iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition

Jonathan Parkes Allen @jparkesallen.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Three years ago every space in these pictures was lawn grass (well, one was bare dirt on its way to being lawn grass); they're not anymore but are instead thriving agroecosystems. Maybe small drops in the proverbial big bucket but it's still a small victory and it's beautiful to see

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

"That is the upside of global interconnection: our actions need not only have negative effects on others, but can positively interact, can shape all our worlds together for the better."

foodforestschattanooga.substack.com

Think Local, Act Global

Newsletter for the Third Week of September

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

"The transformation of this hillside, and of many other similar places around Chattanooga, from an ecological and social wasteland, almost entirely devoid of life and of purposeful meaning and use, involved very little exchange of money, but it required a great deal of work and self-giving."

foodforestschattanooga.substack.com

A Gift But Not Free

Newsletter for the Second Week of September

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

This fall, winter, and spring we are co-hosting a documentary series that will explore emerging agroecological practices across the world, peasant struggles, food sovereignty movements, and alternative forms of relating to and nurturing the natural world, lots of cool films in the line-up!

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Long overdue update on a busy hot summer in the burgeoning community food forests, gardens, and farms in and around Chattanooga:

foodforestschattanooga.substack.com

Long Hot Summer

Newsletter for the Week of August 17 (And Points Prior!)

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Reposted by Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition

Jonathan Parkes Allen @jparkesallen.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Just a little less than three years ago I called together a little meeting of people interested in starting a community food forest in one neighborhood of Chattanooga, did not really anticipate starting more than one or two such sites, but as the saying goes, man proposes and the Lord disposes

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

A philosophical exploration of traditional relationships with nature, the advent of industrial modernity, the nature of landscapes, forms of knowledge, and possible radical transformations on the other side:

foodforestschattanooga.substack.com

Two Ways of Knowing

Thinking Community Food Foresting and the Nature of Industrial Modernity With Romano Guardini

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

One of our most popular monthly offerings, coming up soon!

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Our first attempt at a mini zine describing our work and the ideas and practices behind it:

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Check out all of the classes we have on offer in the coming weeks!

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Thank you to everyone who came out for our screening of Farming While Black, kicking off the week of Juneteenth, and the tour of the gardens and farm at the Chattanooga Civic Center afterwards!

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

"Solidarity is a practice that works in all directions. It inculcates an awareness of the gifts of the other, of our mutual need for one another, no matter our status, wealth, conventional power in the world, and so on."

foodforestschattanooga.substack.com

Growing Solidarity

Newsletter for the Second and Third Week of May

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

"Concerns about antibiotic resistance shouldn’t stop people from joining a local community garden or starting a vegetable patch in their backyard, as long as they follow guidelines for safe growing. Even the microbes they meet there—most of them, anyway—are beneficial."

today.umd.edu

UMD Researcher Digs Into Antibiotic Resistance at… | Maryland Today

UMD Research Changes Lives: Study Examines Potential of Compost to Heal Contaminated Soil

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Our new logo, created by local artist and scientific illustrator Nina Grauley (link below to her website), it features several edible perennial species native to the American South and found in many of our community food forests:

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Our Mother's Day garden-themed event put on in conjunction with La Paz Chattanooga was a definite success, every plant went home for planting, the new raised beds were painted, and lots of flowers were distributed!

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

This week's newsletter ended up being all about gift-giving and the practice of alternative economies grounded in the abundance and effusive productivity of plants; also, a profile of the incredible agroecological organization Buzuruna Juzuruna:

foodforestschattanooga.substack.com

On Gift-Giving and Planting New Ground

Newsletter for the Week of May 4

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Today community members in the East Lake Neighborhood broke (or, in the case of one garden, raised) ground on not one but two new sites: a food forest at the Lane Lake Montessori School and a community garden in East Lake Park, just incredible work from everyone!

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Starting back up weekly newsletters- really just a miscellany of things of interest as well as updates on sites and events, plus a plant of the week and a solidarity spotlight feature, both new to this iteration, please enjoy!

foodforestschattanooga.substack.com

Of Phyllospheres and Other Networks

Newsletter for the Week of April 27

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

In a couple of weeks we will be helping helm this event in collaboration with one of our partner orgs, La Paz Chattanooga, everyone is welcome to participate- we encourage everyone to bring plants and seeds to share but it's not a requirement to participate, should be plenty for everyone!

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Reposted by Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition

old fruit pictures @pomological.xor.blue · 20/04/2026

lea strawberries, painted by mary daisy arnold, 1915

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

Tabled at Chattanooga's annual Zero Waste Festival, tried to channel the zero waste ethic to the max with a set-up made entirely from resourced local materials, also brought a food forest in a container with seven plant species planted (temporarily!) together:

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

A few scenes from this week in the community food forests and gardens of Chattanooga- it's been hot and dry but as of the moment pretty much everything is thriving nonetheless!

