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I’m going to cut to the chase: Humans are omnivores. There is little point arguing what 5000 years of biological study tells us (and yes the field of biology is around 5000 years old!). Biologists classify things based on sets of rules that help to group living things into bins of similar organisms that differ in predictable ways from other dissimilar organisms.
Check out your teeth!
The easiest (and for me, the most compelling) evidence that humans are omnivores comes from our teeth. Herbivores have flat, broad molars for grinding up plant materials. Carnivores have so called “carnassial” molars which are equivalent to blades that can cut through meat and hides.
For a great read on the science, check out this post from veganbiologist.com .
Comparison of herbivore teeth at the top and Carnivore teeth at the bottom (Photo: author created with Canva pro)
And Omnivores have molars that don’t fit either of those two categories well and so they form a separate group that shares more in common with each other, than with either herbivores or carnivores.
Herbivores (e.g. horse), omnivores (e.g. humans) and carnivores (e.g. dogs) all have different types of teeth (Photo: author created with Canva pro)
Human teeth are very clearly neither herbivore nor carnivore. That leaves us grouped in with the omnivores.
By their nature and the design of their teeth, omnivores eat many different things and that includes both plants and animals.
Your diet is something else.
There is a difference between being born an omnivore, based on the classification of your human teeth, and choosing to eat a specific diet.
Humans can survive on a vegan diet if they supplement B12 (which only comes from animals sources).
Humans can choose to eat a meat-based diet.
Humans can choose to eat an omnivore diet.
There is no single answer as to what your diet should be (read more: What does it mean to be an ancient human trapped in a modern world?). Your biology makes you uniquely suited to choose a diet that you prefer, and have access to, rather than being like a horse committed to eating grass and plants, or a meat-eating canine or feline.
There is no right answer.
So my point in writing this is to say get over the idea that there is “ONE TRUE HUMAN DIET” because that is an outright lie. Just look at the vast diversity of traditional diets around the world and you will get what I mean. The Inuit traditionally survived on arctic char, seal, polar bear and caribou. On the other hand, Indian culture has been largely vegetarian for thousands of years.
At least half of all the plants on earth (approx. 200,000 plants) are edible for humans, even though we rarely try to eat them. I couldn’t find a similar estimate for how many types of animals can be eaten by humans. Just as with plants, some animals are toxic for people to eat and so would not count.
Regardless of this vast diversity of edible plants and animals in the world, the UN estimates that: “Today, 75 percent of the world’s food is generated from only 12 plants and five animal species.” Thanks Mega-Food-Corporations for that “win”? (Read more: How biodiversity loss threatens your future)
The bottom line is that your diet is only as limited as you choose to make it. So think outside of the box! Literally. Stop chowing down on the hyper-processed crap being sold in stores.
Learn more about your basic biology and what your body needs to thrive.
Discover the abundance of food choices the world has to offer.
And live your life.
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Ready to learn more? The Mind-Body-Food Connection program is starting soon. Learn how your senses have evolved to help you find food, and how Big-business uses your senses to manipulate you into buying more of their food. Join the waitlist today!
You are an ancient human living in a modern world.
While your conscious mind may have forgotten this fact, your body and the survival structures in your brain have not.
Survival is hardwired into each one of us.
This is the part of your brain that acts without you.
It’s the part that automatically draws your hand away from a flame. It’s the part that makes your mouth go dry right before it’s your turn to speak at the meeting. It’s the part that makes you sweat as you walk up to the podium. It’s the part that gives you a headache or nausea right before you have to do something you really don’t want to do.
We talk a lot about our fear responses — flight, flight or freeze — as part of our ancient human body that still manifests daily in our lives.
But there is another part of our survival mechanism that we don’t often talk about or even think about any more.
We are hardwired to find food and water.
We are hardwired to find food and water and this is every bit as critical to our survival mechanisms as our fear response.
And yet, most of us take food and water for granted these days.
You turn on a tap and voila — drinking water!
You go to the grocery store and there is every manner of food imaginable — fresh, frozen, canned or packaged — from all over the world — right at your fingertips.
If anything, we suffer from too much food choice.
And yet for millions of people, there is still something missing.
Food is a battlefield. Food is a guilt trip. Food is binge eating. Food is a party.
Food is a trauma response. Food is comfort. Food is self-loathing.
Food is a calorie chart. Food is a diet plan. Food is restraint and control. Food is over-indulgence.
Food is pretty much anything except one of the most fundamental elements of our survival.
It’s time to step back.
It’s time to remember how our mind-body-food connection actually works.
Every animal on the planet knows how to eat, and yet as humans we spend billions of dollars trying to learn the “right way”.
Join me on a 7-week journey as we explore the mind-body-food connection. Let’s delve into our 5 senses and look at the science behind how our mind and body perceives food. This science has been exploited by Big-Business in the name of bigger profits and more control over the food supply. But instead, you can learn how to take back control. You can restore your relationship with food by understanding the Mind-Body-Food Connection and using that to make better choices.
Are you ready? Doors open soon, so sign up to receive notification of the program launch.
We are bombarded with scarcity messages every day. The words scream at us from every screen, every encounter, as we move through our daily life:
Sale ends today!
For a limited time only!
Limited quantities available! Order yours now!
There is no time for that!
You aren’t working fast enough!
Be more productive!
The list could go on and on.
But what if instead of staying focused on scarcity, you could create a pillar of abundance in your life and your thinking that freed you from the stress and anxiety that scarcity causes? What if you built an abundance mindset?
There is no magic formula that will give you an abundance mindset. But you can create your own magic by finding out what works best to you and using that daily to shift your thinking.
9 Easy Ways to Create Abundance
1. Accept that life has taken care of you so far.
You are reading this after all. You are still here. So whatever adversity you have faced this far, you are still standing. Remember that moving forward.
2. Reflect on your past and find proof of abundance in your life.
It’s so easy to forget what has been plentiful when the world is screaming scarcity in your face. Reflect on abundance. Find proof of abundance: a generous friend, a great feast, the expansiveness of time in nature, and ??
Pause to look at your surroundings. What is abundant in your surroundings right now? What does it provide evidence of?
We too often become blind to our daily surroundings. Stop and notice. It can be as simple as the many leaves on the trees, or your crowded bookshelf, or a fridge full of food. Notice abundance daily.
3. Practice gratitude daily.
This is not jotting just 3 things down on paper each day or nodding your head to say ‘Yup, I’m grateful’. Let gratitude in to your life daily. Go deeper than this.
