We Can Do This Podcast: Healing Through Gardening with Dr. Vandana Shiva

okay so welcome everyone to this kiss the ground webinar so glad so many of you are joining us today we have we have over 400 people actually watching right now and so I'm just going to start with some introductions for those of you who don't know who I am I'm farmer Rishi and I am a urban farmer here in Los Angeles California and I've been just working in this field of farming and gardening for the last ten years and I am also the teacher for histograms regenerative gardening class we have a course that we're putting together right now for this quarantine period that is going to be up very soon so if you're interested in that please join the wait list at histogram calm and I'll have be happy I talk more about that at the end of the webinar once when that eye has gone to bed it's very late for her in India but yeah of course I want to introduce dr. Vandana Shiva someone I've known for the past 10 years she is has been one of the most influential people in my farming career has actually spent nine months on her on her farm in 2010-2011 ish and it was a one of the most enriching experiences of my life and has really guided the direction of my work and my career for you know since that time dr. Shiva has off authored over 20 books that I've read several of them very they're all excellent and I highly recommend all of you to read some of her books and that she's also the founder of the Research Foundation for science technology and ecology and navdanya a national movement to protect the diversity and eye integrity of living resources when an IJ thank you so much for joining us today my pleasure and you know we call the people who've been through the navdanya farm be jerks hordes of seed and you are one of our favorite be Jack's and I love the name of the farm the name of the farm is BJ Vidyapeeth which means you can correct the school of the see the school of the seed so so that is that is of course the foundation of what we're gonna talk about and and I but both of our work so again so so happy to have you here I know you're joining us here today and we're having this conversation and this in this kind of I would say an emergency period right people all over the world are are feeling like we're in this you know there's this pandemic and we're and we're being quarantined at home and there's a lot of I'm sure people are feeling a lot of fear a lot of worry a lot of uncertainty about you know what's happening in the world right right now and i'm i'm i think this your your view on these these situations is so valuable because you've seen people you've seen cultures you've seen communities in this kind of emergency state so many times whether it's you know communities that are losing their land having their water poisoned having their forests cut down what what how have you learned you know being in in contact with these communities so often how have you learned to respond to these states of emergency how have you learned to i don't know you seem so so calm all the time and i just want to know you know and you're in these these kind of difficult situations often or meeting with people in these difficult situations often how do you how do you respond how do you keep going with first Roisin I think the corona crisis is forcing human energy to shake the myth of certainty and predictability yeah my doctoral studies my PhD was on the foundations of quantum theory on eternity and non-separation the entire mechanistic industrial ideal which is a assumes total control total prediction and has got us in this mess assume separation that we are not part of nature and and we are masters and therefore when you're in that master mode when things like this happen when emergencies like this happen you collapse your system collapses your worldview collapses whereas those of us who know uncertainty and non separation is the way the world is woven whether you learn it from quantum theory or you learn it from ecology or you learn it from indigenous cultures the two things you learn is nature bounces back there's never an emergency which is a permanent emergency for nature and therefore all cultures and all worldviews that are embedded in the capacity of the earth to research also learn that power of resurgence which is what resilience is all about that's why the poorest of people it flooded out of their homes in a cyclone and the next year they're smiling and and never give up all those displaced peasants who are walking home or try to walk home till where they were told to go for a team walking 800 miles 500 miles and they were refugees from agriculture because of a very distorted model of farming that has privileged war chemicals actually industrial agriculture is nothing else but a subsidy to the continuation of the war that started in Hitler's concentration camps and in the process we destroy the land we've destroyed by diversity we've destroyed insects butterflies pollinators and we've destroyed the farmers so the farmers who became refugees and moved to the cities are now refugees from the city because of the corona crisis you're talking about for those for those who people listening who don't know there's there's all these right like you're saying refugees from rural areas being in cities half of India is working in sectors that are very fragile and they are in fact the ones they are holding up the economy and society and I know when this will pass some of them will come back into cities but a lot of them will do agriculture my dream in my dream in 87 was I will not let them on Santos have monopoly over seed they cannot pretend they invented the seed they cannot pretend it's a machine that they put in place this illusion is too much of an abuse against the creativity and creation of the earth