Growing kind gardens - what weeds tell us and more

Sorry for my mic issues! They have hopefully been resolved for future episodes :)

Today’s episode is a little more focused on growing strategy than previous episodes. Marian Boswall shares meaningful strategies to help our gardens and fields and soils grow to be more caring and resilient.

https://amzn.to/4nUPc4u My link to buy the Kindest Garden! Have I made you a reader yet? Haha! I’m slowly becoming one. This book is beautiful. 

Transcript

Audio Only - All Participants: 0:00

everyone. Welcome back to the Global Stewardship Podcast, where I host a different guest every single week in the farming and food system world. Lots of food producers, and today. Please join me in welcoming Marian Boswell. She is a highly respected landscape architect, known for her ecological and spiritual approach to land, including how gardens can be healing, sustainable, and culturally informed. I just read her new book called The Kindest Garden, A Practical Guide to Regenerative Gardening in less than two Days. It is genuinely the most comprehensive gardening guide I have ever read. She puts so much emphasis on how to heal landscapes And she connects farming the food system and your backyard garden to really show that the everyday gardener can have an insane impact with just a small amount of space. So whether you're listening as a farmer or as a foodie or just a conscious consumer who maybe wants to implement some of these gardening practices in your own life, Marian has a lot of knowledge and expertise to share with us, It's super special that she's on the show today. As we kick off the interview, in the back of your mind, like be thinking how you can apply some of this to your own property. Maybe envision how you could implement some of these practices in your community or even share some of this with someone you know who does love to garden. Before we just geek out about gardening, I would love for you to expand on the story that you share in the book about you shared about your childhood and being in the garden with your grandmother at the very beginning, where did the bridge happen between having that experience in the garden camping with your grandmother, and then the moment you said, okay, I want to be a landscape designer, I want to be on fire for making gardens more beautiful and sustainable. Like, where did that big life change happen? Uh, well thank you for having me by the way. Very lovely to be here. Um, the background, I think it, maybe it's worth telling the story for people who haven't read the book was that, um, when I was four I was allowed to camp outside, which doesn't always happen these days, but I was allowed to camp outside my, with my sister, um, my big sister, and we camped in this den in the garden and it was. Dark when I woke up in the middle of the night and I was terrified and I needed to go into the house to, to find the loo, and I had to get from my camp to house, and anybody will know what that feels like, whether you are camping in a, you know, as a grownup. But, um, I peeked out and suddenly sitting underneath, uh, the roses on, on this wicked chair with a rug over her knees. I saw my grandmother. And so I realized you don't realize much in your form, but I realized that she must have been sitting there all night and she was just watching over us. Um, so we had this sort of joy of, you know, with hindsight I can see we, we felt that we were very intrepid, but actually we were totally safe. But in that moment, the garden just completely changed for me, and I remember the moment at which it was so terrifying. Yeah. And then being in this amazing dreamlike space where everything was magical. Mm-hmm. And it was dark, but I could see, and it was full of sounds and sense and I know now that that amazing feeling of sort of oneness was actually my grandmother's love. That I was suddenly completely at one, knowing that I was safe, knowing that everything was going to be okay. Wow. Beautiful. That is something which I've tried to carry with me. Um. And I don't think I really realized that until I had had children and, um, had a quite a turbulent time having children. And in my book I describe, um, the, the fact that I was, um, quite a high achiever. I went to Oxford, I was management consultant, and then I sort of exploded outta that when my second daughter died. And from then I suddenly realized I was subcontracting my whole life. Really. I had a, you know, a day nanny and a night nanny, and some of my friends had weekend nannies and it was a bit wow. All a bit ridiculous. And I decided to return to that sort of safety of the garden gradually. And as I began to garden, then. I began to realize that I loved it and people began to ask me advice. I began to do little bits of design. Of course, that's very dangerous because, um, giving out advice when, you know, not very much more than the next person. So I, I love learning. So I went back to school and I studied advanced horticulture and garden design, and then I went on to do a master's in landscape architecture. And then I went back and taught landscape architecture on the master's program at Greenwich, um, and set up a studio. So really it was from that place of it being a place of respite and safety and love and feeling that feeling of oneness. Mm-hmm. Which I think we can all find, it doesn't have to be in a garden, but it's often somewhere in nature that we suddenly realize that we are an ocean in a drop. And we're the whole, you know, with the drop in the ocean and we're the whole ocean in a drop. So, right. How can we live our life? With that is the purpose. And with that is the deep knowing. And that's really what I've tried to bring to, um, to my practice as a landscape architect to my studio, to all the work I do. And then into this book. And the reason it's called The Kindest Garden is because I have this lovely, uh, friend, Sophie Neville, she's a psychotherapist. She's trained actually in Boulder, Colorado. And she says to her clients, what's the kindest thing you could say to yourself? And I think that's such a beautiful thing.'cause sometimes we forget to be kind to ourselves. Mm-hmm. And I think that creating a garden might just be the kindest thing we can do for ourselves. Right. And by extension, the