Feel gratitude as an emotion in your body. When you are grateful, where does that feeling live in your body? Just like anger may be a clenched jaw or still neck, gratitude lives in your body too. Find out where.
4. Give without expectations.
So often we provide favors to stock up on returns for ourselves. I’m doing this now and I expect that in the future, this action buys me x or y in return. Instead, find opportunities to give generously without expecting something back.
Try a random act of kindness, smiling at someone you pass by, picking up a dropped parcel for someone, and don’t stop there.
Scarcity is a disabling mindset. It keeps you fearful. It keeps you playing small in life. It's the voice in your head telling you that you are not enough. Instead, allow yourself the opportunity to take action.
Recognize yourself for moments when you act. Celebrate those and you will do this again, and then again. Just like exercising your body, repeating positive actions builds mental strength as well.
6. Reduce your anxiety and stress daily.
Anxiety and stress both come from and perpetuate a scarcity mindset. Instead reduce these daily.
Try breathing breaks, meditation, a walk in nature, time with a pet or close friend, or other small things you can do to break the scarcity cycle daily.
7. Find your focus.
Mindlessness and scarcity go hand in hand. What do you really want to do today? This week? This month? This year?
Creating focus generates higher states of wellbeing. As you remind yourself of how you want to show up in the world, you make it easier to actually be that person.
What is resilience? Essentially it is the ability to bounce back.
As you cultivate your abundance mindset, you are building resilience. Help this process along by assessing your vulnerabilities and taking steps to overcome those.
If you worry about food shortages, learn how to garden, save seeds, or home-can food. If you worry that your job is unstable, proactively build some additional skills. Knowing you have tools and alternatives makes you stronger and lets you bounce back.
9. Experience joy.
What brings you joy? True, heartfelt joy? When was the last time you asked yourself this question? In the face of a challenging task or day, ask yourself what would bring you joy right now.
Shift into Abundance
Changing from a scarcity mindset to abundance is not as hard as you might think. Once your focus shifts to the abundance in your life and in the universe, it can spread like a warm and comforting glow.
You find what you focus on. The more you focus on abundance, the more you find it everywhere and the stronger you become.
Why wait? Start today!
If you have other tips for creating abundance, share them in the FAR Community when you sign up to participate or on the Food Abundance Facebook page.
Loss of plant species leaves us swinging at the end of a short rope (Photo by Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash)
We may be spending more time talking about climate change these days, as storms and wildfires threaten and once flowing waters dry up, but we are not talking enough about biodiversity loss and what that means to our future.
The United Nations talks about the triple threat facing our planet: Climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution (waste). These three factors contribute significantly to the generation and spread of infectious disease. This makes sense. As we face erratic weather patterns, dying ecosystems, and waste overload, we become more and more vulnerable to diseases.
At the very same time as these factors are damaging our health and our planet, the key defenses we use to protect ourselves – antibiotics and antimicrobial drugs – are being rendered useless by the rise of super-spreaders. These antimicrobial resistant (AMR) strains of bacteria and disease do not respond to treatment. If the use of antibiotics and antimicrobials is not protected, more and more people will die world wide from infections that used to be treatable.
What does this have to do with biodiversity loss?
Everything.
Many of our most powerful medicines are derived from plants. Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) was originally derived from willow. Elderberry is used around the world to treat a wide variety of cold symptoms and health issues. Caffeine, derived from the coffee bean, is used in the treatment of migraines.
Elderberry is a traditional medicine used around the world (Photo by Maddy Weiss on Unsplash)
This list can go on and on . . . . but the point is that we have not discovered all the many ways in which plants can help heal our bodies. In the meantime, we are losing plants and ecosystem at an alarming rate.
A systematic analysis published in the Lancet (Jan 2022) indicates that 1.5 Million deaths in 2019 were associated with AMR lower respiratory infections. Drug resistant E. coli and strains of tuberculosis are spreading world wide.
While there is no certainty that a plant-based solution to AMR exists, without diverse plants to work with and select from, the chances of finding a solution narrow. Our ability to treat minor forms of illness with natural medicines while saving the “big gun” antibiotics only for extreme illness also becomes limited. Many essential oils made from plants are being studied for use in livestock and human health. Many more studies are needed to protect health through the triple threat.
And it is not just the loss of medicines
Our entire food system is also at extreme risk from biodiversity loss and this is a risk that cuts both ways in terms of ecosystem risks and human food system risks.
On the one hand, clearing land for agriculture has been responsible for the massive destruction of natural ecosystems and has contributed to the extinction of thousands of plant and animal species world wide.
Modern monoculture agriculture leaves our food system vulnerable to collapse (Photo by meriç tuna on Unsplash)
On the other hand, the use of modern monoculture practices has meant that of the 6000 plant species world wide that are cultivated for food, only 9 plant species account for 66% of global food production. This puts our food system at extreme risk as thousands of plant varieties fall into disuse and then disappear entirely.
Thus agriculture is both destroying natural ecosystems at a dizzying rate, while simultaneous narrowing our human food chain down to just a handful of plants, and worse still, just a handful of cultivars. This narrow food plant gene pool vastly limits our chances of finding plants that can produce food under the climate change and pollution conditions that are happening now. It is a practice, however, that is making a handful of people very rich while the rest go hungry.
Our brains are expert at delivering exactly what we put our attention on. Ever told yourself to “not do” something and then bam – you do exactly what you tried to avoid?
Don’t bang your head on that ledge - whack – happens to me all the time. It’s like in that exact moment when you become consciously aware of NOT wanting to hit that ledge your body is already moving to make it happen. Thanks brain!
But the same can be true for our larger goals.
While I am absolutely all about breaking a large goal into smaller meaningful steps, if our goal is so much less than what is possible then we will never achieve our true potential. If we only color inside the lines we never learn what is possible.
This is true socially as well.
We need food security
The concept of food security is critical. No one should be left hungry. We want to prevent starvation and the slow painful decline of mental and physical health that goes along with being chronically malnourished. We want to create a baseline limit of what is tolerated in our society when it comes to access to food, especially for children.
But food security does not go far enough. It is the bare minimum of what is actually required. People need more than just enough food not to starve. So don't get me wrong, I am not arguing against food security, I am arguing for creating so much more.
Why wouldn’t we set our focus on creating food abundance?
Creating food abundance means that there is ample food for achieving the wellbeing of every person.
We are not simply preventing starvation or malnourishment. We would be focused on providing enough food for people to thrive every day, to achieve mental and physical health, to shift their attention onto living and contributing to society instead of trying not to die.
