Balance

Balance
Higher State Enneagram stone
for Type 4

Or equanimity, the preferential word my friend Courtney uses for this higher state we here at MuRefuge are in tune with since Rose's joining the Eternal Tao.  

I am realizing my depth of commitment to Rose’s process the longer she is absent from our lives here at MuRefuge.  Seeing the world, or wearing the lens through which she viewed the world, from Rose’s perspective provided me with an unique opportunity to experience the wild.  Those that inhabit the wilderness seem to have a very different order which is rarely muddied with emotional baggage.  The pack’s well being is valued.  Death is accepted. Rose’s Work was to merge these traits with living in a world where humans are “top dog”.  Rose died with her Work complete and rightfully pleased with her hard work.  And I am in the midst of the dynamic process, balance aka equanimity.

Now we have a dog, well puppy really, that clearly understands and accepts that humans are in control.  She is sweet so I call her “Sugar Plum” (Dwight calls her "Twinkle Toes" since is prances when when she takes walks with us) and she seems to naturally assume equanimity puncuated with bouts of rowdyness.  

When she is clear what we want from her, she gives it to us readily.  Easy is this Shasta.

BEing with Rose’s process intensely the last six months of her life left much undone or uncompleted.  Blog entries have been scarce at best.  So as we here at MuRefuge become more balanced, I would like to share some other events we have experienced.

I have never seen any offspring from the pair of foxes I have seen gamboling in the field to our South.

The resident pair of foxes

One morning, while I was sitting, this past Spring I saw something, well a few somethings, jumping in the tall grass.  Binoculars revealed offspring for this year, not one or two but five.

Mom with her youngsters

We were fortunate to watch them grow up, exchanging stories of amazement with our neighbors Pete and Dana who viewed the same kits in another nearby field.

Also, in the Spring we added to our small egg producing, snail and slug eating duck flock.  Last year two chocolate female Indian Runners were added with one of those no longer at MuRefuge.  This year two blue ones came from Metzer Hatchery.  

Our merged flock of all female Indian Runners

And now we have a resident cat, Jack, who has his very own house to protect his food bowl from the coming rains, hopefully.  

Jack's house with feeding bowl in evidence

The beautiful pottery food bowl was made by none other than Dwight.  Jack came uninvited to MuRefuge, and the ducks were stirred up upon his arrival since he liked to hang out in their duck house, but now interspecies harmony prevails with both Jack and ducks coming together at the water bowls when we fill them with fresh water. 

This year has been one filled with clearing, mostly clearing out vegetation including trees.  Those in the know cautioned on over planting trees, shrubs and other plants.  I thought I had judiciously followed their insightfulness but alas more trees and shrubs, especially, were planted.  So two rounds of clearing, first cutting down the plethora of oak trees the blue jays had planted, and second, removing the remaining Italian Stone Pine and carefully thinning of the native Coastal Oaks to allow for air circulation.  I was so focused on negating the fierce wind I ignored the health of these trees which became easy prey for predatory microbes.  

In addition to the massive clearing done this past Spring I have been focused on removing more nonnatives which has opened small patches to be replanted.  My focus has moved from individual plants and their preferred habitat to plant communities.  In that vein I have planted one area with Coyote Mint and Cobweb Thistle, another with Beach Asters and Coast Buckwheat.  I noticed while ambling with my friend Anne on the Olympic Peninsula  that beneath the Ocean Spray grows Salal and the Pearly Everlasting so I experimenting with that combination.  Traditionally rain falls in the Northwest so perhaps such a plant community may not thrive here.

Since the nonnative Curly Willow blew over in a storm now almost two years ago, many of shade loving plants planted to enjoy the protection from the midday sun beneath the willow’s boughs have struggled.  Most are being moved to more appropriate homes.

In spite of the less than normal rainfall this past rainy season, most of the natives seem to be only dormant waiting for the rains to arrive.  The state of each plant will not be know until rains arrive, cold temperatures pass, and the warmth of Spring comes again.

Abundance of delicious, ripe grapes has been a novelty this Fall.  

Each year fruit trees, berry bushes and other plants provide differently.  This particular season we have many apples: Pink Pearl, Yellow Pippin which is George Washington's favorite apple and Spitzenberg. 

Ripe Heirloom Spitzenberg apples, Thomas
Jefferson's favorite apple

The varying abundant production reminds all of us here at MuRefuge that balance is NOT static but rather a dynamic process of which Courtney was aware and suggested this higher state design for equanimity. To her this design more accurately described the ever tilting side to side as she was negotiating every day life then with conscious awareness choosing to rest in Center.  Ah-h-h-h the Higher State within; always present, available at any moment.

