Spring is my favourite time of year. A time when the inherent life force of our garden and of the North Shore mountains carries me with it, brushing aside the worrisome state of the natural world, replacing outrage with hope.
Growing food and pollinator plants from seed each year, whether indoors or outdoors, assisted or not by artificial heat and light, is nothing short of miraculous. Each tiny seed contains a life force that, when conditions are met, provides enough invisible (to the naked eye) energy and genetic information to initiate germination and guide biological and physiological development into a tiny plant.
I don’t begin to understand the details, but I have learned through trial and much error that embedded life force is finite, and very soon after seedlings push up through the soil, they require assistance to thrive.
In their native habitat, resident biology and physical conditions may be ideal for tiny seeds to grow and complete their life cycle – assuming they don’t get eaten, trampled, crowded, wild-fired, flooded or otherwise taken out.
In our home gardens, however, we must mimic natural conditions both below and above soil level, so that seeds grow up to not only look beautiful, but to fully express their nutritional potential and ecosystem function.
With the passage of time and the slow creep of extreme weather, I have necessarily learned to cheat. That is, employ extraordinary measures to ensure survival of non-hardy food plants.
Tomatoes, for example, are fussbudgets that prefer creeping and crawling along the not-too hot, cold, dry or wet mountainous terrain of South America. Tomatoes are not suited to the damp-and-misty Pacific Northwest, heat domes or atmospheric rivers.
By employing rural permaculture principles in an urban environment, by bending them to fit those things I cannot change, we enjoy tomatoes daily straight through to November. Yes, really.
Just yesterday, we were forced by the passage of time to plant-out a representative sample of the far-too-many tomato varieties that we started late from seed indoors in living soil blocks, exactly 60 days ago.
The microbiology, worm poop (the odd worm baby), bacteria, viruses, nematodes, fungi and associates partied hard under lights in our pantry, providing post life-force energy to fledgling tomatoes growing out of their element.
After graduating to our very old greenhouse, tricked out with ten-dollar clip-on fans and a small, purpose-built heater set to 16 C, our tomato babies grew into healthy, hungry teens. We did not fertilize or supplement the plants with anything other than mycorrhizal fungi (Root Rescue), which occur naturally in native soil.
We plant our tomatoes under cover our house’s eaves, sheltered from direct rain, and warmed by the heat-sink affect of the cedar siding and stone pavers. I haven’t been to mountainous Bolivia or Peru, but the enviro-mimicry seems to be working.
Ground-vining tomatoes have no tendrils or suckers to assist in a vertical climb, so we defy gravity somewhat by loosely anchoring main stems to hanging chains with reusable garden tape.
The soil – kept “just” moist and alive through the winter under cover of hemp, shorn Alpaca wool and leaf mulch, and slow-drip irrigated through the growing season – contains its own microbiological life force.
I can crowd the tomatoes and companion holy basil far beyond conventional gardening recommendations, confident that the plants and ecosystem are resilient enough to resist pests and blight with minimal, if any, intervention.
My tomato confidence has evolved over many years of learning. By watching and listening, failing and ultimately prevailing – like nature herself.
Laura Marie Neubert is a West Vancouver-based urban permaculture designer. Follow her on Instagram @upfrontandbeautiful, learn more about permaculture by visiting her Upfront & Beautiful website or email your questions to her here.
For a taste of permaculture, watch the video below:
