Conservation genomics, apples, parties

An all-cuttings edition of the newsletter

I’ve been working on this opus about maize and mysticism, cellular cognition and dynamic genomes for … too long. It’s all just too interesting! There’s always one more paper, one more book, to look at. I’m also working on re-annotating this annotated bibliography of ecofeminism from the mid-1980s.

But all that means I’ve built up a big set of cuttings—good links, interesting projects, heavy clambakes, etc—to share with the club. Hence this edition.

First, quick overall project update: we’re deep in a design process with the collective Sensitive Research about the first things that the Oakland Garden Club is going to produce. More news v v soon. You can stay up to date by subscribing to this here newsletter about plants as plants and plants as portals.

Out in the yard, the scarlet runner beans have come in, and in case you are wondering, yes I am still obsessed with these magic beans. Just look at that thing.

CUTTINGS

• I finally got my hands on a copy of Wilmette Brown’s roots: Black ghetto ecology, which was pulled from the 1983 anthology Reclaim the Earth—Women speak out for Life on Earth. “The politics of cancer is personal to me: I am a Black woman, a cancer survivor,” she begins. “But this is not ‘the triumphant story of one woman’s victory over cancer.’ My cancer crisis was less the poetry of facing imminent death, than weathering the daily harassment of life in the 80s.” It’s very much worth reading, which you can do here.

• At Forum, we did a fascinating show on the Earth BioGenome Project, which is an organizing body that is aiming to sequences the genomes of all life on Earth. One localish component is the California Conservation Genomics Project. They are sequencing lots of organisms, including dozens of plants with the goal of making “the most comprehensive, multispecies, genomic dataset ever assembled to help manage regional biodiversity.”

• Just thought you should know: there’s a 3,500-page book about the thousands of North American apple varieties! Decidedly not a tiny book, but what a project.
  + I was just in Maine, and happened upon John Bunker’s book about that state’s many, many apples. It’s one of those odd self-published books that’s really a whole life’s work condensed between covers and treated with that kind of care. Highly recommended.

• If you’re in the East Bay, there’s a community-organized tour happening Saturday, August 26 from 1-4 pm. It’s called Temescal Open Edible Gardens and you can sign up here.

• OGC faves MiraFlores are having a one-year anniversary party on September 8.

• The tragedy in Hawaii was due, in part, to the introduction of invasive grasses and the abandonment of the sugar plantation economy, which has created vast tracts for the plants to grow. “Varieties like guinea grass, molasses grass and buffel grass — which originated in Africa and were introduced to Hawaii as livestock forage — now occupy nearly a quarter of Hawaii’s landmass,” wrote The New York Times. “Fast growing when it rains and drought resistant when lands are parched, such grasses are fueling wildfires across Hawaii.”
  + An academic assessment from a few years ago, which had already spelled out these risks: The Contemporary Scale and Context of Wildfire in Hawai‘i

• The Temple of Earth Apothecary in Oakland is raising some money for the “cooperative Afro-Indigenous herb shop, medicine garden and community healing space, selling locally grown bulk herbs, house-made herbal preparations and ritual goods.

• Since 2020, one-fifth of California’s sequoias have been killed by fire. Fascinating reporting on the question: Should we replant them?