Enjoy a talk in the shade of Finch Frolic Garden with Doctor of Microbiology Bob Lloyd.
Finch Frolic Garden’s Monthly Program in the Garden Series
Sunday, April 26, 2015, 2 – 4 pm. Want to learn how to save water, and get the most out of the water you already buy? How to improve your soil and how to grow food without chemicals…and why? How to raise compost worms successfully? DON’T MISS THIS CLASS!
Discover the world of the unseen! Sit in the shade at beautiful Finch Frolic Garden and enjoy a talk and demonstration with microbiologist and owner of PuraVida Aquatics Dr. Bob Lloyd (http://www.puravidaaquatic.com/). He’ll introduce you to the importance of soil microbes, water organisms, compost worms, and so much more! Using slides, videos, specimens and a microscope Dr. Lloyd will teach you a new way to look at healthy soil and water, and how to have both without chemicals. Each attendee will receive a sample either of compost worms or aquatic beneficials. We will, of course, offer homemade vegetarian refreshments. Cost is $25 per person, mailed ahead of time. Finch Frolic Garden is located at 390 Vista del Indio, Fallbrook. Please RSVP to dianeckennedy@prodigy.net . More information can be found at www.vegetariat.com. You’ll love what you learn!
Any vertical space – wire, nets, roofs, trellises – will catch water and allow it to drip.
Today, despite being April Fool’s Day, our California governor finally recognized our severe drought and ordered mandatory cutbacks. That is a whole other can of worms due to the corporations and large businesses which are using so much water, and I won’t get into it. However, much of the world is becoming a drier place, and it is happening quickly. How does that relate to permaculture?
We will receive rain. Not a lot, but it will come. Remember that 1 inch of water on 1 acre in 1 hour is 27,154 gallons of free neutral pH water. If you have runoff water flowing onto (and usually funneled off of) your property, then you have to opportunity to harvest hundreds of gallons more water. You need to do three things: Heavy mist over the pond.1. The best place to hold rainwater in in your soil. For that you need to dig simple or extensive swales (ditches with level bottoms), rain catchment ponds (holes like dry ponds) and even small fishscale swales above each plant. Catch water as high up on your property as you can, in the areas where water will naturally flow into. Holes, dry ponds and swales all passify the running water and allow it to sink into the soil rather than running off the top. Even if you have flat property, texturing your soil will allow water to percolate more quickly. Driveways, roads, sidewalks and paved pathways – called hardscape – all channel water. See where the water flows and catch it, or redirect it into swales where you want the water to go. The taller the tree, the higher the precipitation it can harvest.2. Heavy clay soil will percolate slowly and water can puddle up and even become anaerobic. Sandy soil will allow the water to drain very quickly. What you want is for the soil to hold the water for as long as possible without becoming anaerobic so that trees and plants can use it for months after it stops raining. The solution to both of these soils is to bury organic matter. Hugelkultur is the term used for layering dirt on wood or other organic matter. Old logs are perfect. Any clippings, old cotton bedding, clothing, pillows, branches, leaves, junk mail… anything that can be considered ‘brown’ (as opposed to ‘green’) waste, will work. Don’t heap debris in a hole and cover it up. Layer it with dirt and cover it over with mulch. Plant on your hugelbeds. Make your holes or beds perpendicular to water flow so that water hits them and infiltrates the mounds. The organic matter will become a sponge and hold that water in the dirt. As the topsoil dries out it will wick the moisture from the buried organic material. Meanwhile just by burying or stacking the organic material you will have made nutrient and oxygen channels available to roots, and as the wood decays it feeds the microbes and thus the plants. You are improving your soil for years to come, feeding your plants, catching and holding rainwater in your soil, recycling, and sequestering carbon that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere from the exposed dead wood. How great is that? You don’t have to use trees… if the labor isn’t for you then use a trowel and a piece of old untreated 2×4, nails and all, and make a fishscale swale and hugel above each plant. Also, fill your raised beds and pots half-way with layered wood and dirt, and you will be saving water and fertilizing your plants as well. Have established trees? Use a hose and a power nozzle (or just a sledge hammer if the ground is soft!) to drill holes vertically around the dripline and hammerwood down into the ground. You won’t be cutting through roots. Turn your alleys and foot paths into hugelswales by digging them down, laying a layer of wood, covering the wood over with dirt allowing the path to have a slightly concave shape that is level at the bottom. You can walk on it, it will catch and hold water that gravity will feed down to plants below rather than puddling up. Every time you plant, except for when planting