Gardening is Antifragile

🌿 My friend called my gardening philosophy, “antifragile.”

🕸️ They said this because I was explaining how seeing spiderwebs in my garden makes me happy because it indicates a healthy ecosystem.

🪱 Just as earthworms are a sign of healthy soil,
🕸️ spiders are a sign of health above the soil.

🌱 The first year or two of establishing an organic garden can be difficult,
after that, the ecosystem becomes self-regulating and resilient.
This is the essence of antifragility.

👩‍🌾 I learned gardening from my mom during the “Malaise Days” of the 1970s.
She had a small garden in the front yard that put quite a dent in our grocery budget.

👵 She learned gardening from her mom during the Great Depression and WWII.
As she taught me, she told stories about how Victory Gardens, like her family’s, contributed to the war effort. In her neighborhood, everyone grew food crops in the boulevard strip between the sidewalk and the street. By the end of WWII, Victory Gardens were producing 40% of America’s vegetables, which allowed more of the farmers' crops to feed the troops.

🍅 There was a Victory Garden revival movement during the Covid lockdown.
My friend, author and self-defense instructor Rory Miller, said, “Victory Gardens are the nutritional way to flatten the curve.”

➡️ All of this is antifragile.

🏡 I’ve been gardening in this spot for more than 15 years, though this is not my first organic garden.

🦋 I endeavor to attract beneficial creatures,
not just pollinators,
but lots of others such as:

 🐞 Lady bugs and praying mantids
✅ Hummingbirds (sorry, no hummingbird emoji)
🐸 Toads
🕷️ Spiders

Marigolds work triple duty:

💐 Beauty
🐝 Function—they attract beneficial insects
🥗 Nutrition—they’re edible for people!

🍽️ At my former fine dining restaurant,
we styled our dishes with edible flowers.
Pictured here is Chilled Prawns styled with Marigolds.

❓ What about you? Do you grow anything for beauty, food, or joy?

~*~

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