Spring Nature-Culture

Nature-culture is an anthropology term, but I'm using it as a real-life-living concept: living my life as part of nature; sharing my resources with those who share theirs (the bees and the birds, etc.); becoming more aware of nature's needs so I can be a better neighbor; changing my habits so I cause less harm.

Permaculture aims to create "agriculturally productive ecosystems that mimic the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems". I don't care so much if my yard is agriculturally productive, but I agree with the last part: If I could turn my little plot back into a wetlands meadow or an oak savannah, and still live here, I would.

My working definition of Nature-culture is "humans living in unity with nature: acting in ways that create shared spaces that mimic the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems."

To see a list of all the parts and principles of nature-culture see my Nature-Culture page.

Spring ideas:

1. Listen to bird song

2. Sharing with snails

3. Plant natives

4. Plant sunflowers

5. Crop rotation

6. Build healthy soil

7. Plant seeds of hope

1. Listen to bird song:

The first and most basic step to take in nature-culture is to keep in daily touch with your local ecosystem - observing and interacting, learning the names of the flora and fauna, and being mindful of the season and climate; becoming a better neighbor.

In the spring this means listening to bird song. It's all around, and yet we hardly hear it, and we usually can't recognize who is talking, or what they are saying. For whatever reason, the ability to discern different types of calls made by birds tends to be one of the more challenging nature skills to learn. In the spring, I take Bird Call lessons for the same reasons I would take Spanish lessons - because I want to understand my neighbors.

Brian Martin 

(The Nature Mentor) 

has many easy to read posts on bird language. I'm re-reading

 7 Robin Calls Everyone Should Know For Bird Language.

#4 is the Robin Song, a very common sound made by robins that everyone should know. In many places this is one of the first sounds you’ll hear if you get outside before first light to catch the dawn chorus. It's a sound that takes me back to springs of my childhood.

"If you listen very carefully, it’s possible to hear that each robin actually sings their cycles of melodious phrasing a little bit differently from other robins. With practice, it is possible to identify individual robins by their song.

The song tends to be used most often during the nesting season, and correlates to some extent with the nesting stage, which says a lot about their behavior."

Brian's tips for learning bird calls:
1. Choose a bird, and listen to all the calls they make on repeat until they get stuck in your head. You can make a sound “mix-tape” with 3 minutes of song, followed by 3 minutes of peak calls, tut calls, tsip calls, etc. Keep this track on your preferred listening device and listen until the sounds are totally stuck in your head and you’re sick of listening.

2. Go outside and actually watch the bird of your focus making each of these sounds. This step is really important because now you connect the sounds with the visual appearance, which helps to lock it into your brain. Binoculars can speed the process.

While you're at it, you might want to check out Brian's posts on finding nests. Robin Nesting Habits: How to Find Nests & 5 Nest Behaviors To Observe. Robins are the earliest nesters, so I'm watching for nesting behavior. 

2. Sharing with nature: 

Part of being a good neighbor is to share the food wealth. It goes against normal gardener-nature to share with slugs and snails, but when you practice nature-culture, you need to begin to think like a neighbor. That doesn't mean you need to let  those who share the garden take everything! Just stop thinking of it as a war.

This spring the snails (as every spring), ate the tops of my peas before they had a chance to get going - that's not really sharing! It's time to do some damage control, but I remember the goal is to bring snail numbers down in my pea bed, not total eradication: I collected all of the leftover mulch and put it into the compost, let the ducks into the garden for an hour or two for supervised hunting, and then sprinkled Sluggo sparingly, about 1 pellet every six or so inches. My peas are recovering nicely.

Another example: I've been sharing duck food with a possum who figured out how to step on the peddle to open the food bin; but sometimes I put a rock under the peddle, just to remind him that I don't have an endless supply. 

3. Plant natives:

The second very important step in nature-culture practice is to create a wildlife garden with native plants and intentional wildlife habitat, in order to reverse some of the human-caused habitat destruction that is hurting wildlife. Early spring is a good time to look for native plant sales. Many environmental organizations are selling natives to raise money - a good cause and a good practice.