Imagine what becomes possible if people are not wasting time and energy worrying about where their next meal might come from. Imagine if everyone knew that they would eat today . . and tomorrow . . and the day after that.
Imagine all the physical and mental health problems that could be avoided if people were not forced to live on the cheapest calories available. Imagine the millions of health care dollars that could be re-directed into other important tasks.
This is not a fantasy exercise.
People before profits
This is what is possible when we take control of our food systems.
Profit-driven food systems may deliver food security if they are forced to by regulation and constant monitoring (hasn’t happened yet – just saying), but they will never deliver food abundance.
Making healthy food cheaper and more widely available is possible in our current system, but it will never happen. The profit comes from creating ultra-processed, sugar-fueled, addictive products at premium prices wrapped up in convenience.
Nobody is getting rich selling fruits and vegetables. The profit-driven system has failed us all.
Food abundance comes from community-driven mechanisms that put people above profits.
We are not re-inventing the wheel.
The mechanisms to create food abundance already exist.
We already have models for food co-operatives (use the Co-op Finder Apps), not-for-profit organizations that re-purpose systemic food waste, food sharing apps like Feed It Forward, food coupon programs, farmers markets, seed banks, and community gardens. Localized food sources create stability, reduce waste, reduce environmental damage and cost, and provide higher quality foods.
More importantly than any of these mechanisms, is the opportunity for every person to grow something for themselves. Every person. Everywhere.
In containers. In flats. In plots. Up the sides of buildings and across rooftops. In fields and forests.
Food can grow everywhere.
The basics of growing some food remain the same worldwide: a seed source, soil, water and sunlight.
This is not rocket science. This is basic life on earth as it has existed for millions of years.
What is missing currently is the BELIEF that we actually CAN grow food. We actually can feed ourselves if we choose to make this happen and work together.
We’ve been bombarded for decades by messages like:
- Growing food is hard work
- Growing food takes expertise
- Growing food takes a lot space
- Growing food takes money
- Growing food is complicated and required fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and machinery
- Growing food takes sooooo much time
Sound familiar?
None of these myths are inherently true.
They are exaggerations aimed at disempowering you and dissuading you from even trying. You are just not smart enough to grow food. Huh? I call bullshit.
If we collectively stopped worrying about whether the giant multi-national food corporations were going to post another $XX Billion in profit for the year, then we could actually address the systemic issues in our food system that are creating food insecurity in the first place.
The cost of food today is simultaneously held artificially too low (to turn farmers into the working poor) and artificially too high (to consume as much personal income as possible next to the cost of housing). Corporations have been squeezing both ends of the equation hard for decades and laughing all the way to the bank.
But the reality is food can actually be grown everywhere.
Some reality checks
The reality is that with a little care you can produce your own seeds which makes all the food you grow after that free.
The reality is that if you learn how to care for soil naturally you never need artificial fertilizers.
The reality is that if everyone grew SOMETHING to eat the amount of available food increases in mind-boggling proportions.
The simple act of converting space around us into food changes everything. Then the big acres of land can produce the grain and rice and staples needed to round out the equation. Then grazing (meat) livestock can be raised on pasture the way nature intended them to eat (not force-fed grains they are not evolved to eat), as they convert sunlight into high quality proteins that humans have consumed for thousands of years.
Because you can grow some microgreens in your kitchen.
Because you can put a potted dwarf pomegranate tree in your south window and have a steady supply of fresh fruit.
Because you can convert a section of your lawn into a garden and plant a fruit tree instead of an ornamental.
Because you can coordinate and swap with neighbors to create a variety of foods.
Because we can set building codes to REQUIRE all new buildings to be strong enough to support food production on, in and around them.
Because we can create food abundance. And we need to create food abundance in the face of severe climate change impacts happening around the world.
Corporations are only going to keep squeezing you harder. Food does not have to be an ever-increasing cost that threatens your very wellbeing and survival.
The steps are simple (but not easy):
- Change the conversation from food security to food abundance
- Normalize growing some of your own food, and sell or share what you don’t need
- Support other local growers first before buying from more distant sources
- Change food policies that are blocking the highest and best use of food and food waste
- Change food polices that block you from buying food from your neighbors
- Change building codes to enable the production of food in every development
Because food can grow nearly everywhere. And the greatest hoax of our time is that food is expensive. Let’s change the conversation from food security to food abundance. Let's put people before profits. Let's shoot for the stars. Let's shift our focus to abundance.
More and more science is verifying what most of us already know: that time in nature is good for our mental and physical wellbeing. Few things epitomize these benefits like time in a forest, or forest bathing. But there is whole other level on which forests can improve our mental and physical wellbeing, and that is when that same forest is generating an abundance of food.
Food forests, or garden forests, are not new. Humans have been generating food in association with forests for centuries. You can create your own food forest by learning to garden WITH the trees, instead of without them.
Let's explore what a food forest is, what grows in a food forest, and how much land is required. Then you can decide if creating food forest abundance is a priority for you.
What is a food forest?
A forest is a landscape that is dominated by trees. Therefore, a food forest is a landscape dominated by food producing trees. It is that simple.
To create a food forest, you need to have food producing trees dominate your landscape, providing shade and vertical complexity which increases the number of other plants and animals that can also live in that same space.
Convention agriculture typically removes all the trees and shrubs from the land and focuses on whatever can be grown as the ground layer in full sun. This is closer to a 2-dimensional garden. Yes, there is a small height-above-the-ground component, and perhaps even some trellising, but that is a far cry from the vertical distance created by a tree canopy.
Conventional agriculture removes all the trees and shrubs (Photo by Chris Ensminger on Unsplash)
A food forest, on the other hand, operates in a much deeper 3-dimensaion space in which there are more opportunities to grow food.
If you think about conventional orchard production of tree foods, these are often arranged in rows with very little growing beneath them, usually just a mowable ground cover. Orchards are not food forests. Although they have a tree layer and a ground cover, they lack the understory plants and shrubs that fill in the gaps to create the diversity seen in a food forest.
Conventional orchards have trees and some ground cover, but lack shrub layers and diversity (Photo by Chris Ensminger on Unsplash)
Food Forest Abundance is Like the “Jar of Life” Video
Food forests create abundant food supplies by working in the same way for a landscape that the “Jar of Life” video does in terms of what you prioritize in your life. You may recall, in the “Jar of Life” that the jar represents the time you have and the sand, gravel and rocks represent what you focus on in terms of priorities. If you fill your time (jar) with all the small stuff (sand and gravel), there is no room for the for the most important priorities in your life, which are the rocks. Focusing on your priorities lets you fill your jar with everything you want in your life.
