65 bar steep drop 29.80 2mph W dew-point 45 sunrise 7:12 set 6:51 Autumn
Waxing Crescent of the Blood Moon rise 11:04 AM CDT set 8:00 PM CDT
Before
Ecological Gardens
“What is permaculture?
Permaculture (Permanent Culture) is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems that have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other needs in a sustainable way (Mollison, Bill. Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual. Tyalgum: Tagari Publications, 1988.). Ecological gardening is an attempt to apply these design principles to backyard ecosystems.”
We had the post-installation walk through in which Paula began to explain the plants, their particular needs and uses. Lindsay came, too. The plant guilds (see a post a bit ago) around the fruit trees fix nitrogen, fight off predators, attract beneficial insects and help build soil nutrients. The clover sown among the fruit tree mounds and their guilds will further fix nitrogen and add a flash of white to the orchard. 
Right now the primary thing is to provide the whole with adequate water. The blueberries need some straw to hold in moisture. In preparation for next spring I will clear and smother a belt 15 feet back from the truck access way, creating a place to plant a forest edge. The edge plants will be shrubs which birds and other animals prefer to the fruits in the orchard. That’s a permaculture strategy for reducing animal feeding on human edibles. It also attracts wildlife, which we do to some extent now anyway.
Over the winter Paula and Lindsay will complete a site design that will begin to integrate the features of permaculture even more tightly into our overall landscape. As years go by, a great virture of permaculture is that it requires less and less maintenance because it mimics or recreates natural ecological balance through plant diversity.
