Extreme weather always produces a botanical surprise packet or two. During the long drought, camellias surprised all and sundry with their ability to withstand persistent warm weather without much moisture around their roots. They may not have thrived, but most established camellias survived to tell the tale. A similar thing happened during last summer’s floods.

By January, the soil in my garden was completely sodden. Hampton is renowned for its deep, free draining soil, but the rain was so relentless over so many months that puddles had formed on the surface of the soil and, for the first time in my experience, were hanging around longer than a day or two. I expected the worst. I assumed there would be little chance that the various drought tolerant plants in my garden would survive the wet soil, and sure enough, many rotted away to a slimy mess.

Of all the plants that I expected to kick the bucket, lavender and rosemary were both at the top of the list. The theory goes that plants of a Mediterranean origin dislike an acid soil, loathe summer humidity, and absolutely abhor having wet feet. As if to prove the theory dead on target, a favourite ‘Tuscan Blue’ rosemary hedge slowly yellowed and died. I was certain the various lavender plants in my garden would do the same. But guess what? They lived. Every single one of them.

Some male gardeners think lavender is a poncey plant that should only be grown by women wearing pretty floral skirts. What rubbish! Lavender is beautiful to look at it, but in my experience it’s anything but some kind of delicate show pony. In fact, lavender has proven to be one of the toughest, most adaptable, and most reliable plants in my garden, and the fact that it survived the wettest summer for forty years only adds to its reputation.

I’ve got five different types of lavender growing in five different parts of the garden that differ markedly in their individual micro-climates. Out the front, there’s English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) planted in a bed that is totally exposed to the elements. It’s thriving. In the cottage garden near the front door, there’s an Italian lavender (L. stoechas) planted next to a hot concrete path. Thriving. Out back, a Spanish lavender hedge (a different L. stoechas) is planted at the base of a west facing shed wall that gets loads of rain run-off. Thriving. In an east facing bed there are a couple of French lavender plants (L. dentata) growing at the base of a rock wall. Thriving.

I don’t do anything special to the plants. They receive no fertiliser or supplemental irrigation. I’ve never limed the soil where they are planted, or improved the texture. In fact the only care the plants receive is a light prune after flowering to promote another flush of flowers, plus a half yearly mulch of sugar cane to prevent weeds from taking hold. That’s it. I’m not some kind of plant magician relying on tricks to grow healthy plants, yet my lavender is doing brilliantly. If you fall for the lie that pretty plants are weak, and not worthy of a male gardener’s affection, you’re a fool.

Scientific evidence provides a clear indication that the climate in our part of the world is gradually becoming more extreme. The booms and the busts are getting more intense, and the oscillation between one extreme and the other, more violent. In response, we’re going to need to throw out the old rule book about what plants typically thrive in Toowoomba and the Downs, and replace it with a new plant palette that contains a mix of species tough enough to thrive in a wide range of conditions.

To do this we’ll need to get beyond the spoon fed mentality that plagues so much of our society, and get into the habit of closely observing our gardens, making notes (mental or otherwise) about the plants that seem to be big winners or epic losers in extreme weather events, and then share the information we collect with other gardens. Swap stories and cuttings over the back fence. Cook produce from top performing plants with family and friends. Inspire new gardeners with your passion for climate change ready plants.

Five years ago, I would have confidently predicted that camellias would struggle to survive the drought. In January I thought it was a dead-cert that my lavender would end up a victim of root rot. I was happily proven wrong on both counts. Plants never cease to amaze me, and in a future climate that’s bound to be more unpredictable than any of us has experienced, we’ll need all the surprise packets we can get our hands on.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 19th November 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, French lavender.

Don’t forget to visit our new site The Radish, edible gardening from roots to fruits!!

The events come thick and fast at this time of the year. Easter, Anzac Day, and Earth Day last weekend, Gardenfest and Autumnfest this weekend (see Garden Cuttings for more info), and the Hampton Food and Arts Festival in a couple of weeks’ time. One event that’s likely to fly under the radar, but deserves more attention is the inaugural National Permaculture Day, tomorrow, May 1.