desert plants, put old wood at the bottom of the planting hole. Soaking wood in actively aerated compost tea or worm casting tea first will really kick off the microbial activity. No wood? Cruise the neighborhood at trash day and see what is out there. Tunnel spider webs show how much moisture is dropping on this hugelbed.3. Cover your ground with mulch. Sheet mulch under your trees and along your pathways to lock in moisture and prevent rainfall from compacting your soil. It is always good to leave some bare ground – particularly by wet areas – bare for some insects to lay their eggs in. If you have bugs, then you have lizards, frogs and birds which will eat your problem insects (unless, of course, you have outdoor cats. They will kill all of your predators. Keep your cats confined!). If you don’t have bugs, you don’t have predators. Then when the bad bugs move in there won’t be anything to eat them. Dense bushes hold the moisture in. It sounded as if it was raining during this light fog.4. Plant a lot. That may sound opposite of what to do in a drought, but you need to plant drought tolerant canopy trees and bushes that will spread. Although we may not receive rainfall we will be receiving dew, mist and fog, and the more surfaces you have to catch it, the more water your yard will receive. Mist nets won’t work in Southern California very well because we don’t have a lot of heavy fog. However trees are made to catch water and gently deliver it to their leaf-covered roots. Shrubs are groundcover that produce leaf mulch and habitat for birds and lizards. They keep the moisture from being blown away during our Santa Anas. Trees are wind breaks which protect other trees and plants. Plant fast-growing drought tolerant trees on hugelbeds that are there to work for you: they passify the wind and catch precipitation, while dropping leaves for mulch and turning your dirt into soil. A 1/2 inch of cardboard or newspaper with mulch on top.PLEASE, do NOT spread gravel or small rock! All those little stones – which are virtually impossible to remove from your landscaping – are all thermal masses. They bake your soil, increase the temperature of your garden and reflect heat up onto your house and the underside of the leaves of whatever you may have planted. Gravel and stonescapes cook the planet because there are so many edges to heat up. With gravel yards there is nothing to allow water to percolate into the soil, there is no height to catch rain or passify winds. Stonescapes reflect light and heat back up into the air further drying the atmosphere, called the albeido effect..
How do you reduce your domestic water use? Cut in in half by flushing the toilet every other time (or less). See how fast you can take a shower. Fill a glass with water every morning and use only its contents to rinse your toothbrush or your mouth during the day (if there is any left, drink it or pour it into the back of your toilet tank). Use a pan of water to wash dishes instead of running water. Irrigate only when it is dark, after 3 am. That allows the least evaporation with the least insect problems. Don’t use overhead irrigation. If you are on a well, don’t think that you have an unlimited supply of water – don’t spray water around pastures at noon. Water is precious and needs to be cherished. See how many uses you can get out of water that you buy – wash water can go into the toilet or onto plants. Investigate greywater. Use your laundry water right into your landscape (use safe soaps). Get as many uses out of your clothes before you wash them. Look at your monthly water usage on your bill and challenge your family to reduce it by half, with a family reward (movie? Local restaurant?) when you succeed.
Saving water can be done. It MUST be done. We are used to water security and now we have to change our ways, while the changing is still easy.
Footpaths and/or vehicle access paths are absolutely necessary for any yard. Unfortunately, weeds love growing in them. Worse, the pressure from footfalls, wheelbarrows and vehicles compress and compact the soil, pressing the soil grains together so tightly that oxygen – and therefore life – can’t exist often up to several inches or more deep. Any life, that is, except for the grasses and other weeds that nature sends in to help repair the soil. Bare ground will be greatly compacted by rainfall, which will then erode paths as it runs, unable to soak through that spaceless ground. Once wet bare pathways are often unwalkable until they dry out, and have to be resmoothed. In our hot, dry areas, bare earth or graveled pathways reflect heat and light back up. That reflected heat and light dries out the underside of plant leaves, where species such as Live Oaks have over the millennium developed leaves that curl to expose less surface to the hot sun and to gather moisture underneath. Reflected heat and light dries out the air as well, and any hope of slight humidity to help water plants through months of dry heat is gone. If you have open-pollinated vegetables that rely on breeze for pollination, all that open pathway actually decreases your germination because pollen – such as from corn – will dry out in arid conditions. Humidity that you can keep in your garden will keep pollen more viable longer.
