Re: CONFESSIONS and PATIENCE
- To: Mediterranean plant list
- Subject: Re: CONFESSIONS and PATIENCE
- From: B* S* O*
- Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1999 20:44:35 PST
- Priority: Normal
** Reply to note from Janet Smithen <jansmithen@earthlink.net> Thu, 09 Dec 1999 18:47:54 -0800
I very much appreciated (and enjoyed) Moira and Dianes
postings on the effects of not using chemicals in their gardens,
as I have discovered much the same results in my own.
When we first moved here 9 years ago, we sprayed the fruit trees w/oil,
and I used a Bloomit-it type fertilizer on a few plants,
but over the last 7 years, we have discovered that the fruit trees do
just fine without spraying (actually they keep improving with
bumper crops) and
I don't need to use any fertilizer (keep meaning to use sea kelp 1x a
year, but keep forgetting), just adding my homemade compost,
and having some plants which attract butterflies, bees, etc
seems to work, and
I actually enjoy watching nature balance itself,
-so maybe my plants don't flower as spectacularly as if I fertilized
(but maybe they do), just enjoying my garden through all its
stages is more rewarding, I find
- Actually patience may be the key to gardening this
way, because I actually notice more of what is happening,
than trying to force a "perfect picture" through artificial means...
and I find the pictures I am receiving to be quite wonderful!
Also, I find myself using less manufactured chemicals in other
aspects of our life (it helps that we live in a rustic setting, so our
standards are getting pretty rustic also!)
Maura
Maura O'Neill, Boulder Creek, CA, USA
(on the San Lorenzo River, in the SLValley, aprox. 15 miles east of
the Pacific Ocean, as the crow flies,
-about 10 miles north of Santa Cruz
and about 70 miles south of San Francisco)
Sunset zone 15 (more or less)