Despite being described by veteran environmentalist David Suzuki as “the most important activity that any group is doing on the planet”, Permaculture has yet to gain any real traction in our part of the world. As far as I’m aware, there are no local events being held tomorrow, which is a shame, and though there are a handful of dedicated permaculture gardens hidden around the place, none are throwing open their gates to the public. I wonder why this is the case. Is it because of Toowoomba’s conservatism, where anything and anyone bearing a green tinge generally gets treated with suspicion? Or is it simply that permaculture is a difficult concept to understand?

Conservative our area might be, but in my experience the latter reason is true: most local gardeners have heard of permaculture, but few actually understand what the concept is about. Personally, I find permaculture to be brilliantly conceived, even revolutionary, but it is a very difficult concept to penetrate for the average home gardener with no experience in design or ecology. And while I don’t really consider myself a permaculturalist (and certainly don’t qualify as a permaculture designer), I would like to spend this Saturday and next introducing the permaculture concept and outlining ways we might be able to apply it in our gardens.

As with all concepts, it’s worth starting with a definition. The Oxford English Dictionary defines permaculture as “the development or maintenance of an ecosystem intended to be self-sustaining and to satisfy the living requirements of its inhabitants, esp. by the use of renewable resources”. That hardly pins the concept to the mat, so let’s expand a bit with some history.

The term Permaculture” is a portmanteau of permanent culture, and permanent agriculture. The concept originated in the mid 1970′s when a young ecology student, David Holmgren, and his lecturer at the University of Tasmania, Bill Mollison, published an article in Tasmania’s Organic Farmer and Gardener Magazine. This article was soon followed by an interview on ABC radio, and in 1978, Holmgren and Mollison’s seminal book on the concept, Permaculture One: A perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements.

Sadly, the two visionaries have since gone their separate ways. Mollison, who still lives in Tassie, has focussed on education, believing that permaculture could spread exponentially by teaching students, who would in turn teach others, and so on. He taught the first Permaculture Design Course (known as PDC’s by Permies) at Stanley in Tasmania, in 1979, and thousands of PDC’s have been taught around the world in the years since.

David Holmgren took a different approach. With permaculture gaining widespread publicity, he retreated to a smallholding in Victoria to quietly test his ideas. In 2002, he re-emerged with Permaculture – Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability a landmark book that reinterpreted permaculture’s fundamental design principles as a creative adaptation to the decline in non-renewable sources of energy such as oil. I’ll talk more about these principles next week.

Until then, I want to conclude this week’s column by mentioning the three ethics at the core of the Permaculture concept. In Permaculture One, Mollison and Holmgren described these as: Care for the Earth; Care for People; and Fair Share. The first ethic is self explanatory. The second suggests that all people should have access to what they need to live a safe, and healthy life. The third is a principle that most gardening and farming models overlook, and is based on the ethic we’re all taught as kids – only take what you need, and share the rest. Some permies call this, “return of the surplus”.

While some elements of permaculture are ripe for critique, I confess to having a great admiration for any movement that is built upon a set of foundational ethics like those above. What’s more, I believe they are the right ethics to build upon. We’re living in an age when most big, established institutions – business, politics and religion – are being white-anted from within by self interest and a desperation to cling to the status quo. In some cases, ethical foundations rotted away years ago. Permaculture offers a creative response.

Next week – The Principles of Permaculture Design

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 30th April, 2011.

As I write this week’s Secret Garden, yet another stormy burst of rain is passing overhead and adding some more welcome moisture to the soil. What a month it’s been. Thanks to a La Nina event we’ve now recorded more than 170mm for September here at Thistlebrook. I’ve never seen the garden look so lush.

There’s something really special about the combination of fresh spring growth and consistent rainfall that we’re treated to very infrequently on the Downs. Early perennials are flowering beautifully, roses are producing a huge number of fat buds, and our fruit trees look set for a magnificent crop. Nothing beats regular rain. It’s fair to say that I’m absolutely revelling in the conditions.

This doesn’t mean I’ve been lulled into a false sense of security. Our weather seems to be getting more and more fickle, and last year’s dust storms bounce around in my head like a half remembered nightmare. Who knows what summer will bring. As for next spring – it might turn out worse than 2009. The point is that we can only roughly predict what the weather is going to be like in a month or two. Next spring is more of a punt than a prediction.