A wealth of freshly chipped wood – two dump-trucks full! The challenge: to spread it all in a week before our first tour. Yikes!
What to do? Covering pathways with gravel is a common solution. I hate gravel. It heats up and becomes a thermal mass in the summer, further cooking your soil and air. It doesn’t suppress weeds and weed-whipping becomes an exercise in avoiding shrapnel. You can never get it out of the ground once you apply it, and chunks of gravel don’t do soil much good for planting. If you trip and fall on gravel it does terrible things to your knees – I had a piece lodged in my kneecap after a stumble some years ago (sorry for that cringe-worthy item).
A 1/2 inch of cardboard or newspaper with mulch on top.
Covering the soil is better, but not best. Bark will help rain bounce and then percolate, is dark so it won’t reflect light and heat as gravel does, and it decomposes. It is also expensive to buy, and because it decomposes you have to re-buy it every couple of years. Decomposing bark may be adding elements to your soil that you don’t want depending upon the source.
More progress as the afternoon wears on.
I have experienced all the options above. The best method of countering all these issues that I have found also repurposes and recycles. Sheet mulch. Yep. You’ve heard it from me before and it proves itself every year. There is more to it, though.
I disturbed a couple of nesting mice in one of the unused Kenya bee hives.
First of all, please, please, please never use plastic. You can read about white pollution and the layers of plastic merging with topsoil in China and cringe. Plastic will not last. It will always be around in pieces. You will be poisoning your soil.
At the most basic, you can cover your pathways with 1/2″ of cardboard and newspaper, and top it with wood chips. I obtain my wood chips from arborists who save paying a dump fee by dumping it in my yard. If you’d rather have a more uniform look then purchase your bark. Either way the cardboard and newspaper will make the chips last years longer. More importantly the cardboard and newspaper form a protective, absorbent layer that protects the soil from compaction. Have you looked under a log or sheet of abandoned plywood in awhile? All the white tendrils of fungus, insects, worms, lizards and roots are thriving there along with billions of soil microbes all because they have that protective layer that keeps moisture in and compaction out. That microclimate is what you are forming with cardboard and mulch pathways. Since microbes free up the nutrients in the soil from which plants feed, you are creating more food sources for your plants. Tree and plant roots don’t end at the dripline, they reach out towards whatever source of water and nutrition they can find. If you are top-watering rather than deep-watering, then roots are abundant closer to the topsoil. By sheet mulching pathways you are extending food sources for your plants and trees, which now can stretch underneath the paths, link together with other roots through fungal networks, and become stronger and healthier. You also are creating habitat which is a food source for the entire food chain. Cooler, humid areas are better for bees and insects that pollinate, and the predators that feed upon them such as lizards, toads, frogs and birds. Just by sheet-mulching your pathways you are improving your environment as a whole. How can you NOT want to do this?
Sheet mulching around trees is much the same, except you add a little manure or compost tea if you have it.
Sheet mulched pathways hold moisture and create some humidity which allows for better pollination and helps keep your plants from scorching in arid areas. If you live in a wet area or very humid area, use thicker layers of cardboard and mulch, which will help absorb moisture from the air and deliver it to the ground. Decomposition is quicker in wet areas, so using several inches of cardboard with mulch will last much longer and will again keep down compaction. Compaction in rainy areas is just as bad as in arid areas because of the erosion and flooding it causes.
More progress as the afternoon wears on.
To catch rainwater and allow it to percolate into the soil rather than erode away topsoil, you dig rain catchment basins or swales. Swales are ditches with level bottoms, and can be a foot long (fishscale swales) or the length of your property. Swales should be positioned perpendicular to the flow of water. You can create swales across pathways, fill them with mulch, top them with cardboard or old plywood, and mulch on top to match the rest of the pathway. Water will be caught in the swales and won’t wash out paths on hillsides.
MIranda working on a large pathway near our large hugelbed.
Going a step farther, you can ‘hugel swale’. Hugelkultur is layering woody material with dirt. This introduces organic material, oxygen and nutrient pathways into the soil and holds moisture into the dry season. You can dig deeply in your pathways, layer old wood (sticks, branches, logs, whatever you have) with the dirt, up to soil level, then sheet mulch. Your pathways are now waterharvesting alleys that you can walk on, and which will really feed your plants. And you just repurposed old woody cuttings.
