Tips from an Amazon Gardener

Dona Raimunda is a rock star. A meteor shower. A force of nature. It's amazing to me how that much personality can be contained in such a diminutive body.

She is the mother of farmer Rosario Costa Cabral, the Amazon farmer featured in these pages a few months back. Rosario has made a name for herself growing crops never before tried in her region of the Amazon flood plain, where she's encouraged other farmers to branch out.

However...
Whereas Rosario relies on observation and experimentation, her mother channels ancestral know-how.

Dona Raimunda is who-knows-what-generation caboclo, the Brazilian word for the ethnically mixed people who live in the Amazon. In my Weekend Edition Sunda radio piece about Dona Raimunda, I listed six tongue-in-cheek gardening tips I'd observed watching this caboclo gardener at work. My hunch is they'll make a whole lot more sense if you care to join me in her Amazon garden but in any case, here they are:

#1 Mind how you talk to your plants
#2 Cucumbers and cabbage are sworn enemies and cannot be grown together
#3 Chili peppers are stubbornly reluctantly to let go of their fruit
#4 Plants are no co-dependent; they don't care if you garden in a bad mood
#5 Ugly chives save lives (a reference to putting anti-evil eggs in the vegetable garden)
#6 Smokers are welcome in the garden

3:31 PM ET | 03-22-2008 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post

 

Talking Xeric in Albuquerque

One of the biggest water-saving heros in the Southwest these days is Scott Varner, who over the last decade has cultivated quite the crowd for the New Mexico Xeriscape Council annual conference.

The bad news is that you just missed the latest conference; fortunately, 400 of your green-thinking peers took notes.

Thanks to one of them, Susan Tweit, who both captured some of the highlights and linked to the TP blog. Other people you might want to know about are dynamo L. Hunter Lovins (Time Magazine 2000 Hero of the Planet) and landscape architect/ecological restorationist Keith Bowers, founder of Biohabitats, whose inspiring mission is nothing less than "the restoration of the earth".

Which brings me to my own meager participation in the conference, during which I made the observation that Sustainability is a very dicey assumption if we don't soon address issues of Population.

I can assure you, the idea that we need to live in places with more resources and do a lot less breeding did not go over too big. And so I invite you to step into the fray.

Q: If we continue to settle in regions where resources are limited (e.g., water in the desert SW), if we continue to procreate with abandon, and if we continue to believe we are entitled to what we want when we want it without having to sacrifice, compromise or just recycle the bloody newspaper (which is far from second nature here in D.C.), is it realistic to assume assume we can be sustained?

2:43 PM ET | 02-25-2008 | permalink | comments (6) | e-mail post

 

Amazon: A Reluctant Goodbye

Well, it's time to move on from our week in the Amazon. At least to the exclusion of the rest of the world. No doubt Rosario Costa Cabral and the planet's other inspirational farmers, gardeners and environmentalists will continue to be our guests on Talking Plants.

A few parting shots, if you will; not a whole lot to say, just some photos I have yet to share.

Admittedly, I didn't spend a great deal of time mastering the names and kinds of of Amazon flora (a good reason to go back). Little, in fact, was blooming but on our canoe trip, we did manage a small breakfast bouquet.

But there was no missing the dollop of green that came floating down the river like an emerald island (below). It was water lettuce, a staple of American water features coast to coast. This is a wonderful annual aquatic; seeing it was like running into an old friend.

Perhaps it's enough to know that the places, people and moments we've been visiting in the Amazon are real and possible.

8:15 AM ET | 02- 9-2008 | permalink | comments (9) | e-mail post

 

Rosario's Jungle: a Brazilian Adventure

If I let go of my Amazon adventure, I might find myself in Washington, D.C. And you wouldn't wish that on anyone, right?

So here's to living in the moment ... just not this one. Instead, I've collected a few of my favorites -- some in sound, some in pictures, some in words -- and buoyed by the stunning skills of my digital media colleagues, I invite you to visit the Rosario family on the Mazagao River in nothern Brazil.

The trip's on me.

...CLICK TO PLAY..CLICK BOTTOM RIGHT SQUARE TO GROW..

