Yes, Viron, and the trend to toward urban food production is more than mere hypothesis these days. I have been rolled out to co-speak at a (surreal) four events this week, in Eugene, devoted to urban food production. Monday night was focused on small grains and the challenges in-townies face in sourcing such foods locally. On Wednesday evening, two of the most-conscious neigborhoods in Eugene - and perhaps the country - both independently hosted presentations devoted to neighborhood food production. (Quite the serendipity, that.) On Saturday, a big event - part of our ongoing Eat Here Now series - is being given over to urban food production, and on Sunday, a seed-related event devoted to crop stewardship is planned.

With regard to the Sunday event, those of us actively engaged in stewardship of vegetable foodcrops at the bioregional level began, this year, parking 'isolation' growouts in gardens around town - including school gardens. After many years of trying to encourage this trend, it suddenly popped. My sense is urban gardeners will play a key role in serious varietal stewardship efforts in coming years. As one local farming sage told me some years ago, "the future of farming is in the hands of the gardeners." Which does rather suggest that as the trend toward the long-view deepens, HOS members will increasingly play a central role in the shift toward reinhabitory foodsheds.

On that note, the prospect of 'being swamped' by demand for knowhow does loom, doesn't it? An insight. Although we put out word in advance to Ross Penahalligon and the key network of experienced grafters in and around Eugene in support of the nursery-raising, none of them turned up at the event. In the end, we had one very experienced grafter (a good friend, non-HOS) turn up on the second day. I mugged my way through a very cursory introduction to grafting on the first morning but basically left it at that and the fire took, with newbies coming up to speed passing the flame along. Essentially, the entire exercise was pulled off by rank amateurs. Yes, of course, our percentage takes will be down, but I saw enough grafts to be confident that the newbies have done themselves proud. At first, I was surprised and a little disappointed that the universe saw fit to give us no hands-on support from the local HOSers, but I have come to regard what did unfold 'instead' as a useful, revealing example of how self-motivated newbies of noble hearted persuasion can pull off a bold fruit-related endeavor without having to be mommied by lotsa hands the whole way along. Which suggests to me that in the face of what I expect will be accelerating demand for the skill and experience surrounding fruit, it will nevertheless be possible for HOSers to significantly leverage our expertise in ways that honor our own deepest needs for support and sustainability, too. All told, then, I was very pleased indeed at the nature of our turn out.

Oh, by the by, I still haven't had a chance to count all the trees we put in around our community fruit-tree nursery (irrigation fine-tuning and clean up among my usual daily chores elsewhere getting in the way of that), but someone who walked the beds yesterday, counting, insists that my estimate of how many grafted trees and non-grafted rootstocks we planted was on the very conservative side. And the rootstock we didn't have room for I parked, with scion-for-grafting, at another in-town site last night.

The discussion on OG weed-control on over a thousand fruit trees is beginning!