Food forests, climate change, and who's going to eat!

You can graft fruit to them. The Che fruit I think.

Also , they are medicinal. This guy, Edward Group, is really impressive I think.

http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/health-benefits-of-the-osage-tree/

John S
PDX OR

I haven't had any success with growing them up here in NW Montana. I was hoping to develop a source for the wood to use for bowyer work. It is a long term idea, something to work on with my grandkids.

We are entering into our seasonal drought here in western Kenya... which has me thinking about climate change and food security.  It also leaves me with more time on my hands for reading threads like this.

I live in a place that is always on the edge of food insecurity.  It takes only the slightest deviation to push them over into hunger and starvation.  And let me tell you, they WILL and DO steal from the farm.  I've not experienced "zombie hordes", but individuals up to groups of six or seven.  Hungry children will often run in "packs" and work together to steal from farmers.  They do a considerable amount of damage, and can cause heavy losses.  This is a village full of farmers, but none of them are doing very well, and none of them seem to PLAN for this dry season.  This particular drought is not "climate change", its a normal, seasonal cycle.  But the whole area is shocked by it every single year... and every single year they start crying that there is no food, appealing to the government for aid, etc. etc.  

So, I don't know if we are going to get clobbered by climate change.  It really doesn't change how I go about working my farm, restoring the soil, and trying to conserve water... I figure I'm already doing the right things.  I do wish I could interest other farmers in trying to farm in a sustainable, restorative way.  Then they would have plenty of their OWN food, and wouldn't need to steal mine.

The one thing I would say, which may not apply so much to Americans, but I have spent a lot of time researching indigenous and native crops.  Many indigenous varieties have gone "out of fashion" with farmers here, who are becoming more and more dependant on Western staples like corn, soy, and wheat. Its just not "cool" to eat taro root, pumpkin, or cassava.  When it comes to bananas, people are ditching the traditional indigenous varieties and turning to big-ag tissue culture bananas.  Although it was once a staple, I couldn't find a pigeon pea seed to save my life.  I had to go buy a bag intended for eating from the supermarket in a big city.  The thing about the indigenous and traditional food crops - they are already well adapted to the climate, the soils, etc.  They don't need any fertilizers and aren't susceptable to pests, and not to mention that they are probably hundreds of times more nutritious than their western-monsanto counterparts.  When nature throws a curve ball, all the "imports" that my neighboring villagers are cultivating die off, but my indigenous crops hardly blink.  Many of them keep producing, even during this seasonal drought, as long as their roots are established before the rains stop.  I feel the indigenous food crops are my ticket to food security.  And, they are less likely to be stolen by the hordes, because hardly any of them know what they are any more!

John Elliott wrote: Bottom line, the people who are going to eat will be the ones who know what there is to eat.  Knowledge is the key.

Totally agree, and I would emphasize something that John did demonstrate in his example - that in addition to knowing what to eat, knowing how to prepare it is key.

Great points.

one of Bill's observations in starting permaculture
was that in the "hunter/gatherer" societies he studied
they grew planted/grew/managed 80%+ of what they ate
they didn't wander around like the proverbial blind squirrel
finding acorns

if one is worries about the zombies finding your food forest stash
plant stuff everywhere so you can wander around and find food
and still avoid the zombies.

the zombies are likely to go toward where someone is living
rather than the big dark woods

The zombie Hoard won't even be able to make it more than a few miles outside of the major cities where they reside.  They'll either kill each other off on the freeways, or die of exhaustion.

I'm betting long before they find someone's "food forrest" they'll be learning how to prepare the other zombies for consumption.  Yes, they will.  It's happened before, it will happen again.

Neil Layton wrote:The impact of climate change on food supplies has been one of the major drivers ... a move to south-west Ireland because it's at the end of the inevitable migration routes of what will become increasingly desperate people ... The major texts on Permaculture and forest garden design do talk about climate as a question to be considered when designing our gardens, but rarely talk in detail about climate change, so I thought I'd start a thread to discuss how we make our forest gardens more climate disruption resistant, through things like better design for flood, drought and other extreme events, and the questions of plant breeding (including the advantages of growing more resistant strains through deliberate neglect). How do you make your food forest resistant to the depredations of hungry people? ...

