The Plant Enthusiast’s Hub

There are some effects of climate change that resonate more personally for me. I don’t just mean suffering through the more frequently occurring high heat days with no air conditioning, although that does stink. I’m referring to my fondness for nurturing plants and gardening. Growing our own fruits, vegetables, flowers, and herbs is a tradition in our family, and I’m concerned about the influence climate change will have on our food supply and our own ability to grow food regionally.

In part 1 of the blog post, we talked about what climate change is. In this post, we will focus of how climate change could potentially disrupt our food supply. Crop production, whether it be agriculture or your home vegetable garden, is weather sensitive. Growing food crops is influenced by the region’s climate and aspects of the climate such as temperature, precipitation, and frosts. Read on to learn more.

We’ve all heard of global climate change and global warming. In my previous career as a botanist at a natural history museum, we discussed our role as members of the scientific community in monitoring global climate change and ways in which the museum collections could be utilized for that purpose. I also learned that our local ecosystems are shifting due to the changes in regional climate and weather. This hit home for me. Having worked extensively in our northeastern Ohio and northwestern Pennsylvania ecosystems, I’ve grown to love our native habitats. It wasn’t until I was taking an introductory class in Sustainable Agriculture that I even thought about how changes in local climate and weather patterns will impact our ability to grow food though. As someone who enjoys growing my own food and having food readily available to myself and my family, I’m apprehensive about the influence climate change may have overall on food production and regional availability.

I never thought about the term homesteading before diving into the sustainable agriculture program. However, the word “homesteading” has come up frequently throughout my education in sustainable agriculture. Curious, I had decided to look it up to find out exactly what homesteading meant. As I outline what I’ve uncovered about homesteading through my research, you can decide which, if any, of the values and components of homesteading apply to you and your journey.

I took an Exploring the Small Farm Dream course in 2015. The course was offered through a local conservation organization whose mission was to lend support to the farms of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, and that’s how I was introduced to sustainable agriculture. One of the farmers in the program explained how he used a combination of cover crops to suppress weeds and improve the soil. He talked about “green manure,” how he integrated livestock into his farming, and how the healthy soils retained moisture, which lessened his need to water the crops. When the pandemic changed my career path, I enrolled in my community college’s Sustainable Agriculture program that fall 2020. The following spring, I was selected for a farm internship program that taught sustainable crop production methods. Those two programs showed me that Sustainable Agriculture is about much more than simply farming. Read on as I highlight what I’ve learned, and you can judge how these concepts might apply to your own food growing and gardening needs.