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#SuperPowersOfTheGarden/1

Wildlife, nature and the environment have always occupied a special place in Marlene\\u2019s heart. \\xa0This passion has led her to volunteer at a rare animal breeds conservation farm in Bulgaria and an organic and permaculture farm in the South of France to learn more about working with nature.\\xa0 In this special mini-series edition, she discusses a piece of nature closer to home: the garden.\\xa0 In 2019, Marlene\\u2019s garden was certified as a Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation. \\xa0

It\\u2019s Spring and to continue celebrating Mother Earth, \\xa0I\\u2019m taking a little break from Cooking and Kitchen stuff to talk about gardening.

Over the last few weeks, I\\u2019ve been starting seeds, preparing garden beds, planting bare roots and am in the process of reconditioning my backyard soil. \\xa0That\\u2019s a whole lot of information if you\\u2019re new to gardening, and later on, I promise to explain that in more detail. \\xa0So except for one surprising snow day a little over a week ago and a few blessed rainy days, I\\u2019ve been getting my hands dirty and soaking up a lot of sun.\\xa0

Instead of talking about how I got into gardening, or that until we bought our house eight years ago I had no interest whatsoever in plants outside of their utility as food or decor, I want to jump start and talk about a new kind of garden.

A New Kind of Garden

We all have ideas of what gardening is, and most of them revolve around growing plants for either food or aesthetics: vegetables, flowers and landscape planting come to mind.\\xa0 Some grow plants for medicine\\u2014in a recent post, I mentioned some plants I keep that are useful as first aid for cuts and burns.\\xa0 Others grow plants to serve particular functions: to prevent erosion, mitigate flooding, remove soil contaminants.\\xa0 And then there are those who grow plants to help the environment\\u2014planting trees to reduce harmful gases like carbon dioxide, native species as food for pollinators, bushes as shelter for wildlife.\\xa0

Building a garden that does all of the above is not only possible, but is part of the solution to some of our biggest environmental problems: global warming and declining pollinators, particularly bees.\\xa0 You might ask yourself, how does a little garden become part of the solution to such an overwhelmingly large problem such as global warming?\\xa0 To answer that, we\\u2019ll need to understand the problems first, then get better acquainted with what makes up a garden.

Two Big Problems

Global Warming.\\xa0 The last decade was the hottest ever in recorded history.\\xa0 2020 tied with 2016 to be the hottest years ever, according to an analysis by\\xa0 NASA.\\xa0 Global warming is caused when certain gases like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide block heat radiating from the earth, trapping it in the atmosphere and causing a greenhouse effect.\\xa0 We know disasters like hurricanes, forest fires, and droughts are attributed to global warming.\\xa0 It\\u2019s overwhelming to comprehend problems of this magnitude, and when problems are too big or we\\u2019re not directly impacted, there\\u2019s a tendency to become paralyzed with inaction.\\xa0 So I\\u2019ll scale it down to something simpler and immediate, at least to those of us who live in New England.\\xa0

Global warming causes erratic weather patterns and disrupts life cycles as we know it.\\xa0 For example, gardeners are guided by what\\u2019s known as the Plant Hardiness Zone map, so they know which plants are likely to thrive in their area.\\xa0 The map is based on average minimum temperature and divided into 10 \\u2013degree Fahrenheit zones, from 1-13, with 1 being the coldest.\\xa0 Eight years ago, I was on zone 5, now we\\u2019re at 6.\\xa0 And the zone 7 anemones planted last Fall have blossomed.\\xa0 On the up side, the warmer climate for my area has expanded the variety of plants I can grow; but it\\u2019s also caused a surge in ticks which prefer warm and moist conditions, and increased the risk for Lyme\\u2019s disease.\\xa0 And it\\u2019s contributed to the next problem.