Hi Neil. I started reacting, before I read other comments.
My reaction is not an answer to your questions. That's because I think in a different way. In one point we both agree: a disaster is coming. Your thought is: how can I, myself, survive the disaster?
My thought is: what can I do to help planet Earth and every creature living on it? I think of permaculture as a way to make the impact of the disaster as small as possible. Of course I want to survive ... but the idea of not helping as much others as possible survive too does not at all appeal to me.

I agree, Inge,
I try to build the metaphorical ladders of food attainment.
I help people ID mushrooms, graft trees, forage for food and build gardens.
There are some people who don't really want to climb the ladder though. They want you to give them food.
I gently point the way up the ladder so THEY can learn how to get more food.
I don't pretend it's easy or without effort, but I do stress that it's worthwhile, and now is the time to build skills, not when you are already starving.
John S
PDX OR

John Saltveit wrote:I agree, Inge,
I try to build the metaphorical ladders of food attainment.
I help people ID mushrooms, graft trees, forage for food and build gardens.
There are some people who don't really want to climb the ladder though. They want you to give them food.
I gently point the way up the ladder so THEY can learn how to get more food.
I don't pretend it's easy or without effort, but I do stress that it's worthwhile, and now is the time to build skills, not when you are already starving.

That's true John. Not everybody wants to 'climb the ladder'. Here at the community garden we find out sometimes someone has 'harvested' while the (volunteer) workers weren't there. That isn't a problem, this garden is free for everyone. But the goal is to be educative ... people do not learn how to grow their own food by only picking the products, while others did the work.  

Several times in this thread I read about people who do not recognise vegetables growing in the garden, food-forest, or in the wild. But here, in this small town in a rural region, most people do know vegetables, also the people who don't like doing the efforts to grow them.

A few people mentioned they're growing Chinese mountain yam. Maybe this is slightly off topic but does anyone know if gophers go after yams? I imagine the answer is yes but I can't seem to find anywhere where someone has mentioned it. I got my hands on some tubers and I don't want to risk all of them if gophers love them.

I grew the Chinese mountain yam here in Portland. I didn't realize that the yam itself was so deep in the soil and often needed more than a year to attain size. By the time I realized it, I moved.
John S
PDX OR

The Climate changes and changes very fast. Glaciers melt, very often hurricanes, typhoons happen. Even in regions where they were not used to occur. Earthquakes occur for 500 times a day (you can watch it here  https://allatra.tv/en/earthquakes ). A heavy shower happens in the Sahara desert. Among a coast of the Arctic Ocean, the temperature had risen to 90°F on 5th of July. The humankind shall unite and become one big family to be prepared for surprises which are waiting for us.

Steven Kovacs wrote:

Interesting!  Which landscaping plants are edible?

The ones in my garden are: sempervivum (hen and chicks, I think it’s called colloquially), aquilegia/Columbine, Lady’s Mantle, roses, marigolds, nasturtiums, evening primrose, honesty, hosta... Not all parts of all plants are edible and they may have undesirable effects in large doses. However, they might also provide important trace nutrients, so are useful with or without climate change.

Neil Layton wrote:

Jan White wrote:

I also can't help but think that the kind of person who hoards and looks after only their own is also the kind of person who would end up taking from others when their luck ran out.  They've already shown a lack of empathy by not helping others when they had enough to give, and that would only get worse if they were desperate.  So yeah - not going there.  We're going to have to disagree on this one I suppose.

I tend to take a position closer to Jan's on this matter. I mean, I'd always expect some losses to birds and squirrels, and that's broadly okay when you are living in an ecosystem rather than conducting mainstream monoculture farming - indeed to me it's part of the point. I would certainly expect to be feeding surpluses to the nearest village, and that is also part of the point.

Where it becomes more complicated is when the Zombie Horde turns up and strips the place bare. If, or more likely when, the food distribution networks crack there are going to be a lot of people looking for an alternative. I've been torn between the desire to create a forest garden that is an educational demonstration site open to the public and my own tendency towards a need for privacy, and that equation is complicated by the awareness that there are those who will come and take, as has been pointed out. Equally, I'm eternally surprised by how many people can't recognise a potato plant, never mind tell the difference between oats, barley and wheat, and this goes back to Joseph's point. A good forest garden will contain many plants most people won't recognise as food.

