Tag Archives: public affairs

Earlier this spring, people across the eastern half of the US organized neighborhood planting projects in order to widely distribute and plant food-bearing trees. Their motivations are diverse, and we’ll hear from a range of them in this episode, but these tree-planters are often hoping to build a more verdant, autonomous, resilient, common life in the face of growing climate …

This month’s Partisan Gardens is all about the Farmer’s Almanac, specifically the 2022 Earthbound Farmer’s Almanac. Our listeners are probably familiar with the old farmer’s almanac, with its planting charts, weather forecasts and random tidbits of folksy wisdom and jokes. It’s an artifact of an earlier time, probably not the first place our listeners go to decide what to plant …

This month, we spoke to Susanne Wengle, a professor at Notre Dame who researches post-Soviet political and economic transformation in Russia.  Her second book is Black Earth, White Bread; a Technopolitical History of Russian Agriculture and Food. We were eager to hear her perspective on the history of agriculture in Russia and Ukraine and the current war’s ripple effects on food systems …

This month, we’re excited to share our conversation with David Holmgren, author of the recent RetroSuburbia and co-author of the landmark 1978 book, Permaculture One, with Bill Mollison, which launched the international permaculture movement.  Drawing on permaculture principles of recognizing existing patterns and incorporating them into design, Holmgren is calling for a bold and improvisational approach to the problem of …

For this episode of Partisan Gardens, we learn about the conditions facing migrant farm workers in California. We share a two conversations: one between Partisan Gardens and Nikola Garcia, author of a recent article in Inhabit: Territories called “The Farmworker Caravan: Mutual Aid in California’s Migrant Worker Communities.” The other is a conversation between Nikola and Darlene Tenes, founder of …

It’s not enough to demand justice for a week and simply move on. If we want to make real change in this country [the U.S.], that change needs to be reflected in our leaders, starting at the local level. Black people are tired, but are dedicating themselves to their communities and their country—consistently putting in the work to remind us …

This month, Partisan Gardens is all about the banana. Second only to the tomato as the most consumed fruit in the world, the banana has thus far only been made available in temperate regions through a violent extraction process led by multinational corporations. Attacks against this colonial system likely began at least as early as the 1870s, when bananas were …

On this autumn episode of Partisan Gardens, we’re sharing skills for preserving our harvests and thoughts on the significance of food preservation and food sovereignty. First, Ren, a local grower, speaks with Tom, who has launched a biodiverse and integrated homestead in the Adirondacks.  Tom discusses the variety of ways that they’ve learned to preserve their food crops. He walks …

This month on Partisan Gardens, we are sharing a presentation by Kristin Ross, author of the landmark book “Communal Luxury: the Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune.” She delivered the lecture to the 2019 Antipode American Association of Geographers Lecture in Washington DC and gave another version of the talk here in Bloomington that same year. Titled the 7th Wonder …

For our episode this month, we spoke with Ken Asmus, the founder of Oikos Nursery.  From 1982 till earlier this year, Oikos was one of the most important sources of rare fruit trees and other non-commercial perennial food plants.  Ken recently retired from the nursery business in order to better pursue his research into food-bearing plants for an era of …