kindest thing we can do for the planet. Mm-hmm. Um, which is not to say that it's all right brain.'cause that all sounds very kind of, um, alternative, but it's actually. Very down to earth, practical and based on quite a lot of science. Yes, absolutely. You know, the mix, isn't it, that we need. Yeah. So, well, first of all, I just really loved that story about your childhood experience with your grandmother.'cause that's definitely, I have a very similar story. My grandmother was always such a fantastic gardener. Loved to spend time outside and those magical moments in the garden with her have stuck with me forever. And I just like, can only hope and dream of, you know, my future grandkids carrying that on for generations. And, uh, I, I definitely look back to that time with her as this is what set the foundation for me to want to spend time in the soil. And so I could really picture that even in my own life. Like, wow, that's, that happened to me too. It's really cool. Grandmothers, I think that's often the way in, isn't it? That we have a particularly a grandparent.'cause they sometimes have more time in that little bit of distance. Um, and my other grandmother was a dairy farmer and I went to visit her in, um, her old people's home towards the end of her life. And she had a photograph album. I thought, oh, how lovely. We'll be looking at pictures of me as a child and stuff. Not a bit of it. Every single picture was a cow. Oh, wow. That's so funny. That's beautiful. All her, all her beautiful favorite prize beating bred cows, so, yes. Oh, that's so funny. Yeah. But I, I just love how you, I mean like I've shared, this was genuinely the most comprehensive gardening guide that I've read in book form. I've been hosting gardening workshops and classes for years and. You expand on everything and beyond, from here on out. Unless people are absolutely not readers, this is what I'll have to refer them to because it, it is just so comprehensive and I love that you do cover all, all of the things like you cover why it is so important for us to garden, like the scientific reasons why it's healthy for us, whether it's with serotonin from the soil or all the things like that I would even previously mention in my gardening classes. You talk about the reasons why we don't need to over fertilize or spray our gardens and how it, uh, affects the farm ecosystem overall. And I mean, it's just so beyond comprehensive. That being said, for listeners, if you are not a gardener or if you're a gardener looking to really understand how to garden with the environment in mind, this is, this is a, a really, really, really great resource. You're so fine. Thank you. And thank you for reading it and reading it so fast. You must be an amazing reader. Oh, well I'm normally not a reader at all, but it just, it was every flip of the page I was like, wow. She really like covered it all. It was really, really amazing. Well, it obviously, I've compiled it from lots of amazing people, so it's not just me. So I studied with Elaine Ingham and with Nicole Masters with On the Create Program, which is quite an intensive deep dive into soil, and obviously I had. Horticultural teachers and landscape architect teachers before that. So I wouldn't want to take more credit than just being able to gather all the information and digest it and so on. Yeah, the one thing I did hear and I was very pleased about and again, is down to the designers rather than me, was that, uh, a very nice person to talk came up to me and said that he was very dyslexic, but he could read it, um, because of the way it was designed, which is something to do with the paper and the layout and the diagram. So that's, that's not me. But I'm really delighted. So I would encourage people to, to look at it, even if they find, um, reading a bit challenging. Yeah, the layout was really nice. It's just all really thoughtful. You know, a lot of farmers are listening and many people separate gardening from farming I hear a lot of times if there's, you know, a farmer who's raising animals and doing crops and working on permaculture and doing ponds, you know, farmers will say, oh, well that's not a real farmer. Like, you have to be focused on one thing. You have to be row cropping, or you have to be only a cattle rancher. What would you say to that? Could you expand on like how both gardens and farms shape and interact with the land and, debunk that for us? Well, I think each person has to debunk it through their own personal experience, and there are, there are many ways in which that sadly tends to happen to, to us, and it's not a comfortable experience, but there is, uh, I was a management consultant before I. As I mentioned before, I sort of switched, um, to the greener side of life. And there was a, we had a great saying then, which holds through to farming, which is that, turnover is vanity and profit is sanity. And I think one of the amazing things that, some of the movements in regenerative farming over here have shown is that the massive push to bigger, bigger, bigger is not better either in terms of. Food quality or health for of the farmers because their margins are getting smaller and smaller. Right. Definitely not food quality because of the amount of inputs you need in order to, to stretch to that volume. But it's, it's also not better in terms of, nutrient density and health of the soil. So on Nicole Masters credit course, I did a study for a very lovely farmer near me who, uh, we looked at not only the, amount of inputs, but also the cost of those inputs and the balance versus reducing inputs and potentially a slight reduction in yield. And the maths does stack up to have a slight reduction in yield whilst you are learning how to farm regeneratively with less input and mm-hmm then to not only benefit your gut microbes, which affect your mood and your happiness and your sanity and your children's mental health and physical health, which is really one of the reasons why I think a lot of farmers and growers turn to being, uh, less dependent on, um, chemicals and fossil fuels, right? But also, um, it can actually be better for your financial outcome, which I think sometimes we have in the past thought that money was the only, uh, measurement of success, but I think we are now beginning to realize that that's