I'm a big fan of guerrilla gardening, but I think it has its limitations when it comes to feeding a town: yes, a few people might get a few meals out of it, but you can't live on it.

Here in Leeds we have a forest garden (Bedford Fields) which is open to the public 14/7, 365 days a year. The person who set it up persuaded the council to let the redundant land be used for this purpose.

I have no data on how well frequented this garden is but I have certainly never seen it stripped of its goodies. Except perhaps the raspberries.

On the other hand, in my village, just outside Leeds, we have a community garden with an orchard. The orchard is on Canal and Waterways Trust property and the last time I looked it was fenced off. I spoke to the RHS in Bloom people, who look after the orchard, about approaching the trust re getting the fence taken down and now I need to get down to the orchard and see if there has been a change to access. However, last autumn the orchard was laden and no one was picking the fruit.

The part of the garden with soft fruits (yes, it is not a forest garden) is open access and I understand that a couple of years ago, a person turned up with a van and stripped the lot!!!

Maybe the moral of the story is to avoid growing soft fruits if you want to share the crop as well as eating some yourself.

The good news for me is that just a few minutes walk from my house is a country park (i.e. somewhat managed countryside, growing on the site of a former coal mine). Here there are blackberries and rose hips galore. I’m tempted to try a bit of gorrilla gardening here but I suspect it will be removed as an invasion of the natural order of things.

In my opinion, at most, you need to consider adding one new variety of each fruit, for instance, you grow. Add an Arkansas Black apple tree, keep your same peaches, add one rabbiteye blueberry. I'm not going to plant out an orange tree here in Pennsylvania. I'm not going to try to grow coffee or bananas. A subtle shift is all that might happen in any individuals gardens. You don't want to plant for your heirs, well maybe with pears!

Myself, this year, I planted a Black Oxford, a Redfield, and a MacIntosh apple from my grafts and a Red Rome seedling. If anything I pushed my planting northward as the Black Oxford is considered best in zone 4-5. The MacIntosh is said to grow best in the northeast. At my age I'm more worried about seeing the fruits of my labor than any change in climate.

Tyler Ludens wrote: From my experience, Jerusalem Artichoke is only marginally drought tolerant in my locale.  I grow it in the irrigated garden.  But things like drought tolerance are very locale-specific.  We haven't really learned to like it.

I'm always interested in people's experience with unusual foods, and wish folks would post more about how they prepare them, how much a part of their diet they make up, and if their families enjoy them.

Same here - my Jerusalem artichokes will bounce back once it rains in the autumn,  but if it didn’t they would need irrigation to provide a crop in the winter.

I can tolerate Jerusalem artichokes if they are stir-fried and my dad likes them in soup. My mum and daughter really don’t like them, though.

I guess if food shortages become the norm, people will have to eat differently. But in the meantime it is hard to force some ‘weird’ vegetable down when the carrots at the farmers market look so much more delicious and easy to prepare.

Helen Butt wrote:

Tyler Ludens wrote: From my experience, Jerusalem Artichoke is only marginally drought tolerant in my locale.  I grow it in the irrigated garden.  But things like drought tolerance are very locale-specific.  We haven't really learned to like it.

I'm always interested in people's experience with unusual foods, and wish folks would post more about how they prepare them, how much a part of their diet they make up, and if their families enjoy them.

Same here - my Jerusalem artichokes will bounce back once it rains in the autumn,  but if it didn’t they would need irrigation to provide a crop in the winter.

I can tolerate Jerusalem artichokes if they are stir-fried and my dad likes them in soup. My mum and daughter really don’t like them, though.

I guess if food shortages become the norm, people will have to eat differently. But in the meantime it is hard to force some ‘weird’ vegetable down when the carrots at the farmers market look so much more delicious and easy to prepare.

The number of times I have harvested something my family doesn't commonly eat (garlic scapes for instance) and get nothing but complaints and mockery, only to receive even more complaints the next year because I didn't grow it again...

