The indigenous Mesolithic societies of Europe never disappeared: they adapted, and survived in new ways. Their cultures, values, spiritual beliefs, and relationships with the land are encoded in the folk traditions and regional agroecological systems that persist throughout Europe. The elegance of these systems is shown in how they have thrived for millennia on some of the most contested land in Europe, surviving climate change, war, pestilence, drought, and economic upheaval. They are part of a 30,000-year-old unbroken tradition and relationship with the land, but they are rapidly disappearing. What’s at stake in their survival is not the preservation of a bygone relic, but the protection and expansion of relationships with the land that can feed our communities, preserve biodiversity through climate change, and create productive ecosystems that last for millennia.
Read MoreFarmers as far north as southern Maine can grow almonds! “Javid’s Iranian Almond” is a cold-hardy variety originally brought from the high mountains of northern Iran. It is not just disease resistant, self-fertile, and fully hardy as far north as zone 5 (parts of New York state, Vermont, Maine, and Massachusetts), it is also an incredibly flavorful almond. Out of all the other cold hardy almonds that nurseryman Cliff England has grown, none has come close to the flavor and ease-of-growing of this variety.
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