Growing under glass.

Posted by dave - 31/08/10 at 10:08:16 pm

I’ve been very lucky this year to have not one but three growing spaces – a part of a garden share, the minuscule front (mostly gravelled) garden and back balcony of the maisonette we currently renting (and trying to leave asap) and finally a new growing experience for me, a huge horticultural sized greenhouse.

The greenhouse started off as a project taken up by ex-students on the sustainablee horticulture course I took last academic year.  Unfortunately work commitments, holidays, family and all the other pressures of life meant out of the original ten that were interested only a handful of us were able to keep it going.  Now that handful has dwindled again and the mainstay of the work has fallen on just me and my girlfriend, Ellie. People do come and water now and again and we’ve made a deal that whoever waters can take what they want home from the greenhouse.   This seems the fairest option and a way that the absolute bounty that leaves this enormous glasshouse doesn’t get wasted.

The thing is people just don’t come to water enough, therefore don’t take a share in the harvest and it just keeps producing and producing!  Someone kept chickens in there before we got it and the rich soil mixed with growing under glass has meant we’ve had a tropical allotment on our hands.  It’s been absolutely fantastic and I’ve been able to experiment with growing things I just couldn’t outdoors – we’ve had melons, kiwanos (a cucumber-melon cross with big spikes over it), aubergines, cucumbers, yard-long beans, tree tomatoes, Japanese yams (although I should have really planted these outdoors) and tomatoes by the barrel load.

What’s more I’ve managed to realise my Mayan farming dreams and grow squash, beans and corn together – and it’s worked!!  Usually the beans haven’t grown tall enough and didn’t produce any beans or else they’ve grown too tall and swamped the corn. However, this time all three have thrived and some stray South American weeds (in the form of Amaranth) have even found their way in almost as if to add to the authentic Mexican feel.

We’re not letting anything go to waste and have been giving stuff away or preserving like mad, it’s getting to the stage where we have jars and bottles of food under the bed, under the wardrobe, in the meter cupboard, just about anywhere it will go!  The fridge is constantly heaving and the tiny freezer compartment is next to useless – it just seems to turn ice-cream into runny sweet cold soup before encasing it in a block of ice!  Tonight I think we’re going to make some ketchup and perhaps some cucumber relish  but once it is in bottles then we’ll have to find a new spot for it – perhaps behind some of the books in the book case, there’s still a couple of inches left on those shelves!!

Side-tracked (contains strong language- I did warn you!)

Posted by dave - 25/08/10 at 09:08:40 am

From time to time working in front of a computer, doing something creative, your mind starts to wander.   It’s very difficult to stick with the job in hand 24/7.  Douglass Adams famously used to have to be locked in a hotel room to write and Dylan Thomas was locked in his shed.  I can’t compare myself to either of these giants but I get locked in the second ‘bedroom’ of my tiny flat and ordered to get on with it from my girlfriend.

The trouble is even then, even knowing my time is limited my mind can wander and I can get a little side-tracked.

For my last book ‘The Self-Sufficientish Bible’ I ended up forming a German Techno Band called Vontergarten – regular visitors to the site would no doubt be bored of hearing about this but for the rest of you here’s a taster or why not see our cover of Walking on Sunshine

I’ve not got the time to do anything quite that extravagant this time round but I did come up with the premise of a novel, a few nonsense poems and a gangsta rap about taking cuttings – that’s where the bad language comes in.

First a poem –

Seagulls

Caw, Caw, Caw

Like a primeval call

Caw, Caw, Caw

Ripping me right to the core

Big beak, no sense, beady eyes

A tiny brain

Piercing my thoughts

Interrupting its train

If only their sound

Didn’t make me forget what I was going to bloody write next!

And on a bit more of an existential level

All One

What if there is no past and no present only now?

and if there is no me,

no self,

no when,

where,

what or who

Then who is writing this?

And when are they writing it?

And can I get them to stop?

Is there a them?

Is there a stop?

There is no past

so it never started,

You are at line one

and at the end

but there is no line one

and no end

they are the same.

You didn’t read this,

yet you read it many times.

You are this

and you are nothing at all

Is it even raining?

And finally the bit of bad language, the rap about taking hardwood cuttings.

Gangsta cuttin’

All you mother fucking ho’s yo here me now!

