Junaluska Apple

Last year around this time I was looking for fruit tree scion wood, and my search led me to the website of Tom Brown in North Carolina in the US.   Even though Tom was willing to cooperate, we quickly discovered the Netherlands doesn’t allow the import of apple tree scion wood from the US without lots of red tape, so the discussion ended.

So much of Tom speaks to what it means to collect and share heirloom and heritage varieties.  Tom not only has a very impressive collection of heritage apples, mostly from the US south, but he’s done everything possible to collect stories and other documentation to go along with them.  The roots of Tom’s interest in his apple collection lie in his childhood and passions as a young man.

Not only has the world lost so many heritage plant varieties over the years, but we’ve lost the passions that go along with growing, documenting and hunting for them.

Tom recently rewrote and reposted the story of how found the Junaluska apple, and sent me a link.  Note too the link on the bottom of the page that leads to the various descriptions of the apple he found.  Many of us grow the Cherokee Trail of Tears beans in our garden each year, and now thanks to Tom a Cherokee apple from that time is also available.

If you live in the US and are looking for an apple tree to grow, consider buying this or others from Tom via his website.

European Agricultural Ministers to Discuss EU Seed Law Changes

Well known for their their very undemocratic decisions made behind closed doors, ignoring everyone else’s opinion, the EU agriculture ministers will meet Thursday to discuss the EU seed laws.  This time they have invited public input.

In case you were looking at the agenda hoping to find a place and time so you could attend, don’t bother.  You aren’t invited and the meeting will be held in a secret location.  When they’re done, we should be able to read about it here.

They have the power to unilaterally change the EU seed laws, and this may happen at this meeting.

 

Another World Blog

A friend of mine who lives locally has a travel blog called Another World Blog.

Since he’s recently moved to the Netherlands he’s now writing a lot about the country from the point of view as an immigrant.  At the moment, he’s very interested in exploring Dutch customs and traditions.  He’s also travelled other places and written about those too.

I often don’t write much about living in the Netherlands.  For this reason I like to recommend other blogs with this kind of material.  I hope you have a look at his blog, and maybe leave a comment or two…