One of the things my Mum and Dad taught me was to be prudent, to try and exercise sound judgement in practical affairs. It’s an old fashioned word, prudence, but the virtue is as important as ever, and I think it applies perfectly to the situation we’re in at the moment with the weather.

Here’s how things stand from my point of view. We’ve had outstanding spring rainfall in most parts of the Downs, but does that mean the drought has broken? I’m not so sure. Toowoomba’s dams are currently only 20 percent full even with the Wivenhoe pipeline going full tilt and good rain in the catchments. I live opposite the headwaters of Merrit’s Creek, which flows into Cooby Creek, then into Lake Cooby, and I can assure you that despite 170mm and a wet soil profile, the creek is hardly running a banker. More like a trickle. The other telling point is in the four years we’ve been here, we’re still yet to break our average rainfall total for the year.

I’m optimistic that this will be the year, and my approach is a one of a glass half full, rather than half empty. But if we’re to be really prudent, we need to realise that we’re facing a future of extreme booms and busts. At the moment we’re in a boom. But you can guarantee that around the corner, whether it’s next month, next year or in ten years time, there’s going to be a bust.

This means it’s time to make hay while the sun shines, or in our case as gardeners, to get planting while the soil’s moist and the tanks are full. Normally, I shun spring as my main planting time but this year, I say go for it. Get them in the ground now and hold off on any supplemental watering until regular rainfall ceases. As a rough guide, an inch per week (approximately 25mm) is plenty to get plants well established. If it’s falling from the sky, be prudent, and save the rainwater for a dry spell.

When you’re planting container grown plants, don’t forget to add lots of organic matter to the soil as far ahead of time as possible. Homemade compost is ideal. Well rotted manure is excellent. Bagged compost from the nursery will do the job in a pinch. Whatever is available, get it in there and you’ll find that the soil soaks moisture up like a sponge and gradually releases it to developing roots as plants get established.

If you are wondering what to plant, two things that immediately spring to mind are shade trees, to help beat the heat when it’s hot and dry, and windbreaks. One of the major inhibitors to strong plant growth is wind. After last year’s string of north westerlies that blew directly from the desert for weeks on end, and carried some of the desert with them, it should have finally dawned on us all that the more we can create a sheltered microclimate, the better our plants will grow and the nicer the garden will be.

Finally a pat on the back – Downs gardeners have done really well with conserving water over the last few years. We’ve changed many outdated practices for good, and even now that restrictions have eased somewhat, we’re still only using around 120 litres per person per day. This is a great achievement. But let’s not rest on our laurels. Conditions can change quickly, and the time to plan for the bust is now, during a boom. It’s the only prudent thing to do.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 2nd October 2010. Photo by Justin Russell – Thistlebrook in spring.

Tomorrow is National Tree Day, and as in previous years, I’ll be getting outside and finding a place for a native seedling or two somewhere in my garden. This year, I’ve earmarked a spot for a Crows Ash, Flindersia australis. This species would have been indigenous to my area when the land was virgin forest, and there are still some fine old specimens around. A beauty can be found in the south-west corner of Peacehaven Botanic Park at Highfields, where Tree Day celebrations will be held tomorrow morning. As a complement I’ll also be planting a couple of fruit trees.

It might comes as a surprise, considering the lack of publicity such an important initiative receives, to hear that National Tree Day has been an annual event for the last 15 years. It was co-founded in 1996 by Olivia Newton-John and the environmental organisation Planet Ark, and to date, is responsible for planting more than 15 million native trees. Another one million or so will go in the ground tomorrow.

Some of the benefits of planting trees are obvious. At the most basic level, they create shade, helping to cool us down. You think this would be so simple that it’s elementary, but drive through some of the new estates in Toowoomba or Highfields and you’ll enter a surreal landscape almost totally devoid of any trees. Why run the air conditioner all day to cool yourself down in summer when a well located tree can do the job for free? You’re welcome to live where you like, but lest we end up inadvertently creating suburban deserts, I think it would be wise to plant more trees.

Maybe you’re of the opinion that you prefer your air conditioner, and all this tree planting caper is a bit of a lark. Let me try to convince you otherwise by pointing to the example of Kenya’s Green Belt Movement (GBM) and its inspiring founder, environmental and political activist Professor Wangari Maathai. Since 1977, GBM has planted more than 45 million trees in sub-Saharan Africa, established 6,000 village nurseries, and trained more than 30,000 poor rural women in skills such as horticulture, forestry, food processing, and bee-keeping.