Bees and other pollinators are declining. Pesticides, habitat loss, nutrition deficit are some of the culprits killing pollinators.\\xa0 Heat spikes caused by climate change have also been linked to the reduction of the bee population. Saving bees and other pollinators isn\\u2019t just some warm and fuzzy ideal.\\xa0 According to Greenpeace:

\\u201cSeventy out of the top 100 human food crops\\xa0\\u2014\\xa0which supply about 90 percent of the world\\u2019s nutrition\\xa0\\u2014\\xa0are pollinated by bees.\\u201d

Honeybees in particular are responsible for 80% of all pollination worldwide.\\xa0 And we\\u2019ve lost nearly 30% of our bees yearly the last few years.\\xa0 In 2019, it was 40%. Simply said: no bees, no food.\\xa0

Garden Elements and their Superpowers

Nature is amazing, and not only for obvious ecological reasons.\\xa0 It provides food and medicine.\\xa0 It inspires beauty and awe.\\xa0 It heals us, physically and spiritually. \\xa0Even if we don\\u2019t have access to forests and natural spaces, we can still recreate that piece of nature with all her gifts, in our homes.\\xa0 And that is a garden.

Now a beautiful garden is a wonderful thing. Who isn\\u2019t cheered by a kaleidoscope of pansies, soothed by the green of pine canopy or awed by the splendor of rhododendrons?\\xa0 And a garden that feeds a family, even partially, is inspiring: living off the land builds pride and independence.\\xa0 And survival skills always get extra points.\\xa0

But confining the garden\\u2019s role to merely that of providing beauty and sustenance, while remarkable, is not recognizing the many gifts it can offer. \\xa0It\\u2019s like being a speedster (think Flash) and using your superpower only to run fast, because you didn\\u2019t know you could also pass through walls or travel through time.\\xa0

We have underutilized the magnificent and magical powers of a garden simply by refusing to understand its nature.\\xa0 To re-imagine a garden that is not only aesthetically pleasing, but functional to both humans, wildlife and the environment, we need to get to know some of its superpowers. \\xa0Only then can we design gardens that are part of the solution to the big problems of global warming and declining pollinators.\\xa0\\xa0 So let\\u2019s get to know the elements of a garden a bit better so we can learn how to harness her superpowers. To clarify some ideas, I borrow many concepts from permaculture, a way of thinking and designing our natural space to work in harmony with nature.

The Good Earth: \\xa0Soil

A few years ago, I volunteered as a farm hand in the south of France to learn more about organic and permaculture farming.\\xa0 One day, after many hours weeding a garden bed, I was proud to show my farm host the large heap of dandelions, fennel and other weeds I had painstakingly pulled out.\\xa0 He picked one up, turned it over and with a gardening claw, gently knocked off the soil that still clung to the roots.\\xa0 He looked me in the eye and with a solemn tone, instructed me to get as much of the dirt back into the bed, adding, \\u201ctry your best not to disturb the soil.\\u201d

In that instant, I understood the meaning of the word terroir. In France, especially in the world of wines and vineyards, you hear that word a lot, but its literal translation of land never seemed to quite capture the reverence it seemed to invoke.\\xa0 But I understood that day that terroir wasn\\u2019t just dirt.\\xa0 Besides its particular geology it was also the accumulation past to present of the effects of the environment, climate conditions, farming practices, \\u2014in essence, everything that had defined this bit of earth and made it unique.\\xa0 It was a living thing.\\xa0 In my zeal, I rampaged through the garden bed with little thought to the soil structures that had taken years to build.\\xa0 Embarrassed, I returned to my pile of weeds and went through each one again, this time gently returning the soil I had almost extravagantly wasted.\\xa0

In the US, we\\u2019re accustomed to purchasing compost from nurseries to amend soil.\\xa0 I had never thought twice about that until my French internship, where buying compost was expensive and a luxury to many rural farmers.\\xa0 In the US, we get used to the idea of replacing, rather than repairing. We don\\u2019t repair, because oftentimes we don\\u2019t know how things work.\\xa0 Dirt is dirt, I had thought. \\xa0\\xa0It\\u2019s all the same.\\xa0 Nothing could be further from the truth.\\xa0

Many of us in urban areas have little experience of what good earth is. That\\u2019s because when houses are constructed, natural topsoil, the top layer of virgin earth (different from commercial topsoil) and also the most nutrient-dense, is excavated and often replaced with sand, stone and poorer versions of soil. In addition, the new soil is often compacted by heavy machinery during the construction process.\\xa0 Compacted soil makes it difficult for water and oxygen to pass through and sustain life. And so we pump it with chemicals to try to coax life into it; we buy new soil or we give up and learn to live with barren land.\\xa0 That doesn\\u2019t have to be the case.

