Growing Backyard Resilience

We live in constantly changing and tumultuous times. With weather extremes, anxiety and overwhelm about the future, and unpredictable seasons. It's a lot. And yet, I truly believe this is an opportunity for us to be sources of resilience and strength in our own neighborhoods, communities, and landscapes. I believe we can do this by starting right where we are. By growing soil, capturing water, and planting species that support insect biodiversity that we need to have functioning and thriving ecosystems. By awakening to our own restoration potential right where we are in our own gardens and backyards and landscapes (or windowsills!), we can shift degradation to regeneration. I believe this is even more powerful if we can do it with the support of community. Our communities might be made up of our neighbors and networks, yet they also include the often unseen animals, birds, bugs and plants living beside us.

Imagine if our backyards could be places thats quietly spark regeneration and resilience? If some aspect of our current lifestyle were to be disrupted (COVID is all too recent an example!), what would it take for our backyards and communities to be able to give back out of our abundance? If simply living in our homes regenerated the soil and replenished water and regenerated landscapes? And what if our backyards and gardens and communities were sources for all-important pollinators, caterpillars (aka: the perfect baby bird food!), bird and bug migrants, and beneficial insects that keep pests in check? If our spaces were sources of inspiration...

What does it look like to "grow resilience"? I believe it starts with the soil. A living soil acts like a sponge holding both water and nutrients to grow healthy, disease-resistant and stress-resilient plants. Perhaps soil is the metaphor we need - don't we all want ourselves to be healthy, disease-resistant and stress-resilient? Principles for growing healthy soil are surprisingly simple: Keep it covered/protected, grow deep roots and plant diversity aboveground to foster diversity belowground, minimize or eliminate soil disturbances, and keep living roots in the ground for as much of the year as possible!

Can we learn something about growing resilience in ourselves from the lessons we learn from soil? What resources do we need to be rooted, grounded, and thriving? Just like the soil, we cannot give back if we are continually depleted: physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially... if we ourselves have lost our fun, creativity and motivation? How can we plant diversity externally in our lives to further inspire and enrich us internally? Like the soil, what practices regenerate and replenish us?

After soil, I think of resilience when I think how water interacts with our landscapes. Does it stay and recharge and rehydrate? Or does it rush off? Many of us live in environments that are designed to drain water away. This is all too true in many cities that send fresh water straight to the rivers and ultimately the sea. When we actively dehydrate the land, the land further loses its capacity to absorb water. It degrades. It loses its sponginess. It loses life. We are more effected by floods that also wash away too much life-giving soil. But we can build it back! Try to slow and capture every drop of rain that falls on the bounds of where you live. It's about taking a resource - rainwater - and accepting that gift by reinvesting it into the land. Imagine the difference when you pour water onto a pile of flour (aka: dusty, degraded soil) ... it just runs off and leaves a "muddy" eventually hardened mess behind. As opposed to pouring water on a piece of bread (aka: good soil with good structure) where it absorbs like a sponge. The only difference between flour and water and bread is the biology - yeast is literally a fungi. Soil fungi does something similar. The bread might get soggy in the rain, but maintains it shape and integrity. We need soils like that!

The water that does run off your land... be curious about where it goes. Where is the river that eventually takes the water from your home and goes out to the sea? All the people and homes and landscapes that drain to the same river are part of your watershed. You are strangely connected even though you may not know your watershed neighbors. Even the non-human ones. Get to know them. I found out some of my neighbors in Boston were the Alewife and Blueback herring that migrated into our little steam near our house. I also learned our little stream was so polluted that Alewives (as the fish were called) could no longer make it to Alewife station which was named after them. But this is changing... there are ancient and water-filtering freshwater mussels still in our stream that have an ancient relationship with the herring and other migrating fish. They are just waiting for us to give them just enough support to jumpstart regeneration.

The Mystic River (which the Alewife Brook flows into) has had one of the largest success stories with herring migrations returning despite being one of the most urbanized watershed in eastern Massachusetts. And with the return of the herring, then come turtles, blue fish, eagles, osprey, cormorants, herons, otters, freshwater mussels that clean and filter the water... so many depend on this fish. If you get to know your watershed, you may start to see the subtle leverage points that make all the difference for resilience. You might find a leverage point that allows life to flood back in. Can you imagine the cascade of regeneration to follow as their numbers build?

I believe backyard resilience is even more powerful if we can create change in a way we can sustain. Generally, as we manage them, backyards take a lot of resources to maintain. Conventional management often causes soil erosion, nutrient and chemical runoff and it's expensive. We no longer connect "making a living" to the land especially in urban areas, as water and land are often so much more expensive and also polluted. This is a loss. What if we flipped this? What would it look like for the land to care for us as we care for the land? And if we reinvested that abundance into greater stewardship? Imagine a scenario: if we harvest nuts from a tree in the landscape (aka: nutrient dense food from plants adapted to our region) and in return for the gift, we commit to planting a few of the best nuts from the most resilient trees. Maybe the planting happens in an area that was once full of these trees? A park lot? A local park? If we sold those seedlings, it further increases the range of where they get planted and we also support ourselves in building or acquiring the soil and materials to plant more. We participate in planting the next generation of trees out of gratitude for the bounty of nuts/fruit/woods/medicine/materials/seeds that feed us... literally.

What would it look like to have hyper-local, new models for backyard businesses that support regeneration and earth repair right where we are? We can redistribute and reinvest funds and energy into our local neighborhoods and landscapes. Having a financially sustainable model is another way to extend and sustain your impact. Creating a model that sustains you, also makes it more easily adoptable by others. It broadens an idea, creates momentum. It brings wild foods, flavors and regionally-adapted plants to others in a way a supermarket never could. It brings native plants back into our lives that are adapted to our soils, support diverse insect populations and resist weather extremes. We need more regenerative lifestyles and careers and investments. Allying ourselves with plants and living soils and making a living (possibly even in our own backyards!) is a way to create abundance and resilience on SO many levels.