This mulch will greatly help the Asian pears and cherries which struggle with the dry heat of the summer. The ground will be kept moist and reduce evaporation, holding in humidity. We’ll be planting more heavily in this area, too.
In very dry areas plants and trees do better in sunken beds, especially those that require a long chill time. Cold settles in holes. Moisture runs downhill, therefore dew will accumulate at the bottom of holes. You can either plant in holes and have your pathways higher, or if you have an established garden (such as I do) you can build up your pathways so that they become slightly higher than your trees and planting areas. We are working on that at Finch Frolic Garden, here in drought-stricken San Diego county.
So before I launch into yet another long lecture, the idea for pathways is simple: sheet mulch with cardboard and wood chips. If you live in a wet area, use several inches of both. If you live in a dry area, use no more than 1/2 inch of cardboard (or else it will absorb moisture from the soil) topped by at least an inch of mulch (no limit there!). If you want make super pathways, bury woody material before you sheet mulch. If you live in a dry area, raise your pathways above your planting beds. If you live in a wet area, lower your pathways so water can drain away from your plants (unless they love wet feet). Never use plastic, and please rethink gravel.
Then sit back and enjoy your yard and all the food and nutrients and abundance you have set the stage for, all using recycled materials that will last for years. Congratulations!
Kitchen scraps blended with a lot of water make excellent liquid compost.
I’m a firm advocate of blender composting . Throw your kitchen scraps into your blender (don’t add in items that your blender can’t handle, but throw them in after its blended) with a lot of water and drizzle it around your plants. If its chunky, kick some dirt over it. This feeds your microbes very quickly because the organic matter is bite-sized, and thus feeds your plants. No chemicals necessary.
Spoiled soup, pickle juice mixed with old juice… pour it on down the holes!
After making pickled jalapenos, salsa, or other spicy foods I thought that the resulting compost smoothie would be very powerful. Indeed it is. So I pour it down gopher holes that are in my garden areas. No one wants jalapeno/onion/garlic water in their livingroom. I’m fertilizing the garden at the same time as discouraging the gophers.
Pouring a noxious brew down a gopher hole. Some solids are just fine, too, as you will be covering it up. Worms just love this.
I’ve gone a step farther and made a merry mixup of foods past their prime along with vegetable scraps. Old juice, stinky rice milk, moldy leftovers, the juice from a bottle of pickles, the last of the salsa… whatever you need to throw out, add to your blender liquid and pour it down the holes. It won’t stop the gopher from tunneling in another direction, but it will wreck existing tunnels for them, and feed your worms and microbes. And after watching plants disappear into the ground, pouring evil brews down the hole is very, very satisfying.
Gingery turmeric milk is a delicious powerhouse in the war against colds.
Have a cold, or just near someone who has one? Headache? Aches and pains? Digestive problems? Here is a simple and very delicious East Indian recipe that mothers give their children when it is cold season. It contains some powerful anti-inflammatories, namely turmeric and ginger. I’ve written about how taking turmeric daily has kept my arthritic hands mobile and virtually pain-free. Look up the health uses for turmeric and you will be amazed. Black pepper helps activate turmeric, and since turmeric is fat-soluble it is best taken with a little fat in your meal. The following recipe can be made in a few minutes and feels wonderful going down. It was inspired by a post on Journeykitchen.com. I used organic vanilla soy milk, because that is what I had. You may use any dairy substitute that you want, but not non-fat. If it is non-fat, then add a half teaspoon of oil (such as coconut oil) to the drink, or eat some on the side.
I make a big pot of this in the morning, strain it and then rewarm it during the day as I need it. The longer you simmer the spices, the stronger they become. The ginger becomes a little hotter, and the others more bitter. For children or those new to these spices, heat the spices in the milk 3-5 minutes before straining unless they like it stronger.
Turmeric is a bitter yellow root that can be cooked with, or more commonly is found dried and ground to use in curries and as a colorant. Where do I even begin to list its benefits? As I previously mentioned turmeric is used for arthritis, heartburn , stomach pain, diarrhea, intestinal gas and bloating, loss of appetite, jaundice, liver problems and gallbladder disorders. It is also used for headaches, bronchitis, colds, lung infections, fibromyalgia, leprosy, fever, menstrual problems, and cancer. Other uses include depression, Alzheimer’s disease, water retention, worms, and kidney problems. Turmeric can be applied to the skin for pain, ringworm, bruising, eyeinfections, inflammatory skin conditions, soreness inside of the mouth, and infected wounds. It is used as a facial to help skin and give darker skin a glow (I used it on my pale face and came up yellow for a few washings, but with nice skin!).
