Gluts, Gluttony, Greed

I was thinking about my gluts the other day, as you do. I know, I know, I'm a bit weird, but they just never stopped coming this year and it was hard to stop thinking about them. This was mainly because I was either picking them or filling the kitchen counter with them. Gluts will take over when you start growing. Be warned, you could be as weird as me!

It led me to think about gluttony, and the fact that it was a deadly sin. I'd never made the connection of the two words before. I think we tend to look at gluttony nowadays purely as greed, it conjures up images of eating a whole tub of ice cream in front of the TV, or the Christmas tin of quality street in one go (guilty, I'm afraid). But when I think of gluts, I don't think of that sort of greed.

In the past few years, gluts for me have led to wastage, the fruit and veg coming in, life taking over and the inevitable walk  of shame to the compost heap. Its not good. The swing from excited Spring through to overwhelmed late Summer is kind of messed up, and I have been guilty of waste in the last few years. But THIS year has been a bit different. Aided by the pressure I have put on myself with this blog, a PDC still fresh in my brains and the fact that the last few weeks have been kept clear due to an imminent arrival, I have been canning, juicing, preserving and cooking up all the produce coming my way. There ain’t no raspberry gonna turn on me!

Eggs by the dozen, cucumbers, gherkins, beans, and tomatoes have just kept coming. Obtain a yield is a permaculture principle, but it is only realised when that yield becomes a useful one. Having a kitchen full of produce slowly rotting does not count.

So I made tomato sauce, and put it into sterilised jars ( thanks to big sister Debs for pointing that one out!), I made pickled gherkins, quiches to use up the eggs because quiches are very manly. I juiced cucumbers like they were going out of fashion, and now I’m going to live forever because I’m so alkaline. The apples from the garden have all been used, and whilst the meagre amount of sauce and pickles done this year won't save a great deal on the grocery budget, the process of learning to pickle, process and use stuff began. 

Learning these skills and using them is empowering. The most important part of my lifestyle design – it gives me the skills to take advantage of random opportunities like other peoples gluts or forage, to experiment, to feed us healthily, save a bit of money and extract me ever so slightly further from shitty food manufacturers. Next year, when the shack is up and running, and the perennials are another year older, we will have more to use and play with. My shift to freedom will accelerate.

There is a theory that a lot of the man made stuff we eat ( the ice cream, cheesecake, doughnuts etc...) the processed crap that tastes soooo good, does not trigger a 'full' response in our brains the way that a more natural food would. It's why Atkins or paleo diets work, because they split carbs and fats. The body will not want to continually eat a food that does not contain one or other of those, whereas a cheesecake, which contains about 50 50 fats to carbs ratios, produces a craving response. You don't get this from cucumbers. Or eggs. Or tomatoes. You can't physically eat too much of any of this stuff on its own, and I'm struggling to think of anything in its natural state that produces a response in me like a tub of strawberry cheesecake ice cream. 

So pickling, canning, etc..  is the way to really obtain a yield, minimising that walk of shame. So too is sharing and gifting. You ain’t gonna eat a massive bowl of tomatoes while you watch game of thrones. 

Gluttony in my mind then,  becomes the failure to take advantage of gluts, and avoiding wastage, stretching your yield, eating seasonally, and growing the right amount of the right stuff become the tenets to live by. It makes us healthier, happier and richer to live within these natural cycles, so be kind to yourself, avoid gluttony, and be as greedy as you can.

Hello Ren

Just a quick post. We had a baby boy last night and we called him Ren. I feel blessed and have fallen in love all over again, not just with him, but all of my beautiful family. Michelle especially has been simply incredible; brave and compassionate. I didn't want to bang on too much in this post, but this is just about the best advice I could impart to him. I hope when he is old enough he will live by it. I try to, but it is sometimes hard. It goes for everyone I know, especially my amazing  daughters. There are many truths here.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence,

As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. 

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. 

