Harvesting Abundance

Autumn is slowly approaching with regular showers of rain, and wonderful rainbows arching all around us, sparking that childlike magic within. Some leaves are already gone, and a change is in the air…

With that, harvest is arriving fast, and there never seem to be enough hours in the day to capture all that the land has to offer! The hedgerows are full of medicine, the fields are giving a flush of fresh greens after the hay has been cut, animals are enjoying their pasture, and the swallows are practising their flights before leaving for warmer lands again.

Our veg garden is brimming with abundance, food crops and seed crops alike. I’m on watch, ready to pounce at just the right moment, depending on the crop. Seed crops love this season; it feels the most “proper” summer-like since I moved here in 2012. Even outdoor tomatoes thrived in the Donegal garden this year! But that’s a story for another post.

With abundant harvests, preservation is in full swing… drying, juicing, jamming, canning, and fermenting. The kitchen feels like a whirlwind, with pots juggling and jars filling up!

How does eating seasonally connect us more deeply to the land?

There is nothing like harvesting your own food. Truly nothing. Even the best organic produce from a shop doesn’t compare, the vibrancy and freshness are unreal. I’d encourage everyone to grow at least something: a pot of your favourite herbs, a “windowsill salad box,” or a few garden beds with your top five greens, veg, or even strawberries.

Eating seasonally means our diets naturally shift with the crops available. Nature offers nutrients at the times of year when we most need them.

From an environmental view, the impact is zero food miles, just a few steps from soil to plate. Add in the benefits of having your feet and hands in the soil, and gardening suddenly ticks a lot of boxes: nutrition, well being, environmental care, and happiness, all at once. It’s only natural, after all; not so long ago this was how everyone lived.

Gut Health Focus

So what is gut health? Imagine we are walking, talking universes filled with gazillions of microbes living in and on our bodies. Without them, our health would quickly deteriorate. Our blueprint is designed to coexist with nature, and having the right balance of these tiny life forms is crucial to our well being. Feeding and supporting them keeps us supported and healthy in return.

Here are some research-backed facts:

• Fresh produce carries microbes. A 2023 analysis of 2,426 gut samples found ~2.2% of gut microbes could be fruit/vegetable-derived, with higher proportions in people eating more plants, and greater diversity.

• “30 plants per week” is the best-known target. The American Gut Project showed that people eating 30+ different plant foods weekly had more diverse microbiomes.

• A randomized trial found that a fermented-food-rich diet increased gut diversity; a high-fiber diet improved function but didn’t raise diversity short term.

• Vitamin C depletes quickly post-harvest. On average, salad leaves lose ~0.15–0.36% vitamin C per hour in storage (loss is faster in the early hours, and washing can accelerate this).

Our gut thrives on diversity. A wide mix of fibres, polyphenols, and phytochemicals provides food for different microbial species, helping them flourish and support digestion, immunity, and in return mental well being.

Citizen science, like the UK’s Wildbiome Project, shows this in action. Foragers living solely on wild plants in 2023 saw their gut health scores rise significantly, alongside weight loss, higher energy, and improved mood. Early studies suggest even a few weeks on a wild, diverse diet can reshape the microbiome, with some changes lasting beyond the diet.

The greater the variety of plants, the richer the microbial life within us. Plant diversity doesn’t just feed us, it feeds the living ecosystem in our gut, linking our well being to the resilience of the landscapes we harvest from.

Herbs are nature’s medicine, and also food for our microbiome. They offer active compounds that support our health, while also fuelling gut microbes. One simple way to hit diversity numbers is to make multi-species pesto with 20 or more plants, it’s easy, delicious, and microbiome-friendly.

Sustainability & Soil

We practice methods like no-dig growing and making compost right here on the land. It’s rewarding, deeply nourishing to the soil, and feels like an exchange of energy and spirit with nature, alongside the science of soil health.

The soil beneath our feet is more than dirt. It’s a living microbiome, housing diverse life.

Regular contact with living soil, through gardening or foraging, feeds our gut microbes and may also tune our immunity and metabolism.

Tending the land is tending to ourselves.

Saving seed, when done carefully, ensures vibrant, locally adapted varieties. Seeds saved on your land thrive best on your land, as it is their home as much as yours.

There’s also an old tradition of “mouth seeding”, licking or holding seeds in your mouth before sowing, so your microbiome coats them. The idea is that it shares information about your unique biology with the plant. Whether mystical or microbial, the more we interact with plants, the more they give back. We live in a web of life, and science is only now catching up with what our ancestors already knew.

Whole-System View

By cutting out food miles, the middlemen, and the chemicals of industrial food systems, we benefit our own health and we honour and protect our great mother, Gaia.

Harvesting with intention means gathering not just the crops, but the essence of our land and embodying the qualities it carries.

You can join us through community projects. This September, we’ll host a seed swap tied in with a harvest celebration, and a series of workshops to encourage more people on the journey of seed sovereignty during October.