I am shifting my flower farm, Your Vintage Blooms to a permaculture model. I’ve already been no-till gardening, eg. I don’t disrupt the soil with turning it over to plant every spring. For the past four years I’ve let the rototiller stay broken.

Permaculture goes further. It’s a whole science about living in the environment you’ve got, and improving it without big amendments like fertilizers. Permanent beds, less “crop” rotation. Food forests and plant guilds. So fun. But those are just the agri-details.

The solutions are right here

What this experiment is showing me is how all our solutions are just on the flip side of the problem.

This winter, planning the garden, I was literally in tears over our depleted soil. I can’t grow anything from seed. I start everything, even the easy stuff, like carrots which should pop up right away, indoor under lights.

But as I’m reading about permaculture it was like being struck by lightning. The answer is in the problem!! When your soil is shit, it’s weedy, right? You say things like “I can grow weeds but the flowers not so much!”

But… do you know what restores soil?

WEEDS.

Yup, nature was already at work correcting the imbalance, doing something I thought was a nuisance, about a problem I thought was intractable. I am on 3.5 acres and I couldn’t ever afford to bring in that much new, herbicide-free soil amendments! I cried when I realized the solution came right along with the problem. Weeds. Weeds, people!

Everything is like that.

Everything we struggle with arrived with the solution attached. You don’t even need a spell. You may have no freaking idea. That’s when it’ll hit you like a bolt of lightning. So here’s my little spell suggestion this week.

Write out all your problems, the issues and intractables. Then go outside and sit on the earth somewhere. (Take your list.) Listen to earth and soul and see what shows up. Don’t look far. The answer is right there. It arrived with the problem.

Blessed be,
Diane