The Ecological Gardener

 

“To garden is to foster a bond between ourselves and the natural world.” Matt Rees-Warren

 A garden is a place of joy, wonder and constant learning. It is a dynamic sanctuary that inspires and elates us; it kindles a sense of hope and replenishes us.  When we garden, we have the opportunity to create a space in harmony with Mother Nature. As a result of this, the garden nourishes our bodies and minds, and provides a refuge for meditation and reflection.

  

   Each day in the garden unfolds like a unique gift of Mother Nature, sharing the mysteries, intelligence and beauty of her restorative soul.

   At the library I came across Matt Rees-Warren's book: The Ecological Gardener: how to create beauty and biodiversity from the soil up.  I was instantly attracted to its cover, and once I started reading the book, I could not put it down.

 As gardeners we have choices. We can choose to support our health and the planet’s ecosystems, or we can choose to work against Mother Nature.

  Ecological Gardeners cherish the experience of cooperating with Mother Nature. We give back to the earth and are overwhelmed by the rewards we receive in return. As ecological gardeners, we create a healthy path to a sustainable future, fostering the development of healthy ecosystems and people.

 

With extreme weather events becoming more frequent everywhere, ecological gardens are the ones that are prepared to face the challenges with resilience.

 The Ecological Gardener offers helpful suggestions and recommendations to help your garden flourish.

 

With eloquence and creativity the author shares information on how ecological gardening makes a difference. He provides ideas to nourish and protect the soil. He delves into different methods of composting to help you pick the one that is right for you.

 The presence of earthworms in the soil is an indicator of soil health, and this is the foundation of a healthy garden. Relevant research has been emerging on the importance of Micorrhizae, the fungal network that connects the roots of the plants and trees, providing them with minerals and nutrients while obtaining food from them in return. The symbiosis is crucial to foster sustainable agricultural practices. Regenerating the soil is essential to agriculture.

 Supporting regenerative agriculture is vital to our present and future.

 Take your time to watch this video and share it with others:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPkXAi_IKwQ&t=6s

 Matt Rees-Warren stresses the need to create a suitable environment for pollinators, and explains the consequences of their decline. Pollinators should count on our gardens to find food and shelter. Gardening without the use of herbicides and pesticides is paramount to a healthy environment and to our own health.

 

When we examine the ways through which everything interacts in nature, we are inspired to promote biodiversity instead of fighting against it.

 Encouraging the growth of native plants is an important aspect of gardening.

The author explains how to use water wisely. There is advice on how to harvest rainwater, and he guides us to improve the management of water in gardens.

Last but not least, he provides clever ideas and recommendations to reuse and recycle material.

 The photography in The Ecological Gardener captures the reader’s attention and enhances the understanding of the concepts, ideas and information on ecological gardening.

 Ecological gardening is an adventure of exploration. We can integrate the production of food into this endeavor, promoting health and supporting our communities. Today more than ever, with inflation hitting every country of the world, growing food is not just an option but a necessity.

 Community gardens can also be places of inspiration to a lot of people, and they can provide creative solutions to various social challenges. Applying basic ecological principles is necessary and vital to these undertakings. This does not mean that setbacks can’t happen, but ecological gardening bolsters the life support systems that create resilience for a sustainable future.

 Our gardens are a full expression of who we are and how connected we are to wildlife and the environment. We are part of Nature and Nature is part of us. To ignore the wisdom of this precious relationship is reckless.

The Ecological Gardener was published by Chelsea Green Publishing.

If you enjoyed this post, you may also be interested in my writing on the following books:

 

Entangled Life

Finding the Mother Tree

I will publish my next post in two weeks.

 

 

My heart is with the Ukrainian people and with those who are fighting to support them in every way they can. Thank you for everything you do. The consequences of this horrifying war go beyond the borders of Ukraine.

We hope that the world learns how dangerous it is to empower an authoritarian man like Putin, who has no respect for life. Beware of Putin supporters and apologists.

Till next time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Growing food

“A nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.” ~Franklin Roosevelt

Do you like this flower staring at the sun? It belongs to one of our potato plants. I grow them in containers.

 Did you know that a conventional potato from the store may contain 35 pesticides? A conventional tomato may contain about 40 pesticides. Washing it does not make much of a difference.

 Growing food is an endeavor of love, but industrial agriculture has turned it into an act of destruction. Somebody may have made you believe that industrial agriculture feeds the world. This  is a fallacy.

