This sometimes happens by default. We simply start nibbling here and there as we tend to the garden chores. But making grazing a feature instead of an afterthought changes how you approach garden chores and garden design.

If you want to shift your thinking from maintaining the garden until the harvest is ready to what can I eat from the garden today - then this post is for you.

What is a grazing garden?

A grazing garden is pretty much the opposite of a harvest garden. Grazing is about finding food to add to your daily meal, while harvest gardening is about generating food to sustain you now and through the winter, or provide extra for sale.

Because I am concerned about supplying as much of my own food as I can, and thereby bypass the industrial food systems as much as possible, I tend to focus my writing and attention on harvest garden.

But my reality is different. My garden does provide me with daily additions to my meals from early spring until winter closes the garden for good.

An ideal way to create your grazing garden is to think about the pathway you walk each day from your kitchen to your garden. What foods and snippets can be planted along the way to the garden, and in or around your main harvest beds, that provide you with daily additions to your meals?

A grazing garden is an eat-as-you-go model or a meal collection pathway that lets you head out to check on your garden and come back to the house with your meal prep foods in hand.

Key Features of Your Grazing Garden

• Your walking path to the garden and your trek around your garden provides your meal items.

• Closest to the house, or along the main garden pathway creates convenience.

• Seasonally robust plant options including herbs, berries, greens, and treats like asparagus, rhubarb, snap peas, or your favorite color variation of cherry tomatoes, small peppers, and more specifically plants along this route.

• This is a walk and harvest approach - if you raise chickens or ducks - make them part of the loop as you gather eggs too.

To summarize, the key features of your grazing garden are:'

• Walkable

• Closest to the house or garden path edges

• Seasonally robust

• Turns chore time into meal prep time

Garden design with grazing in mind

Creating a grazing system for yourself can follow a few basic rules. The closer to the kitchen you plant, the easier it is to pop out and grab what you need in a hurry. The harder it is for you to whip out and nip some leaves or herbs for dinner, the less likely you are to truly take advantage of the foods you have available.

Think about what you use daily. For me, this is where a succession of berries wins every time. I have red currants, raspberries and blackberries as main features in my garden that are right beside my main pathway. Whether I am snacking while moving a sprinkler or grabbing a bowlful to have with breakfast, this feature is something I cherish about my garden. I can’t visit my garden without walking right by those tasty treats - lucky me!

Turn your row ends into your convenience store!

And the final thing to think about in your grazing garden is that last 2 to 4 feet of every garden bed can be planted out to daily meal features like salad greens or cherry tomatoes, herbs, and so on. The main harvest blocks of food can take up the central part of any and every row, but those row ends are primed for grazing!

That may mean a re-think on where your salads and snackables grow. . . . Not a salad row (or not only a salad row) . . .but a lunchables border! I’m getting hungry just thinking about this today as I am about to head out and start preparing beds for planting.

Creating Your Edible Landscape

Gardens are rarely ever just one thing. I think the best part of gardening is creating a spill-over design that lets your food plants escape out of their designated pen and into the rest of your landscape.

Grazing gardens can be included in any part of your yard, not just inside the bounds of what you call the garden. This gets tricky for me because I have a LOT of deer who like to help themselves. But herbs work perfectly for this. In the bricks around the base of my mini-greenhouse, I’ve planted a mixture of herbs and flowers: chives, creeping thyme, lemon thyme, a wild arugula on the corner, parsley and dill along the back section. It works in terms of use of space, but also means that as I hop out to check and water the greenhouse I have foods to bring back for a meal. (Note that my mini-greenhouse is located close to my house, not out in my garden! - Easy wins).

Daily harvests help make the wait for the main crops more interesting. And from a health perspective, every time you can grab something fresh for your plate or bowl, you are getting the maximum benefit of growing your own food. Fresh from the garden to your kitchen gives you the highest return of vitamins and antioxidants - better than any pill or supplement.

It really takes one simple shift in your mindset to get started:

The question is not “what should I plant?”

The real question is “how often do I want to eat from land?”

That shift will let you find the balance between your grazing garden and your harvest garden.

What’s your favorite grazing garden food?

Keep on growing!

S

Your Naturalized Moment

As we work with plants, soil, and seasons, we’re invited to notice how our bodies respond, how our breath shifts, how presence quietly returns. These moments of awareness don’t stay in the garden. They travel with us — into our kitchens, our choices, and the way we meet the world.

This week, I invite you to step outside, not with a basket, but with empty hands.

Walk your usual path—the one you take to check the garden.
But this time, slow down.

Brush your fingers through some thyme or oregano - catch the scent. Pluck a pea from the vine and eat it right there in the garden.

If you garden is still just starting, like mine, then walk the pathway and imagine the tasty treats that could grow right along way. Imagine where a well placed berry bush could provide a moment of delight.

Notice what happens when your garden isn’t something you work on, but something you eat from—daily, casually, without ceremony or timeline.

Let that be your shift this week:

Not “what needs doing in the garden?”
But—“what’s ready for me today?”

Although there are ways to limit animal sources of protein in the diet, the logic behind doing so isn’t based in biology or human evolution. (I’ve left a reading list for new subscribers to check out past posts on this subject).

For me, the only way to continue to eat animal proteins was to begin raising themself so that I could avoid the ethical dilemma of supporting commercial animal production that ignores animal welfare. I understand that not everyone has this option, but today I want to explore options that do exist, including some less than conventional small-scale versions.

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Home-Grown Protein

Growing vegetable protein at home

Let’s run a thought experiment to look at what is possible in a 4x8 space at home.

The easiest high-protein plant to grow at home is beans. If you planted a 4x8 wide row of beans according to square-foot methods, you would have 288 bush bean plants (at 9/sq) and depending on the variety you could expect something like 6.8 to 13.6 kg (15-30 lbs) of beans over the season. There are many moving parts here. Variety plays a role. You could likely reduce the density of plants for higher overall yield. And so on.

You would only get about 2 grams of protein per 100 gram serving (0.004/0.22 lbs) from these beans. Green beans act more like a vegetable than dry beans do. To maximize protein, you would need to continue growing the beans until they formed seeds and dried in their pods (and preferably used a dry bean variety).

Shifting to a dry bean production, you may only get 4.1 to 8.2 grams (9 to 18 lbs) of dry beans for a 4x8 bed. The results are harder to predict. You have to maintain the plants through the entire growing season and have conditions favorable to getting to the dry bean stage. However, you would get 7-10 grams of protein per 100 gram serving from a quality dry bean.

The trade offs are clear for a home gardener with limited space. You can gain some wonderful nutritional benefits from the green beans, and if you can or freeze your green beans, then continue to enjoy them in the winter too. Or you can dedicate the space to dry beans with higher overall protein returns, but likely fewer meals overall.

vs Animal protein

But let’s take a look at the obvious animal choice for a 4x8 space: chickens.

If that 4x8 square feet is turned into a small coop and run, you could keep 3 chickens. Ideally you would want to be able to move that coop around, or give the chickens some turn-out time for better quality of life. But 3 sq ft/bird hits a minimum target for space.

Three chickens can produce, on average, a doz eggs per week - more in the spring and less by the fall, none during molt, maybe some in the winter. Let’s just argue that the birds produce consistently for April to Oct - 7 months. That’s roughly 30 weeks or 30 dozen eggs. . . . .with about 13 g/100g of protein in eggs (0.029/0.22 lbs).

While chickens do require feed (pellets, scratch) as well as water and care, they will happily eat your garden weeds and pests if you provide them as part of their diet. You can also supplement chicken feed with vegetable peels and scraps from your kitchen to reduce both household waste and feed costs.

Smaller scale alternatives: Quail? Silkies?

Chickens (even 3) can be demanding in their own way. If you have room for a large rabbit cage/hutch, then you could still accommodate smaller (but productive) birds like Silkies or quail. They are going to produce much smaller eggs. But they have the same overall benefit as chickens by providing high-quality egg proteins.

It takes about 2 Silkie eggs or 3 quail eggs to make the equivalent of 1 chicken egg. They are nutritionally comparable to chicken eggs too, but tend to have a higher yolk to white ratio due to their small size.

If there is a potential downside to quail, it is that they reproduce FAST. They start laying eggs in just 6-8 weeks and a healthy quail female can lay upwards of 300 eggs in a year. So you either have to be crazy diligent about collecting all the eggs, or have a plan for what to do with all those birds. Quail also require a higher protein food source (usually a specialty pellet) than chickens to support their rapid growth and that might add to the expense of raising them.

What’s the best use of your home growing space?

Doing these thought exercises can be helpful when considering what growing food at home can mean. It is possible grow your own essential diet components and do it under your own control (meaning you decide if what fertilizers or pest control options occur).

Growing protein at home is possible - it just means considering what value you are going to get for your effort. And perhaps, after looking at what is involved, it may mean deciding that protein is something you will buy instead of grow.

There are many other critical diet elements besides proteins that you can grow that make meaningful contributions to your overall health and wellness.

For an exploration of what it means to grow food at home check out this post:

What do you prioritize in your garden? Fore me - it is tomatoes and peppers - since I use them a LOT in my meals, I turn the tomatoes into sauce for winter, and they are expensive to buy in winter.

Happy Growing!

S

If this got you thinking differently about your garden, and what role you want to play in that—subscribe and grow alongside me.

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Follow-up Reading from The Naturalized Human:

I am taking a break this week from a long post in order to plant trees . . . again.

So if you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know that biodiversity is a big deal for me. And I have been trying to establish a broader food forest here on the farm for some time, but with minor success so far.

To clarify - I already have an orchard (that was established before I bought the farm), and various berry bushes and such. But what I dream of is bigger, more diverse, and more sustaining.

I am trying to establish nut trees on the farm. So far, the only successful addition is a couple of hazel nut/ hazelburt trees. I had planted some heartnuts before and they were growing fantastically, but I misjudged the degree of drought we were having. Or more correctly, I misunderstood that my trees had survived in the ground for some time and were “established”, just not established enough for the dryer conditions we were experiencing. As a result, the young trees essentially sun burned and dried out.

Now today I am starting over again. Because there is no good reason for these nut trees not to thrive here as long as I do better with watering them to ensure they are actually established before assuming they were able to handle the conditions here.

I reset the three heartnut spaces with new ones just delivered from Zero Fox Trees. And then I added three new trees as well - one additional heartnut and two butternuts which I had in pots from a previous Zero Fox order.

The lessons learned:

• Even though young trees survive the winter and start to grow doesn’t mean they won’t need some extra water during a warm spring.

• Tree wraps can prevent rodent damage to the base of young trees, and can reduce sunscald.

• Wire enclosures to prevent deer damage are a must around here.

• Water more consistently!

Later this weekend (tomorrow?), I will plant the hardy pecans and the 4 new types of elderberries (York, Bob Gordon, Ranch, Berryhill) which were part of my Zero Fox order this year.

The elderberries will produce usable crops (for tinctures and tea) long before the nut trees ever will. But looking ahead, having some diverse nuts on the farm seems like a smart move.

I’m heading back outside for me tree planting. For those who celebrate, I hope have a lovely Easter weekend.

Happy growing!

S

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Your Naturalized Moment will return next week . . .

Grower? Producer? Farmer? Plant person? Chicken tender? Cow mom? Herder? Horse person? Pack leader? Ecologist? Agrologist? Experimenter? Creator?

There are any number of labels that jump to mind . . . . but gardener wouldn’t be high on the list. And yet here on Substack, I echo the concern that without a primary label like gardening, it is harder to connect with like-minded folks on a platform of millions of readers. And connection is what Substack is all about.

I think my aversion to seeing myself as a “gardener” is the glossy magazine images of picture-perfect gardens with not a weed in sight. Everything is arranged - the color, size, shape, texture - and it is beautiful in it’s way. It was sells the magazine.

But I am definitely more of the wild and less defined crowd.

I still tell myself that one day (read as - when I retire) I will have the time to create more of that kind of garden.

And for sure this is a lot of over-thinking. Because in the end, what matters isn’t the label we give the activity but the results that it brings.

It doesn’t matter that you see yourself as a “walker” or “runner” as long as you are adding physical activity to your day.

It doesn’t matter if you see yourself as a cook or not either . . . . here’s another label causing people way too much grief. . . . . . “ oh, I can’t cook”, “I’m not a cook” and so on.

But if you can boil some water, you can make some eggs, or noodles, or soup . . . you can cook. You can create a meal.

And in that same vein, if you can sprinkle some seeds on the ground, or move a plant you bought into a bigger pot with soil, you can garden.

We can let labels limit us, or we can just start from where we are.

The stories we tell ourselves, and the labels we set to our activities, can either hold us back or set us free.

It doesn’t matter what you call it. It doesn’t matter if you grow in a tray with micro-greens or spread out across an acre.

The act of growing food matters.

Having your hands touch soil matters.

Taking food and turning it into something to eat matters.

Connecting to where you food comes from is critical in a world that is bent on dividing us into our separate corners.

To stay alive, we all need to eat. That is going to get a lot harder in world of division and chaos.'

So come as you are. Grow some food somewhere. Find the rest as locally as you can. And help build community around food.

That’s what this Substack is all about

Subscribe . . . and share this with a friend.

Happy growing,

S

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Your Naturalized Moment

The garden is not a place we go to escape life — it’s where life is already happening. As we work with plants, soil, and seasons, we can return to the present moment. We can ground ourselves in nature. And that experience travels with us back to our kitchens, to the choices we make, to the world around.

This week, think about the labels you carry. Ask yourself:

Which ones empower you to take actions?

Which ones carry stories that limit you? Keep you the same?

Our actions and habits are the result of the stories we tell ourselves.

If you are not happy with how things are, you need to tell yourself a better story.

If this feels hard, then consider this question: If there was nothing holding you back, no way you could fail, what would you do?

And then there is pushing the boundaries, throwing them out entirely really, but creating all-season sunrooms or by having indoor/outdoor plants.

Today I am going to share with you my methods for managing my selection of tropical food plants and the crazy adventures this has brought me.

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Why choose indoor/outdoor plants?

Modern life has most of us locked indoors for much of our existence. But science has very clearly shown that this way of living does not support long term health and wellbeing.

Keeping plants indoors can significantly change your life. I’ve written about this many times now. Here are some key findings with links to past posts:

• Houseplants reduce indoor CO2, regulate humidity, purify the air, can reduce anxiety, and more (Life-changing benefits of houseplants)

• Houseplants can improve your mood and lower your stress (Best flowering houseplants)

• The volatile compounds in the soil with your houseplants can trigger the release of serotonin in your brain - the feel good hormone (Scent of soil).