and now my commitment is all the people who've been turned refugees wherever they're coming back to areas where we work because India is so huge we can't work everywhere sent messages to my colleagues and partners the farmers I said you are now teachers like you Rishi are a teacher after you came and studied with us at Urbana I said you are teachers pass it on so no farmer has to leave their land because they get got into debt for chemicals no farmer to leave their land because they were forced to grow commodity crops for which they're getting nothing the farmers in India are dumping loads of grapes and tomato cash crops they were supposed to get rich on when the ash crops need a market and when the market collapses they are the most vulnerable there is you will always need food you will need food family will food your community will need food so it's better time how to as I say to return to the air and to return to food as a foundation of an economy I think this is you know this is something that I think everyone is starting to realize very clearly that food is essential and and we're just you know so much of the economy is built up around these kind of transient little widgets that come into our life and go and they seem like they're they take up so much of our attention and we're distracted from you know the things that are really fundamental and food is one of those things that is so fundamental I know and for your listeners who are starting to realize how important food is and how important that thing is I think it's extremely important to know that you know they're powerful interests the ones I became familiar with because I saw the tragedies of Agriculture I didn't need to be looking at agriculture working in it you know I had a good enough world before the Punjab crisis and the Bhopal crisis which is what threw me into looking at why Xandra culture so violent and I wrote the book violence of the Green Revolution and since then of course at every step anything new that happens in agriculture and in the midst of it study it I reflect on it and I want to say there two things we shouldn't be complacent we shouldn't assume that if you turn to your garden everything will be fine because we have to guard in the whole world the whole world yeah that will happen only when we respect real food because we are made of real food our bodies get cancer when we eat toxics the round of cases in America are making that so clear yeah and Mott Center just lost the case on labeling where how much they abuse me I know much they're trolls trolls me because always say that glyphosate and roundup attacks the Sheep he made pathway which is not just in plants but in many of the microbes and I got they lied on their labels and said only affects plants is safe for humans they just had to pay twenty five million dollars for false labeling and they're having to correct that false labeling so we need real food toxics are harmful and real food means we should be prepared for where big money wants to make more money and this is an area where they want don't grow food they were doing Gardens they don't have a bigger industry farms sprayed with Roundup from drones digital agriculture more row crops of GMOs and producing carbohydrates and proteins to be put together in the lab and they want us to be brainwashed for the next phase for fake food just like they tried to brainwash us about fake fertilizer chemical fertilizers don't fertilize the soil they killed soil organisms as you know so if for those who want to know more about this you should read our to reports of navdanya one is called the future of our daily bread the other is called the future of food which is on fake food and the fake economics and I would say to new ones because the two big players we're going to face a lot bill it's announced something called AG one the whole was agriculture should be the same all the girls boccaccio garden shouldn't have different plants no no rich you got it all wrong yeah diversity that's wrong yeah uniformity on a planetary scale even though with the corona virus we know it is monocultures and uniformity s that have got us into the mess first by invading forests where the disease is invade us and then monoculture farms or monoculture factory farms which become hotbeds of disease right so they want more of that disease look at one egg one the report and another is you know every once in a while I have to deal with the fact they use food safety laws to kill real food and the latest in food safety is Alexa will teach us what good eating is and so I'm saying no no no our grandmothers and not Alexa because Amazon spread his wings too big and become the richest man in the world bringing us junk it's now time to allow the plants to lead the way I love that you just said that because you know for me being in the garden it is all about listening to the plants listening to the soil and and and you know I hear you say this all the time that we've been you know we've been treating the soil like it's dead we've been treating the plants as their we've been treating the plants as they're dead but we've been treating the earth do you talk about right terra nullius versus terra vive and so you know I've been thinking a lot about you know okay this if the soil the soil we know is alive the plants we know they're alive what are they trying to tell us you know and and why are we not listening so gardening is this wonderful way that we can we can kind of we can get back into this relationship and we can understand and see like oh hey these these plants they have an intelligence to them and this the soil has an intelligence to it so I know for me beyond growing food gardening you know just provides you with so much nourishment and I would just love to hear from you you know what is it why is it