 One billion people  are hungry as I write this post. By destroying the foundation of food production industrial agriculture worsens hunger and poverty.

 Only 30% of the food that people eat comes from large-scale industrial farms. The other 70% comes from small-scale farmers working on small plots of land.  In addition to being more expensive due to the cost of pesticides, herbicides and synthetic fertilizers, industrial agriculture is responsible for 75% of the ecological damage being done to the planet.  It pollutes more water and fails to conserve it.  Vandana Shiva’s book “Who feeds theWorld?” explains that these figures are routinely hidden, ignored and denied.

   We need an urgent plan to transition this system into one that is sustainable and fair to everybody. As I write this, Republicans are defunding the Research Center for Sustainable Agriculture in Iowa.

   Those who claim to have an interest in human health should be paying attention to the importance of sustainable agriculture.

  If you genuinely care about animals don’t forget to educate yourself on the horrendous abuse that industrial farming inflicts upon domesticated animals. Here's an article on this important issue.

  The promise of GMOs to use less chemicals and  water turned out to be false. Research has shown that GMOs  are responsible for the use of more pesticides and herbicides, the emergence of resistant weeds and pests, and, as a consequence of this, they continue to destroy ecosystems and create new problems.

  Sustainable agriculture is based on ecological principles. It creates jobs, strengthens communities, and treats animals with respect and kindness. It minimizes its impact on the environment and strives to preserve the health of ecosystems through the enrichment of the soil with organic matter, integrated pest management, diversity of cultures and rotation of crops.

   Enriching the soil should be a priority.  In order to produce nutritious food we need healthy soils.  The soil needs to be enriched with organic matter. Healthy soil teems with life, but industrial agriculture treats the soil as an empty inert container, loading it with synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. These chemicals destroy soil fertility by killing  organisms in it. The excess of nitrates it injects into the soil end up polluting the water. The chemicals create dead zones in lakes, rivers and oceans, where no life can thrive.

 Healthy soil produces healthy plants by making them more resilient and resistant to pests and diseases.
  Good quality soil also allows to conserve water, but  industrial agriculture ignores this fact, so it requires intense irrigation systems to function. Water is a precious resource and the only ones that benefit from wasting and polluting water are the corporations that  get paid to try to purify it. This leads to more inequality and injustice because drinking water becomes more expensive. High concentrations of nitrates in drinking water increase the risk of cancer.

 We all know that climate change is not a hoax.  A healthy soil is better able to endure climate adverse conditions due to its efficiency in regulating water and its capacity to hold onto moisture, which is another reason to nurture the soil instead of destroying it.

 Alber Einstein must have been ahead of his times when he said, “When the last bee disappears, humans will disappear.” Today 75% of bee populations in some regions have been killed over the last three decades because of toxic pesticides and monocultures. Climate change is also contributing to the decline of pollinators.  

Losing bees is not only about losing honey. More than 140 fruits and vegetables depend on hardworking honeybees for pollination. We’ll lose small family farms and local businesses. We will lose an estimated $15 billion dollars in agricultural revenue.

 Neonicotinoids play an important role in the decline of bees. Avoid using these chemicals altogether. Make sure you plant untreated seeds to grow  the flowers whose nectar bees need to feed on, such as Aster, Black-Eyed Susan, Blazing Star, Calstrop, Currant, Huckleberry, Purple Coneflower, Woodland Sage, Scorpion Weed and many others.  Let’s all be part of the solution instead of the problem. Check the ones that are native in your area and grow them.

Integrated pest management is part of the strategy of sustainable agriculture. I wrote about pesticides and herbicides a couple ofyears ago.

 Let’s remember that many scientists have been persecuted and threatened for exposing their research on GMOs, pesticides and herbicides. Examples of scientists who have been in these situations include Arpad Pusztai of the United Kingdom, Gilles-Eric Seralini of France, Tyrone Hayes of the University of California, Berkeley, Vicki Vance of the University of South Carolina, and many others.

 Diversity of cultures is also necessary to create an environment that produces food in sustainable ways, but industrial agriculture relies on monocultures. In doing so, it erodes the soil and contributes  to the decline of pollinators. Industrial agriculture claims to have a “high yield per acre”, but high yield does not mean high nutrition per acre. Their soil is deprived of nutrients , so they produce tasteless food that lacks nutrition.

