Creating Sustainability and Diversity

Since beginning my studies about Organic Horticulture, I am learning about the two biggies:  Sustainability and Diversity.  This forces me to think of my own organic practices and how they fit in with these ideas......  Here's the first little gem:

Trusty little Masport Mulcher

I have been pruning by the Lunar Calender over the last couple of weekends.  Boy, what a mess a pair of secateurs,  big loppers and a little handy-dandy pruning saw can make!  Piles and piles of mess.  Everywhere I look behind me, huge pyramids of  tree fallout!  So this little guy above is the little tireless muncher who helps us create that protective mulched mantle over our bare soil.  It is quite meditative (but fairly noisy) as you feed branch after pruned branch into it's ever hungry jaws.  It is a repetitive but highly rewarding job as streams of mulched vegetation drops out of it's bottom end.  This then ends up being spread across bare soil areas to suppress weed growth.  It also gradually breaks down and enriches the soil fertility.  Mega Awesome stuff!  Truly sustainable living practices, rather than throwing all the prunings away as many do.

Piles of feijoa prunings awaiting their destiny....

Pruning chaos soon turns into recycled order

Now getting to the diversity aspect, this refers to the amount of "different" species of insects, plants and soil life.    I saw this idea below in a magazine and immediately set about in my little garden shed, planning, hammering, sawing, glueing and figuring out this little insect abode, or more aptly named, Bug Motel.  It offers a variety of different spaces for different insects to move into the "apartment" of their choice.  As I have only hung my Bug Motel 3 weeks ago, no insect has yet taken me up on the offer of free accommodation.  But I wait with bated breathe....................

The Bug Motel, with standard single to luxurious deluxe double rooms.

We have just had the pleasure of a 3 day long weekend - why oh why, can we not have this every weekend?  Seems a much more balanced lifestyle to maintain.  I put the extra day to good use - sewing and working in the garden and kitchen, socializing and watching 2 good movies.  I harvested a big basket full of  Autumn/Winter cusp goodies - persimmons, bananas, potatoes, artichokes, limes, zuchini and of course, the ever prolific bell-like chillies! 

Weekend harvest

 I also made a batch of golden kiwifruit jam and then Mike and I swapped ear candling sessions to finish off the long weekend.  Such domestic bliss!  The ear candling sessions fall under the category: sustainability, I think!  Keeps us able to sustain the pace of living sustainability.  Actually, most every weekend, we try to swap some kind of treatment from massage, to reflexology, to Sound therapy, to Reiki, to hot stone massage.  A diversity of options, to sustain us.  Highly recommend it!