far from it, far from the truth. And actually money's just one kind of energy. And when I'm talking to my, my team in how we deal with clients or how we deal with anybody, in terms of always showing up with the best energy, the received wisdom is sometimes that you have to behave in a certain way because you are being paid. And that's not the truth. The truth is that it's an exchange of energy, and that energy can be authentic and carefully prepared and intentional both ways. So it's not a question of money being the only measurement. So yes, in terms of gardens, similarly, we've had this. Mindset in the UK particularly where we're very proud of our gardens, we have historically had this mind mindset of tidiness being next to godliness. Right? And, and next to success wise, and even now, I have some lovely, lovely clients who, who are happy with a bit of weeds somewhere else, but, um, but not in the garden because they've been brought up to think that somehow they've failed. If they are not allowing volunteer plants to join in with the rest of the plants that they've bought and paid for, then they somehow think they failed. And of course they haven't. And right. We, when we learn to co-create and, and relax a bit and give nature and the more than human, some agency, that the joy and abundance that abounds is just, well, it's magical. There's no other word for it, really. Absolutely. I'm. I'm trying to find it in the book right now, but could you share with listeners about like your beliefs about weeds, and what they can tell us? Yes, but they're not actually my beliefs. They are, they are science, so, yes. Right, exactly. Well, I suppose some of it might stray into a belief. So the, there's a brilliant book, which you can actually only get in the States, um, called When We Talk it's about$90, I think. Um, and when I say it's a a book, it's more really a pamphlet, but it's incredibly useful and if you see a weed, it tells you exactly which, um, nutrients your soil is either in excess with or lacking with. When we go out into the garden it or into a field, if you have certain weeds in excess or in patches, the presence of those weeds can explain to you, uh, what's going on beneath the ground and the mm-hmm. The role of the weeds. So this is when you stray from scientifically proven to slightly giving credit to the sentient of all beings, including the weeds. The role of the weeds is to improve the soil and to rebalance the soil and to bring back the nutrients that are required to make a healthy, balanced soil. Right. It makes perfect sense because we know that the mycelium network communicates with all of all creatures and all things underground. So how does that work in practice? In practice? It, it means that if you have, and farmers will tell you this, if you have a huge part of manure, you're gonna have nettles. Why? Because nettles love the high nitrogen. Um, they'd also, they really like compaction. So they like, uh, um, they're there to remediate it. They have a root system, which will help to remediate it. However, for example, if you don't want nettles in a, in a certain patch and you've, you've fixed some of the compaction and you think that, uh, the soil is lacking something, uh. Nettles signify a lack can signify a lack of calcium. So therefore you can apply a dilute, um, whey or a dilute milk solution. You can apply crushed eggshells on a small garden scale, for example, which I do for ground elder, which is similarly signals, uh, low calcium. Another very interesting thing is milk thistle, you know, silly bomb mari, which I quite like'cause it's kind of my namesake. Mm-hmm. Um, um, and in drop form people take it for, to clean cleanse the liver and to, um, cure hangover funnily enough. But on the ground form it's really good at detoxifying soil. And I seem to remember that Nicole Masters said that she found it on the Santa Andrea's fault. Um, I was on a farm recently and we were looking at doing a regenerative plan for a wonderful, beautiful big field where we were trying to make habitat for turtle doves. And there was one dip where we were thinking of having a, a pond and it looked like an old crater. Um, and suddenly I realized it was full of milk thistle. And I said to the, to the owners, gosh, what do you think's going on underneath there? It speaks to me of being something toxic if it's covered in milk thistle in such abundance. And they, they said, oh, yes. Um, we, we had a dig around and it's full of all fridges. So things like that, you, you see when you, you know, it's been used as a dump, maybe it was a bomb trade after the wall or who knows, I don't know how it got there, but being a depression, somebody had decided to fill it up with, with old fridges and, and, and rubbish. So the milk thistle was there desperately trying to remediate the soil. So those sorts of things you can really. Work, um, at also, um, if you work biodynamically then you'd be saying that what comes to your garden is potentially for you. So once you work right in this chaotic relationship with your garden, if a load of lemon balm appears, then lemon balms great for anxiety. So it's really wonderful to put in your tea mint if that appears all over. Your garden is great for digestion. That's a wonderful thing. Evening primrose. I've got quite a lot of evening primrose in the garden at the moment. I'm thinking I'll put that in a, in a tea because maybe that's, you know, come for me. Obviously one needs to hook it up in a book and make sure it's not toxic before you, uh, do put it in a tea. It makes it, it's that lovely rhythm of getting into rhythm with your land. Right. But I get teased by my office, um, when, right outside the window, it was under the bird feeder, to be fair. And I think that's why. But we had a lovely crop of volunteer hemp, which Oh, that's so funny. Which arrived? Which arrived. So then I was, um, you know, looking at it and saying, is that what I think it is? Yeah, I think that really is. And they were saying, oh, Marian, you always say what comes is for you, so you better stick that in your teeth. That's so funny. Yeah. It's, it's so true that weeds are doctors of the soil, but a lot of times they provide healing benefits to us too. I have recently made that mindset shift. I have grown food for years and years, and