“Food Not Lawns” by H.C. Flores - An Expanded View on Gardening As A Political Act For Medicine

Nettles patch #1 - We have two!

​Nettles taught us when she commanded a bow from Mugwort

Impressive.

I planted them here next to each other so I would not have to be in the loop of deciding.

It took 10 years for Nettles and Mugwort to make the decision between them known to those of us watching and learning.

This slow kind of landscape change where we learn as we go is nothing new. When I gardened in a flood plain for 6 years I learned who could withstand being underwater for a week. That included Comfrey, Yarrow, Hops, all mints, Poke, Lemongrass, Plantain, and more tenacious ones of course. Nettles can too! I also learned how vital the fish left behind in the walkways of receding water were chosen by death and the task of feeding the soil. It’s a tall order for all of us one day. My two older sons and I had many rescue missions nonetheless with 5 gallon buckets working until it was just ridiculous. Each year we did less and less. There are many reasons and risks to take when gardening and farming in fertile flood plains.

The property we live on now for 18 years has gone through many transformations as we shift a landscape with our presence included with the resident plants and the massive amount of water that moves through this property. I’m a different kind of house buyer now because of the three properties we lived on. Two things that bother me the most here are they would never be able to build on a property like this now due to the water table being a foot away from the ground surface in half the property, AND... they faced our house north. Why?! Passive solar placement of homes today is often not considered.

We remain for now continuing to learn from this land and I look for ways to align. It employs energy efficiency for starters. And it also slows us down, in a good way. Time delivers the lessons as things grow and die. Your relationship to death, even the little daily ones, improves. It falls into the slow cooking movement that is finally among us as we work to grow food AND medicine for the kitchen and home apothecary. Things rushed are different than things slowly received.

1/2 of one of our Nettles patches is topped off and laid with other weeds for a chopping to boost soil nutrients. It's only a 1-2x/year task.

Green Mulch for Topdressing

The Nettles here is from our original patch that has moved itself and divided itself into two places. While I’m not a fan of lawns, it does provide green mulch along with nettles and comfrey and other weeds for building soil in a rather simple way. Laid in a row for mowing, it’s chopped up and gathered from top dressing and I make the commitment to one huge wheel barrel full with every mow.

green mulch for topdressing beds

We compost in a single row each year making a long pile that is about three feet high, cover with leaves before winter hits, and every spring enjoy the black gold of nutrient dense soil made easy by aligning with time and all the soil microbes to do their thing. It takes time. I’m not a subscriber to fancy formulas and daily to-dos to get soil made fast. Some things just take time, and less effort, to get a better finished thing.

Simple annual pile composting method is our way of honoring that that some things are worth waiting for.

Another thing learned is to place gardens in “problematic” areas. These would be areas where rocks and tree stumps, mature trees, and marshy spots reside. They’re only problematic for moving a lawn mower around and so if you want less of this, the plants will accommodate and populate the space while providing food, medicine, and beauty.

These are things we all need to be well.

The little Elder grove is happy with our composting and green mulching practices. Many flowers equal many berries and abundant food and medicine.

The Tale of Horsetail

This year a dear friend, Horsetail, arrived on the scene. What a grand gesture as I have a patch I hike to deep in the forest a few miles to harvest from for decades now. The annual pilgrimage remains, but now I get to leave them with so much gratitude for how time delivers the medicine. There’s a (link) Monthly Herbal Council titled “The Tale of Horsetail” (password: horsetail) I’d like to share that will explain more about why herbalists love this ancient plant that used to be the size of trees. LOVE Horsetail.
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I’ll keep short in saying it builds structure and strength for our connective tissues, bones, teeth and nails. And in biodynamic gardening style, it does the same for plants used as a foliar spray, particularly when mold, powdery mildew and things like black spot is present. This can be an issue with very wet properties like we have here. A diluted Horsetail infusion is the simple spray to remedy the situation towards balance. It reminds the plants to strengthen their cells and tissues and creates a good boundary balance with excessive fungal growths on their bodies.

I have the pleasure of harvesting where the water is high and Horsetail is here to thrive in such an environment. The patch is huge for a first year appearance.
And once again the lesson of aligning with time shows that the medicine needed will come.

Water loving Horsetail arrives.

The political act of gardening is well described in this book published back in 2006, Food Not Lawns, By H.C. Flores.

The history of the grass lawn is political. And it’s so political that there are now laws and local codes that demand lawns for “curb appeal” as if a garden is not beautiful, functional and community building with plant and seed exchanges for one thing. It’s deeper than this though.

Preventing growing food and medicine is woven into the political story.
This book is worthy of at least a listen if you can find it through an audio book platform, or a library borrow for an actual read. It became a book in my library after a borrowed read.

Building resiliency and resistance is at the root of developing garden spaces. It takes time. It takes doing nothing and watching as nature speaks to us about the flow of vital resources that provide for our families and our communities of plants, animals, microbes, bugs, and people. If you find yourself frustrated with some aspect about the land where you live, sit with it. Pan out for a more expanded view of what is trying to happen. Again, it takes time to align with the efficiency lessons of Nature.

I share a little of how things unfold and change here and continue to do so as we continue to create with a large pallet of diverse colors, textures, plants, trees, bugs, microbes, fungi, and even resident wild animals that inform our process.

The political act of growing your own medicine and sharing in some capacity with your community is an act of cooperation with the collapsing medical systems that are always political. There is simply no good reason for us all to not have good modern medicine healthcare in this day and age. The cooperation comes from mutual respect that there is enough for us all. Good modern science walking along side the thousands of years of clinical trials that herbal medicine has provided can create cooperation among us instead of feeding competition based in greed and fear.

With one garden at time, we do the work. 

We make a stand when we create our little gardens and share what we harvest along with what we know through showing up again and again to the lessons. With politics so complex today, the garden offers a respite to get clear about what really matters and gives strength to show up to the other harder lessons in life as we witness the uncooperative nature of humans. The created garden helps us remember how to keep moving forward towards a cooperative future. And it will require resilience and resistance at times. And the garden in return cultivates this in us. 

Make dirt. Plant for the hummingbirds, or the the resident woodchuck present to teach a thing or two. Designate wild places where you just watch. Know that watching and doing nothing for a while is something. Learning to listen is a thing.
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May your day be relaxing with a slow morning and a hot something to drink. 💚Jen

“Gardening can be a political act. Creativity, fulfillment, connection, revolution—it all begins when we get our hands in the dirt. Food Not Lawns combines practical wisdom on ecological design and community-building with a fresh, green perspective on an age-old subject. Activist and urban gardener Heather Flores shares her nine-step permaculture design to help farmsteaders and city dwellers alike build fertile soil, promote biodiversity, and increase natural habitat in their own "paradise gardens." But Food Not Lawns doesn't begin and end in the seed bed. This joyful permaculture lifestyle manual inspires readers to apply the principles of the paradise garden—simplicity, resourcefulness, creativity, mindfulness, and community—to all aspects of life. Plant "guerilla gardens" in barren intersections and medians; organize community meals; start a street theater troupe or host a local art swap; free your kitchen from refrigeration and enjoy truly fresh, nourishing foods from your own plot of land; work with children to create garden play spaces. Flores cares passionately about the damaged state of our environment and the ills of our throwaway society. In Food Not Lawns, she shows us how to reclaim the earth one garden at a time.”