September 2025 Newsletter

May this newsletter find you in perfect peace and health and harmony. Our Summer Sale was well received and people went home to plant trees and share their fruit. The BBQ potluck was a special event, with a special group, and a special blessing was invoked upon the land, the people and the moment. Our Mural Painting took on a whole new life this month as we moved from background colors and basic outlines into clear shapes, subjects and themes directed by the North, East, South and West. Moreover, as layer rises upon layer, we are learning the value of each other as a WE Community.

Please set your calendars, Saturday September 26 from 3pm to 6pm, as we will be having our next Mural Paint Party. This is a community event, so please share this with others who you think may be interested, not just those you consider artistic. Our next Seasonal Sale will be November 14 and 15 from 9am to 3pm, where everything except Sweet White Pineapple plants will be 20% off. This will immediately be followed by our BBQ potluck Saturday November 15 starting at 3pm as our daylight will be shortened.

Buying a tree is not a small decision. It denotes a big responsibility. Spending the money is the easy part. Bringing a small, nascent tree into maturity requires much parenthood. It means digging the hole, which, by itself, can be difficult. It means planting with good soil. Remember, you may include compost, but the compost itself may not have matured into good soil. This takes time and, therefore, it may take time for your young tree or plant to generate. It means fertilizing. Fertilizing need not require money, but time, effort and thoughtfulness. It can mean gathering leaves, grass clippings or mulch from the transfer station to slowly degrade as food as a top dressing, while it also postpones the growth of weeds. It means water. Water with our clay soil may mean keeping the soil wet so that the plant can receive the water. Otherwise, the surface may operate as a clay top to a pot. You see the water pool, so you believe you have watered the plant, but it has not even pierced the surface. For hardcore dry conditions, try dropping in a PVC pipe from above the surface to below the root level to encourage the roots to go down and out. And water in the evening. The roots grow at night, whereas the plant grows during the day.

And yet, all this, without love and affection, will not guarantee success. Your heart must be in your work. So, before buying a tree, count the costs of building a tower. Each tree may later tower enough to provide shade for you and the next tree. And that shade may, in fact, be the difference between making it and not making it, success or failure.

“Gradually I came to realize that the process of saving the desert of the human heart and revegetating the actual desert is actually the same thing.” Masanobu Fukuoka