Boston Flora

Tag: Slow Food USA

  • Slow Food USA and Seed Savers Exchange Partnership

    Slow Food USA’s 2024 Plant a Seed campaign will explore eight different roots and grains, and a partnership with Seed Savers Exchange and its ADAPT program will give gardeners the opportunity to build community and test out new seed varieties. This announcement came on December 5, on World Soil Day, an annual awareness day commemorated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Through educating the world about soil health, World Soil Day , this initiative emphasizes the vital connection between soil, human and planetary health.

    In 2024, Seed Savers Exchange, a nonprofit dedicated to gardeners growing heirloom seeds, will bring Slow Food USA growers into its ADAPT program, allowing Slow Food USA’s garden-loving network to engage in this community science initiative. Sorghum and carrots are among the 10 experiments Seed Savers Exchange has planned for 2024, to intersect with next year’s Plant a Seed campaign, and interested participants can sign up here until January 26, 2024. Participants of this program will trial varieties from the seed bank in their own gardens and send feedback on their performance. This information will help highlight the adaptability of these seeds in different environments and will guide the selection process for new introductions into the Seed Savers Exchange catalog.

  • John Forti Named Director of Horticulture and Education at Massachusetts Horticultural Society

    The Garden Club of the Back Bay was fortunate to have welcomed John Forti as a program speaker in 2013. The Massachusetts Horticultural Society is excited to announce that John Forti has been named the Director of Horticulture and Education, a major step in the implementation of its 10-year strategic plan.

    A nationally recognized lecturer, garden historian, ethnobotanist and garden writer, Forti comes from the Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, NH, where he created numerous award-winning gardens and educational programs in the role of the Curator of Historic Landscapes. He previously served as the Director of Horticulture at Plimoth Plantation Museum, where he created a gardens and seed program that brought international attention to the preservation of Pilgrim and Wampanoag heirloom crops.

    John founded and serves as the board chair for Slow Food Seacoast. He serves on the bio-diversity committee for Slow Food USA and recently represented the group as an international delegate among the 150 nations at the Terra Madre or “Farmers United Nations” in Italy. He is chair of the board for the Herb Society of America’s New England Unit, and won the 2014 Award for Excellence in Horticulture from the national office.

  • Thursday, April 14, 5:30 pm – Chasing Chiles: Hot Spots Along the Pepper Trail

    Chasing Chiles is both a rollicking travelogue from three guys on the hunt for authentic food and cultural experience and an adventure with a larger, sobering mission: to understand the effects of climate change by zeroing in on one critical crop and the people whose lives are most deeply intertwined with it. Chef Kurt Michael Friese is author of A Cook’s Journey: Slow Food in the Heartland and owner and founding chef of Devotay, a restaurant in Iowa City that is a community leader in local and sustainable cuisine. He is owner and publisher of Edible Iowa River Valley magazine, a board of directors member for Slow Food USA and the Iowa Food Systems Council, and a graduate and former chef-instructor at the New England Culinary Institute.

    Hear Kurt on Thursday, April 14 at Harvard University, Sever 213.  Free and open to the public.  For a campus map, log on to www.harvard.edu.