Now image that the jar is your landscape. If you fill your landscape with only the small growing food plants, there is no room left for the trees, which would be the rocks in this analogy. If instead, you plant your landscape (the jar) focused first on the trees, and then fill in the space between first with food shrubs (the gravel) and then with food ground covers (the sand), suddenly it all fits in. Now the food production capability of that land far exceeds what can be grown if you focus only on the low growing foods.
Food forest contain more diversity than conventional agriculture systems (Photo by Leandre CHASTAGNIER on Unsplash)
In fact, the part that cannot be easily shown in this analogy is the creation of food forest abundance because the food trees and shrubs will produce ample food year after year with very little work from you once they are established. Where as if you focus on lower growing foods only, you have a lot of annual work and maintenance to create food.
Food forests create abundant resources, usually with less work over time than more conventional gardens and orchards. You can let a little wild into the food forest, and still get amazing results and abundant food.
What grows in a food forest?
What you grow in your food forest depends on your priorities and goals for food production, as well as what plants can grow in your specific location.
If you love nuts, but they won’t grow in your climate or region, then those are not going to be in YOUR food forest. However, if you love nuts and live in an area where nut trees can be maintained, then include some nut trees.
It’s really not any more complicated than that. The basic steps to deciding what grows in your food forest are:
· What foods that grow on trees do you like to eat?
· Which of those can grow where you live?
· Repeat this with food-producing shrubs, ground covers, rhizomes, vines, and medicinal plants.
· Arrange your selected plants synergistically on your available land.
If you are struggling a bit on what can grow in your area, remember that this is affected by your location, local climate conditions, water availability, and how much effort it is to maintain these plants where you live.
Once you’ve got your list of potential food plants for your forest garden, then start to imagine how these plants that (a) you like the food from, and (b) can grow in your area, can be arranged on your landscape to work synergistically in the space that you have. And voila, you have a food forest!
Add in some mulch , brush piles, rock piles, rotting logs and water features and you can create your own biodiverse garden forest. Track your blooming times in your forest, and you can work to fill in the gaps and create continues flowers for bees and other pollinators, which will help improve your forest yields substantially.
Fruits, vegetables, nuts and even fungi (mushrooms) are part of Food Forest Abundance (Photo by LuAnn Hunt on Unsplash)
Of course the challenge in creating a food forest, especially if you are starting from scratch, is that growing the tree layer takes time, sometimes years, before you will get the food you desire. Keep that in mind as you start your project, and watch that “Jar of Life” video, to help decide if a food forest is one of your priorities!
How much land do you need for a food forest?
The size of your food forest is limited only by the amount of land you have available and your imagination. You can create a forest effect in your backyard if want to. Or you can plant any number of acres using food forest principles.
In reality, you can create a food forest effect INSIDE your home or apartment by adding food producing trees to the plants you are already growing in containers. The exciting part of this concept, is that you are no longer limited by climate! Consider adding plants like bananas, figs, dwarf citrus, dwarf pomegranate and many other food producing “trees” into your home through container gardening.
For an indoor food forest, look for cultivars that a) produce edible and delicious foods, b) are suitable for container growing and c) work with the amount of light you have in your home. You may be surprised how many tropical-ish foods can grow without full-sun south-facing exposures given the right kind of care.
Check out Tropic of Canada for great examples and excellent information on how to grow tropical plants indoors! I’ve just put in my first order for bananas, pomegranate and figs. You can follow me on this adventure at the Food Abundance Revolution (FAR) Community.
You can even create a food forest INSIDE you home by growing food plants like bananas, citrus, dwarf pomegranate and more in containers (Photo by Jane Duursma on Unsplash)
Food Forests Mimic the Abundance of Nature
Food forests produce an abundance of food by creating a highly productive and highly diversified landscape that is dominated by food-producing plants.
Because many of the individual plants in your food forest are long-lived perennials, food is created year after year without the same kind of effort that is required in an annually-based food crop system.
It can take some time to create a food forest, but the benefits both to you and to the natural environment make food forests an incredible investment in food security and food abundance. And in time, you will even be able to forest bathe in your food forest!
Don’t wait – start planning your food forest abundance today!
In this day and age, even Mother Nature needs a little help. Your garden can be an oasis for nature whether you live in the middle of nowhere next to wilderness or in the heart of a city. It actually takes very little effort to create a biodiverse garden and the rewards are often exciting and immediate for you and for the creatures living near you.
Let’s explore some easy and practical ways in which you can increase the biodiversity of your garden and turn it into a safe haven for more types of creatures than you can imagine. Best of all, adding biodiversity to your garden also boost its productivity because you are restoring natural ecological cycles, nutrient pathways and predator-prey relationships that are missing in most conventional garden plans.
What is a biodiverse garden?
A biodiverse garden is a garden that contains many different species of plants, with a wide variety of flower types and all-season habitats that support many different types of micro-organisms, insects, birds and animals. These gardens use different types of structures, groundcovers, plant families, and features to purposefully attract and enhance local populations of creatures big and small.
You can enhance the biodiversity in any garden, by applying the concepts listed below. You can focus on one strategy for creating more diversity or go all-in and apply EVERY strategy to the space you have. Either way, each and every step you take towards adding biodiversity to your garden will open up new opportunities to experience nature first hand. You might be surprised who starts showing up in your garden!
To avoid having to repeat the phrase “micro-organisms, insects, birds and animals” in every sentence, I am going to use the term “wild life” to mean all of these things in the following sections. Wild Life includes all of these creatures and also the incredibly important tiny soil dwellers that we often forget about and aren't included under either "micro-organisms" or "insects".
Ready to dive in? Let's get started!
11 Easy and Practical Ways to Create a Biodiverse Garden:
1. Start with a little chaos
This is going to hurt gardeners who pride themselves on having a magazine-ready, picture-perfect landscape, but you need to embrace a little messiness if you want to add biodiversity to your garden.
Don’t deadhead and remove all the spent flowers or leaves.
Leave some areas that are not mowed, raked and trimmed to perfection.
Create some permanent/perennial sections in your annual gardens. For example, plant some perennial herbs in your annual vegetable garden to hold some permanent space. And yes, this means working around them!
Let the grass grow (too) long in the spring. Check out “No Mow May” for more details.
While these actions may leave your garden looking pretty rough around the edge, they create room for more wild life to exist and even take up permanent residence in your garden. What we current view as a picture-perfect garden in media, is all too often a hostile environment for wild life and you can start to change that by simply letting some areas "go" a bit and naturalize a lot.