The net result of such activity is that desertification in north east Kenya has been halted by GBM’s planting of long “green belts” in what was an eroded and deforested landscape. With reforestation comes increased biodiversity and restored ecosystems, as well as fewer crop failures and water shortages. Wangari Maathai received the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts. Her work is based on the belief that a healthy natural environment is at the heart of an equitable and peaceful society.

Contrast what’s happening in Kenya with the situation occurring in Niger, north-west Africa. Here, rampant desertification has encroached on what little arable land the already dry country possessed, leaving more than 80% of the landscape covered by desert and causing major food insecurity. Some reforestation efforts have been undertaken in recent years, but it hasn’t been enough. Now facing a prolonged drought, it is estimated that half of Niger’s population of 15 million is suffering form severe malnutrition. More than three million are classified as starving. Kids, as always, are being hit the hardest.

What’s the link between starving children in west Africa and a festive day of planting in the comparatively fertile Darling Downs in Australia. It’s the importance of trees. Once and for all we need to clear up the misconception that trees are little more than obstacles and inconveniences standing in the way of development. Let’s get real. Trees are vital. They provide habitat – for ourselves and for native animals – they help maintain healthy rural landscapes, they feed us, and we ought to never underestimate the role they play in enhancing our collective quality of life. Trees deserve far more respect than we currently afford them.

I’ll leave the last word to Wangari Maathai:

“I love the trees, I love the colour. To me they represent life, and they represent hope. I think it is the green colour. I tell people I think heaven is green.”

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 31st July 2010. Photo by Justin Russell – old growth Eucalypts, Peacehaven Botanic Park, Highfields.

All over the world the line between gardening and farming is rapidly being blurred. In the so called “rust-belt” of the United States, which includes declining industrial icons like Detroit and Pittsburgh, suburban wastelands full of derelict houses are being reclaimed for use as miniature farms. In debt stricken Los Angeles, micro farming businesses utilising rented backyards are springing up like California Poppies.

In the UK, an innovative scheme called Landshare brings together people with a plot of land to spare with those who want to grow their own food but have nowhere to do it. The project has got off to a flying start since launching last year. More than 47,000 members have joined the scheme, with back gardens, church yards, rural plots and even pub gardens being snapped up by land-sharers as soon as they become available. The UK’s National Trust has seen value in the scheme and has pledged to make available 1000 growing plots.

Even here in Toowoomba, a growing band of suburban gardeners are replacing ornamentals with edibles. At Gardenfest last weekend I got chatting with an experienced gardener about his interest in producing organic food. So keen is the bloke that he’s removed most of his rare plant collection, and is filling his 800sqm block with fruit trees and vegies.

This is all exciting stuff for a keen home grower like me to witness. I can’t help but think that finally, after decades spent filling gardening books with ornamentals and relegating fruit and vegies to the appendix, we’re starting to get the message that land is a precious resource, best used productively. I’m hopeful that we’re over the false notion that crops are grown on farms and gardens are made for the dual purpose of boosting property values, and making us feel warm and fuzzy.

Historically, the lines between gardening and agriculture have been unequivocally blurry. Right up until the boom period following World War II, and for a while thereafter, small, private gardens the world over were full of fruit, vegies, chooks and flowers all happily coexisting alongside kids playing summer games under the sprinkler. In a sense, everyone farmed. Just about every garden was productive. Then along came rising incomes. Cheap food produced using cheap energy flooded supermarkets, and with it came the perception that home grown food was something done in the Third World, not a prosperous country like Australia. Fruit trees were cut down and vegie patches became archaeological relics lost under a landscape of turf and conifers. Or worse. How many productive gardens have been lost to the frivolity of plunge pools and outdoor kitchens?

But cheap energy is now nostalgia. The fiasco unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico should remind us of what we all learned in basic primary school science: fossil fuels are finite, and logic suggests that if we use up enough of them, one day they’ll run out. What’s going to fuel the combine harvesters then? Where will farmers grow food when nigh on all the productive farmland has been lost to open cut coal mines and salt water spewing gas wells? We might be able to power the odd car and lightbulb, but how will we fuel our bodies?