This spring I've already planted a new serviceberry tree, and four native lupines. My big project is a native hedgerow - I'm gradually taking out the hedge on the back of my yard and planting Tall Native Oregon Grape. Since this will take awhile to become a hedge, I'm also planting western coneflower all around them: this striking and interesting native perennial wildflowers is a taller plant, sometimes reaching more than 4 to 5 feet in height, and is very long-lived, producing a thick rhizome. (I'm going to buy several plants because they are slow from seed and I need fast.)

In the front yard native garden I'm adding rosy plectritis - also called sea blush - which is an up to 2-foot tall plant topped with a cluster of pink flowers. I'm planting it in the top part of my native bed because it reseeds heavily and might form a showy blanket of flowers in that bed and provide cover for the dyeing tulips and daffodils. It's also a nice cut flower, and spring nectar source for native bees and butterflies.

And in the big planter bed, which gets less sun, I'm adding tall 

Larkspur (Delphinium trolliifolium) because it likes partial shade and will get quite tall. Tall Larkspur has stout hollow stems and long loose racemes of large, lovely deep brilliant blue flowers. It attracts insects, bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. But it likes high moisture, so I might need a drip hose in that bed.

4. Plant sunflowers:

Every year I plant lots of sunflowers. Sunflowers are called Helianthus annuus; in Greek, helios means sun and anthos means flower. They are native to North America, and were grown as a crop by indigenous tribes over 4,500 years ago. 

Sunflowers are keystone native plants, because, like the center stone in a stone arch that holds the whole thing together, these plants help to hold an ecosystem together. Keystone native plants are the most important native plants because they support the life of the most numbers of butterflies, moths and bees. 

Sunflowers are hosts for over 66 species of butterflies and moths who lay eggs on them. Some of the caterpillars that emerge and eat the leaves have evolved to only be able to survive on sunflower plants. Caterpillars are the main source of food for baby birds. Sunflowers are packed with pollen, so they are a real feast for pollinators, and in the fall, the birds love the seeds!

They are a great asset for vegetable gardens for a variety of other reasons: They double as natural trellises for climbing vegetables such as beans, and even though sunflowers need a lot of water, they improve soil aggregation, which helps the soil retain moisture through the winter. Also, they can act as a pest trap because they are so attractive to pests; rather than attacking your vegetables, pests such as the leaf-footed bugs will be drawn to the sunflower where they are easy to pick off.

These are a fantastic seed for kids to plant because they are dramatic and easy. This week I planted one six-pack with my two-year-old grandson and two more by myself.

5. Crop rotation:

The third step in nature-culture practice is to grow a food garden using regenerative agricultural practices - learning from nature and attempting to build healthy soil, collecting and saving seeds, using organic practices, and choosing plants that flourish locally.

In the spring I take a few steps to help my soil. The first is crop rotation. This means that I don't plant crops from the same family in the same place year after year. This helps reduce pest problems, but it also helps cut down on disease occurrences, as some diseases can remain in the soil for several years after being introduced. And differing root systems among plants penetrate the soil to different depths, improving its structure.

I have a simple number system for my beds and each spring I draw a plan that shows the rotation:

Rotation- plant up to the next higher number each year.
1- peas & beans & cucumbers
2- roots and brassicae (including kale)
3- nightshades- tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and potatoes
4- corn and pumpkins, squash

6. Build healthy soil

Using nature as my guide, I know that to establish annuals you have to dig to loosen the soil; in nature the earthworms and microbes do that work all on their own with biological tillage (earthworms dig tunnels and provides aeration and drainage while their excretions bind together soil crumbs), but I help a little in my garden with a fork - just poke it in and rock it without disturbing the soil structure.

I can't count on microbes being alive in my garden (even though I add leaf mulch every fall) so I add some each spring in the form of 2-3 inches of compost, either from my own compost bin or from a bag - I just spread it on top of the bed after loosening the soil - no digging at all.

Good compost supplies both the organic matter for soil building and the fertilizer for the crops; most importantly, it’s packed with soil organisms that trigger biological activity. It inoculates your soil with microbes that will digest nutrients present in the soil and feed your plants.

7. Plant seeds of hope:

One last step I'll talk about is to pay forward the benefits we receive from nature by educating others and advocating for nature. In the spring I do that in at many ways: Nature projects with my grandsons, earthcare writing, craftivism, and political action.

I helped paint these beautiful monarch butterfly puppets to carry at the rally last week. This week I'm making smaller ones with my grandsons to bring to the Earth Day celebration!