If the food pyramid tells us what we want to eat, the next, more difficult question naturally follows: how do we actually get all of that out of the ground?
For us, the garden therefore does not begin with a seed packet, but with our plate. We have a rough idea of how many vegetables, fruits, legumes and other foods we want to eat. From there, we have to work backwards: which crops do we need, how much do we need to grow, and how do we make sure there is not only something to harvest in July and August?
That last part is more important than it might seem. A summer abundance is wonderful, but it does not help us much in January. So we do not only want to produce, but also to spread, preserve and, wherever possible, distribute the harvest across as much of the year as we can. Some vegetables go straight from the garden to the table, while others are stored, dried, fermented or frozen. This way, good years can also help us get through less productive periods.
Our sowing and planting calendar is the practical result of this approach. It runs approximately from the beginning of February through September and is available as a downloadable PDF in the sources section. It is not a calendar that comes out of the cupboard unchanged every year. During the winter, we look back at the season that has passed and adjust whatever did not work well. The calendar is therefore more of a reminder than a set of instructions.
The place plays a part
Before deciding where something should go, we first look at what the place itself is telling us. Climate, terrain and soil determine the possibilities. Only then do we ask what kind of intervention might make sense. That may sound obvious, but it represents an important difference in the way we think. We are not trying to make the place suitable for everything we would like to grow. We first try to understand what is already here and make the best possible use of it.
A hectare is not a uniform piece of land either. Some places are wetter, others drier. Some receive more sunlight, others less. Even within a relatively small area, temperature and moisture can vary considerably. Microclimates really do exist.
What does not want to grow here will not grow here. We can live with that. Sometimes a small intervention is enough to make a particular spot suitable for a crop. Saffron, for example, benefits from good drainage. In our clay soil, that means finding the right location and perhaps applying a targeted solution, rather than necessarily changing the entire soil.
The soil comes first
Our most important intervention therefore lies much closer to the ground: organic matter. In Belgium, we had already gained experience with hugelkultur and raised beds. When we started working with our clay soil here in the Dordogne, we recognised much of what we had seen before. The conclusion was once again the same: the soil benefits above all from plenty of organic matter.
For us, healthy soil is the foundation of everything. Take care of the earth and the earth, together with all its workers, will take care of you. We therefore try not only to grow plants, but above all to support the soil life that makes that growth possible.
This also connects with the idea that waste does not exist. What is a surplus in one place can become a resource somewhere else. The more we can close these cycles, the less we need from outside. We look at weeds from the same perspective. They are not simply plants growing in the wrong place. They can tell us something about the soil and the conditions there. And perhaps, in time, we can have another plant take over the function they are fulfilling.
So when a particular weed keeps appearing in the same place, we would rather ask ourselves why it thrives there. If we can then grow a crop that makes better use of the same root zone or fulfils a similar function, the situation changes by itself. The weed no longer needs to be constantly fought. That is really the direction we are trying to move towards: working less and less against something and more and more with what is already there.
A system that works for us
We practise bio-intensive growing. The 75 cm-wide beds with 45 cm paths between them have by now become a fixed part of the way we grow. They give us a high level of production on a relatively small area, without requiring a highly mechanised system.
But here too, we do not see anything as a universal recipe. What works here may not work on the other side of the mountain. A different soil or climate may require a completely different approach.
That is why we are also cautious about major interventions. We would rather look for small changes with a big effect. Adding compost to a vegetable bed, for example, can make an enormous difference.
We also try to achieve roughly eighty percent of the result with twenty percent of the effort. Not because the remaining twenty percent would not be interesting, but because we would rather spend our time on the things we enjoy doing. That also makes the system livable. And for us, livability is an important part of sustainability. A system that only works when you continually put more time, energy and resources into it is ultimately not the system we are looking for.
We are still far from having everything figured out, by the way. Irrigation is a good example. Part of what we have set up for this was based on theoretical models and limited practical testing. So we are still learning a great deal by trying, observing and adjusting.
That is actually true of the whole garden. What we learn during a season comes with us into winter. What we understand during the winter returns to the garden the following year. That is how a system slowly develops, one that increasingly fits both what we want to eat and the place where we want to grow it.
Not by trying to bend nature to our will, but by continually learning to listen better to what it is telling us.