So if you are growing houseplants, especially those that flower, then why not include some food plants in that mix?

It’s not as crazy as it might sound at first. While some plants definitely require a lot of care in terms of temperatures, others are remarkably hardy. Some can even be stashed in a cold corner or basement once dormant and brought outside again in the spring - yes for real.

The main reason these plants need the indoor/outdoor life when growing outside of their home region is temperature. Most absolutely need protection from the ravages of winter. But others need the high heat and long sunny days of outdoors in order to produce an edible crop.

Understanding tolerance limits

Most people think the only temperature issue that prevents us from growing “exotic” crops in Canada is the minimum temperature at which a plant will be significantly frost damaged or killed. However, to successfully grow tropical food plants in other places, you need to broaden your understanding of tolerance limits.

These are the factors you need to consider for each type of plant you are interested in growing:

Minimum Possible Temperature

As mentioned, this is the one most people thing of as the limiting factor for plants, and it is what we are “trained” to think of using USDA or Canadian Hardiness Zones. Tropical food plants are usually in the USDA Zone 9-11 range that might survive a short drop below 0C with some damage.

You can find the minimum tolerance temperature of plants using a Google search, or checking the plant tag at the store.

Low comfort zone

The thing is that just because a plant can survive a frosty dip, doesn’t mean it can thrive in those conditions. And most cannot handle a sustained period of cold lasting days or weeks (instead of a few hours once).

The low comfort zone is really the best baseline in determining survivability of the plant in your area (or in your home!).

Chill hours

Just because we think of these plants as tropical, doesn’t mean they don’t actually need cold in order to flower and produce fruit.

So if you are wondering why your Meyers Lemon or Key Lime never flowers, it could be because you are not providing the required chill hours that stimulate flowering. Both of these plants require 100 hours below 15C (59F) to flower. That translates into approximately 4 and a quarter continuous days below 15C or longer if the dops below 15C are intermittent (e.g. only cold at night).

Plants that need chill hours to produce include some citrus (but not all), tea, some avocados, pomegranate, fig, olives, and more. The specific number of hours and the minimum temperature tolerances vary by the type of plant.

High temperature limits

Some types of plants may also have high temperature limits. This is usually easily adjusted for by providing afternoon shade, but it is something to consider where you live.

I don’t track this limit directly, but simply pay attention to which plants require shade, or partial shade. Both coffee and tea are considered understory plants. That means they need to be in partial shade where I live, with summer temperature that routinely exceed 40C (104F).

Another way to think about this factor is how many hours of direct sun does the plant need to thrive.

Create a Chart

I’ve gone all in on the idea of indoor/outdoor food plants. Partly this is my scientific training that leads me to want to experiment and learn. Partly it is my deep love of plants and wanting to surround myself with maximum biodiversity.

As a child, we would visit the Bloedel Conservatory at Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver regularly. I LOVED it there and have spent my life dreaming of jungle sunroom. You can take a virtual tour in the short video below.

While I still cannot afford to build a sunroom extension on my home (working on that), I have progressively acquired many of my dream plants that will one day thrive in that space. It’s the reverse of ‘build it and they come’ thinking. I’ve collected the plants so now building the sunroom is an inevitability - not if, but when.

To make keeping my “zoo” of tropical plants well, I have created a cold tolerance chart that has the facts I need to manage the plants as they move out in spring and in for the winter.

Paid subscribers can access the link at the end of this post to get a copy of the spreadsheet. It can easily be modified to suit other plants as well.

Seasonal shift considerations

Moving these plants in and out can be a bit of work. The main decision points are when can the plants move outside safely in the spring, and when do they need to come in before winter.

Out in the spring

When to move plants outsides depends partly on their low comfort zones and minimum temperature thresholds. It would be pretty disastrous to move a plant that has been inside at room temperatures outside where it’s dipping to 0C. But if daytime highs are shooting over 10C, it may be tempting to pop them outside for a while.

There are two types of plants in my care. One set come inside and stay green all winter long (citrus, papaya and evergreens like the olives). These are the plants that need it be warm before heading outdoors for the summer. The olives are the most tolerant and could go out once it stops freezing (except mine flowered in FEB!?!?! - and so now cannot go out until it is much warmer out there). The citrus need the night-time temperatures to be around 10C to move out.

The other set of plants actually go dormant in the fall and drop their leaves (figs, pomegranates). This latter set get moved into a storage room that doesn’t drop below 0C for long. They stay dormant. That means it’s best if they also come out of storage dormant too.

I just pulled the figs and pomegranates out and repotted them yesterday. The coldest we are forecast for in the next week is -1C. They will be fine. But one (Pomegranate “Wonderful”) is the least cold hardy. If we get colder than that I will need to throw a cover over it to be safe.

Out in the summer

The least cold hardy plants need it to be more like 15C minimum at night. That includes my bananas. Usually here we move pretty fast from nights at 10C to nights at 15C, so the gap in moving plants is usually only by a few weeks.

What is important here is to harden off the houseplants for a day or two in partial shade or dappled sunlight so that they don’t get burned by the hot sun. After a day or two they can take up their favorite positions on the deck or in the yard for the growing season.

Back in for the winter

I’ll do a second post this fall about bringing the plants back in and the steps needed, since this is already long.

And Alternatively

There is no right or wrong answers for growing plants, houseplants or otherwise. Meaning - it is completely fine to have a bananas or citrus that you just keep as a beautiful houseplant and enjoy. They are still “on duty” creating green scenery, providing soil volatiles, eating up CO2 and regulating humidity.

I simply like to the challenge of trying to do something out of the ordinary. And I am pre-seeding my dream of sunroom with a whole lot of manifestation energy.

Do you grow any plants that are unusual for your area? Inside, outside or both?

Happy growing!

S

Your Naturalized Moment

The garden is not a place we go to escape life — it’s where life is already happening. As spring is unfolding, that doesn’t mean we can neglect the importance of our indoor spaces for creating a sense of peace and beauty.

As you watch spring unfold, and plants bursting back into life outside, take the time to reflect on you inside space, your home. Reflect on the following:

How do you welcome spring on the inside?

What can you do this week that will bring the energy of spring into your home or office?

What new beginnings, activities, or dreams do you see yourself creating this season?

Journal. Take photos. Build a vision board. Dream.

Paid subscribes can access a Plant Cold Tolerance chart that illustrates how to create a tracking system for indoor/outdoor plants. Scroll to the end of the post to see your links.

If this sparked something in you—curiosity, possibility, or the quiet sense that you could grow beyond your limits—then you’re in the right place.

This is the work I share here: learning how to grow more of our own food, extend our seasons, and build resilience in a changing world.

Because food can be your best medicine—or your worst poison. And learning to grow it changes everything.

Subscribe to join me—and get access to the tropical plant cold tolerance chart so you can start building your own indoor/outdoor growing system.

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Read more

Let’s take a look at winter kill, and what it means as we deal with the environmental upheaval of climate change.

Less Predictability

Throughout my science training as a biologist/ecologist, we were taught about recognizable patterns of weather, plant and animal associations. Certain plants and animals occur together, usually at specific elevations and latitudes, and these communities were predictable through space and time.

Fast forward a few decades and the world in which I work as an ecologist (trying to make sure species can continue to survive) is no longer governed by predictable patterns. All the “rules” I was taught in school to help me make good decisions no longer make sense in reality on the ground. We are in uncharted territory dealing with weather-related impacts that are hitting vast areas at the same time (think catastrophic wildfires, atmospheric rivers of rain, drought, low snow packs, shifts in cold and frost, and any bizarre combinations of all of these).

This means going back to basic principles of observation, record keeping and experimentation while trying to understand the scale and implications of these changes.

Whether you believe in human-caused climate change or not, the weather is far less predictable and has far more extremes than in past decades. And plants and animals are doing what they can to adapt, and so should we.

Top 10 Hottest Years (Globally): 2024, 2023, 2016, 2020, 2017, 2015, 2022, 2021, 2019, 2018 (all occurred in the last decade).

-NOAA

Although we track this issue global as record global temperatures, the ramifications on a local scale are much less definitive. The chaos of too hot, too cold, and too wet in strange combinations seems to be the case.

When it comes to food production, these shifts can have significant impacts on crop survival and productivity. They impact the global food supply and disrupt the transport chain. And they impact your ability to grow food yourself.

Winter Kill

As we approach the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere, we are in the critical time frame where the impacts of winter become apparent. Trees, shrubs and plants that fail to flush green in the spring are truly dead. There are a number of ways in which we lose plants overwinter:

• Extreme cold

• Drying out

• Too much water

• Too much Ice

• Late spring cold

Extreme cold can be thought of as a zone shift. We typically say plants can survive within a certain range of cold temperature (the USDA Hardiness Zones; Canada Hardiness Zones). These ranges give you the likelihood certain plants will survive where you live. But nothing beats having actual temperature readings for really understanding if a plant is likely to survive there.

Drying out can happen when there isn’t enough winter rain and snow to enable a plant to survive. Or sometimes, wind can be the reason plants are drying out (again because their root systems are not protected enough).

Too much water and too much ice are two parts of the same problem. If thaws lead to excess water around plants, they can drown, rot or mold before spring shoots arise. If plants get encased in thick ice, this can lead to damage at a cellular level, which is often fatal. Rapid or prolonged freeze/thaw cycles can really impact plant survival.

And lastly, late cold snaps in the spring are often fatal for plants, or may result in fruit crop failures because flowers are damaged or left unpollinated (pollinating insects cannot fly in cold temperatures).

As I list out all these things that can go wrong, I realize just what a miracle the spring flush of green is every year. And yet, in recent years I’ve experienced plant loss due to all of these factors except the issue of ice.

The implications of late spring cold

Now in March, the biggest worry is a late cold snap once the trees start to green up. So as I mentioned in the opening, the cold snap right now (from highs over +12 down to -4C, a shift from 54 to 25F) has come at a time where few food plants are green. But as March carries on and more buds break open, the risk of crop failure increases.

Perennial crops, trees and shrubs are the most vulnerable right now. And this is where the balancing act for gardeners begins.

On the one hand, taking advantage of a warm spring often means early and big harvests. On the other, a cold snap can end those prospects or even kill the plants altogether.

What to do?

Having lost both plants and crops to the ravages of an unpredictable spring, here is what I do now.

Use mulch

The “proper” time to mulch frost sensitive plants is in the early part of winter AFTER the ground is frozen. The idea is you want to hold that cold in the ground and prevent freeze/thaw cycles from impacting the roots. Then in the spring, you can either let the plant emerge through the deep mulch, or judiciously reduce the mulch layer to encourage faster spring growth.

Use a wrap/cover

If the spring has been warm and plants are shooting up and greening up, but a short cold snap is coming, then use a wrapping or cover to protect really vulnerable plants. Most of my plants are fine. The marginal survivors here are my thornless blackberry and blueberry bushes. These are the plants that need protecting if they’ve broken dormancy, but a sudden cold is coming.

Use location

You can find heat sinks and shelters in most microclimates. Whether that planting near a wall or building, or using other plants to create a wind shield, or ensuring your most climate-vulnerable plants are located such that cold air drains away from them instead of pooling around then, garden design can off-set a LOT of winter kill issues. It may take a few tries, but it can work. My location experiment currently is placing two blueberry bushes into a raised steel 4x4 bed. So far so good - but we will see what this first over-winter does and if they live.

Choose plants from one zone colder

I’ve seen shocking losses here on the farm of plants that are supposed to be hardy to my designated zone. The lesson then is to choose plants that are hardy to at least one zone lower than where you are. This will help protect your investment into the future. Nothing is sadder than to spend two or three years establishing some fruiting shrubs and trees to have them wiped out by cold.

Why this is important right now in March is because all those beautiful plants are going to be flooding into garden centers - and it is critically important when investing in food plants to consider the impacts of the weather you are actually experiencing now, rather than what a garden book or reference tells you. Also talk to gardeners in your area about what has survived and produced for them.

Check those tags before you buy! And if you cannot find something hardy enough, then check out the many great small nurseries who will mail order. In Canada there are some great options out there for cold-hardy plant nurseries. In BC, I’ve been purchasing from Zero Fox Tree Crops with good success.

Keep records!

The weather you get online is based on stations usually near or communities. The further you live from that spot, the less reliable the weather is for predicting your growing season. Weather stations are becoming remarkably cheap. They give you information you can plan and grow food with. And many now enable you to link to a network of small-scale weather stations that provide even more predictability.

I have one of these network-connectable stations on my wish list for 2026. Currently I use a very cheap indoor/outdoor monitor. I know the current temperature in the shade on my deck. However, expanding that to include precipitation and wind is increasingly important for where I live. And the other advantage, is that the data becomes usable as a spreadsheet, instead of me having to remember to consistently write down the details.

Beyond the idea of weather station, a garden journal helps you to keep track of changes over time. Make a note of when your perennial food crops are emerging and flowering. That can really help to identify shifts that might spell trouble when the pattern falters.

Shift the timing of annual plantings

And perhaps this one goes without saying, but when spring weather is feeling chaotic, it may simply mean adjusting your planting plans accordingly. Using season-extending techniques can help with this one too, letting you get an earlier start with a little more certainty.

Eating in the Future

It’s really easy to dismiss the shifts in weather as a temporary issue that we live through in the moment. But the winter to spring timeline and pattern is absolutely critical to food production across the globe.

As you make investments in your own or local food production, it pays to be thinking very clearly about what the weather-related risks look like. Winter kill can have devastating consequences. The more you know about your own specific growing location, which plants are hardy enough to take some unexpected hits, and developing your own sliding scale of garden planting times can make a big difference in your gardening success.

Happy growing!

Your Naturalized Moment

Step outside for a few minutes today and simply notice what the season is doing.

Feel the temperature on your skin. Is the cold lingers? Is the sun warming you? Can you hear the spring birds? Smell soil yet? See any new buds emerging since yesterday or the day before?

Change happens fast in the spring. One day covered in snow. The next spring bursts through.

Your relationship with food changes when you garden, when you become focused on observing and responding to what is happening in the natural world.

This week, really think about how spring affects your daily patterns and routines. How does the light shift your mood and activity? How can your eating habits better reflect the new food season?

Gardening is changing as the climate shifts. Subscribe for science-based, practical gardening strategies that help you grow food that nourishes your body and the planet.

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The timing of spring heat from the sun and lengthening daylight trigger plants to break dormancy. When we get too hot too early and then have a cold snap because it is still “winter”, that’s when significant plant loss can occur.

