Diversity Matters - Baashkaabigonii-giizis (Blooming Moon) - 3 June 2023

Happy Baashkaabigonii-giizis (Blooming Moon). Artwork: Baashkaabigonii-giizis (Blooming Moon) Dancer by Leana Asher.

Happenings

Little Forests at Skeleton Park Art’s Fest on Saturday June 24. If you’d like to help out at the booth, email [email protected]. And if you have great ideas for booth design, let us know!

KFHC Little Forest on Van Order Drive delayed: Unfortunately, due to concerns raised by a member of a neighbouring condo association we have had to delay the KFHC Little Forest. We are hoping to meet with the board of the condo association to alleviate concerns and get the go ahead for a 2024 Little Forest.

Almost ready to prep forest floor for Senior’s Centre Little Forests: We have been working with the Community Gardens policy to get approval for the Senior’s Centre Little Forest, which has proven to be a very long, slow process. We expect final approval to be able to begin soil prep for fall planting in the next week or two. If you want to help prep the forest floor for the Senior’s Centre Little Forest, email Nathan at [email protected]

Please take the time to fill out the Community Gardens Survey. Here are some suggestions to consider when filling out the survey from the JRK Community Garden working group.

• applications for new community gardens must be prioritized by the City to ensure quick approval so that garden prep can begin in April!

• community gardens are necessary and vital response of the City and its citizens to the climate & biodiversity crises, so make it easy for everyone to take part in community gardening!

• ideally the community gardens policy should be in the Climate Action section rather than Parks and Recreation

• soil testing should be done by the City for every new/potential garden as a first step

• the community garden policy should encourage food forests, pollinator patches/native plants/pocket forests to increase biodiversity of the space and attract the beneficial insects necessary for organic gardening (as part of new Strategic Plan Kingston is finally looking into a biodiversity strategy & we are lobbying them to sign on to 30x30)

• raised gardens are NOT good for the environment (bagged in soil, require more water, etc) and do not educate gardeners to the benefits of integrated soil management with compost and mulch

• geotextile membranes should not be used, they are fossil fuel products and dramatically decrease the health of the soil microbiome

• insurance requirement must be removed as the City has already agreed to cover this in the City policy that we are all paying for

• the City should be proactive about new gardens, identify and sign places where they could go for every locality - a 'Victory-type' garden should be in walking distance of every citizen within the urban area and short drive in rural Kingston communities

• every park and community centre should have a community garden

• the City should NOT require applications from community groups before initiating a new garden, let's make this easy for citizens to grow their own food!

• "accessible compost bins” we should be allowed to use compost piles

Kemptville Nut Farm Visit: On May 26, Susie Everding and Nathan Nesdoly visited John Adams’ Kemptville farm for a tour. John is a Certified Seed Collector through the Forest Gene Conservation Association and Susie and Nathan were interested in seeing his operation; Susie is registered for the Certified Seed Collector Course this summer and has started a micro tree nursery at her home to grow seedlings for the Grenville Park Little Forest.

John is a passionate seed collector and grower, and generously donated about 25 seedlings to Little Forests Kingston, including Shagbark Hickories, Kentucky Coffee Trees and Korean Nut Pines. John uses a converted workshop as his seed nursery, keeping the temperature between about 1C and 5C throughout the winter, employing media and techniques to optimize his germination and survival rate.

Just a few of the dozens of seedlings on John’s farm—these are second year seedlings hardy enough to be outside in partial sun

He grows a variety of species on his farm, including a large number of Black Walnut trees and Hazelnut bushes. He also has many Korean Nut Pines, up to twenty years old. This species is closely related to our native white pine (using the same mycorrhizal hosts) but bears very large cones with the largest of the edible pine nuts.

Nathan trying out John’s tool for picking up hazelnuts and acorns—one or two passes will fill the wire cylinder with nuts

John gathers most of his seeds from the Oak Valley Pioneer Park, along the South Nation River near Winchester, and from the Fillmore R. Park Nut Grove at Baxter Conservation Area near Kemptville. 

Grenville Park Little Forest: Susie has been rallying the Grenville Park Community to remove invasive species and plant a large Little Forest adjacent to Bath Road and has formed partnership with Madeleine-de-Roybon Elementary School. She’s raising the money to purchase the trees and made this fabulous short video for the McDougall Community Contest. Fundraising ideas for Susie? Email her at [email protected].   Susie also started a micro nursery to grow some of the seedlings. There are several hundred seeds germinating in buckets next to her house. This summer she'll also become an Ontario Certified Seed Collector.

Diversity matters

Evidence is growing that diverse forests (like the Little Forests we plant) grow more strongly, are more resilient, store more carbon and are more resilient to disease. A 2018 paper published by X. Liu found that:

“With increased species richness, more carbon is stored both above and below ground – in trunks, roots, deadwood, mould and soil. You can roughly say that a diverse forest stores twice the amount of carbon as the average monoculture… Overall, for each additional tree species, the total [carbon] stock increased by 6.4%.”

A recently published U of A study reported by CBC found that increasing species evenness (how equally the species are distributed) increases soil carbon and nitrogen by 30 and 42% respectively. Increasing the functional diversity — the variety of physical characteristics within the forest — enhanced soil carbon and nitrogen by 32 and 50%, respectively.

Another study examined the difference diversity makes in growth rate. The tree half-disc on the right of each image was planted in a more diverse area.

Why? Researchers speculate that different tree species occupy different heights and spaces in the canopy – meaning a diverse canopy is better able to capture incoming sunlight. Diverse also forests attract a greater range of animals – many of which act as pollinators. A higher rate of pollination enables a forest to grow faster, and, thus, absorb CO2 more quickly, the researchers say.

Tuning into living systems

Heather Jo Flores, in her definition of permaculture, suggests you “Take what you learn from the plants, apply it toward becoming an equal, participating, and intentionally regenerative part of the ecosystem around you.” She offers the following exercise to help tune into the living systems around you and begin to cultivate a designer’s mind.

Choose a tree near your home. Open your senses. Touch the tree with your hands. Imagine linking into her network, connecting to other trees nearby.  Look at her up close and from far away. Smell the bark, the leaves, the soil around the trunk. Hug her, lean against her, touch her with your tongue. Use all of your senses, including your intuition. Use your knowledge of place, of patterns, of people. Use  empathy to imagine what everything you’re observing looks, feels, smells, tastes and sounds like  for creatures other than yourself.

Ask yourself:

• What benefits does this tree bring to your neighbourhood? What do the people who live near this tree get from her? What gifts does she provide?

• How do the tree’s surroundings affect her? Think of animals, insects, birds, wind, humans, water, weather, pollution, noise, soil.

• How does the tree interact as a living, evolving element in a whole system?

Go even deeper by asking these questions from Robin Wall Kimmerer:

• What is this being telling me?

• What are ways I can listen?

• Who are you?

• Why are you here?

• What have you brought us? Let’s get to know you and what you are bringing. 

• What do you need? 

• What are your relationships? Who is your family? 

• How do you fit in?

• Who do you dream of becoming?

Write about your experience, or draw a mind-map, or just think about it for a while.