Veganism has been creeping into my consciousness for a while now, but it was the recent vegan festival in my town that makes me wonder if its now mainstream. The festival, modeled after the successful Garlic Festival in California (now in its 35th year), and billing itself as the first-ever Kale-a-Rama, managed to draw over 1,000 people, and was a blast. Whod have thought a vegetable could be so much fun? Well, not me.
But a bunch of activists for veganism and animal rights in the DC-Baltimore area dreamed up the festival, put together a roster music and vendors, and injected a surprising amount of lightheartedness into the venture. No stern eat your vegetables tone or off-putting PETA antics.
Tasty kale-luscious vegan offerings included kale smoothies, kale pate, kale non-dairy ice cream, the exciting debut of a vegan food truck, and kale donuts. Just imagine guilt-free donuts! Entertainment included the first-ever vegan drum circle. (Lots of first-evers that day.)
The organizers tell me that Kale-a-Rama will be back next year, bigger and better. Heres my story about all things Kala-a-Rama on the Greenbelt blog that I write.
On the Popularity of Veganism
Ive been nearly vegetarian for 30+ years (eating no mammals and almost no poultry), for a variety of reasons and had no intention of changing that, until I saw the movieForks over Knives which made a thoroughly convincing case for full veganism. 
And theres a growing group of celebs whove gone vegan and are making news about it, starting with Bill Clinton, of all people. (Good for him!) And sexy movie stars, too.
But I wonder is veganism for ME? The foods are tasty enough (especially those donuts) but as someone who rarely cooks, for whom Greek yogurt is a primary food group, Im not sure I could pull it off. Gotta get enough protein to keep on gardening into my senior years, ya know.
Since I began working with Carbon Gold, trialling their biochar products (and contributing to their website as The Charlady) I have begun to appreciate and understand just how important mycorrhizal fungi are to plants. They create a microscopic web that provides the vital conduit that exchanges nutrients from the soil for carbon from the plants. When we dig the ground this web is broken which is why it is a good idea to add mycorrhiza to the soil, to re-establish the connection. By adding biochar we also provide an ideal home for the fungi where they can get on with their good work. Now there is evidence that the fungi also help plants defend themselves against enemies such as aphids. A new study (reported by the BBC) focused on how plants respond to enemy attack and found that plants attached to one another by a micorrhizal network could communicate and release the same chemical defence regardless of whether they were being actively attacked or not. This did not happen with plants without a micorrhizal connection. Interesting stuff.
