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  • From: "Robert Waldrop" <rmwj@soonernet.com>
  • To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] What our local weekly newspaper had to say about us
  • Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2002 18:45:00 -0500

This article, about the launching of our local food system publication
and our urban permaculture efforts, was in today's Oklahoma Gazette,
"OKC's independent weekly", which is distributed free at entertainment
places, restaurants, bookstores, etc. Part of it is online at
http://www.okgazette.com/ , click on the current issue and then you'll
see the article. Only part of it is online, all of it is below. They
have 2 pictures in the print edition, 1 on the website. Robert
Waldrop, OKC

THINK GLOBALLY, EAT LOCALLY
Homegrown ideas are one man's answer on how to eat better for less
By Shauna Lawyer Struby

Margaret Tidwell of Eufala sells elderberry plants. Eckroat Seed Co.
in Oklahoma City offers Oklahoma grown vegetable seeds. Pepper Creek
Farms in Lawton specializes in turning fresh local products into
pepper jellies, relishes, pickles and salsa. And you can find all of
these people and companies and their contact information in Robert
Waldrop's recently published "Oklahoma Food Guide," a publication
focusing on what's natural, organic, local, and sustainable in the
food world of Oklahoma.

In Waldrop's mind, for a number of reasons and in a variety of ways,
local and homegrown food is best. So, in 1997, Waldrop began
compiling a wealth of homegrown wisdom into a publication he calls
Better Times, a newsletter he bills as "an occasional almanac of
useful information about simple, sustainable, and frugal living", with
information culled from a variety of resources, including his own
personal experiences.

"One of the things about the agribusiness food system is that really
the quality is not that good. People go,' Oh well, it takes OK' or
'it tastes fine', but, you know, no one can convince me that a
McDonald's hamburger today is the same thing as a McDonald's hamburger
35 years ago, because I just won't believe it. It still may be
technically made of the same things, cheese, sauce, and all that kind
of stuff. But the McDonald's Corporation has worked very diligently
over the years to reduce the cost of their ingredients and it's just
not the same as it used to be," Waldrop said.

Growing up on a farm in Frederick, Waldrop, who works as the director
of music at Epiphany of the Lord Catholic Church in Oklahoma City,
will be 50 in November. He is a proponent of simple living an refers
to himself as an urban hobbit. Waldrop also laughingly receounts that
some compare him to "John the Baptist," amoniker he attributes to his
long beard and outspoken nature.

Waldrop's food guide is based on a similar publication he saw while
living in Kansas City, and lists sources for natural, local, organic,
and sustainable food in Oklahoma. Sprinkled among the lists are
articles on why eating local makes sense, how to buy meat direct from
a farmer or rancher, growing your own fruits and vegetables, and
composting. It also has Oklahoma's farmer's markets, custom butchers,
natural bakeries, farms and ranches that sell natural or organic beef,
vegetables, fruits and herbs. Both Better Times ahd the Oklahoma Food
Guide are found online at www.bettertimesinfo.org and
www.oklahomafood.org respectively.

Whether online or in hard copy, Waldrop's practical wisdom and win and
a nod humor is displayed in a quirky mix of philosophies and quotes
from the Bible to authors like J.R.R. Tolkien and G.K. Chesterton. A
healthy portion of hs own musings and progress in converting his yard
from gras to an edible Eden accopmany the spry Better Times.

At his modest home in Oklahoma City's historic Gatewood neighborhood,
Waldrop has planted more than 105 edible varieties of vegetables,
fruits, herbs, and plants in his front and side yards, a project he's
been working on for four years. A small backyard serves as a haven
for his two dogs and a sheltered space for cultivating an essential
ingredient to his urban greenery: the compost heap.

To demonstrate the diversity found in his gardens and his assertion
that "fresh is best", Waldrop presented a salad made from at least 10
different plants, including daylily flower petals, salad burnett,
lovage , and French sorrel. Waldrop bases his edible yard on the
concept of permaculture, whose principles focus on thoughtful, small
scale design systems that are labor efficient and use biological
resources instead of fossil fuels. Permaculture stresses ecological
connections and closed energy and material loops, and is not limited
to gardens; it can be applied to community development, architecture,
and agriculture.

The core of permaculture is based on design and the working
relationships and connections beweenall things, which is why 67 of the
105 plants in Waldrop's yard are perennials, plants that, once
established, will continue to grow and reseed on their own, usually
without intensive maintenance. You will find vegetables, herbs, and
fruits planted next to each other in Waldrop's garden beds.

"Plants have multiple purposes," Waldrop said, pointing out that
blackeyed peas fix nitrogen in the soil and some herbs are known for
keeping pests at bay. He encourages sowing beds with a variety of
plant species and using local nurseries and Oklahoma seedlings to stem
loss. Waldrop said most of his failures have come from species he
ordered from out of state catalogs, whose plants are not bred or
acclimated to Oklahoma's climate.

Waldrop further demonstrated the diversity of his garden with a
homemade mulberry cobbler baked in a small, cast iron skillet. The
mulberries were picked a mere two hours before serving. Two helpings
later, Waldrop's "fresh is best" notion seems like divine inspiration.

Whether divinely inspired or merely a master at collecting,
networking, and disseminating useful information, Waldrop plans to
continue updating his web site as new information becomes available
and documentating what he hopes is a groundswell movement in food, to
have a direct connection between food producer and consumer, whether
that be food produced at home or by farmers. Because of his childhood
on the farm, he's passionately supportive of small, local farmers,
farmers who only get 9 cents of evry grocery dollar spent by
consumers, and sees such efforts as vital to their survival.

"My vision is that Oklahoma City would get most of its food from the
surrounding area, and that it would be characterized by a dominance of
direct relationships between farmers and eaters and that would be a
real revolution. I don't propose any legislation or forcing anybody
to do anything they don't want. I'm not anti grocery industry. I think
the grocery i ndustry is willing to sell us whatever we want to buy.
But if in fact there would begin to be a movement toward local
processing and local producing, the grocery stores would figure out a
way to deal with that and accomodate that. I still hope that we'll
have a lot more direct relationships with farmers."

Gazette Media, Inc. © 1999-2001, All Rights
Reserved






  • [permaculture] What our local weekly newspaper had to say about us, Robert Waldrop, 06/06/2002

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