Regenerative Gardening

Just signed my fourth lease in our apartment here in Lexington, and while I really do love our apartment, I long for my own piece of land and a space for growing our own food, even cut flowers and an orchard, some animals and a sweet little pond for Ruby to play with visiting turtles. Of course, I imagine growing herbs and teaching classes on botanical medicine, offering yoga, and a retreat of sorts for rest and restoration. There is so much to consider though.

As I pour through YouTube documentaries and tutorials, I am reminded of how farming was once the mainstay, then the land was bought up by the churches and rented to farmers, so the farmer held all the risk for poor weather or failed crops; rent was due either way. Farmers then faced an overwhelm of debt and struggled to turn profits, so they turned to government subsidies to help stay afloat through difficult times with high operating costs. Last year we had tariffs that sunk many smaller farms. Today, the younger generation of long lines of farmers have left the industry. They don't want to work so hard with such great risk. The risk to us though extends farther than most realize. I mention in my Earth Medicine program that the last two lilac nurseries in the United States were put up for sale this past year, because as the owners retired, they had no succession plan.

It seems wild that I am hoping to dive in, at age 50, to creating my own farmstead, especially all by myself, but I am damn determined. When I was only 20, purchasing my first tiny little home in the country, with three acres, one of the first things I did was plant my vegetable garden, and not a little one either. We were young and broke, but we ate well from that garden, and we could even feed surprise guests. Then when I opened my first midwifery clinic, the glass jars collecting the herbs I would offer my clients to support their health and healing, grew more abundant every year so that I opened a boutique, and then another. It just seemed so natural, so innate. Getting into nature more, hiking the beautiful trails of Indiana, got me through my divorce and all the trauma that surfaced in the years that followed. I once had a woman tell me that in a previous life, I was an herbalist and lived in a stone house, with a child on my hip and another one in my belly. She said this is where I gain my wisdom (and my apprehension for the patriarchy). Maybe I am repeating some patterns because I do have an intense passion for what I do, both working with people and plants, and can't imagine doing anything else.

Funny enough, thanks to a deep knowing for gardening and medicinal herbs, I've always had confidence about getting my hands in the dirt and preserving vegetables. I haven't any idea from where this comes, as I never remember seeing my mother or grandmothers preserving food although my mother did grow tomatoes, nor did we even have the internet when I first started gardening. Although it may seem a great disadvantage, part of my ignorance meant I had no knowledge for integrating synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides, which I appreciate today worked in my favor. During those early years in the garden, I would simply sit for hours, pulling weeds, and enjoying the sun, teaching my little ones about plants, and gaining experience without culminating bad habits, at least harmful ones.

I did make mistakes though. I over-tilled the land. I dispersed my plantings too far from one another, so that weeds were abundant, often taking over the space and choking out my vegetables. I mulched my bulbs too deep so many didn't return. I also didn't really consider how to integrate native plantings, or how best to support insects and butterflies. I wish I had grown more sprouts and saplings, although what I could, I sowed right into the dirt. Today, my goal is to learn to garden in a way that can sustain my family, even create a respectable income, while also - very importantly - doing so in a way that allows for joy and ease so my daughter can benefit from this her entire life, and of course, truly honor the land. I want to learn how to grow and save heirloom seeds so that my garden becomes self-sufficient, even creating varieties unique to my own garden.

Another mistake though, was not really prioritizing caring for the soil. In fact, I never even tested my soil. It was always on my to do list, but I never followed through. Today, I am more aware that if you take care of the soil, it will take care of you. Everything comes down to soil health; I see it all differently now.

Nourished soil is dark, loamy, and loose, not compacted, light or sandy. Today's soil is often acidic, deficient in minerals, and farmlands are often sunken into the ground compared to the unplowed soil around the hedgerows. Erosion has either washed away or blown away the top soil, sending it across the roads into the ditches and culverts.

Healthy soil can make the difference in whether your plants fail or thrive. Problems with disease or insects decimating your garden is often the result of soil health. It's the secret to your success, so as much as I want to dive into whatever land I ultimately attain into the future, and plant all my favorite flowers, I know my first order is nourishing the soil. It will be well worth the investment, both in time and money.

Cutting Costs in the Garden

Many gardeners joke that potentially they're spending just as much money buying sprouts and tending to them, than they might in buying them at the Farmer's Market at the end of the season. Gardening tools, especially tillers and tractors are expensive. Fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides can also get expensive. Never having invested in these items though, and growing much of my plants from seed, my cost was pretty minimal and with growing knowledge, tricks and tips learned through generations of gardeners can ease the work load.

Early on, I learned how to use fallen trees in the landscaping or building barriers and wind breakers with willow and natural rocks. These contributions were also more aesthetically pleasing to me, and I appreciated that when they would break down, they would add to the soil. Home gardens and lawns are typically quite high in nitrogen and phosphorus due to over-fertilization, which is not only damaging to the soil, but also to aquatic life. Ponds become overgrown with algae, which blocks the sun to plants below, and subsequently depleting oxygen. Even the poorest of soils can be brought back to life, and it really is much easier than most appreciate.