But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly to the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy

Max Ehrmann

I hope you like this as much as I do, I think it's a really helpful way of looking at stuff, I'm not a religious man, and personally I think this kicks the lords prayer's ass. Something I was made to recite for large swathes of my childhood. 

Just a quick note – posts might be shorter for the next few weeks, there's a lot going on which is annoying because there is a lot to write about. I'll try and punch through the sleepless nights and continual rocking. Also it is much easier to write comments on here now that my lovely friend Scott has sorted out some glitches, he has also made it easier to read on mobiles, so you can read wherever you like! Accepting feedback and self regulation is important in the permaculture world. I would LOVE as much feedback as possible, especially specific stuff. It helps me hone the ideas I write about. I also have a page on facebook called hisown2feet, please like it, or friend me under mark furmston. It means I can see you guys, which is lovely for me and makes it a two way process.

(Scott, is also the one loading/posting this post for Mark and typing this bit ; ) "hello readers"... and so would like to sneakily congratulate Mark and Michelle… and wish them, the girls and Ren all the happiness in the World! they're certainly adding more than their fair share.) X

From Patterns to Details

This is all about seeing the wood for the trees. In a physical project it is imperative to look at how the land behaves in order to carry out any design. The usual stuff, like slopes, species, climate etc... guides a design. These factors should be aiding the sustainability of the design, not fighting it.So when we have a dominant species we should be designing to take advantage of the soil and climatic conditions that species enjoys, as well as the benefits that that species brings, be it the way it interacts with the natural environment or the yield it brings. 

The glamour in permaculture, or self sufficiency is often stuff like hugelkulture, designing guilds, food forests or keeping chickens. Its these ideas that appeal to people because there is a physical, clever way of producing food, and lets face it, if you're that way inclined, its cool and interesting.

But the art of looking for patterns... well that is a bit like the cinderella in the rush for the over made up hugel/herbspiral sister. And it is a rush. I am guilty of doing this. If I look back at my ideas for the back garden and how to design my life, the patterns were ignored in the desire to get things done.

So I start again. Not completely, but as part of a critical analysis of what went before. The beginning is the Survey bit in SADIM (Survey, Analysis, Design, Implement, Maintain). After maintaing the elements I have put into my life, we go full circle. We re-evaluate, accept feedback, we build and tinker.

From the very top. If I was to be allowed a wish list? I would be travelling to all the people and places that inspire me. From Geoff Lawton to Joel Saladin. Ben Falk to Jack Spirko. I would be doing a second 2 week intensive course with Patrick Whitefield, and a 10 week internship with Ridgedale permaculture farm in Sweden. Then I'd come back to Hastings and set up a city farm with an educational growing hub for the unemployed youth of the town, probably receive an OBE, get the freedom of the city (Town) and just schlep around drinking in coffee shops, swimming in the sea and fishing. Oh yeah, and I'd spend the Winter somewhere warm.

That sounds good. Heres the reality. I have a family, I have a mortgage, I have debts. I have a job that requires me to be physically present and doesn't pay holiday. These are all limitations. Some which I wouldn't change, beautiful and charming, some I definitely would. But none the less, they all mean that disappearing to do this stuff is out of the question. This rather stark example shows us that by looking at the patterns, we can ascertain what is and isn't sustainable

When I finished the PDC, one of the first things I did was to volunteer at the community garden. It was good. I met good people and helped a worthy project. It wasn't sustainable because I did it despite having to work every other weekend and losing money we needed as a family. I wouldn't change what I did, but when the garden closed it was a relief as it meant I had more time and money for myself. It wasn't sustainable within my current pattern. 

Now I bring eggs and cucumbers (right now its cucs, next week probably courgettes!)for my neighbours and friends, and i'm getting the same hit from it, without having to volunteer time I haven't got.