I've come to the conclusion that I will ignore them and keep growing these things. I can give the crop away, or trade it for lettuce. All the while, I'm learning about the plant, its needs, and how to best grow it for when the time comes that it really matters.

Nick Kitchener wrote:

The number of times I have harvested something my family doesn't commonly eat (garlic scapes for instance)....

I use the garlic scapes for my garlic crop in two year’s time. I think I must be about the only person in Britain who does this as I’ve never found a U.K. based website that discusses this issue at all (or takes into account the different climatic conditions here).

A very interesting discussion, which has taken me about three days to read.

Anyway, a small anecdote. In March, we had a few days of snow (we normally have a couple of hours of snow, so our infrastructure isn’t as geared up as other countries might be). After only a couple of days, supermarket shelves were devoid of fresh food such as milk and bread.

In other words, on this island we certainly won’t need a particularly big or noticeable tipping point before we’re in crisis with food (and presumably medicines). At the same time, our society is a lot more cohesive and team-spirited than might first appear, so I’m sure we would muddle through.

I am however very concerned for those people who are already having to leave their homes and venture into perhaps hostile territory in order to survive. My trees might not save them but I hope that more and more people will inspire more and more people to plant trees. And if they produce food, so much the better.

This year is a good one to test strategies for drought tolerance in England – nearly no rain for the last couple of months and temperatures above 30 Celsius are testing our systems to the limit. One thing I am learning is that perennial cover in itself is a drought proofing strategy.  While many annual field crops are struggling in our area, our rarely mown orchard and forest garden patches are having a super productive year. I put that down to reduced evaporation due to ground shading and dew being trapped by plants in the morning. I have also found in a friend’s land nearby that ground underneath a thick bracken mulch had stayed much more moist and permeable than soil under grass just a few metres away. The lesson here is that management strategies are as important as plant choices.

Helen Butt wrote:

I use the garlic scapes for my garlic crop in two year’s time. I think I must be about the only person in Britain who does this as I’ve never found a U.K. based website that discusses this issue at all (or takes into account the different climatic conditions here).

Garlic tops make great pesto, used the same way as wild garlic. I've also preserved them in salt, which means they go into lactic fermentation similar to Sauerkraut.You can eve lace your cabbage with garlic tops for some kraut with a kick!

Tomas Remiarz wrote:This year is a good one to test strategies for drought tolerance in England – nearly no rain for the last couple of months and temperatures above 30 Celsius are testing our systems to the limit.

Very true!

Apart from resisting drought better than annual crops, perennials may have nutritional advantages:

http://ecofarmingdaily.com/soil-restoration-5-core-principles/

So again, perennials may better feed people in view of climate change.

PS Thanks for the tip about scapes in pesto. Have some left over from last year, so will try them out.

Jan White wrote:I don't like the idea of protecting my food from the "zombie hordes."  Sepp Holzer talks about planting enough so the birds, squirrels, etc. can all take their share and there's still enough for you.  Well, I want to add zombie hordes to that list.  A huge part of the reason I want to grow food is to provide for my community - donating crops to food banks, seeds to community gardens, and, if and when it comes to it, helping in times of scarcity.  I'm not idealistic enough to think everyone's going to play nice and share when they start getting hungry, but I;m not going to horde food while other people starve either.  That's one of the reasons I like guerrilla gardening so much.  Plant perennial food wherever you can for other people to take advantage of.  I like Casie's reminder about the edible landscaping plants too.

When I started planning, I determined that the parkstrips of my yard would be an edible "neighborhood" garden. The neighbors are welcome to what grows there, and they know it. The rest of the yard will be landscaped, but with less obvious edibles. This year it was watermelons, next year it'll be something else that's obviously edible. If people want to forage in there, I'm fine with that. In the event of a collapse when people are hungry, they won't even know that most of what I'm growing is edible.

Casie Becker wrote:
True story, shortly after we moved into this house, I saw a fig laying in the grass in our front yard. After asking my nieces if they knew where it came from (I didn't remember buying it) one of them admitted to pulling it from a tree in one of our new neighbors front yards. She recognized the fruit from me taking her foraging in a public park and wanted a snack. We took her down to apologize for stealing their fruit and they were very concerned that she'd eaten them. You see, that was an 'ornamental' fig tree and the figs were poisonous. The girls obtained future permission to harvest that tree as long as they let the neighbors know when they were there.

