A church returns land to American Indians
“This is decolonized land,” a young woman said. “This is a liberated zone.”
Why we wassail
Each winter, my family goes to our orchard to carry out an ancient tradition.
A separated family's long road to reunification
A Guatemalan asylum seeker has an attorney and a team of supporters. It was still hard to get her children back.
The springtime gift of sorrel
The perennial plant's tightly furled leaves emerge in March, pushing aside wintry desolation.
A trash-to-table feast at Slow Food Nations
At the conference, chefs cooked for 100 of us using ingredients that were headed for the landfill.
The wonder of homegrown potatoes
Underneath layers of mulch, the German Butterball and Rose Gold flourish.
Planting garlic at the cusp of the seasons
All hands join in to get 40,000 pungent cloves into the ground.
Watermelons, watermelons everywhere
How does the blazing sun produce so much refreshing fruit?
Wrist-deep in the earth: Notes from the farm
We invest each seed and young plant with the exuberant yet completely rational hope of compounded returns.
Field of greens: Notes from the farm
By summer, the plants are working overtime. It's a wonder we don't have as many words for green as the Inuit have for snow.
The sting of spring: Notes from the farm
Harvesting wild greens always returns me to our species' hunter-gatherer roots. Not so long ago, this is what people did the world over.
Still life with winter squash: Notes from the farm
It landed on my patio in early November, a pointy-ended battleship that was more mineral than vegetable. It stayed there as the days got shorter.
Terra Brockman's Christmas picks
My Christmas picks take you from the soil to the supper table. The essays in Dirt: A Love Story (ForeEdge Books) celebrate the mystery and meaning of soil....
Sweet harvest: Notes from the farm
As soon as frost threatens, my brother drops everything and calls all hands to come help dig the sweet potatoes.
Heirloom apple trees: Notes from the farm
My favorite heirloom fruit tree nursery sent an e-mail about a sale. With scarcely a thought, I ordered a bucket of trees.
Ephemera: Notes from the farm
This spring, I didn't find any morels in the woods around my house. But I did find a lot of other things.