I’m the mother fucker who’ll show you how

To make da fringes of your plot incredible

By planting all da shit dat is edible

Berries and cherries is what I’m discussin’

Propagate da fuckers from a hardwood cuttin’

Just cut to a bud stick it in da earth

You’ll see dat mother fucker sprout up from da turf

Gettin’ me plants for free

I’m bustin’ my rhymes

Gettin’ me plants for free

Take dat cutting in da autumn time

Writing a book

Posted by dave - 11/08/10 at 09:08:53 am

I briefly mentioned in an earlier blog that I am currently writing a new book.  This means I spend hours looking out from my tiny window, in my tiny back room at a huge tree blocking out most of the view.  I talk to myself, I pace, I avoid seeing friends just on the off-chance I might be inspired and some days I write. I’ve an agreement with my publisher that I’d send her the book in sections as, the deadline seemed so far in the future that I found I lacked the drive to get anything done. I came up with this poem to describe the last few months -

The cursor blinks on an empty page

Nothing is flowing but inner rage

And just as I’m giving into despair

I play another game of solitaire.

So with the first deadline looming next week the pressure is on, so much so that I will celebrate my birthday on Friday by writing all day.   I’m gripped with a sense of dull anxiety all the time, the sense that there is always something to do, mainly because there is!

Still the book is now getting written; it’s shaping up and looking good. I’m nearly half way through the minimum word count the publishers want (I’ve done 20 000 of a possible 40 000 words) and it looks like I’ve got a lot more in me.  What’s more it’s looking like it might be a rare thing, a funny gardening book.  I’ve tried to write with the thought of a placating a really grumpy, know it all reader. This might sound like a strange thing to do but having a negative inner dialogue makes for quite positive sounding work.  I imagine someone reading it back thinking a rather less watered down version of, ‘that’s not right, what an idiot’, this makes me tinker with the words in such a way to render this inner critic silent.  It makes the writing process a little painful and I’m sure anyone reading this in the mental health profession would see that as an incredibly unhealthy way to work but, it does seem to get the words on the page.

It’s also written with a mix of speaking to experienced and complete novice gardeners in mind.  I try to be simplistic without being patronising, a difficult balance but hopefully it works.

The book is provisionally titled ‘How to grow your food for free …well almost’ and covers everything in the fruit and vegetable garden from shed building to cheap/free potting compost.  If anyone wants to share ways of saving money and/or recycling in the vegetable garden then I’d like to hear from you.  I’ve covered a lot of things but it never hurts to hear more, it might just be something I’ve not thought about!

Review – Creating a Forest Garden by Martin Crawford

Posted by dave - 11/06/10 at 11:06:33 am

A lot of gardening and horticultural books can fall into two categories, thick impenetrable texts or ‘coffee table’ books with more style than substance.  Thankfully Martin’s book takes positive aspects of both without falling into either category. It is visually very stunning with beautiful photography and illustrations, accompanying very informative and well constructed text.

It should appeal to anyone with a keen interest in edible and useful plants, be it foragers, allotment holders, professional gardeners or just those who would like to add a bit of variety to their garden.

Some of the plants he describes throughout the book (over 500 in total!) might at present be considered a little unusual or even wacky.  However, if we consider it wasn’t that long ago when bell-peppers were seen as an exotic vegetable and garlic was described as having such a fiery taste we should only use it sparingly, then perhaps some of the food plants mentioned will become more common place on our kitchen tables.

My only criticism of the book is the ideas for preparing the plants to eat can be somewhat limited at times, mainly suggesting salads or stir-fries. However this is my ONLY criticism and after all it is not a cook book, it’s a horticulture book. Having said that, for foodies it is a good starting point to find out new things to eat – cross-referencing with Alan Davidson’s ‘Oxford Companion to Food’ and the internet will provide many culinary ideas for the plants described.

There’s no doubt that in the coming years as the twin problems of peak oil and climate change start to shape our nation there will be a shift in the way we view our gardens, the way food is grown and our choices of food.  I don’t think forest gardening alone will combat all these problems but I can see it playing a more important role in our food production.  In view of this I can see Martin’s book becoming as much of a classic as John Seymour’s did in the 1970’s.

Creating a Forest Garden – Working with nature to produce edible crops is published by Green Books and available in all the usual places or direct from their website.