And whilst 10 weeks in Sweden at Ridgdale does sound great, I decided to build my learning around my limitations. Cue Michael White, Lucia Stuart and Ben Fairlight Edwards, local(ish) foragers. All with different specialities covering herbalism, sea shore and everything else. It has become clear to me that foraging is definitely a passion, makes me happy and is one solution in feeding ourselves. It also has the effect of curbing to a small extent the limitations of money (food for free as Richard Mabey says) These guys are all amazing by the way – well worth checking out if you are in the area.

I will be getting out on the boats and learning as much as I can about sea fishing from my friend, Russell Field. This should be both social and educational for me, and again, a big step towards free, sustainable, healthy food. Just – got – to – find – the – time! 

The other thing I've been doing is making stuff with the kids. They are naturally predisposed to making potions and lotions, so this summer so far we've pickled gherkins, made bread, salves and oven dried tomatoes. Next up is tomato sauces and quiche. We are all learning. Together, and they seem to like it.

Finally, once it all settles after the arrival of the baby, I will explore the Permaculture diploma with as local as possible tutors. 

The point being that the patterns of my life, at least for now, limit my options. The beauty of those limitations, however, result in a beautiful solution. One that boils down to local learning, deeper connections with local people and the local environment, and one that sates my appetite without taking me away from my family or taking up more of my precious time. In fact, it brings us all together, eating, drinking and enjoying the things we bring into our lives.

Design For Life

'If you don't design your life, they will design it for you' – Jack Spirko, July 2014.

The premise of the above being that unless you take control, really take control, then governments and corporations will step in and make decisions that will directly affect your lifestyle.

I heard Spirko talking about this and it really struck a cord with me. We are all following a path designed to serve others, mostly those running large corporations and governments. From an early

age we are trained and encouraged to form part of a larger machine, one which is sold to us as the 'right path' – study, get a career, save for a pension, consume, retire. As long as you work hard, you can do what you want. But as always, its more nuanced than that. I wanted to merge this thinking with a psychological model I was familiar with. 

I came across Maslows hierarchy of needs at University. Its a model in psychology, showing base needs right up to self actualisation. The theory being that the basic needs have to be met in order to achieve stuff like love, respect, etc... If you look at Maslows hierarchy of needs, there are 5 levels; 

A Physiological level – Food, water, warmth – In order to fulfil these needs, its never been easier (at least in our comfortable western world) Most of us would supermarket shop, turn the tap or hit the thermostat. I do, but less and less. If there is no design or movement towards self sufficiency ( at least a bit more of it ), then we are constantly in the hands of enormous corpotocracies, companies enmeshed within governments, just doing what they want. One thing is clear from the constant scandal, criminality and subsequently the enormous power they hold - these people and their machines do not care about you. The fact that it is so easy to carry on using their services is the dangerous part. If you don't think about it, then life is easier, at least in the short term. Think about what happens if you carry on using the same provider. Your gas and electric prices will RISE, you are actually paying THEM for not shifting supplier. Same goes for all utilities, loyalty is not respected, the exact opposite to when you are using a local, small supplier. Think about what happens if all you do is eat cheap food from the supermarket for 30 years. Yeah, you'll have some clubcard points, but you will have fuelled and been a part of the industrialisation of the food chain, the marginalisation of small suppliers and the subsequent health risks. I remember when we used to say 'one day we'll wake up and it'll only be supermarkets left' – well we're there folks, and we overslept, most of us are still asleep and even you and me are hitting snooze. They are ALL like hypnotists. 'Shhhh now, sit back, you don’t want to think about this boring old stuff, we'll auto renew you/do your shopping for you/give you our best deal (delete as appropriate) so you just sit back and relax. Go baaaaack to sleep'. 

It takes an effort to find local, ethical alternatives, to extract at least a portion of your physiological needs from the hands of these vast corporations, but plan. Find a butcher, swap your energy supplier, put in a water butt. It takes energy to do these things, but its part one of your design, and once in place it'll afford you more time, money and quality of life.