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Some steps towards agroecological home landscapes and more connected neighbors- looking for folks to do some "trial runs" of an eventual network of home garden/ecological landscape mutual support:

foodforestschattanooga.substack.com

Gardeners Helping Gardeners

On Building a Home Garden Mutual Aid Network

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

So much growing on in our community agroecology spaces this spring, hard to know where to start! We've done a ton of work at the St. Elmo Community Food Forest making use of the opened up space and fresh wood chips; bees added at Ascension; tomatoes going in in Chatt Valley; Civic Center is thriving

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Reposted by Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition

Alex Zucker @alexzucker.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Just ordered: Extractive Capitalism: How Commodities and Cronyism Drive the Global Economy by @lalehkhalili.bsky.social @versobooks.bsky.social www.versobooks.com/products/340... This will be the next book in the Virtual Socialism Reading Group, affably facilitated by @davidkaib.bsky.social

versobooks.com

Extractive Capitalism

Laleh Khalili reflects on the hidden stories behind late capitalism, from seafarers abandoned on debt-ridden container ships to the nefarious reach of consultancy firms and the cronyism that drives re...

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

An early depiction of a favorite Southern American native shrub, beautyberry (Callicarpa americana), along with what I think is supposed to be a rough green snake, from the work The natural history of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands by Mark Catesby (1683-1749):

Green leaves emerging from a stem with bunches of purple berries opposite one another and adjacent to the stems, with a long skinny green snake entertwining; the snake has an upturned nose which is not exactly congruent with a rough green snake identification...

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Reposted by Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition

Jonathan Parkes Allen @jparkesallen.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Chattanooga people, come join our DSA ecosocialism working group for our first hiking club event this Sunday afternoon!

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Reposted by Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition

Global Campaign on Military Spending - GCOMS @demilitarizeday.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

The 15th Global Days of Action on Military Spending (#GDAMS) will take place from April 10 to May 9, in which will probably be the most relevant edition yet. We'll take action to oppose war and demand major cuts of military spending, while promoting peaceful & just alternatives. Will you join us?☮️

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

Our monthly art-making sessions continue next Tuesday:

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Reposted by Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition

old fruit pictures @pomological.xor.blue · 14/03/2026

godbey persimmons, painted by royal charles steadman, 1924

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Why plant trees and cultivate community when the scale of our crises and systematic problems seems so overwhelming? Some reflections apropos of very different happenings in two cities- Chattanooga and Tehran- last Saturday:

foodforestschattanooga.substack.com

Planting Trees in a World on Fire

On Cultivating Hope During Bleak Times

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

It's been another very busy week of planting and tending, with trees starting to bloom, all kinds of things popping up out of the ground, been a real joy seeing so many people out working together in agroecological spaces all around town:

Planting new fruit trees at Ascension Lutheran Church

Putting out woodchips on our hillside community food forest at St. Elmo United Methodist Church

Chattanooga DSA members hard at work in the annual vegetable garden beds at Ascension Lutheran

Working on the road-fronting perennial beds at the Chattanooga Civic Center on Hooker Road

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

Some of this week's work and signs of spring; in the midst of a world in which many things are indeed very grim and bleak it is incredibly heartening to see people come together and cooperatively take concrete steps towards a better, kinder, more beautiful world

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

You should be able to see Apios americana at a couple of our affiliated food forest sites this year, probably won't be able to harvest for eating purposes until next however

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Reposted by Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition

Jonathan Parkes Allen @jparkesallen.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

A tiny selection of a vast set of absolutely beautiful and delicately executed watercolors of flowering plants of North America, "made from nature by Miss Helen Sharp [fl. c 1890], and have been used in part in the botanical classes of the Lowell Free Courses of the Teachers' School of Science":

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Our donation page is- finally!- live and ready to receive financial support from anyone who would like to help advance the transformative work that the Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition is doing:

givebutter.com

Support the Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition!

By Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

All kinds of opportunities coming up to get involved in community agriculture in Chattanooga over the coming weeks, including recurring weekly gardening sessions, now at multiple locations (the two here represent a new addition plus one restarting for the spring):

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Reposted by Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition

Jonathan Parkes Allen @jparkesallen.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

love these

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Reposted by Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition

Jonathan Parkes Allen @jparkesallen.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Another fantastic mid-century scientific book cover, from the Soviet agronomist V. A. Kolesnikov's 1962 book (here the 1966 translation into English) on fruit tree biology, also contains some fantastic scientific illustrations (see below):

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Reposted by Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition

old fruit pictures @pomological.xor.blue · 15/02/2026

eastern shadbush, painted by deborah griscom passmore, 1909

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Reposted by Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition

old fruit pictures @pomological.xor.blue · 15/02/2026

james grapes, painted by deborah griscom passmore, 1905

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Reposted by Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition

Jonathan Parkes Allen @jparkesallen.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

Continuing our DSA ecosocialism working group educational series with a talk (by yours truly) on radical organizing in the rural South in the mid-20th century, the practical lessons we can learn from such struggles, and the importance of recovering this forgotten but powerful past for our region:

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Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition @foodforestchatt.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

The last week in community food forest and garden activities: new apple trees at the Crabtree Farms Community Food Forest (plus an amphibian resident we encountered while planting!) and putting up a new shed for the Chattanooga Valley Community Farm plus some early spring seed planting:

Cope's grey tree frog next to an apple tree just planted

Two tranplanted apple trees, filling in the rest of the space next week!

Planting spinach, turnip green, and pea seeds

The fellers building a foundation for the Chatt Valley shed

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