that you think that gardening is important for people to start beyond the food we know the food is is a key part of it what else is there in gardening because I hear you you know gardens in schools gardens at home I hear you talking about gardens all the time why is it that we need the garden well you know I started the movement of Nirvana or called Gardens of hope when I watched the farmers growing bt cotton commit suicide and the widows were left and the widows had lost their land there nothing and we didn't have the levels of money so in the villages the tiniest of huts has a little patch of land and I said let's grow gardens we gave them the seeds so we started calling in gardens of Hope and then kids in the schools we're committing suicide because the burden of artificial learning it's so heavy for children so our gardens of Hope went into the schools and and you're right the edible part of it as edible gardens is one element when I talk to the children places like rhonchi and I said so what was it at the end of the season and this is the miracle of abundance we've always been made to learn scarcity every discipline that's taught to us teaches us guest only grew this tomato and it gives us so many Tomatoes we kept teaching and at the end of it we saved a few for seed and each of them and hundreds of seeds and we have hundreds more for the next season the garden taught us abundance but most importantly I do not know a person who does not find themselves in the garden you're not doing the earth a favor when you God yeah you a favor by saying welcome back child you'd blown astray after all of all of the colonial industrial enterprise has been escaped the other day an Italian journalist was interviewing me and I said you know it's crazy luckily I studied physics and identities study the rubbish that shapes our minds written most of it in the 17th century and 18th century and I think this bunch of people like bacon and Hobbes and Locke you know all of that rubbish should be composted should grow a new thinking that comes from the garden this is something that you know for me has been has been very influential I might say that or an idea that's that's kind of rooted in me deeply is that in school what I was taught was or what we're taught is we take this thing and we break it down into smaller and smaller pieces until we can understand he's you know we're looking at just this tiny bit it's we're not really sure what we're looking at but we know a lot about it and the difference between that and being in the garden where I'm actually taking these plant the plants and the soil and the insects and the fungi and worth we're kind of leaving leaving this whole together that is so much more than all the pieces and and gardening is is really this place where we can see that the world works in cooperation the world works in community and that's just absolutely not what we're taught in schools we're taught about competition and we're talking about dominant domination and that's you know the world we've we inhabit partly because you know those who had created what I call the various appetites you know the apartheid between us and nature the apartheid between white people a disease that's coming back so badly in the u.s. white superiority you know and and assumed inferiority of anyone with with a colored skin of all the colors we have reds and browns and blacks and yellows and we should be celebrating diversity of color of the skin too but a conquerors just decided white is superior they also decided man is superior to nature and that's where the disease of anthropocentrism grows and then along the way because as I've written in my book staying alive on how the conquest of nature and the domination of women are deeply intertwined you know if I know if I know my garden his whole I don't go around tearing the plants down I nursed them it's a moral obligation yes yes well what I want to do is I'd exploit the wood for timber or the medicine or the green I have to divide I don't just divide myself from the earth I divide up elements of nature and so you have Jen basically genetic engineering is nothing more than genetic reductionism based on a very false assumption of genetic determinism because even at the genetic level there is in determinism just like they even quantum theory so what we inherited was a word of what I've called mechanistic reductionism of divided divided divided divided but as you experience and as my discipline of various kinds that I've gone through in my life now beginning with quantum theory has taught me non-separation is the nature of reality relationship is where reality gets created relationship is where reality gets created in quantum theory and relationship is when it's created between you and the plants in your garden and between the plants and the soil and that relationship is what gets torn apart and ignored and ruptured when you have the idea of mechanistic reductionism and what we are seeing with the rise of today's robber barons they are today's robber barons they've been called that you know the big tech which they basically violated everyone's creativity pirated everything under the Sun and then put patents on what they had pirated big tick this doesn't generate knowledge they've got no idea what they're doing it's just by chance that's so far this machine they've created has run only because no one has had the ability to regulate it right and no Corona has it it because it will have its own Coronas you know you remember mm everything was supposed to collapse because computers wouldn't adjust to the digit they basically are taking that project that has got us in a mess illusion of determinism and control in illusion of data and information but data information is fragments as you were saying it's the fragments of the whole