Co-conspirators needed for a gardening experiment.

You must have access to a garden which you are custodian of for a time

You must be prepared to change the garden

As conspirators:

            We do not dig

            We value all plants

            We use no chemicals

            We allow some wilderness

Practical results – some or all may apply to your garden

            We make compost

            We produce food

            We save seeds

            We share what we produce

            We create local networks

And most important

            We restore the soil

This project does not depend on your long-term custody of your land – if you rent a house it is fine – the garden will be handed on to the next person in a healthier happier state than it was when you started.

My diary entry: Tuesday

I’m going to my garden in a minute. I wanted to write about how I am feeling before I go. I am feeling overwhelmed, excited, tearful, terrified. All this from reading a blog about growing vegetables and reading a bit in a book about no-dig gardening. And another bit about worms.

The blog https://deepgreenpermaculture.com/2019/03/03/the-birth-of-a-permaculture-food-forest-before-after-photos/ tells me that we can feed ourselves from our back gardens, the book tells me I am on the right track, with my no-dig cultivation method and the bit about worms tells me to be patient. It may take a year for the wormery to really get going, it says. I’ve been checking every day!

Actually being on the right track and not getting bogged down and making progress and understanding and feeling and making connections – all these things bring overwhelm – but I know what to do now. I can go to my piece of land, my bit of earth, my mother and I can sit there, or walk barefoot, or plan or measure, or rest. I can embrace my plants, I can listen. I can just be there.

I want to share all this and I don’t know how to do it. I want to write this blog and I want to do more. I have so many ideas I feel as though I may burst.

Today

I don’t know. My starting point every day. And because I don’t know so much, I’m not very good at planning. This blog this week is in three parts, two written earlier in the week. The picture is of sawflies called Arge cyanocrocea, kindly named for me by Professor Jim Hardie of the Royal Entomological Society. How cool is that?

The thing about that space out there – the garden – is that it is incredibly exciting. There are masses of things like the gorgeous sawflies, just there, being, and then there is the potential to grow loads of food. Angelo’s blog, https://deepgreenpermaculture.com/2019/03/03/the-birth-of-a-permaculture-food-forest-before-after-photos/, tells us just how much. I know he’s in Australia, but I have a feeling we can do just as well or better here in England.

Although there is so much I don’t know, there is a lot I do know. I know and love plants, and have done all my life. I am continually excited by plants. Right now I have a liquorice mint that is lovely and aromatic and tasty as tea or salad leaf and I’ve discovered it is not a mint or liquorice. I think it is an Agastache, and I’ve ordered different Agastache seeds to grow and compare. I’ll tell you more when I know.

Back to the beginning – Co-conspirators needed. This is a conspiracy not only of not digging, but of not knowing and finding out. I want to save my little bit of the planet and grow some food and store come carbon, and I want to share what I know with others, and find out new things, so we can all grow together, and save the whole planet.

So get in touch. Let’s see what we can do. And if you live in Newbury, in Berkshire, in England, even better.