4:16 PM ET | 02- 6-2008 | permalink | comments (6) | e-mail post

 

Amazon Q&A

Just to catch you up, this week we're focusing on Rosario Costa Cabral, one of the world's more inspiring farmers.

Talking Plants community member Julian Blackwood recently asked a number of in-depth questions that were beyond the scope of the NPR Amazon story. I thought I'd post his q's (edited for clarity) with answers provided by Columbia U. ecologist Miguel Pinedo-Vasquez, who is an expert in Amazonian biodiversity and has known Rosario for a decade.

Q: Since (Rosario farms on) tidal land, presumably the water is somewhat saline? Or is it backed-up fresh river water that floods her land twice a day?

A: The water is not saline. The fresh water of the Amazon actually extends far into the sea.

Q: If the flood-tolerant pepper plant anecdote was accurate, it raises the interesting question of how that particularly valuable gene combination for flood tolerance (if that's what it is) is maintained in a partly cross-pollinating crop.

A: Well, the flood threat (and natural selection) is constant as is the human selection process. So presumably if cross-pollination does occur, any non-tolerant plants that might result are quickly eliminated. But I also saw that Dona Raimunda (Rosario's mother) seems to do some hand pollination with some vegetables; she shakes the flower of onions onto other onions. She says that way she gets better bulbs. How and where she learned this I don't know.

Q: The reference to distributing cassava "seeds" (of her improved selection) presumably meant the usual stem cuttings used for clonal propagation - as cassava is cross-pollinated. But the really big question is exactly what land was she actually farming when you visited?

A: When Rosario and her family came to Mazagao they could not bring cuttings but rather seeds (although as you point out, reproduction by cuttings is the usual process). The family had been dispossessed from their farm and were not sure when and where they would plant again. Any cuttings would have probably died. She also apparently distributed seeds not cuttings; people try out the seeds on their own land, select on their own. On her own land she plants her own cuttings.

Q: I understand Rosario's farming on logged-over land. She is probably planting gaps in various glades, cropping them until soil fertility or pest build-up drives her to a new plot (similar to traditional "shifting" cultivation). Let's hope she changes plots regularly so that the soil is not exhausted to the point where only tertiary scrub can regenerate (her planting of local tree species was good news).

A: Rosario is indeed planting in gaps and she moves annuals and semi-perennials around every few years to other parts of her landholding. Of course many of her crops are actually perennials and are native trees. The problem with fertility loss in the floodplain is not nearly as great as you might have in an upland site. The twice-daily tides carry and deposit nutrients and the flooding (both tidal and seasonal) probably helps keep down some pests.

11:28 AM ET | 02- 6-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

 

Amazon Animal Farm

I've got good and even better news for those of you expecting a slide show today. (Welcome to the Year of the Spin). The good news is that the slide show is so cool -- with music, birds, river splashing and narration -- that several of us are now up to our elbows in production and it's taking a tad longer than expected.

The even better news is that in hoping to mollify those of you who heard Rosario on the radio and want more, I've got animal pix from the Rosario family farm. Who could resist this face?

Being a lifelong vegetarian, I tried not to get attached to the little piggy (pictured below, and by the way she's going to be sold; the Rosario family wouldn't touch her), but I nearly fainted from cute overload when I first spied her with his little hoofs hooked over the barn door. Her massive mother, however, Boneca (Doll), is a cherished member of the Rosario family; it seems there are enough stories about her to fill a few childrens' books. My favorite is the story about how she collapsed after eating something clearly lethal, and was subsequently revived by several pots of strong black Brazilian coffee.

One of the reasons there are plank walkways around the entire Rosario house is because the ground floor belongs to a bunch of roosters, chickens, and ducks. The ducks and chickens are easy to live with, but those roosters! They start crowing at about 3am and until evening falls, they never seem to stop. Of course, that's only news to those of us who are more accustomed to car horns and pistols going off at night, not farm animals.

The ducks seems to have the most fun, alternating between dry, muddy and aquatic terrains. I particularly loved the way they paraded up and down the pier during low tide; this close to the mouth of the Amazon, the tides came and went twice a day. After spending a week bathing and swimming in this Amazon tributary, I am living proof the river is quite benign.

