Brazilian activist Chico Mendes famously said that “Environmentalism without class struggle is just gardening.” His quote is often used to highlight the necessity for intersectionality within climate activism, so that environmental movements truly fight for intersectional climate justice.

However, it also underestimates the radical power of gardening. What happens when you mix gardening with both class and queer struggles? Spaces like TopSoil emerge.

In April 2023, TopSoil began as a safe space for the queer folk of , to come together in community and garden. Sounds simple when put like that.

These are my chaos gardens for the year. I tried planning out my crops but plans never work how I want them to go so this year I chucked a bunch of seeds and beans into the ground and let them do their thing.

This year the beans and butternut squash took over everything. There's some tomatoes that grew from last year's fallen tomatoes but they didn't produce much fruit this year.

I've gotten enough beans to feed my family and make pickles for a few jars. There's about 10 butternut squash growing too. I picked one already and I'm hoping the rest can grow a bit more before the end of the growing season.

The beans have grown over the fence and have apparently reached the ground. My neighbour loves it because she doesn't have much time to garden anymore so she gets lots of green beans to cook with. She's even been giving them to her neighbour as well.

Just under the deck is a patch of tall grass. That's my bunny garden. It's where the bunnies like to chill during the day. There's not many places for bunnies to hang out because it's the suburbs and everyone has perfectly mowed lawns so I'm happy they have somewhere to hang out.

The bit of bare ground is part of the grassy tunnels the bunnies made in there.

I'm hoping for a bit more variety next year for my chaos gardens but I'm pretty happy how things turned out this year.

More than 400 endangered animal and plant species could face accelerated extinction after the Donald Trump administration’s decision to rescind a rule that has protected old-growth forests for more than two decades.

According to a new report from the Center for Biological Diversity, the rollback of the Bill Clinton-era “roadless rule” could put 7.4m acres of endangered-species habitat and nearly 1,800 miles of protected rivers and streams at risk, while opening more than 45m acres of national forests to roads, drilling and logging.

Bulldozers have begun plowing up ground at the mouth of Big Bend national park’s famed Santa Elena Canyon as part of the Trump administration’s multibillion-dollar “smart wall” expansion on the US-Mexico border, according to new footage taken by activists who have been monitoring the site.

Tensions have run high since the Trump administration announced plans to erect new border security infrastructure in the roughly 500-mile Big Bend region of south-west Texas, which includes the Lone Star State’s largest and most-visited national park.

cross-posted from: https://timeyak.com/post/13708

Greetings, I recently started a new raised bed in the yard out of old galvanized metal roof panels I had laying around as I ran out of room in the greenhouse’s. Planted some leafy greens such as Vates Blue Scotch Kale and Black Simpson lettuce. Seedlings just started to come out and I was impressed with how quickly the Cardinals came out to mow them all down. I put a quick screen over it for now to give the seedlings a chance, but man, wasn’t expecting that so quick. Anybody else run into that situation as well? Do they eventually let up once the plants mature a bit? Thanks for reading and Cheers!

When wasps began streaming through a rusted gap in her office door one June morning, Eilish Rothney’s first instinct was the same most people would have: get rid of them. The reserve manager for the Trinity Broads, part of the Norfolk WildlifeTrust, had discovered a wasp colony taking up residence in her office, a converted shipping container.

“They just built the nest inside my door,” she says. “My first thought was: ‘Oh no, I have to get rid of that now.’ But then I realised: ‘Wait, why? Why do I have to do that?’”

Took this picture today of some flowers, I didn't adjust the image at all the colors pop that much they are so pretty. Hope you're having as beautiful a day 💜

The baby just started hopping out of the nest. It hatched about a week ago, growing very fast.

So, today is July 18, 2026. A storm just rolled through Pittsburgh. I got to actually watch it roll in tonight. It was pretty weak sauce as far as storms go. A couple wind gusts, some rain and that was about it.

But, there was an oddity about it. I noticed it maybe ten-minutes before the front hit. A low rumbling roar. Constant. Almost like the sound an airplane. In fact, when I was trying to figure out what I was hearing, I can practically see the airport, so I initially determined it had to be a jet from its persistence, but then there was no doppler effect.

Sometimes, I would see lightning, but it was all cloud to sky. Eventually, I heard a clap that was real close, close enough that I could discern its pitch from the din. Indeed, I was hearing an unending chorus of dozens of small thunderclaps, starting and stopping at their own accord, but layered together. The front passed through fifteen-minutes ago, and the roar is still going on right now.

