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We are living through such stressful times, and if you are feeling at times frustrated, scared, angry, downhearted, and a bit helpless, it’s totally understandable. You are not alone. A more climate change resilient approach to gardening is as much about shoring up your own personal strength and abilities, as it is about the work you do on the ground in your growing space. It’s about reaching out to others, being kind to yourself and working more in tune with the natural world to the benefit of your growing efforts. I call it gardening for person, plate, and planet and there are solutions and hope therein.
Although the winter and start to the year have been extremely wet, with a cold, seemingly-relentless grey spring, our warming climate means a lack of predictability over which extreme might hit next. We are just as likely to have a prolonged period of drought and as anything else. Last year in Scotland there were 133 reported wildfire incidents between March and June alone, this being the peak season for wildfires in Scotland previously.
Wildfires are an increasing risk in many previously unaffected areas of the world as periods of drought become more frequent. During a stretch of extreme and prolonged heat, plants, trees, and shrubs can themselves become a hazard (and indeed fuel) if positioned in the path of a wildfire. Because of this, it is important to afford protection to your plants and your home. Here are some ways to help with this.
Create a nonflammable barrier around your home and garden. Thirty feet (9 m) is the recommended fire defence zone to afford protection. Porous materials such as gravel, scattered paving, and stone are preferable as they also create a framework that can help you deal with an excess of rain. The water needs to be able to sink and flow away.
Hard-standing surfaces such as concrete are great fire barriers, but they can cause issues with flooding. Ideally you also want a nonflammable material zone around the outside of your garden as well as in between your garden and home, but this would use up a lot of valuable growing space in even the biggest garden, so innovative solutions need to be found. You want to be able to protect your plants and your home and still be able to have a thriving vegetable garden in the process.
Smaller pots are easy enough to move by hand, but they have higher watering requirements (and less opportunity for natural resilience building). Bigger is always better when it comes to containers in the garden. You can source attractive containers on wheels that can be placed around your garden and moved if a risk of wildfire is imminent. You also can buy portable dollies that can be used to move growing gardens as and when required.
If you are using moveable containers in this way, consider creating using some paving stones within your gravel fire-barrier pathways. They will make it easier to move containers.
I don’t think any garden is complete without a water feature or two. The sound of flowing water is incredibly soothing and nurturing. Inground water features will also come to your aid because dry ground is your enemy in a wildfire scenario.
These water pathways can be used to channel water to where it is needed if a wildfire strikes. In fire-prone areas, rills can be used as an attractive fire defence zone feature around the property and in the garden itself. They could then be fed with flowing water from a pond, rainwater collection system, or even the tap if and when required to provide a liquid barrier.
Likewise, you can get creative with pond design around a central vegetable garden or near your home to create an attractive-yet-protective feature that will boost biodiversity as it helps to guard your home.
Drip irrigation systems are useful for your resilient vegetable garden anyway and can easily be picked up and used around your property’s boundary to wet the ground if your lot is threatened by a wildfire.
Think 'protection zones' when designing your garden. A vegetable garden in the ground needs to be protected, but your home also needs to be protected, too. The space between the two can be utilised with pots and moveable containers for most of the time with more defences added as required.
This is always important for the health of plants, of course, but in the case of wildfire risk, healthy soil will help keep all-important water in the ground for longer, helping plants during a period of drought. Dead plants create a fire risk, so healthy soil is key to reducing that risk.
A too-dry compost pile can ignite, so try to keep yours dampened down in times of extreme heat and drought. The decomposition process within can create a lot of heat, so also consider smaller barrel composting chambers to help minimise risk. Likewise, a pile of dry branches or foliage can go up like tinder. Dampen any potential hazards to avoid being the source of a wildfire in your neighbourhood.
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