probably just recently, like within the last two years, have really started welcoming the weeds. And I got, you know, one of those plant ID apps and. It is so mind blowing, like we have very few weeds that don't have some sort of medicinal benefit. And, myself as well as most farmers are trying to constantly get rid of them. And it's caused me to step back and kind of reevaluate, why are we doing that? You know, of course you don't want an infestation, but that signifies a deeper problem with your soil anyways. And so of course you would address that. But, um, there's certainly a place for them in the garden, especially the ones that are native that provide really great ecosystem services. Just a totally new way to think about it. And for farmers who aren't supernatural minded or regenerative, this might be something that they've not ever considered before because it's not, this is not like a mainstream conversation in a lot of those circles. I think we tried to take control so fiercely, um, post-war, there was this whole, so sort of post-traumatic stress thing wasn't there that we suddenly felt we needed to control everything because we were all, mm-hmm. So, um, shocked by, by what had happened. And so the whole use of weed killers and, and nothing but the having only the plants we meant to have, it's just this desperate holding onto control. But if we watch the animals and if you watch cows left to their own devices in a field, they will often go straight for the hedgerows. As soon as they get a new patch, they'll find the willow. If they've got a bit of a headache, they'll find the meadow sweet on the edges, which is delicious. And also has some silicic acid, you know, the maker of aspirin in it. Uh, and they will tend not to eat things. In fact, they don't eat things like rag work. If you round us at the moment, there's some fields which have been grazed, which only have ragu in them'cause the cattle won't touch them. Um, which isn't to say that I'm, I'm advocate of leaving it in the arable fields.'cause of course it can get dried and end up in hay and then it's a problem. Um, but. Just using, allowing, is it the pigness of pigs and the careness of cows? Allowing them to use their intelligence and watching them is so mind opening. Yeah. You briefly touched on, amending our soils and I would love to dive into the conversation about amendments, fertilizers, pesticides. I have been in this space for a while and had heard it before that, you know, the side CIDE at the end of pesticides is Latin for to kill. But the way that you just explained that in the book was really fascinating. And it's a huge conversation that so many people haven't had before about how drastic. Spraying something on a piece of land can actually be like, we think that we're just adding nitrogen, or we think that we are just spraying the leaves. But it all cuts really, really deep and affects the soil microbiome. Uh, just because many people really have never heard this stuff. Well, I think people might not have heard it, but we all have an absolutely innate, um, ancestral bind with the soil. We can smell the smell of wet earth. Is it something like, like 200 times more sensitively than a shark can smell, smell blood? Mm-hmm. That lovely smell after rain when we go outside and we just go. You just can't help it. It smells fantastic. We can see more shades of green than any other animal. We are just completely programmed to being able to work with nature. So whatever has happened in our schooling and in our recent mental history mm-hmm. This is not something which people have to spend a long time learning. It's, it's in there. Right. What has helped me a lot was some of the, um. Explanations particularly of soil succession and soil life. I love a microscope because when you show anybody what's going on underneath the soil, that it blows all of our minds because we just, you know, you look at it and you think, um, that it's, uh, just dirt, but actually it's so alive. And the idea that in your hand you can have more, more creatures in your hand than what your, that song you've got the whole world in your hands is, is kind of true, isn't it? And so there's two things which I think are particularly interesting. One is breaking down the succession. So, and that's what's really helped me, and I'm just gonna describe, try to describe it. The, the point is that if we went to a desert island and there had just been a big earthquake or a flood or a, um, volcano or whatever, or to top of a very bare mountain, it would just be rock. It would just be bare rock. But pretty soon with a bit of moisture, you'd get a little bit of, um, lichen growing on the rock. That would slowly, slowly break down. Then you'd get some bacteria, um, then you'd get a little bit of soil, and that is the equivalent of your early succession soil. So that's high bacteria, high alkalinity, and really will only grow the spars weeds. So if we. I'll come back to that in a minute. Remember that, that that whole barren view or a really barren, like a footpath really, then you would go through succession where you'd get more life in the soil until gradually you get to a, about a one to one balance between um, bacteria and fungi and towards that lovely pH. When we say it's a neutral soil and that's about where you want to grow row crops. Then going on from that towards an acidic soil towards a more complex soil, that's when you can start having shrubs and so you get more fungus then, then the more fungus, the more shrubs with their lovely root systems help to grow more fungus and on you go to a deciduous forest and finally to a coniferous forest, which is sort of the end point, however. Nowhere ever really gets to the end point because usually on the way there is a fire or a flood or a earthquake or a human with a big digger, which which will take it back to the beginning. So if you remember that view and that the soil is trying to get from the left of the picture, bare soil to the right of the picture, the deciduous woodland, then how can we stop it? Well, obviously fire, flood, famine, et cetera, or a big digger, or we can poison it. So every time we put on a pesticide or a fungicide, which is killing the fungus, all that lovely network underneath, or a herbicide, which is killing the roots as well, we