Projects

Water - collection, storage, syphon distribution, watering cans, ollas and groundcovers, wind, soil

Soil - compost, clay, pottery, amendments, roots and life, mulch, seedlings, soilblocks, hydration

Propogation - cuttings, seeds and seedlings, treelings, divisions, Growbags

Structures, shadehouses, greenhouse, paths,

Plantings - trees, vines, lawn

Projects - 

    Underway - soil blocks, seedling trays, green house, shade house(s), grow bags.

    Ongoing - syphon system, compost collection, garden beds, compost and mulch beds, ground covers.

    Projected - lucerne plantings, seed bombs,vine posts and rails, path renewal.

[Written 13 November 2021, (growbags added since)]

Make the most of it!

I'm a bit of a lazy gardener, though there's a lot going on upstairs at least some of the time.  So, it behooves me when I have the occasional active phase outside that I make the most of it.  Both the time I have active, and the thoughts I had when I wasn't.  Both are resources.

And when the seasons throw you a curve ball, be it a prolonged dry spell, harsh wind, torrential rain, deadly heat, cold snap or hard frost (and often several at once) it's important to make the most of it.  Observations of extremes sometimes clarifies things massively, leading to experiential applications rather than just theoretical imaginings.  And, of course, there are the opportunities that a crisis inevitably throws up.  Nature in extreme is nature in excess - the question is how to harness and harvest this.  Extremes define the limits (edges), reframing for a new perspective.

Edges. Stacking. Zones. Sectors. Design factors all.  Use them to make the most of it.

Iterative processes, nature's heuristic, integration of self with the landscape.  Insight. Make the most of it.

*

So what brings this philosophical excursion from the realms of silence (the number of 'draft' posts I have collected, however, is starting to mount up)?  You could probably guess - an 'extreme'.  In this case, the relatively benign one of possibly the wettest November since written records were kept here (1897, five years after our house was built).  It's gonna be a close run thing, but even if it turns out to fall (just) short of the arbitrary record set in 1952 it is certainly a highly unusual situation in the context of this place and time.  The farmers hate it (they're trying to get the harvest in during the dry moments), but I have come to the realisation that these 'unseasonal rains' are providing me a brilliant opportunity.

The (expanded) water tank and distribution system is fully charged (and with doable plans to increase the  utility of distribution - freeing up time in the summer ahead to get a start on next autumn and winter before they bring new surprises.

The ground is as hydrated as it's been, with prepared beds (composted and mulched) ready for plantings. New techniques and technologies in play, perennials increasingly in place.

[post originally written on 24 Nov, 2021)