The plot thickens - literally!

Well. Hope all are well and not too worried by the flu outbreak. It is a good reminder that we may as a species think we have 'conquered' the wild beasts, but the smallest microbes can outwit us still! A gentle way of working with your body to support it through this is with homeopathy, and/or flower essences, the Bach flower essences or Perelandra essences work extremely well, and if you use kinesiology you can help yourself and others.

A nice link for you is to the Sheng Zhen form of healing QiGong. You can do this at home courtesy of the Sheng Zhen Society video on YouTube here

Anyway, back to the garden!

I left you as I had just started to tackle developing the 90 x 5ft bed in my garden plan. W- e- l- l. I may have zipped through the other smaller beds, but I kid you not, double digging the first 10 ft of this bed, took me forever. Days. It seemed that no matter how hard I worked, turning over the virgin sod, piling it up in the center to make a raised bed including the vegetation to rot down, whenever I measured, which was often, I still needed to dig more feet to get to the 10 ft mark. And I was tired. And I didn't want to do it, it was bloody hard work!

I couldn't think how I was going to ever prepare this massive bed, it was a joke, what was I thinking??? I was a failure and a wimp. Old. Tired. Heck arthritis was a problem. The pits.

Then I got to thinking and connecting in (finally!).

What had worked so well last year? Why had I started this in the first place? To slavishly follow the holy grail of neat beds, and rows of tidy well behaved veggies? Heck no! My veggies are waiting to be wild, muscling in with the wild plants and claiming their space and existence, their rude wild health, and then get with their mates to set that into seed for the next generations and on!

So what on earth was I doing ?

Right then I 'happened' again on Masanobu Fukuoka and his no dig method. Rapidly availing myself of the fabulous resources of the Holistic Agriculture Library, in Tasmania, Australia (link listed on the right), where you can download a copy of his out of print works, I was re-energized, and re-booted into action.

What was I doing with that huge pile of sycamore leaves gently rotting on the compost heap?

Bingo. The rest of the 90 ft was simply covered in a 1 ft layer of not quite rotted leaves, and that my friends, is what I have planted. The entire rest of the 80 ft bed took me about 3 hours!

The other 60 ft bed followed in the next 2. Could it really be that simple?

Well that is the experiment.

According to my plan, the 90ft is divided up into sections, one slightly larger than the others for potatoes, and the rest planted to a variety of root vegetables and beans, corn, spinach etc.

Some are being raised in flats, and some sown straight under the mulch in little balls of mud to get them started.

So far, (lost my download cord for pics), the potatoes are poking their leaves up through the mulch perfectly, AND I only have to water every three days. I checked. It's gorgeously damp and warm under there, but airy through the leaves. As far as I can tell, near perfect germination and growing conditions!

I can't tell you how excited I am to see those potatoes!

The other 'normal' beds have been sown and covered with a light layer of mulch and hay that I cut from the grass you saw. And that is another great discovery, I bought a really great scythe.

It is as tall as me and cuts through the grass wonderfully with no noise, and very little effort. It's actually very calming, as demonstrated by another video link for you which I recommend before bed, better than warm milk! Scythe to sleep .

More later, enjoy the wonderful spring!

Spring in the new garden - Raw land = raw hands?

Well. This working with nature is a lot of fun! It's been one surprise after another after what seemed like a lot of waiting, but was probably just me being slow in getting the right pieces in place. I've been chomping at the bit wanting to get the new garden physically started but at the same time somehow not having the energy, or letting things get in the way of actually doing it. Quite a frustrating opposition of wants ! But looking back a huge amount happened to set the scene on a different level.
Over the winter months I used some of the Perelandra energy processes, clearing stagnant energy, to start preparing the new land for a 'wild' cultivation partnership. I got the impression that the longer the time I left between doing these processes and starting physically on the garden, the better. Seems such a sensible approach, and participating in these processes felt like an introduction, a care-full intention, and an all round brilliant way to start listening to and making peace with the land and all it's creatures. It signalled both to me and the land the start of a dialogue of a different kind on a different level of communication. I was listening with all ears, and hoping that nature would put up with such a novice! I fully expect that I will do the intuitive communicating equivalent of some of those ghastly embarrassing mistakes that can be made while putting sentences together using a foreign language phrase book. What I get back from that thought is the sort of feeling you would have watching a baby of any sort working things out with furrowed brow!
Those energy processes were very interesting. Turned out that the land needed quite a bit of releasing and balancing, both the land, the soil itself, and the atmosphere above. What came out in the flower essences that were needed was a sense of embattlement from outside, which of course was exactly the case, and rebirth. Pretty amazing. So it was really good to have this clearing and healing work addressed before any other work began.
As any of you using the Perelandra techniques know, one of the key processes to help you work well is to set your intention. To do this clearly you do a DDP, set your definition, direction and purpose. Here is part of mine for this garden...

Garden DDP

I want to set up a co-creative garden where I, and others, can learn how to grow food and other plants in partnership with nature, in such a way that the plants and the entire garden environment can also thrive, evolve, and be happy, and to grow enough delicious, sustaining, and highly nutritious food for our whole family to meet our daily needs, with some extra to sell as income.

So, I got the general garden plan sorted, 6 beds, one 90ft x 5ft, one 14ft round bed in the center flanked by two 12ft square beds, one long 90ft x 5ft bed at the far side, one 60ft x 5ft above the center, and two more 40 and 50ft x 5ft beds above that.
Great. The prospect of digging those was just impossible to contemplate, but I was looking forward to getting started! So I just got on with it and didn't think too hard about what had to be done. Breaking free from my stasis at last I started merrily with the three small central beds, digging the lovely soft gopher turned soil with it's topping of gorgeous 'weeds' over, making raised green manured heaps. Felt great that I had the energy to do those in one day, the rest will be a breeze! So far so good. And then having completed those I got the distinct impression that the center one should be turned into a pond. Yes! I love ponds, and the garden creatures will love it too when it gets hot. So popped off to get some very smelly pond liner which I let offgas for a few days in the sun, then got a distinct sense of urgency to get it installed. So the kids and I dug down a few feet at one end, made a shallow 'beach' at the other, lined it and filled it up. It just instantly made the garden magical, and then we discovered to our delight, that we had completed it just in time for that night's full moon. So late that night saw us, flashlight in hand, popping down to the field to look at the moon reflected in the new pond. Moon/water/land, a very appropriate link for a garden that will have some very specific watery needs come July.
We just need some trees to shelter the pond so the birds can drink and bathe without becoming 'sitting ducks' for the hawks.
I have something in mind for that.
Anyway getting late, I'll tell you the rest of the story later, things took a turn for the worse.......