are taking it backwards towards the only weeds. Situation, right? And the less weed situation. So we're making it harder on ourselves to grow the healthy crops. So I hope, I hope you have lots of visual listeners. You can imagine that. Yeah. Visualize the sliding scale. Yeah. Visualize the scale between a bare rock and a lovely, a lovely woodland. And that halfway is the happy place for row crops and, and also vegetables and, uh, horticulture really. Um, and then if we dive deep into why that's the case, you need another visualization of a really a tree or a happy plant. And what that plant is doing is photosynthesizing by the action of sunlight on the on the leaves, which is that phrase that we all learn at school. What does it mean? It means that the energy of the sun is turning into sugar. To energy for the plant. And it's absolutely magical. But the plant doesn't keep it all for itself. It shares at least 40% of it down through the root system to the microbes in the ground below. And it's a little bit like a, like an Amazon order or a pizza deliver really, or something like that. To use a modern analogy where the plant will say, Hey microbes, I need a bit of nitrogen. I need a bit of water. I need a bit of phosphorus. And the microbes will bring those things to the fungal network around the roots. And the roots will exude what we call exudates, which is this delicious mixture of sugars and fats, starches and proteins. So again, it's really important that we look after that whole sphere around the roots as well as just the plant. And if we go killing the plant with a herbicide and so on, then we're also killing all of that life around it. So that's, that's really the, um, the main point. However, we can also kill with too much love because if we apply fertilizer, so we are giving our plants a great fat dollop of NPK, right? Um, even if we give it masses of seaweed all the time, then we're basically returning it into a drug addict. The plant is, is just gonna say, okay, I have no need to work hard to, um, work with the microbes to get all of the nutrients I need. I'm just gonna live on nitrogen. Which is a bit like us saying I'm just gonna live on coffee and cigarettes, which, you know, works fine when you're 20 for a year or so, and then you begin to look a bit crap and you certainly get the shakes. So, yeah. So it just is not a long term sustainable strategy. Um mm-hmm. And plants grow fast and loose and floppy and, um, they don't resist pests. And they also are fab, fabulous food for aphids'cause they're just full of all this high, you know, high sugar, high nitrogen, and they're, they're too soft, too lax, so they're not growing tough enough. So really we have to have a, a balance and provide health to the soil below. Which doesn't mean to say we can't feed anything.'cause what we can feed is more microbes. Mm-hmm. You first before these illustrations you shared about how there can just be like so much life in your hands, but then also you could just be holding like lifeless dirt. What would you say to the person listening who has parts of their fields or their garden where there's just lifeless dirt, they haven't been managing it well and didn't know these things until now, but they want that handful of life in really rich soil. What would you tell them?'cause that's a pretty daunting thing to be looking at. Just like dead dirt. Yeah. And you know, that was, that was partly the reason why I wrote the book. That was partly the reason why I did the holes deep dive into soil. I was giving a talk on energy healing, on land energy at a, um, a big festival thing. Um, in Wales, the big retreat. It's called a lovely, lovely thing. And a lady came up to me who'd been growing millions of radishes in the east of England and she said, gosh, what you said about soil really resonates. Um, I've been growing all of these radishes. The agronomist came up to me this year and said, my sword is basically dead. And she had tears in her eyes and she said, what do I do? And I didn't have the answer, and now I do, so I will show it to you. But it was the most awful feeling when somebody asks you a question like that and you think, I dunno. Yeah. And big and it's daunting, but we, yeah. So many people don't know. So they just keep applying these really expensive things that are just making it worse. Yes. And they are making it worse. So the the best thing you can do, the best, and first thing you can do is to protect your soil. To make sure that you are always growing in layers, that you disturb it as little as possible, and then that you feed it with. Good quality compost. So, there's more than one way to do this. Let's take a market gardener. Yeah. So if you're a market gardener and you are growing things in rows because that's sufficient, so you might be growing a rows of chard or rows of spinach or whatever, um, it's great if you can do a no dig principle to begin with. That's a wonderful thing to do. So you put down cardboard, you put down compost, you plant through that, that's fantastic. You can create a high culture mound underneath that's also really good for the soil. But eat whatever you do, as long as you protect the soil at all times so that the rain can't hit it and it can't degrade. Um, you can grow a, um, ground cover beneath your plant. So like a crimson clover or something like that, so that it mm-hmm. That's what we do. Yeah. So that you're growing through it, which also protects the soil, gets the lovely roots down and, um, or keeps it covered, but also is, as you, as you'll know, is the luminous, so it's nitrogen releaser. Um, but when you take away, when you remove the biomass from the soil, if you can chop and drop, which is something that people are talking about a lot at the moment. So rather than taking the, um, spinach and leaving the less good leaves, rather than taking them to the compost, composting them and bringing back, you can actually just leave them on the soil and they can decompose there. They're also protecting the soil. So there you're giving back, you're giving back the nutrients from that spinach to, to the land. Um, if you want to compost, then creating a fully bio complete compost is an absolute game changer. And I do describe in the book how to make a hot compass.'cause that will kill your pathogens. It