I wouldn't have guessed that all these free-range farm animals would get along so well -- true, the dog has been known to steal eggs -- but even the cats are (relatively) well-behaved. They're certainly not warm and fuzzy like my own Lulah, but unlike Pao Preto the dog, they're allowed in the kitchen. And I might add they are quite the beggars.

Come back tomorrow for the first Talking Plants slide show, when I will prove there is more to life than Super Tuesday...

3:04 AM ET | 02- 5-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post

 

A Not-So Mythic Amazonian

She likes to be called Rosario. Her full family name is nearly a dozen syllables long.

She lives as simply as a human being could hope for and it isn't because she's lazy or unambitious. She is a woman born and bred in the Amazon, and whether it's fish from the river or fruit from the forest, she knows how to coax everything she needs out of the landscape. "The forest likes me," she says. "I look after its young."

Intrigued? You ain't heard nothing yet...

The permanent Rosario household includes her mischievous 82 year-old mother and her two 40-something brothers, but at any given time on any given hammock you'll find one or two of Rosario's stepchildren (the youngest is 20), near and distant relatives, and the odd ecologically-inclined academic.

Bar none (except perhaps his wife, Christine Padoch of the NYBG), the Rosario family favorite has got to be Miguel Pinedo-Vasquez of CERC, who often comes bearing gifts of California pistachio nuts.

The Rosario family has lived on this land now since 1991. Everybody works extremely hard and the results are obvious, including the new house they were able to build out of their own lumber a year ago. The house is very open with high, high ceilings and can accommodate an untold number of hammocks; each room has a door and a single light bulb, but otherwise the house is largely empty, a blessing in such stifling heat.

Not surprisingly, though, the center of life is in the old kitchen, connected to the new house by a covered walkway. The kitchen, for my money, has the best view of any -- into that jungle of a backyard.

So many pictures, so little time...which is why I invite you back tomorrow to enjoy the Amazon slide show we're busily putting together (how many shots of the piglet and the dog can you take?). In the meantime, I will leave you with the one image that's earned pride of place on my piano and I think you'll see why...

Tomorrow, the slide show. And a taste of acai...

9:34 AM ET | 02- 3-2008 | permalink | comments (50) | e-mail post

 

It's a Jungle Out There

I'm just back from the Amazon and I'll never be the same.

True!

I had the best of intentions of sending dispatches while there, but man was that presumptuous. The phone connection was dodgy enough, and after one storm, we lost electricity for a blissful night and day.

So I've got pictures for the WOW factor and a story I can't wait to tell. It's about an indomitable farmer who experiments with crops people others say can't grow there: fruit trees and palms that must survive under water twice a day. Words can't describe her accomplishments; that's why there's radio! The piece will air on Morning Edition this month.

6:02 PM ET | 01-17-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

 

Yummy Brazilian Parasites

Belem is a big, noisy and — shall we say — inelegant city in the north of Brazil, not exactly where you'd expect plant parasites to thrive. But one of the glories of this place has got to be the vining plants creeping up the gnarled, old street trees.

Street trees, I might add, that are not London plane trees. Diversity lives! They are huge, 6-story high mangera, or as we know them mango trees.

So about those parasites: the two most prominent ones appear to be members of the ficus family. One has big variegated leaves and is simply stunning, wrapping itself (without detriment, I might add) around the mango's broad trunk. It'll look familiar to anyone who's grown Brazilian houseplants. Unfortunately, my cab driver was clueless about its name I don't have enough battery power to Google it right now. Could one of you reading this post provide the species and common name?

The other looks an awful lot like the creeping fig that we used to use in the D.C. area to cover stucco walls in warm little corners. And the third is reminiscent of what we call the pencil plant; it just rains off the mango trees here in big bursts of lime green.

And yes, speaking of rain, it's cloudy with the occasional downpour. Getting nice and accustomed to soggy so I'll be ready for the jungle; expect to have my toes in that mother of all rivers tomorrow ...

1:12 PM ET | 01- 9-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

 

An Amazon Adventure Begins

I leave for the Amazon today. (I've known for a while, but didn't want to worry you.) And, no lie, I just opened my guidebook and my first destination is "one of the rainiest cities in the world." Oh joy! More dispatches to follow ...