2. Add native plants
Few things increase your chances of supporting local wild life faster than including native plant species in your garden. Native plants support species that are normally found in your area.
More Native Plants = More Native Wild Life
Easy peasy. You can create one section of your garden devoted entirely to native plant species. Or you can disperse native plants throughout your garden. Both strategies work in different ways to enhance populations of local wild life.
All too often we plan our gardens out on sheets of paper (2 dimensions) and we forget how important the third dimension of height is to a garden!
Make sure to add vertical height to your garden by including trees and shrubs. These garden features add leaves and twigs to the environment, create shade, alter how the wind moves through the garden, and impact water flow. You essentially multiply your garden space and habitat availability just by adding trees and shrubs!
You can increase that impact further if you include trees and shrubs that flower, fruit or produce that produce nuts or berries. These additional food sources really ramp up the biodiversity value of your garden space.
But don't simply focus on height above ground when we are thinking in 3 dimensions. Depth below ground is an overlooked element of creating a biodiverse garden. By having plants that root to different depths, you affect which minerals and soil elements become available in your soil, which in turn affects what is available to wild life. Try adding some deep rooted plants like comfrey, kale and alfalfa to start working on your below ground 3D biodiversity.
A red currant bush in my garden provides height, copious blooms in the spring and then a sea of red berries through the summer (Photo: Rose Hill Farm)
4. Pile it up (or lay it in thick)
If you can embrace a little messiness (remember point #1), then creating a pile of sticks or rocks is a sure-fire way to add a little wild to your garden. The habitat you create with piles of material can lead to many beneficial interactions in the garden.
In my area, the Spotted Towhee is a bird that LOVES to hang out in stick piles and they stir up and eat a LOT of insects. I love having them in my yard doing bug patrol and they are entertaining to watch.
I also have a lot of different snakes in my area (4 different species to be exact on Rose Hill Farm). Rock piles give the snakes places to sunbathe and hide out while piled up materials give them a cool place to escape the heat. Why encourage snakes? Because snakes are masters at eating rodents that would otherwise become a problem in my garden.
Many useful predatory insects also like stick and rock piles, especially ravenous ground beetles. With little effort on your part, you can add these habitats to any garden and invite in natural pest controls.
A baby garter snake is coiled in among some daylily leaves (Photo: Rose Hill Farm)
5. Let it rot!
Our tendency to "over clean" our gardens means we miss out on the dazzling array of soil dwelling creatures who thrive in rotting wood and compost.
Add a chunk of log to your garden somewhere. As it slowly decays away into soil, it will support dozens of species of soil dwellers. If you are particularly lucky, the log might support some fascinating species of fungus or maybe even the mycelium of mushrooms.
Rotting logs can provide good places for creatures to overwinter as well, allowing them to stay in your garden and re-appear the following year. They also contribute to soil productivity and soil structure over time.
You can also greatly increase your garden biodiversity by including your compost pile right in your garden. Whether you include a classic compost pile or bin or even compost within your garden rows (trenching), the addition of materials to purposefully add rotting and decaying components allows many more types of wild life into your garden than if you compost in some other location.
Mushrooms popping up in the compost pile (Photo: Rose Hill Farm)
6. Maximize the number, size, shape, color and seasons of plants
This is where we go for the gold! A truly biodiverse garden has a LOT of different plants in it. You can plant them in groups and patches or mix’em all up all over the place. The choice is yours. But the goal of creating a biodiverse garden is to provide a wide variety of plants that come in all different sizes, shapes, and colors.
And better still, start tracking your bloom times to make sure you have something blooming in every available season of plant growth. You can learn more about tracking bloom times here and download your free Bloom Time Tracker to help you get started.
7. Go to No-Till or Minimum Till Systems
The time to shift to a no dig or less digging system is right now! The idea of rototilling your whole garden each spring, or tilling up your flower beds, is extremely bad for biodiversity. If you want to support local wild creatures, don’t invite them in and then chew them up in the spring time with a machine!
No till and minimum till systems protect soil dwelling wild life. Furthermore, no till helps to minimize soil disturbance that can let weeds take hold in your garden. Less soil disturbance also means less soil erosion and damage from the sun, wind and rain.
When you do create soil disturbance, make sure you use mulch to protect it from sun, rain and other sources of erosion.
Straw, pine needles, cardboard, compost, grass clippings and leaves are all types of mulch that can work to cover up disturbed ground (read the post on mulching)
8. Let go of the Lawn!
Manicured lawns and classic bark mulched flower beds are essentially monocultures that vastly limit biodiversity.
Instead mix it up (a LOT!). Use a wide variety of ground covering plants instead of lawns or seas of bark mulch. Good choices can include herbs like thyme and oregano, spreading flowers like yarrow and clover (both highly mowable), and even diverse grass species (instead of single-species lawn seed).
If you still want a spot to feel the grass between your toes, try minimizing the lawn area. Convert at least one part of the lawn out into a new garden bed (and add some native plants and vertical structure there too!).
9. Keep it Chemical Free
Avoid using chemicals to maximize biodiversity in the garden. Pesticides, herbicides and even chemical-based fertilizers all do damage to wild life.
Instead of relying on chemicals to deal with pests, focus on creating more habitat for insect and bird predators that will gobble up those pests free of charge.
To minimize weeds, arrange your plants close enough together to shade out weeds and stop them from getting a foothold. Mulch can also be used effectively to reduce weeds. The trick with weeds is to try and remove them before they go to seed, so that you are at least making headway and creating an even bigger weed problem in the coming years.
10. Plant in squares not rows
Although squares or blocks of plants are common in flower gardens, we have been brainwashed into thinking that vegetable should be grown in rows. However, you can maximize your food production, minimize weeds, and increase the biodiversity potential of your garden by planting your vegetables in squares too.
Better still, you can mix and match adjacent squares into checkerboards of different plant types or families and throw in a square or two of flowers into the mix as well. Not only does this create a visually intriguing landscape, it also confuses pests while supporting natural predators.
Gardening in squares is a win-win-win situation. To learn more about this approach in a simple 30-day challenge, dive into the Get Started Garden mini-course.
Planting in squares: foreground is lettuce-arugula-mustard, then next is celery, then broccoli and lastly kale in a 3-ft wide row and a no-till bed systems (Photo: Rose Hill Farm)
11. Just Add Water
Exhausted just thinking about the work involved in adding biodiversity? Well, I saved the simplest and easiest step for last. Just add a water feature!
