PLANT, PERSIST, PREVAIL: Collective grower wisdom (#1)

Lately, I’ve been gathering intel from the underground. Not spies, but growers—gritty, climate-aware cultivators who know what it means to feed people when the tap runs dry, the weeds won’t quit, and the climate’s gone feral. I put a call out to a few of them on Substack and asked three simple—but not easy—questions about growing food through climate chaos and collapse.

The responses came in like a seed catalogue written by rebels. Some growers I approached were knee-deep in summer harvest and couldn’t reply (I’ll catch them next round), but what did come back is pure, hard-won gold. There’s more coming (I plan to next for 6-8 weeks from now). More growers. More grit. But this batch? This is what it looks like when the growers talk back. This is how we plant, persist, prevail.

Joe's Market Garden, Merri Creek. CERES

What’s the one piece of advice you’d offer a new grower trying to feed a dozen people?

Adam Wilson of Sand River Community Farm and The Peasantry School

Set the table family style. Imagine that you’ve grown and prepared a simple meal—say soup and salad—for eight dinner guests. At the appointed hour, twelve hungry folks arrive. You round up more chairs and bowls, set the total amount of food in the center of the table, and suddenly everyone knows how to put a little bit less in their bowls such that no one goes home hungry. These sites of intimate table fellowship stubbornly resist the enclosure of the imagination we call ‘the market’. It would be rude to try to reimburse the host for their trouble. Gratitude is the currency of neighborly care and concern. As a host, you may even find yourself feeling worthy of asking for help at some point down the line—weeding the garden, harvesting or cooking. When you do, you will know that something beautiful has begun to germinate.

Resist creating an all-you-can-eat buffet. A friend of mine built relationships with farmers who gladly offered him unsold produce at the end of the farmer’s market, which he distributed at a no-cost stand in nearby city park. As more and more people caught wind of this weekly ‘free food’ distribution, a line would form as he unpacked the van. Rather than gratitude, he often encountered disappointment when preferred vegetables weren’t available. Heartbroken, he eventually had to stop.

How we set the table determines who we become. On the day the grocery stores stop having food on the shelves, we will need cultural capacities that have become badly atrophied during our generations-long sojourn with buying, selling, earning and owning. One of the most essential will be the ability to set the conditions for the emergence of gratitude rather than entitlement. We become re-acquainted with gratitude by practicing, together, around the table.

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Kollibri terre Sonnenblume of Speaking for the Trees

Don’t mess around with tomatoes.

I’m not saying don’t grow any tomatoes. Rather, I’m advising a focus on substantive crops if you’re trying to feed people.

Tomatoes are delicious, to be sure. Perhaps more than any other vegetable, the difference in flavor and texture between home-grown / farm-fresh and store-bought is stark. But their place in the diet is essentially as a mere condiment, something to dress up other foods. Plus, they are both energy and labor intensive in many regions, requiring an early start with heat and other coddling.

What are examples of substantive crops? Potatoes (both regular and sweet). Winter squashes and pumpkins. Cabbages. Peas and snap beans. Popular roots like carrots, beets, turnips, and radishes, and less well-known ones like parsnips, salsify, celeriac and sunchokes. Hardy greens such as kale, collards, chard and chicory (including radicchio).

Naturally, such a list will vary regionally depending on climate, with conditions ranging from easy to challenging for any given vegetable or variety thereof. Pick wisely based on least amount of effort and inputs.

Last but not least, keep in mind that vegetables and fruits comprise only a small portion of the typical Western diet, with grains for example playing a far larger role in terms of sheer calories. People are fueled far more by bread and pasta than by the fresh tomato slice or red sauce they adorn them with. But growing such “staple crops” is a whole nother challenge. (See this report on my own attempts.)

Really what I’m saying is “don’t mess around” period. Actually feeding people is serious business, but most growers are driven by market expectations based on personal preferences born of privilege rather than on practicality. This must change, and sooner or later it will, whether by choice or necessity. Start now and avoid the rush!

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Magda Nawrocka-Weekes of Scrap Farm

Accept death and diversity. This is also good climate advice in general. Growing, for yourself and at scale is like micro dosing death. Familiarising yourself with its inevitability. When I first learned to farm I was moved by the scale of loss, seedlings, plants, whole beds that didn’t work. The trick is to plant more than you think you need, could ever need. If you manage to eke out an abundance, great, share it. Strengthen those mycelial networks. If you don’t, you’ll have more than you would have had if you put all our effort into three pampered plants. Diversity is how death doesn’t win, plant lots of different crops, varieties, at different times. Just as with communities it’s our differences that make us strong, that allow us to weather the storm. The same goes for plants.