Not having a car

Posted by dave - 26/04/10 at 12:04:44 pm

I’ve never learned to drive, I had a go once back in 2004 but after crashing into a tree and nearly turning a car over I realised, it wasn’t really for me. I was never that keen before I found I was such a dangerous driver, the cost both environmentally and financially always seemed to out weigh any benefits. My costs for a year on public transport are anything between £500 and £1000 depending on how much traveling I have to do. It’s come down since I’ve move to Devon as surprisingly everything is now on my doorstep (publishers, foraging territory, places to go walking). I’ve heard that to keep a car it is around £6000 a year, which is at least 6 times the most I’ll ever spend and about what I live off for an entire year!

I could go on about the environmental impact of the car but I think it is obvious what a few million machines spewing out noxious gas can do to the environment and besides that’s not really the point of my blog today, my point is I’ve always made do without one.

For short journeys I walk or cycle and for longer journeys I’ll either get the bus or the train. If I want to transport something I have to either ask a willing friend or make do.

Recently there has been a lack of willing friends so I’ve had to make do. This meant I traveled on the train or walked with a large array of gardening equipment.

A couple of months ago I traveled from Totnes to Reading, in the process making myself known to the guard on duty that day. In the morning he helped me look for my great aunt, who was traveling in from East Grinstead in her Nun’s habit (as she is a Nun). Then in the early evening I traveled back wearing a suit and pulling a garden shredder. As the train pulled into Totnes I got talking to one of the passengers who now lets me use her back garden as an allotment. If I had driven this chance meeting may never have happened and I wouldn’t have an outdoor area to grow in this year.

Fast forward a few weeks and I’ve pushed a lawnmower from Totnes tip to the far side of town, carried bags of potting compost on my back, like a medieval peasant carrying grain, and recently I traveled from Bristol to Totnes with a wheelbarrow and some garden tools.

If you’ve never taken anything unusual on the train with you I would highly recommend it for nothing more than the other passengers reaction. I couldn’t help but think their bemoan of ‘who brings a wheelbarrow on a train?’ may as well of been, ‘who brings a dead body on a train?’ for the venom in some of their reactions. It’s a mixture of horror and wonder, you’re seen as some kind of underclass for the sheer audacity of wanting to transport a piece of metal from one town to the other. I heard whispers of ‘that’s the **** who took the wheelbarrow on the train’, muffled laughter and even disgust. My usually thin skin had to thicken for the journey as I buried my head into a book trying to avoid eye contact with the other passengers.

On the upside the hills of Devon combined with my lack of motorised transport mean not only have I lost the extra stone in weight I put on over my biscuit fuelled winter I’ve also managed to quit smoking. Cycling up a steep country lane whilst smoking nearly gave me an asthma attack so my only option was to either quit or spend a life indoors.

So there are down sides and up to not having a car, there are certain things I simply can’t do but as I’ve never really driven I don’t miss any of them. I think we as humans adapt to any situation we are in and despite this being a very much car dominated society there are alternatives.

A tour of Martin Crawford’s Forest Garden

Posted by dave - 09/04/10 at 11:04:04 am

Okay, okay so I haven’t posted a blog for sometime now, I seem to have been locked into the situation of ‘time poor and cash poor’. For the last six months or more, I’ve been a student again on a sustainable horticulture course run by the Duchy college in Schumacher College, Dartington.  It’s only three days a week but working just 2 to 4 days doesn’t really bring in the bacon (or tofu in my case).

It’s come as a shock to some people that I’ve decided to go back to study and many have asked, ’surely you know it all already?’, to be honest a lot of it I do. However it’s teaching me above and beyond what I already know and it means I can talk to other gardeners in their own language, Latin.

The other day this new found knowledge was put to the test after a trip to Martin Crawford’s forest garden. I’d been invited by my new publisher, Green Books (more about that in a later blog) for his book launch. I’d been particularly looking forward to this as my classroom (dubbed the chicken shed as it has the dubious claim of being the worlds first battery chicken shed!!!) has been over-looking his garden for the last half a year. During that time we’ve all seen Martin come and go but he is a man of few words at the best of times. The only real exchange I’ve managed with him save the odd hello is ‘the weather’s cleared up’ to which he replied ‘yes’.

I was the first to arrive and I began to flex my botanical knowledge by chatting to him about his Rubus tricolor, more commonly known as a creeping bramble. To some it’s a great ground cover to others it’s an environmental nightmare, one of the only plants which will out compete our native bramble.