above information you have knowledge above knowledge you have wisdom and without a knowledge and wisdom not only will we make more blunders and create more economic Coronas more biological Coronas more digital Coronas we will make a big mess of our lives by deciding that 99% of humanity is not needed and I've always said that those who get on two stages and say with artificial intelligence ninety-nine percent people won't be needed they need to turn their backs to mr. Zuckerberg and the rest who come with this beautiful image of artificial intelligence and they need to turn their face to the earth because the earth never says 99% species are useless he never says 99% humanity is useless and the garden is where we all can belong if the garden is going to be the savior in the time of artificial intelligence I'm glad you said that too because I think if the garden is the place that we need to get back to you but and and I want to I want to just focus in on one thing you said which is something I've been noticing is that this coronavirus it's for many of us it might feel like you know this this this society we've been in these you know a lot of what we've known a lot of what we've understood seems like it's it's coming to an end and and I think being in the garden you know has taught me that we so much of we're--we've so much of what we were taught is that that there is a there is an end and there is a death and death is an end and what a being in the garden has shown me is that death is not an end and that is actually it's an opening it's a it's a creation of space and it's a it allows for this birth and it's a feeding of birth and it's a feeding of new ideas it's a feeding of new emergencies so I I hear so much of what you're saying is that these ideas so many of these ideas that we've been holding are our indicator in decline and I'd like to ask you what you know what do you see is in birth what what new is coming or what you know what old is becoming new again but you know a lot of what I've been saying Rishi that actually the old wants to extend its life and that's where the project of total control in a mechanistic control the the downloading of our mechanistic mind into computers and then saying they'll be smarter than us now a mechanistic mind can never be smarter than a synthesizing mind yeah and so it's not the case that the old paradigm is dying it is trying to consolidate itself with higher levels of exclusion but others are changing the paradigm so both things are happening at the same time which is why quantum theory is so useful because it lets you know that two parts can co-exist you know yeah so we have the continuation of the destructive linear trajectory of the mechanistic age which his brings us ruptures again and again but because of the arrogance they never treat the destruction they've caused and something they have three ghosts they treated as an externality that's why we have the idea of externality and as our research in navdanya and our book world per acre shows just in india the externality of chemical farming based on government data we just consolidated the data and took you in systems of a boundary it's 1.3 billion dollars no yeah 1.3 billion dollars annually just social and environmental destruction so you keep creating a mess but you are the line that you draw of your progress you must carry on you know and so there's a linearity is continuing till it'll bring total collapse which is why we've to avoid it and everything is showing that if we continue that linear path then the collapses for the human species is 100 yes I always say you know the earth is too vibrant the earth is too diverse something will replace the human species there are too many other species to find their half I mean one of the things that's happened in corona is more and more people I had an interview the other day with an MA paper because more and more from the forest I'm walking around in cities the other day there was around candy girl you know the poor monkeys don't have anything to eat so they're trying to grab the onions in our garden yeah can you imagine poor monkeys having to approve it I mean just shows the imbalance we've created all this linearity of time and linear you know that nothing dies it's perpetual you know growth is perpetual all of these big tech guys are all hoping to never drive whoo man yeah you know woman where is as you said so clearly you know I'm seeing the leaves behind you you know they're not dead they're future life of the soil every one of those leads it have completed one part of its cycle of life and that's why all cultures think of cycles and not linear inevitable certain predict prediction and in India we call time Kali you know and all cosmologies around cycles right cycles that come and go so not only do we as individuals have birth and death every plant begins as a seed and goes back to seed but it's just beginning the new life but even civilizations dissolve so I think what we are seeing and is a disillusion a dissolving of a non sustainable system with the masters of the universe so arrogant in their hands they cannot see the dissolving because for them total control is what guides them and total mastery and that disease they don't suffer they make that poor farmers suffer they make the migrant labor suffer they make a woman with three children who doesn't have food on a table suffer and the injustice and brutality of it is also part of the system so yes we shouldn't you know the fear of death I mean I my both my parents so welcomed I mean they they walked into that they announced they're going and now I'm leaving you know and the most beautiful piece and not a fear oh my god because what counts is how well have you lived your life your life caring for others around you including the plants the day you