It took around a month for the BBC to report that extra fracking licenses were being granted, and that a major reason was the Russian/Ukrainian war. Greater energy security was needed because of  the horrendous skirmishes on the edge of Europe – its a home run for our great leaders.  Our war machines (The UK are world leaders in selling arms to horrendous regimes throughout the world – what a great bunch of guys!) helping to create a new common enemy AND an excuse to make lots of money with fracking. A questionable at best technology. Security is very interesting at the moment. The current situation feels just like Orwell's 1984 – Eastasia and Eurasia – the two interchangeable enemies designed to keep the people in fear, and thus, controllable. Isn't this Iran, and ISIS, Mujahadin and Al Qaeda. The freedom fighters we nearly waded in to help in Syria are now ISIS. Iran are now potential allies. You aren’t meant to understand – it is designed that way – so that governments can be the only ones to provide you security, and hence you vote for them again and again. 

Shelter is also at stage 4. I'm not sure about the US or the rest of the world, but here in the UK, a shortage of housing has made it near impossible for anyone to get on the housing ladder. If you want to live in London, you have to be seriously wealthy. The system is broken for anyone under 30 and if I was 20 again? I would learn how to sustainably build. To take on a mortgage (death pledge is what that word actually means)  means you are paying vast sums back to the bank for around 25 or 30 years. You are the banks bitch! Your shelter is in the hands of the banks. I don’t need to expand on how worrying this is surely, suffice to say the guys that design and run the banking systems will be alright, always were and actually control the politicians. Still. Even after the last 6 or 7 years. I don't know what the answer for me is here, but if I ever make any money, or find a sugar daddy (open to offers, my mum says I'm pretty) then I would be overpaying that mortgage. The sooner we are free the better. If you are never going to be free, the sooner you square that in your head the better.

So once you've realised that you are a cog in the design, you are halfway to freedom, and you need to make that step to get to stage 3 – belongingness, affection, love from workgroup, family, friends, and romantic relationships. Surely they have no hold on this right? Well it depends on how you look at it. If we shop at monster shops, check out in those little self service things, order from Amazon for everything, overspend, and consequently overwork (I am guilty of the last one) then you are jeopardising stage 3. The system sends out messages. It advertises to you stuff that you don't need. It supplies you with easy credit (again), it allows you to carry on spending without any human contact whatsoever. It has never been easier to enslave yourself to stuff. If you find yourself here there can be a problem. I have spent years overworking, seeing too little of my family and friends and am designing myself out of that trap by minimising our exposure to debt, not by working harder, but by using all available resources (permaculture principle klaxon!) and renting out the spare room. Pay it off, walk away and give yourself a chance at actually having disposable income and a life. 

Esteem needs – Achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, self respect and respect from others. Holy moly – its as if Maslow was  a self sufficiency guru!

Now please don’t get me wrong – I am not preaching as some sort of expert here – all I am is a fella on a journey to greater self sufficiency – and believe me I am nowhere near my goal, but I have been fired up by a few people, a PDC (Permaculture Design Course) and some good friends. I do know that to be a generalist, to try the new stuff, to build, grow, understand, gives you an enormous amount of satisfaction, and therefore self respect. Foraging and growing as opposed to simply buying, making as opposed to simply buying, building as opposed....... you get the picture. Gives you self respect. That ALWAYS (unless you are a knob about it) leads to respect from others.

Self actualisation needs – realising personal potential, self fulfilment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences – Now I'm sure there are ways of getting here without doing what I've been talking about, but I cant think of a better way. To go on this journey, to wrestle back control, to know yourself intimately – your strengths, weaknesses, capabilities. To have helped others on your way and thus created a real community on the journey, and to know that its been YOUR design, not theirs. To know that you did it despite them, to give yourself the power to design the unwanted from your life and support the wanted – holy shit - that’s a design for life.

Build it and they will come

Probably not always true, at least when it comes to East London Stadiums and West Ham, but I'm talking about the garden here, and the thing with wildlife in the garden, it takes little more than piling some logs in the corner to give some bug or another a home. These are ideas from one garden I've been working on....

