Rule No.37 The whiter the bread, the sooner you’ll be dead.

The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.

In a way, the most morally troubling thing about killing chickens is that after a while it is no longer morally troubling.

Time is the missing ingredient in our recipes-and in our lives.

Most of the time pests and disease are just nature's way of telling the farmer he's doing something wrong.

Originally, the atoms of carbon from which we're made were floating in the air, part of a carbon dioxide molecule. The only way to recruit these carbon atoms for the molecules necessary to support life-the carbohydrates, amino acids, proteins, and lipids-is by means of photosynthesis. Using sunlight as a catalyst the green cells of plants combine carbon atoms taken from the air with water and elements drawn from the soil to form the simple organic compounds that stand at the base of every food chain. It is more than a figure of speech to say that plants create life out of thin air.

Yes, I very much like to have a personal stake in what I’m writing about.