Not long into this botanical chat we both heard the clatter of voices and I popped my head over the fence to see what looked like crowd leaving a football match on a Saturday afternoon, albeit a well mannered middle aged crowd.

Quite soon I realised I would be in good company as just about every author on my Amazon wish list turned up at Martin’s gate. I instantly recognised Ben Law (The Woodland Way, The Woodland Year and The Woodland House) and Patrick Whitefield (Earth Care Manual, Permaculture in a Nutshell). Then a jeans and suit jacketed, shaggy hair man gave me a beaming grin and said how much he’d like my book. His name badge read John Paul-Flintoff and I knew I recognised his name and face from somewhere but I couldn’t place him.

Amongst them was the rather quieter Sue Stickland (RHS Organic gardening, Seed Saving and many, many more) who I didn’t recognise at first but looked up later, guardian blogger Joanne Brannan and of course Amanda and Bee from Green Books. There were more but I didn’t really get a chance to talk to them. I’m not the sort of person who ‘networks’, I’m just a bit shy when it comes to barging your way into conversations merely for one’s own ends. It all seems a bit opportunistic and I don’t think really give the recipient much respect.

The tour went on with Martin going through his vast array of unusual plants. I must admit, amongst these gardening and permaculture heavyweights I became a little mute despite really wanting to ask questions. I did muster up a couple of enquiries but as the words left my mouth it became apparent that my articulate mouth had been left at home and my twat mouth had decided to come out for the day. The tour was both inspiring and disappointing. It was utterly inspiring to see what could be made of such a small space and how much study must have gone into each plant. The disappointment was not really the fault of Martin, but the weather; the hard winter and late frost had meant very little was up in the garden and it seemed as if we were walking round a plot waiting to spring to life.

Our surly bus driver then took us to the Riverford cafe where we were given a fantastic two course meal. I’d been meaning to go and eat there for a while now but recently I have found myself spending all my available money on luxuries like food, rent and bills. I chatted to those around me including Joanne Brannan who it turned out wrote for exactly the same magazines as me, Country Small Holder and Grow it! She was very down to earth and explained to me how she’d taken on a back breaking enterprise of converting a 12 acre piece of agricultural land into a low carbon market garden.

Over lunch, I eventually asked John-Paul Flintoff where I recognised him from and he very casually said ‘Oh I write a little for the Times’. I nodded and remained composed making a mental note that I should start to read the odd newspaper once in a while. He seemed like a very pleasant guy and gave me a recipe of Mahonia berry jam made with jasmine flowers and beetroot juice.

Then onto the last part of the afternoon, Martin’s tree plantation. We were all chatting quite contentedly with each other as the mini-bus sat with it’s engine idling waiting for the signal for us to step aboard. This tried the patience of the driver no end and he shook his head and very audibly sighed as we boarded the bus. I often wonder why on earth people with no real social niceties end up in such sociable jobs. This man would probably tut if he had Ghandi, Mother Teresa and Jesus on his bus.

He showed us round the bare trees explaining their virtues which were indeed impressive but I couldn’t help but think they would be more so when some of them actually had leaves on them.

After standing next to some bare hazel twigs he talked us through the rather amazing ‘Nut Wizard’. This invention allows you to pick up nuts simply by running the device across the woodland floor (see picture). The crowd were aghast with this invention and it would seem I was not the only nut lover in the party.

Martin talked us through a rather amazing tree which grew long strings of nuts called ‘heart nuts’. He described them as a more pleasant walnut and explained how the tree grew at break neck speeds.

The tree and nut are both very popular in Japan and American and despite the climate being perfect over here they are yet to catch on…

…yet!

Our day ended with the bus driver lingering around looking at his watch and glaring at us all, no doubt as we were five minutes into HIS time.

I felt honoured to get the invite to Martin’s Garden and that honour didn’t wane throughout the day. The amount of study and work he has put in, breeding plants and trees and trialling new crops in this uncharted territory is breath taking. Martin should remain an inspiration to plants-men, foodies and gardeners alike as he pushes forward with what could be our best hope for food security in the future.

Martin’s book ‘Creating a forest garden’ is available through Green Books (full review coming soon).

Book Review – The Economical Environmentalist

Posted by dave - 08/01/10 at 03:01:08 pm

Prashant Vaze’s book the Economical Environmentalist is one of the best books of it’s kind.  He leaves no stone unturned and scrutinizes every aspect of his life in order to lower his carbon footprint.

