It’s that time of year when growers in the northern hemisphere have to make final decisions
about what we’re going to be growing this season.
Ambition, dreams, excitement can play a big part in this, especially for those of us who
have the luxury of abundance around us.
But an increasing number of people have financial pressures and concern for the food security
of their family to consider.
Others will feel the need to grow a lot more in response to global issues such as waste,
biodiversity loss, climate change and a concern for the future.
And those of us who grow for a market will have issues of demand and access to customers
to consider.
All this needs to be balanced with anticipated time, resources, available land, finances
and skill, and finding a balance in all of this can be really difficult.
I don’t really like to advise new growers, as so much depends on context and preferences,
and I’m also split between two opposing beliefs.
On the one hand I want to encourage growers to start simple, to delay their dreams and
ambitions, and to have small successes before moving on.
On the other hand, I want to encourage growers to dive deep, to learn, to explore, to fail,
and to seek to develop skills with the speed and focus that reflects the urgency that is
needed to respond to the rapidly changing world around us.
I have a comparable split personality about my own growing, which manifests itself in
two different parts of this RED Gardens Project.
One part has been more consistently successful through restraint, and the other part is full
of potential, but has been more problematic as a result.
The seven family scale gardens is a complicated enough part of the project, with each of the
gardens following a different method that I needed to keep track of.
When I first started this project, I wanted to include everything that I was interested
in, but a lot of this got in the way of of the primary objective of comparing and contrasting
the different methods.
So, what I’m trying to do in each garden has simplified over the years, and I’ve
reduced the range of vegetables as a result.
I’m still reasonable variety, but trying to stick with what is typical, or most appropriate
for this climate, and not necessarily what I want to really grow.
I’m also trying to grow the same thing each year, and sticking to a limited range of common varieties.
This regularisation is an attempt to reduce variables, to make it easier to compare each
of the gardens, and to compare the differences between one year and the next.
For example, I used to grow a different variety of squash in each of the gardens, as I liked
the diversity, and I wanted to try a number of different types to see which ones grew best.
Now I only grow one reliable variety, across all of the family scale gardens, and I grow
the same variety each season.
This all makes it easier to keep track of changes and differences, and in a way, it
makes it easier to learn how to grow, by reducing variables so I can better understand what
is happening.
This is a focus on practice and skills, to get better at learning to manage and evolve
each of the gardening methods.
In many ways the larger scale Black Plot is a release valve in response to the constraints
that I’ve placed on the family scale gardens, and as a result it’s in serious danger of
failure from trying to do too much.
It’s a much larger and tougher site, and I’ve really struggled to get it established,
but there’s so much potential with this space.
The main purpose is to explore the issues, benefits and possible resilience of growing
at a scale like this.
I hope to do a lot of explorations, to try all of the interesting things that I come across.
I want to do variety trials on many crops, to find varieties of vegetables that grow
well in my context and to explore the possibilities of increasing resilience through this diversification.
And I want to get back into seed saving.
Of course, all of this increases the workload, and not just in the garden, but in tracking
progress, recording data, and all of the analysis that goes along with it.
I just need to find a way of managing all of this from a time and a resource perspective.
And I need to accept the fact that I’m going to continue to falter and fail occasionally,
but there’s some valuable learning in that as well.
So, what’s the best approach?
Is it better to be guided by constraint or exuberance?
Personally, I’ve been much more successful with the family scale gardens, once they were
more constrained and focussed.
On the other hand, I’ve really struggled to get the Black Plot established, but mostly
because of its larger scale.
It’s simply too much for the amount of time that I’ve been able to devote to it.
But, as the series of family scale gardens settles into a nice groove, I’m hoping that
the interest and excitement of trying lots of new stuff in the Black Plot, will help
me focus the time that a project of this scope really needs and deserves.
And in the process, I hope to be able to channel that exuberance into abundance.
Of course, the production of these videos is also a driving force within this project.
The family scale gardens are so rich in potential content, as a set and individually, that so
long as I keep managing them well, there will be plenty of interesting stuff to share.
On the other hand, the possibilities of producing videos is starting to really influence what
I’m planning to do in the Black Plot, as there's so many really interesting things
to explore over the coming seasons.
If you’d like to help me on this, and to enable me to spend more time on this project,
please check out my Patreon page, linked here or in the description below.
And as always, thanks for watching.