Equanimity
Higher State Enneagram stone
forType 4

Eckhart Tolle and Patrick McDonnell, the creator of MUTTS, have joined to produce a wonderful book:  GUARDIANS of BEING.  This book "celebrates and reminds us of not only the oneness of all life but also the wonder and joy to be found in the present moment, amid the beauty we sometimes forget to notice all around us."  

As each of us continue to live and celebrate each day to its fullest, may we

P.S.  Comments are welcome!  Please feel free to share your individual experience(s) of balance.

Sooner than Later

A very special BE-ing has come to live with us here at MuRefuge.

Her name is Shasta for the flower essence Shasta Daisy. I thought we would name her Daisy, Dwight suggested, "Shasta" so Shasta it is since that seems to suit her beautifully. She is estimated to be six months old and on Saturday weighed 31 pounds, which is about Rose's weight at that age.  Her exact breed mix is unknown but the educated guess is Golden Retriever/Spaniel mix.  A “mixed breed identification test” is on order so hopefully in a month or so her mix will be clearer.

Shasta’s Auntie T says "definitely Spaniel since Shasta looks just like my dog Tully. She was a Spaniel mix but only 20 pounds full grown."  As any of you who know Tanis would expect, she and Shasta hit it off big Sunday. She came to visit bearing a bag of gifts.  No doubt this visit was the first of many for these two!

In her short life, Shasta has been in four or more places ranging from Kern County, California to Utah. She found her way from the Marin Humane Society in Novato to MuRefuge.

We are all adjusting to one another.  AND it is just great to have a dog who is so ready to take walks plus loves to ride in the car. She is crate trained and eager to please. 

We are all signed up for a “companion dog” class which will begin later this month and continue for six weeks.  Very fortuitously the adoption counselor I worked closely with at the Marin Humane Society lives in Sebastopol and will be teaching this particular class at the Santa Rosa Humane Society.  

Dwight and I just completed reading Deborah Crombie’s book, No Mark Upon Her, recommended by my dear friend, Shannon. This particular book of Crombie's contains a plethora of information about dogs and their incredible ability to scent.  Both of us were intrigued with the power of the dog nose as well as the process of training dogs to utilized this ablity.  Along comes Shasta who is recommended for “scent training” so we will partake of just such classes later.

Our Rose, an incredible lightness of BEing

Rose                          

November 01, 2008 to July 20, 2012

“Some people (BEings), sweet and attractive,

and strong and healthy, happen to die young.

They are masters in disguise

teaching us about impermanence.”

Dali Lama

Rose joyfully embraced every 

moment of her life, right up to

the very last moment when she released

her will to join the Eternal Tao.

We have been blessed to

participate in her brief yet wonderful 

journey through this life.

We found each other on a bright, warm sunny day in late November, 2008, and brought Rose to MuRefuge midDecember in time for Dwight’s 70th birthday celebration.  People often ask if we “rescued” her? Rose says, “I was not rescued.  We found each other to form a pack of three.” And what a fierce protector of her pack! Yet she was more than willing to expand her pack . . . Auntie T, Auntie Fang, Dwight’s daughters and their husbands, Vickie, 

Meditating weeding

Coco and her grandparents, Splash and his foster parents, even a cat lover, Petra, who says she has never been greeted with such exuberance as Rose.  Her exceptionally joyous spirit was evident to anyone in her presence.  She was not one to hold a grudge nor want any pity.  "No way Jose" was her response.

In Spring, 2011, Rose became gimpy and within several months an osteosarcoma was diagnosed; subsequently her left rear leg was amputated.  Moments after the surgery she was off the operating table and ready to come home.  She found the allopathic drugs blocked her ability to find her own healing rhythm.  Rose had a extraordinarily gifted inner species communicator, Sandy Lagno, who could relay her process which was, I found, validating of my intuitions.  Her miraculous recovery astonished everyone who came in contact with her.

Rose running along the West side of Mono Lake
November, 2011

Around the Chinese New Year Rose showed subtle signs all was not okay in her hind quarters.  She went into shock as though she had just had her leg amputated and was surprised she had only three legs.  She withdrew and her Work in the physical form began in earnest.  Her process of coming out of the wild into a human world was demonstrated by growling and bearing her teeth, snapping and biting if Dwight or I did not back off.  In the wild when an animal is sick or injured, the pack drives the animal out or kills it outright.  Rose was fighting for her place in her pack and did not want to be driven out.  The dance between this wildness and her gentle, soft BEing continued right up to when she left her body.  She would growl and snap then want to kiss us.