I think this is a dragonfly nymph - St Leonards Spring 2014 

A pond. Probably the ultimate in habitat creation. Deep central zones, shallow edges, water margins, crevices, basking stones, drinking water. The watering hole on an African plain brings together all forms of Wildlife, a pond emulates just that. Dragonflies, water boatmen, pond skaters, freshwater hoglice, newts and frogs all appear as if by magic, but its not – its nature in all its awesomeness moving in to use a resource.

Teaming with different species, its hard to take your eyes off it. Predators, prey, life, death, birth and development. Its all here, because there's water and all its benefits. Larger animals will visit too. Foxes, badgers and birds. Its no wonder its top of the list.

In this pond

Wildflower meadows. Another way to create a beautiful habitat. They have a low carbon footprint as all you need is a patch of ground and a bunch of seed. It can be a bit hit and miss with the germination, but when it works.... you get this. Humming with insects, overwhelmed with colour and movement. This meadow was given a structure beneath it to both protect and support from Rocky the dog. Last year it came up and was quickly flattened – not this time. Often these stands of flowers are the show stoppers of the gardens I create or tend. They are always busy with bees and other pollinators.

Using existing resources to create habitat is a common sense approach. This garden is full of trees. Reusing this resource as part of the infrastructure is definitely a permaculture principle. The logs go in as a retaining wall, and the gaps (inevitably there will be gaps) are backfilled with brush and twigs. We have created a wall that is a genuine one off, has cost little in materials, a carbon footprint of almost zero (wood from 10 Metres away), and a habitat for insects.

With the excessive amount of brush and logs, we not only have wood piles in every possible corner, but our first hugel mound. Basically wood of various sizes and types (make sure the wood you are using is not alliopathic, like black walnut) buried in a pit and mounded up over the surface, then buried with topsoil and compost. The wood breaks down over time, creating nutrition, mycellium and heat. It also soaks up water, keeping the mound moister in the Summer, and as its a mound, and higher than existing ground, it won't flood in the winter. It appears to be working already, and the expected optimum time (when the wood has sufficiently broken down) is probably 1 or 2 years from now. The spinach and lettuce are not bolting, despite a lack of watering and a hot Summer so far (Bolting is caused by stress, often lack of moisture or excessive heat).

 

So we can build to attract insects, amphibians, reptiles and mammals. We can even build to attract mycorrhizal funghi, and just like a good festival – they will come. It is however, good to understand what we are building, and why. It is great putting together habitat projects, creating microclimates and niches but it is also possible to create problems for ourselves. Collecting pots together, as I have done on the deck in my own garden does conserve moisture for the veggies. It also gives a good home for snails. Moist, cool and food on tap. It means a sweep most nights and the inevitable cull. The lip at the top of large tubs tend to house the most molluscs, but also check under pots, any trays or old pots you have lying around, and go out at night if you can to pick them off. Its necessary – theyll eat it all if you let em!

And the shack – it's happening. It's slow – and I keep changing my mind about stuff, but the shell is there. Once this is built, it'll be beers on the deck and banjos on the rocking chair. Me and Michelle can hide from children and students, and Scotty Garret, master and Commander of BADASS (Bohemia Area Dad's Association.) will be popping round to tinker with rocket stoves and talk permaculture. And just like a pond for habitat creation, a shack will create a habitat for me and mine.



 

 

Triumph and Disaster

If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same – If,  Rudyard Kipling

Its a beautiful passage in a beautiful poem, and it is never more apt than when wrestling with anything horticultural. The possibilities for disaster are endless, the triumph we are presented with is fortuitous in many ways and to believe your own hype is to set yourself up for an almighty fall.

I'm getting slightly obsessed with the ideas behind failure and success right now. Its a subject we can all identify with, and at this time, it appears to be more and more commonplace to label life's little ups and downs with excessive gusto and hysteria.

