In Our Garden: Earth Care, People Care, Future Care

The seed catalogues arrive in January and it’s like Christmas all over again! I clear space on my dining room table and the whole family gathers around to ooh and ahh over the heirloom tomato varieties and the bumpy-looking squash. The graph paper is printed and everyone starts designing their ideal garden layout. The kids have cutouts of vegetables to paste onto their paper to visualize how much space each will require. My husband and I launch into discussions of design philosophies - how to maintain efficiency and beauty while testing some new companion planting arrangements. This is pure joy. Garden planning is full of possibilities.

Our enthusiasm for the garden is most definitely about the vegetables, but it’s also about so much more. Like ecology. And science experiments. And community. And generosity. 

I don’t think I ever noticed how many creatures live in the dirt until I started gardening with young children. Kids are such great teachers and observers of nature. Now, of course, I love reading and learning about all the insects and microorganisms that make our soil really thrive. The interconnections between the mycorrhizal fungi, the bacteria, nematodes, and others are truly amazing!  Using no-till gardening methods, we preserve the habitats of these delightful creatures and in turn they make the ideal environment for our vegetables to grow. It’s good for us, for the soil and for our plants - a true win-win.

Of course, embedded in learning about nature and soil ecology, are lots of science experiments for young and old alike. My husband and I set out various ‘test plots’ in our garden - experimenting with polycultures and companion planting, checking which plants thrive in which locations. We also experimented with composts and pest-management strategies, marvelling every time nature did a better job than we could. In short, yes, the predator insects will come and take care of the pests for you if you are patient enough. 

The girls loved conducting their own experiments too: will the pumpkin plant grow better pruned or unpruned? How high do the beans grow each day? Will these random seeds that I found on the trail grow if I plant them? Math, science, art, and yes, even literature all found a home in our garden. 

The whole garden was our classroom but in particular a sunflower house at one end of the garden was our dedicated play-space. A semi-circle of tall, vibrant sunflowers makes a shady hideaway for picnic lunches, reading, and playing games. In this nook, hidden from the rest of the world, we found our resting place and fantasy play world, a place to connect with each other and nurture our souls.   

I love the joy of gifting bouquets to our neighbours in the summer months, so I am eager to grow a variety of flowers for cutting and expand my artistic skills in flower arranging. This year, cornflowers, zinnias, bishops ammi and calendula adorn the edges and inner pathways of our plot. I have the most success with zinnias for bouquets. Our neighbours each get a bouquet in a mason jar vase a couple of times through the summer. In turn we receive the most delightful Italian tomatoes, perennial cuttings for our new backyard flower bed, and leaves for our compost bin. Friendships are deepened as gifts are exchanged and our community is strengthened. 

The flowers have other benefits too. Calendula is not only beautiful, but medicinal, so I harvest flowers periodically to make tea and to add to our homemade lotions in the winter months. 

Interspersing the flowers among the vegetables has the bonus of feeding the local bee population while attracting pollinators which are necessary for my tomatoes and pumpkins to fruit.

Which brings us back to the vegetables. That was the main point of the garden right?  Nothing compares to the freshness of eating carrots still speckled with dirt or peas and tomatoes taken straight from the plant to the mouth. We love growing a variety of vegetables that aren’t easily found in the grocery store, too: heirloom tomatoes and squash, unique varieties of lettuce. These are interesting and healthy for us, but also important in maintaining biodiversity, which is good for the insects and others who need it and also for human food security in a changing world. We are thinking about the future as we save seeds and invest in diversification. 

Our garden also supplies us with vegetables to be preserved into the winter months. As I write this, it’s January and we still have squash, carrots, beans, potatoes, tomatoes, and beets from last summer’s garden stored away. It is nice to know that in a small way growing our own local produce limits our dependence on factory farms and therefore fossil fuels. Gardening is a tiny piece of our contribution to cutting our carbon footprint, caring about climate change and building a positive future. 

But we know that not everyone has access to garden space or even to good food. So we intentionally grew more than we needed this year so that we could donate plenty of produce to local service agencies who distribute it to those experiencing food insecurity in our city. This is one way we can help care for those around us. Our hope is that as these folks have their basic needs met, they can be free from the stress of necessities to be able to pursue mental health, education, and achieving their dreams for themselves and their loved ones. 

Our small vegetable garden is a microcosm of what we long to see all over the world. Our tending of the earth is also caring for ourselves, others, and our planet. Earth care, people care, and future care are interwoven into a single plot of land.  

Earth Care, People Care, Future Care

Earth care, people care, future care. These are traditional permaculture ethics and while we list them separately, we believe they are deeply interconnected. Love for people and love for the earth go hand-in-hand. And when we care about people and planet, it's impossible not to also plan and build for a better future for us all.   

So let’s lay out a few definitions.

Earth care encompasses everything we do to care for our planet including soil, water, air, climate, plants, and animals.

People care involves creating a just and hospitable world for ourselves and others. It is everything from ensuring we have enough nutritious food and clean drinking water personally and globally to managing health issues, building safe communities, and caring for our mental wellbeing. When I think about people care, I assume a global community where every person matters. Sometimes I can take action that primarily has an impact on myself, my family and my very local community. Other times my action more clearly impacts another community or even the rest of the world. All of that is people care. 

Future care is about building a better future for all of earth’s inhabitants. It is proactive rather than reactive and takes into consideration all that would make this world a better place to live for the next generations.

But these values are deeply interconnected. Even as I write those definitions, I find them hard to separate. Our lives aren’t compartmentalized that way and neither are our values. As in our garden, we can pursue all these values at the same time.

In fact, I’m deeply aware that this compartmentalization is inherited from my culture and worldview. Our western scientific training tends to separate and analyze and categorize. But, as I listen to Aboriginal teachers I am drawn to the way they conceive of all things as interrelated. Humans are part of the natural ecosystem. Plants and animals are our relations and we have much to learn from each other. 

More and more, I am seeing that we cannot exist apart from the earth. We are interconnected at our very essence. Earth care and people care don’t just happen to be mutually beneficial, they are one and the same. We are people of the earth. 

Design

Valuing earth care, people care, and future care has a profound impact on our everyday lives, but in particular, at Grounded Hope, it impacts how we view our consulting and design practices. 

Since we don’t see these values as competing, we never need to choose between them as priorities. We hold them together at all times, knowing we can benefit the whole without compromise.

In a phrase, we practice whole systems design. This process considers the whole, not just individual parts. It focuses on relationships between the elements rather than on the elements themselves.  

So for example, in our backyard, we had several goals. We wanted to be able to have privacy but also not completely block out the neighbours; we wanted to create a restful, beautiful space for ourselves and our friends to enjoy; we wanted to grow food for ourselves and our community; and of course, we wanted to care for the earth.  

In light of those needs we planted two apple trees in the spring of 2014 which provided privacy with the neighbours, beauty, and fruit. In determining their placement, we considered the sun, soil, and water needed for the trees to thrive as well as their hardiness zones, fruiting times, and impact on the rest of the yard. We thought about simple questions like “Do we like the taste of these varieties of apples?” as well as complex questions like “How will this impact water flow in our sloped yard?”

Then we also considered how to contribute to the best possible environment for those trees to thrive. It is still a work in progress, but we have built a garden around the base of the trees which incorporates a variety of plants specifically chosen for their role in the whole system. Some plants are there because they attract pollinators, some fix nitrogen into the soil, and some accumulate nutrients. We consider the aesthetics (because we want a beautiful space), the edible or medicinal uses of the plants, and their contribution to the ecosystem beyond our backyard (biodiversity, habitat, preservation of native species, etc). Those plants are then carefully arranged according to their needs and yields so that they are in proper relationship with each other. 

The beginning stages of our garden. We still have adjustments to make and lots of native plants to add.

The only major change we would make if we were to do it again would likely be to plant other fruits than apples instead. That’s because our neighbour has an apple tree with more than enough fruit for herself. But when we planted the trees we didn’t know that. If we thought as a community, instead of as individuals, we could plan to trade our fruit so we would all have more variety. But we do the best we can. This year we got together to share a cider press borrowed from our local tool library to make apple juice together. And we donated excess apples to service organizations in need. 

Earth care, people care, future care.