Anthropocene: the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment. The current epoch, the Holocene, is the 12,000 years of stable climate since the last ice age during which human civilisation developed, which now scientists believe needs to give way to the Anthropocene, due to the profound changes in the Earth’s systems. It is roughly dated from around 1950.
Here’s my very personal view of the Anthropocene as it relates to gardening; just based on what I’ve observed in my local London area for more than six decades. I’m not talking about big data, greenhouse gas measurement or radioactive isotopes; merely observing Nature and working with the local rhythms of seasons and climate over a lifetime. Because as a gardener you can’t help but notice every nuance of weather and season. As a gardener you can never harbour the pompous delusion that you are in control or that you really grow anything at all; good gardening is learning to hearken to and respond to the natural power of life.
These are strange times. Ecological devastation and climate chaos are the hallmarks of the Anthropocene. ‘Global warming’ is often the phrase used, though climate chaos is more accurate since the human induced changes are not only about hotter and dryer; it’s often more about the increasing extremes of weather depending on where you live.
In the short term there are winners and losers in the anthropogenic climate chaos lottery. In London and South east England it’s now hotter and drier in summer and milder in winter. London is predicted to have a climate similar to Barcelona within the next three decades with severe drought likely, while Madrid’s climate is set to become like Marrakesh as the Iberian peninsula gradually moves towards desertification. While some parts of the UK now have deluges of rain with extreme flooding, which will likely only increase, in London and the South East, it’s the opposite: in the last several years there’s been a relative drought in the London region – yes, really. We don’t get a lot of rain in the East of the UK, with the prevailing westerly winds coming off the Atlantic dropping the water vapour on the western side of the country. Inner London also has a very powerful heat island effect, being quite a few degrees warmer than the surrounding countryside, and the ever increasing scale of construction keeps warming the city’s microclimate ever further.
My vegetable plot is never muddy – partly because I practice ‘no-dig’ growing where a mulch of compost remains year round on the soil surface, but also because there is simply less rain. On the plus side for me, the main growing season is considerably extended and the extra warmth increases vegetable growth. In fact, quite a few vegetables now grow slowly all winter and can be picked throughout the winter. All summer I have to do much more lugging of watering cans than I used to, (no hose pipes allowed on my allotments), which gives me a healthy workout. But the upside is that effectively I can now grow veg all year round. There’s no freeze, no snow any more (in the City at least). I have luxurious nasturtiums blooming in April after growing slowly through the winter.
In the past (only a few years ago) the first hard frost in autumn would traditionally kill off all nasturtiums and cold-sensitive mediterranean zone plants like Geraniums. I remember a childhood in London where I would watch my dad take Geranium cuttings in the Autumn before the hard frosts would inevitably hit by November. These cuttings would be planted and kept in our greenhouse, heated all winter by a paraffin stove, without which they would never survive. Now my geraniums and tender fuchsias are all fine throughout the winter and resume growth in spring; no need any more to dig up and store dahlia tubers to protect them from cold in the winter months.
May blossom now confusingly blooms in April and at some point maybe it should be renamed April blossom? The birds can be left out of synch and be hard hit. Small birds like tits time their hatching of eggs to coincide with the emergence of caterpillars and the warmth is causing these to emerge earlier. Knowing that insects are experiencing their own Armageddon, in my gardening I attempt to combine habitats for insects including a succession of nectar-rich flowering plants for pollinators, as well as growing vegetables for human consumption. Of course I don’t want to add to our insects’ predicament by using any pesticides or chemical fertilisers. And if the insects are allowed to flourish, so will the birds and small mammals. Gardening to me is a balance of managed wildness to cater for the more-than-human inhabitants as well.
In some ways there are now two springs. I enjoy my new second spring which now comes in September when I get busy planting all my winter veg: onions, garlic, spinach, chard, winter lettuce, rocket, lambs lettuce, winter radish, land cress, pak choi and other oriental winter veg. And this is also the beginning of the season to start picking the earlier planted leeks, beetroot, turnip, daikon, kale, chard etc. Another great time is the late winter and early Spring in February, March and April, when the relative warming and increased light levels bring wonderful crops of early veg at a time when most gardeners here are barely sowing seeds, let alone picking harvests.
My neighbouring allotment plot holders still tend to grow produce only in the spring and summer seasons, then clear the ground, leaving it bare, which is the traditional British way . I don’t see so many of them on their plots until the following April, except to do periodic maintenance jobs. People tend to do what they have always done, and don’t seem that interested when I mention that I am cropping veg all winter. On the other hand, the local Vietmanese community grow crops all year round on the allotments, covering their rows of vegetables year round with polythene or netting suspended on big hoops, creating rows of polytunnels. They certainly grow a lot of veg very successfully though the Winter, though this intense growing style, from my point of view, is not so wildlife friendly.
For myself, I value the aesthetic dimension of gardening which places value on verdant prettiness rather than only the growing of crops; and which incorporates flowering plants, both native and cultivated, offers a pond for insects, birds and mammals, and attempts to serve the wider community of species. Knowing about the urgent ecological emergency in Britain, which in many ways is much further advanced and dire here than the climate emergency, I feel compelled to do what I can for Nature. The mosaic of somewhat unkempt plots and semi wild urban farmland surrounding my allotments supports a considerably greater biodiversity than most of the so-called rural ‘countryside’ outside of nature reserve oases.
While this is temporarily very nice for me personally to have more veg for more of the whole year, I also often feel an unease about what this will all mean slightly further down the line. While I of course don’t know, and am temporarily enjoying a gradual shift in southern England to a more mediterranean climate (with wine growing now being extended even to the North of England), globally it doesn’t bode well. It’s clear that the climate chaos is already having a catastrophic effect on food growing in many parts of the world, with flooding, droughts, hurricanes, heat waves, fires and desertification on a scale and frequency never before seen. Multiple bread basket failures caused by climate chaos are an ever increasing risk according to the UN, and will especially affect the poorest regions, leading to severe food shortages.
It feels to me more important than ever to grow as much organic plant based food as possible, and it’s surprising how much can be grown on a small plot. That is one very small action I can do which is in the right direction, rather than adding adversely to the global predicament. Our times call for a great increase in gardens/plots for people in both urban and rural areas to be able to grow at least some produce. Gardening, as is now widely recognised, has inestimable benefits for health, well being and sense of connection with Nature. And gardening in the Anthropocene makes it incumbent upon us to not just grow food and plants for our own pleasure and need, but to grow in such a way which contributes to the restoration of Nature.