have to depart from this particular life doesn't create panic at all it's when I've lived your life with greed wanting more wanting absolute power that you you don't know how to face them which is the beginning of a new life I think it's interesting in in English we always talk about life and death like they're opposites mhm you know and once you're in the garden for just you know once you make that first compost pile you see that everything you know you're putting all these dead things into the compost pile and yet the compost pile is breathing and you can see it breathing and it's you see the heat coming off it's very clearly alive and you really begin to question this idea of okay is is death the opposite of life or is death a part of life it's a continuum of life is the next stage in a cycle of life I think on everything we've got to come back to cycles from linearity linearity is occurs the earth works in cycles when we compost we're completing a cycle of fertility synthetic fertilizer gave us the idea of linearity from fossil fuels to factories to our soil yeah and linearity is a curse cycles is the way life works and in cycles one stage of the cycle is birth and the other stage is death into the new birth and for for those of us who are who are at home and we're wanting to to start a garden now so we can get back into this this to start to feel these cycles what are what are some of the I don't know what are some of the bits of wisdom that you can offer people who are watching here what what understandings should we have as we start a garden and I know you and course you talk so much about seed as well can you share share some of your wisdom with us so I'm you know I call the beach video feed the beach with their peach because the seed has been such an amazing teacher for me yeah so much of what I know about how life works has come from the seed and I decided to protect the seed because I did not accept at all being in at the hands of a few people just for profit and monopolies and for me untruth is unbearable absolutely unbearable it is so painful that I could not accept the untruth of seed being patented and so bonnie has created community seed banks which themselves are cycles of renewal but a seed is there waiting to grow into not just a plant because actually in all in all languages you know you were a seed all animals seed so the source the beginning of life the source of life is the seed and a seed grows into seed in a cycle yeah and the beauty is because it's creates abundance as that little child who ran who did a garden understood is you know a Monsanto might have the idea of scarcity a terminator seed which will not give seed that's what the Terminator technology was about creating neural seeds even the hybrid is supposed to not give you true seed it doesn't give you reliable seed and therefore you must buy every year but real seed doesn't give you no seed it gives you many seeds and the fact you know for me the favorite family of crops which we used to call forgotten foods and now we call them foods of the future are the millets and the reason the minutes are called minutes is because they grow do a million seeds oh I didn't know that yeah I mean milli million as an approximate I mean comparing well it had much much more much much you know so it's not the thousands it's more than the thousand so million is the next easy number and and the sowed the seed works in cycles seed so when we had a big public hearing on the seed because farmers were committing suicide farmers were selling kidneys because of the dead and when I did this public hearing it must be in the year 2002 maybe our poster was seed to seed farmer to farmer because the intention of what I call the poison cartel is the seed shouldn't go to sea they should come to the market to us every year and farmers shouldn't exchange seats and Fermi's saving seeds and exchanging seeds is maintaining the continuity of cycles of life in farming in nature and in society because it's only through exchange when I give you something that gift weaves cycles just like you talk about the garden and your relationship with plants without gates there will be no society and part you know I am all for keeping physical distance in the period of an epidemic but I do not accept the fact that the physical distance was defined as social distance yeah I think it's all wrong and I think we all should be ready that once you know epidemics end they pass the plague went Spanish flu went son one day this will pass and we should not accept separation between ourselves and separation from nature as the future inevitability it will be imposed as a construct and we should be ready in Gandhi's footsteps to say laws that go against justice laws that go against democracy are not worthy of being obeyed so when they tried to bring racist separation in Africa South Africa he started the second grey the first against the salt laws cetera we took inspiration from the scene that saving seed an exchanging seed is a highest Dharma and nothing can come in the way of this Dharma we will not let it now our highest Dharma is we will not be separated from each other we might maintain physical distance while the epidemic is around but we are going to come back and create communities of so much love and so much non separation no power no brute on this planet can divide us I'm with you 100% on that let's uh yeah this after this I think we do need this is the time for us to come together this is a time for us to to be in that relationship with each other with and with our gardens and I think this is this is a your message or offering is exactly what we all need to hear and I want to now take some time and see if we can answer some questions from the audience if that's all right with you five minutes okay okay let me try to