Why The Gardener ? Even though I love gardening and don’t get enough time to work on my Permaculture garden, gardening is an honourable real bloke type activity, combining nurture & TLC with pruning, chopping things down, killing the nasties, it is about a lot of things…… :
- tending and feeding the soil, nurturing and growing things, and pruning and killing the bad bugs and nasty noxious weeds;
- being acutely aware of the seasons and sunlight, of when and how it rains and the time between drinks for the garden, heat and cold, frosty nights and parching dry days during months of drought;
- being being connected to nature and with the spiritual goodness and creativity of the plane;
- noticing the visits of the beneficial bird gangs made up of different small species that move around together for safety carefully hunting down all the insects in their different ecological niches and hiding places;
- design and redesign, protracted observation and strategic thinking followed by enthusiastic action
- hot sweaty hard work and then lazing on a sunny day in the shade of a tree sharing a cold cider or beer with your gardening team, watching the chooks diligently engaged in their rewarding work of turning the old vegie beds over;
- gardens are in fact down right sexy, and Darwin’s
survival of the fittest, in fact should have been
reproduction by the sexiest ! - we all admire flowers, but tend to overlook that flowers flirt with their pollinators! Some are working outrageously on the
if ya got it, flaunt it principle, others are reproducing on the come here, I just smell so desirable…mmmmm, others sensually telling the birds and the bees come here sugar; and then there is sexual nature of the rest of life in the garden, seeds reproduction, birds, bees and bugs all at it. - birth, mate selection, breeding, living and death is even more noticeable when you add birds and animals to the garden with roosters boasting, hens laying eggs every morning and getting clucky.
- and then if you have a bigger garden or farm, the seasons include seeing the chickens hatch, the birth of goat kids, lambs, calves, foals, crias, kittens and puppies.
- and finally then harvesting delectable fruit, tasty vegetables and beautiful flowers, to share and enjoy with friends and family.
As a Permaculture Gardener it’s more than just gardening the soil and plants, it’s about observing and creating systems of beneficial interactions, designing and harvesting harmonious integrations of plants, animals and people, it is about recreating the Garden of Eden.