TV especially appears to be shoving the ideas of success and failure down our throats by attaching a competitive edge to lots of things that should be fun, exciting and anxiety free – see Master chef, Britain's best allotment (or whatever the hell its called), The X Factor. In fact it feels like I could go on forever – all formats that either make the participants look silly or attach anxiety and failure. Failure that is to be avoided at all cost, failure that is the end of the world (If you fail you're out). Judges sit and (funnily enough) judge. Success at any cost? That is what seems to be peddled. The questions we have to ask is success or failure by who's standards? And what does failure really mean? Its certainly not the end of the road.

And I know these programmes and the other stuff we are bombarded with are classed as entertainment, and maybe I've got to chill out a bit, but what a double whammy – taking a pastime that always existed for its own sake and sucking anything good from it by attaching negative formats. What's wrong with having a sing and a dance (badly) if it makes you happy without some po-faced judge telling you you're not good enough. What's the big deal if the cake you bake doesn't impress some TV personality? Who are they to judge? I mean really, most of them are just bullies. I try not to watch this stuff, Simon Cowell especially upsets me – mean and nasty, pushing the idea of kids lives being over if they don't impress (or more accurately, conform to a bland formula of success).  You might think I'm over egging this, and maybe I am, but its important in my opinion to not take this version of reality to our hearts. It promotes anxiety, and a 'not good enough, you've failed' attitude – its also very often unkind and inhumane. Rant over, but it pisses me off and always will.

Don't get me wrong, I love a bit of success, but failure arrives when we attempt the new stuff and challenge the status quo. Failure is glorious, laced with lessons, helping us to be better at what we do. To never fail, is to never learn, and while success is nice, like the man said – treat it as an imposter. Believing anything else can turn people into assholes!

 

This blog is becoming more and more,  a why to garden as apposed to how to. Its because I think its a powerful tool for reconnection, yes with the land, but just as importantly for human healing and development. The most experienced gardeners and growers will be able to tell you many stories of failure, and will still make mistakes. This is what makes them experienced. To take failure and use it to achieve success, to not fear failure and experimentation and see it as a tool for future success. Once you have worked that out you will never fail in the Simon Cowell sense ever again.

So I want to be the anti Simon Cowell! not particularly in bank balance, but certainly in spirit. It is never the end of the road, simply a blip in the ephemeral nature of life. Be nice, be supportive, chase the extraordinary - don't be Simon Cowell!

And its funny, my favourite people are the flawed, imperfect, self deprecating ones. Able to admit to their faults and accept themselves as they are. Rather that than someone who believes they have no flaws. Very dull.

 

Level heads are required.  Often, especially with growing annuals, you have one shot, maybe a few depending on how organised you are! Disasters can always happen, inclement weather, pests and disease. Good growing weather can fool you into believing you've got it sussed, only for the following year to kick you in the nuts. We have to assume that failure will happen, and legislate through insurances. Experience is a great ally in this respect. I will sow more than I need, plant in different locations, try different varieties, and plant and sow throughout he growing season - all ways of mitigating the effect of failure whilst still being able to learn from it. Its been a good year so far. We have had a Spring (which is a bonus the last few years). Mild and recently wet, enables germination, all over the garden we have lush growth. On the other side of the coin, slugs and snails are having a field day, black spot, a fungal disease is popping up on the roses and Asparagus beetle has had a very nice time this year.

 

Daisy with the first Strawberry of the year! 

 

Failure in the garden is as perennial as the trees. If you are practising a more natural style of gardening, you are accepting a degree of failure. No quick fix solutions here - a softer, more nuanced thinking is required, and failures more often than not present us with solutions (the problem is the solution) More traditionally there is a 'quick fix' available in forms of herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers, enabling a solution in a bottle. The problem with this is you aren't addressing the cause of the problem, instead unbalancing the natural systems already in place to deal with it, and the baby goes out with the bath water.