No I am not talking about digging in a pond, although that would surely work to add diversity. You can add water in any form, size or shape to the garden and immediately create an opportunity to enhance biodiversity. There is no life without water. And in contrast, there is bountiful life when water is made available.
This can be as simple as a flat saucer filled with water and some stones where insects can take a drink or as elaborate as a bubbling fountain.
A birdbath, a half barrel turned into a mini-pond, a cracked bucket that slowly drips water into a pan, a fountain . . . .all of these water sources work to enhance the number and type of wild life that will visit your garden.
Just add water and let the magic begin.
Look closely on the rim of the bottom fountain container and you will see a tree frog! Even a small water source has value (Photo: Rose Hill Farm)
Let a Little Wild In
We live in a world where wild life is struggling to stay alive. You can change that with a biodiverse garden.
It can be so easy to let the wild into your garden and reap the benefits of greater biodiversity. Whether you pick one of these activities or implement all 11 strategies, you can create a biodiverse garden anywhere.
The size of your garden doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have created opportunities for more wild life to coexist with you. Don't wait to let the wild in. Get started today and get to mission accomplished!
Be sure to share your favorite tips for creating a biodiverse garden, or the results of your efforts in the FAR Community topic called Gardening Tips. I’ll look forward to seeing you there. Not a FAR Community member yet? Just sign up, follow your favorite topics and start sharing.
Everyone loves a catchy phrase – especially the people who are trying to part you from your money!
“Farm to Table” seems like one of those great phrases that makes you think you are really getting something different in your food experience. It sounds great.
When it comes to dining out at a fancy restaurant advertising “Farm to Table” meals, it might even be true. Restaurants often use the phrase to indicate that they have sourced ingredients directly from farms and taken great care in where food is coming from. It's often part of an "Eat Local" campaign.
But as in everything we shop for these days, the adage of Buyer Beware comes into play. Because many of the phrases we commonly use to describe food have no agreed upon definitions. And sadly "Farm to Table" has many meanings.
Surprise! Most Food Comes From Farms
When you sit down and look at where our food comes from, nearly all of it comes from farms of one description or another.
Food is grown in fields and orchards and rice patties. It is grown horizontally across the ground, and vertically up into the air on trellis systems. It’s grown out in the wind and rain, and in the confines of climate controlled buildings and greenhouses.
Very little food is available to buy that is wild harvested (aka NOT grown on a farm), except perhaps fish and even some fish is farmed. Wild harvested food is usually very clearly labelled when available because the term “wild” often carries a marketing advantage and a premium price tag.
Where am I going with this?
Follow the trail here: if the food in your grocery store comes from farms, and you buy it, then it is ALL technically “Farm To Table”. And THAT is the problem with catchy phrases!
What Does Farm To Table Mean?
The more we try to clarify what a phrase means, the more complicated things get.
What started me on this little rant was when I googled the words “Farm To Table” and ran across a question in the People Also Ask section of Google that said “What are the 5 stages from farm-to-table?”
That got me curious. Five stages? Really?
And what I read blew my mind because to paraphrase the post, the 5 stages are:
1. Production
2. Processing
3. Transportation to a distribution center
4. Shipping to retail
5. Food reaching your plate
What the heck? This simply describes how the modern agriculture system linked to grocery stores works (and in fairness to the author, the post does talk about ways to reduce food waste in the system, etc.).
But in my mind, the modern system of how food gets to the grocery store has nothing to do with “Farm to Table”.
At its heart, the Farm to Table movement was intended to be a ONE STEP process, not a 5-step process. “From the farm directly to your table” is very easily shortened to “Farm to Table”. ONE STEP. No processing. The only transporting done is between you and the farm. Money is exchanged between you and the farmer with no steps in between.
But this is exactly how easy it is to shift and muddy the meaning of phrases when it comes to food. Trying to achieve greater clarity of where your food is coming from just leads to more nuances in meaning, and more marketing slight of hand. Because yes, the food in the grocery did come from a farm.
“Field to Fork” is one of the latest re-inventions of “Farm to Table” trying to illustrate the ONE step process of buying local food directly from the people who grow it.
Why Does Farm To Table Matter?
Whether you prefer “Farm to Table” or “Field to Fork” to identify obtaining food directly from the person growing it, your actions matter a great deal! Farms world wide have never faced such challenging times. Between bureaucratic red tape trying to smother the small farmer in favor of corporations and climate change chaos, it's never been more difficult to grow food and actually have enough money to pay your bills at the end of the day.
Buying food grown by local farmers and producers has never been a more important act of resilience for you and rebellion against a broken industrial agriculture system.
8 Benefits of Farm To Table (Field to Fork)
1. Freshness
Buying directly from the farm means you are getting food at the peak of its freshness - just picked, just ripened, just ready. You get to decide how that food will be handled, stored, and prepared. Just bear in mind that some types of field fresh foods can spoil very quickly, so the onus is all on you to maximize the value of that fresh food.
2. Quality
Food coming off the fields has not been bumped and bruised through the processing, transporting and shipping stages in the 5-step process above. It's only been bumped or bruised from the field to structure or stand you are buying it from. That means it is in better shape than anything you can possibly find in the store.
3. Nutritional Value
Food that is being sold directly to you the customer is in a better stage of readiness or ripeness than food that is being picked early in order to survive packaging and shipping. All the vitamins and minerals are readily available to you at their peak when you buy direct.
4. Variety
When you are buying food directly from growers, especially small farmers, you often have the opportunity to taste and experience heirloom foods that are not being mass-produced. Not only is this a culinary delight, it also helps to actively save the biodiversity of our food plants. Without the care and dedication of these growers, even more food plants (and animals) would become extinct or fall under the complete control of corporations, both of which are bad news for every human on the planet who needs to eat.
5. Less Waste
Food gets wasted at every stage of the process from getting it off the field and to your plate. If there is ONE step between the field and your kitchen, that results in much less waste than the standard 5-step agricultural process.
6. Less Fossil Fuel Use
No matter how many tractors and trucks the farmer has used to gather up the harvest, buying directly saves energy in the food production system. Because every additional stage of that 5-step process is fossil fuel laden, from the creation of packaging, the machines and buildings used in the processing, storing and transporting of food, and in the retail stores where you shop for groceries. By-passing 4 steps means less energy has been used up getting food from the field to you, and that means a lower carbon footprint, and lower energy use per kilogram of food.
