Seeding summer in spring. Show Heart & Soil in your community.

Sat, 19 Feb 2011 18:33:01 +0000

March 2011 is a busy time for both “Heart & Soil” and “Wild Horses In Winds of Change”. On March 19th, the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Hampshire based in Concord will be screening “Heart & Soil” at their ninth annual NDFA-NH Winter Conference. If you’re in the area be sure to go to the screening. emailscott.gardener@comcast.net for details.

People watch & share Heart & Soil several times a year.

Sun, 06 Feb 2011 17:12:46 +0000

Hello Mara,
I am the garden teacher at Edge High School in Tucson. I saw “Heart and Soil” on the Documentary channel with my husband over the holiday break while in Colorado. I absolutely loved it. Those people and places are my alter ego. For many years, while my children were young, we lived out of town and almost entirely off our land. We had a choice location at 3400 feet with rich soil and the perfect climate. Those were happy days. And though I’ve changed my lifestyle to be a bit more conformist these days, believe me, I’m still blazing my own path in whatever way I can. Which is why I’m presenting the gardening class. I’m very excited about giving my students, most of which are at risk in one way or another, the chance to feel warm soil between their fingers and eat a salad that is entirely fruit of their labor.

Thanks for your work. It was a pleasure to watch, and it will be a pleasure to share.

Amy Bright

Brooklyn Roof Top Farm Visit

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 22:35:39 +0000

It’s a farm on a rooftop, several stories high, with Manhattan’s skyline as a backdrop. A farm grows in Brooklyn with chickens among skyscrapers.

A million dollar view for chatty city chicks.

A neighborhood boy told us to go through the blue door then up several flights of stairs to find the farm. It seemed like no big deal to him, to consider a farm growing on top of a roof, complete with animals. The garden provides rows of warmly ripening peppers, squash, green beans, artichokes and beets, greens and more. The herbs and flowers danced a welcome in the sun while the chatty city chickens captured my interest right away. I wonder if they consider flying around the skyscrapers ? Why would they want to, with so much to eat right here? Everything I like to eat is right up here ! Can chickens really fly? Annie Novak, the co-founder of Eagle Street Roof Top Farms tells how she uses the chickens and coffee grounds from local restaurants to enhance the soil. Visiting a roof top garden was at the top of my list for my visit to NYC and thanks to a good friend, I got my wish. Check out: The Birds On That Brooklyn Rooftop: Chickens. http://www.theatlantic.com/food/archive/2010/08/the-birds-on-that-brooklyn-rooftop-chickens/62215/

Fresh Food and Farming

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 02:21:54 +0000

What I like about Farmer’s Markets.

At least once a week, I need the sensual tonic of a farmer’s market, where the friendly pleasures of homegrown food nourish me even before I take my first bite. With a basket on my arm and dollars in my pocket, I dance along to ethnic tunes, through isles of other smiling shoppers, with large totes brimmed with divinely colored vegetables and fruits.I love most, the markets that stimulate all of my senses, from my first glimpse of the plump soft beauty of peaches or handsome leeks and beets to the tantalizing scents of earth’s delicate aromas, wafting in the air. I savor samples and listen for the crackle of a bite into a crisp apple, cut of a cabbage, stroke the doodled head of a cauliflower, or trace my fingers across the etching of a cantaloupe, before cooling my lips on it’s succulent sweetness. Between peeping potatoes, and nosey peppers are mushrooms that tickle my creative cookery ideas and rutabagas rammy and ready to be sized up for stew. I am touched by dawn’s dew still lingering on the freshly picked veggies, and of the tender toil of sun spotted hands who work with the earth to share it’s healthy bounty with me. { Mara LeGrand, Visit: www.heartandsoilfilm.com - to learn about her award winning family documentary that highlights inspirational farmer’s who grow our food.}

Sustainable Agriculture film inspires families to dig in or support those who do.

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 21:11:01 +0000

Learn more about the inspiring family film about local, organic farming at www.heartandsoilfilm.com. You can order a copy of the film about sustainable agriculture through pay pal on that web site. Your comments are welcome here. Look for more about … Continue reading →