What’s in the ground this week:

First off, Happy Equinox everyone. Many think of this time in nature as a time preparing for hibernation or death, but that is very far from the case. As you’ve hopefully become much more aware this season to the beauty of local foods, you’ve no doubt been struck by the amazing tastes of local fruit. A fruit tree or bush in your yard is the best investment you can make. Now is the time to start transplanting those perennial bushes or trees into your yard. The oppressive summer heat that makes transplanting such big plants dangerous has passed, but the weather will be warm long enough to establish the plant. When transplanting a bush or tree, dig a hole deep enough to cover the roots up to the plant base, and two times as wide as the root ball, leaving enough room in loose soil for the roots to expand. To protect against the sometimes intense fall winds, put stakes on each side of the bush or tree and secure with string. Water fresh transplants daily for the first week, especially in dry weather, and then every few days after until sustained morning frosts.

What’s going on in sustainability:

As the boys of Hoots and Hellmouth continue on their harvest tour, we should take a lesson from what they are trying to accomplish. In the non-industrial past, the farm was the center of life for a village. Aside from a hub where food was harvested, processed, shipped and traded, it also served at times as a center for festivities to celebrate the abundant harvests, and at other times a center for ritual to reinforce faith that there wouldn’t be a drought the next year. As I greeted in this article, I’m sure many of you around the country celebrated the Equinox. However, what Hoots and Hellmouth is doing is taking this theme a step farther.

In these industrial times, the farm has been removed from the center of life in our towns, and has been relocated to the outskirts of our disconnected corporatism. In order for farmers to survive, rather than being able to turn to the people of the communities they serve, many farmers have to turn to farm subsidies to grow monocultures of corn, wheat and soy, many times being processed into feed for animals. These monocultures (Farm lands of the same vegetable) erode our soil, destroy eco-diversity and make the farmer dependent on one source of income.

Farms such as the ones Hoots and Hellmouth are visiting reject this disconnection from their communities and do everything they can to create a culture around local food. Many times this is in the form of a CSA, a farm market, or educational tours. However, many farms use eco-tourism to survive. Eco-tourism includes harvest festivals, fruit picking weekends and music festivals like the one the band is on right now. To give support to these innovative and community minded farmers, please take a weekend or two this fall first to hopefully catch the band at one of their many shows. But if you can’t make that, take the family apple picking, to a pumpkin carving festival, or on a hay ride. These farmers need our support to resist the compromising world of subsidies and remain an autonomous part of our human experience.

For more info on the state of subsidies, please read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma or check out the new food documentaries “Fresh” and “Food Inc.”

Until next week, this is the note from the urban homestead.