May 12, 2008
Posted on Tue, 20 May 2008 14:34:13 by Aaron
Moon in Virgo Conjunct Saturn at 11:00 am. 1st quarter.
Synchronicity! My shipment of seeds arrived today, a perfect day to plant perennials. The Oaks were already sprouted in transit, so I was psyched to get them in the ground. All the other seeds went immediately into a 24 hr soak, so tomorrow at 1 its time to put them in for germination.
Three burr oaks went in the field to the east and one gamble. The ground was a lot tougher than I was expecting, super dried out clay, rock shale. I dug two holes about 3’ deep hoping to give the tap root a head start for the Burrs. On one I was planning to put in a Burr, but never got through the hardpan, so will try a Gamble oak in that spot. The farthest east tree, I did a much shallower hole, and basically . The basic technique was one from the tree guy in New Mexico. Dig a fairly large hole, apply hydrogen peroxide to the sides to amend the glazing that happens from shoveling across the clay. Then add the dirt back in un-amended. After planting the tree adding topsoil, compost, and then sheet mulch with newspaper and straw. I didn’t have enough material to mulch more than a couple feet around the tree.
I also found what I thought to be a dead Locust tree but on closer inspection it was living, barely, so did some mulching for it too. 4 years of complete neglect, but still hanging on…
Yesterday I planted some of the beans I got from Umpetu. Cool to have a resource here for a lot of seeds. Though I find that planting annuals is not nearly as interesting at this point, especially with the giant annual garden my Dad is putting in across the road.
I do find that I am not doing a lot of serious Permaculture design. There is a lot of intuition, inspiration and experimentation, which seems to follow in the footsteps of David and Ruthie. However, it feels that things will slowly take form. Planting oak is a long term commitment, and without a lot of planning beforehand there could be a point down the road where I wish that space could be something else. Interesting to notice as I was planting them and looking at the unused field I watched my mind look at the land and feel like it should be planted--- like standard style. That oak trees weren’t’
”useful enough” , but somehow it is super important to think 200-500 years down the road when these trees will be glorious. So now that I am going to be tending to these trees, there is the opportunity to put in other layers around them as they mature, some fruit and shrubs etc.
As I think about the overall design for that field, I keep imagining a small scale edible forest. There are already hackberries in the middle of the hill. It will be necessary to put in some ponds and a swale or two, and start filling in the area with shrubs. IT will be good to talk to wind and see what he suggests. I want to put the alders at the top of the hill and down along the stream, maybe interplant some with the oaks.
It is an interesting challenge to put together guilds and communities of plants that are drought tolerant, because that is one of my primary requirements for most of the positions on this land. There is plenty of irrigation water, but the landscape itself and environment is highland arid and it seems the the responsible thing to do is send as much water down the river as possible to others who would need it… and at the same time work in harmony with the land, to support the people that live here and the people that may live here in the future.
It also occurs to me that restoring balance and harmony to the land, requires strengthening it to be able to cope with the surrounding land that is already out of balance. Even to the point that minus the human influence to continue the disharmony a healthy “pod” of land could hold its own, or even in time spread its influence to the surrounding areas. In essence not just using pioneer species, but a whole system that can pioneer other areas. Obviously this is the original design of nature, and left to its own will come to balance with whatever condition is present.
But the balance that arrives “naturally” may not support human life.
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