Still Kickin!

Sorry for the lapse in posting-trust me its been a whirlwind month!!

Here are some of the bullet points of things that have kept me busy:

1. Bad: Village President ousted in election that was an unspoken referendum on our Sustainability Initiatives-have been in damage control mode ever since due to a very unfavorable political climate (first act of new administration was to move to disband our Green Committee...[we survived, but barely].


2. Good: Someday Gardens has exploded-we have sold out of our entire inventory of 50 barrels YTD and have a waiting list. Am contacting suppliers as far away as Oregon to meet demand on my municipal contracts-if I find one I will actual be hiring staff! Also have enough garden installs that I am turning down new projects. Isn't this a side business?


3. Duh: Its April/May and I have insane amounts of garden projects: installed another 400sq feet of prairie, installed the recreated Peat Bog for blueberries that also drains the Big Rain Garden, built a Play system for the kids, rebuilt the Herb Spiral, etc

The Village President thing hit real hard. The single biggest learning, and look for more posts on this if it ever rains so I can take a break, is that we focused our energies on the Village Board and not the Village at large. The business community was uneducated to our intent and the vocal minority was able to convince them that we were raving idealistic lunatics and enough people turned out to sway the election. Remember I live in a town of 2000 so literally 32 people decided this elections... So the next two years will be a holding action at best. We have already lost 1/3 of our committee to replacements that are intended to impede rather push our agenda which will bog down our meetings for the near future as we get them up to speed.

On a much more positive note, our gardens are making extreme headway. The blueberries are in (post in the future) and the prairie from last year is coming in fantastically thick-some of the cupplant are already pushing 2'!!! Unfortunately the brutal winter seems to have taken out 90% of my Green Thuja wind break. That may be a blessing in disguise as I am now reading Dave Jacke's 2 volume Edible Forest Gardens and the information is blowing my mind. Its pricey, but the 40 page appendix on the Top 100 Most Useful Plants is enough to justify the cost alone-and there are 660 more pages to go!

Add to that my new compost garden (Comfrey, Clover, and Sunchokes) and the newly installed beneficial insect attractant intensive native garden bordering my soon to be installed Orchard and life in the Beo/Mia household is very, very good! We have also planted the first of hopefully 6 Fruit Tree Guilds filled to the brim with edibles, natives, nutrient accumulators, and biomass plants all supporting a semi dwarf fruiting tree.

Posts will certainly be fewer, but trust that I am out fighting the Good Fight!!

Stumble It!