Yesterday I pulled about half of my potted trees that store overwinter in an unheated shed out into the daylight or the mini-greenhouse depending on the type. I would have returned the figs and pomegranate to the deck, but we are expecting a week of rain/snow and that might be just a bit too much for them right out of protected wintering.

There is so much to do! And the sunshine actually has some warmth behind it.

Spring is a critical time in every garden. It’s a chance to start over and improve on what has come before hand.

If you want to make the most of your garden, and actually use it to support your food supply, then this is the time to really think about how your garden is best situated to help you. The cost of food is only going to keep rising with the conflict in the Middle East affecting the price of fuel, which affects everything else.

This morning I went back through my previous March posts to bring forward some of the essential elements of starting the garden in spring. [And a reminder that all paid subscribers have access to Curated Seed Saving content from The Naturalized Human that organizing important gardening information growing and seed saving information into a library for easy access.]

Turning a hobby into food supply

If you love to grow plants, then it only makes sense to let that activity boost the food headed to your table. Whether you tuck the prettiest herbs and vegetables among your flowers, or grow a dedicated vegetable plot, it’s hard to ignore how expensive food has become and to look for ways to ease that burden.

Start with the soil

Healthy soil matters the most to create healthy food. In the spring that can look like loosening soil gently before seeding, while avoiding digging in soil that is too wet or too frozen. A gentle stir of the top layer can help to activate the top soil and make it easier for roots to penetrate.

Removing weeds in the spring can help keep the garden space available for food plants. I have chickens, so these spring weeds make excellent chicken feed.

If you don’t have chickens, you can either create a weed pile, and watch to see if any of the pile regrows. Covering the pile with clear plastic will help to kill off the weeds. Alternatively, you can put the weeds into a black garbage back and leave it in the sun to help cook the weeds.

While neither method is 100% at killing everything, this is better than sending it off to a landfill. And the reality is you have these weeds - and no amount of pulling will eliminate them because of how weed seed banks work. Management is key. Disturbing the soil as little as possible is key. Mulch and ground covers are key. And the rest is about pulling weeds.

My raised beds (new last year) have sunk by half, so I need to repeat the same process as last year - adding in sticks and coarse compostables, egg shells, ashes, feathers and bedding, bones, cardboard, etc. And then once I level up to maybe 2/3, add a deep layer of finished compost. Yes, the compostable material will generate some heat, but it is spread out in a thin enough layer and buried deep enough that it should not cause an issue for spring planting. By the time the plant roots penetrate that deep it will be well on it’s way to becoming soil. [You can read more about creating healthy soil here]

Seed saving begins in the spring

While most people think about saving seeds once they see a plant has bolted or the unharvested bean pods turn brown, seed saving in a way that maintains productivity and quality food takes more practice and discipline.

Saved Seeds = Free Food

That is the most important equation to understand in any garden. The parts you grow and eat are only part of the food supply story. The parts that you grow and turn into seeds are where the economics of home growing really start to compound.

Buy it once and grow it forever.

To achieve this long term benefit of gardening, you need to do some planning in the spring:

• Learn about seed families and what plants can grow together vs those that must be kept separate.

• Choose open pollinated seeds

• Plant with seed saving in mind

• Remember to keep some of your best and most productive plants as the ones for seed saving (not the last to produce, or the plants that didn’t do much)

• Keep good records

[You can read more about how seed saving begins in the spring here.]

Again - you can learn all this and more here at The Naturalized Human. Become a free or paid subscriber.

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Understand your food needs

If your goal is grow food that cuts down on your grocery bill, then its important to understand what is possible. How many pounds of vegetables do you need? And can you grow that?

It’s not as crazy as it might seem at first. I go over the math here:

In a nutshell, even a small garden that is carefully managed can contribute to your nutrition and reduce the potential for negative health consequences resulting from a processed food diet.

Every potato you eat, instead of the 6-8 potatoes found in a bag of chips, changes your health for the day, the week, the month. I’ve written this many times, but is the simple truth that drives home the audacity of our current food system. WHEN would you ever sit down to a plate of 6 to 8 whole potatoes and say YES! But wolfing down a bag of chips - sure. And use chips because these were my arch-enemy.

But what happens when you start to eat real food, is that your desire and taste for processed junk disappears. I know because I went from insatiable cravings for chips to not caring in the least if I ever eat them again.

So while it might seem impossible to make a difference at first, when you eat what you grow, you come to realize that nutrient density and food volume are not the same thing. You have to eat so much MORE processed food to feel full, and that is the manufactured point. [If you missed my post on Bliss-Point Food, you can find it here]

Learn to Succession Plant

To really capture all this and put it into action, succession planting is the key. What is that? Succession planting is where you plant your crop in stages through space and time. For example, you start in the spring with arugula, and then plant that over that crop with transplanted tomatoes.

And/or you start planting arugula in the spring, but you plant in sections - say 2 square feet on March 15, two more on March 30, two more on April 15 and so on. This is also a form of succession planting, where you are thinking about how much you can eat, and staging the planting to give you a continuous supply.

[You can read more about succession planting here]

Some updates from my garden

I started 4 trays of cool season plants in my mini-greenhouse on 3-Feb (unfortunately right before a cold snap that took us to -10C). The seeds had started germinating when that cold snap hit. I figured the experiment would be a total wipe out.

However, checking today and I see some plants/seed survived. There are sprouts happening, albeit fewer than had been growing before the snap. (But I also just caught a vole in my greenhouse - and that critter might have been snacking too).

There are also some great signs of life: inside the greenhouse the potted tarragon is growing strongly, while outside in the surrounding bricks, a parsley crown is showing. Note that the parsley is clearly regrowing from the crown. That means it is in its second year and this plant will produce seed early in 2026.

These are important signs that it is warm enough (at least inside the greenhouse) to start more cool season crops like broccoli and cabbage.

And for those following along with my saga, my sister (who suffered the brain aneurism) is now in rehab working to rebuild her health. Things are very very slow and this is clearly a marathon and not a sprint. On my front, the big dogs have finally made friends - although they pick the tiniest toys to dispute. At least the threat of serious fights between them has diminished greatly. Life with 7 dogs is still beyond my imagination, but I am learning how to make it work day by day, and so are they.

I hope spring is finding you here in the Northern hemisphere (and that the garden season is abundant for those readers in the South).

Let me know what you are planting first this spring. It’s time to dig in!

Sue

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So I thought I would pick out two seasonally important posts from the past as great ones to read again at this time of year.

The first: Designing your garden for great ease - talks about the essential elements of creating a garden that make it easy on the gardener. I review wide row rules, diversity rules and how to optimize your decision of what to grow this year.

And the second has my top 5 tips for choosing which vegetables to grow from seed. This one will help you think about how much space you have, how to avoid expensive seed traps, and not overbuy.

Combined, these two posts are perfect for getting organized for the coming seed-starting season. The flats I put in my greenhouse as a test case have not sprouted just yet. But it will not be long. And with that green signal, a flurry of activity will come.

So far it is unseasonably warm here, even while other parts of North America are coming out of a serious deep freeze. I am hoping we stay within this mild range until spring officially comes. I guess we will see.

Subscribe if you are interesting in growing food, and learning more about how food (and the act of growing it) affect our mind and bodies. Food can be your best medicine or your worst poison. . . . it’s time to regain the skills of creating food and eating food that nourishes us.

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Your Naturalized Moment

This week say it out loud. Tell the people you love how much you care. Don’t wait. Life is far shorter than we realize.

And next week I’ll be back with a more structured YNM and post.

Until then, happy growing.

But risk aside, the awakening of the trees comes with the promise of spring. It won’t be surprising to see a few other things waking up too, like the grass starting to green and the tips of spring bulbs showing on the surface. These are examples of the bioindicators wrote about last week.

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And I am with who wrote in a note: “I organized my seeds by winter sow, direct sow and indoor start (earliest to lasted and possible push to start outside instead).” That’s what I like to do too. I try to find a long narrow box and arrange the packets (or baggies with my own seeds, or sometimes place name markers to remind me) in groups with similar planting times.

Those little grey “pussy willows” reminded me that I need to better organize my flower seeds this year too. Flowers are not frivolous in a vegetable garden - they are essential.

Today, let’s look at why flowers are so important to food production success when you are growing your own food.

Let’s dig in!

Roles flowers play in the garden

(1) Pollination

Every one knows that flowers are essentials to bees and bees help to pollinate many flowering vegetables so they set their fruits and pods.

Having the “right” flowers can attract a broad range of native pollinators as well. Depending on where you live, these might be larger than honey bees (like bumble bees and some types of moths), or much much smaller (like the tiny fairy bees, cuckoo bees, carpenter bees, and sweat bees). What makes a flower “right” in this case is having tiny flowers to match tiny bees!

Some plants like alyssum, basil, dill, and lavender have many tiny individual flowers. But others like coneflower, aster and sunflower appear to us as one large flower, when in fact they have many individual flower/nectar ports for a bee to visit.

(2) Attract beneficials

It’s not just pollinators that like a great flower. Beneficial insects like predators and parasitoids also attracted to flowers as well. Sometimes it’s the adult that eats the “bad” bugs eating your vegetables, and other times these adults lay their eggs so their larvae can feast and help minimize pests for us.

Ladybugs are a great example of a predator that helps our gardens. Both adult and larvae eat aphids. Syrphid flies look like bees with their striped bodies, but are flies that do not sting, and they also lay eggs so their larvae will eat aphids.

Parasitoids are insects that look like wasps - and often have a “stinger” out the back - which actually cannot sting at all. It is called an ovipositor. These hard working insects use their ovipositor to lay an egg inside another creature - literally injecting an egg inside. The egg hatches and the larva eats it’s host from the inside and then forms some kind of cocoon from which a new adult parasitoid will emerge.

(3) Boosting our mental health

Flowers also have a role in making the garden beautiful, colorful, and sweetly scented. I’ve written a few times now at how flowers can directly influence our mental and physical wellbeing, including shifting our mood and lower blood pressure.

If you missed those, you can check them out here:

Which flowers are easy to grow from seeds?

While you can attempt to grow any flowers from seed, some are simply easier to grow and give you fast results while others can take a long time to bloom.

My favorites to grow from seed for fast seed-to-bloom include:

• Zinnias

• Calendula

• Marigolds

• Poppies

All of these flowers come in an array of colors, growth forms/size and all are remarkably easy to grow from seed. If you let a few plants go to seed themselves (instead of deadheading off the flowers), you can have beautiful, easy-to-grow flowers year after year.

Basil is also a favorite flower in my garden. Not at all showy, and all the books tell you to cut the flowering stems away, but letting some basil go to flower and then seed supports a wide range of insects AND gives you lots of seed to keep growing more basil. Basil is on my easy flower list.

If you more time and space in your garden, then these flowers also grow easily from seed:

• Sunflowers

• Nasturtiums

• Cosmos

• Dill

Diversity is key

There is no magic formula for the ratio of flowers to vegetables in the garden. If you are really short on space for growing food, then adding a few pots of compact flowers, tucking them into the veggie beds, can add flowers without competing for soil or much space.

The more sizes and shapes of flowers you add, the greater the diversity of pollinators, predators and parasitoids you will attract.

The best case scenario is planning out your flower additions so that there are flowers blooming all season long. That means thinking about which flowers bloom in each season. The combination of spring bulbs and fast bloomers like phlox and violas, summer blooming herbs, flowers and veggies, and then some reliable fall bloomers like fall asters, chrysanthemums, sedum and dahlias can ensure your beneficials have something to visit all year long.

Flower diversity in the garden, and wider landscape, is an investment in food production. Which flowers do you keep with your vegetables?

Happy growing!

Your Naturalized Moment

As we work with plants, soil, and seasons, we’re invited to notice how our bodies respond, how our breath shifts, how presence quietly returns. These moments of awareness don’t stay in the garden. They travel with us — into our kitchens, our choices, and the way we meet the world.

This week, I invite you to focus on the colors that energize you.

As you are moving through this week, notice which colors really draw your attention and spark joy. Maybe it’s a pink sweater that catches your eye. Maybe it’s the color of your favorite throw blanket. Or perhaps it’s realizing you really prefer one shade over another. Yellow but not orange, or red but not pink.

Often we fall into routines without stopping to think if a simple shift could make our day 10% brighter. Color influences our mood, which we then feel in our bodies as relief or added pressure.

This week pay attention to the colors that uplift you. Which colors hold your focus, give you energy, or create peace.

Reflection

We need to feed our eyes as well as our bodies.

How can you bring more of the colors that create joy for you into your garden?

Will you grow them from seed or buy them come spring?

Your food can be your best medicine — or your slowest poison.
The difference? Freshness, connection, and knowing what your body really needs.

The Naturalized Human is where we rebuild those connections. Each week I write about growing foods, mind-body-food connections, and ways to shift your energy, mood, and outcomes. No diet. No overwhelm.

**Become a paid subscriber to support my work.

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The answer is rather complicated so it is worth spending some time on. The key issues involve the type of plant you want to grow, how good your indoor starting set up is, and how long you need to keep the plants inside before moving them outside.

It boils down to this:

• Which plants?

• Started when?

• And what are the advantages?

Let’s dive right in!

Which plants should you start early?

Gardening is part art and part science. The alchemy of soil healthy, seed selection, light, water and warmth changes a small seed into edible food that sustains our life.

Although so much of modern agriculture is about short cuts and magic bullets to make it go faster, the reality is that without an alignment of factors that give a plant what it needs to thrive, then food is not forth coming.

For anyone living in a colder climate, the ability to start plants early can make a huge difference in what gets harvested later. In my experience, starter early is a game changer for productivity when you get it right, and a complete waste of time and energy when you get it wrong.

While you can start some plants early using nothing but a sunny windowsill, that space is often limited. Planting tables and light systems expand available space while usually limiting the footprint needed to start early. For me the investment has been worth it.

A small greenhouse can also be a wonderful tool for starting early, and can help with the transition to outdoors if you start very early in the house, move to the greenhouse, and then outside.

What to start early?

How long it takes to grow a plant from seed to harvest (or sometimes from transplant to harvest) is known as the Days to Maturity. This value is usually printed on the seed package envelop or available through online catalogues and databases for garden plants.

Fast Growers

Days to maturity is an important number because it tells you how long a plant takes to grow. The fastest growing vegetables are ready in within 30-40 days. These are the superstars of gardening that can make anyone look like they know what they are doing. They are also the typically cool season plants that thrive in the colder soils of spring and fall.

