Groundwork Blog

How can we create a sustainable relationship with the land? Nikki Hill and Kelly Moody are both teachers for Groundwork’s field courses studying ecology, botany, and human-landscape relationships in Colorado. Kelly is also the force behind the Ground Shots Podcast, interviewing all kinds of people who work with plants and ecosystems. The core question this conversation orbits around is this: how can we build a sustainable relationship with the Earth, rather than substituting one kind of over-consumptive culture for another? This interview with Nikki comes from […]

Continue reading >>

I applied for this fellowship because… I want to create meaningful change toward a socially and environmentally just future. There are many, many ways to do this and I’m still trying to find my place in the movement, but over the last year I’ve grown especially curious in how local and organic farming can embody that future. I learned about Groundwork through its ties to Pun Pun, an organic farm and seed saving center I was volunteering at in Thailand, and applied because of the […]

Continue reading >>

How are great open-pollinated vegetable varieties created? Through years of careful tending, a certain amount of cross-pollination, and careful selection for the plants that thrive. Our friends at Wild Mountain Seeds in Carbondale, Colorado, bred the Sunfired Flare tomato. They often work with a plant breeding method known as “grex gardening”. Last month, we shared a little about carefully-controlled F1 hybrid breeding. Grex gardening is the other end of the spectrum from industrial F1 hybrids. “Grex” is Latin for “flock”, and refers to a population of plants that will […]

Continue reading >>

This March, I took a willow basket weaving workshop with Jeff Wagner from Groundwork. Let’s just say, it was a humbling experience! Working with wild materials involves significant preparation. Our willows, harvested by Jeff in early winter, were dried for three months before being rehydrated for weaving. We were learning a European stake and strand style. Jeff is the executive director of Groundwork, a Western Slope non-profit that believes environmental problems stem from cultural issues. Their solution? Place-based education that fosters a shift in perspective […]

Continue reading >>

I applied for this fellowship because… I applied for this fellowship because I have been seeking to understand and work towards a vision of the world that inspires me. I have ever-changing ideas of what this future could look like: It always includes community, a close relationship to the food we’re growing, vulnerability, and personal responsibility. I often ask myself if some version of this future is possible in our polarized and disconnected culture where these values hold such little importance. How do we get […]

Continue reading >>

For my “summer vacation” this year, I spent about a week on the traditional lands of the Ute communities now known as Grand Mesa National Forest in Colorado. The pull to meet the Mesa was strong. Many of us traveled from afar (some as far as Southern England). We were pulled because we had an insatiable curiosity about land relationships on top of the world’s largest Mesa. Having a bit of fear of being an animal on a mountain is healthy. I had this fear […]

Continue reading >>

Listen Now In several conversations recently, this interview has come up as a foundational piece of inspiration for activists, educators,. So this month, we’re featuring Joanna Macy’s first appearance on the On Being podcast: “A Wild Love For The World“. Joanna Macy has lived a varied life: she is a translator of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, worked for the CIA and the Peace Corps, worked alongside the Dalai Lama when he was first exiled to India, and was a foundational force for the environmental […]

Continue reading >>

Groundwork began in 2019 as a collection of Bite-Sized Books that had the goal of contributing to more expansive, holistic, and creative conversations about addressing environmental issues. With encouragement from friends, I (Jeff) am returning to writing and publishing on a regular basis. In the next few weeks, watch for the first release of The Winnowing Tray. You may ask, what’s a winnowing tray? It’s a type of flattish basket used all around the world to winnow seeds, separating the viable seeds from chaff, dust, […]

Continue reading >>

This month, we bring you the story of a mustard defying the odds: Bekana mustard! This mustard has everything. Fast-growing. Beautiful. Mild flavor to eat raw in salads. Crunchy stems to cook like bok choi. What could go wrong with this plant? Truelove Seeds describes the history of these seeds: “Japanese soldiers returned home with Chinese cabbage seeds after the Russo-Japanese war in the turn of the 20th Century. Bekana (often called Tokyo Bekana) is believed to be a selection from these early Chinese cabbages, […]

Continue reading >>

In spring of 2023, Groundwork sponsored the Lithium Lands Fellowship, a month-long immersion field study to document the flora within Jindalee Resources of Australia’s proposed McDermitt Lithium Project site, with a focus on culturally important plants (CIP). CIP are plants traditionally used for food and crafts by Indigenous people. The relative density of these plants in a landscape often point towards ancestral human kinship, as well as current use and significance for local tribes. The fellowship project was motivated by threats to the site from […]

Continue reading >>