New Moon 🌚🌙 News - OCTOBER 2026

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6 min read

Seasonal patterns of oak leaves and acorns - reminding me of the balance of things, a very seasonal place-based yin-yang note from the universe. Butte County, CA - October 2025

**Happy New Moon of October 10, 2026–*because the new moon is a perfect time to start fresh, to grow up, and to grow out...***

Happy New Moon, Gardeners,

"It took the gardens [and the Gardeners]

to make it a neighborhood."

This statement from Tyler Kanczuzewski, neighbor of Ben Futa's Botany & Co., and founder of ReGen South Bend caught my ear, heart, and imagination recently.

Tyler shared this observation with me a few weeks back when our ecosystem community was gathered in South Bend, IN, for the inaugural Power of Gardeners gathering late last month. The entire two days were one-part Cultivating Place family reunion and the other part tent revival for all that we care about as Big G Gardeners.

Tyler was walking me through the plantings (which Ben helped with) that front his two urban tiny houses; even this late in the season, the three small (7 x 4 ft?) front patches were in luxurious bloom: boneset, two types of asters, goldenrod, golden pea, big bluestem grasses, seed heads of earlier bloomers, including showy milkweed.

Tyler's line of gardens reflects in color and form the plantings around the slim parking lot edges along the side and across the front of Ben's Botany storefront. These plantings combined clearly create critical invitational mass: the birds and insects are happily, noisily, hungrily, right at home.

Their calls, buzzes, trills, and winged movement vibrate and resonate. In direct and visible response, the energetic quality of every human walking into the space–from the postal person to shoppers at Botany and visitors to the tiny houses- rises.

Looking up and down the street in either direction from Botany and Tyler's, more of this same plant/animal/human life is visible: gardens on each corner, hell strip, front yard, parking lot margin. These gardens are powerful signifiers of the community of humans that live and make their livelihoods here.

This is audible, palpable, and visible CARING.

Do the gardens bring the people together, or do the people come together to create the gardens? Or is it a symbiotic call and response cycle of care perpetuating itself? Or all of the above?

In Tyler's view, it was Gardener Ben who introduced the plants and gardens, and around the gardens and plants a even greater community coalesced.

Which brings me to another statement, from an upcoming interview with journalist Kai Wright of The Guardian's Stateside with Kai & Carter:

"One of the lessons of the garden and nature's plant communities is that if you design it right, the community can and will take care of itself.... "

Now we're talking.

That is exactly why we as a Cultivating Place ecosystem community gathered in South Bend; that is exactly why we gather here together around the conversations of Cultivating Place, around the upcoming documentary series The Power of Gardeners, around our monthly Communings, around our #100DaysinPlace journey: to take care of one another, to take better care of our human impulse to tend to plants in our places, and to grow the world better. Because we care.

Thank you for caring.

With love and deep appreciation for growing along here together–for the love of Gardeners and all that we grow,

Jennifer and the Cultivating Place Team

PS: Keep reading for updates on all things Cultivating Place: Radio Program & Podcast, Film Series, Gatherings, and Connections as we deepen into this season...✨✨✨

SUPPORT

Filmmaker and Cultivating Place Creative Director, Myriam Nicodemus, filmed my visit with Tyler while we were in South Bend, as part of The Power of Gardeners episode focusing on the work of Ben Futa.

September 2026, South Bend, IN

PUBLIC RADIO PROGRAM & PODCAST:

Caring is a trait of most Gardeners, and a deeply embedded theme of Cultivating Place conversations.

Since the New Moon of September, this inspirational care has come across with passion and purpose from Brita and Bryce Lundberg of Lundberg Family Farms in Northern California, from Abra Lee sharing her research on the depth of knowledge, accomplishment, and care of Virginia-based Asa Sims, from Colleen Raney, founder of Songbird Seed Company, specializing in Sweet Pea varieties for the home garden, and from soil scientist Dr. Garrett Liles, co-founder with Dr. Cindy Daley and Dr. Tim LaSalle of the Center for Regenerative Agriculture and Resilient Systems at CSU, Chico.

I mean, what can't we grow better together as caring Gardeners??

Enjoy catching up on your listening to the episodes from the last month (click each name or image for its audio link).....

SUPPORT

THE POWER OF GARDENERS FILM SERIES:

Our first full in-person screening of the draft Episode One in The Power of Gardeners 10-episode series took place at The Power of Gardeners Symposium in South Bend, Indiana on September 25th.