My patience is nil in awaiting the day I step into my own garden again, but even so, once this opportunity presents, taking the necessary time to tend to the soil will be critical. I imagine as much as one takes pride in their rose garden or bountiful kitchen garden, one might also take similar pride in having the most abundantly rich soil - it really should be its own category at the county fair. Regenerative gardening is better for the planet, more cost effective, and very emotionally satisfying. It becomes a study rather than a struggle, and even our mistakes become opportunities for mastering our craft.

How Does Organic Differ from Regenerative Gardening?

These two things do differ. Organic gardening follows USDA-approved organic products, but included in these approved products are broad-spectrum pesticides, with pyrethrin, insecticidal soap, garlic oil, and other "natural" broad-spectrum pesticides that are still considered organic despite their wide-reaching impact on the ecosystem and bees in particular. When gardening organically, one can also over utilize fertilizer which can also have a detrimental impact on soil life and pollinators.

In organic diary farming, if a cow gets mastitis, rather than humanely treating the cow with antibiotics, they monitor the amount of pus excreted into the milk and when infection finally becomes too great, they kill the cow because treating it would violate organic guidelines. Organic gardening can follow in-kind, while a step in the right direction, organic gardening doesn't always work to address the issue at its roots. It can fall into the trap of quick fixes.

Regenerative gardening on the other hand, focuses on growing and regenerating soil, honoring an ecosystem - the health of which is always the greatest priority, with a successful garden as the ultimate outcome. I imagine this as treating one's animals with humanity, treating them in kindness, but optimizing their diet, their grazing opportunities, and their joy so their milk is nourishing, even if very rarely having antibiotic exposure. Do what is right for the land, care for the soil and it will care for you.

Pesticides are avoided entirely in regenerative gardening, as well as no granules and zero synthetic fertilizers. These chemical products interfere with the natural processes of the soil and delicate ecosystems. More importantly, the health of the soil and ecosystem are the core principle, a collaboration rather than attempt to control. One might even seen this as a move from intervention to observation.

Maybe what I think of most though, with regenerative gardening, is how to adjust when problems persist. An example would be how you might manage pests in the garden. On a small scale, many gardeners will plant calendula around their garden edges to keep aphids off their tomatoes. Cut flower gardeners often struggle with earwigs, particularly on their dahlias. Many will cover with organza bags, which is an incredible amount of work, but when regenerative gardening, one questions why the earwigs are so popular? Why are they targeting the dahlias? What is their food source and what are their predators? May it better serve the garden to address an insufficient amount of native plants in the garden that would then nurture the birds that would then eat on the earwigs, keeping their numbers in better check?

Regenerative gardening does think "good" and "bad" insects, it thinks "ecosystems." Aphids are a great food source for ladybugs. Caterpillars that eat away at your leaves, are great food for baby birds that can't eat seeds and berries. Think of nature as your partner, rather than an entity you want to control. Dig in and learn about the ecosystems around you. Find balance which will solve many of your gardening troubles.

Letting Nature Do the Work

When we support the garden, allow it to find balance, much of the work will be done for us. Think of the garden ecosystem like a symphony of parts working in collaboration. Increase biodiversity in the garden among your plants, especially with native life. Insects and even larger animals should also be diverse for proper balance.

Invite native wildflowers into your home garden, and unmowed native grasses, even shrubbery and within that create your more planned and maintained plant varieties such as tomatoes and petters, lettuces and berries. Leaves are allowed to fall and gather around plants at season's end without being raked and thrown in the landfill. This will look a bit more wild than the manicured garden, much more in line with country cottage gardening. Your habitats will love it because it will invite a wide variety of insects and animals.

While I very much look forward to growing hydrangeas and peonies, even roses, these are often cut back in the winter or even throughout the growing season for profit. These gardens are often very neat and trimmed back, so there will be less biodiversity to support wildlife. While this is more popular with HOAs, you'll also get far more damage when hungry caterpillars arrive. Add a large, maintained lawn to that and you'll really wreck your ecosystem.

Another simple trick is dispersing your plants, such as tomatoes in your kitchen garden. If you plant them all together, then if the hornworm finds them, they may all be damaged. However, if you disperse the tomatoes throughout the garden, among the squash or herbs, then it is more likely the hornworm will be discovered by wasps that use their body's as hosts for their larva, and these wasps are super important pollinators for the garden.

Birds are at the top of the soil food web and are a vital, and often missing, key to balancing the ecosystem and creating a healthy garden. Those my age may recognize how many few birds there are today than when we were kids. The bird populations are in global decline because there aren't enough insects to feed young birds. As of 2023, around half of the worlds 10,000 bird species are in decline, and 1 in 8 are nearing extinction. A quarter of US bird life has disappeared in just my lifetime. When birds are missing from our garden, many bugs proliferate and our gardens suffer. They are a key piece of the healthy garden.

Are you familiar with regenerative gardening? My Earth Medicine program leans into this approach or perspective towards gardening and working with the soil, a mind-shift of sorts in its desire to connect with the Earth. This is a relationship, similar to how a midwife connects to the mother she attends, nurturing and guiding, allowing the mother to shine as she brings forth her precious child. Take a walk with me, as I cultivate my fantasy garden.