In the Dominican Republic, my local contacts believe the native strangler-figs to be poisonous. My SAS Survival Guide disagrees, saying only to avoid those that are woody or hairy. They don't have any flavor worth mentioning, but I have mixed them into oatmeal for the dietary fiber and whatnot.

Planting all these diverse foods is great.. however, the actual impact on these plants from climate change also needs to be considered.. the weather patterns have changed and are getting harsher. Before we had rain throughout the season.. now we are getting the same amount of rain in one down pour! .. we need to build our food forests to cope with harsh winds, large hailstones, flooding and drought. And sadly we need to ensure that the fruit on the trees are not ‘cooked’ before they are ripe! This all adds another level to food survival.

My plan is to plant for the next two plant zones.. ( I’m in north tasmania) so im  planting for zone 10..Mediterranean. And planting in thick layers. Building the soils resilience and I’m planting for the next generation and hopefully the one after that.. if my property is not under water.

Ten random thoughts on the food forest ... 1) make sure you can walk to it 2) can it produce 2,000 calories (+/-) per day year round (remember you can dry store stuff) 3) diversity - the more the better - no monoculture for us 4) can you personally cultivate it with manual tools 5) look to native plants 6) research indigenous practices for your area 7) what is your storage plan in the event of a single year or multi year no-growth event medicinal plants  9) clean water (can you hand dig a well?) 10) beekeeping - ancient practice, plenty of calories, requires no storage,  helps your forest. There are many more ideas I am sure and many may not agree with this short list but please let me know what you think.

Calorie dense foods and all sort of fruits, with lots of carbs. And we should not be afraid to plant (fruit-) trees that might not give you a return very soon. Depending on climate, here is what I might include in a food forest: date palms (very calorie dense, stores well), chestnuts (carbs on trees), plums (also easy to dry/store) etc... And of course, a big variety of all sort of food/plants, and, if living in tropics, harvesting crickets and grasshoppers from your own garden might give you extra calories, plus those nutrients not found in plant foods. We might learn a lot from the native indians, mexicans, south east Asians, and Africans.

Well, this thread aged well, what with empty supermarket shelves and hoarding and all... Who knew toilet paper would be the most desired item available! It was a very interesting read and I agree that most people now have no clue what their food would look like in a field or on the vine. But I believe that (climate and/or societal) change might be gradual enough for more people to realize they want to learn how to grow at least some of their own food. I see it happening here around me. Even if it's just cherry tomatoes or kitchen herbs, most people I know do grow something. They are going to want to expand that, I imagine. Although Europeans might be less removed from everything natural, on average... I don't know how this is in the US.

I have actually thought about 'zombie hordes' (the term freaks me out though). And all I can say is that I would want to help, and feed people who are hungry, and teach them how to grow their own. I loved the comments about how you save yourself and your near ones by building community. That is exactly what I believe and will (continue to) invest in.

Sanna Heijnis wrote:Well, this thread aged well, what with empty supermarket shelves and hoarding and all... Who knew toilet paper would be the most desired item available! It was a very interesting read and I agree that most people now have no clue what their food would look like in a field or on the vine. But I believe that (climate and/or societal) change might be gradual enough for more people to realize they want to learn how to grow at least some of their own food. I see it happening here around me. Even if it's just cherry tomatoes or kitchen herbs, most people I know do grow something. They are going to want to expand that, I imagine. Although Europeans might be less removed from everything natural, on average... I don't know how this is in the US.

I have actually thought about 'zombie hordes' (the term freaks me out though). And all I can say is that I would want to help, and feed people who are hungry, and teach them how to grow their own. I loved the comments about how you save yourself and your near ones by building community. That is exactly what I believe and will (continue to) invest in.

I whole heartedly agree. We have all we need and some to spare. Some people imagine hungry hoards showing up at their door and seem to relish the idea of getting to use their own guns to “defend their food.” I like to imagine telling such a group there is no need to steal what is offered for free. I relish the idea of sharing abundance and teaching/utilizing these folks to grow more. Maybe I wouldn’t last too long in a post-apocalyptic world, but while I was still kicking I hope I would still be generous, kind, and compassionate.

