Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
We’re producing a series of films to capture the incredible enthusiasm of people across Bristol for good food. From growing at home to cooking from scratch, stopping food waste to supporting local producers, Bristolians are finding new ways to make our local food system stronger than ever.
I salute every coronavirus gardener, and I dearly hope they will make a permanent habit of it! Because there are some excellent reasons to garden that have nothing to do with food security.
One can only hope that this wave of newbie gardeners carries on regardless, once we emerge from this crisis, blinking into the brave new greener world ahead of us.
With this free fertilizer scheme I can still garden successfully if I don’t have extra cash to spend on fertilizer. I can still garden if my local hardware store goes out of business and I lose easy access to purchased inputs. I can still garden if something goes really wrong with the world, supply chains fail and it’s no longer possible to buy fertilizer.
Around here, we have a goal to produce 80% of our veg, fruit, meat and dairy within five years of moving onto our land. This is year three, and while we’ve reached that goal for summer veg like tomatoes and cucumbers (until this year’s drought), I have not had as much success with the fall garden until this year.
2017 was a year that didn’t go according to plan, and thus neither did this blog. However, I’m back to the blog now and intend to continue making posts on an irregular basis. And that means it’s time to report on what the garden told me in 2017.
But what if a garden culture could flourish anywhere, regardless of how the structure of a city was designed? And what if, by allowing such a culture to flourish, we could begin to heal some of our most pressing ecological and social issues? During the past five years, my partner Suhee Kang and I have enjoyed the opportunity to engage somewhat deeply with these kinds of places—both in concrete-lined urban corridors and in lush fields of hillside natural farms.
Once again, it’s time to look at the lessons that the garden and its residents taught me during the past year. You can check this post for basic information on how I listen to what the garden tells me and how to conduct a dialogue with your own garden.
This year, I started my first garden—a micro garden really.
That’s an easy one for me— burning off the asparagus patch in the early spring. Just something about lighting up the new growing year.
A friendly reminder, the bees, and some soil test results suggest a new garden project for 2016 and beyond.
Now it’s time to share with you my plans for the 2016 garden.
