea dipability (Hobnobs, digestive, bourbons etc.), Dead fly cakes (aka Eccles cakes), shortbread, scones, bakewell tarts, flapjack etc.

I bet @brinedandcured can make a mean Cornish Pasty? And I know your crumpets are too notch 😉

#home

Iron Men at Crosby. I stood on the beach today an

Iron Men at Crosby.

I stood on the beach today and thought, this land is part of me. Or more likely I am part of this land. The salt air in my lungs; the sand in my shoes.

I grew up exploring this landscape; I'm at home with the wind watering my eyes. The damp chill of it all.

By the looks of it, this feeling is inheritable. The sand dunes have quickly become their favorite place.

Or perhaps everyone feels a little more alive when facing the fierce beauty of nature.

I miss easy access to the things I love. I'm a little jealous of the iron men.

#home

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