Good soil, earth, is an ecosystem all by itself.\\xa0 It is a living tapestry of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, earthworms, and arthropods. \\xa0It is teeming with so much life that a teaspoon contains more microbes than there are people on earth.

I can\\u2019t remember where I first read it, but I thought the metaphor was apt: tending soil is really more like tending livestock.\\xa0 Because when all is well, my livestock of microbes and organisms, through physical, biological and biochemical processes, make healthy soil.\\xa0 For one thing, like all living organisms, they eat and poop.\\xa0\\xa0 But what they eat, which is pretty much everything organic, means they are nature\\u2019s true disposal machines.\\xa0 Decomposition, a complex process which breaks down matter, including us humans, is vital to recycling energy and nutrients back into earth, making room for new life. If nature didn\\u2019t provide us a way to dispose matter, the earth would be filled with the accumulation of everything that\\u2019s ever existed.\\xa0 (It must be noted that some things, like plastic, may never decompose.).\\xa0 But more importantly,

\\u201cWithout the cycling of elements, the continuation of life on Earth would be impossible, since essential nutrients would rapidly be taken up by organisms and locked in a form that cannot be used by others.\\u201d

What my little livestock poops out is another thing.\\xa0 For instance, excretions from earthworms, or worm castings, contain essential plant nutrients like iron and organic matter that feed other organisms.\\xa0 They help aerate soils, which improves water retention. \\xa0Excretion aside, the burrowing worms and bugs provide similar aeration services, and when they perish, become food for the rest. It\\u2019s an efficient and elegant cycle, when you come to think of it.\\xa0 And then there\\u2019s fungi.

Fungi, in addition to helping decompose matter, also function as a communications and distribution network for other vegetation.\\xa0 Mycelia, the fine white filaments of fungi, create an underground network that connects trees and plants, allowing them to communicate and send water, nutrients and sometimes toxins to each other.\\xa0 The mycelia network can be very large, which is why the largest organism on earth is the 2,384-acre Armillaria ostoyae, a variety of honey mushroom in Oregon, discovered in 2003.

It\\u2019s hard to think of soil as an inert matter once you get to know some of the amazing attributes of its inhabitants.\\xa0 Once we understand some of the symbiotic relationships in a soil ecosystem (and there is a lot still unknown), it\\u2019s easier to see how valuable healthy soil is.\\xa0 Healthy soil not only provides nutrients for plants which sustain both human and wildlife; it absorbs and holds rainwater for use during dry spells, filters and detoxifies pollutants, converts and recycles organic matter.\\xa0 For decades, because of poor information and corporate greed, we have killed our soil with chemicals and practices like tilling which disrupt soil structures and over-farming which deplete lands. \\xa0The good news is, we can learn to restore soil and make our lands healthy again. \\xa0When we discuss the superpowers of other garden elements, we\\u2019ll also learn how they help each other out and how their superpowers can be harnessed.\\xa0

To be continued\\u2026

Additional references:

https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/https://www.necn.com/news/local/maine/climate-change-to-blame-for-new-englands-growing-tick-population/1963409/https://www.nps.gov/subjects/pollinators/pollinators-in-trouble.htmhttps://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2020/06/24/pollinators-crossroadshttps://www.agricen.com/hubfs/Soil_Microbe_Educator.pdfhttps://www.pennington.com/all-products/fertilizer/resources/earthworm-castings-all-the-goodness-without-the-goo