The sloth's vegetable garden hit by climate change

Climate change and the vegetable garden: adapting and seizing opportunities.

Publication of the 6th IPCC report, more alarming than the previous ones... A constant stream of increasingly dramatic images on our screens... Who still denies global warming and its effects? Alas, when we look closely at climate trends at the gates of Le Potager du Paresseux between 1946 and 2021, we're in for a nasty surprise: the situation is far worse! And, from the point of view of an "agronomist who gardens", it's also much more complex!

However, nothing is ever totally negative: as long as we innovate, we can adapt. And even take advantage of the new situation! Such is the conviction of the author, for whom gardening as his father did is now suicidal...

But how can we successfully adapt? This question lies at the heart of this book. How to avoid summers, with their recurrent risk of heatwaves? How do you avoid watering sprees? How can we grow more crops, well into autumn and winter, without tiring ourselves out too much? How can you plant your vegetables much earlier in the spring? How do you escape the frosts that, despite global warming, still lurk in ambush? For each of these topics, the author describes his experience and the technical innovations he has implemented: various frames, thermal buffers, cold greenhouses, sails, the most suitable species and varieties... and always without tilling the soil, fertilizing, composting or mounding. As a result, getting pink radishes to Christmas was a kind of challenge he set himself to illustrate the new possibilities open to gourmet gardeners who respect living things.

Didier Helmstetter - Tana Editions - 448 pages