He comes at the subject from quite a different angle as many of the recent trend of ‘have a go’ journalist who begin knowing absolutely nothing about climate change or so called ‘green’ living in general. Having worked for (amongst other things) the UK’s office on climate change and on the board of the Energy Savings Trust he approaches the subject from a level of expertise not normally associated with books of this kind.

For example rather than insist we buy local he looks at the difference between tomatoes grown in artificially lit and heated UK greenhouses and Spanish grown one’s under natural sunlight.  Even if we include the impact of  shipping the result can be quite surprising!  Perhaps the answer isn’t always UK, organic or local but we have to include seasonal also?

He also recognizes that we need to make profound changes in our lifestyles if we stand any hope of getting through the next few decades unscathed.

His book is a real eye opener and although he does go into quite detailed science at times he does so in a way that makes it accessible even to the most unscientifically minded.

The book is jam packed with tables and graphs the book can be dipped into or read from cover to cover.

An excellent read and one that comes highly recommended.

Bollocks to the environment

Posted by dave - 04/01/10 at 09:01:19 pm

I’ve made a decision this year on the advice of a old friend to just say bollocks to, not only the environment,but also to the way of life I’ve been used to.   He quite rightly pointed out that there really is no need for me to carry on doing what I’m doing and I would be much better off if I did something else.

I have a drawn up a 11 point plan to get me started.

1. Bin My Energy Saving Bulbs – It will be good getting back to the good old fashion type, they’re a lot brighter and cheaper to put in.
2. Stop Recycling – I’ll just bin all my plastic, paper, cardboard, glass, garden and kitchen waste. Not separating these out should save me at least 2 minutes a day.
3. Buy a wide-screen TV – One the same size as my living room wall, the biggest I can get with as many channels as humanly possible.
4. Stop walking – I tend to take at least one or  two walks a day, especially in the summer but instead I’ll get my exercise in front of a Wii wired up to my wall sized TV.
5. Stop growing my own and stop foraging – From now on all my food will come via a supermarket delivery service.  This also means I can spend more time playing on the Wii or watching TV. It will mean I no longer have to wait for the right season for my food, I can enjoy it all year round.
6. Bin the bike – I’ll learn to drive and get a car. It will be handy for those short trips to the shops.
7. Fly more – Perhaps I’ll fly to see my sister in Brussels next time I see her rather than get the Eurostar. She does live much nearer the train station than the airport but isn’t that what taxi’s were made for?  I’ll also try and squeeze in around 2-3 long haul flights a year, some of those resorts you don’t have to leave all week sound nice.
8. Turn the heating up – It can get cold in my house and there is no reason I should not be able to walk around my house in just my underpants in the middle of winter!
9. Start shopping for fun – I don’t have nearly enough things, I mean I only own 2 DVD’s for christ sake, how have I survived all year I must be in an entertainment deficit, I don’t even own a box set of anything!!!
10. Get a 9-5 job – This change in life-style doesn’t come cheap so I’ll have to give up my studies and get a full time job. I could get a job in a bank or go back to office temping, I did really enjoy my old job as a data entry clerk.
11. Take some medication – I might get a little down at first, this is inevitable when undertaking such a change in lifestyle.  I hear Seroxat is good for that kind of thing and it   has very little side-effects. Failing that, I’ll just drink heavily.

A Short Collection of Stephen Stranger’s Poetry

Posted by dave - 12/12/09 at 12:12:05 pm

I’ve not had time to blog on trusty old Self-Sufficientish recently but I have a new wild food blog at http://www.popupforages.com/

So for a treat (or not) here are a few poems penned by Stephen Stranger back in 2007.

