Diversity

 My word to summarize the week is “diversity”.

Diversity is a familiar word these days, often used to represent respect, inclusion and appreciation of our differences. Diverse cultures, genders, ages, abilities, education, workplace hiring, and religions, are just some examples in our society where diversity is something to strive for, celebrate and embrace. Having diversity around us offers opportunities for learning, and generally enriches our lives and experiences.

Why has this word stuck with me this week, and why is diversity important in the gardens at our small farmstead here?

When we planned our market garden, we intentionally planned for multiple varieties of each vegetable that we were planting. For example, we planted 20 varieties of heirloom tomatoes (in diverse shapes, colours, sizes, flavours, days to maturity, histories), rather than one big red standard grocery store variety. We grow over 30 types of vegetables, including garlic, asparagus, pumpkins, broccoli, beans, peas, squashes, greens, corn, eggplant, cucumbers, hot peppers, sweet potatoes, melons, with multiple varieties within each category. Doesn’t this make a whole lot more work for us, having to keep track of all these different varieties, harvest dates, and growth patterns?

For us, the benefits of diversity in the garden far outweigh any extra effort needed to tend multiple varieties of crops. Here are just a few reasons why we actively promote and celebrate diversity in our market garden:

Weather: by planting a diversity of crops that favour various growing conditions and ripen a different times throughout the season, we have a greater chance of withstanding storms, hail, frost, drought and other unexpected weather challenges presented to us. In light of climate change and unpredictable weather patterns, diversity allows us the best chance to have a decent harvest from our gardens.

Pests: in any garden pests will be an issue. We try to use a plant-positive approach, rather than a pest-negative approach. By planting a diversity of crops instead of one large swath, rotating our crops to different rows each year, including decoy plants, using cover crops, building up soil health, and interplanting pollinator strips to attract beneficial insects, we hope to create healthier soil and better deal with pests in ecological ways.

Plant health: indigenous cultures long ago already understood the importance of diversity in the garden. The “3 sisters” planting of corn, beans and squash, is a perfect example of diversity creating abundance. The corn grows tall and supports the beans, the squash grows underneath to provide ground cover and keep raccoons away with the prickling leaves, the beans add nitrogen back into the soil. We are also adding this type of diversity into our garden through intentional companion plantings and polycultures (complimentary groupings of tree-berries-herbs-flowers-veggies).

Food histories: diversity in the garden gives us a chance to access unique food histories, and keep these stories, flavours and seeds alive. Our farmstead is participating in the Seeds of Diversity “community grow out project”, a volunteer program where growers plant specific rare varieties of seeds in order to help keep them alive. This year we are growing several types of heirloom tomatoes, beans and ground cherries for this program. We take notes during the growing season, save seeds, and share these seeds with our community (if you want any let us know!). If you got a veggie box last week you tasted the “Aunt Edna” ground cherries.

Food sovereignity: seed saving is becoming even more important than every before. We take it for granted that we can save whichever farm/garden seeds we want, but in some parts of the world seed saving is a political act of resistance and even illegal. It seems unbelievable, but in some countries there are seed laws that criminalize farmers for saving diverse seeds that are better adapted to local growing conditions and climate change! We grow a diversity of vegetables and save seeds, so we can help educate about seed saving and promote the right for all people to access seeds and seed saving. Farmers and gardeners all around the world should have the right to take food production and food security into their own hands.

Taste: we strive to eat local all year round, and hope we can offer you a chance to do this too. By growing a diversity of flavours in our gardens, we have a wonderful variety of food for eating fresh, as well as canning, preserving, fermenting, drying for the colder months ahead.

Beauty: we can’t deny, having a diversity in our fields is beautiful. There is a rainbow of colours in the August and September gardens, with orange pumpkins and blue winter squash, next to red & green striped tomatoes, purple kale, yellow beans, and pink popcorn! Mix in a medley of flowers and herbs and you have a full compliment of colours (see photo below of last week’s veggie box).

We hope you will enjoy the diversity in our veggie boxes!  What does diversity mean to you?