ThrivingTheFuture Podcast – Episode 8 – You Know You Are Thriving When…

Are You Thriving – Not just surviving?

An exercise in defining your life intention and values – what does thriving look like to you?

Ask yourself the question:

You Know You Are Thriving When ____________.

Our answers to this question –

You Know You Are Thriving When:

You grow your own food (maybe not all), and you have enough to share.
When you have abundance.
When the power goes out and you have enough flashlights.
Your life is truly resilient, not just in goods, but spiritually and mentally.
You face difficulty but it helps you grow and meet your destination.
You save seed and have developed landraces adapted to your land.
You are always learning.
You have an issue with something and you can say “I know a guy…” and mean it.
You have meaningful relationships in your community without keeping track of “who owes who”.
You have a community where if someone asks you “how are you?” you are safe to say the truth that you are not doing so great.
If something happens, you could go a paycheck or two without having the bank banging on your door.
You are satisfied with what you have and you know how to make the best of it.

Landrace Gardening

We mention landrace gardening in this episode.

Seeds have “memory”. They have self selected to thrive in the climate that they are in. If you buy seed from another part of the country you are buying seed that has a “memory” of that location. Even if it is only one state over it still may be different from your soil and climate or microclimate.

Landrace gardening is saving seed and adapting your plants to your climate, soil, and location. As you save seed from the plants that thrive, you adapt those plants to what you like. You can choose the fruits and vegetables by taste and color and then cull out or discard the plants that you don’t like as much. This allows diversity and a depth of flavor. You can even cross the plants to more directly choose by your color or flavor preferences or adapt the plants to do better in shorter seasons.

This is the “Landrace Gardening” book that we recommended in this episode, for more information on landrace gardening: