Gardening as commonly practiced is better than not gardening. Feeding yourself from your backyard is a huge benefit of having a garden, whether you are growing in wide rows or in horse troughs full of MiracleGro potting soil.
Having a garden makes you less fragile. But it doesn’t take you to the level of Nassim Taleb’s “antifragility,” as expounded in his book Antifragile. Something that is “antifragile” does not just survive bouts of disorder, it grows and even thrives through them.
This is an antifragile gardening system:
Chopping and dropping some plants leads to better growth and the fertilization of others. Having a broad range of species means that pests are very little issue. A big windstorm coming through would open up light and make non-damaged portions grow even better. The “messiness” of the system and the many redundancies make it a very powerful way to garden that is not fragile like traditional gardening systems that require careful timing, weeding, external fertilization, etc.
You can have greener thumbs by this weekend!
3 comments
Keep up the great works. New location, new developments. Keep gardening and writing.
Thank you, doc.
So true! Our 9b permaculture garden is now 3 years old and had to survive total neglect this year as I was completely bedridden for 6 months with spinal cord damage. Thank God surgery has gotten me up and moving and the garden …has been producing through it all! Not only enough for our family, but enough to give pounds and pounds of food every week to our local homeless meal delivery. All with zero fertilizing, weeding or irrigation from us. Thank you for helping guide our efforts—there are many more full bellies in our area due to your teaching.
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