pendragon orchard and vine

It’s the classic social-media reflex: someone posts a leaf with a wrinkle, and five seconds later a stranger hollers leaf curl! as if pronouncing a curse.

Before sunrise, I walk the wind-cut rows of my winter garden on Orcas, gathering lettuce, kale, and collards for breakfast. As frost clings to the leaves, I’m reminded of my grandfather’s wartime garden—how his acre kept neighbors alive when winter meant scarcity, not inconvenience. That memory becomes a doorway into older worlds where people survived the cold without refrigerators, grocery stores, or modern rescue.

The first act of cultivation is not planting — it’s inquiry. Test the soil. Read its chemistry and its silence. Some soils are burdened — with metals, residues, or exhaustion from years of extraction. Others are simply asleep, waiting to be woken. You must know which you have before asking it to feed you.

America’s biggest crop isn’t corn or wheat. It’s grass — and it’s complicit in cooking the planet. Here’s how we fix it without killing the lawn.