The fastest growing list (30-40 days) includes:

• Arugula

• Lettuce

• Spinach

• Bok Choi

• Green onions

• Radish

Slow Growers

At the opposite end of the spectrum are the long season crops. These may take 90-110+ days to mature. This list includes:

• Winter squash/pumpkins

• Brussel sprouts

• Winter cabbage

• Dry (shelling) beans

• Garlic

• Leeks

• Sweet potatoes

• Celery

• Sunflowers

Heat Lovers

And then there are the heat lovers. These plants only require 60-90 days to mature BUT to produce well, they need the heat of summer. Anything below 10C (50F) stops their growth.

Heat lovers include:

• Tomatoes

• Peppers

• Eggplants

• Cucumbers

• Melons

So which ones do you start early?

I used to think starting early was only for the heat lovers and some of the long season plants that tolerate transplanting. For these plants, you typically only want to start 4-6 weeks before the last day of frost (unless you have frost protection in place - then you could start 6-8 weeks early).

The point of starting tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and the like early is that their size at transplanting can speed you to harvesting in June/July instead of Aug/Sept. And for some long season plants like pumpkins or sweet potatoes, it’s the difference between getting a reasonable harvest or not. I used to focus my energy right here - and so my seed starting space and energy went here - and maybe started in late March/April.

But with the high cost of vegetables in the grocery store, my thinking has changed. I grow a lot more of the cool season crops (or microgreens and sprouts) all winter long. Right now i have some lovely red lettuce, basil, and cutting celery happily growing under lights and providing some limited, but so worth it, fresh greens.

And with Feb just around the corner, my focus will be on starting a two more flats of spring greens indoors, while I simultaneous seed two outside in my small greenhouse. Those outside flats are the natural indicator I need to know when I can my inside spring greens out to the greenhouse - giving me a staggered harvest and a start to the season well before the outside temperatures are going to show growth.

I also use the sprouting of arugula and Pak Choi in my garden (from seeds that dispersed during seed harvest), as an indicator of when it is safe to start really working out in the garden too.

Start when?

Four to six weeks before the last frost . . . But how do you know what the last day of frost will be?

Of course, answering this question is exactly the problem.

I just googled “what is the last day of frost for Lillooet, BC” - and got the answer 1-May to 10-May . . . . on average based on historic weather readings of the last day at 0C (32F). But the reality is that we may be frost free as early as mid-April or as late as June in some years.

This is where knowing your area, and having natural bioindicators comes in. You can read about bioindicators in detail in this post:

A bioindicator (aka biological indicator) is an organism that provides information about the environment that is otherwise challenging to measure directly. The presence/absence, relative abundance, or condition of the bioindicator lets you indirectly understand and infer the magnitude and direction of impacts in the system.

You use the condition of plants around you like spring bulbs, flowering shrubs, or fruit trees, to help you determine how close you are to being frost free. The plants know how much heat and light are available better than any weather station or model.

Still, it takes time to accumulate the knowledge of your area - and this is where a good garden journal comes into play, tracking important things like when you first see your bioindicators, when you first started planting the garden (and if it lived), and when the shift to frost free actually takes place in your yard (space) instead of wherever the weather station for the areas is located.

What if I start seeds too soon?

The beauty of gardening is that there are no single answer to any question. “Too soon” is going to be relative to the actual weather you get in any given year.

In general, if you start plants indoors too soon, without enough heat and light, the plants will grow tall and leggy. You are going to see this result for yourself. Instead of compact and strong growth, the plants are reaching up too fast. You end up with thin, weak stems and over-crowded roots which makes transplanting very hard. If this happens, then make a note in your calendar to start later for next year.

What I have seen happen for myself is that even if I manage to transplant these weak starts into the garden without breaking stems, they vastly under-perform later sown, stronger transplants.

So really all the time and effort gets wasted if you start the heat-lovers and long-season plants too soon before they go into the ground. I’ve proven this to myself enough seasons now - good timing beats super-early every time.

Also it’s important to factor in the plant type as I have been saying. To me there is really no down side of trying cool season plants early. If they are straggly, you can just eat them and start over. No real loss for these. Practice improves your timing - and not all of them will transplant well anyway (e.g. spinach does better direct-sown into the ground).

Pros and Cons of Starting Early

Here is the bottom line as I see it:

Pros of starting early

If you have the space, light and heat (in whatever form works for you) to start seeds early then you gain:

• Earlier food

• More opportunities to diversify your garden

• More continuous food supply

• Save money on buying transplants from the store

Cons of starting early

If you don’t have the conditions noted under pros, or you overplant, then you:

• Waste time and energy

• Waste seed

• End up with weak transplants that under-perform later sown plants

• Create frustration

The con list doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try anyway and learn!

My early seed starting efforts have evolved over many years of trial and error and journaling results, and they continue to evolve. Gardening is simply like that. We learn by doing.

Don’t be afraid to start some plants early this year. At least for me, the pro list definitely outweighs the cons.

Happy growing!

Each week I bring together information on how growing your own food builds a healthier body, mind and planet. Help support quality independent writing by subscribing today.

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Your Naturalized Moment

As we work with plants, soil, and seasons, we’re invited to notice how our bodies respond, how our breath shifts, how presence quietly returns. These moments of awareness don’t stay in the garden. They travel with us — into our kitchens, our choices, and the way we meet the world.

This week, I invite you to listen to your inner voice.

As you look ahead to starting seeds, and planting a garden - what is your inner dialogue?

Is it excited and energized? Confident? Optimistic?

Or does it slowly wind down into self-doubt and criticism? This won’t work for me. There’s no time. I’ll just waste my effort, might as well just buy plants. Do I really think I can garden?

PAUSE: The garden is a metaphor for our lives.

Listen how you talk to yourself about this upcoming task.

Is there a shitty committee in your head? Or a cheerleading squad?

Your internal tone, your language, and the cadence tell you a lot about how you are treating yourself today.

Awareness is the bridge between the status quo and transformation.

This week, pay attention to your internal thoughts.

Each time you catch yourself hammering on limitation, pause and take a deep breath. You wouldn’t treat a friend this way?

Why not treat yourself the way you would treat your best friend? What would be saying to them?

Now make a new choice. Re-wire your internal dialogue. Move past the limitations you keep reciting. Start showing up as the person you dream of being. Right here. Today.

Here in the north, it’s winter and time to get your seed orders and seed selections done to be ready for spring. Selecting the “right plants” that won’t cross-pollinate is a skill each seed saver develops over time. If you’re a reader from the southern hemisphere, it’s summer over there - and you might be wondering if you can save seeds off the vegetables you are currently growing. That question gets answered here too.

In this post, I want to tackle one of the most challenging plant families to understand when it comes to seed saving: the Gourd Family, or Cucurbitaceae. This highly diverse plant family includes many favorite common vegetables like cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, squash, gourds, luffa, and more. Knowing which ones can be safely grown together while still creating savable seeds is tricky, but I’ve got some gardening tips that will help you sort it out.

Let’s dive in!

Become a free subscriber to enjoy The Naturalized Human in your inbox and Substack feed, with lots of great mind-body-food content. Paid subscribers get access to additional content, including the downloadable chart for which Gourd Family vegetables cross-pollinate to form hybrids and which ones don’t.

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Seed Saving Basics

The priority goal of seed saving, in general, is to save seeds from high quality, high producing plants (parent plant) such that when these seeds are used the following year, the plant that grows (offspring plant) will have the same characteristics as the parent.

For example, you plant a specific pickling cucumber in 2025 that you saved seeds from, and using those seeds in 2026 is going to give you the same kind of pickling cucumber again. Predictable outcomes and reliable food quality is the focus.

This is how varieties get preserved long term. These varieties are usually called “open pollinated” or “heirloom” types.

Cross-pollinating

From here on out, it gets more complicated. Cross-pollinating refers to pollen (plant sperm) moving from one individual plant to another individual plant to fertilize the female parts of the flower (ovum, ovary).

If those two individuals are of the same plant species and variety - that pollen forms new seed and this is the “open pollinated” types referred to above.

If those two individuals are different species entirely, then either nothing happens (no fertilization/no cross) or on rare occasion a seed might be formed that is sterile (same principle as a horse crossed to a donkey makes a sterile mule).

And then there is the tricky part. If the two individuals are of the same species, just different varieties, then they will cross and there will be a seed, but this seed is now a hybrid (sometimes referred to as F1 or “filial 1” = first generation of offspring) .

A hybrid contains a mix of traits from both parents which may, or may not, become visible in how the plant looks for one or two generations later, but genetically the two varieties have mixed and we say that it won’t “breed true”.

There are many examples of purposefully crossed parent plant varieties that in their first generation produce excellent, high quality food, but if you save seeds again for a second generation (F2) the results will NOT be the same. In this scenario, you have to keep both parent lines pure and continue to cross them to get the same hybrid result. This is why hybrids are expensive and hard to maintain.

You can read more about crosses and maintaining purity in the following TNH posts:

Cucumbers, Melons and Pumpkins Oh My!

The Gourd Family, Cucurbitaceae, is a prolific group of food plants that has more than 100 genera and close to 1000 species. Clearly, I am not going to be able to cover them all here!

But I am going to cover those most commonly grown in home gardens. What makes this group truly complicated is that many of the common names we give to favorite vegetables blurs the boundaries between the different species/varieties that cross, and those that don’t.

For example, there are at least 3 groups of plants that we commonly refer to as gourds:

• Cucurbit gourds,

• Lagenaria gourds, and

• Luffa gourds

And similarly, plants we typically call “pumpkins” may be from Cucurbita pepo, C. maxima, or C. moschata.

A quick plant Latin lesson:

What we refer to as a species is made up of two Latin names: Genus + Species.

• Cucurbita is the genus name.

• pepo, maxima and moschata are all separate species names

In botany, we sometimes shorten the Latin by putting a period after the first letter of the genus (which is always capitalized) followed by the species fully spelled out (which is always lower case).

• Cucurbita pepo = C. pepo

But note that this can get confusing because C. sativus (cucumber) is a totally different genus Cucumis. So you actually really need to know the full Latin name when determining if seeds will cross or not. Plants within the same species will cross-pollinate. Plants in different genera (making them different species) will not.

• Cucurbita is a separate genus from Cucumis, which means that pumpkins and cucumbers do not cross pollinate.

Now back to our main story . . .

Which ones cross (and which don’t)?

The answer to whether your pumpkin is going to cross with your zucchini lies with the Latin. That’s why I did the little Latin lesson above.

If the plants you are considering saving seeds from have the same Latin name (Genus + Species), then they will cross pollinate and your offspring plants the following year will be a mash-up of those parent plants you had been growing the year before.

Cucumbers & Muskmelons (Cucumis)

Cucumbers: Cucumis sativus: All pickling, slicing and seedless varieties will cross with each other.

Muskmelons: Cucumis melo: All cantaloupe, honeydew and muskmelons will cross with each other, but not with cucumbers.

Watermelons (Citrullus)

Watermelon: Citrullus lanatus: All watermelons, red, pink, yellow, seeded, seedless, round or square, will cross with each other, but not with the muskmelons which are in a different genus.

Pumpkins, Squash, Gourds (Cucurbita)

This genus is by far the most complicated to understand.

Pumpkins & Squash: Cucurbita pepo: This group is hugely diverse and includes Acorn squash, Jack-o-lantern type pumpkins, Delicata, Patty pan, Casper pumpkins, Spaghetti squash, Zucchini (green and yellow) and so very many more. All C. pepo cross with each other to create hybrids.

Giant Pumpkins: Cucurbita maxima: Buttercup, Boston marrow, Hubbard, Kabochas, Marblehead, Turban, and many of the blue squashes like Queensland Blue are in this group, including most of the record-breaking giant pumpkins grown in competitions. These will all cross with each other, but not with C. pepo or other Cucurbita species.

Butternuts: Cucurbita moschata: Butternuts, Calabaza, Crookneck, and Tromboncino are all examples of this group from the gourd family. As with the rest, these ones will cross with each other, but not with C. pepo or C. maxima.

Cushaw: Cucurbita argyrosperma: All types of Cushaws (sometimes called Kershaw) cross including green striped, orange striped, white, silver-seeded gourd and more. The same rules apply here as to those noted above.

Fig-leafed Gourd: Cucurbita ficifolia: Black-seed squash, Chialcayote, Cidra, Fig-leaf gourds and Malabar gourds are all part of this family. They all cross with each other, but not with other members of this genus.

Overall Cucurbita Rule: You can grow one type from each family, and still save seeds that will (almost always) breed true. But if you want to save seeds from more than one type within the same species, then you need to apply strict isolation rules to preserve the genetic integrity of the seed.

Bottle Gourds (Lagenaria)

Bottle Gourds: Lagenaria siceraria: This group includes many gourds that are grown for practical tools and decorative purposes with common types like Basket, Birdhouse, Bottle, Calabash, Dipper, Swan and more.

Luff Gourds (Luffa)

Smooth Luffa: Luffa aegyptiaca: These are the plants grown as food when less than 7” (18 cm) long or grown to maturity and processed to become a loofah sponge. These Luffas go by names like Common Luffa, Smooth Luffa, Egyptian Luffa or even Egyptian cucumber, Sponge gourd, etc.

Ridged Luffa: Luffa acutangula: These Luffas can also be eaten when young or left to mature and turn into sponges. The main difference, as the name implies, is that this species has ridged or angular gourds rather than smooth skin.

Chayote (Sicyos - formerly  Sechium)

Chayote: Sicyos edulis: Popular in Thai, Mexican, Cajun, Latin America and South Asian dishes, Chayote is vegetable that is used, raw or cooked, similar to summer squash. There are many common names and varieties of Chayote such as Cambray, Castilla black, Castilla white, Chayote, Choko, Christophine, Guisquil, Mirlitron, Prickly and Xalapa black.

What will you grow?

The Basic Rule of the Gourd Family

The bottom line when growing members of the Gourd Family in order to save seeds is this: Grow only one of each species and the seeds you save will breed true.

If you try to grow more than one of each species and want to save seeds, then you need isolation measures such as full isolation distances, tents or enclosures, flower control by removing male flowers of competing types, flower cages with hand pollination, etc.

What’s in my garden?