In June it became evident that she had a tumor in her right leg which, of course,

the humans, i.e. veterinarians, wanted to x-ray.  When we checked in to get Rose’s permission, she asked, “Do humans need the information?”  No x-rays were done, but an aspirant was done revealing abnormal cells.  Rose looked at me, “Just take me home!”

Feeling the undulating waves of Mother earth

The wild/domesticated dance continued.  Rose ate less and less, but drank water right up to her death.  Of course, we checked in with her about euthanasia.  Like any Seven (an Enneagram designation), she wanted to keep it as an option, initially in the middle of the table and as time passed she pushed it further and further back, until a week or so before she joined the Eternal Tao she said, “I don’t want to be pushed out.”

Keeping the doorway open for Rose

Honoring Rose and her process was my focus from the outset.  Rose was my last Siberian Husky, Sun, reincarnated.  I had Sun euthanized before she was ready.  She, her spirit, hung around for a year.

Each animal, sentient BEing, is unique with her own path for her journey.  Allowing is my lesson and the dying rhythm of Star and Rose has brought to the fore for me that BEing in the present for the letting go of will and flowing with “the bigger movement,” aka Tao, takes an enormous amount of energy.  And participating in both of their dying rhythms, I am recovering from our culture's tightly held beliefs about pain and suffering.  Rose liked to use the word "discomfort" because that word is not so charged as "pain."  She found her discomfort "grounding" and a tool for completing her Work.  Suffering was not even on her radar, so to speak.  

During Star's last months with
us I saw this in Inqiring Minds
and realized Star was living
exactly like this equation . . .
no resistance to her life
process thus no suffering.

Dwight found this in a later issue of Inquiring Mind
speaking to him about pain and suffering.

Momentous Events

Myself and Shannon with Rose
getting her "Spa treatment" for her sciatica discomfort

My dear friend, Shannon Dirksen, and I have been planning get togethers for so many years.  Each time our gathering is postponed due to illness or something that comes up in one or the other of our lives to thwart our plans.  This time however our time together came off without a hitch.  Shannon arrived from her research presentation in Portland, Oregon to the Sonoma County Airport and departed from the same.  We had such a grand time together!

The two female blue Indian Runners are growing up.  

Babies in their veggie garden enclosure where bird netting over the top of the

chicken wire prevents raptors from enjoying them for a snack.

Getting to and from the veggie garden. 

Blue Indian Runner ducklings in their enclosure
in the garage where they are kept warm with
a heat lamp.  Organic food and fresh water
are provided with daily fresh wood chips.

Earlier this week they turned 4 weeks old.  We moved them from their box in the garage and enclosure in the veggie garden to the duck house and and enclosure in front of its upright swinging door.  

The ducklings' enclosure now allows them to go into and out of the duck house during the day, that is when there
is not a large alligator lizard nestled into the wood chips beneath the heat lamp scaring them away.

Four weeks old and enjoying the sunshine, warm weather, bugs, and fresh
greens, like baby borage plants.  They will remain in this enclosure
until they have their feathers in about four more weeks.

The big ducks were none too happy with the sharing their house.  It took both Dwight and I to get them to go into the duck house for the first night; each ensuing night is getting a bit easier.  Quaking Grass flower essence is assisting the merging of the babies and big ducks.


Rose is healing.  AND we all 

Rose and Babies

Let us be the always hopeful 

Gardeners of the spirit

Who know that without darkness

Nothing comes to birth

As without light

Nothing flowers.  

May Sarton, The Invocation to Kali

Rose, as most of you know, had her left rear leg amputated last midJune to remove the osteosarcoma, a highly malignant and painful tumor, growing in her knee.  She was a very determined Rose, ambulating soon after the operation so she could come home.  To all who have seen her the general comment is “she’s amazing” and her recovery seemed seamless.  Well, as any of you who have had physical challenges and recovered fully know, one needs to inhabit one’s body and deal with the challenge.  Rose is only now facing the realization “I have only three legs.”  She is in a Dark Place and Working so she can once again be in the “Fun (aka Bright) Place.” 