The answer is right under our noses! It’s already arrived. Millions of gardeners have already turned the ornamental garden over to backyard food production, and guess what – the outdoor kitchen was never as useful as the indoor one and the plunge pool was useless in winter! Plus, as a bonus, it turns out that the edible garden looks just as pretty as the “ornamental” garden but is far more satisfying.

The word “agriculture” is derived from two Latin words – ager, meaning field, and cultura meaning cultivation. Taken literally, agriculture means “cultivation of a field”. Whether that field is the size of cricket oval or just a courtyard, if you’ve made up you’re mind to cultivate it, you’re engaged in agriculture. If that cultivation produces edible crops, as far as I’m concerned, you’re farming.

In the current issue, Time magazine has named its annual top 100 list of people who most affect the world. Alongside household names like Barack Obama, Sachin Tendulkar and Lady Gaga is Will Allen, a 62-year-old African American, six-foot-seven-inches tall former professional basketball player. Allen is an urban farmer. From a two-acre site in a poor Milwaukee neighbourhood, he produces a quarter of a million dollars worth of food that helps feed 10,000 people. Allen’s Growing Power foundation teaches people how to grow their own, and works on the motto “Grow. Bloom. Thrive.” Sounds like a pretty decent idea to me. What about you?

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle, 8th May 2010. Photo by Justin Russell – “Spring Vegies”.

As a keen Grow It Yourselfer, I’ve had a long term interest in trends involving food – not just the eating of it, but how it’s grown, how it’s marketed and what role it plays in local cultures and communities. As a consequence I’ve often wondered why Toowoomba hasn’t been able to sustain a farmers’ market, despite a couple of attempts. Is it because of a lack of public interest? Are growers not enthusiastic? Have local authorities stymied attempts to get something happening?

Current efforts to get a Darling Downs Farmers’ Market off the ground are a case in point. The process appears to have been frustratingly slow, and council planning fees now look set to stop the project dead in its tracks. In my view this would be very unfortunate, because Toowoomba needs a farmers’ market. Let me explain why, starting with some hard truths.

The status quo has become unjustifiable. Industrial agriculture is killing the planet, killing small communities and literally, killing us. According to farming advocate Michael Ableman, the problem with food isn’t genetic engineering, pesticides, or soil loss. He suggests that these are just symptoms of a larger issue. “What we have is a crisis of participation,” says Ableman. “A tiny fraction of the world is attempting to feed the rest of us, so they do crazy things.”

Ableman’s observations make uncommon sense. In Australia, 2006 ABS figures show that less than one percent of the Australian population stated their occupation as “farmer”, and of those that did, the average age was 52 ,with the percentage of farmers under 35 decreasing and those over 65 increasing.

Let’s couch the figures in simple terms: The overwhelming majority of Australians are fattening themselves on food grown using huge inputs of chemicals, diesel and water on land that is gradually becoming less and less fertile but is worked by a tiny population of farmers who are nearing retirement and unlikely to pass the farm onto their children. Throw into the mix issues like global warming and peak oil, and it’s not hard to figure out that the way we feed ourselves has to change. Farming can’t continue on its current path. It has to get more local and diverse, but above all, a far greater percentage of the population needs to get reacquainted with growing food.

A Toowoomba-based farmers’ market offers two major benefits: opportunities for participation and reconnection. There are plenty who are already keen to farm, but the biggest impediments to new farmers are a lack of access to land and capital. A farmers’ market located in a regional centre like Toowoomba would help foster the development of new food growers by supporting agriculture that’s small in scale, localised, and sustainable.

A farmers’ market would also help people reconnect with the source of what goes into their mouths. The current situation is abysmal. I was reading an article the other day about Jamie Oliver’s campaign to get American schoolkids eating healthier food. In one of the cities Oliver visited, he found 10-year-olds who had to be taught how to use a knife and fork and couldn’t tell the difference between a potato and a tomato. If you think we’re immune from this kind of disconnection here in Australia, I’d suggest a reality check is in order.

A genuine farmers’ market brings producers and consumers together in an environment that encourages accountability. There’s opportunity for conversation. At a farmers’ market, you can generally talk directly with the person who grew the item you wish to purchase, learning about its origins and special qualities. In the industrial food world this kind of “paddock to plate” interaction is not just unfeasible, but unwelcome.