7. Support the Local Economy
"Shop Local" works harder for you. Every time you buy from a local producer, you are supporting your local economy and community. Your hard-earned money, spent locally, circulates locally and contributes to the local tax base, all of which benefit you a second (and even third or fourth) time round as that money changes hands.
8. Create Food Security
The only way to truly create food security in a region is to grow the food needed locally. The greater the distance between the people who need the food and where that food is grown, the greater the probability of supply disruption and hungry people.
Buy Local First
Farm to Table is better for you when the food is coming directly from the farmer to you in a ONE step process. It’s better for your community and the planet too.
Your action for the day, should you choose to accept the challenge, is to source food as locally as possible and to support your local growers and businesses who are doing the same thing.
Of course, the BEST solution is a ZERO step process where you are the person growing the food!
Every time you grow some food yourself, you are freeing up resources that can be used to feed hungry people somewhere else. Well, that would be true if the food system worked for the benefit of human beings instead of corporations (but I'll leave that story for another day).
Be part of that solution too. You can grow something – no matter where you live. Join Food Abundance Revolution and learn how to grow more food so that you have enough to share. It’s easier than you think.
------ New to gardening? Not sure where to start? Check out the Get-Started Garden mini-course and see results in just 30 days. . . .
We see it all the time and that leads us to believe it is "normal". But gardens with bare soil are actual losing water, nutrients, soil and even life at alarming rates!
When it comes to gardening, there are two superheros everyone needs at their side to turn an ordinary patch of ground into an extraordinary garden: Compost and Mulch.
While compost gets a lot (a LOT) of attention for its recycling and waste reduction actions, mulch tends to just hang around background. But don’t be fooled! Mulch is a critical factor in garden success and once you know its secrets, you will be relying on it as the heavy lifter that gets a lot of work done so you can go sip a cool drink on the patio.
What is mulch?
Mulch is any organic material that you add to the soil surface that can break down over time to contribute to soil structure, while not adding harmful substances to the soil or harming plants in the process. That said, there are at least 8 functions that mulch performs in your garden while doing that simple act of breaking down.
8 SUPERHERO Reasons Why Mulch is Critical in Your Food Garden
1. SAVE WATER
As heat waves and droughts spread across the continents, water conservation is more critical than ever both to our personal survival as humans, but also to our ability to produce food.
Mulch shades the soil to reduce evaporation. It also soaks up and retains moisture, releasing it more slowly to plant roots than does bare soil. Perhaps most importantly, the presence of mulch slows down the movement of water across the soil which can help to prevent runoff. Yeah Mulch!
2. STOP TOP SOIL LOSS
The world is facing a top soil crisis . Modern methods of agriculture that leave soils bare and exposed to the sun, wind and rain are destroying the very layer of the planet capable of supporting our food plants.
Don’t make this same mistake at home!
Soil should always be covered by something – either a growing layer of plants, or a protective layer of mulch.
3. BUILD MORE SOIL
Deep nutrient rich organic soil, doesn’t just happen. It builds over time. By adding mulch to the surface of your garden soil, you are actively contributing to the biological processes that will break that mulch down into soil components over time, thus creating MORE SOIL. So to be clear: Mulch is not soil, but mulch breaks down to create more soil and improve soil structure.
4. CREATE HABITAT
Mulch doesn’t break down into soil by itself. Good soil is living and teaming with creatures great and small that are actively creating the soil that supports good plant growth and food production. [how many organisms in a teaspoon of healthy soil?] By conserving water, preventing erosion and contributing the building blocks of soil, mulch creates habitat for beneficial soil dwellers.
5. PROVIDE SLOW RELEASE NUTRIENTS
Soil dwelling organisms breaking down mulch results in the slow release of organic nutrients to plants. We know now that this is an active mutual relationship between plants and soil dwellers. Plants can actually signal to the soil community that they need specific nutrients and those nutrients will get released for the plant to absorb.
Even the most basic soil already contains the vast majority of substances that plants need for strong active growth. The missing link in the equation is whether the soil has the right levels of biological activity to support the release of those nutrients. Mulch supports the organisms that create the breakdown of the mulch into nutrients
Artificial fertilizers (N-P-K) provide fast acting nutrients to plants, but they are mostly toxic to soil dwelling organisms, causing them to die off. The fewer soil dwelling organisms there are in the garden, the more you have to depend on costly (and environmentally damaging) artificial fertilizers. Mulch will help you get your garden off “drugs” and into a natural and bountiful state of production.
6. COOL IN SUMMER; WARM IN WINTER
Both too much heat and too much cold can be fatal for plants. Mulch provides a layer of insulation between the roots of plants in the soil and the ambient temperatures above ground. In the summer, the shading and insulation provide cool relief from the heat. In the winter, mulch can have the opposite effect. It can slow down the effects of freezing temperatures and in some cases can prevent root zones from freezing at all.
7. REDUCE WEEDS
Weeding is a time-killing chore that most of us avoid whenever possible. In comes mulch to the rescue! A good layer of mulch 2-4” deep can virtually eliminate weeds in your garden, leaving you free to do more important things in life like enjoy that cool drink on the patio!
DO: Add mulch around your plants after you weed.
DON’T: Place mulch too close to plant stems which could inadvertently burn or smother the very plants you are trying to grow.
Also, watch closely for the introduction of “new” (previously unknown) weeds in your garden as a result of mulching. Although commercially sold mulches are supposed to be “clean”, invasive weeds can and do get introduced via mulches. Pay close attention for unusual weeds. Remove and dispose of them in the garbage to avoid the establishment of noxious invaders.
8. REDUCE DISEASE
There are many soil-borne diseases that can affect plants, or even YOU! For example, the spread of E. coli infection through garden food comes from either contaminated water used to water the plants, or from manures being splashed up onto plants during rain or watering, that are then carried into your home (and onto your plate if you are not washing your food!).
A clean layer of mulch made from straw, leaves or grass clippings acts as an effective barrier to soil-borne diseases in the garden and can reduce the chance of spread. Less soil splashing and depositing on leaves during rain or irrigation means less chance of the soil disease organisms taking hold.
What kind of mulch can you use?
There are many effective mulches and your choice can depend on what is locally available, suitable for the type of crop you are growing, and most aesthetically pleasing to you.
Good organic mulches include:
- Hay or straw
- Grass clipping
- Leaves
- Pine needles
- Cardboard and paper
- Compost
- Bark mulches (but not a good choice on veggies)
When should you mulch?
One of my pet peeves as a garden is the advice: “mulch in the spring”. What the heck?
