One of our goals for PlantWisdom.org was to do a interview (or three) with farmer/author Gene Logsdon.

Unfortunately before we got to it, Gene passed away after 85 rich years.

Fortunately for all of us, he left us with a lot of writing including over twenty-five books and a fertile weekly blog of nine years (including a post just one week before he passed away.)

What did Gene write about?

A life where agriculture was respected and celebrated – and enjoyed – and where people and animals and the land were treated humanely and intelligently.

Gene saw and practiced agriculture as a way to live independently – independent of government nonsense, big business chicanery, Madison Avenue tomfoolery and Big Farming madness.

One of his many beautiful quotes: “Small is beautiful when small is skilled and dedicated.”

Gene was not an armchair philosopher in these realms.

From study and first hand experience, he wrote some of the most useful guides for the small farmer ever produced starting with his first book “Two Acre Eden” which originally came out in 1971.

He produced many practical guides for the small farmer and homesteader, on growing grain, on growing berries, on aquaculture, on organic orcharding, on gardening, on soil improvement, on livestocking and many other essential farm skills many of which were, before he came along, hard to find practical information about.

Gene was also a philosopher in the best sense of the word: He loved and pursued wisdom and shared it generously and humorously with anyone who was interested.

My favorite books of his include: “The Contrary Farmer”, “A Sanctuary of Trees”, “All Flesh is Grass”, and “The Contrary Farmer’s Invitation to Gardening.” I never got around to his novels or some of his most recent projects like the book “Holy Shit Managing Manure to Save Mankind” but all his work is on my “to read” and “to read again” list.

I honestly believe we could lose 99.9999% of all the things that have even been written, but if Gene’s books remained, we could reconstruct a decent human society from his work from the practical side of things clear through to the spiritual.

One of the too-few interviews with Gene (from beginningfarmers.org)

You can read Gene’s blog here.

– Ken McCarthy
PlantWisdom.org