August 2008 Newsletter
Early August brought in the monsoon rains, better late than never, and the poor parched soil drank deeply. All the gardens regained some footing… a brief interlude of quenching before the early breath of September snuck in. The coolness brought out the sweetness of the blackberries and the apples. It's been almost cold in the mornings. The cool days stay in the 70s and the nights are so chilly the crickets have stopped singing. Gardeners don't know what to expect next. We do know the really, really gasp-y hot days never showed up and things should not be truly hot again until 2009. I just hope the weather doesn't hurt the figs ripening on the fig trees. They will probably move back into the greenhouse before too long.
2009 will be the year of the food garden. Edible gardens are beautiful and edible plants can be used to create any type of garden desired. Blue Planet gardeners want to be in step with our changing world and we want to help folks set up food systems within their urban landscapes. ("Want local food? Grow it in your own yard!" - Brandon Rutt) Food systems, starting small and simple might be a berry patch to nibble in or a mint stand for winter's teas… an effort that could grow slowly - adding a fruit tree here and there, moving up to guild gardens and bio-islands complete with dynamic accumulators, insectaries, edible and medicinal plants. We love to create forest gardens that have solid foundations in perennial foods for ourselves and for you as well. Annual food can be interspersed among the perennials. Beautiful. That is the way nature grows food… in a community of plantings. We hope you will think about that. Of course, Blue Planet will still tend to the flowers and traditional gardens.
A year-round gardener has routines that move through the seasons along with the weather. Blue Planet gardeners will be planting bulbs for spring flowers, cleaning up and grooming down the beds for the coming cold, gathering up the leaves, mulching the beds and spot watering if the rain doesn't fall. Actually an early snow would surprise no one. Blue Planet gardeners winter water dry grounds and, once snow flies, can shovel your winter walks and drives. Equinox CGS can clean out your rain gutters and downspouts when they clog. Dog Duty clean up service for our canine-loving friends continues year round (offered only on the west side of town right now, Sorry.) We also hang Holiday lights, create Holiday pots and wreaths and can help with indoor decorating as well. The gardeners have been known to house-sit and pet-sit when we can. This is all part of sustainability for gardeners making do through winter and the off-season, same as clean-ups and winter pruning. Please let us know how we can serve you, from food to flowers to leaf to snow.
August has come and gone and September enters our gardens, showing color tinges against the green of late summer. The Autumn Equinox will be here soon… the days will begin to shorten, the nights to lengthen. Sunny Colorado blue sky gives way to a dark crystalline starry night sky. Autumn is arriving this very moment, before our very eyes and, as gardeners; we will welcome the harvest season.
Permaculture Defined
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 material and nonmaterial needs in a sustainable way… a system of assembling conceptual, material and strategic components in a pattern that functions to benefit life in all its forms.
Great emphasis is placed on
the connection between humans,
plants, other animals and the natural systems.
Permaculture's foundation base is three solid ethics:
1) Care for the Earth
2) Care for the People
3) Reduce consumption, share surplus.
Permaculture is: A set of techniques
and principles for designing sustainable landscapes for creating a better life
for humans on the planet at the same time improving conditions for the planet.
- contraction of permanent culture or permanent agriculture. Permaculture uses
nature as a guide on how to grow systems that work and produce. We need permaculture
in our urban systems.
Peace,
Becky the Gardener
"Everything gardens."
Peter Bane, Permaculture teacher
Blue Planet Earthscapes P O Box 861 Manitou Spgs, CO 80829 (719) 685 - 0290