As for actual crops: the three sisters! Corn, dry beans and winter squash. Courgette in the summer and as many greens as you can fit (eating only chard gets dull after a while).

Experiment, plants will die, but so will we, doesn’t mean you don’t try.

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Eric Zeissig of Roots & Reinforcers

If you’re trying to feed a dozen people, don’t start by trying to feed a dozen people. Start by consistently feeding yourself. Then expand. It’s tempting to go all-in, tear up your yard, buy a flock of chickens, plant 40 tomato plants, but the truth is, overproduction without a solid system leads to burnout, waste, and frustration. Instead, focus on systems that stack functions and habits that stick. A few well-cared-for raised beds, a compost bin, and a weekly harvest routine will feed more people in the long run than a massive plot you can’t manage come August. Think behaviorally: what’s reinforcing to you? If you hate weeding, try deep mulch or no-till. If you love fresh greens, build a system that makes daily salad harvests easy. The most successful homesteads aren’t necessarily the biggest, they’re the most sustainable, both ecologically and behaviorally. And don’t do it alone. Feeding a dozen people should be a community act, not a solo burden. Swap, barter, host work parties. Grow what grows well in your space and trade for the rest. Remember, you’re not just growing food. You’re growing patterns. If you design systems that feed people and feed your motivation, you’ll be surprised how quickly a dozen mouths can be fed joyfully, resiliently, and without losing your mind (or your tomatoes to weeds).

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Wayne Jenkins of Synergy Gardens

The biggest lesson I have learned as a grower is that farming is physically demanding, beyond what most people can understand. Climate change will likely make growing food more difficult in more places than improving growing and working conditions. This will require adaptation to new circumstances, expansion of skills and for some realizing that where they are will not work. Nature calls the shots.

There are many ways to approach growing food and very few secrets as to how to do it. We use the Coleman/Fortier hybrid french intensive, raised bed, highly fertile soil ... adapted to our local biome, climate, seasonal cycle, labor availability, budget, specific tools, annual crop planing and rotations ... These approaches and methods are very labor intensive and highly productive. We are a combination 5 acre homestead and commercial farm, two acres cultivated, in our short Alaskan growing season and are able to support ourselves, pay our mortgage and bills and live a rich and meaningful life. But......it's not 'easy'. There is a mental component that's necessary which is I think a hidden bonus; while keeping the body strong you are building mental toughness and confidence in your skills and ability to provide. And, you get to enjoy the finest most nutritious food you've ever eaten.

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Jan Steinman of Civilization's Discontents

I'd say, "Don't do it." At least not as the question is posed. I'd say to involve those dozen people, so they would better appreciate the effort, knowledge, and wisdom that goes into doing such a thing. I'm deeply suspicious of collectives that have the few feeding the many. They always seem to devolve into a caste system, where the professional farmer gets to eat and all the others get their cushy, well-rewarded, remote computer jobs, while virtue-signalling their "self sufficiency".

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned as a grower facing climate change?

Suzan Erem, of Postcards from the Heartland

The weather is getting more extreme in Iowa. Spring floods turn to drought. Snow barely falls in winter, but polar vortexes still hover over us for a few weeks in January. Farmers who grow annual crops can adjust to these changes quickly, but perennial farmers like me have to make decisions that play out five to ten years later. Choosing to grow perennials was the first climate-related decision. Could we keep roots in the ground year ‘round and still feed people? Ina state that’s the No. 1 contributor to the Gulf’s Dead Zone and still tills more than 20 million acres per year for feed and fuel, that’s a radical question. The answer is always diversification. At Draco Hill Nature Farm we grow Asian pears, blight-resistant chestnuts, paw paws, honeyberries, blueberries, red, black and white currants, serviceberries and heartnuts. There are a lot of Asian cultivars because we’re not purists. Selecting the right cultivars allows us to reduce inputs to nearly zero. We also grow prairie and native trees. We and future farmers can sell sustainably-harvested seed mixes, dried flowers and grasses and corkscrew willow branches for decor, lumber, firewood and walnuts for dye. Between the native prairie and the non-spreading Russian Bokking 14 comfrey, pollinators are abundant. The special challenge for perennial farmers facing climate change is to constantly experiment. We look for trees and shrubs that will thrive on the southern edge of Zone 5b. We plant small samples to see how they’ll do before investing in wholesale volume. As the older trees that need more chill hours die off, we’ll have new crops coming online. The days are gone of fruit trees and bushes surviving for centuries. Maybe they’ll adapt to climate change. Here’s hoping, but in the meantime, we’ll keep experimenting.