there's so many come in here I'm sorry I'm just trying to find one that we can answer in five minutes in a couple of minutes okay how this is an this is an interesting one I'm a postgraduate and aware of ecosystems around me due to my family background as farmers how do we make multinational employed corporation employees aware about the importance of ecosystems why are people still in denial you don't begin by changing other people's minds you begin by changing your mind and doing the right thing and Thomas Putin said it so clearly changes of paradigms never come because you've convinced the holders of old paradigms to give up their paradigm paradigms don't ever give given up they just become implement they become irrelevant so we need to do that work to build up these new paradigms yeah so wherever you are with the community where you are who's willing to grow an ecosystem understanding spend your time with that absolutely and let's see another one I'd love to hear one Anna's interpretation of regeneration and the importance of shifting our consciousness towards that multiplicity abundance etc the first element of regeneration isn't to know that we are not in an extractive linear system you know that has been the problem since colonialism since the fossil age the Industrial Age and is on really fast forward to a dead end so regeneration means realizing that life works in cycle and that regeneration means the soil can be regenerated it can be treated badly but we can regenerate it with care that seeds can be regenerated landscapes can be regenerated our health can be reached brilliant work that you know it takes a week of eating good food and organic food to remove the desertification of our microbe in the gut that in a week good microbes come right back just like in a season the soil microbes come back with good composting yeah so I would add regeneration of community and the comment you know because I think the biggest salt in this phase of corona part of it is the necessary physical separation the other part is the unnecessary propaganda on fear of each other yeah that fear of each other should not be allowed to get ground and therefore community and knowing prepared depends we don't know when this process will end the lockdown will end but let's use this time to see what is it that's important as a commons in society we definitely know the soil and the earth is we know the seed is that's what Nathania has done and for those who want to go to the website of navdanya you can also see my piece a blog I did on ecological reflections on the corona pandemic yeah it's and for the courses you know of the kind that you came and attended we offer we don't know if since September the 11th if to the lockdown but if they have we have the A to Z but what are the comments we everywhere the neuronal model was dismantle health care let people buy health and if they don't have money to buy let them die the coronavirus have shown how important public health is as a commons mm-hmm what are the other comments I personally feel you know I would love to dig up all big parking lot it's a front of all the Walmarts and on and on wall stores and have all the people working inside the stores come out and make god it would be so beautiful so instead of being slaves it's an exploitative system to be celebrators of regeneration so community is going to be fine I think that'll lead me into the the last question I found here which is you know we hear we're hearing a lot now especially in the US about regenerative agriculture and the promise of regenerative agriculture in relation to climate change also in relation to economics and the you know the the the message so far has been by these products of regenerate you know by these products from regenerative farmers by these products from regenerative farms and supports or support soil regeneration support ecosystem regeneration in that way through your purchases what is the is there a deeper role for us to play as you know for people who don't live on farms is there a deeper role for us to play in this movement towards regeneration beyond our purchases and what what is that role well I think you know we need to be aware of why the word regeneration had was created at that point the biotech industry which was getting very angry with labeling initiatives and wanted no one to know an organic was the big alternative so they assaulted organic and of course organic had been co-opted by big industry so a lot of people were anyway not so happy so regeneration was the word that you know I was part of the founding of the regeneration movement with hundred low enhance Herron and ronnie and from they grew all of these systems of new certification etc but I think the issue is the world view a world view of regeneration with our role in regeneration and a world view of conquest and war because like I say industrial agriculture came from Hitler's labs it continues a worldview we're at war with insects I mean the idea that a little virus needs the whole world to declare war on the virus it won't work because every war against microbes humans have lost yeah one against a microbe you know they turned out to be just so much smarter and so I would say regeneration as a philosophy but we must avoid a problem that I have been trying to deal with from when I entered agriculture see I watch too many people spend all the time on semantics or biodynamic is superior to permaculture is superior to organic is superior to naturally superior to this and I think we want to we need to look at the principles how do you deal with nature what are your principles of renewal what are your principles of regeneration that's what counts and that's why I love the fact that in India we never picked one word you know every one of our really beautiful poetic texts