An interview with Kath Irvine — gardening teacher, permaculture expert and author.
Kath Irvine is a renowned organic gardening and permaculture expert and author based in Horowhenua, New Zealand. Through her blog and business, Edible Backyard, Kath offers gardening courses and consults to help people create productive, beautiful and, most of all, easy gardens.
She is known for her practical and down-to-earth approach to gardening, and for her ability to explain complex concepts in simple terms. Her easy-to-understand teaching demystifies the concept of permaculture design processes, allowing gardeners of any level to upskill and make progress in their edible gardening endeavours.
Kath is an advocate for slowing down and avoiding the rush we so often fall into. She talks of quiet observation of the rhythms and patterns of nature and getting to know your specific patch of land before diving into planting and establishing garden structures.
Kath’s a bit of a legend in the world of gardening, having inspired and empowered multitudes of people to create their own thriving and sustainable edible gardens.
We’re delighted to share this interview with Kath, where she emphasises the importance of starting small, taking notice and following your intuition.
Kath, tell us a little about yourself and your life as a gardener…
I found gardening while living up Otaki Gorge in the 90s. I was surrounded by people milking goats, making their own medicine, spinning their own wool and of course – growing their veggies. A real eye opening experience for this city chick!
All the young mums used to garden together. Growing our bulk crops in a neighbour’s paddock and helping each other in our veggie patches. It was a homecoming for me – to have my hands in the dirt and harvest the best food to feed my babies.
Being in community nourished me as much as the food did. I healed from severe eczema while living there. As often occurs, I wanted to share this simple, nourishing way with the world. Particularly with a view towards children whose bodies were under load and displaying eczema or other health conditions. Best health is the greatest wealth and makes life oh so good.
What is your vision and philosophy for gardening and landscaping?
A garden is an extension of the gardener. It’s this connection I wish to foster – it’s the key to a thriving landscape.
I’m not interested in doing the design as such, rather to empower people to do their own. It turns out so much better this way – to evolve your landscape in a very personalised fashion.
The thing is, it requires a bit of patience and stepping outside of the narrative of ‘rush’. If you are prepared to take the time in the beginning to fully understand your ecosystem, you will then go on to make excellent choices about what to plant and where to plant it.
Part of this is understanding your needs. The habit is to say “I want to grow everything!” But, pause in the beginning and notice what you and your family actually eat and discover the good quality food you can source locally (no need to grow those things!). Give your time to crops that bring value – a cider apple may sound fun, for example, but what’s the point if you don’t make cider?!
Growing crops that suit your landscape brings great ease as these are the crops that will do well with little intervention. But in order to do this you must know your land first.
This slow, thoughtful start gives you a strong platform from which to spring into a garden that fits your landscape, your needs, and is abundant with very little inputs as well as being your own definition of beautiful.
Quiet observation slows our modern mad selves down, bringing us to a deeper connection with the rhythms and patterns of nature.
In your book ‘The Edible Backyard‘, you talk about using a simplified permaculture design practice. In your words, what does permaculture mean?
At the heart of permaculture is a connection to nature and to find this we must re-learn observation. Quiet observation slows our modern mad selves down, bringing us to a deeper connection with the rhythms and patterns of nature.
Once plugged in, we create easy, wise gardens that enhance our environment, sending our land, animals and ourselves on an upward spiral of health. So much satisfaction and it’s fun to garden this way!
The thing is, it requires a bit of patience and stepping outside of the narrative of ‘rush’. If you are prepared to take the time in the beginning to fully understand your ecosystem, you will then go on to make excellent choices about what to plant and where to plant it.
What are some tips for creating an effective edible backyard?
Don’t rush in! Delay building gardens/sheds/greenhouses and grow veggies in containers or existing gardens while you take the time to learn your landscape and the craft of growing food.