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Margi Prideaux, of Radically Local and Arraluen Farmstead

Water. Oh my gosh, water. Having enough of it. Using it wisely. And knowing, deep in your gut, that there’s still enough left for the grower down the road. Here, the push and pull between El Niño and La Niña has always held sway over the sky—a slow, shifting choreography that once carried the rains in a rhythm we knew by heart. But these past four seasons that rhythm has broken. The steps no longer follow sense. The rains seem to fall wrong, or not at all. We who once moved with the tempo of this place now stumble through a weather that does not know us. The last two winters delivered a hard dry—less than half the rainfall we’d come to expect. This winter, the rains are six weeks late, and the national meteorology agency has called it the driest May and June this region has seen since they began keeping records in 1900. That’s not just a sobering statistic. That’s the crack of soil pulled too tight. For us, there is no back-up plan, no hidden pipe, no miracle valve. Growing food for a community needs water, and if we don’t catch it when it falls, we run out. No ifs. No buts. No maybes.

The voice of water is quieter now—harder to hear, even in places drowning in flood—because warming pulls more moisture from land and sea, feeding a sky that lashes back in pulses: drought, then deluge, then drought again. More water in the atmosphere means more heat trapped, more systems pushed to breaking. And so, adapting to this restless cycle can’t be a someday task. If you’re not already paying attention—if you’re not tuned in to the ways water moves, hides, lingers, disappears—you’ll miss your chance to act. The days of trusting the tap, the dam, the spring up the hill, are numbered. The work now is to learn how to read the land when it rains, to know where it runs and where it sinks, to build the knowledge that lets you hold every drop. And like every act of climate resilience, it begins exactly where you are—with your hands in your own soil, and your eyes turned skyward, waiting and learning.

What’s your secret for keeping food flowing—calories on the table, season after season?

The Last Farm
Most people don't plant gardens to provide for their caloric needs. They grow gardens as a bonus: fresher, better tasting food from more interesting varieties, and so on. Growing for subsistence is a completely different matter. If you're trying to sustain yourself, the only equation that really matters is calories in versus calories out. Everything else flows from this: the species you choose, the location you cultivate, the methods of pest control, etc. Fortunately, you don't need to reinvent the wheel. You can meet the vast majority of your nutritional needs by growing the most efficient agricultural system ever developed: the 3 Sisters. When grown together, corn, beans, and squash require minimal input while producing more calories per acre than even a modern industrial corn monoculture. And unlike a corn monoculture, the 3 Sisters yields a complete protein and the lion's share of everything else you need. Crucially, all three crops can also be stored through the winter. This bridges the gap between growing seasons, an essential consideration outside of the tropics. Additionally, two out of three crops can be used as livestock feed in their raw form, which can help cover some of your remaining nutritional needs. A chicken can convert squash and corn into eggs with incredible efficiency. The key to keeping this system running indefinitely is to try to close the loop as much as possible. That means harvesting only the edible parts of the plants and cutting down the rest to decompose in place. It means recycling as much composted waste back into the soil as possible, and bringing in whatever else you can--wood ash, leaves, manure--without burning too many calories. There's more to it than that, of course, and the devil is often in the details. But there's no better time than now to start practicing.

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Alex Zeidner of Farmer’s Notes

Keep planting. Keep sowing seeds. As soon as an old crop is finished, plug a new one in. Succession planting has helped my farm grow more food than I thought possible. Whether you are feeding a dozen people, or thousands, each seed is a bet. The more you play the game; the more opportunity you have to get it right. This only works for certain crops, shorter season quicker plants. People usually can't plant winter squash more than once. I will plant lettuce ten times over the course of the growing season. Do we lose some? Yes. Do we hit bumper crops? Yes. With succession planting you mitigate issues like pests, weather, and human error making growing more food a little bit easier. It also keeps our farm on a schedule and builds a rhythm. I know every two weeks I need to seed lettuce in the nursery, fertilize the older lettuce trays, and plant out the oldest trays to the field. Since I stagger my plantings, I can guarantee our customer a continuous supply of lettuce and provide our farm with cash flow throughout the year. So, all you growers out there, keep planting, and keep harvesting.

