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The WFG Plant Guide provides
growing information for each
plant, including climate needs,
days to maturity, plant care,
photos, and even planting
dates for your area!
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World Food Garden Glossary
Biodiversity
The variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome or for the entire Earth. Biodiversity is often used as a measure of the health of biological systems. |
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Biointensive
The biointensive method is an organic agricultural system which focuses on maximum yields from the minimum area of land, while simultaneously improving the soil. The goal of the method is long term sustainability on a closed system basis. It has also been used successfully on small scale commercial farms. |
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Heirloom Seed
Any seed handed down generation to generation and generally passed among individuals rather than sold in catalogs.
Some people grow heirlooms for historical interest, while others want to increase the available gene pool for a particular plant for future generations. Some select heirloom plants due to an interest in traditional organic gardening. Many simply want to taste the different varieties of vegetables, or see if they can grow a rare variety of plant. |
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Hybrid Seeds
In agriculture and gardening, hybrid seed is seed produced by artificially cross-pollinated plants. Hybrids are bred to improve the characteristics of the resulting plants, such as better yield, greater uniformity, improved color, disease resistance, and so forth. Today, hybrid seed is predominant in agriculture and home gardening, and is one of the main contributing factors to the dramatic rise in agricultural output during the last half of the 20th century. In the US, the commercial market was launched in the 1920s, with the first hybrid maize. Hybrid seed cannot be saved, as the seed from the first generation of hybrid plants does not reliably produce true copies, therefore, new seed must be purchased for each planting. |
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Locavore
A locavore is someone who eats food grown or produced locally or within a certain radius such as 50, 100, or 150 miles. |
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Open Pollinated
Open pollination is pollination by insects, birds, wind, or other natural mechanisms. Open pollination increases biodiversity. |
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Permaculture
Permaculture is a broad-based and holistic approach that has many applications to all aspects of life. At the heart of permaculture design and practice is a fundamental set of core values or ethics which remain constant whatever a person's situation, whether they are creating systems for town planning or trade whether the land they care for is only a windowbox or an entire forest. These 'ethics' are often summarised as
Earthcare recognizing that the Earth is the source of all life (and is possibly itself a living entity- see Gaia theory) and that we recognize and respect that the Earth is our valuable home and we are a part of the Earth, not apart from it.
Peoplecare supporting and helping each other to change to ways of living that are not harming ourselves or the planet, and to develop healthy societies.
Fairshare (or placing limits on consumption) - ensuring that the Earth's limited resources are utilized in ways that are equitable and wise.
Modern thought about permaculture began with the issue of sustainable food production. It started with the belief that for people to feed themselves sustainably they need to move away from reliance on industrialized agriculture. Where industrial farms use technology powered by fossil fuels (such as gasoline, diesel and natural gas), and each farm specializes in producing high yields of a single crop, permaculture stresses the value of low inputs and diverse crops. The model for this was an abundance of small scale market and home gardens for food production, and a main issue was food miles. |
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