Participation and reconnection are just two benefits of farmers’ markets. There are plenty of others: the revitalisation of town centres, social interaction between rural and urban communities, enhanced employment opportunities in farming districts, produce that’s fresher and more diverse, and environmental benefits such as reduced transportation and packaging. Throw in the fact that farmers’ markets tend to be chock full of food that tastes superb, and you’ve got a winning concept.

Farmers’ markets are the way of the future. I can see a day coming when individual districts across the Downs will have a small market of their own, but let’s start by supporting the development of one in Toowoomba. I’d urge all those who question the concept on political or procedural grounds to take a big picture view of food production on the Downs. Accept the need for change. Get behind a Darling Downs farmer’s market or get out the way.  This is an idea whose time has arrived.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 17th April 2010.

Next week the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference kicks off, but already climate is the word on everyone’s lips thanks to the Liberal Party of Australia. Professor Ross Garnaut described the issue as diabolical for policy makers, but you would have been canny indeed to predict that an Australian political party would willingly feed itself through the shredder because it couldn’t fathom the idea that human activity might be warming the planet.

For us gardeners, climate change is a vexing issue. Its unpredictability means that none of us are really sure how we ought to deal with it. Denial is tempting. It would be really nice if nothing changed, but you’d have to be living under a rock to ignore the increasing volatility of our climate here on the Downs. To work with plants and soil and seasons is getting trickier by the day.

I feel like I should state categorically my position on climate change. Some readers have asked, and I see no sense in keeping you in the dark. So here goes. It’s my view that the overwhelming majority of the world’s climate scientists have made a compelling case that human activity is warming the planet, to the detriment of human existence. I believe that we need to take collective action to reduce the emission of polluting gases into the atmosphere, and I disagree entirely with the fantastical notion that environmentalism is all part of a plot by failed communists. Should I honestly start warning my kids about the greens under their beds?

Let me add a caveat to what I’ve just said. I love the natural world, and can see that the environment is essential for life – without a healthy planet, we’re extinct. But I think it’s a great folly to become myopic about global warming, to see it as a stand alone issue. It’s not. While I support urgent action on global warming, I’d argue that whatever action we take must also encompass the suite of environmental issues including energy, water, chemical exposure, pollution, deforestation and species loss. Most, if not all of these are the result of excessive consumption, or put plainly, human greed and arrogance. A curtailing of emissions ought to be accompanied by a curtailing of these attitudes in tandem.

So that’s where I stand. I’ve got no doubt that some of you are now rejoicing and others are branding me with whatever label you think fits (socialist/greenie/lefty – if I had to choose one I’d go for “agrarian”, just quietly). That’s your prerogative. Mine is to write about gardening, and to that end, I think the main way gardeners can best deal with climate change is by adhering to a simple principle: love the natural world.

That’s going to sound completely balmy to those of you who reached for your label a bit earlier. I hope you’ll read on, because I’m not suggesting that we all start hugging trees. My aim is to treat the environment the way I seek to treat my wife, with respect, compassion, admiration, gentleness and a desire to see her thrive.

To put this in a gardening context, it means I need to behave in a particular way. The starting point is to put my ego in my back pocket, and practise humility. The parcel of land I refer to as “my garden” might reflect my personality and tastes, but ownership exists only by means of a piece of paper. The true role of the gardener is one of caretaker, or to use an old fashioned term, steward. Above all else, gardening in a changing climate means that I have a responsibility to exercise great care in how I manage the land, since I am only keeping it on behalf of future generations.

Whether you’re a climate sceptic or not you, whether you believe in emissions trading as a means of limiting global warming or not, the crux of the issue is plain and simple. Backyard by backyard, suburb by suburb, our self-centredness and greed is stuffing up the planet. But in my mind at least, the solution is just as plain and equally simple. If we can get over ourselves and learn to love the natural world within the patch of dirt we have responsibility for, there’s plenty of hope to suggest that our newfound sense of stewardship can extend to the environment beyond the backyard. It’s time to get real. Put politics aside, acknowledge the mess we’ve made of the world, and starting in your own garden, make every effort to put things back in order.

First published in The Chronicle 5th December 2009. Photo by Justin Russell.