5:06 PM ET | 01- 8-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post

 

More from the Sinkhole

Here's the plant, here's the sinkhole, look inside and there's the people...

First up, let's take a look at Prichardia aylmer-robinsonii, a species of the lo'ulu palm that David and Lida Pigott Burney planted in "their" sinkhole. The plant is named after the family that currently owns the island of Ni'ihau, the only place this species is known to grow in the wild.

Alas, the palm is no "missing link" as one of our delightfully optimistic TP members suggested; at least no more a link than any other plant in the chain. But seeing it restored in the Makauwahi Cave sinkhole does feels like an Indiana Jones moment of discovery, particularly if you stumble across it as you're walking the landscape above. I mean suddenly YIKES! there's an eight-story drop into this promised land.

11:57 AM ET | 01- 4-2008 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post

 

For Love of a Sinkhole

Q: How many paleoecologists does it take to excavate a sinkhole, find seven previously undescribed bird species and reintroduce native plant species to a place they haven't grown in for a thousand years?

A: Depends on the paleoecologists.

Fact is, some aren't mortal. In particular, keep an eye out for the pair shown below. They were recently featured in an NPR radio report that mistakenly assumed they were human, based on their oh! so convincing paleoecologist clothing.

Closer scrutiny has determined it simply isn't possible for this couple to do as much as they do in as many places as they do it and not be in league with He Who Cannot Be Named. Consequently, approach with extreme caution should the pair be spotted one fine Sunday morning within the nether reaches of Kauai's Makauwahi Cave.

We'll post more photos shortly plus details as we gather them. Until then, be very afraid.

11:10 AM ET | 01- 2-2008 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post

 

Rock Star Botany 202

Mahalo! It's another splendid day here on virtual Kaua'i ... of course I haven't been to the actual island in a while, but tuning in to the island's public radio station helps ...

First, allow me a moment of preemptive denial: I am not in the pocket of the National Tropical Botanical Garden (see? no hyperlink). The only reason my Morning Edition report and Talking Plants Kaua'i stories are filled with NTBG people is that the Hawaii-based botanists on my "Must Meet List" were already working for the Garden.

Can I help it if its staff rocks?

In fact, is was on the NTBG staff that I met my first so-called rock star botanist, Ken Wood, a self-effacing plantsman who, despite himself, does justice to the romantic term ... a term taught to me by future botanical rocker Clay Trauernicht, a field botanist tragically too cute for his own good.

(Yes, Clay, you are).

But enough flirting with jail bait, today's rock star botanist is Steve Perlman, who you might have heard hunting for the rare fringed orchid.

Steve Perlman's daring hi-jinks to save Hawaii's native plants is now the stuff of legend among those in the know, as well as the subject of articles, books and an Imax film. He has risked his life so many times gaining access to endangered plants, he couldn't decide which story to tell me when I asked him to describe the scariest botanizing trip of them all.

But describe it he did.

"It's not thrill-seeking," says Perlman. "I'm there because the plants are there and I'm trying to get to them". His track record is astonishing; let's just say that if you were a betting plant lost in the wilderness, you'd be smart to put your money and your life on him. Not only will he get your seeds into cultivation, often — with the help of the world's best propagators — he'll see to it that your offspring make it into the nursery trade.

Perhaps the best-known story about Perlman (Ken Wood is often featured in this tale) is about the lengths he went to in order to collect Brighamia seed in the wild. I recommend you hear Perlman tell it himself, but here's the gist:

Because these plants prefer life on the edge — that is, on windswept cliffs facing out to sea — Perlman had to rappel down to the area where they often grew only to discover they hadn't set any seed. So he'd dangle around, hanging off the cliff, until he'd located a male plant and could collect its pollen. Then he'd dangle around some more until he'd located a female plant, and dabble on the goods.

Months later, he'd return to see if the pollinated female plant had set seed. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If not, he'd simply return again and again, as often as it took — rappelling off sea cliffs hundreds of feet above the ocean — to collect a few life-giving seeds.

Well, I don't know what you've been doing with your life, but something tells me I might yet consider doing something more significant with mine.

