Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning Dynamic Courses, Books, Resources and Tours for Healthy Groups, People and Culture with Robin Clayfield
The weather here has not been very supportive of gardening lately. First a very hot dry period towards the end of 2023 where many plants and trees died, then this year has been so wet and humid up here in South East Queensland. The result has been an overgrowth of tenacious grasses and ‘weeds’ that threaten existing trees and take over whole orchards, access paths and large areas of land as well as many large woody herbs and trees overextending themselves to obscure anything around them.
Then along comes fantastic Volunteers and WWOOFers (Willing Workers On Organic Farms) who have helped turn a problem into a solutions.
Lots of hard work…
• Making Hot Compost from the ‘weeds’ and prunings, often chipping them first
• Sheet mulching weedy areas by cutting ‘weeds’ and grasses then adding biochar, rock minerals and some nitrogen bombs then covering with soaked cardboard then straw
• Placing ‘weeds’ in wire baskets to Slow Compost or drowning them in big bins to create liquid manure
• Creating piles of ‘weeds’, grasses and pruning’s along edges to leave to compost down by themselves and smother other ‘weeds’ in the process
Please keep in mind that Weeds are only a plant in the wrong place or one that a use hasn’t been found for yet, so at ‘Kutamullamee’ weeds are a good thing and support the whole system to be in balance.
Huge thanks goes out to Renata from Brazil (10 awesome, productive weeks in the garden and lots of ferments in the kitchen), Dom from Pomona/Qld (regular garden visits), Marcelo from Australia/Brazil (regular garden visits) and Ally for 2 days recently, Thais from Brazil (4 weeks and still here being amazing), Wronka and Stefan and their three adult children from Switzerland (helping out before and after Christmas a little), Rod from SE Qld for helping with Solar, Diogo from Portugal (helping while asking lots of research questions for a few days)…
Big gratitude for Rob and Stephane and more recently Jen and Tom for sharing the delights and challenges of this land with me (Robin) and all the wonderful nature and creatures that share with us as well. Reciprocity is my favourite word. I see and hear and feel it everyday here with all of us Beings, some of us being human.