Rose deep inside herself

Before coming into physical form, aka body, Rose agreed to merge “wildness” and “domesticated”.  This Work seems to be all tangled with BEing in a body with only 3 legs.  And however simple this statement seems, the ramification are huge for Rose who if she was in the wild with a pack of wolves would be either driven out of the pack or killed.  Now that she lives with Dwight and me as a seemingly domesticated dog she had her leg amputated to remove the cancer AND now with sciatica in her remaining rear leg she is depended on us to get her into the house. She wags her tail when we approach her and then bares her teeth and growls every bit as ferociously as an animal in the wild.  To me this represents Rose’s internal conflict.

When Rose came to live with us we agreed to allow her to do her Work and to support her process.  What a learning experience, on many levels!  On the spiritual level for me, watching Rose brings evolution alive.  Humans began as single cells evolving to become a complex two legged.  When I went to church as a child, the literal interpretation of the biblical story “God created Heaven and Earth in six days and on the seventh rested” seemed, well, farfetched.  Evolution over millions of years makes way more sense to me.  And now watching Rose grapple with her four legged wildness in a domesticated setting brings me to the realization that two legged human spirits evolve from four leggeds who have completed their soul work at that level of evolution.  Then to take this further, perhaps human spirits who are just making the transition (with the global population explosion each spirit comes from some previous BEing does it not?) exhibit more aggressive behavior that is seen in wild animals.  "No wonder we have so much global unrest!" is what surfaces in my mind.

Rose Working using Mother Earth's abundant energy

While Rose is Working she is providing me with the fodder for my own spiritual evolution and for that I thank her.

On a lighter note, we have two new babies, female Blue Indian Runners.  To learn more about Indian Runners you can check out their history in the link below:

http://www.metzerfarms.com/BlueRunnerDucks.cfm?Breed=Blue%20Runner&BirdType=Duck&ID=BLUR&CustID=236102

Since we wanted only two to add to our small flock of female Indian Runner ducks, we had ours transported along with the 300 Pekin ducks Salmon Creek Ranch ordered from Metzer Farms.  Chez Panisse in Berkeley is now serving this local organic ranch’s Pekin ducks on their menu.

http://www.salmoncreekranch.com/

First out of doors experience at three days old

"Isn't this world amazing and BIG?"

A fellow California native gardner, Victoria Wikle is spearheading Riverkeeper Park which you check out with the link below:

http://www.russianriverkeeper.org/what-we-do/habitats/riverkeeper-park.php

And last but not least, do you know that the scientific research is showing Monsanto’s Roundup to be more toxic to the environment that DDT which decimated the raptor population?  I am very sad when I walk or drive by vast swaths of ground sprayed with Roundup!  To discharge this emotion I remind myself to

Why Do We Garden?

Bay Area perennial Blue eyed Grass blooming 

I am curious "why do we garden?"  Each of you?  Me?  I am working on an article on the evolution of MuRefuge and her garden which all began in 1993.  What had I brought to the table so to speak? What did the land offer? What resources were available? . . . in the beginning.  And now almost 20 years later I ask the same questions.  The evolution here is now more focused on a living ecosystem or whole ecology.  The plants have changed.  The visitors (insects, birds, mammals, etc.) are more varied and abundant.  My focus (on gardening) has expanded immensely from the Midwestern monocropping childhood experience.

So I am curious about others' answer to the question?  Please, if leaving a comment does not work for you, just email me.

And here's a copy of an editorial I have submitted to the Sonoma West Times and News in response to an article on the front page of The Living section of our weekly newspaper.  Your thoughts on this perspective would be welcome as well!  And of course, feel free to express your own perspective on habitat gardening.

I want to provide another perspective from the one presented in “Bringing Pollinators to the Garden: Plantings  that create habitat” (March 29) which primarily focused on nonnatives plants and visiting pollinators.  Creating a habitat for winged BEings, from my viewpoint, is about whole ecology, aka living ecosystem, in other words providing what insects and hummingbirds have evolved with.  While nonnative plants may provide nectar for butterflies, they do not provide choice vegetation for hibernation nor food, particularly in the case of caterpillars.  Food plants are butterfly specific: monarch butterflies lay their eggs on milkweed, and since our Western monarchs migrate within California, the desired milkweed is local native varieties; the Pipevine Swallowtail lays her eggs on the California Pipevine which is the food plant for the hatched caterpillar; the Anise Swallowtail prefers the native Coastal Angelica and Yampah but has adapted to its cousins, culinary parsley, both culinary and wild fennel; and on goes the list.