Get superhero mulch helping in your garden ANY TIME YOU NEED IT! You don’t have to wait for spring to mulch.
The rule of thumb is no bare soil.
So any activity you do that creates bare soil should be followed by mulching.
Dig-Plant-Mulch. Always. Okay, almost always.
The one exception is planting seeds. You cannot mulch over top of a newly planted seed bed or the seeds likely won’t germinate. Instead, wait for your seedlings to start to grow and then mulch around them. This is where using planting methods that use patterns of setting the seeds really pay off because you can more easily predict where your food plants will be and mulch around them (learn more in the Get Started Garden mini-course)
Super-hero Mulch To The Rescue
Just because mulch is working in the background doesn’t mean it is not one of the key players in making your garden successful and so much easier to maintain. Don’t wait until spring to start using mulch. Take advantage of the 8 garden-saving benefits of mulch any time of year and make sure your have your ground covered.
If you look outside in your yard, garden, or neighborhood (and it’s not winter), chances are good you will find some kind of plant blooming somewhere.
In my area, the earliest blooming plants include natives like buttercups and balsam root, while early ornamentals include many of the spring-flowering bulbs like snowdrops, crocus, daffodils and tulips. As the temperatures warm further into spring, I start to see flowering shrubs, fruit trees, and ground covers come into bloom.
It might be different where you live, but the chances are good your area has a pretty predictable pattern of blooming plants each year. Or at least it used to be predictable.
Bloom times are changing. Keeping track of the shifts can be a game-changer in terms of how you manage your food and flower gardens moving.
When The Time Is Right . . . .
Plants only flower when the right conditions have been met.
Many factors play a role in bloom times including:
- How long the plant has been growing,
- The condition and nutrient content of the soil,
- How much water it is receiving,
- How much light it has, and
- The average (or accumulated) temperature.
Some plants are sensitive overnight lows. Others need a period of cool weather followed by warmer weather in order to break dormancy and flower. Still others are more about the exact daylight ratios. Each plant type has its own requirements.
4 Benefits of Bloom Time Tracking
There are many reasons to understand when flowers of different plants bloom. Four main benefits of tracking bloom times include:
1) Preventing or promoting cross pollination –
If you are trying to save the seeds of a particular plant and keep it pure, then you want to make sure that there are no close relatives of that plant blooming at the same time nearby. You need to know when close relatives bloom and either avoid planting those types or remove (or cover) the blossoms to prevent cross-pollination.
If you are trying to ensure maximum fertility or to actively create a new race or hybrid, then you want to match flowering times as closely as possible to promote crossing. Blueberries are a great example of plants that require cross-pollination in order to set fruit. Having at least two varieties of blueberries that bloom at the same time is key to successful fruit harvests.
2) Creating continuous color –
Most of us find gardens with a continuous array of flowers more aesthetically pleasing than gardens that are only flower-filled for part of the season. Continuous blooms maximize the use of our space to create color, beauty and joy in the world.
As you understand the bloom times in your area, you can create a steady flow of monochromatic or brightly colored flowers that enhance your landscape. Tracking bloom times can let you better plan the floral show and address gaps or diversity issues in your plant selections.
3) Creating continuous habitat for pollinators and natural predators –
Flowers are not only bright and colorful, many also provide critical supplies of nectar, pollen and habitat for pollinators and natural predators. These critters, big and small, enhance your garden’s productivity without the use of harsh chemicals.
When you track the bloom times in your own garden, you can identify the periods of time when there are no nectar producing flowers. Then visit your local nursery, or search through your neighborhood or landscape to identify plants (especially native varieties) that can fill the flowering void. Not only do you benefit from increasing numbers of pollinators and natural predators, you also get the continuous color mentioned in #2. Win-win-win!
4) Understanding climate change better –
Because plants respond to heat, water, light, nutrient availability and CO2 levels, plants can provide an opportunity to understand how climate change is acting in your area and what the on-the-ground trends actually are (as opposed to what models might be saying).
As you start tracking the bloom times of key “indicator” plants in your area, you start to generate your own data about the impacts of climate change in your area. This information enables you to make better decisions faster in terms of how you can adjust your garden plan.
Understanding these climate change shifts is especially important if you are trying to grow food and create local food security. Start thinking about new plants or varieties that might be successful under the new conditions.
What should you watch for? Has it become hotter? Drier? Wetter? Have you jumped a USD Zone as a result of a temperature shift (one zone hotter or colder)? Once you start tracking blooms you start to understand these patterns better.
Tracking Bloom Times is Easy (and fun)
Getting started tracking bloom times in your area is easy!
(1) Start observing the plants in your area and when they first start to flower.
(2) Record that bloom time start date on your calendar or in a journal.
(3) Continue this process. Over time, you will undoubtedly see some climate change surprises.
For example, we had an incredibly mild winter a couple of years ago that was really surprising. How mild?
I had dandelions blooming in my pastures in DECEMBER!?!?!?! This is normally a spring blooming plant where I live and it may rebloom again towards the fall, but no plants are blooming once the frosts hit in October . . . or so I thought. And then the dandelions were blooming in a super-mild December and the grass was growing and WOW, I just didn’t see that result coming!
Another example is when I first noticed that our spring blooming Saskatoons (native to our area and a critical food plant used by First Nations and many wildlife species for early summer berries) suddenly began to flower for a second time in September!
While at first blush this may seem like a great thing – reblooming Saskatoons – how cool is that? But actually, this is rather scary!
Plants that are busy mobilizing energy into flowers and fruits are not shutting down their resources to survive the winter. They could become vulnerable to an early frost and may even die as a result of being so out of sync with the temperature changes headed into winter
. . . . OR maybe they have far more plasticity and resilience than we know? You see, only time (and bloom tracking) will tell us how this story ends. Because unless we are paying attention, we are going to miss the signs of change. That’s when we say things like, suddenly all the Saskatoons were just gone!
It’s time to become a detective and gather your own climate change intel. See where the bread crumbs lead and what story they are telling.
Ready to Get Started?
Take out your calendar or journal and start today by choosing some plants you think might tell a story and writing down when they first start to bloom. Once you start doing this, you will suddenly realize how many flowering plants there really are! Go crazy and list them all or work smarter by picking and choosing ones you think will give you the best data or that are the most important for food.
You can also easily start tracking blooms using the Bloom Time Tracker from Food Abundance Revolution. Download the free guide and templates and dive right in!
Then share your insights in the FAR Community Bloom Time section when you sign up for the FAR Community (it's Free) so we can all learn from each other, interact and share our ideas.
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