   Vandana Shiva explained it well: "Life evolves through cooperation and self-organization. Fifty trillion cells cooperate to create the human body. Millions of species cooperate to shape ecosystems and the planet. Plants cooperate with each other. Take, for example, the mixed farming system of corn, beans and squash. Nitrogen- fixing beans provide free nitrogen to cereals, and the stalks of cereals provide support for the bean stalks to climb. The squash provides cover to the soil, preventing soil erosion, water evaporation and the emergence of weeds. Together, these crops provide nutrition for soil, animals and human beings."

 If you are in the business of pesticides and herbicides, consider switching to another business: the business of massive composting. Garbage is nutrition. You can invest in a business that turns garbage into compost. By making compost you can help to feed the soil, and by nourishing the soil you foster the production of healthy food and help to maintain the integrity of the ecosystems. This is beneficial for the future of your children.

 A true patriot should be expected to nurture the soil, not to kill the organisms that live in it. Earthworms are the best fertilizers. Start composting now. Instead of sending trash to landfills, where it pollutes the air and soil and increases the temperature of the planet through the production of methane, you can turn it into a valuable resource that will be treasured by farmers and gardeners and by anybody who is interested in the art of growing food and flowers.

 Growing food should  be an act of compassion and empathy, not of destruction… do you think those workers like to spray your fruit and vegetables with chemicals? Many of them are immigrants who work under the threats of those who exploit them.  These workers are coerced into spraying chemicals that harm their own health.

Ask yourself: where is the chicken coming from? How was she treated? Let’s be mindful of what this means.

 Poisoning the soil, water and air does not feed the world. It contributes to food insecurity, social injustice, inequality and wars. Worsening climate change and the effects of it is an act of terrorism . Let’s acknowledge this simple truth instead of hiding it behind the veil of propaganda. Pesticides and herbicides may be beneficial to the fossil fuel industry, but not to the health of humanity and the environment.

 Even the fossil fuel industry will eventually suffer, because we all live in the same planet. (They just don’t have the foresight to acknowledge the consequences of their current actions).

  Perhaps you are considering to support a CSA (community supported agriculture), or you may want to volunteer for one of the community gardens in your area ; you may want to grow some of your food. You can do so in containers if you don’t have a garden.

Go ahead: write a blog post on this subject. I challenge every reader of this blog to read about the food they eat and to write about what they do to reduce their carbon footprint and on how to lead a more sustainable lifestyle.  

Small changes can be the beginning of bigger changes. They can be the starting point of a different kind of mindset and attitude, one that is more devoted  to being healthier , more considerate and caring.

Spread the word. Inspire others. Share ideas.

 If you educate yourself on this important subject you will discover that there is a lot that you can do to become part of the solution.

 Remember that educating others is also part of our  mission.

Did I awaken your interest?

I found some links for you.

Sustainable Table

https://www.ecoliteracy.org/article/industrial-agriculture-agroecology-and-climate-change

https://tilth.org/focus/conservation/soil/

Soil Not Oil Coalition

Organic Valley Coop

http://biofriendlyplanet.com/green-alternatives/sustainable/sustainable-food-fruits-and-vegetables-the-fresh-local-and-organic-way/

Saving seeds as an act of resilience

http://www.motherearthnews.com/

http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-system/genetic-engineering/eight-ways-monsanto-fails.html#.WSXQYevyvIU

http://sustainablepulse.com/

https://wakeup-world.com/2016/10/12/how-the-u-s-department-of-agriculture-is-destroying-our-health-and-environment/

Vermicomposting and its benefits

http://www.alternet.org/environment/monsanto-caught-warning-epa-about-activists

http://www.alternet.org/food/how-do-we-end-food-apartheid-america-farms-one

 Growing food takes time, knowledge and observation.  When we do so we are more attuned to nature, to the rhythms and patterns. We become deeply connected to  the creatures and plants that surround us. We become aware of how they interact with one another, and we learn something everyday.

Look at this leather jacket. Every time I get the soil ready to sow seeds I find a few   of them (they are pests to the vegetable plants), so I put them on one of the bird-feeders.  Chickadees and Cardinals devour them. I can assure you that birds turn up to feast on them  in less than five minutes.

As we restore our union with Mother Nature, we clear our minds, open our hearts,  get more creative and feel happier.

It’s time to return to the soil; I have a lot of work to do.

“Let us all return to the soil

That lays the corners of its garments

And awaits for us.

Life rears itself from her breast,

Flowers bloom from her smiles,

Her call is the sweetest music.

Her lap stretches from one corner to the other,

She controls the strings of life.

Her warbling waters bring

The murmur of life from all eternity.”

Rabindranath Tagore