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Jackie Bridgen of Smallholder Journal

Grow what you eat, grow enough of it, and grow every day you can. Choose crops you know will get eaten. If you don’t know everyone’s preferences, do a quick survey, and ask. Choose a range of food types - starchy potatoes, crisp green salads, small sweet tomatoes - from your tribe’s top choices, and grow just one variety of each. Keep it simple. A dozen is a lot of people to feed from your plot, so do your calculations carefully, regarding space, and labour. As an example, most meals go better with an onion, or garlic. If your dozen people are three families of four, each of them might need four or five onions a week, and onions store well, so that’s every week. That’s over 600 onions. Now onions are easy to grow, not too labour intensive, and quite space efficient, but that’s still a lot of plants. Plan your plot, and don’t waste an inch of it on stuff to impress on Instagram. Grow all the time. Use every day of the growing season available to you. In my temperate coastal climate in the UK that’s pretty much every day. Don’t over exert yourself preserving summer’s green beans when you can just grow winter cabbage. (If you’re cold, semi-arid, or sub polar, obviously reverse this advice!) Succession, succession, succession! Calculate when one crop should come to harvest, and have its successor already growing on in trays, ready to drop into the vacant slot. All three of these insights point towards having a master plan, a plot map, and detailed notes attached to every crop. You are going to learn by mistakes, without a doubt, and your bulging notebook of calculations, diagrams, and observations is where you’ll do that learning.

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Margi Prideaux, of Radically Local and Arraluen Farmstead

Planning, planning, and yet more planning. It took me ages to work it all out. You can’t just follow your instincts or throw seeds at the soil and hope something sticks—not if you want to feed yourself, or anyone else. You have to decide what crops you’re growing, know their cycle, understand how long each one takes from sowing to harvest. You need to figure out how much of each you’ll need to supply every week, or fortnight, or month (weekly and fortnightly is better … just a tip). Then you need to pull out a giant bit of graph paper—or a spreadsheet if that’s your thing—and map it backwards from harvest to seeds in the ground. In this backwards view, map when to transplant, when to sow.

If you’re lucky enough to live in a temperate zone without a winter freeze, you’ll be growing all year round. That’s not a poetic exaggeration. That’s your life now. It’s going to be a big map!

Market gardeners just know how to do this stuff, deep in their bones. The rest of us mortals—dreamers, learners—have to learn it the hard way, by stuffing it up, by missing sowing windows, by finding ourselves without a single lettuce in the middle of summer. But you learn. And you learn fast. Because there’s no supermarket safety net in the mindset we’re building. Not if we’re serious.

Unless you’re buried under snow, sow something every week or every fortnight. Keep it going. Keep it growing. Because this isn’t a pastime. It’s a promise. A rhythm. A relationship. A full-season, full-cycle, 365-days-a-year commitment.

There will be downtime, but it doesn’t run on the 9–5, Monday-to-Friday script. That’s not your rhythm anymore. You’re on earth time now. You’ll feel the sun on your back and soil under your nails. You’ll sleep knowing you’ve grown nourishment with your own hands—for people you love. Not just food, but continuity. Connection. Care. You’ll wake with a reason to begin again. That ache in your back? Know that’s the shape of meaning, settling in your bones.

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Taken together, these voices speak the truth every new grower needs to hear: this work is hard, sacred, and not meant to be done alone. Start small. Share often. Don’t just grow food—grow systems, grow culture, grow community. Climate chaos is here, but so are we.

The next round of grower insights will land in 6–8 weeks. Until then, keep your hands in the soil, your eyes on the sky, and your hearts on what really feeds us.

The Three Sisters, at Four Strings Farm

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If this piece moved you, pass it on like a sandbag in rising water. I rely on readers to carry this work to those still trapped in the algorithm’s distortion field.

And if you’re looking for practical tools, maps, and field notes for the road ahead, start with A COLLECTIVE GUIDE TO SURVIVING CLIMATE COLLAPSE.