While it is true butterflies like flower “pads” , a gardener in the know does not have to plant the Butterfly Bush which is an exotic originating in China.  It is a “weedy colonizer” and invasive weed causing serious problems for the migrating salmon here on the West Coast.  The beautiful local Buckeye tree provides nectar during its blooming cycle as do the numerous varieties of California wild lilacs(Ceantothus).  Native sunflowers, buckwheat, elderberry, gum plants (Grindelia) and asters as well all provide nectar throughout the butterflies’ short life.

And did you know that the California native bunch grasses are food plants for certain butterflies?

Tidy Tips, a California native annual (start from seed purchased from Larner Seeds), blooming amidst
recently planted Red Fescue which was started from seed gathered here at MuRefuge 

Toxic sprays, including but not limited to Roundup, do (not “can”) kill caterpillars and without caterpillars, no butterflies.  Good old fashioned weeding is the best way to rid your garden of 

undesired plants.

Now hummingbirds with their long bills, they like different kind of flowers.  We have a year round resident, Anna’s Hummingbird, for which manzanita varieties provide nectar during the Winter.  With just a bit of sunshine during and after the rains, the Fushsia flowering Gooseberry bursts with tubular red flowers to which the Anna’s flock.  Native penstamons and columbines provide nectar during the Summer months.   In the last week or so the Allen’s Hummingbirds have returned to our West Sonoma County site, so other species will soon follow just in time to enjoy the blossoms of the Twinberry (a native honeysuckle shrub) and a bit later the wild honeysuckle vine.  And an added later bonus is berries available for birds!

And I must say, before I removed 4 varieties of Camellias from my garden, no native bees visited

the flowers.  Camellia flowers occur mostly in the Winter when our native bees are mostly resting.

As I visit and drive through/around Sebastopol I see very few native plants.  New buildings go up, old buildings are rehabbed AND it seems to me little or no thought is given to life forms other than human.  It further seems to me that the humans are attracted to what looks pretty and/or is familiar rather than what feeds the local ecology, and this attitude is slowly driving other life forms to extinction.

Mostly Natives Nursery in Tomales has great lists (both in paper form you may pick up at the nursery or on line) for Plants to attract butterflies, Beyond butterflies and more.  Nancy Bauer has written a lovely little book: The Habitat Garden Book: Wildlife Landscaping for the San  Francisco Bay Region which is helpful for starting a garden that is a living ecosystem.  And anyone interested in viewing one of these dynamic gardens can visit MuRefuge in rural residential Sonoma County.  Talk/Tours are offered monthly during Spring, Summer and Fall.  Find out more from Cathie Haynes, over 25 years as a registered nurse and nearly 25 years as a habitat restorationist.  

Housing and Food

'Inverness White' Flowering Currant
blooming along side The Flower Bed
covered with Remay to protect the
scattered Chinese Houses seed

Up close blooming 'Inverness White' Flowering Current

Last year my niece, Callie Weitzel, living in the Kansas City area, sent me the following link for checking out the nesting pair of Bald Eagles and their offspring.

http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles. 

My friend, Andrea Engelmann, who lives in Palm Springs just sent it to me again in response to my posting Shannon's Cooper hawk pictures.  So I am back to checking daily the happenings of the Decorah, Iowa Eagles.

This week in Sonoma County we are enjoying gentle "Winter rains" accumulating over 4 1/2" so far with more predicated.  With the rains there is ample time and opportunity for indoors activities, reading, movies, chatting with friends, watching Spring Training baseball and last but certainly not least, writing a new post.  This particular post has been germinating inside me for some while.

Housing aka bird nesting boxes

Dwight has been attending all of the bird houses here at MuRefuge.  He has removed previously built nests in the boxes.  In two of the "Blue Bird Boxes" he found roof rat nests.

When he opened the first box, two little eyes looked up at him, then the rat jumped out, almost running over my hands while I was weeding nearby.  In the other box merely the nest remained.  We learned about roof rats a few years ago when Rose's Auntie T noticed that the tops of her Meyer's lemons were being very neatly eaten in a very symmetrical pattern, a sure sign of roof rats enjoying her fruit.  This past Summer I noticed, for the first time, that our ripe Red Haven peaches had the very same pattern of consumption.  I denied that roof rats were living at MuRefuge since there has been no previous evidence.  These nests in the bird boxes abruptly brought the fact home to me.  It seems from reading in our mammal book, that bird boxes are one of the roof rats' favorite places to make nests since they are not ground dwellers like the Norway rat who likes to live in our compost bins and eat the duck food here at MuRefuge.

