I do a lot of this! It works well to separate the plants that can handle our growing conductions, from those that can’t. I still have a lot of work to do to keep some semblance of neatness and order, but it’s sure nice to have a lot of freebies that have gone feral and will provide with little to no input. It’s also entertaining to see where plants will freely choose to spread to, or avoid.
Now I can tell my husband, when he gets antsy about things being left to their own devices and getting messy, that it’s OK an the technique is approved of because it has an official name
It's easy to read this post and miss what, to me, was it's most urgent remark. It comes off as almost a throw-away line: "As a possible food crisis looms...." I want to ask what you meant by that. I was especially struck by this word choice because of all the gloomy political news I've been reading the last few days. There seems to be a coup going on in America. Even the near future feels very uncertain to me right now.
I'm amazed that you do all you do with a full-time job, farm maintenance, permaculture experiments, horses, chickens, turtles, pesky rodents, and a regular column too. It's impressive. I enjoyed that you're espousing "sheer total utter neglect" as a methodology that I can enthusiastically embrace, and thrilled to hear there is "no need for slavish adherence to neglect," which means I can occasionally enjoy being a decent father.
As a city person, it was hard not to read your essay as an analogy to raising children. I think my wife and I were close to being helicopter parents, but I've known a whole bunch of STUN kids in my time too, and a lot of them turned out quite well, thank goodness, and is sort of a testament to the old adage: "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." When I looked this up just now, I was surprised to find out this was originally a quote from Nietzsche, but it sounds like it might have originated with a gardener.
The food crisis I was referring to is the general problem that includes running out of arable land, shrinking harvests due to drought or chemical-resistant pests, not enough fertilizer to go around, etc. There's a whole suite of problems on the horizon that have been looming for a while now, unrelated to Trump occupying the WH again. However, there is the other scary and immediate threat of food prices skyrocketing and (more) people simply not being able to afford food. And harvests rotting in the field because essential workers were deported. Yeah, there's all sorts of things to be worried about so I think it's okay to include all that when we speak of the food crisis.
Thank you for this comment, I had the same thought as Ruben. "Food crisis" jumped out at me.
Another thought: for people like me who grew up in the walled-off artifice of the suburbs, the thought of trying to plan and carry through a garden is...overwhelming. I imagine you having to conduct a permaculture/gardening class for a gaggle of hapless suburbanites like me, hopeless at wielding gardening tools, heedless of the difference between a doo-hicky and a whacker-jobby, hoping we can figure out where to get all that we need to have a prayer of coaxing some shoots to come up from the ground when the time comes.
If there's ever a serious national food crisis I think a lot of people like me are probably going to have to hope there are government-organized food rationing stations where we can queue up and hope for the best.
Not everyone wants to or is able to grow food and that's okay. You're not the target audience of this type of post, but I really appreciate that you read and comment anyway. It seems to me that there are large numbers of people that DO want to grow food, and get caught up in completely unnecessary and complicated rules for doing so. Plus they become convinced that they need expensive doo-hickies and whacker-jobbies to do so! I'm hoping to connect with those folks.
I have found that almost completely disregarding plant spacing is to my advantage.
I cannot, for the life of me, get squash to the finish line due to squash bugs. But if I plant them in a Milpa bed with buckwheat or beans, the squash can make it, buried in the bean plants.
I had no idea there was a name for my favorite gardening technique.
I do a lot of this! It works well to separate the plants that can handle our growing conductions, from those that can’t. I still have a lot of work to do to keep some semblance of neatness and order, but it’s sure nice to have a lot of freebies that have gone feral and will provide with little to no input. It’s also entertaining to see where plants will freely choose to spread to, or avoid.
Now I can tell my husband, when he gets antsy about things being left to their own devices and getting messy, that it’s OK an the technique is approved of because it has an official name
😂😂
😄👍
I agree! It is really cool to watch where plants pop up on their own.
It's easy to read this post and miss what, to me, was it's most urgent remark. It comes off as almost a throw-away line: "As a possible food crisis looms...." I want to ask what you meant by that. I was especially struck by this word choice because of all the gloomy political news I've been reading the last few days. There seems to be a coup going on in America. Even the near future feels very uncertain to me right now.
I'm amazed that you do all you do with a full-time job, farm maintenance, permaculture experiments, horses, chickens, turtles, pesky rodents, and a regular column too. It's impressive. I enjoyed that you're espousing "sheer total utter neglect" as a methodology that I can enthusiastically embrace, and thrilled to hear there is "no need for slavish adherence to neglect," which means I can occasionally enjoy being a decent father.
As a city person, it was hard not to read your essay as an analogy to raising children. I think my wife and I were close to being helicopter parents, but I've known a whole bunch of STUN kids in my time too, and a lot of them turned out quite well, thank goodness, and is sort of a testament to the old adage: "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." When I looked this up just now, I was surprised to find out this was originally a quote from Nietzsche, but it sounds like it might have originated with a gardener.
The food crisis I was referring to is the general problem that includes running out of arable land, shrinking harvests due to drought or chemical-resistant pests, not enough fertilizer to go around, etc. There's a whole suite of problems on the horizon that have been looming for a while now, unrelated to Trump occupying the WH again. However, there is the other scary and immediate threat of food prices skyrocketing and (more) people simply not being able to afford food. And harvests rotting in the field because essential workers were deported. Yeah, there's all sorts of things to be worried about so I think it's okay to include all that when we speak of the food crisis.
Thank you for this comment, I had the same thought as Ruben. "Food crisis" jumped out at me.
Another thought: for people like me who grew up in the walled-off artifice of the suburbs, the thought of trying to plan and carry through a garden is...overwhelming. I imagine you having to conduct a permaculture/gardening class for a gaggle of hapless suburbanites like me, hopeless at wielding gardening tools, heedless of the difference between a doo-hicky and a whacker-jobby, hoping we can figure out where to get all that we need to have a prayer of coaxing some shoots to come up from the ground when the time comes.
If there's ever a serious national food crisis I think a lot of people like me are probably going to have to hope there are government-organized food rationing stations where we can queue up and hope for the best.
Not everyone wants to or is able to grow food and that's okay. You're not the target audience of this type of post, but I really appreciate that you read and comment anyway. It seems to me that there are large numbers of people that DO want to grow food, and get caught up in completely unnecessary and complicated rules for doing so. Plus they become convinced that they need expensive doo-hickies and whacker-jobbies to do so! I'm hoping to connect with those folks.
Wow this is really cool. I love gardening but am the laziest gardener I have ever personally met .
This article however, may actually succeed in motivating myself to - Git Doon an' Derchty !! 👏😀
Lazy gardeners unite! It also helps to start with a really small garden space and challenge yourself to see how much produce you can get from it.
Have tried that already 😱 lol #weedsunited
I prob need to downsize to handkerchief proportions 🙃
I have found that almost completely disregarding plant spacing is to my advantage.
I cannot, for the life of me, get squash to the finish line due to squash bugs. But if I plant them in a Milpa bed with buckwheat or beans, the squash can make it, buried in the bean plants.
I love success stories!