To be in a darkened room with 50 Gardeners who had come from near and far (California, Oregon, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio...13 states in all) and communally watch this labor of love and deep, deep caring in action was a dream come true, a dream I did not know I had. But I knew it when I saw it, and when I felt the pulse of the room rise in understanding and appreciation.

Myriam and I, and the entire Cultivating Place team are bursting at the seams with eager anticipation for sharing all 10 episodes right here with you - the Ecosystem's beating heart.

As we head toward the end of the year, we are so thankful for all of your cheerleading and support as we close the gap in our fundraising! It is not inexpensive to create a film series of this calibre, and we could not do it without you. 🙏

You can connect with us about film underwriting, pre-screening events in 2026/2027, gift licenses for school or garden groups, etc.: info@cultivatingplace.org.

Attendees of the Power of Gardeners Gathering South Bend, IN :)
Cultivating Place Team Member dinner South Bend, IN 2026
Board Members of the Cultivating Place Foundation who were able to join in person in South Bend, IN

AND FINALLY...good gatherings to grow forward to:

Join us for a special garden-nature-based 100 Day Project starting on the liminal date of All Hallows' Eve, October 31, 2026, and culminating on February 16th, 2027 - in honor of the 11th birthday of the Cultivating Place program!

Your focus for your 100-day challenge can be anything you want it to be: a daily observation, sketch, painting, collage, needle craft, daily poem or paragraph, learning a new native plant a day, or a new insect of your region, daily place-based photo, daily work time on a larger project of any kind....or all of the above....any daily commitment that intersects with and deepens your cultivation of place with intention and care. Any daily practice that somehow will grow you and your place. And as you share it forward, it will grow us also.

As with all 100 Day projects, we will be one another's accountability partners and garden allies, asking for a daily check-in somewhere: on Instagram, Substack, Facebook, by email, or on the Cultivatingplace.org community group, etc, using the tag #100DaysInPlace2026.

Ben and I will be hosting a private Zoom intro workshop event on Tuesday, October 27th to meet one another, walk through logging onto the Cultivating Place Group, refresh ourselves on how to make our own journals if interested, and set our individual and group intentions for the project!

While anyone can participate in #100daysinPlace, only registered participants will receive the invites and links to bi-weekly virtual gatherings and check-ins.

Looking forward to this communal cultivation and creativity. Let the fun begin!

In a world and at a time when the headlines often only bring things we dread and feel we can do little about, this deepening in to place, reminds us there is plenty to be thankful for, and to grow for.

That's our power!

Cultivating Place GATHERS:

UPCOMING events:

(all underlined words are live links to registration pages)

OCTOBER 15 - 17, 2026

AMERICAN HORTICULTURAL THERAPY ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE

Jennifer Jewell Keynote Speaker + Panel Moderator

PLUS SNEAK PEEK Pre-screening of The Power of Gardeners Film Series on PBS stations (April 2027)

MORE INFO AND REGISTRATION

October 20, 2026

COMMUNING - BOOK CLUB

"Is A River Alive?" by Robert Macfarlane

via Zoom 3 pm Pacific/ 6 pm Eastern

REGISTRATION OPEN

October 27, 2026

9 am PACIFIC/ 12 noon EASTERN

Intro & Prep Session for ANNUAL #100DaysinPlace

All registrants to 2026-2027 #100daysinPlace journey will get links to join this intro session!

October 31, 2026

KICK OFF OF ANNUAL #100DaysinPlace

A 100+ day seasonal practice of deepening into our places through our gardens, our environments, our communities, and ourselves through the medium that calls to us: painting, drawing, writing, sewing, singing, listening, looking, reading, learning, being. We will share our progress and processes through every other week virtual check-ins, and an online community here on Cultivatingplace.org. We will host an introductory meeting on Tuesday October 27th over Zoom, and Day 1 will officially be October 31. Our first online check-in will be the week of November 9. Join us!

REGISTRATION OPEN

November 3, 2026

Garden Club of America Online Seed Conservation Conference

Jennifer Jewell speaking on What We Sow, and other seedy things...

FOR GCA MEMBERS

November 18, 2026

COMMUNING - BOOK CLUB

ON BREAK FOR MONTH

December 15, 2026

COMMUNINGPRE-Winter Solstice

via Zoom 12 pm Pacific/3 pm Eastern

REGISTRATION OPENING 11.15.26