Other nesting boxes had nests obviously built by birds, some more beautiful than others.

And since the project spanned several weeks with refurbishing some of the boxes and all, he rechecked boxes already cleaned prior to relocating one and to his surprise found the beginnings of a new nest.  The lining was wool from one of Rose’s balls from which she loves to pull off layers and layers of the wool that we throw onto the compost bins.  An ingenious bird thought, “what fabulously soft material for my babies!”

Food

For those of you who have visited MuRefuge, you have seen our raised beds rebuilt a few years ago using basalt blocks floored with hardware cloth.  Since much of our food is grown in this limited bed space, I have long practiced what is commonly called “companion planting” feeling very smug about my creativity and on the cutting edge of gardening.  

Dwight, being the very voracious reader he is, last Fall read 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus by Charles C. Mann and thought I might be interested in the growing practices. I was fascinated and rudely awakened from my prideful state!  This book is focused on answering the question, "What was the New World like at the time of Columbus?"

Lo and behold, the “Indian farmers grow maize in what is called a milpa. The term means ‘maize field’, but refers to something considerably more complex.  A milpa is a field . . . in which farmers plant a dozen crops at once, including maize, avocados, multiple varieties of squash and beans, melon, tomatoes, chilis, sweet potato, jicama (a tuber), amaranth (a grain-like plant), and mucuna (a tropical legume).”  Milpa is a garden, if you please, where crops that are nutritionally and environmentally complementary are grown together.

On a side note here, I always have wondered when I drive down one of my favorite streets (Milpas Street) in Santa Barbara, where the name came from?  There are no maize fields but the street transects a huge Hispanic neighborhood.

Giganteus sunflowers providing a  trellis for Fortex fillet beans

My fantasy of companion planting (for a whole ecology) has grown by leaps and bounds after reading about this ancient farming practice which is so very different from the monocropping I grew up with in the Midwest.  Agribusiness continues this practice of growing vast acres of a single crop and augmenting the soil with fossil fuel amendments to kill unwanted weeds and other pests.  These toxic substances evolved out of the WWII factories that manufactured lethal warfare chemicals.  And we have all heard of the Irish potato famine which is the ultimate example of the downside of monocropping.  Zow wee!  What a stark contrast to milpa farming practices!

We wonder why blight strikes our tomato plants, aphids consume our greens, nematodes devour our carrots.  The modern thinking is to develop crops resistant to such organisms or add toxic soil amendments, or both, as well rotate crops.  My intuition, along side with my observation of my relatively small garden in 

comparison to the Indian milpa, is that if I grow synergistically compatible plants in my raised beds, I do not have to rotate so religiously what is grown in each bed.   This companion planting supports an evolving whole (healthy) ecology which over time counterbalances disease and predation here at MuRefuge.  

I have collected several resources to guide and enhance my own personal experience.  Bountiful Gardens is the seed catalog for John Jeavons’ Project of Ecology Action located in Willits, California.  Their catalog managers have developed The Vegetable Gardeners Guide Poster (BGE-1220 for $9.95 at http://www.bountifulgardens.org/) which includes a great section on companion plants as well as a plethora of other information for the awake gardener.  Another source is Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening by Louise Riotte.

I grow lettuce and spinach in my strawberry beds; bush beans like growing there too, as well as onions.  Peppers and basil (or try any other aromatic herb, perhaps Summer Savory) love to grow together in the warmest bed in my vegetable garden.  

Leeks and celeriac root thriving together

In the vegetable garden’s permanent asparagus bed, Italian ‘Gigante’ parsley, each year started from seed in my greenhouse, is planted.  In the duck area there are two permanent raised beds with asparagus planted down the center.  Then come each May, tomato starts (this year all heirloom seeds, which are now germinating on the heat mattress with a temperature setting of 80 degrees) are interspersed with Day of the Dead marigolds which are started from seeds collected from the previous year at MuRefuge, and more ‘Gigante’ parsley.

Peach trees with comfrey

To honor my general ongoing commitment of avoiding transnational corporation products, this year when I ordered seeds I focused on purchasing only open pollinated seeds, organic and heirloom whenever possible.  And, of course, MuRefuge boasts of her numerous native plants that support a variety of creatures that have called this small piece of land home for many more years than humans have inhabited Sonoma County.

Blooming lupine near the red raspberry patch

Any of you with experience of companion planting please feel free to share in the below comment section while you