Back to Eden Gardening

Cultivate your own piece of paradise by introducing some lush disorder into your back to Eden garden.

By William Rubel
Updated on March 7, 2022
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by William Rubel
The author’s garden in fall. Note the towering kale trees and sunflower stalks.

  This article is also in audio form for your listening enjoyment. Scroll down just a bit and look for “Audio Article”.

What is Back to Eden Gardening?

Back to Eden gardening is gardening in harmony with nature, a place of meandering paths along which we gather food for our dinner. My definition of Eden is also a garden without rows – a friendly wilderness without an obvious plan.

In contrast, our vegetable gardens and farms focus almost entirely on being friendly to humans, while excluding much of the natural world. Traditional gardens have implied boundary walls and are organized around a short list of plants that are OK, and a long list of plants that aren’t OK. Henry David Thoreau, the American philosopher, farmed beans while staying in a cabin on Walden Pond in the 1840s. After a year of assiduously ripping out every weed, he started thinking that it might be a good idea to plant for nature, too, by allotting a portion of his land to the birds and bees.

Nearly two centuries later, the consequence of humans thinking mostly about ourselves has brought us to a planetary climate crisis. Now, many of us are asking, “What can I do?” One thing is to create gardens that draw inspiration from the story of Eden. For me, that means planting a vegetable garden that looks more like a flower garden than a farm, and to allow some wild plants to thrive in my plot.

Rethinking Weeds

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