So nothing is as it seems in the moment. A failure can feel insurmountable, like you're on your own, as if no one ever did the same, but the truth is that both success and failure are the same thing, a coming together of many random elements, culminating in different outcomes. Experience, both in horticulture and life at large is the thing that enables us to recognise and understand. Triumph is nice, but we learn more from disaster, those little lessons that enrich us and our future adventures, and the sweetest of all? Triumph through disaster, the ultimate learning curve.

So it is a inherently human condition to fail, make mistakes, overlook the infinite trip hazards, and even more human to accept, move on and learn from those failures. It makes you a better person to realise you can't control it all. A gardener will have to cope with this conundrum on an almost daily basis.

The Cherry in the front, despite the praying, begging and love sent its way, went south pretty sharpish after being planted – my afformentioned 'edge' – replaced with Rosemary, some currants, and a fig, to be pruned hard. The Cherry on the other hand is in intensive care, throwing out a few new shoots so at least its stable and not critical. Lessons from this failure? The front is a great big wind tunnel, bringing great gusts charging up the street and treating anything in its way to a large dash of hostility, the open, south facing aspect bringing a great pendulum of year round weather – hot to cold, dry to wet. The soil also held within a concrete pit, not particularly deep or wide – perfect for a Fig. The Cherry simply didn't cope. Its successors, selected to deal with a bit more weather – look at the leaves of Rosemary – waxy and tough, as apposed to the soft growth of a cherry tree. I should have known – in fact I think I did know in my heart of hearts, but I wanted to see how it coped. Now it will go to its sheltered spot out back.

So my mistakes form the basis on how we move on, and my successes should present me with an informed satisfaction. Informed and treated with the caution it deserves. Just because one year we have a bumper crop of peas or potatoes, never believe you've got it sussed. Nature presents us with infentissimal possibilities – weather, pests, diseases and human interference. Without getting too zen on you, stage one, in my opinion is to be aware of the external influences – or observe with as little commentary in your mind as possible. Look and see, don't analyse – which paths does the dog take? what's in the air? What grows where? Where is dry/wet? This information guides us to understand the environment we are in. How many players there are in our space, what the land does. Only from there can we build. See, don't judge. Learn, don't capitulate. DON'T BE SIMON COWELL!

Why Bez is a weed

Wisdom is knowing what you have to accept - Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

Seeds and weeds - these words will conjure up images of an unending battle between human and nature. Weeds, the gate crashers, the unwanted, the uninvited thugs, rolling in to spoil the party. Seeds, the method of dispersal for so many of them. Sitting, waiting for an opportunity to grab life from the soil, one day not there, the next popping up amongst the geraniums in the herbaceous border when the conditions suit.

It can be enough to make the most well balanced gardener go crazy if the attitude is all wrong. The traditional weapons of war in this ongoing skirmish will range from the use of hand tools to all out chemical warfare. Constant weeding can be thankless, and chemicals are not desirable for most sensitive horticulturalists, both methods can easily exascerbate the problem if we are not careful. Whilst there are few of us who would argue that it is less than ideal to have a border full of uninvited visitors, it is wise to arm ourselves with more than just methods of simple eradication. To fight without any knowledge is to pick a fight we are unlikely to win, a thankless and uninspiring task.

Weeds - by their nature are highly evolved, pernicious species that step into a situation when the opportunity arises. Often, we create those opportunities. Freshly dug over soil of a vegetable bed or ornamental border is a common one. I understand why we do it. It symbolises a good days work, it also enables new planting, and just as other traditional images creep into our collective mindset as wholesome and productive (fields of wheat and corn), a nicely dug over piece of land is indeed viewed by many as beautiful and good.

But it also suggests a scar on the earth, a waste of land and resources, a fertile soil with nothing in it will be colonised often by species specifically for those situations very quickly.  In this case weeds are natures elastoplast, healing a bare patch of soil.

It is also the case that digging in this way will both bring dormant seeds to the surface and break up roots of perennial species such as the dreaded ground elder or bindweed, thus your digging can become a very efficient propagation method (especially when rotovators are concerned - please don't use the rotovator!)