The Wild Garden

Well, apparently according to the poll, 82% of you talk to your plants!
I'd like to know if anyone has done a controlled experiment with plants that are talked to and plants that are put into 'solitary' (if you have the heart!).
But forward. I've downloaded a slideshow (just click on the pictures to enlarge and see the captions), of some pictures for you to look at of my wild patch, which is currently giving me the most delicious purple sprouting broccoli trimmings, zucchini, carrots, and arugula, as well as a wild harvest of grey mustard and assorted thistles. You'll see the original dug out, wire lined, fenced in protective garden that I started with fitfully a few years ago, faced with rabbits, gophers, and deer to mention just a few! But I always felt restricted and caged in, and felt the plants did too. I felt their connection to the wild plants and their free life, that they longed to be growing with them to nature's rythmn as they once did. I felt their longing to be free to come to seed and establish family generations and knowledge bases like the centuries old stands of sage and horehound up my hill, not always be seeded far from home, be uprooted and eaten before setting seed, and be discarded at the end of the year perennials or not. That they wanted to take their chances out in the wild and be free.
This sensed longing from the plants became urgent and compelling last year, and was the start of my working intuitively in partnership with the plants in a kind of 'captive release' experiment, protecting them so they had a chance to 'learn' their environment and develop whatever phytochemicals or other defensive mechanisms they needed. I hid them carefully in amongst the natives that do now seem to me to be protecting them. I mentally asked the gophers and rabbits to take part too and let the plants establish with the intention of a future share in mind. ( The gophers did pretty well, they left me one potato on each plant! I know I didn't specify the sharing ratio, but whether they heard me or are just darned good gardeners I can't tell! Whatever, that to me is a sign of a very intelligent and knowledgeable gardening partner.) I started listening to the plants and experimenting with joint tactics so to speak, to see what natural support tactics non native plants need to allow them to live a life as close to wild as their adaptive abilities can get. It was also the start of my intuitive gardening journey, with them, as a guardian to help them on their way to a whole life, to see if we can free the plants, create a new, equal, relationship together and still have enough to eat.
I'm watching as the plants seem to be thinking this one out too, with me, and now you.
Perhaps the vegetables we know and love will change their flavors a tad. So far, from a very few thinned out tastings when curiosity has got the better of me ( checking future seed quality) , they have just become more intensely flavorful, and I can't believe my clump of 'wild' carrots have not been touched by the many rabbits I see hopping around. One tiny observation is that one of the outside small carrots I tasted was very bitter, one bigger, taken from further inside of the clump was unbelievably delicious, was this on purpose? That would be a great defense, I'll test that out with the next bigger batch where I can test without compromising any defenses, and have half a mind to what I am doing. Perhaps the rabbits really just haven't found them yet, hidden amongst the native mustards, which is where I felt it right to put them. Where on earth did that thought come form? Perhaps both. Very interesting. Do please, try this, observe closely and add to the knowledge base.
If this is a type of localized defense that is already developing, maybe was in fact remembered and waiting ready to be enacted given the right circumstances, we can learn these from the plants and work with them to maximise the plant's efforts. They will not need any chemical pest control efforts as with the wild plants. Many possibilities and your observations invited.
The other observation is that the mustard is alive with bees and other little bugs, ladybugs amongst them, and so far (touching the nearest piece of wood), they seem to be enjoying those rather than my intermixed upcoming potatoes, leeks, broccoli, squash etc. I am reaping the benefits in pollinators of all types!
Also downloaded is a picture of the new area to be planted in which I will be working more deliberately trying out the co creative approach, working with nature through kinesiology and intuition, to advise on everything from soil amendments, layout, watering, and planting - what, where, when, and how!
I'll be following the Perelandra Workbooks (in book list) to see how to do this, and the first step has already been taken of creating a small garden sanctuary, a lovely idea, to look after the land we will be working with.
The next step is to do some energy work on the land itself, prior to anything else happening, to balance the environment of the soil and the atmosphere above it, which again makes perfect sense as although it has laid fallow with gorgeous wild annuals on it for many years, it has been carved out of it's original chapparral state and weed whacked every year, thus must not be anywhere near as balanced as the wild land.
This will require a bit of study prep on my part, it sounds a bit complicated, and a new venture, but I'll let you know how it works out.
So far I have been given meticulous instructions for the soil amendments for planting the winter crop of broccoli seeds into, in flats, the exact amount of time they are to spend in those flats before transplanting, and where they are to go when ready. Quite amazing. I'll give you details of how they get on.
I can see it might take me some time to get all the information for each crop planted, not to mention instructions on how to prepare the new area for planting, and as I am planting with the moon cycles, I have to get going as the sowing time for above ground crops is now!
I am intending to leave the wild plants to grow as I have in the bed up the hill, as there are such great benefits and the area has a balance to it that feels good.
Here is a mystery for you to check out with me, the lettuce mystery on the picture to the right. As I am collecting all the seed from my wild veggies to make sure the next crop already has a bunch of info learned from their parent plants, on their locality, bugs, soil etc, I'm watching the seeds develop more closely than I have ever done before.
I saw the lettuce produce the fluffy dandelion seed heads and thought I had better keep close watch before all the seeds blew away. Well, I didn't have to worry. The fluff has gone and the seeds are maturing right there in the seed heads. So why bother with the fluff? I thought maybe SOME seed got carried away further from the plants and some stayed, but it doesn't look like that happened. If you gently pull out the fluff there is nothing attached.
All answers and theories interestedly received, for the unspecified major prize mentioned!
Happy Fall gardening!

Planting Partners - the start of the relationship

Welcome!
This is the beginning of what I hope will be a shared journey with you to look at some of the amazing new ways of thinking, increasingly surfacing, which are shaping how we think of and relate to plants. How can this make our gardens, farms, and lives, better?
Though some of the thinking seems very lofty and esoteric, or just plain 'out there', it is increasingly backed up by advances in such scientific areas as Quantum Mechanics, and fits in with what the Eastern Philosophers and Yogis have been saying for thousands of years.
But really it is very down to earth, and actually translates into something that we already know instinctively but may be a bit rusty at - listening to our 'gut feelings', and re-learning how to use and trust them to help us take in useful information from our living environment.
To test all this theory out I will be planting a brand new vegetable garden, working with Nature, using the techniques explored in the book list on this page and elsewhere, new ideas I've stumbled over in my own garden, and incorporating your ideas too, so start sending them in! I'll upload pictures of the 'virgin patch' shortly.
It will be a first time effort trying some of them out for me, and with your help and suggestions we can see how this all works in practice.
I'm looking forward to hearing from all of you out there as we work out what it means to be Planting Partners with Nature, and see how we can apply the knowledge we gain for the benefit of our gardens, the plants, ourselves and our planet.
Happy Gardening!
The Intuitive Gardener