9:30 AM ET | 01- 2-2008 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post

 

The Little Green Orchid That Could

On behalf of all your chlorophyllic friends here at Talking Plants, Happy New Year!

Now I don't mean to twist your arm, but what I'm going to tell you about field botanist Steve Perlman and his search for Platanthera holochila is likely to make a whole lot more sense if you listen to the Morning Edition feature.

It wasn't a very big plant, maybe 20 inches high. The chances of spotting it were absolutely nil. But Steve Perlman of the National Tropical Botanical Garden had seen this rare orchid years ago, before it was dwarfed by knee-high shrubs. So it wasn't entirely miraculous — but it was pretty damn impressive — when he found it growing the middle of a wind-swept, fogged-in swamp.

His timing was perfect; the orchid was ripe for picking. So he carefully removed a couple of pregnant pods for safekeeping, each filled with hundreds of dust-sized seeds.

This fringed orchid was the last of its kind on Kaua'i, and previous attempts to propagate it had failed. Since there could be no certainty that the orchid would live to see another September, the seeds Perlman was collecting this day were crucial to its survival.

One of the main reasons this particular orchid survived was because the enormous bog it was growing in was pig-proof. No lie. Hawaii's wild pigs are like living rototillers; one of the only effective defenses against them is some very serious fencing.

The next day, Perlman shipped this vial of seed pods to orchid specialist Larry Zettler, professor of biology at Illinois College. (Think: Larry, Larry, he's our man, if he can't do it, NO ONE CAN).

And now, through the magic of radio, you can Be There! when he gets the package.

About six weeks after receiving the little guys, Zettler e-mailed Perlman with good news, saying, "in a nutshell, this has not been an easy orchid to work with, but I am much more optimistic." I wrote to Zettler just the other day. Here's his response:

Hi Ketzel. We sowed the seeds that Steve sent us and they are in incubation. At last check, the embryos appeared OK. Platanthera species in general take considerable time in vitro, especially without fungi, but I'm becoming more convinced that this should be our option with this extremely fastidious species ... I find it ironic that my research with fungi may be taking a back seat with this species in favor of the asymbiotic technique which I had little faith in for the terrestrials. But that's how science sometimes works.

In other words, after intensive work growing terrestrial (ground) orchids in different fungi typically associated with the plant in the wild, Zettler's coming to the conclusion that he might have better luck not using any fungi at all. His findings seem to be consistent with a recent breakthrough in orchid growing at the Atlanta Botanical Garden (beware annoying little "chirps" at this site!).

So will the little green orchid that could ever grown on Kaua'i again? Chances are pretty damn good, given that there's not a more delicious spot in the world to set down roots if your idea of a very good time is relentless wet, muck and rain.

3:15 PM ET | 12-31-2007 | permalink | comments (12) | e-mail post

 

A Good Lumberman Is Not an Oxymoron

I got thinking about good lumbermen after a comment posted yesterday by TP community member, Rob Spence. It was in response to my post about the felling of big trees.

Who is to say that (even) sustainable forestry does not include the taking of some large diameter timber? Big trees grow back too, they just take longer, maybe longer than we personally will be alive.

I know someone who undoubtedly signs execution orders for big trees. And much to my (naieve) amazement, he is a fierce environmentalist and a devoted steward of the forest.

And a lovely guy.

You might have met him briefly if you heard this week's Sugar Maple story on Morning Edition. His name is Jamey French. And we could probably get him to swing by the TP blog if anyone has any thoughtful questions for him.

6:24 PM ET | 11- 1-2007 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post

 

The Mighty Have Fallen

What mighty have fallen? Well, if we're talking about the building of America on the backs of the American forest, just about all of them. But if the subject's sudden catastrophe, I think of two species: the American Elm and the American Chestnut.

I want to talk about the chestnut, because it was very much on my mind as I visited the forests of Vermont and New Hampshire, places once stuffed with these towering and beneficent trees.

(Before I go any further, if you're already hooked on the topic, you should know about the just-released book, Mighty Giants: An American Chestnut Anthology, a project celebrating the 25th anniversary of American Chestnut Foundation.)

If you're new to this story, let's cut to the chase: within 50 years of the arrival of an Asian fungus we now call chestnut blight in the late 1800's, an estimated FOUR BILLION TREES were LOST. We're talking GONE.

