Living Soil Gardening

There has been lots of talk, in regenerative agriculture, about syntropic agroforestry. When I first wrote this post, there was very little written or video material in English for those who wanted a systematic description of the basic concepts and underlying…

Friends, Here we are again, a few days late. September went by with a few downpours followed by a long dry spell. The high daytime temperatures are giving way to a pleasant autumn warmth, with nights here dropping to 8°C. After weeks of constant, aggressive at…

Friends, We meet again on the far side of August, when in theory the air should be cooler and the soil damper. I hope that’s how it is where you are. Here in Florence the rain finally gave us the relief we had been waiting for after a scorching, drought-ridden…

This video was shot in the early hours of the morning, a few days ago. This is OrtoForesta, an agroforestry market garden in Florence, Italy. Our journey here started 3 and a half years ago, in February 2023. This was little more than a parking lot full of rub…

On 17 June 2026 the European Parliament gave final approval, at second reading (431 to 201, with 29 abstentions), to the regulation on New Genomic Techniques — NGTs, or in Italy TEA, tecniche di evoluzione assistita, “assisted evolution”. Whenever something li…

When syntropic agriculture arrived in Europe, it took on a very specific form, codified around a course that Ernst Götsch taught in São Paulo, Brazil, about a decade ago. Speaking to an audience of non-specialists, Ernst showed how one could plant all the stag…

It's mid-May, at last the night temperatures stop dropping below ten degrees and the garden lets out a long sigh of relief. Spring, around here, always arrives late and a little reluctantly, and by the time it does it already has one foot in summer. It feels l…

Four landscapes. Four continents. Tell me that you got everything you want. There is a huge chunk of poetry that is only accessible on a grey morning, on a diet of Youtube videos and almond butter. Tell me that you’ve heard every sound there is. I look around…