are about a hundred names and a thousand names now a hundred names of the Ganga the thousand names of the daily yeah nothing has one name and let's start semantics and realize that just like we are people with different colors good systems with the same principles of ecological stability sustainability and gratitude have different names let's not fight over names let's cooperate on the common practice that is what the earth is inviting us to do as you said in the garden plants are diverse but they are not in competition there in cooperation the future is in cooperation when the tiniest of herbs is waiting to nourish the biggest of trees and in the garden the idea that big is superior just dissolves because it's usually that little leaf that is the future of the tree so good luck Rishi take care of yourself people on the webinar good night from India all of us take care of ourselves and come out more resilient come out stronger in community come out more hopeful don't let this virus of fear ever infect you with my life thank you Thank You Vanessa what a wonderful message for all of us and you have a great night thank you thank you for joining okay so I'm this you guys have submitted so many questions thank you all for coming on here and watching our webinar if you do have any questions for me in particular feel free to submit them right now I'm available to stay on for a couple minutes here so let's take a look okay do you believe we should dedicate parts of our gardens to rewilding ie taking out non-natives and encouraging the plants that belong to that soil environment to begin with encouraging wildlife both in plants and animals to your garden design that's interesting question yeah this idea of wild is kind of interesting to me as in you know what is wild what's the deaf what's your definition of wild a lot of times wild means what we're trying to say is this it's this part of nature that doesn't include humans and that is wild so I just as a first step I guess I'd ask you to think about that phrasing that you're that you're putting out you know in terms of native plants and non-native plants again there's there's this kind of well I guess what I'll say about that is plants that have been in your bin on your land for four generations for hundreds of years or thousands of years of course those plants are going to have relationships with the insects and with the soil and the microbes in the soil that have that have and those relationships have existed for that long period of time and so those plants are going to be very important to that that land that you're in at the same time you know plants have been introduced all over the world for the past hundreds of years and now those plants have also come into a relationship with with the land that they're in with the insects that they live around with the microbes that they live around and of course all these you know there's been this huge exchange of microbes and and plants and seeds and fungi and birds and you know it's all been rapidly mixed up so I think this idea I do think there is some validity to this idea of restoring native plants and that's something that I'm doing in my garden as well but whether we need to clear out and eliminate the non-native plants and only have the native plants I'm not so sure about that idea so my garden we we have you know there's California properties planted here which are native which are natives we have native plants planted under underneath our fruit trees and our fruit trees come from all around the world so that's just my you know how I personally take it and and I think it's all about an exploration I do agree that we should replant the plants that have existed here and create that space for them bring them back into our lives again because a lot of them have been forgotten or suppressed just like so many different things in our lives okay what are some of the easy plants to grow in a city at home it's I started with some potatoes onions got tiny baby 2 potatoes she would like to try to start some bigger journey towards growing more okay so if you're if you're at home and you just have a patio or a balcony the easiest thing to get started with is definitely like some of the leafy greens you can do things like cilantro you can do things like lettuces you can do oregano and thyme and basil if you're this person who's asking the question is from India you can very easy to grow Tulsi in a pot at home so a lot of the leafy green herbs they'll give you they have that dense nutrition you know that the herbs have a strong flavor because they have dense nutrition so in a small space you can get that that deep nutrition from those those leafy green plants so try to grow the things that have that super strong flavor because if you're not able to grow a lot of it you can at least chop that up and put it into all of your food and get some of that that really good nutrition of course the important thing when you're starting to to garden is that the plants don't you know they don't grow by themselves they grow in relationship with the community in the soil that the plant is growing in so whatever you're growing you have to be thinking about the soil you have to be thinking about the water that you're feeding to the plants so make sure that you understand you know try to get some understanding about soil soil health and and water how to provide water to the plants and so forth if you for those of you who didn't hear the earlier announcement we are at kiss the ground about to launch a mini regenerative gardening course for all of you who are at who are at home during this quarantine period and start wanting to get started gardening the was gonna start April 15 and you can sign up for the wait list at kiss the ground com someone just suggested Brad Lancaster has great