I tackle this gourd family dilemma and seed saving as follows:

• Zucchini (green and/or yellow) - I don’t care if these colors cross - they are all zucchini to me. I’ve grown varieties like Desert, Black beauty, Yellowfin, Goldy, etc. with excellent results. (C. pepo)

• Butternut - I like to grow Waltham as one that produces very well for me from two or three plants each year. (C. moschata)

• Pumpkin - Since zucchini is C. pepo, I like to grow Queensland Blue which is a C. maxima, and gives me incredibly dense, sweet orange pumpkin flesh in a blue skin.

• Cucumbers - I developed my own specialized type of cucumber years ago, through hybridization, selection and stabilization, that I have grown ever since (Sue’s Cucumber and it’s still C. sativus ).

I don’t have any luck growing melons. I never manage to pick them at the right time - always too soon or too late which makes me crazy, but I have grown birdhouse gourds before and I am seriously thinking about trying some Luffas too.

How about you? Do you grow these vegetables to save seeds? And if yes, what’s your secret for making it work? Let us know in the comments.

Happy Gardening!

Note: This post is already really long so Your Naturalized Moment will return next week.

Paid subscribers can scroll down and will have access to a colorful PDF which simplifies the details of this post into an easy-to-use table. The table helps you select the best combination of plants from the Gourd Family while avoiding seed saving complications. Just choose one from each column and you are all set.

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Read more

Not much can be done when the ground is frozen. But having a plan in place for when things thaw can help you get the garden producing faster than you might expect.

Let’s take a look at some important soil amendments that support quality plant growth and what steps you can take in late winter to make the spring start-up quick and easy.

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What are soil amendments?

Soil amendments are materials that you add to your garden soil that improve soil structure, enhance drainage, increase water retention, adjust pH or builds fertility by feeding soil microbes or plants.

Improve soil structure, feed soil microbes: Compost, leaf litter, worm castings, aged manure, cover crops

Enhance drainage: Perlite, sand, vermiculite, bark chips

Increase water retention: Compost, mulch, peat moss, leaf mold, coco coir, biochar, grass clippings

Always test your soil before trying to adjust pH as follows:

Increase pH: (make soil alkaline) lime, wood ash, crushed eggshells, baking soda

Decrease pH: (make soil acidic) sulfur, sphagnum peat moss, coffee grounds, chopped pine needles, pine bark,

Ready your beds

If the ground is frozen, you largely have to wait for a thaw before much can be done.

You can speed up access to the garden by:

• Working with raised beds which warm up faster than flat rows

• Use row covers or clear plastic covers with hoops to trap warm air near the soil

• Build a cold frame or greenhouse

Once you can work the top few inches of soil, this is when you can add whatever soil amendments are needed. Most garden beds benefit from adding compost and other soil-feeding amendments early in the season.

After incorporating your amendments, you can plant cold season crops which will start to grow as soon as the right temperatures arise.

The earliest vegetables that can grow in cold soil include:
Leafy greens: spinach, lettuce, mustards, Pac choi, arugula (rocket)

Roots: radish, carrots, beets

Alliums: onions, shallots, leeks

Broccoli family: cabbage, broccoli, kale

Legumes: all types of peas (but not beans - beans need warm soil)

Best Practices For Raised Beds

If you have free-standing raised beds, they sometimes start to function more like a container or pot than a garden. These beds benefit from some TLC as early as possible prior to spring planting.

Raised bed start-up tips:

• Clip off any old above-ground plant parts. These can be removed to a compost bin or chopped up and used as mulch.

• Stir up the soil to mix the surface layer and remove any weeds or root mats still remaining.

• Add in amendments that improve soil structure and feed microbes.

• If your soil is dense and heavy, add in amendments that will improve drainage like sand or vermiculite.

• If your beds dried out easily last year, then add amendments to improve water retention like coco coir, vermiculite, or peat. Make sure you mulch once your vegetables are up and growing later in the spring to better retain moisture.

• Make sure to measure pH (using a meter or strips) before you attempt to adjust the pH. Note that a pH of 6.5 is considered ideal for most garden plants, but certain plants do better with higher or lower values. For example, blueberries need acidic soil to thrive.

• Use crop rotation to improve your raised bed performance.

If your raised beds are young and have dropped significantly since last year (like my GrowBoxx) then it is possible stir up the soil that remains, and then essentially repeat the steps as you would to fill a new bed. That means adding some coarse woody material like sticks or small logs, cardboard, leaves, straw and other organic material to about 2/3 of the bed. Then fill the top 1/3 with plantable soil such as a mix of compost, coir, vermiculite, etc. or with a mix purchased from the garden shop.

Depending on the size of your raised beds (and how many you have), you may want to shift last year’s soil to fill one or more of the raised beds, and then simply re-start the empty ones. The bottom line is that it can take a few years to fill big raised beds with a fairly stable mix that only needs a stir and light top-up to make the ready.

The goal of raised bed soil is really the same as any healthy garden soil. It should be living soil, rich in organic matter, and supporting soil microbes and life. For more on what healthy soil looks like read here.

Healthy Soil For Productivity

A square foot of healthy soil can, on average, produce 1 pound of food (or more). The richer your soil, the more productive it becomes.

But healthy soil takes time to develop. There are no real fast fixes. You need to do the work and then have patience as the results unfold. You have to trust the process, and take corrective actions only when you see an imbalance emerging.

Soil building is something you do across the life of your garden. It’s not a one and done. Soil amendments are materials that help us build the soil to boost our garden’s growing potential. What you nurture beneath the surface now becomes the growth you celebrate in a few short weeks.

Ready to dig in?

Your Naturalized Moment

As we work with plants, soil, and seasons, we’re invited to notice how our bodies respond, how our breath shifts, how presence quietly returns. These moments of awareness don’t stay in the garden. They travel with us — into our kitchens, our choices, and the way we meet the world.

Putting your hands in the soil, feeling it slide across your skin, feeling its texture and grit, is a practice as old as time.

We are linked to the soil. Soil microbes trigger the release of serotonin and other feel good hormones. Simple, repetitive movements reduce stress and lower blood pressure. We feel better.

As you touch the soil, pause and take a deep breath. Become fully present and engaged in what you are doing. Consider the generations of humans who have come before you, you have grown food, who have put their hands in the soil. Taking care of the soil unites you with them through time.

Growing food takes patience. Building soil takes patience.

Reflection:

Where in your life are you being impatient with yourself? Holding yourself to unreasonable expectations or timelines?

What can you do this week to support yourself or your loved ones with patience and care?

Your food can be your best medicine — or your slowest poison.
The difference? Freshness, connection, and knowing what your body really needs.

The Naturalized Human is where we rebuild those connections. Each week I write about growing foods, mind-body-food connections, and ways to shift your energy, mood, and outcomes. No diet. No overwhelm.
✨ Become a paid subscriber to support my efforts to bring you the best food connections each week, and access exclusive material like the curated seed-savers posts and bonus materials.

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Whether you want to improve flexibility (one of my big goals this year), or increase your cardio endurance, or rise above a disease, or lose weight, or approach the world with better mental health - all of these things ultimately tie back to basic daily rituals and the foods you eat.

We are a composite of what we do daily:

• which activities we choose (or don’t choose)

• what we eat and drink

• how we sleep and rest

• who we spend time with

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One of the ways we can move ourselves towards healthier whole food eating is by growing some food ourselves. When you put your time, energy and focus on growing food, it becomes really hard to not then use that food in the kitchen, or find a way to store it for later, or use it to generate seeds (food for the future).

Gardening - big or small - acres or patio containers - tiny sprouts or mammoth sunflowers - connects us back to our food.

Pouring food from a bag or box or can offers us nothing. It could just as easily be food pellets (like dog food) for all it matters to us when we consume food that way. It’s mindless. And don’t get me wrong, because there are days I also choose the mindless option for convenience.

But compared to the patience and effort of growing food and bringing it into the kitchen and preparing it - there is no comparison to how this food tastes and feels and feeds us body and mind.

Think about it. The closest thing to “fast food” in nature is probably berries - pick it and pop it in your mouth. But even these require that you plant and grow it (sometimes for years), or know how and when and where to go pick it wild.

There is a difference between a fast fix on a busy night, and having the fast fix as the default pattern of eating all the time.

Gardening on any scale puts our hands in the dirt. Growing anything outdoors means exposure to sun and rain and wind and soundscapes and interactions with the natural world. And even snippets of fresh herbs change the course of meals over time.

Why? Because fresh food creates the possibility, the invitation, for health. Even small substitutions add up and compound over time. And success breeds success. Feeling good lets us try another step, and then another.

The garden can be more than metaphor for growing your health. It’s the blueprint. Planning the garden is also planning for your good health and longevity.

Let’s dive in.

Planning The Garden

The key things to consider when planning a garden, or taking stock of how things are growing at any time of year include:

• Available space

• Light (hours of sun)

• Zone or region (frost free days)

• What you like to eat

• What saves you money

Let’s take these one by one.

Space

Take a look around at what space you have that can grow food. Lots of people say - oh I don’t have anywhere. Really? Because with the creativity of the internet, what counts as garden space is quite remarkable.

Of course anything bigger than a conventional yard has room for a garden somewhere. Perfect. You are good to go.

But if you are dealing with something smaller then think about these options for converting or better utilizing space:

• Can you grow vertically? - a trellis, against a fence, ON the fence?

• Can you use pots or raised beds?

• Can you convert a rooftop?

• Can you share space with someone else who does have a yard?

• Can you use a community garden plot?

I want to highlight the idea of sharing with someone else who does have a yard as a creative fix. Friends of mine did exactly this. They approached an elderly person who lived nearby and offered to the do the yard work and put in a garden in exchange for improving the look of the yard and some of the food grown. Big win-win.

Space to grow food is out there - you may just need to think outside of the box.

Light

All plants need some kind of light to grow. How many hours of sunlight does your space get in the peak growing months? That determines a lot of what you can and cannot grow.

Shaded areas can still produce a LOT of food. But if you want to grow the heat lovers like tomatoes and peppers and melons - these require full sun which is usually defined as 6-8 hours (but more is better).

Pick plants that will thrive in the light conditions you have. This what will give you the most satisfying results.

You typically cannot increase the amount of sun, but you can definitely decrease it using tall plants, barriers, and shade cloth to keep some areas cooler if your space is wide open.

Zone/Region

What you are looking at here in terms of the zone or region is the number of frost-free days or the length of your growing season. Both should be available through local government or plant community information sources for your area.

For example, even though I live in Canada, and four hours north of Vancouver, my zone is semi-arid and HOT in the summer. There is sage brush and prickly pear cactus in town. My farm is at a higher elevation in the valley, but it is still exceptionally hot and sunny all summer long - perfect for growing anything I want.

One of my sisters lives a couple hours further north than me and her situation is radically different - with a very short growing season (fewer frost free months) and lower daytime highs.

Where you are is key to finding success in the garden. You can vastly influence your available growing days if you are willing to start plants indoors early from seed, pay for larger transplants, or use season extenders like greenhouses and high tunnels.

What You Like To Eat

Beyond the technical things needed to grow food - choosing to grow things you really like to eat is the best place to start if you want to make gardening a life long habit.

What I mean is don’t turn the garden into an extension of a punishing “healthy” diet that you are trying to force feed into your life. If you hate beans - don’t plant row after row of something you don’t want to eat or know how to cook.

Instead, prioritize the whole foods you love to eat first and optimize space for them. THEN experiment with some foods that are pushing the boundaries of your food comfort zone. Start simple and grow your garden along with your health-oriented taste buds.

I am totally amazed at how my gardening experiments have turned into a diverse plant diet for me with a much broader menu range than I would have ever imagined even a few years ago.

So start with what you love to eat. Gain some success. Then branch out to new color varieties, new types, or to something completely different. Let the growing adventure be your guide to exploring what’s possible where you live.

What Saves You Money

Big space or small - in the end, the high cost of food is hard to ignore. Taking a bite out of your food bill with home grown food can be incredibly satisfying.

And for some, there is ample food available at markets in the summer, but then food prices jump for winter. Growing food to stock your pantry or freezer can be a game changer for healthy food in the winter when local food dwindles. It can also help to make some pre-made meals and have them ready for the days cooking is too much.

Likewise, growing food to produce your own sprouting or microgreen seed can be a cost-saving game changer. It only takes a few Pac choi, arugula, mustard, or kale to produce a nice bowl of seeds for fresh sprouts (and next year’s garden). Some plants are trickier than others to get seed from, but with a bit of practice seed saving can drastically lower your food bills over time. Buy it once and grow it forever.

You’ll find lots of seed saving information here at The Naturalized Human. And paid subscribers get access to a curated list of posts and additional content on seed saving.

Planning For Your Health

You can change your health through gardening. It’s good to circle back to those key health issues we started with and connect up some dots.

So for me, my health goal is greater flexibility. For sure, the physical activities of gardening will help me with moving my body frequently and encourage me to stretch and lift.

But flexibility (from the inside out) requires protein, vitamin C, calcium and magnesium to name a few key nutrients. To target my flexibility goal through food means to prioritize plants like spinach, Pac choi, kale and broccoli. I am also going to try some more beans this year (while still trying to stop the darn voles from snapping the stems every time! - I have an idea on that - stay tuned).

Cardio health? Prioritize sources of potassium and magnesium, plant fibers and vitamins like C and E. Leafy greens, especially beet tops, black beans, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds are good choices here.

Disease fighting? Focus on immune boosters rich in vitamins and antioxidants. That means maximizing colorful vegetables.

• Red - lycopene and anthocyanins

• Orange/yellow - Beta carotene and carotenoids

• Blue/purple - anthocyanins (flavonoids)

• White/tan - anthoxanthins (flavonoid) and allicin (organosulfur)

Losing weight? High fiber, low calorie options from the garden abound. Shifting your diet to focus on whole foods is key to long term weight control. Nutrient dense options like carrots, cucumbers, peppers and celery would be high on my list for this.

Mental health? As with flexibility, being outside in the garden is itself a mental health booster. From the inside out - any of the above suggestions along with herbs like rosemary, sage, lemon balm, mint and lavender can support brain function and mood.

Common nutrient deficiencies associated with depression include low vitamin D, low B vitamins (especially B6, B9 and B12), low magnesium, low iron, low essential amino acids like tryptophan and phenylalanine. (You can read more about the food-mood connection here)

Flowers have also been shown to be great mood lifters, and while not all are edible, their presence in the garden is key for improved pollination, pest control and boosting up your mood.

Outside in and inside out

Gardening is one of the coolest activities because it works on your health from outside in (digging, planting, weeding, lifting, bending) and the inside out (great nutritious whole food).

Starting this week - and every week in 2026 - I’ll be sharing an embodiment practice to help build your mind-body-food connection, called Your Naturalized Moment.

