What image pops into your head when you hear the word 'garden'? Whose garden do you find yourself in? Is it your grandmother's bee paradise, your parents' allotment or the park near your house? Do you think of a garden you recently visited or one that you have seen only on images? Which plants grow there and what does it smell like? Sound like? How do you feel when you picture yourself in it? Who else is accompanying you? Think of butterflies, bugs, earwigs, mice, spiders or maybe it's simply an anthill?
Perhaps the biggest learning from the letter J of our Alphabet of Climate Solutions is to go tech free. Replacing our screen time with wilderness and abundance, the deafening buzzing of insects, walking barefoot on unmown lawn, watering the courgette in a veg patch and picking juicy apples from trees.
Check out our community Notion document on the topic of gardening – we especially recommend looking at the interactive art piece Pollinator Pathmaker by Daisy Ginsberg. And if you have something you would like to add to the document, please do, it’s open to everyone.
This month’s bookclub take aways: The Garden Jungle by Dave Goulson
Most of us don’t have the luxury of owning a garden. Let alone the time to tend to one. However, there are more and more possibilities to have an allotment, help out at a community garden or perhaps help out friends and family who do have one in exchange for fresh produce. Did you know that allotments were created in an effort to appease the people when previously free and common land started to be fenced off and ‘owned’ by the richer classes?
If you have a garden – plant an apple tree. Whichever type you choose, you will be helping to look after a plant that has been providing us with food for millennia, and you will be creating a new ecosystem which in time may come to support hundreds of different insect species.
The world doesn’t need robot bees. ‘What kind of world would we end up with? do we always have to look for a technical solution to the problems that we create, when a simple, natural solution is stating us in the face? We have wonderfully efficient pollinators already; let’s look after them, not plan for their demise.’ p. 96
Natural systems are complex and amazing. The large blue butterfly needed a marjoram plant with a red ant nest beneath it. By mimicking the scent of a red ant egg, the butterfly larvae find their way into the red ant nest and are cared for until they are ready to emerge as a caterpillar. How it could find that specific quirk of nature in order to survive is magic. So magical in fact that it was unable to survive our barrage of pesticides and ant killers and became extinct in 1979.
No matter how you feel about worms, they are crucial to the health of our soil. Tash is not very fond of worms. She also isn’t particularly keen on getting up close and personal with a slug, snail or snake, but she realises the importance of these wriggly creatures. They aerate the soil and turn composting matter and leaf litter into composted, healthy soil. p.167 Maybe you even consider becoming a member of the Earthworm Society UK?
You can grow food even in the tiniest of spaces. Emma, one of our book club participants recommended the book ‘Fresh food from small spaces’, which gives plenty of tips on how to grow things even without a garden but maybe under your sink, your window sill etc.
Join the next book club: Humankind – A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman
For the letter K we picked the topic of kindness – unsure on how this relates to climate solutions? Read with us!
About the book:
'This is a book about a radical idea. An idea that's long been known to make rulers nervous, denied by religions, ignored by the news media and erased from history. This idea is legitimised by almost every branch of science, it's so intrinsic to human nature that it goes unnoticed and gets overlooked. The idea is that most people, deep down, are pretty decent.' In this major book, Bregman shows how believing in human kindness and altruism can change how we think - and act as the foundation for achieving true change in our society.
Want to join us? Get the book on your kindle, from your local bookshop, library or friend and join us at the online meet up on the 21st of March at 7PM (GMT). Get your ticket on Eventbrite – donation based.
Community feature: Stan Townsend
This month we’re featuring community member Stan Townsend who is starting a little experiment, which he is keen to co-develop with others, looking into how the ‘outdoor community’ can use nature connection to address myriad issues, from climate change to mental health. Reimagining what it means to be outside, not switching off, but ‘switching on’ to a more natural way of being.
How can we reconnect to our true nature, through nature? Is a question that is often spinning around my head, and one that I’ve decided to begin exploring with others. I don’t believe our current (typical global north) relationship with nature and each other, characterised by ego, extractivism and exploitation, is who we are meant to be. This story, one of separation, is false and it needs urgent unlearning.
I feel there is huge potential through experiences in nature, to reconfigure the self and revaluate our collective human presence on earth – toward personal and planetary health. Read more about his project in his article Reimagining ‘outside’ on Medium. Feel free to send him an email to stan-townsend@hotmail.com or follow him on Instagram.
Stan works & lives in Bristol and works in climate change policy, currently as a climate finance negotiator. He is hugely passionate about the more than human world and, nature connection, regeneration. Movement in nature makes him tick.
Thank you for reading this month’s newsletter and welcome to all of our new subscribers! If you want to join us for one of our upcoming events, make sure you follow us on Eventbrite or Meet Up. If you have any questions please add a comment to this post, DM or send us an email to hello@andthefuture.com
Lisa & Tash ✨
Hey both! The notion document in this one isn't publicly accessible! 👀