You could just see the trees dying. You could see them changing from time to time. One would die; the leaves would turn brown and fall off in the middle of the summer ... people couldn't believe it. They thought they'd come back.

One of the eye-witnesses account from Mighty Giants. This is from a NYTimes account, summer 1911:

Chestnut Trees Face Destruction -- Trees Worth Millions Dying in This State from a Canker for Which There Is No Remedy. Eats Beneath The Bark -- Sprays and Other Attempts to Check Spread of the Paraside Unsuccessful -- Trees in Botanical Park Doomed.

Nothing new under the sun. Not with what worries us today. But optimism abounds about the future of the chestnut and our ability to undo damage (could it be?) from very un-Pollyanna-like people like Bill McKibben, who wrote the short introduction to this softback book.

... the story of the chestnut echoes like a fable -- a fable about carelessness, and about the hard work and hard love needed to make up for that carelessness. A fable we need to start telling more and more, for the hope it gives and the lesson it provides.

OK, so it's a little Pollyanna-ish but the point's this: people have been and continue to be devoted to the return of the chestnut. And who's to argue with their vision, their certainty, that the job can be done.

American Chestnut memories, anyone? Bring 'em on...

Frank Meyer, "intrepid and tireless plant explorer" for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, tracked the source of the chestnut blight back to China in 1913. (His pix alone is reason enough to see this book.)

2:00 PM ET | 10-31-2007 | permalink | comments (14) | e-mail post

 

Talking Forest

So let's talk about the forest.

Forgive my earnesty, but I'm increasingly aware that outside of my loved ones, there's nothing more important to me than the forest. Admittedly, not a particularly striking revelation coming from someone who loves plants. But I wasn't like this till I moved to Oregon, and now wherever I travel, I seek out the region's deepest woods.

The forest works for me because I need the relative silence of the woods to shut me up, shut me down, help me connect to what I think matters (that is, the forest itself). That's why I prefer hiking alone unless I'm with an equally willing silent partner (the dogs do nicely). I need the girth of trunks and the filtered atmosphere to see exactly what's in front of me -- which then makes it possible to tune everything else out.

What wild places keeps you sustained, sane, balanced? And what are you doing to help protect them?

This is a genuine question; no imperious tone here. I'm just curious what organizations you support, how you support them (money counts, most assuredly), plus what recommendations you have for others who want to give back to the plants, trees, forests -- but don't know where to start.

Boy I'm boring when I'm earnest...

7:32 PM ET | 10-29-2007 | permalink | comments (14) | e-mail post

 

Shout-Out for the Sugar Maple

Out of my own harrowing frustration trying to boil down a complex and nuanced story, today's Morning Edition feature now spills onto the page.

The saga features that incomparable big-headed beauty Acer saccharum -- also known as the fiery Ms. Sugar Maple -- and her possibly fatal choice of a landlord -- often high-on-octane and always unpredictable -- the notorious Climate Change.

A quick count of the supporting cast, all stars in their own right, include Ecology, Entymology, Sustainable Foresty, and those three evil stoogies, Forest Fragmentation, Greedy Development and All-Terrain Terror. Plus the one player absolutely everybody's sweet on, Maple Syrup.

Without her, no one would bother seeing the show.

Can you imagine the trouble I had handling this cast, trying to keep one from overshadowing all the others?

Frankly, the whole story's a bit out of control. Imagine trying to predict the ending! Will Man save Ms. Maple? Will Climate Change conquer them both? And even if you don't like the way it's headed -- with Ms. Maple's friends the cold-loving Conifers getting the heave-ho first -- tell me this:

Do you think there's still time to change the ending?

4:56 PM ET | 10-28-2007 | permalink | comments (9) | e-mail post

 

Growing Grandmother Found in Forest!

If a grandmother suddenly started growing, something would be amiss. Now research has found that something similar is happening to the nation's oldest trees.

Not a bad lede.

I was just sent this article by the good folks at Clean Air-Cool Planet. Thought it might come in handy if you're short of talking tidbits for your next date on match.com...

11:41 AM ET | 09-16-2007 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post