Share your garden plans in the comments. What’s going to change in 2026?

Happy Growing!

Your Naturalized Moment

As we work with plants, soil, and seasons, we’re invited to notice how our bodies respond, how our breath shifts, how presence quietly returns. These moments of awareness don’t stay in the garden. They travel with us — into our kitchens, our choices, and the way we meet the world.

This week, take a walk outside.

Take stock of your available space.

A garden does not have to be big to have a powerful impact on your mental and physical wellbeing. But it does have to exist, take up space and time, and match your health goals.

Ask yourself these two questions:

Does the use of my outdoor space match my health goals?

Where can I fit gardening into my space and time in a way that supports my health and wellbeing?

Visualization: What is one thing you can see yourself changing to support your health goals in 2026?

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Plants are gifts that keep on giving

In recent posts, I have covered off some of the ways in which flowering houseplants can boost mood, and how aromatic herbs can be used strategically to improve mental health.

Plants are a gift that keeps on giving, especially when they can produce food as well. Right now my lemon is blooming, and the citrusy sweet scent of those flowers is simply amazing.

Consider the following plant gift ideas:

Clean air - low/moderate light: Spider plants, Sansevieria, Bamboo palm

Bright flowers - Hibiscus, Bird of Paradise, Alstroemeria (Peruvian lily), Geraniums, Violets, Hoya

Bright scent - Potted herbs like Rosemary, Basil, Thyme, Sage, Lemon balm, Mint

Indoor food - A greater challenge, but very fun to grow - consider Citrus (lemon, lime), Tea (Camellia sinensis), dwarf Pomegranate, Olive, and even plants like Dragon fruit and Avocado.

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Seeds inspire future abundance

For beginning and expert gardeners alike, few things are more exciting than new seeds to try. December is particularly wonderful because the 2026 seed catalogues come out (print and/or online) and they are bursting with ideas and cultivars (old and new).

Consider the following seed gift ideas:

All from one: buy a collection of seeds of the same plant, e.g. all the types of Basil, or Mint, or Lavender, a collection of Broccoli, a rainbow of Lettuce

Starter set: Many seed companies offer a beginners starter pack of easy to grow vegetables, e.g. one type of Lettuce, Carrot, Cucumber, Bean etc.

Out of the ordinary: Recently I have found seed companies offering some really exciting opportunities like Dragon fruit and Eucalyptus.

“Instant” food

Microgreens and sprouts might not exactly be “instant” food, but they are as close as it gets when it comes to growing your food. Ready in a few days to a few weeks, the gift of seeds and/or some basic infrastructure to grow them more easily is a beautiful green gift.

Consider the following sprouting or microgreen gifts:

Sprouts: A variety of sprouting seeds and some basic growing tools which can range from jars with special lids, to sprouting systems like the Biosta (shopping links at the end). You can get single seed packs like mung beans (for classic bean sprouts) or pre-blended mixes that are great for salads or meals (my favorite is a Brassica blend that has broccoli, kale, radish, arugula).

Micro-greens: These tasty gems take a bit longer but produce an abundance of food and can include bigger sprouts like pea shoots and sunflowers. These often need extra light although there are some creative ways to get big sprouts using a system where you start them in darkness, and just green them for a day or two in a window sill.

Gift ideas here might include a small table top - light/heat mat system, a little starter dome pack, all the way up to more elaborate systems (shopping links at the end).

The DYI approach

Another gardening gift idea that I love is the assembly of just enough pieces to let someone take the wheel and grow something.

A small project: This might include a particularly beautiful ceramic pot, a small hand tool, a packet or two of seed for herbs or flowers, a small bag of potting soil (or a gift card to go buy some soil) - just enough to be a small project without overwhelming.

Potted bulbs: I was gifted some beautiful bulbs that came as a gift set with the pot and the peat to get them going. Several weeks later I had beautiful flowers to enjoy and later to plant out into my garden where they can grow and flower again next year.

Garden and plant books: I think gardening books can fall into this category too. There are so many to choose from - everything from beginner how-to’s, plant identification, and on up to expert level bonsai, tree pruning, plant breeding and so much more. . . .and a book gift card can work well too.

Oh and don’t forget - you can gift Substacks too.

Give a gift subscription

Take it to the Kitchen

And anyone who grows food probably enjoys cooking it too. So kitchen gifts with gardeners in mind is definitely a winning solution.

This year, I went all in for myself with some non-stick (but chemical coating free) titanium cooking pans so that I can get rid of my old non-sticks that I had accumulated over the years.

But there are plenty of kitchen ideas that will delight gardening friends.

Consider these kitchen gifts for gardeners:

Good knives! No explanation needed here when it comes to food preparation.

Good peelers! - I have a regular peeler but also a julienne peeler that works like magic to create long skinny cuts of carrots and green beans.

A salad spinner - right sized to the need at hand, but a good quality spinner makes light work of washing and drying greens from the garden.

A small chopper - I never thought I needed one of these until I bought a small (and very easy to clean) mini-food processor. Fast and great for chopping up onions-celery-carrots for a sofrito or soup, basil for a pesto, grinding some nuts into flower or turning dates into a nougat.

A tea pot (perhaps paired with some herbs meant for tea?) - I have one that has an integrated tea strainer making it so easy to create lovely teas from home grown plants and flowers.

Hope springs from a garden

It takes courage and hope to plant a garden. There are so many things that can (and do) go wrong . . . and yet, with enough time and patience seeds turn into plants and create food. It’s an every day miracle.

There is a lot of science now accumulating on the mental and physical benefits of putting our hands in the soil, breathing in soil aromas, and connecting to plants. Creating a garden green gift for someone you love is a wonderful way of boosting someone up for days and weeks ahead. A gift that literally keeps growing!

Happy holidays!

The Naturalized Human brings together mind-body-food connections that help promote better health and a more sustainable world. Free subscribers get a weekly newsletter (usually on Sundays). Paid subscribers (just $5US/mo or $50US/year) get access to exclusive content and help support me as an independent writer.

If you are new to The Naturalized Human, you can read more about soils in these posts:

The Shopping List!

Looking for more help and direct links to some of these ideas? I have your back. Here are links to the products I use and love. These are Amazon affiliate links.

Biosta Seed Sprouter - 3 tier, self draining seed sprouter. I’ve had the same one for years - dependable and produces better sprouts than jars in my opinion.

Masontop - Mason jar sprouter starter set - these are dependable jar lids and I have also used these for years.

Kitchen Aid Mini-food processor - I’ve had mine now for 2 years and it is dependable and fast, and very easy to clean.

Single serve salad spinner - this is perfect for rinsing microgreens.

Mums’s sprouting seeds - this isn’t the exact brand that I buy - but the concept is the one I was talking about - getting someone started with a great variety pack of seeds

Barrina T5 Grow Lights (LED) -this is a big pack, but there are smaller kits available. Easy to set up anywhere.

Julienne peeler - looks like this - they come in a variety of grip styles and with or without vegetable peelers. The julienne part usually has box-shaped holes in the blade that create the long thin slices.

One of the challenges with the Substack newsletter model is that some content is really “evergreen” - meaning it changes very little one season to the next. But that previous writing gets buried into the time line of the archives. In this week’s edition of The Naturalized Human, I am going frame out the steps needed to grow microgreens and sprouts at home, and reference some older posts that can give you a deeper look.

Let’s dive in.

Why is this SO worth it?

A seed holds everything essential needed to create a new plant. Just add water (and sometimes heat and light) and a new life begins. The initial hours and days of plant growth represent some of the most energy and nutrient dense foods you could ever access. And the beauty of it is, you can do this right in your kitchen or home, with minimal tools or equipment.

Picked at their peak of freshness, microgreens and sprouts are packed with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Perhaps even more importantly, they are your one-stop-shop for direct access to the major phytochemicals.

Phytochemicals is just a science word for plant-based bioactive compounds, such as carotenoids, polyphenols, isoprenoids, phytosterols, saponins, dietary fibers, and polysaccharides. These compounds have been linked with health benefits such as the prevention of diabetes, obesity, cancer, cardiovascular diseases (Molecules, 2023). That’s pretty powerful stuff for such tiny bits of food.

I’ve written more about the health benefits of microgreens here and specifically for sunflowers here.

The unmatched freshness and quality of microgreens and sprouts produced at home makes this one of best nutritional supplements available. And growing your own can reduce your food bill, which we all need right now as food prices spiral ever higher.

Growing sprouts at home

The essential difference between sprouts and microgreens is that sprouts are grown without soil and microgreens are grown with soil.

Sprouts can be grown a variety of ways which include in glass jars, in trays, and in specialized sprouting units. The key to successful sprouts is to soak the seeds first, and then to rinse them often.

1. Start with a quality seeds. That can be your own saved seeds, or seed you have sourced commercially. (I cover finding seed sources here)

2. Add 1 tsp to 1 Tbsp of seed to a quart jar. Cover the seeds with at least 1 inch or more of warm water and let them soak for at least 4 hours for small seeds and up to 12 hours for large seeds.

3. Drain the water. Add fresh water and swirl the seeds around in the jar. Drain the water and use a breathable lid like cheesecloth or a sprouting lid designed for quart jars.

4. Place the jar on its side on the counter somewhere out of your way.

5. Rinse the seeds in the jar two to three times a day using fresh water and draining each time. Return the jar to its side, working to spread the seeds out along the side of the jar.

6. Within a few hours to a few days, the seeds will sprout. Continue rinsing and pouring off the water. The seed coatings will separate and float away with the rinse water.

7. When the seeds have reached the desired size, give them a final rinse and pat or spin dry before using them in your favourite meal.

Tips: The jar method is the most labor intensive. If I am growing sprouts I prefer using a Biosta sprouter (link below) that can create multiple trays of sprouts at once with minimal effort on my part. I think there are even electric sprouting units as well, although I have never used any of them myself.

Growing microgreens at home

Unlike sprouts, microgreens are seeds that are allowed to germinate and start to grow in soil. The advantages include far less labor and the ability to grow bigger greens.

1. Use a thin layer of soil in a tray that will drain out water. You only need 1 to 4 inches of soil, depending on the size of the seeds you are growing.

2. Sprinkle the microgreen seeds on the soil and then cover with a thin layer of additional soil. Larger seeds need more soil in the tray and more soil covering them. (Some large seeds like peas and sunflowers do better if pre-soaked before planting)

3. Water the seeded tray thoroughly and drain off the excess.

4. Place in a warm spot with good light, then wait and watch for the magic. Keep the soil moist but not soggy as the seeds sprout and grow.

5. Harvest (cut with scissors) when the plants reach the desired height (usually 2 to 4 inches)

6. Rinse with water to remove any soil, and enjoy in your favorite recipe. A small salad spinner is ideal for this (link below).

   

12 Best seeds to start with

Not all seeds are suitable for sprouting and microgreens, and some are simply much easier to grow than others.

I cover this in detail in the post: Twelve of the best microgreens to grow at home.

This post includes both a detailed list of the twelve AND a handy chart summarizes the information including the seeds size and type of sprout expected, time to harvest and how long the microgreens will keep.

I also cover whether growing combinations of seeds is a good idea, because growing microgreens isn’t the same as eating them.

Troubleshooting microgreens

As with any skill, part of becoming successful is learning how to troubleshoot the problems that come up along the way.

With sprouts, the issues are usually quickly apparent: you see mold! And the safest approach is to throw out that batch and start again, making sure your jar is properly clean. Moldy sprouts are often from improperly draining following rinsing, or keeping the jars in a place that is too cold.

Microgreens are a little different. The problems most often encountered include:

• A tray with few plants

• Good growth but only in patches and lots of bare soil

• Seeds that sprout and then die

• Mold

• Fungus gnats

You will find the first three issues detailed in this post: Troubleshooting microgreens at home Part I. And the rest in the Part II post.

Food safety reminders

Food safety is critical when it comes to sprouts and microgreens, even at home. Your kitchen and process is susceptible to the same contamination risks as commercial operations.

Main concerns include E. coli, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella spp, which are all bacteria that can get introduced to foods systems and result in serious food poisoning. Health Canada recommends cooking sprouts to reduce this risk.

Microgreens are essentially the same as other food you would harvest from the garden, and should be subject to the same health safety practices.

I have summarized key methods for keeping foods safe home in this post: Homegrown doesn’t automatically make it safe.

The Shopping List (next week!)

I get asked all the time about what products I use at home and in the garden. Whether you are shopping for yourself, or crossing something off your holiday list these are the tools that are my go-to items for enhancing my food experience.

Next week I will give the run-down, and top/favorites list.

Subscribe now so you don’t miss out.

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I did specifically mention two of my favorite tools in this post, so here are the Amazon affiliate links for those. Affiliate links do provide a small bonus to me if you choose to shop via these links, without affecting the price you pay. I only recommend items that I use personally (or the closest example I can find on Amazon).

Biosta Sprouter - I’ve had my Biosta sprouter for more than 15 years and it is still going strong. I prefer the flat sprouting tray and easy rinsing compared to the crowded conditions using jars (although both methods work to produce sprouts).

Single serve salad spinner - I simply love this little spinner that is just the right size for washing and spinning microgreens. I fill it up with cuttings and water. Let them soak. Drain off the water and then spin all in the same container.

Grow your own food

Whether your goals are overall improvement, fixing a specific health issue, losing weight, or just cutting your food costs, growing some of your own food is the go-to move that will help change everything.

Nothing will change your relationship with food faster than taking personal responsibility for nurturing the plants (and even animals) that will sustain your life. Growing food, like hunting and gathering, is part of a human ritual as old as time.

We all eat, and food is our first medicine (or our slowest poison). Microgreens and sprouts offer a hands on food-growing experience, regardless of where you live. And as the days get shorter, and the weather cooler, nothing brightens your meal more than fresh greens.

Ask questions or share your favorite seed stories or recipes in the comments.

Happy growing!

The Naturalized Human brings together the science and human experience of the mind-body-food connection. I encourage you to subscribe and become part of a like-minded community of people interested in creating health and wellness in an ever-more complex and distressing world. I seek out the latest research, and translate that into actions we can each take to improve our food, our health, and our planet. Support my work further by becoming a paid Subscriber for just $5/month.

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But, no, she insisted. She had already started some “dwarf micro tomatoes” and the growth rate were mind-blowing. They were already flowering!

My mind was screaming marketing gimmick - seriously what is a micro dwarf? - but her early results were suggesting otherwise. Of course, this made me curious and so I had to dive in and learn more.