books about water harvesting I agree hundred percent so if you are wanting to learn about water harvesting check out those books where will the recording for this be able to be available it'll be available on kiss the ground wet website same place where you signed up for this webinar what is the area of your garden so I talked a little bit about this earlier but I can repeat I'm in I'm in Los Angeles I'm at a actually in the the side yard of our garden here and we have over 80 fruit trees growing on a pretty small property and we grow lots of vegetables we grow lots of fruit we keep chickens for four eggs and if you actually just give me a second I will show you the the soil right behind me so you can get idea of what really healthy soil looks like so let's take a look here this is some of that healthy healthy soil and you can see that that deep rich color like a like a super dark chocolate and there's all sorts of roots and insects and worms and if I smell you smell healthy soil it's got this very rich fungus you know smells of it smells of like deep mushrooms and and actually we just we just harvested some mushrooms from one of our other gardens we harvested some Maurel mushrooms because there are mycelium in this soil and with mycelium fruit that's what gives us some mushrooms so just a little preview and then I got a bunch of soil all over my my laptop more information information about the course would be good yeah so the course is going to be three weeks long there's going to be in that three weeks there's gonna be six sessions we're gonna have three live in-person sessions here on zoom' and then we're gonna have three recorded sessions in those three weeks I'm going to really focus this course is a shorter version of a course that I've taught with kiss the ground before it's usually seven weeks long but this is gonna be a condensed version we're gonna I'm gonna be really focused on getting you started gardening as quickly as possible so you know for those of us who are who are not able to leave our houses it's I think it's really important that we can start to get some food growing so we're gonna get be really focused on getting food growing quickly so we're gonna spend we're gonna just kind of like laser focus in on getting the soil to a condition that we can we can start planting in getting our our water set up we're going to talk about seeds and and vegetables and what we can plant plants that grow quickly we're gonna talk a bit about I'm posting as well because that's an important part of gardening we are also going to be we're gonna be talking about growing in ground in you know if you have ground space in soil how to get that set up we're also gonna be talking about because there's gonna be many of you joining who are living in in apartments or condos or flats so we're also gonna be focusing on getting potted garden started so how can we grow food in any location and growing nutritious food out of healthy living vibrant soil okay how do you define regenerative agriculture in a succinct way your one sentence description that's also a great question I instead of defining regenerative agriculture what I'm gonna do is try to refine define regeneration regeneration and my simple one-sentence definition of regeneration is treating the world as though treating everything in the world as though it's living because it is and so how would you you know how do you regenerative agriculture is how you would treat soil as though it's living because soil is linens how would you treat a tree if it was if you knew it was living well you would treat that tree with care you treat that tree with respect you would know that the tree needs to be fed you would know that the tree needs to be water and I know that sounds really simple and almost obvious but you'd be surprised you know how many how many times I go out to Gardens and people are planting seeds into soil and then putting some water on it and the soil has not been fed the soil has not been covered the soil has not been cared for so we're not we're not treating the world around us as though it's living we're treating the world like it's dead and so regeneration all about treating the world as a living being and understanding that that all living beings have wisdom all living beings have needs and we can we can listen and we can understand and then we can as you know what does a gardener do a gardener is someone who listens to the needs of the beings in the garden and tries to facilitate those needs being met that's what a regenerative gardener is and that's what that's basically what all of my courses are about how do we listen how do we see and how do we respond okay so it's just getting past ten o'clock I'm just gonna answer one last question and then I think we're going to call it a day here yeah there's another question about the recording for the webinar so again we'll be up on histogram calm and let me see here I'm just getting a bunch of comments okay so I think that's it guys thank you so much for joining I hope you enjoy the interview you know if I'm gonna also always someone who's able to link so many different things together for us she has such a broad view and I and she's been a great mentor of mine so thank you for joining me for the conversation as so many of you I'm so I'm still kind of shocked and I'll see you again we're gonna be doing another one of these next week we'll have the guest announced soon and yeah have a great week get out the garden if you can get your hands in the soil and look forward to seeing you all to seeing you all again possibly in my regenerative gardening class

Channel: Kiss The Ground

Views: 45,258

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Id: ivRZqiJ0Zbc

Length: 63min 3sec (3783 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 02 2020