Edwin McLeod Organic Gardening

I live in Oak Park, next to the city of Royal Oak, both located in Oakland County.  I’m sure you’ve guessed, I live in a giant, beautiful forest.  We have trees here hundreds of years old, bigger than the ones you’ll find in many northern Michigan locations.  Most of the original forest here was never logged.  Don’t get me wrong.  I know there is a need for construction lumber and toilet paper.  Fortunately, we barely need any trees for newsprint and paper any longer due to computers and the internet - a great nature saving. I’m writing this today for the people who live with an abundance of shade in their yard.  You have probably asked: “What vegetables and fruits can I grow in my shady yard?”.   First, I want to warn you, if you have too much shade, very little will grow, even the plants I will describe.  Photosynthesis requires light.  It’s that plain and simple.  If you have a shady yard with some light, you will be able ...

  PANDEMIC FOOD Urtica dioica     Credit: Giovanni Dall'Orto On Friday the 13th of March, 2020, my classes met in person for the last time because of the Covid pandemic.  We were told we would meet again in two weeks, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen.  It was sad to see my students for the last time and I tried to reassure them that everything would be OK. One of the classes I teach in the fall semester is “Plagues and Pandemics”.  My Plagues students and I had been talking about the Covid virus since January, watching its progress as it went from devastating cruise ships to its deadly march through the nursing home in Seattle.  We were ahead of the societal curve because we could see the life saving importance of masks, PPE and social distancing.  If Covid spread, my students knew we wouldn’t be in school for long because of the lack of social distancing and the potential for the virus to spread.   So we all went home for the long...