Let’s take a look at micro dwarf tomatoes and what’s behind the tiny tomato trend for indoor food you can grow at home.

What is a micro dwarf tomato?

Most gardeners are familiar with one or more of the classic tomatoes grown for food production. I tend to think of them in two groups - table tomatoes and paste tomatoes. They grow several feet tall, often need staking or trellising for good production, and produce wonderful edible fruits in many shapes and colors.

Tomatoes come in two main growing forms as well. Determinate tomatoes grow to a specific height and then produce all their fruit at once. Indeterminate tomatoes have a vine like habit so they continue to grow and to produce flowers, setting fruit over a longer period of time.

Dwarf tomatoes, which are better known as patio or bush tomatoes, typically grow 2-3 feet tall (approx 60-90 cm) and may be either determinate or indeterminate in how they grow and set fruit.

And that brings us to the smallest tomato plants available: micro-dwarf tomatoes! A micro dwarf tomato grows to 12 inches (30 cm) tall or less. Most (but not all) are determinate tomatoes that set their fruit in one concentrated harvest, which provides a more rewarding experience when growing them indoor. Their small size and vigorous growth make them exceptional container plants, small enough for many indoor light table set-ups.

Growing micro dwarf tomatoes indoors

Micro dwarf tomatoes are easy to start from seed. My sister bought 14 micro dwarf varieties off of Etsy and started a total of 16 seeds (1 for each of 12 varieties and 2 seeds for 2 varieties for a total of 16 seeds started). She started them in peat pelt pots. Four germinated overnight and the remaining 11 germinated the next day. Only one seed failed to germinate. So literally 15 of 16 seeds started germinated fast. That means she was off to a great start!

Micro dwarf tomatoes will thrive in a 3-4 liter planting pot (which is the equivalent of a 0.8 to 1 gallon nursery pot; or in other words a pot that is roughly 6-7 inches diameter and between 6 and 8 inches tall).

It’s best to use a balanced, well-draining potting soil mix for tomatoes. Given their fast growth, you might not need anything more than that. I like to use an organic fertilizer like Gaia Greens All Purpose 4-4-4 (amazon affiliate link) on my houseplants, and container tomatoes would be no different there. Just make sure to not over-do on the nitrogen component or you will end up with all leaves and no flowers and fruits.

Some of the varieties I looked at actually do well with no extra light, meaning a sunny windowsill would be sufficient. Others specifically stated that additional light would be needed for production indoors. That means choosing your micro dwarf tomato variety carefully for your specific space and growing conditions will be key to a successful indoor growing adventure.

My sister is using a light table, and her micro dwarf tomatoes have rocketed up and are flowering just two weeks after planting! Two weeks! That’s impressive for tomatoes.

This result is what made me go ahead and order some to try for myself. I don’t typically buy off Etsy, but a quick Google search lead me to Semences des artisans where I found 4 micro dwarf tomatoes to try out of about 40 types listed. I loved being able to choose heirloom varieties that I can later save seeds from. I also ended up ordering some other really cool plants for next year’s garden like Violet Sparkle Sweet Pepper - I just LOVE that name LOL - I can hardly wait to grow that one!

I picked out the following types to try growing indoors for winter (I’ve included links so you can look at the details yourself - these are not affiliate links):

• Birdie Rouge Micro Dwarf link (red cherry, determinate, 20-30cm tall, 50-55 days-minimal extra light)

• Hardin’s Miniature Micro-Dwarf Tomato link (red paste type, 20-30 cm tall-needs extra light)

• Orange Hat Micro-Dwarf Tomato link (highly productive orange-yellow cherry, 20-30 cm tall - needs extra light)

• Window Box Red Micro Dwarf Tomato link (red cherry, 20-25 cm tall - minimal extra light)

Micro Dwarf Tomato Tips

No pruning

Because these are micro dwarf tomatoes, you do not need to prune them to keep them small. In fact, anything more than a minor cosmetic snip is going to potentially impact your final yield.

No sucker removal

Also because most are determinate types, removing suckers will drastically impact your yields. Those suckers will grow, flower and produce fruit. So as with pruning, remove very few suckers or don’t do this at all. Let your micro dwarf tomato grow au naturel.

Pot Size

Given the rapid growth and small stature of these micro dwarf tomatoes, I would recommend germinating the seeds and then planting them directly into their final container size of the 0.8 to 1 gallon nursery pot. That will avoid disturbing the seedlings and any chance of transplanting shock that might delay flowering if you try to increase the pot size in stages.

Fertilizers?

A well balanced potting soil might be enough. If you want to add anything, stick to a low N-P-K ratio (organic!) fertilizer for early growth and then switch to a higher potassium fertilizer to boost flowering.

Because micro dwarf tomatoes grow so fast, you might get away with simple homemade washes, like soaked organic banana peels and/or crushed egg shells in water used for watering the containers to add a little extra nutrient boost.

Extra Light?

My experiences growing food indoors suggest that extra light is going to increase the yield potential for micro dwarf tomatoes. Look for a full spectrum LED for energy efficiency.

The timing of the lights is important. You want to set a timer so the plants are getting 16-18 hours of light and 6-8 hours of darkness. This mimics a full summer day/night regime which provides natural cues to the plant for maximum growth.

I purchased a set of Barrina T5 LED lights last year that I used to replace my old fluorescent lights in my set up. (this is an affiliate link if you want to check them out on Amazon).

Lights need to be 2-6 cm (1-2.5 inches) above the plants for best light utilization. Greater distances will encourage leggy growth, even in a micro dwarf. Of course in practice this precise placement is usually a challenge. Let the plants tell you if they are happy. Look for strong growth patterns and consistent flowers, otherwise adjust your lights or add risers under your pots to achieve the right distances.

Pollination?

Lucky for tomato lovers everywhere, tomatoes are self fertile and require very little intervention to set fruit. A good shake of the plant might be all that is needed to encourage self-fertilization.

But if you cannot resist the urge to make like a bee, then use a small paint brush to gently sweep pollen around in the flower. Move from one flower to the next and then circle back to your first flower for safe measure.

If you are growing multiple types and hope to keep saving them purely, then change paint brushes between different varieties and try to maintain some physical distance between different varieties as well.

You can also bag specific flowers or branches to control pollination definitively and thereby maintain pure stocks. For more on seed saving - visit the tomato seed saving post on The Naturalized Human, or become a paid subscriber to gain access to a curated seed saving program of posts that are a mix of free and paid content.

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Winter Indoor Tomatoes Await

The research I’ve done into micro dwarf tomatoes has convinced me this is not a marketing scam, and that these tiny varieties exist and may well produce fruit fairly easily under indoor conditions, some with just a good windowsill.

The rotating postal strike in Canada means my seeds may (or may not) arrive for some time. In the meantime I will vicariously through my sister’s micro dwarf tomato experiment.

My plan will be to start with 4-6 plants as soon as my seeds arrive and see if my results compare to what my sister has been able to do in the meantime. I will need to use a heat mat for my set up since my house is a lot cooler than my sister’s. It will be a fun (and likely tasty) experiment. So stay tuned for updates.

With the ever increasing cost of food, the idea of having even a few fresh ripe tomatoes in winter makes my heart soar. Micro dwarf tomatoes offer the potential of real cherry tomatoes on tiny plants, and that makes them worth exploring for my indoor edible foodscape.

Now over to you? Ready to give these a try?

Stay tuned for more about micro dwarf tomatoes (and other mind, body, food topics) as we head into the indoor food season by subscribing to The Naturalized Human. Free subscribers get a weekly newsletter (usually on Sundays). Paid subscribers get access to exclusive content and help support me as an independent writer to continue producing this work.

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My sister Dee’s list of micro dwarf tomatoes that she sourced off Etsy:

• Mongolian dwarf red

• Mongolian dwarf yellow

• Chibikko

• Vilma

• Utyonok duckling

• Bonsai

• Rejina red

• Yellow balcony

• Spanish Dancer

• Pinocchio red

• Betalux

• Bodies jaune

• Monetary

• Spanish dancer yellow

Note: In this post I have provided some affiliate and some non-affiliate links to things that I myself have purchased. Amazon affiliate links pay a small fee to affiliates for promoting products if you choose to purchase after having clicked the link. Again, I only use these links on products that I myself have purchased.

Growing food comes with it’s own special mix of challenges. It takes courage and patience and perseverance.

Harvest time abounds with hope and anxiety coexisting in dance as old as time.

The bone-weary joy of hauling in the harvest is only matched and understood by the heavy anxiety that something will go wrong first - the weather will break, the machine will fail, the crop may be compromised, the yield will be too small. And for those who then must sell the harvest - will the market be there for them?

Hope and anxiety. A harvest and a feast. A fail and uncertainty, instability, unraveling.

My harvest this year feels particularly amazing given how late I got my plants into the ground due to the redesign in my garden area. It’s remarkable that the tomatoes are plentifully, there are some squashes and pumpkins, and the seed crops are heavy. My first ever cabbages are a particular delight and surprise. Somehow all this bounty, even though I broke all the timing rules this year.

But then again, of all the years, the weather was as perfect for growing food here as I have ever witnessed in the last 30 years. Every wild food-bearing plant from valley bottom to alpine was LOADED with bounty, nearly without exception. It has been perhaps the most remarkable year ever for growing food. And so my transgressions on timing were swept away in the magic of it all. Definitely something to be grateful for - to witness and partake in. And it just illustrates how one year can be so very different from the last (or the next).

I am making sauces. Drying cherry tomatoes and peppers. Creating my first sauerkraut. And collecting up vast amounts of seeds because they ensure the harvest for years to come. There is a feast this weekend, it’s Canadian Thanksgiving. There is so much to be grateful for.

But co-existing with this personal bounty is a world in which the food systems are breaking down.

Food prices are skyrocketing in North America while many farmers hang on the edge of bankruptcy. The system is rotten to its core, with farmers left holding the bag.

It broke my heart to read about the destruction of heritage olive groves in Gaza and West Bank earlier this year. Millions of trees have been destroyed purposely in the war. It will take decades to replace such a loss. It’s just one example of the heinous attacks on food production happening to the people there.

Ukraine has lost millions of hectares to Russian occupation and/or cannot access the land needed to grow and harvest crops (a deliberate Russian strategy to try and defeat the Ukrainian people).

All around the world, food systems are struggling, and then we can throw in climate change, unstable global finances, trade barriers, and more.

Gratitude and Hope

Now more than ever, we need to find our gratitude for the simple things in life - the food on our table, the family and friends that gather, and the triumph of hope for one more season. Because the anxiety is deafening.

Growing food is not an option. Someone has to do it. The people who do are growing food are everyday heroes, quietly feeding the world.

As long as there are farmers and growers - of every size and description - then there is hope.

I wish you a bountiful Thanksgiving from Canada - and raise my glass to the farmers of the world. May we all get to keep growing and feasting for another year.

And I leave you with this picture of the deer resting in my front yard yesterday. Farm land grows more than food when it is cared for in an earth-centric way.

Your food can be your best medicine — or your slowest poison.
The difference? Freshness, connection, and knowing what your body really needs.

The Naturalized Human is where we rebuild that connection. Each week I write about growing foods, mind-body-food connections, and ways to shift your energy, mood, and outcomes. Not a diet to follow. Not overwhelm. Just practical ways to build health and wellness over time.
✨ Becoming a paid subscriber is a way to show your support and keep this newsletter coming each week.

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For those interested in the fermentation lock on my sauerkraut - I purchased this kit from Amazon that includes 4 fermentation rocks and locks, a wooden tool for packing the canning jars and a recipe book. I am very happy with it so far. (This is an amazon affiliate link for the kit).

This morning’s joy comes in the form beautiful little peeping chicks - mostly in shades of white/silver (who will be “splash” as adults) and blue - Marans and Marans-crosses. Marans are a hardy French chicken that produce the darkest mahogany colored eggs and exquisite meat. When crossed to blue egg chickens, they create olive and green eggs which are just so cool (Green Eggs And Ham fan here! Thanks Dr. Seuss!).

Looking through the little window in the incubator, I count 10 out of 15 eggs so far. They will stay in their cozy warm home until tomorrow morning when they move to a brooder. This is a crazy late hatch, but I wanted to be sure to keep this particular line of Marans strong for next year and that means having more chicks.

Yesterday’s work also included stripping out a broken gate and damaged fence (darn cows!) and replacing it all with livestock panels and livestock panel gates which in theory will solve the problem.

The “problem” comes in the form of dearest Buttercup (an 8 year old dun Dexter I’ve had since she was a yearling). Butter learned that if she put her head under the gate she could flip it off it’s holders and thereby let the herd out. . .. just lovely. That means this gate has been chained closed for the last two months while I sorted out the repair and the panels finally arrived. She’s broken two gates this way - both had similar hinge systems. . . . both sections are now repaired with unflippable gates.

Somewhere in between all of that came the harvests from the garden. Tray loads of cherry tomatoes became dried little nuggets of pure delight this weekend. I LOVE dried cherry tomatoes sprinkled onto my pizza, flatbreads or nachos. Yum! I always say I never have enough, but this year might prove otherwise.

I’ve grown many of these varieties for years like Sweet 100, Cigar, and Yellow pear. BumbleBee (the striped one) and Sungold (orange) are newer, with only a couple of years being in the mix. Sungold is like eating pure sunshine. It’s one of the best flavored new cherry tomatoes I have tried. I find Bumblee too big and so it has to be quartered to dry well which adds to the work. I’m not sure I will keep growing it, but I also said that last year and it’s still here.

I also tried one called Indigo Rose last year - a dark black cherry tomato that eventually turns red. Except for me they just would not ripen and sat there black and unripe forever for weeks longer than any other cherry. I was disappointed entirely with them, and they were too big for me to be a “cherry” tomato. They were tried and dismissed. And that is the part of gardening I love: trying new varieties and seeing if they match what I need and like or not.

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Saving Tomato Seeds

And while all that goodness was being processed from fresh to winter storage, I saved seeds from my cherry tomatoes. I actually started some last week, so you can see the difference between fresh and ready seed cultures.

Tomato seeds are covered in a gelatinous material when fresh. To dry the seed for next year, that “jelly” has to be stripped off the seed. The same is true for cucumbers, and you use this same method for them too.

First scoop out the tomato seeds. With cherry tomatoes I just use my finger to “pop” out the seed core when I cut them in half. I still dry the fleshy part, while the seed blob goes into a small jar. Once you’ve saved seed from several fruits, add water to the jar and swirl it all around. Let that sit for about week or more until the materials break down and the seeds are at the bottom of the jar. Temperature and variety affect how long it takes. And you might get a mold layer on top (or not).