Thanks to all the contributors on this thread so far - lots of great points on food forests and how they can stand up to changing climate. I'm working with a group to establish a community food forest in Ohio, US and definitely appreciate the point brought up about freezing days changing and choosing plants from different USDA zones to compensate! Thank you!  On my own property, I've been seeing more years of a late frost killing off peach tree flowers and ruining harvest from certain trees.

This year of 2022, we had a historic cold/wet spring - and the worst pollination anyone in the region has ever seen, even growers with 35-50 years' experience on the land. What I learned from this situation was the intense value of spreading out my window of bloom, and diversifying pollination methods.

Cornelian cherry, being self fruitful, wind pollinated, and very hardy, thrived and did better than ever. In fact, the self fertile trees mostly set at least some fruit, even if only 3-5% of what they normally do. But the late bloomers and wind pollinated plants like elderberry, mulberry, chestnut, heartnut, strawberry, blackberry, raspberry, grapes - that's what I'm eating this year. Everything else tanked.

Land selection can be used as an element of planning for climate change. We bought land on the northeastern side of a hill. This is not where farmers have traditionally wanted to be in the northern hemisphere, but we wanted to minimize the drying and heating from southern and western sun.

As well, we chose land with a variety of ecosystems, ranging from dry clearcut sandy slopes to waterlogged seasonal wetland to forest and forest edge. By planting throughout the property we hope to get crops in a diversity of conditions. In two growing seasons on this land we are already seeing the difference in what did well in some locations between a dry summer and one when the summer drought did not start until August.

We are planting as much biodiversity as possible and focusing on perennials. Planting the same thing in a variety of locations so conditions may be good for a crop *somewhere* on the property in any given year, but if not we should have other species or varieties producing.

Finally, we are planning for lots of food storage. That way if a year or two doesn't produce well we have a buffer.

I would be interested to know what you think now. The mast post in this thread was in 2016 and a lot has happened since then. Here in SoCal close to Mexico we are seeing global warming. It’s very concrete actually in, that our grow zone was 9b when we moved in 7 years ago, but now we live in grow zone 10b. This means that we will get up to 118F in high summer (august and September mostly). During the winter, we now don’t get enough low temperatures for plants like rhubarb to survive, but people are able to grow broccoli to 4’ high since it will now keep producing from fall until July/august.
This year all of out tomatoes and cucumbers and so much more, burned away in the beds, so we know that we will need to add shade cloths now.
For us it has meant that some plants just isn’t doing very well anymore, and that we now have to add irrigation to our orchard, where it wasn’t needed before. Even our old orange trees and feeling the extra heat and drought.
We are now looking at investing in shade covering for our raised beds, since our garden failed completely this summer.
We do have plans though. Now that most of the orchard has grown enough to lower the temperatures in that area, we are looking into planting companions  around the trees.
Reflective tarp has been added on top of the animal pens to redirect heat, since we lost 4 chickens this summer. We had to take our rabbit bucks in to our house, since the bucks don’t do well in high heat. Strangely enough the females does find with frozen bottles, shade and a swamp cooler. It’s the males, that’s high maintenance LOL.
We have also started an indoor plant nursery/grow room, since leafy greens can’t grow outside anymore. Though we will try again after we get the shades for the beds installed.

So how has climate change shown up and changes this for you, now that 6 years has passed?

Ulla Bisgaard wrote:So how has climate change shown up and changes this for you, now that 6 years has passed?

Over the 9 years on this property, I've seen a regular pulse of extremes. That includes both extreme warmth and extreme cool, extreme wet and extreme dry. This is the story, though. Always has been when you go back and look at what's happened over history. The little ice age, the year without a summer, the dust bowl, and so on.

We've had a few winter set record lows, a few falls and springs set record highs, a few summers set record "heat waves" (length, not high temps), and all that vice versa (record highs in winter, record lows in summer, etc). There are record snows and then years with very little. Some years we get big ice storms, others we get warm rains in February.