will kill the weed seeds. Um. I also describe how to make a Johnson Sioux compost, which is when you have pipes with holes in the middle, so you don't have to turn it if you don't have time to turn. Mm-hmm. Um, I, I collect my food waste from the kitchen, um, and use a bash bin to start off with, and then you can give that to worms and you can give that to the composter. So those are kind of basic levels on a horticultural level, um, on a, on a larger farm scale is fantastic when you're growing a mixture of, uh, crops together and you're allowing the root systems to work together. And if you can introduce. Animals onto any farm, even if it's ducks in permaculture or chickens, to give your yourself some chicken poo to make your compost. It's right. The ultimate, um, somehow that animal waste is just the ultimate in the complete system. And if you want to hold it holy circular system mm-hmm. If you do that, what do you have? Yeah. Uh, beautiful advice by the way. Um, so we've designed our farm so that there are multiple farm businesses on one property because for a lot of farmers, especially people with thousands of acres, which is, you know, a lot of listeners may have, it can be really daunting to think about adding animals as an enterprise. But there are so many farmers or aspiring farmers out there who are looking for land. And so knowing that, and then knowing that our land benefits from animal agriculture, we. Put feelers out there to welcome first generation farmers to our land. And so I always tell farmers if you're the vegetable grower or if you are the cattle rancher and you have the land, knowing that we live in a beautiful ecological circle and that everything's a web and that it's all connected, it's a total no-brainer to me to have these other farm businesses on the same property and we all benefit each other. It would be such a waste for there to just be me buying compost all the time as a vegetable grower and not having the animals here providing those nutrients and like vice versa. You know, with a lot of animals like pigs and chickens, they can't just forage off of grass. They have to have some supplemental feed of some sort. Like we can grow a lot of that or a lot of our. Garden waste can actually go to feeding them. But for that to be done on a really large scale, that could really impact our food system. Of course, small farms do make up a huge percentage of the world's food system, but on a larger scale, for those people who really do want to start being more regenerative and sustainable, like it's a no-brainer to start implementing some of these things. And um, so that's just what we did. We, we welcomed other farmers and continue to do so. And it absolutely transforms the soil. It really does, doesn't it? And also it transforms the community.'cause then you're working with all of the, and I think one of the fabulous things about the sort of whole regenerative mindset is, um. To work in community, to ask for help, to reach out, to share ideas, to just as you are doing with this podcast, to broadcast people, tell people what you are thinking and, and invite them to tell you what they're thinking. Which I is one of the most, I think, most exciting things about it. And to make mistakes and to talk about. Down in Devon, we have a very enterprising vet, um, who will go out and look at people's cattle. If they just want to have a few cattle, he'll go out and check on them once a week so I went to more meadows, which is a brilliant, restorative meadow making enterprise down, down there. And they have just a few capital. But it means that if you're starting out, as you say, first generation farmers, it's a bit scary. Then these guys will come and check on them and I, I bet you must have something similar or, or otherwise bets in the states. Please start one up'cause it's such a good idea. Yeah. Genius. I, I love all the innovative ideas and, you can certainly only get to those places by really thinking deeper. I am preparing to purchase the farm property that I have been borrowing and leasing since I started my farming career. And so that's part of the reason that I read your book in a day because we now have some of the ability to grow more things here than we did previously. Are able to expand our gardens and transform the landscaping that was like palm trees. We are not on the coast like they were a bunch of palm trees and jade trees and things that don't necessarily belong here. And we have the ability now to transform that. I have been kind of now starting to. Brainstorm what it could look like. And was wondering how you would recommend navigating the tension between aesthetics and then ecology, so like a big conversation in gardening in the US is the native plant conversation. Right now we have a big pollinator crisis, how can you ideally balance out what the ecosystem needs? And then also what is aesthetically pleasing. Sure. And I think it's a good, the pollinator crisis is definitely something which we all need to address, and that's also in our food system. We can address that by what we buy as well. Um, well, here's terrible stories of, you know, trucks, of bees being taken around to eat toxic, pollen just in, in order to nexus, sorry, in, in order to poll plants. The thing to think about in the garden is food and forage and habitat. So every pollinator not only needs to eat, but it also needs to live. So when we make our gardens too tidy, there's nowhere for them to live. So that's one thing is to, to to think about what. Could be in your area. So if you have a, like a, a special area near you, a park or something, or a special, um, what would you, you would call'em a park. Would you like a nature park? Mm-hmm. That then to see or, or a well known area of biodiversity. What's there? So what could you get and then think what do they need? So for us, for example, when I said that we were making a turtle dove habitat, I know that they need an area of bare ground. They need scrapes and water. They need plants like ary, acrimony, they need scatterings of, of old seeds, things like that. So whatever plant, whatever animal or pollinator you want, will, will similarly have those needs. Each pollinator has a slightly different, um. Mouth shape and they, so they need different shape plants. So whilst I would say that it's better to have a majority of native plants, they don't, I don't think they all have to be native. Partly in the uk it's very hard. We spent the last, uh, is it 100 or 200 years going around collecting all the plants in the world and bringing them back here. Right. So it would be very hard for us to turn around and say, actually, you know, we're only gonna be now, now we want natives only. Yeah. I mean, you know, that would be hard. It would be amusing, but, um, not, uh, not easily and, and really slight, um, slightly arrogant, having been quite arrogant in the past. But, but what we can do is we can make sure that we have a range. And I've got some lovely illustrations in the book of the big flat. For example, the daisy flowers, the um, the BLEs, like the carrot flour, all those, those are, um, like a, like an open keg party. Anyone can come. There's pollen for everybody and it's there all day. So have lots of, there's have lots of oregano. Oregano. And uh, the, which, if you look at it in the sand, was always covered in pollinators. Um, all of those plants which you see in somebody else's garden covered in pollinators have those and then have some specialists. So if, if, if you've got 60 to 80% of the generalists, then have some specialists. So some of the things like a, a salvia, which has, is only for a long tongue bee unless the robber bee comes and pierces it in the side, which I always think is quite fun. But have a variety of shapes, and then make sure that you have pollinators all the way through the winter as well. So. For us, the strawberry tree. The ar Buddhist is a fantastic, it's not a, uh, an English native. It's been here for a very long time though, but it flowers in the winter, so that's fantastic. Mahonia flowers in the winter, um, honeysuckle, winter flowering honeysuckle, things like that. And then of course, until we can get over to the snow drops and so on, and then the daffodils, but something that'll carry you through so that if any sleepy bumblebee does wake up in the middle of the winter and is really thirsty, um, or already hungry, it's there for them. Right. Of course, moths and wasps and flies are pollinators too. And we have 270 different types of bees in the uk, not just the honeybee. So we've got the Bumbles and then we've got all these tiny, tiny beautiful little sweat bees and lap goss and all those, the wool cardi bee amazing, right? The bee, what's it, it's called the, the hairy footed flower bee. How could you not love something called that? Yeah, exactly. So yes, a diversity is as important. Um, and it, I know that you've had some scares with some non-natives, and so have we, by the way. Uh, we've got a bit of a, an issue now with, particularly in our watercourse. Um, but um, it's, it's really a question of more, more diversity is the way rather than trying to eradicate one thing. Beautiful. I loved reading about the oregano. We just planted, I think a hundred. Perennial oregano plants this past spring and, reading about how, and I, I just did that. I don't know, just intuitively I guess we should have that here. We can eat it, you know? But reading your description about how that is a huge pillar in the ecosystem and for that to be there, then the next thing is there. And then if that thing is there, then the next thing is there and how it all is this giant web, thanks to just putting one single plant in the garden. That was inspiring. And of course I know that I'm a farmer, we do recognize that but. It hit home like, man, if I just take the time to research just a little bit and add just a few extra plants to this ecosystem that I don't have here yet, how much of a difference that that can make and just who knows, like hundreds of species that could end up here in the long run. It's amazing and it's impactful because for the home gardener listening who thinks they just are working with a really small space, realizing how far that small space can go in the grand scheme of regeneration is really cool. It's huge and it's, I think it's so empowering, isn't it? That we know that just doing, I mean, we do intuitively know that just doing our little patch of good is, is. The best we can do. But it really is because when those bees come over and they're, they're hungry and thirsty, if we can look after them, then they can go on to the next place. We have an issue in the UK where hedges get cut sometimes too early. And that's such a shame'cause the field fairs all arrive from Russia in about in the winter and they, they're hoping that to come and get all of our lovely berries. And if the, the hedges have all been cut too close, too early, then all the berries aren't there and they've arrived for nothing. They've gone such a long way, so. Wow. Yeah. So we, we can all do, do our bit to, to really help. Yeah, I find that very exciting, the wonderful time to be alive when we have so much knowledge and we are sharing it so fast. I know that because of that, there's also a lot of anxiety.'cause we are also realizing how much bad we've done and how much bad we're doing and how many awful things are going on in the world. Mm-hmm. But as well as all the terrible things. There's so much excitement. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it, it is. And it's been really amazing watching the whole regenerative gardening and farming movement really start to take off in a way that I don't think it really has before. And, um, it's definitely, books like yours are really gonna propel the movement forward. Again, I think that this is just a fantastic resource. I would love to, at the end of this podcast, there are just some really big sections and quotes that I highlighted that I would just love to read to people. You have simple things in here. All of the Rumi quotes that fit so well with all of the information that you've packed in here. Please do. And if you want to take any pictures and publish them, I'm very happy for people to, um, it's for sharing, so please, you know, take, yeah, do share. I really I don't promote things like or products very often and I really did absolutely love it and think that it could transform gardens all around the world. So it's a well done piece of work. Oh, well that's very kind. Thank you. And I take that to heart and I, um, treasure you saying that. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you for coming on here and chatting with me I'm so happy to share about the kindest garden now that this is out and published and available for everyone. I hope that people will start implementing some of these things if they're not already, especially for the farmers listening who are feeling a little bit daunted by all of it. I love that this book is approachable regardless of the size that people are growing on. Whether it's somebody with just a backyard patio who wants to put in some flowers or a large scale farmer who needs a greater in depth understanding of how the entire world works. Definitely highly recommend. That's so kind of you. Thank you, Hannah. It is an absolute pleasure to hear what you are doing and, and thank you for what you are doing because it's, uh, a brilliant, example to people that they can have a mixed farm and also, and also on a podcast. I don't know when you sleep, but thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm So as I mentioned when talking to Marian, I would love to just read a couple quotes from her book that stuck with me. So the book actually starts off kind of with this quote from Rumi. It says, when you let go of who you are, you become who you might be and. I thought that that had so many parallels to my own gardening experience because as you guys may have heard, when I started my farming career, I did not start super organic minded necessarily. I did not know these things about the soil at the beginning, and it's hard to rewire your brain in terms of these topics. But when I was able to do so and let go of those past belief systems about the land and about the soil, and about fertilization, pesticide use, whatever it is, it has allowed me to become this natural minded farmer who doesn't have to pay for inputs, who sees things flourishing and coming back to life. And so I just love that quote. She also dives into like what is regenerative gardening and the history of industrial growing. She says, it's easy to forget that industrial farming began with good intentions and pride in scientific discovery. There was a sense that nature could be leveraged without limit, without side effects to sustain an ever expanding urban population. Growing food at scale developed gradually from the 16th century in Europe and took off after 1909 when scientist Fritz Haber discovered a way to extract nitrogen from the air and fix it in solid soluble form as nitrates, it kind of salt applied to the soil as fertilizer. She then goes on later in the book to explain why adding salt to our soil actually just kills things. Nitrogen is one of the three key macronutrients that fuel plant growth, along with potassium and phosphate, and is available in soil organic matter, in minerals, respectively. Before Haber's discovery, though extra nitrogen was traditionally added to the soil via animal manure or human night soil mined minerals. And through growing legumes, which fix the nitrogen from the atmosphere in the soil through their roots and symbiotic bacteria, nitrogen fertilizers were created to solve hunger and shortages after the two world wars. And they've delivered huge production to feed enormous populations ever since. They've addressed many human problems, and the global payback took time to be understood. She explains that over time we've discovered that the issues with the use of nitrate fertilizer are extensive. Once microbes in the soil are killed by this form of salt that kills many of the creatures in the soil. Plants no longer have access to the nutrients the microbes provides. And she goes on to explain the history of regenerative gardening and industrial farming and what that means for farmers and gardeners today, she says soil contains the alchemy that allows everything on earth to live, die, and create more life. In turn, it reminds us that we're both infinite and fleeting. It's our first and last community, our source of life and our place of death. We grow our food and soil and bury our dead there, hide precious treasure in times of danger and secrets. In time of shame, we build our house from bricks, utensils, and art from clay, antibiotics, from its microbes. As humans, we rely on a healthy soil biome to grow nutrient dense food and keep our own guts healthy. So vital is this to our survival that even most hardened city dwellers are still naturally hardwired to sniff out healthy soil. And then like she shared on the podcast, how humans can Detect Earth Smell at five parts per trillion. This is 200,000 times more sensitive than a Shark's ability to smell blood. She says, wet earth smell gives us a dose of the hormone serotonin, drawing it to us unconsciously because it makes us feel good. And yet many of us are soil blind. She goes on to say, unable to see or appreciate the life underneath our wheels and feet. Understanding soil makes everything about regenerative growing makes sense, and everything about poisoning and killing our soil seem like insanity. As always, thank you for listening to the end of this episode. This was probably the hardest podcast for me to record because this is stuff that I think about and do on a daily basis, and don't always know how much of this stuff you guys are aware of. Who is listening, and so I would love for you to send me a message. Let me know, are you a farmer? Are you a gardener? Are you a conscious consumer? You can text me via the link in the podcast description. It will really help me know how to better cater podcast episodes moving forward, because I certainly don't want to just talk about things that are very mainstream and common knowledge to you. And if you follow me on social media at Hannah at the Gardens, I'm going to be posting that sliding scale photo from the Bear Parent material all the way to the Conifer Old growth Forest that we chatted about. And I think that it will really help kind of put this into perspective for you. The kindest garden is truly a beautiful book. It's kind of one of those that I'll be happy to place on my coffee table for guests to read for years to come. And just wanna say thanks again to Marianne for joining me on the show today and providing all kinds of wisdom and expertise in this book and on the podcast today. And I will chat with you guys again next Tuesday. I.