of our earth: a quiet guide to everyday climate care
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
There is a common belief that living sustainably requires perfection.
A complete shift. A rigid set of rules.
In reality, it is built through small, imperfect decisions made daily.
As cook and writer Anne Marie Bonneau, known as The Zero Waste Chef, reminds us: We do not need a handful of people living sustainably with perfection, but many people making small, imperfect changes, consistently.
Below are a few ways to move through your home and your routines with more awareness. Each one is simple, requires nothing new, and can be started immediately.
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1. Finish what you open
Choose one category in your home and commit to using it fully before opening or purchasing anything new. This could be pantry foods, candles, cleaning products, or shampoos and body wash.
Most of us have multiples of the same thing in use at once. Finishing what you open reduces waste, slows consumption, and brings a natural rhythm back to how you use what you have. It can be as simple as placing everything you are currently using in one visible place, and allowing that to guide what you reach for each day.
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2. Keep a small mend basket, or enlist the community to care for your wardrobe
Instead of tossing damaged items out, give them a place. A loose button, a small tear, a broken clasp. Keep them together.
Once a week or once a month, sit and repair what you can, or find a friendly local garment maker, or sewist to repair your most beloved items each season. This is the perfect time to take that well-worn pair of essential boots to be reheeled at a nearby cobbler.
This turns repair into a habit, and keeps items in use far longer than they otherwise would be.
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3. Plant something you will not use
Grow one thing simply to support the ecosystem around you.
Let herbs flower. Choose plants for pollinators. Allow a corner of your garden or a pot on your windowsill to exist without being harvested.
Not everything needs to be obviously productive. Some things are grown to give back. Left to flower, these plants hum with activity, bees moving slowly between blooms, small systems forming quietly just beyond what we tend to notice.
• Cool, shorter growing seasons: Borage — a hardy flowering herb that attracts bees and pollinators, and self-seeds easily year after year.
• Hot, dry climates: Yarrow — drought-tolerant, long-flowering, and supports a wide range of beneficial insects.
• Mild, temperate or coastal climates: Calendula — easy to grow, continuously blooming, and provides nectar for pollinators well into the cooler months.
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4. Choose one object to use daily
Select one item you already own and use it consistently.
The same pottery mug with each mornings' coffee. The same bowl. A favorite sweater worn once or twice each week.
This builds familiarity and attachment, which naturally reduces the desire to replace or upgrade. Over time, that object becomes sufficient. You stop searching for better because what you have is already known, already enough.
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5. Cook from what remains
Before heading out to shop, pause and look through what you already have.
A can of beans, a handful of grains, that half-jar of pickled chilli peppers, the last red onion, or lonely cauliflower at the back of the fridge, a jar of something nearly empty. These are often overlooked, left sitting until they expire. With a bit of attention, they become something deeply nourishing.
A slow pot of chickpeas with coconut milk and spices. A tray of roasted vegetables, caramelized and crisp at the edges. A simple stew built from what remains, rich and satisfying in a way that feels both resourceful and deeply comforting. There is a kind of creativity that comes from using what is already in your care.
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6. Care for what you already own
Introduce small, regular acts of maintenance.
Oil wood furniture and kitchen items before they dry out. Wash and store natural fibres properly. Keep objects clean and protected so they last. These quiet actions extend the life of what you own, reducing the need to replace things at all.
Even small habits, like sharpening kitchen knives, descaling a kettle, or reconditioning leather, can add years to something you might otherwise discard.
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7. Choose where your purchases come from
When you do bring something new into your home, let it come from a place that reflects care.
Support small, independent businesses. Choose makers who work with intention, ethical sourcing, and transparency. Invest in pieces that are created to last, not to be replaced.
Sustainability is not only about buying less. It is also about choosing better, and supporting the kind of work you want to see continue. Over time, those choices shape what remains available to all of us.
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8. Eat with the season, and with what grows freely
There is an abundance that exists just beyond what we purchase. Wild greens along a path, early shoots in spring, herbs that return without tending. When gathered with care, these plants offer a way to eat that is deeply connected to place and season.
A handful of tender greens can be added to a salad, stirred into a warm pot, or simply tasted while walking. Their flavours are often stronger, more vital, shaped by the conditions in which they grow. To gather in this way is not to take, but to participate.
Notice what is growing, what is thriving, and what should be left untouched. To take only what you need, lightly and without disruption, allowing the plant to continue, and the space to remain intact. Over time, this kind of awareness builds a quiet familiarity with your bioregion. You begin to recognize what returns each season, what flourishes, what fades. This is not about replacing what you buy, but about deepening your relationship to where you are.
If you choose to forage, it is essential to identify plants with certainty and to gather respectfully. Regional guides and local plant knowledge are invaluable in supporting safe and informed practice. Even a small understanding of what grows around you can shift how you move through the world, and how you nourish yourself within it.
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9. Look locally, before you look new
Before bringing something new into your home this season, begin close to where you are. A local marketplace listing. A neighbourhood sale. A small thrift shop. Often, what you are looking for already exists, gently used and waiting for another life.
This is especially true for transitional pieces, seasonal layers, home objects that don’t need to be new to be beautiful or useful.
A simple rhythm to return to each season could be this:
donate or pass along three items
find three items secondhand repair or reuse three items
It keeps objects in motion, reduces what is unnecessarily produced, and builds a quieter relationship with consumption.
And when something new is needed, it can then be chosen with greater intention, from makers and spaces that reflect care.
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None of this requires perfection.
Only a willingness to move a little more thoughtfully within what you already hold, and what you choose to bring in next. Tomorrow, we will share a small offering in honour of Earth Day, held in the same spirit of care. Thank you for being here, and for tending, in your own way, to a more reciprocal relationship with the land.
Dominique is a master formulator and herbalist, and the founder of Tidelands House, established in 2012. Her practice has been shaped through years of study alongside master holistic practitioners and herbalists, where she trained in traditional botanical distillation, whole-plant extraction, and the art of floral storytelling through a considered, ecologically grounded formulary. Her work moves at the intersection of precision and intuition, guided by season, science, botanical lore, and the deeper intelligence of plants. Tidelands House is her ongoing exploration of botanical terroir through fine skincare and place-rooted ritual. Each formulation is crafted by hand at the atelier in Historic Galt and Wellington County, along the Grand River, known in Kanien'kehá ka as Ohswé:kenhionhata:tie.
