Wild gardening! For the past ten years I have worked for and with Wild Garden Seed - which has long had a philosophy of growing with diversity, allowing winter weeds to be cover crops, not always in straight rows.
For me, I would say that I feel like there is a spectrum of ways to approach growing food. On one end is the industrial chemical monoculture that is so dominant. On the other end is wildcrafting, permaculture, no tillage, working to build self-sustaining ecosystems that also give us food. But it's difficult to grow cabbage that way, or lettuce, or potatoes, or corn or beans or squash, or most of the annual food crops that our ancestors have created in collaboration with wild plants.
In between, there is a way of gardening that feels in a sense like creating an extension of self - a boundary within which I work more intensively with the land so that it is not wild per se, but it is still effectively in harmony rather than in a state of battle. I explored this somewhat in my most recent regular post: https://dendroica.substack.com/p/the-pandora-possibility
In terms of fertility in food-growing lands, the biggest challenge we face in our modern society, it would seem, is getting the nutrients from our own excretions back to the plants. It is both taboo and physically challenging when they are flushed down pipes and mixed with all manner of toxins from which they are not easily separated. It's tough to get away from the need to add fertility until we can close our nutrient loops.
Hello dear friend, thank your for your beautiful thoughts. It totally is a spectrum. Gardens are as unique and special as the gardeners that tend to them. Even the term 'wild" can look and feel so different from one to another. There are no hard and fast rules with how this must be done, especially, like you said with growing more annual crops that may inevitably require a bit more structure - yet I believe they can and do still fit very well in a wild ecological garden.
The essence of wild gardening I convey in this piece was simply a more harmonious and hands off approach that allows the land to have a say in how that ecosystem may look and unfold. A co-creation of sorts. Within this idea there are so many ways for it to find its expression.
Closing the loop is definitely our role within this system, and how we help to recycle the nutrients back into the garden. I think human manure is such a great resource and really it is only our own mental blocks that stop us from implementing such a potent and FREE resource. That is the process of remembrance and wilding ourselves when we do this sort of work in the garden. Unraveling ideologies that deem something unworthy, that keep the spiral disconnected and instead doing the work to click it all back into place in and out, in all ways.
Wild gardening! I do love that term. To caretake the land as you speak encourages so much more... thank you for sharing your wisdom here. I live in an apartment and we have more pots on the balcony than there is space to move, yet the birds, the bees, the butterflies, the possums and I'm sure the mice all come and nibble. I wonder, in your lush garden what do you do when the wildlife nibble more than you can harvest yourself? Or when the teeny tiny shoots are there one day and gone the next?
Thank you for this lovely post... I feel expanded in reading it. 🪴🍁🌱
Hello dear Sam, such a joy to read your comment. Big gratitude for your resonance with these ideas. Indeed, that beautiful wild freedom of allowing plants to be overgrown, huddled together, take over a space in wild abandon is a special sight to behold, one that speaks worlds about life and interwoven webs of relating. So beautiful to hear this life brought to an otherwise empty balcony that serves as an oasis for many.
Navigating those nibbling friends can be tricky. Often times over the years as an ecosystem is allowed to find its own harmony predators would be attracted to the critters often found nibbling in the garden, and an innate harmony would be cultivated between prey and predator. However sometimes that isn't the case, or it can take a longer time than we care for. I find certain plants help to deter critters from munching too much, often ones with strong aromatic qualities. There are even "sacrificial" plants intentionally planted as an offering to the creatures that enjoy their nourishment and in this case other plants would be left alone more so. There are always ways to support that process of naturally harmonizing with a landscape. If it came to it though there is also the option to cover young shoots in netting or surround them with a sort of chicken wire to help protect them as they grow more resilient. I would love to hear more about your experience with this as a beautiful balcony gardener. Much love.
Thank you...I am just a beginner...I am still to learn what plants do what or even where to place them...Mother Nature is all about learning...This is a class that I love to be in...The class of Mother Nature...I send you much love and happiness.
Wild gardening! For the past ten years I have worked for and with Wild Garden Seed - which has long had a philosophy of growing with diversity, allowing winter weeds to be cover crops, not always in straight rows.
For me, I would say that I feel like there is a spectrum of ways to approach growing food. On one end is the industrial chemical monoculture that is so dominant. On the other end is wildcrafting, permaculture, no tillage, working to build self-sustaining ecosystems that also give us food. But it's difficult to grow cabbage that way, or lettuce, or potatoes, or corn or beans or squash, or most of the annual food crops that our ancestors have created in collaboration with wild plants.
In between, there is a way of gardening that feels in a sense like creating an extension of self - a boundary within which I work more intensively with the land so that it is not wild per se, but it is still effectively in harmony rather than in a state of battle. I explored this somewhat in my most recent regular post: https://dendroica.substack.com/p/the-pandora-possibility
In terms of fertility in food-growing lands, the biggest challenge we face in our modern society, it would seem, is getting the nutrients from our own excretions back to the plants. It is both taboo and physically challenging when they are flushed down pipes and mixed with all manner of toxins from which they are not easily separated. It's tough to get away from the need to add fertility until we can close our nutrient loops.
Hello dear friend, thank your for your beautiful thoughts. It totally is a spectrum. Gardens are as unique and special as the gardeners that tend to them. Even the term 'wild" can look and feel so different from one to another. There are no hard and fast rules with how this must be done, especially, like you said with growing more annual crops that may inevitably require a bit more structure - yet I believe they can and do still fit very well in a wild ecological garden.
The essence of wild gardening I convey in this piece was simply a more harmonious and hands off approach that allows the land to have a say in how that ecosystem may look and unfold. A co-creation of sorts. Within this idea there are so many ways for it to find its expression.
Closing the loop is definitely our role within this system, and how we help to recycle the nutrients back into the garden. I think human manure is such a great resource and really it is only our own mental blocks that stop us from implementing such a potent and FREE resource. That is the process of remembrance and wilding ourselves when we do this sort of work in the garden. Unraveling ideologies that deem something unworthy, that keep the spiral disconnected and instead doing the work to click it all back into place in and out, in all ways.
Wild gardening! I do love that term. To caretake the land as you speak encourages so much more... thank you for sharing your wisdom here. I live in an apartment and we have more pots on the balcony than there is space to move, yet the birds, the bees, the butterflies, the possums and I'm sure the mice all come and nibble. I wonder, in your lush garden what do you do when the wildlife nibble more than you can harvest yourself? Or when the teeny tiny shoots are there one day and gone the next?
Thank you for this lovely post... I feel expanded in reading it. 🪴🍁🌱
Hello dear Sam, such a joy to read your comment. Big gratitude for your resonance with these ideas. Indeed, that beautiful wild freedom of allowing plants to be overgrown, huddled together, take over a space in wild abandon is a special sight to behold, one that speaks worlds about life and interwoven webs of relating. So beautiful to hear this life brought to an otherwise empty balcony that serves as an oasis for many.
Navigating those nibbling friends can be tricky. Often times over the years as an ecosystem is allowed to find its own harmony predators would be attracted to the critters often found nibbling in the garden, and an innate harmony would be cultivated between prey and predator. However sometimes that isn't the case, or it can take a longer time than we care for. I find certain plants help to deter critters from munching too much, often ones with strong aromatic qualities. There are even "sacrificial" plants intentionally planted as an offering to the creatures that enjoy their nourishment and in this case other plants would be left alone more so. There are always ways to support that process of naturally harmonizing with a landscape. If it came to it though there is also the option to cover young shoots in netting or surround them with a sort of chicken wire to help protect them as they grow more resilient. I would love to hear more about your experience with this as a beautiful balcony gardener. Much love.
Thank you...I am just a beginner...I am still to learn what plants do what or even where to place them...Mother Nature is all about learning...This is a class that I love to be in...The class of Mother Nature...I send you much love and happiness.