Choose the permaculture process. As I’ve outlined in my book and mentioned above – take the time to learn your land – it’s called making a ‘basemap’. This creates the strongest of foundations so that as time goes on your edible gardens require less and less inputs while producing more and more food.
Our tendency is to rush in and then the next people have a big undo and redo ahead of them because of poor decisions – the big tree grown on the northern line blocking all the sun, the overplanted hedges leaving little room for food, the lack of diversity – I could go on.
What key lessons have you learned along the journey of creating gardens?
Gardening has taught me to look away from the shops and the books (not to say there aren’t amazing worthy teachers out there). but rather to let the buck stop with me – to trust what I see, smell and feel.
Nature provides all the feedback we need. When things do well and when they don’t – both teach us. Nowhere in nature are their rows and fields upon fields of one crop. This is why conventional market gardens need so many pesticides and herbicides because natural systems are completely absent from these environments.
Nature cannot do her work in a monoculture. Diversity is key to survival – it is the driving force of nature, in fact, and is always the answer.
When things go awry, the question is – how can I bring more life here? More life makes for a stronger garden system. I’ve learned that gardening is a conversation between me, the plants and soil. I’m always pondering – what do you need? And in answering that question, I find myself stepping further and further away from tidy and towards healthy, from ‘looking good’ to feeling good.
I interrupt as little as possible these days and am constantly amazed at the things that resolve (even seemingly dire things!) when I let the reins go and watch things unfold instead. Experience brings ease because I know when to step in with a guiding hand and when to sit back. And when I don’t know, it’s a sure sign to do nothing!
It’s liberating to lose the fear of pests and disease – honouring them as my teachers rather than my enemies.
Nature provides all the feedback we need. When things do well and when they don’t – both teach us.
What are your favourite plants to grow, and why?
Gosh, it’s like choosing a favourite child – impossible!
I adore fragrance, so right now my old roses, sweetpeas and valerian are bringing great joy as I walk through them.
I’m loving the crimson clover and phacelia throughout the spring veggie patch – they’re such multi dimensional plants that feed a multitude of bees and hoverflies, as well as nourishing and cleansing the soil and being oh so pretty.
And in the orchard the long grasses are starting to head up. As I look up from my writing on this breezy day, I love the way they are blowing in the wind so majestically. They too – humble plants as they are – are supporting a multitude of life above and below ground. It’s fair to say – I love them all.
Nature cannot do her work in a monoculture. Diversity is key to survival…
If you had to pick only three plants to grow in your garden, what would they be?
We are about to leap into a housetruck and I’d imagined making a little garden on the back deck. But I haven’t because I’ve existed in this abundant wilderness for so long that I cannot shrink, as yet, to a pocket-hanky sized patch.
I would plant leafy greens and a few herbs if I had to pick. Perhaps in time, as I adapt, I will create something thus.
What would you say to encourage someone who is starting on a gardening journey?
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Start small.
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Leafy greens and herbs are my favourite beginning point. They are the easiest and most beneficent of all crops. And besides, you cannot buy leafy greens with the same vim and vigour as you can grow – fresh picked and eaten right away ensures full nutrient capture.
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Plug into your gardening community and learn together with a mentor – someone local who resonates with you. Use them to springboard into your own garden style.
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Go slow. Rush is not your friend – ever.
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Keep it simple. There really is no need for fearsome structures and expensive set ups. Pile up some organic matter, let it compost down, then plant a crop into that and watch it fly.
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Put your trust in nature – trust life and in doing so, trust yourself. You are nature and have within you a very accurate guidance system that when you slow down enough, tells you all you need to know. You are one with this process – you really, really are.
Kath Irvine is the creator of Edible Backyard and a passionate permaculture expert, who has designed, taught and managed food gardens for more than 20 years. Kath’s articles, books, garden consultations and workshops help people create and maintain smart, well-designed gardens that save time, money and the planet.
(Photos by Kath Irvine, Amber-Jayne Bain and Catherine Cattanach.)
— Interview as told to Emma Sage.
