I am glad you made it through the surgery okay. I hope you are feeling better and that you have a rapid and easy recovery!
Every year your garden posts make gardening look more and more fun and fulfilling. It inspires me to want to make a garden too.
Sadly where I currently live, and with my plans so uncertain as to how long and how often I'll even be around, and my mental condition seemingly stuck on "breakdown" until quite recently, it's just really not that practical for me to start one just yet, but I really want to. I was even thinking about starting some kind of indoor mini-garden, since I can't really mess with what's outside in this place, but even that seemed an impossible task only a few weeks ago, and now that I'm finally feeling a bit better, I suppose it is probably too late. It's just me here after all now, and whenever I will finally be able to disappear for a while, there'll be no one to look after anything.
I think it is really cool how you built up the beds, putting the cardboard on the bottom and mixing in the layers of things that will break down. It has a very naturalistic permaculture-ish vibe to it and that stuff really interests me (not that I really know the first thing about it... yet). I think it's cool how we can provoke and leverage environmental processes like that. I hope I can do cool garden stuff like that someday.
You made me cry a little when you wrote:
I thanked each plant on the way to the compost pile.
I am sure they appreciated your gratitude. I don't know if plants have feelings the same way humans do, but I like to imagine they are on some level able to perceive and experience comfort, peacefulness, and appreciation. I've read about how people talking to their plants has been reported to make them grow better. Some philosophers now even believe that all matter may have the building blocks for consciousness, and the manifestation of a single conscious entity is a matter of organisation and locality. That is to say... you are conscious because all the "consciousness-stuff" in the matter that makes up your brain is linked together. Of course, who knows how right they are? But I find it fascinating to imagine about these things.
Certainly you have a wonderful variety there of delicious foods to come. If I were you, I would be most excited about the strawberries and the rhubarb... mostly together... in a pie. Yum...
Thank you! Well, you know me, I have stuff to do and places to see, so I hope my body will comply and heal up quickly.
Aww. But aren't there like different irrigation systems that can be programmed to water plants from like a container of water remotely? There's got to be something like that out there. I am sure you could manage. It is never too late for growing plants with the right soil mix and grow lights. They even manage it in space, you can do it too! Come on! Hugs
I have no knowledge about permaculture either, perhaps, that is a project for future and to learn along the way by doing. About the use of boxes I learned from gardeners on YouTube. They seem to be super active there and understandably so. Their experiences are super valuable.
I am 100% sure that plants sense the energy we put out in the world and feed off of it or if the energy is not right, they will never flourish. I try to keep that in mind when I tend my plants and to leave the negativity out of the garden as much as possible. At the same time if I have a chaos in my mind, working in the garden sets it right, and helps me to calm down, understand what is what. I am not sure about all matter and stuff.
That would make a nice jam too ^^ I can't wait.
An irrigation system... so basically a robo-lem to water the plants while I would be elsewhere? You know, I hadn't really thought about that. I guess that really, the only thing a plant really needs is light, nutrients, and water... I'll have to think about that! I would only be worried about something going wrong... like if it leaked, or somehow the lights caught fire... hmm. There's got to be a way to make it work. I'll think about it.
The general topic of engineering self-sustaining systems just sets my mind on some kind of fire. I love that we are able to set certain things in motion with the knowledge that feedback loops will keep the entire system in check. I've only started watching a few videos here and there, but in general permaculture just seems like the application of that pattern to gardening. I think it's super cool to create things that gain a life of their own.
While it's no self-sustaining food forest or anything, the idea of your garden boxes doubling as a self-contained compost pile for years to come, with those leaves and sticks down there on the bottom, you know... it seems awesome in that sort of way. :)