Weeds are purely uninvited visitors, often native, and always incredibly successful, that's why they are weeds. When we tune in to the natural systems we look after, these plants take on more nuanced meaning. This is where knowledge leads to acceptance

Just as a patch of bare soil will be colonised quickly, slopes will be stabilised, compacted soils will be loosened and habitats are created. Clovers fix nitrogen, and tap rooted individuals such as Comfrey and Dandelion bring nutrients up to the surface, aiding and abetting the plants around them.

Spring comes quickly, and often flatters to deceive. Here in the UK Spring does not arrive gently or reliably. It is a rollercoaster of a season, warm and cold, dry and wet and everything in between. Frost can arrive late and snow is not unusual. The temperature of the soil takes some time to catch up and a common mistake is to get carried away with the expectation of a new season on the first warm day. But when the annual weeds begin to get going, we have a good idea that direct sowing can begin. Reading and observing these seedlings can give us job prompts - and its a better way of gauging soil temperature than sticking your bare ass in the soil.

As you delve deeper, we can learn to identify what our interlopers are - many weeds are edible - nettles, chickweed, cleavers and dandelion being just a few. We can also tell what is going on within the soil - indicator weeds can tell us whether a soil is:

Acid ( Ox-eye daisy (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum), curly dock (Rumex crispus) wild strawberries (Fragaria species), plantain (Plantago major) rough cinquefoil (Potentilla monspeliensis), silvery cinquefoil (Potentilla argentea), hawkweeds (Hieracium aurantiacum and pratense), knapweeds (Centaurea species).

Alkaline (true chamomile (Anthemis nobilis), bladder campion (Silene latifolia)

Wet (horsetail (Equisetum arvense) joe-pye weed (Eupatorium purpureum), silvery cinquefoil (Potentilla argentea), curly dock (Rumex crispus), mosses, creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens)marsh mallow (Althaea officinalis)

Dry rough cinquefoil (Potentilla monspeliensis)

When we start to understand this sort of information, weeds become part of a dialogue between the garden and the gardener. They are conduits of communication, food and job prompts. Far from being species which drive a gardener to madness in the race to elimination, they can be used, and even in some cases, appreciated. A group of plants arriving to help, just sometimes maybe too much.

So weeds, not so much all bad and more like, as with all things, a group of plants with a complex set of characteristics. I like to think that more understanding allows us to design our gardens in the most sensitive way. By tuning in, we waste less time and money on plants that will never fit in, on jobs that are nonsensical and we glean the more positive aspects of our uninvited guests.

The characteristics that all weeds DO share however are some of their coolest. They are pernicious, born survivors. Hard to kill, often spiky and they more often than not, don't fit in within a strict regime. They remind me of some of my favourite people. Bill Mollison, Jack Spirko, Tony Benn (RIP), Larry Santoya and, recently, Bez (Please check him out if you aren't already aware of him). These guys are tough, not always agreeable, often hated by authority, but always passionately spreading a worthwhile message. Trying to heal ground that has been messed up by government and corporations with no goal other than profit. These are the healing, ground protecting tough bastards that colonise and prepare ground for the more delicate amongst us. And as with their herbaceous versions, it is often easy to not see the problems until these strange, often belligerent species turn up and start making a fuss.

So it wont surprise you to hear that I want to be a weed. That is my goal - to be a useful, pioneering indicator species. To shout about the wrongs (and the rights - see permaculture, Alan Savoury, Ron Finley) that are happening around us. I want to help make the ground better for my children and grandchildren, so we don't end up with some awful dystopian future, controlled by a few - homogenised and bland and instead embrace the diversity in this world. We need to listen to those who are marginalised because more often than not they have more to say than whoever is on the front cover of Heat Magazine. We need to tune in because we have been tuned out for so long. And as for the seeds waiting to burst forth and show themselves? if you've read this far - they've been sown by now.