A couple years ago, all the wells in the area went dry for the first time in modern memory - haven't had such an extreme drought in this area in at least 50 years. Areas 50 miles north of us had normal precip and were fine.

Last year, we had 4 months in a row with double or more our normal precipitation while other areas a mere 30 miles to the south of us were at about 50% of their normal. Maine isn't a very big place, but the climate certainly shows itself to stratify when it wants to

This year's growing season started off hot and dry with record heat hitting in May, then flipped to some record lows by July...then back again with the heat, then back again.

This has all taught me above everything else that "average" is just that - an average of the extremes. Average first and last frost, average snowfall and rain, average highs and lows, average chill hours...all just averages. Some years are extreme, and considering some of the numbers in the record books and stories from the early days, extremes we see now are only what we could call "normal". So many things play in, from oceanic cycles like the AMO, La Nina / El Nino and the Arctic Oscillation through to various sun related drivers and weird cold water pooling events in the arctic that can shut down the North Atlantic Drift ocean current for a season or more.

There's even a cool little pattern with northward progression of tropical systems in the pacific ocean that lead to late season cold snaps on the east coast US.

Our job as permaculturists is to mitigate the extremes through water harvesting, soil building, genetic diversity, mimicry and all the other fun stuff we do. We normalize, stabilize and use the natural patterns to construct systems that are not only stable and able to withstand these things better, but thrive under minimal maintenance during the most normal of all things here on planet earth - variability in weather. At least, that's how I see it. One year it's fire and the next it's floods. The goal is for your gardens and forests to still be thriving in year 3.

Guess what I'm saying is that whether it's global warming or global cooling, global weirding or just global normal, the goals, tools and techniques don't change much. It's always best to push the zone in *both* directions when you can. Build as much diversity into your systems as you can. Over time, as whatever happens - be it the new Sahara, a new glacier or nothing at all - your systems will be in a better position to "profit" from it.

Dunno - that's my take thus far almost 10 years into playing with the actual dirty hands, sweat on the brow "brown" permaculture.

Our job as permaculturists is to mitigate the extremes through water harvesting, soil building, genetic diversity, mimicry and all the other fun stuff we do. We normalize, stabilize and use the natural patterns to construct systems that are not only stable and able to withstand these things better, but thrive under minimal maintenance during the most normal of all things here on planet earth - variability in weather. At least, that's how I see it. One year it's fire and the next it's floods. The goal is for your gardens and forests to still be thriving in year 3.

Guess what I'm saying is that whether it's global warming or global cooling, global weirding or just global normal, the goals, tools and techniques don't change much. It's always best to push the zone in *both* directions when you can. Build as much diversity into your systems as you can. Over time, as whatever happens - be it the new Sahara, a new glacier or nothing at all - your systems will be in a better position to "profit" from it.

Dunno - that's my take thus far almost 10 years into playing with the actual dirty hands, sweat on the brow "brown" permaculture.

You bring up some good points. We are still new to this, as we only started building our garden 6 years ago. The fluctuations in weather just never passed my mind, when we started out, but I can see how that was a mistake. We are still learning, which is good because it means that we aren’t stuck in a mindset. When we started out, we were very idealistic and we should have done more research before we started out. That said, this year has been the first year the garden failed. In the beginning our mistake was that we let the chickens clean out the garden beds and roam free. It was a big mistake. They ate no only the pests, but also the good bugs, which left us open to pests we could have avoided if we have worked better with the ecosystem. We stopped letting them roam 3 years ago, and are now finally seeing more balance.
The only place where we have diversified is in the orchard. Warm winters, means we get bananas and cold winters means apples and rhubarb. I guess we will have to consider this for the rest of the garden too.
Thank you, you have given me some things to think about and research.

Tristan Vitali wrote:

Our job as permaculturists is to mitigate the extremes...

I think what has often gotten overlooked in planning for climate change is that it is not just a question of ‘global warming’ and the shifting of growing zones poleward, but even more so, the science predicts increased climate variability. We are already seeing that extremes are becoming more extreme, and more common.

So yes, mitigation of extremes through our choices is important.

