Six things I learned on a farm
Many of you know the story of the girl who got cancer and the farm she longed to return to, having never got the chance to go.
You may wonder why she wanted to go to the farm in the first place. A farm? That seems random.
My answer is - I’m not really sure what drew me to it initially. It was something about reconnecting with nature, exploring curiosity, and indulgent learning without any grade or real purpose, often the best kind of learning in my opinion.
During my time on the farm, I fed rabbits, thinned fruit trees, composted daily, pulled weeds for hours a day, harvested fava beans, snap peas, squash, zucchini, cauliflower, potatoes, parsley, lettuce, carrots, cilantro, spring onion, lavender, lemons, flowers, hundreds of raspberries, blackberries, and mulberries.
After spending a few weeks on the farm I began to notice things, drawing up diagrams and metaphors and poems in my head.
I’ve felt this before, a sense of enamor at how similar life follows the patterns of nature. Deep in treatment, I wrote about the ocean. I wrote about drowning and getting turned upside down and coming up for air again. I wrote about its spontaneity and deception and beauty.
In this season of life, I feel called to write about the earth.
This past month, I was working on a small, family-run, not for profit, regenerative farm. I won’t bore you with the intricacies of this kind of farming but you do need to know a little bit in order to get what I’m talking about here:
Regenerative farming is all about farming in tune with the earth and its rhythms. Commercial farms use large machines to churn the soil, gaining total control over the production and making it impossible for weeds to grow. It continually erases and recreates life using chemical aids and seeds grown in laboratories. In regenerative farming, the goal is the opposite, it’s to let the soil sit, disturbing it as little as possible. This allows years of intricate root systems to grow and cycle through underground. Oftentimes farmers use compost from their kitchens and animal manure in their soils. The nutrients from harvested crops are consumed by humans and animals, and the extras are recycled into the soil (including the ones that move through the animals). You can see how this cycle sustains itself. After years of growing this way, your humans, animals, and soil are rich with nutrients.
This type of farming is not perfect by any means. There are weeds and sometimes a potato plant that was composted starts randomly growing in the soil and then bam, you have potatoes when you didn’t ask for them. Sometimes you go to plant something new and dig into the old thick base of a cauliflower and have to find a new pocket for your seeds. And of course, to put it plainly, there’s also shit in the soil. Worm shit and rabbit shit and sometimes cow shit, depending on the kind of farm you’re on. To most, shit is shit. To those with knowledge, shit is gold. It holds allllll the good stuff.
Here are six lessons I’ve learned while working on the farm:
You need things to die as much as you need things to live. After a crop has been harvested, you chop it at the base of the stem and leave the roots and bottom half of the crop to decompose in the soil. Billions and trillions of microbiome (microscopic in the soil like fungi, bacteria, etc.) supply nutrients to both living roots, and also feed off of dead roots, helping them decompose. Different microbiomes are attracted to different cycles of a plant's life. Too much life, and you are out of balance. Too much death, and you are out of balance. We need to work closely with both. Both are good.
Mainting the forementioned balance may seem complex, but you would be surprised how resilient nature is. It’s hardwired to survive like we are. We can weather storms and earthquakes and copious amounts of stress and still live. Heck, we can actually grow in abundance through these times.
A hard reset can lead the way to an incredible life. We are living in a time of excess wildfires caused by a human-made environmental crisis. However, fires in moderation are often used as a technique to reset an ecosystem. The earth regrows with resilience and fervor, promoting diversity of plant life and creating habitats for different animals and critters. The earth looks charred and desolate immediately after. And it’s true that there is a period of time without harvest. It’s dry and bare and you may even begin to question if it will ever return to normal. The answer is that it will not. It has cleared things that were already dead on that landscape. It has sacrificed perfectly good squash and zucchini and basil and sunflowers before you were ready to pick them. And then, new life will return to the area, life you never knew could grow there. The slate will be clean and you will start new. You will grieve the loss of the old and celebrate the growth of the new. More problems will arise and you will weather more storms and you will come to appreciate how so much can happen on a land that once had nothing.
Constant tending makes the best garden. If you abandon your garden for a month and then try to give it water again, the soil will be resistant to your hose and you may need to start over again. The easiest way to maintain health is to water and tend with consistency. A little bit each day goes plenty far. If you don’t have time to water today, put your eyes on the plants and keep track of what you’d like to do tomorrow (and then actually do it).
Move, meditate, keep track of your growth, drink water and tend often.
The most healthy ecosystem flourishes when there is diversity. Some plants grow better next to each other. Like basil and tomato. But a garden needs all kinds of plants to make the soil rich. Not just one kind. A farm needs all kinds of animals to balance the ecosystem. The geese hiss at humans when they get too close, sticking out their long necks and tongues in protection - but they are the best sounding alarm. If danger is near, they will let all of the other animals know and provide ample warning. The ducks eat the snails which compromise the fruit trees. The chickens make eggs. The goats eat the spiky weeds, the ones no one else wants. All of this life needs each other to survive, thrive, and stay balanced.
Finally, if you look, listen, and really pay attention, a farm will tell you what it needs. Soil will tell you when it needs water based on the texture and color and the way it absorbs the amount you give it. Rabbits will tell you what food they prefer based on what they eat more of that week and what they leave to sit. If you sit in silence, you will hear nature’s whispers. If you go through life with an open heart, open eyes, and give to the earth, it will give back to you. Your harvests will come in abundance and packed with the good stuff. Lead with intention, intuition, patience and heart. This is the recipe for many good things.
Xo,
M