I like watching storms come in, and I have watched a few a year for many decades, but I've not ever heard that. Kind of weird. Anyone know if there is a name for that?

then crossed the fence to pollinate the neighbour's soybeans

There were at least 3 more on my milkweed plants in my garden that were gone before they got big. So I decided to take this one in and raise it until it becomes a butterfly. Name is Munchy BTW.

Pics of how much its munched since this morning:

this is so special! her wings are still wet!

Each bundle of flowers will contain several dozen individual blooms (see below)

If you zoom in there are so many tiny pollinators

A handful of lettuces and other greens are starting to bolt, so I'm glad I seeded out another set last week in a different bed. Our replacement peppers are much happier than the old ones, which is nice.

Juniper and I were out picking strawberries and haskaps/honeyberries yesterday. Nothing made it inside, but she was having a blast and was very excited to help out. I was very excited that she was receiving immediate rewards for following directions (beyond praise).

It's uncomfortable enough at the height of the day that I'm potting inside my little workshop in the garage, reserving the early and late hours for field work. Remember to help yourself out with lots of water and good electrolytes!

What's growing on with you all?

I camped up on the plateau last night. First time camping in maybe 8 years and haven't camped up there in closer to 40. It was weird though. No crickets. No tree frogs. That iconic wall of noise at night. Gone.

The only sounds were intermittent motorcycles, trucks, trains, barges and planes. Everything you don't want to hear and none of the things you do.

It was depressing. It's been bothering me all day and we had them last year. Is it just my area or is this the new norm?

We introduced two batches of 300 ladybugs a couple weeks ago, and now we have a thriving ladybug lifecycle.

The larvae do most of the eating.

Eggs are hard to spot.

I brought home several many more plants than I donated, plus another book I have no space for. It's been nice knowing you plant nerds o7

Yesterday I discovered a pot that had gotten moved to an unexpected location, full of what I thought was a "handful"of baby lavenders. After splitting them all into their own pots, I now have 45 baby lavenders. Whoops.

Our self-seeded salad beds are bumping along after some rains and cool days, and I think I'll get a few more rounds of harvests in before they start bolting. I'll have to redo my peppers though. This morning was spent cutting back some of the stuff in our area with living pathways to feed to the veggies, chop 'n drop style.

This afternoon I'm going to hide in the shade (supposed to get up to 90° F) and split out some mob pots with New Jersey Tea and passionfruit (P. incarnata) seedlings. We're a ways north of the passionfruit's native range, so these are more for experimentation than for sales.

What's growing on with you all?

This morning's plant sales got pushed to next weekend because of high winds and low temps, so I brought home all the shallow tomatoes that were donated so I could repot them. They'll go back to the donations tomorrow, but I took a few pictures for you all to help explain how and why to do this.

Here we have an example of what we're starting with. The plant itself is about a foot tall, but the pot is only 1.75 inches. The plant itself looks healthy but a little stressed. The square pot helps, but the whole thing is very top heavy. Planted as-is, this plant will need immediate staking and support or it will uproot itself. It will still have to expend energy creating new roots, and will be susceptible to summer heat. Let's move on to repotting.

Here's a top-down of our tomato in a 1-gallon pot. We're doing this with the original pot in place so we can determine which leaves will be removed and then safely lift the plant to do the pruning. Once we've pruned off a few leaves we'll place the roots at the very bottom of the pot and then fill the pot with substrate.

So, why do this? Every little hair on the tomatoes is an adventitious root - a specialized structure that will turn into a root in the right conditions. And we've just provided the right conditions. By giving the tomato a larger root ball, we're increasing the amount of surface area from which it can draw water and nutrients to produce tomatoes. This will not only improve the number produced, but also each one's nutritional value.

And here we have our plant repotted. It will have the whole week in a greenhouse with folks watering it to grow more roots before the plant sale. If someone asks me for advice on planting it when they get home, here's what I'll tell them:

If you're planting it in a pot, give it at least a 5 gallon pot, but 10 is better. Place the root ball at the bottom of your pot, and fill with your potting mix and fertility. If you're planting it in the ground, bury it as deep as you can, even up to the bottom of the very top most leaves. Then enjoy your tomatoes.

It's plant sale week where we are! Our library and town food bank are both running plant and bake sale fundraisers this weekend. I've potted up a bunch of native perennials as donations for each, and will be spending my Saturday helping to run the library plant sale.

What's growing on with you all?