Ulla Bisgaard wrote:
In the beginning our mistake was that we let the chickens clean out the garden beds and roam free. It was a big mistake. They ate no only the pests, but also the good bugs, which left us open to pests we could have avoided if we have worked better with the ecosystem. We stopped letting them roam 3 years ago, and are now finally seeing more balance.

Ha! Yes, I learned my lesson on that one early, too, with the first year I tried letting ducks roam the gardens. Those little webbed feet can flatten just about anything! Once they started pulling onions out like they were horrible and detested weeds, up went fencing!  While running critters through garden beds is GREAT for the fertility and pest control, running them with an actively growing crop can quickly become an unmitigated disaster.

Ulla Bisgaard wrote:The only place where we have diversified is in the orchard. Warm winters, means we get bananas and cold winters means apples and rhubarb. I guess we will have to consider this for the rest of the garden too.

Diversity in all things definitely has worked out well for me with what I actually plant in the gardens. I polyculture to the point it feels like you're foraging for wildcrafted crops  I usually shoot for 8 species per bed - for example, imagine carrots and onions with bush beans, interplanted with cabbages and cherry tomatoes, all set around a few perennials like a young apple tree, some bush cherries, clumps of comfrey, oregano or peppermint, then surrounded with a few varieties self-seeding or perennial flowers like shasta daisy, brown eye susans, lobelia and field chicory. Add in your regular edible and medicinal "weeds" such as dandelions, plantains and sorrel and you end up with such a diverse polyculture, neither humans or pests know what they're looking at  Out of this, production of any one thing might be less per square foot, but there's always something doing well, even in the more extreme conditions in a given year. Too much dry heat might knock the white potatoes, cabbages and broccoli back, causing stunting, bolting, internal necrosis and pest issues, but the established peppers, beans, squash and sunflowers will thrive. Too much cool and wet might cause mold, rot and stunting for the eggplants and melons, but fava bean, snap peas, lettuce and swiss chard will still likely produce well.

And, of course, diversity in texturing the earth seems to go a long way, too - the idea of TEFA definitely seems to pay off. Taken to the more extreme, you're talking ponds, swales, terracing and the like, but even just shallow mounds and pits have proven invaluable in different years. Buried wood in a mound right beside a pit led to happy squash vines even during droughty years while keeping them above the high water line on the wet years. Frost drainage in the spring, shady north sides of mounds during the summer heat, thermal banking for the early autumn frosts ... not much not to love

Tristan Vitali wrote:
Diversity in all things definitely has worked out well for me with what I actually plant in the gardens. I polyculture to the point it feels like you're foraging for wildcrafted crops  I usually shoot for 8 species per bed - for example, imagine carrots and onions with bush beans, interplanted with cabbages and cherry tomatoes, all set around a few perennials like a young apple tree, some bush cherries, clumps of comfrey, oregano or peppermint, then surrounded with a few varieties self-seeding or perennial flowers like shasta daisy, brown eye susans, lobelia and field chicory. Add in your regular edible and medicinal "weeds" such as dandelions, plantains and sorrel and you end up with such a diverse polyculture, neither humans or pests know what they're looking at  Out of this, production of any one thing might be less per square foot, but there's always something doing well, even in the more extreme conditions in a given year. Too much dry heat might knock the white potatoes, cabbages and broccoli back, causing stunting, bolting, internal necrosis and pest issues, but the established peppers, beans, squash and sunflowers will thrive. Too much cool and wet might cause mold, rot and stunting for the eggplants and melons, but fava bean, snap peas, lettuce and swiss chard will still likely produce well.

Things is a little different here in the 10b grow zone. We grow year rounds, which is an advantage, but because of the extreme weather, we have to split up, as in some vegetables feels that it’s too hot in the summer like cabbages and broccoli. I only have lots of herbs between early May and late August, and most of them are done once we get to solstice. Pumpkins and squash do well, and so does tomatoes and cucumbers, except this year, where they failed. Most seedlings can’t be planted outside until after Solstice, since the temperatures fluctuate a lot from March until mid June. It’s hard to find perineals that can handle the temperatures. We have days when it’s 26F at night and then it will be 80f or 90f during the day. I am slowly finding them. I am making friends with like minded people in our area, and we have exchanged plants and knowledge.