Summer Waxing Summer Moon
The six cubic yard of mulch pile has become several piles of mulch at strategic locations along the paths and beds of last year’s orchard installation. Now it awaits distribution, looking like debris fields from some recent wooden mountain slide. Mulch serves many purposes in the garden. Winter mulch keeps the ground cold during spring’s heaves as the earth thaws and refreezes. Summer mulch helps in weed suppression, keeps the ground cool to avoid plants getting overheated and helps hold moisture in the soil during hot weather.
Mulch in the orchard serves mainly to suppress weeds and to give a uniform look to the beds and paths, but it has one important purpose that Paula Westmoreland of Ecological Gardens taught me. She says the breakdown of wood chips gives a different boost to soil chemistry, one more favorable to perennial plants while straw works better for annual plants like vegetables. I don’t understand it, but she seemed very confident.
I drove into Panera’s in Northeast for a meeting with Dan Endreson, outgoing legislative committee chair of the Sierra Club and Margaret Levin, its executive director. We went over the past patterns of developing agendas for the upcoming legislative session. Dan made me a disc of all the documents that had been useful for him and the committee over the last four sessions while he’s been active.
It’s fun to get into a responsible role in an issue area I feel is important and in an aspect of the work that involves politics. The future looks like lots of meetings, phone calls and work in or around the capitol.
The kids are on their way back here from a 4th of July spent in Chicago with Jen’s family. Herschel will be happy to see his family again.
Paula Westmoreland from Ecological Gardens came out today and gave us a walk through, explaining the plants and their relationships. The real distinctiveness of permaculture lies in developing and nurturing those relationships, using plants together in ways that are mutually beneficial. An easy to understand example is the familiar legume family, a group of plants that fix nitrogen in the soil. Since most plants deplete nitrogen in the soil, following a planting of a non-legume, especially if it’s a heavy feeder like, say, tomato or corn, with a legume helps restore the soil chemistry.
This southern gentleman showed up on my tour of Okefeenokee Swamp. He hissed and opened his mouth wide. (Does that mean he’s related to Jesse Helms?) After we moved past him, he moved to another patch of grass and rolled over on his side, happy at having driven away the intruders.