Cakes and Biscuits

It’s a large biscuit
But could be a cake
I don’t like cake
Biscuits are different
Thugs of the confectionary world
Dipping and dunking
They like things hot
A cake is a wimp
It will crumble at the first sign of trouble
Cakes are soft
Biscuits are hard
But they can break at any moment

Coffee for one

Coffee for one
I don’t drink coffee
Coffee for two
Is there any tea?
Just futility

Ducks are Dangerous

Ducks are dangerous,
Their little beaks can hurt you,
Not just physically
They seem innocent swimming in ponds
But keep an eye on the duck behind you

Ducks are dangerous,
They’re thieves with feathers
They won’t steal things from you
But you will notice something’s missing
When you’ve been near a duck

Ducks are dangerous
But geese are worse
Addicts of the bird world
They’ll take a drink without asking
Sometimes tea but they like a hard drink

It is often the last thing you expect
Out on walk in the country
A Muscovy duck is the worst
Not quite a duck or a goose
Steal its eggs, it won’t like it

The Sea weed

The sand was wet, the sea weed

2012 and all that

Posted by dave - 11/11/09 at 10:11:46 am

Not wanting to fuel the flames of an already existing viral marketing fire, tomorrow marks the release of the film 2012. It’s by the makers of Independence Day and The Day after Tomorrow, so as you can imagine this is no low budget, indie flick promoting low carbon living in the near future.

Instead 2012 follows the supposed Mayan Prophecy that the world will end in 2012.

Last January, I visited the Yucatan in Mexico home of the Maya. I even stayed in a Mayan village just outside a newly discovered temple ruin at Ek Balam. I stayed on a fantastic eco-resort run by a very forward thinking Canadian woman. Amongst other things, she had built her entire complex from compressed plastic bottles, she had a swimming pool fed by rainwater and employed people from the local area.

Attracting tourists from all over the globe she helped generate a valuable source of income for the locals in the near and surrounding areas.

During my time there I spoke to a number of Mayans and the subject of 2012 came up a couple of times, mainly from other tourists. The Mayans generally agreed that 2012 would be a good time for them financially, as a number of tourists have already booked to stay in the resorts and hotels, but none of them thought it would mark the end of the world.

This is echoed in the wider Mayan society as this quote from Wikipedia suggests. “Mayan elder Apolinario Chile Pixtun and Mexican archaeologist Guillermo Bernal both note that “apocalypse” is a Western concept that has little or nothing to do with Mayan beliefs.”

So, in short the world won’t end in 2012, no more than it should have ended in 2000 or on 6/6/66 or even today for that matter. To me the Maya are just another in a long line of ‘Mysterious’ peoples who’s culture is being misrepresented in the media and by the public at large.

What really annoys me is that we can learn important lessons from the Maya, their culture is a sustainable one. However, as far as I could see, slowly but surely Western  influence is destroying their way of life.

Before they became ‘civilized’ the Maya had one of the healthiest diets in the world.  They lived on a largely vegetarian diet of chiefly maize, squash and beans along with seasonal fruit and various other vegetables including the hugely nutritious leaf crop called chaya. They sometimes ate wild meat or fish or domesticated meat such as  turkey.   Some of practices still go on to this day, gardens are full of home-grown produce and weird looking native turkeys  can still be seen wandering through their villages.

Now with Western influence the local village shop sold heavily salted and fried snacks like Doritos, ironically mimicking traditional Mexican method of using up stale tortillas. In addition to this they sold bottles and cans of fizzy drinks, white wheat style bread (with added sugar) and all manner of sweets and junk food.

The nearest recycling point was 90 miles away in Cancun so not only did these products damage the health of the next Mayan generation, as the traditional method of disposing of litter is to burn it, it also damages the environment they are to inherit.

All over Mexico huge piles of plastic bottles are mounting up, just out of town in Ek Balam one such pile is growing and growing without any sign of removal.  The same problem was happening in a famous flamingo spotting town, on the other side of the peninsula, Celestun.  Huge tourists busses, including ones from Thomas Cook, appear in town and tourist would be whisked off to boat trips to look at the flocks of Flamingos just off the coast.

What the tours didn’t show were the piles of plastic trash washed up on the beach and the meat and fish waste from the restaurants dumped in the mangroves just behind the nesting sites of the flamingos.  The smell in these mangroves was enough to make you sick, just mounts of waste from cafes and restaurants dumped away from the prying eyes of tourists.

So unless something is done, the swathes of tourists due to hit the Yucatan region in 2012 may leave a trail of destruction as large as hurricane Dean and Wilma.

On the other hand, responsible tourism could be a real boon to an area, which has recently struggled in the wake of the great Swine Flu paranoia outbreak.

For the Mayans 2012 could spell the end of their civilization but not in the way Hollywood has predicted. So, rather than by a cataclysmic chain of events, a slow erosion of their diet, their language and environment may destroy the Mayan culture.

Search