A must-watch video:

Wildlife film maker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family’s farm in Devon into a low energy farm for the future, and discovers that nature holds the key. With her father close to retirement, Rebecca returns to her family’s wildlife-friendly farm in Devon, to become the next generation to farm the land. But last year’s high fuel prices were a wake-up call for Rebecca. Realising that all food production in the UK is completely dependent on abundant cheap fossil fuel, particularly oil, she sets out to discover just how secure this oil supply is. Alarmed by the answers, she explores ways of farming without using fossil fuel. With the help of pioneering farmers and growers, Rebecca learns that it is actually nature that holds the key to farming in a low-energy future.”

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=4152340418943461860&hl=en&fs=true

There’s a wonderful series of videos on YouTube showing some Depression Era meals along with anecdotes about living through it. All of the recipes and stories are by Clara, a great-grandmother in her 90’s. She recalls what life was like, and how they scraped together tasty meals from the cheapest ingredients.

http://www.youtube.com/v/DuMkW35BwK8

The complete set of videos can be found here.

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Patti Moreno shows you how to make three simple medicinal herbal teas….

Chris Martenson recently did a very condensed presentation of his amazing Crash Course for WGBY in Springfield MA. If you don’t have the time to watch the entire Crash Course, you can see this 40-minute “cliff notes” version in either Windows streaming media format, or a downloadable Quicktime format.

This is a pretty good, non-technical biochar overview out of Australia – about 11 minutes long.

Here’s a new one. Ok, so it’s not quite new, but new to me anyhow…
A greenhouse insulated with soap bubbles:

Apparently the soap bubbles insulate relatively well, while still letting plenty of visible and UV light through, and blocking infrared and convection.

More info
http://www.solarbubblebuild.com/
and
http://www.midwestpermaculture.com/GreenhouseDescription.php

I often walk around our yard or pastures looking at weeds and wondering what they are. Identifying plants from a book is pretty hard, and I don’t have an expert handy to ID them for me.

Well now I’ve got the next best thing. Apparently “Green Deane” at EatTheWeeds.com has been putting these videos out for a year now, but this is the first I’ve heard about them. There are 63 videos and counting, all about identifying edible wild plants.

Each video covers where and when to find a given weed, which parts are edible, how to use them, if there are look-alikes, and anything else he thinks is interesting, like how they got their name or what their history is.

I’m not necessarily after a meal when I’m wandering outside, so the plant identification is the interesting part to me. But even so, it’d be pretty sweet to walk out to get the mail and come back with a salad.

The videos get better over time – I guess if you do anything 60+ times you gain some new skills – but just to get you started, here is Episode 01:

For what it’s worth, his web site, while not the prettiest thing on the web, is a treasure trove of articles and information. So if you have a slow connection or you’re already a plant ID expert, there’s still a lot of great stuff to be had.

I’m a big fan of urban farming, and this video just shows a different way you can go about running a CSA for an urban clientele.

You an also check out SPIN farming.

Via: Kitchen Gardeners International

Via: Kitchen Gardeners International

Kitchen Gardeners International featured this interesting video tracking the history of how the White House grounds were used to grow the food that the White House needed.