So the jars on the right will get strained today or tomorrow. I first add fresh water and swirl all the materials around in the jar. Usually the top scummy layer can be lifted off or will float off.

Then I use a very fine stainless steel strainer to finish collecting and thoroughly washing the seeds in cold water. After they drip for a few minutes, I spread them out in a single layer on a paper towel and leave the to dry for a few weeks. I write the name of the variety in black marker on the paper towel, so I don’t get confused later.

When completely dry, I just fold up the paper towels and slide them into a zip-lock bag for storage.

And today’s adventure . . .

Today a friend is coming to pick up four pullets for their forever home. I will harvest up tomatoes for saucing today. The Italian prune plums are grapes are ready and I’ll start picking and process those.

In between some of that I am hoping to take a few more steps forward on the main season job this year which is a repair to my hay field fence. Fencing has been the non-negotiable task of this year. It happens on an old farm where everything breaks at once and this is one of those kind of years.

Next week I will return with more mind-body-food content. . . . and likely a chick update. And in the meantime, happy gardening!

Your food can be your best medicine — or your slowest poison.
The difference? Freshness, connection, and knowing what your body really needs.

The Naturalized Human is where we rebuild that connection. Each week I write about growing foods, mind-body-food connections, and ways to shift your energy, mood, and outcomes. No diet to follow. No overwhelm.
✨ Become a paid subscriber to access exclusive content like the curated Seed Saving program.

Subscribe now

My grandparents (both sides) left Europe to escape the Russians decades ago. My dad was just 5 years old when he came across the ocean in a ship packed with people fleeing the war. My mother was born in Canada. I was born in Canada.

I am old enough to remember the fear of the Cold War, and was a teenager when singing along with Sting in 1985: “We share the same biology. Regardless of ideology. Believe me when I say to you, I hope the Russians love their children too”.

Somehow here we are again?

So in these very troubled times of deepening political rhetoric and uncertainty, and the threat of WWIII looming, how do we the people in our respective countries build resilience and hope?

There is no hope without a reliable food system. Doesn’t matter where you live - food, water, shelter are still the first factors of survival.

Seeds, rare breeds, and creating garden biodiversity are the key ingredients for creating local and regional food security.

Why these things specifically? Let’s dive in

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Seed Saving Safeguards Future Food

The bottom line of food security rests with a seed supply. As long as you have seeds, you can grow some food.

Whether you build a garden, scratch some soil into a bag or box or container, or just create sprouts and microgreens in your house . . . .without seeds there is no starting point.

Our overly globalized food system has made society in general complacent about the availability of food. But shocks to the system can and do change that view in a hurry.

In the global north we are in harvest mode, which is the perfect time to be stocking up on seeds from the garden. Many seeds are so simple to save.

In the global south, spring is on the horizon and also the perfect time to be adding seed saving into the garden design and planting plans to ensure seeds are a crop you later harvest. Seed saving activities actually begin in the spring.

I’ve dedicated a LOT of posts here at TNH to seed saving. If you search through you will find them. Many are free. Some are part of a paid series that I produced. Paid subscribers also get access to a curated list of the seed saving posts, grouped into topics for easy referencing and action.

In a nutshell, one of the greatest threats to food security is access to seed. Today just four companies (Bayer, Corteva Agriscience, Syngenta Group -owned by ChemChina, and BASF) control somewhere between 50 and 70% of the global seed supply depending on who you ask. That means they set the prices. That means they determine which seeds are available for sale. And in their profit-driven eyes, open pollinated and heirloom plants take away from profit. They have near-zero motive to devote time, space and money to producing those seeds.

As uncertainty starts to rock global trading partners and war threatens food production in more places while drought, wildfires and storms threaten the rest . . . this is a good time to become actively involved in food.

Grow what you can. Source the rest locally or regionally as much as possible.

What can you grow? It depends on where you live and your access to space. But one type of food that is readily available as long as you have seeds is sprouts and microgreens. These can be grown in your kitchen.

Why Focus on Rare Breeds?

It’s more important than ever to protect, grow and evolve heirloom food plants to preserve their adaptability and diversity for the future.

Quite simply because if we don’t grow them, they will disappear forever.

And what they hold is unique combinations of traits, and varying adaptability. One thing I have learned over years of growing different varieties, testing to see which one does best where I live, is that different years favor different types. That is truly a eureka moment for a grower!

Let me repeat it - different years will favor different varieties of the same type of plant.

This is, in part, why rare breeds are so important. Because they may hold a combination of traits that works when others fail.

AND, it reminds us all that there is no one perfect lettuce, bean or broccoli. What there is, is a set number of currently available varieties. Some will do better in a cold, wet spring. Others will do better in a hot dry spring. You won’t know which ones you need to meet the climate swings in your area (and for me these swings are WILD), unless you pay attention and grow at least a few types each year.

Rare plants and animals offer us combinations of traits in the here and now, from active reproductive efforts under real world conditions. Who survives to produce offspring again “wins” the race from a gene perspective. From those “winners”, we grow and adapt food to our unique growing conditions and microclimates.

In the global food system world, we decide who “wins” by determining what gets consumed. That demand drives corporations to keep growing it. But corporations want the cheapest inputs that give the best profits. Corporations only want plants that can survive in their monoculture deserts under intense production, and that hold long in storage and look pretty under plastic. None of those traits speak to human or ecological health.

So the profit-driven food system isn’t going to save us. It is going to drive us even further into the human health and ecological crisis we are already in. Because what is good for profits is not what is good for food security and making sure no one goes hungry.

Protecting rare breeds can be as simple as saving the seeds of one heirloom plant. Or it can be as complex as protecting breeding lines of poultry, sheep or cows. There is no one size fits all here. And every breed and species that gets to create another generation is something to cheer about.

“Eat the rainbow” isn’t just a healthy food slogan - it is also a directive that ensure higher biodiversity is maintained in our food system.

Garden biodiversity matters.

Ensuring A Resilient Future

Food is one of those non-negotiable factors for life, along with water, shelter and air to breathe.

We individually cannot control what happens in the coming weeks and months, but we can be aware of our own food security needs. Maintaining easily stored staple foods is a good thing to work on right now, along with a system to rotate it through so it doesn’t go stale.

Organize your seed supply and stock up now on things you might be getting low on either through saving your own, swapping with other growers, working with a seed library, or buying some.

The fall is a great time to buy bulk seeds for sprouts and microgreens to make winter growing a breeze.

If you choose to eat meat or fish or eggs, choose ones that are from providers actively safeguarding the soil, water, air and protecting breed diversity.

Start a bulk buying club or food swap group where you can either share out large orders to save money, or where each person creates some specialty foods that are traded among the group. This used to be a lot more common when I was growing up. It’s time to revive this tradition.

Actively reduce your food waste. This is probably the number way households can save on food. There is so much great information out there in terms of how to do this.

The only certain thing is that uncertain times globally can will impact our food supply. We see this every time we go to the grocery store and nearly pass-out from the latest price increase. That isn’t going away any time soon.

Some of the price hikes are real. Some are just greed. But we are forced to pay them either way.

Reviving and expanding local food systems, protecting rare breeds, focusing on biodiversity, and saving seeds are pathways for creating food security and resilience. We need community and kindness more than ever right now. We need to thoughtfully be preparing for ourselves and our neighbors, and sharing our skills.

If there is a pathway out of this mess, it is by remembering our humanity and all the things we have in common. And working through the common lens of love for our children and families.

We’ve been here before. And we can do better this time.

Keep growing.

Your food can be your best medicine — or your slowest poison.
The difference? Freshness, connection, and knowing what your body really needs.

The Naturalized Human is where we rebuild that connection. Each week I write about growing foods, mind-body-food connections, and ways to shift your energy, mood, and outcomes. No diet. No overwhelm.
✨ Become a paid subscriber to access exclusive content like the curated Seed Saving program.

Subscribe now

A wild thing happened for me this week. I shared a note about weeding in the garden, how it helps me to step away from noisy thoughts and refocus, and it went kinda viral (for me anyway - I’m just a small Substack).

I suggested that “weed therapy” was “a thing” or that at least it should be. Here’s my note in case you missed it:

“If there are too many voices shouting in your head, go outside to the garden and start pulling weeds. Your mind clears. You can think again. Weed therapy is a thing (or it should be)”

Turns out a whole lot of people agree with me! And so this has inspired me to dig a little deeper, both into the comments I received and into this idea of gardening weed therapy for mental wellness.

This is what I learned this week.

What is Weed Therapy?

Okay first let’s be clear - I am not talking about weed therapy linked to the use of cannabis. If you started reading this post looking for that, sorry, wrong topic and stop reading now. I did make sure I used the word “garden” in the title to try and avoid AI-search mix-ups and non-target readers. So for the rest of you. . . . keep reading.

Gardening Weed Therapy isn’t a formally designated term, but it does fall under the umbrella of garden therapy (or horticultural therapy) which is an evidence-based form of mental health treatment.

Garden therapy combines connection to nature and soil, with physical repetitive movements like planting, weeding and harvesting, which reduce stress, promote mindfulness, calms breathing, and creates a tangible garden result. While people in therapy are tended to by a trained professional, every day gardens provide these benefits to everyday gardeners as well.

Weeding provides some additional benefits to the garden and metaphors for the mind. We weed to clear space around a plant so that it can grow and thrive. As we weed and focus on the task at hand (choosing the correct plant to remove, and the one to save), we become present (in the “now”) and our mind can let go of the turmoil we came in with. Often as we weed, the “answer we seek” or “the path forward” can become clear.

Here are just a few of the thoughtful comments my note conjured this week:

writes:

“It is 100% the best therapy ever! Earlier this summer i was faced with a pretty difficult situation that brought me to my knees. . . . my garden has literally been my saving grace! Not sure what I would have done without my weeds to pull.”

made me totally curious about his novel sharing this little snippet:

“Weed therapy is definitely a thing Sue. In my historical novel (which you can find on here) it’s the only thing that keeps John Maynard Keynes sane while he’s battling to keep Britain solvent during WWI.”

And let me know there are indeed therapists out there using weeding as a practical tool:

“I have a therapist friend who literally offers this to clients.”

I rest my case, but if you want to take a closer look at the science, check out this 2019 issue from the American Horticultural Therapy Association (AHTA) Journal of Therapeutic Horticulture (Volume XXIX, Issue II) titled: Mental Health Through The Art of Gardening (note this link is a pdf download).

And a kind reader from reminds us all that many weeds are super nutritious too - so you might be tossing them on your dinner plate instead of the compost pile:

“And many weeds are edible, and some of them are more nutritious than the veggies you may be growing on purpose.”

Healthy Soil, Healthy Mind

Weeding invariable puts us in direct contact with the soil.

I have written about the importance of healthy soil many times. Our bodies are full of micro-organisms, inside and out. Many of these come from the soil and our food.

When we collectively created a sanitized food system through massive grocery chain retailers (in the name of preventing serious disease organisms like listeria, e-coli, and salmonella from spreading), we also cut ourselves off from the critically important good micro-organisms as well. In many ways we have become too clean.

Research has shown that healthy soil microbes release chemicals that literally make us feel good. We intuitively recognize the smell of healthy soils, and even seek them out in the places we like to vacation and relax (and in our gardens!).

To act on the healthy soil message means to rethink how we care for soils in our gardens, neighborhoods, cities, and even inside our homes through houseplants, to re-build our connections to the soil microbiome.

Weed Like A Pro

So getting back to weeding, here are some key tips that will make it highly beneficial to your garden, and your mental wellbeing:

To pull, snip, or shuffle?

A weed is just plant growing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Weeding involves removing unwanted plants that are growing too close to the plant that you do want to having growing in that space.

Classic weeding involves pulling it out, pinching or cutting the weed plant off at the base of the stem, or using a tool to stir up the soil thereby interfering with the weeds’ growth while leaving the desired plant in place.

Snip or pinch when the desired plant is small to avoid pulling it up too while weeding. Pull and shuffle when your desired plant is large enough to sustain a little root disturbance.

THEN Mulch!

The primary mistake most weeders make is to remove the weeds and then leave the soil bare. Soil disturbance invites more weeds to grow. Plain and simple. Weeding without mulching inevitably just creates more weeds.

The answer is simply to layer on organic materials as mulch. This can be straw, chopped grass, paper, cardboard, leaves, compost, and any number of biodegradable materials (that are ideally food safe!).

Weeding, followed closely by mulching, makes your weeding work last x10 or more longer. And while weeding therapy works to calm your mind - part of the idea is completing a simple task - too much of a good thing is also a saying.

Mindful Release

No matter the mental state you enter the weeding process in - anger, anxiety, depression, grief, sadness - several important things happen when you begin to weed.

First of all, you have to focus on the task at hand or you will rip out your foods and flowers instead of the weeds.

Second, as you work, there is a clear purpose to your actions. Remove the weeds. Clear space for your plants to grow. Nurture your plants. Mulch to care for the soil.

You may come in with a whirlwind in your mind, but the nurturing acts of gardening literally bring you down to earth and ground you. If it’s your vegetable patch, you are taking steps that will create healthy food for your body which can help keep you focused on weeding. If it’s your flowers, you are creating beauty that will further lift your spirits.

Meditation doesn’t have to mean sitting still in a silent room. Meditation can look like a weeding session in the sunshine, hands in the soil, doing simple work, breathing in nature.

Some lingering thoughts

I think we are all quick to focus on the fast fixes and pharma solutions to what ails us, because that is the messaging society has pumped out for decades now. Take this pill, feel better. . . . . but what if we were happier humans when we had to grow food, chop wood, carry water, clean animal pens, and pull weeds?

What if your nervous system doesn’t want another productivity hack? What if it wants what your ancestors had: sunlight, fresh air, plants and animals, dirt beneath your fingernails, and a task with meaning.

Sometimes, simple tasks like weeding the garden can be the ticket to calm, to a break from the noise, to a task with meaning.

So in the words of : “I gotta find me a garden!”

And so it is.

Happy weeding!

PS. Thanks to everyone who thoughtfully commented on my note and inspired this further writing! I so appreciate you.

Your food can be your best medicine — or your slowest poison.
The difference? Freshness, connection, and knowing what your body really needs.

The Naturalized Human is where we rebuild that connection. Each week I write about growing foods, mind-body-food connections, and ways to shift your energy, mood, and outcomes. No diet. No overwhelm.
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