Ginger helps with the symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection, bronchitis, cough, menstrual cramps, arthritis and muscle pain, but is especially known for relieving nausea. I ate a lot of ginger during my pregnancies, and now we have some in the car to treat motion sickness.
Adding organic honey as a sweetener really boosts the healing power of this drink. Honey – and not the processed mass-produced kind, but unheated organic honey – has anti-fungal, anti-septic, and anti-microbial properties that really help soothe a sore throat and kill germs. The glucose and fructose are absorbed by the body at different times so that the energy they provide is slow and long-term -not the high and low that granulated sugar provides.
Cloves are anti-fungal, antibacterial, antiseptic and analgesic. They’re packed with antioxidants and are good sources of minerals (especially manganese), omega-3 fatty acids, fiber and vitamins.
Peppercorns help turmeric work, are anti-inflammatory, carminative, and aid digestion. They are also an excellent source of many B-complex groups of vitamins such as Pyridoxine, riboflavin, thiamin and niacin, and are a good source of many anti-oxidant vitamins such as vitamin-C and vitamin-A, and in flavonoid polyphenolic anti-oxidants that help the body remove harmful free radicals and help protect from cancers and diseases.
Cinnamon has been used to reduce inflammation, it has antioxidant effects, and fights bacteria, and may lower cholesterol.
Cardamom is rich in nutrients such as iron, calcium and magnesium, potassium, manganese, many vitamins such as C, and is a co-factor for the enzyme, superoxide dismutase, a very powerful free-radical scavenger.
Cayenne is rich in capsaicin. The pepper also contains vitamin C, vitamin B6, vitamin E, potassium, manganese, and flavonoids (anti-oxidants), and has long been used to ease pain, headaches and to increase circulation. If you don’t use hot peppers regularly, please add just a few grains to the milk and work your way up.
If you are recovering from stomach distress and need some bland, comfort food, please investigate this recipe for jook, a wonderful cooked rice dish.
This quickly made hot drink will help ward off colds, or bring relief if you have one. The inspiration came from Journeykitchen.com.
Ingredients
2 cups whole or low fat (not non-fat) organic soymilk, rice milk, nut-milk, or other non-dairy milk
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
3 black peppercorns
3 cardamon pods, cracked
3 whole cloves
½ inch fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon (or a fingernail-sized piece of cinnamon stick)
Pinch of saffron (optional)
A couple drops of vanilla (opt.)
Cayenne to taste (opt.) (start with a few grains and work up)
Organic honey, brown sugar or other sweetener to taste (opt.)
Instructions
Lightly crush the peppercorns, cloves and cardamon pods
In a small saucepan, combine all ingredients except for sweetener.
Gently heat and allow to simmer for 5-10 minutes.
Add sweetener to taste. If adding organic honey - which is a healing force on its own - stir it in as the milk is off the boil. Boiling will kill the beneficials in the honey.
For the past year I’ve been making my own vegan meat out of organic vital wheat gluten. This meat is called seitan (pronounced, humorously enough, say-tan, just like the fork-tongued guy in red). If you’ve eaten mock meats, especially in restaurants, you’ve most likely have eaten seitan.
I am not gluten intolerant, and I know that the current ‘epidemic’ of celiac disease is not what it seems. People eat far too much wheat in their diets, and that wheat is not only genetically modified, but sprayed with herbicides and pesticides, then processed until it has to have nutrients added back onto it to qualify as food, and then it is shipped and stored. The consumer has no idea when that poor tortured grain actually came forth into this world. As my good friend Bill says, “You can’t see the farm in it.” I believe that when people eliminate wheat from their diets they feel so much better because they aren’t eating all those hamburger buns, batters, snacks and other empty-calorie foods. They are also reducing the amount of pesticides and herbicides they consume.
I know about developing an intolerance to food. I’ve developed an intolerance to soy milk (organic, mind you), which made me realize how much of it I have been consuming. Now I drink rice milk or water mostly, and manage my soy intake while keeping an eye out for other products I may be indulging in too much. My grandfather Walter Brower in the 30’s had developed a bad dermatitis. He was in the hospital with it, being treated for all kinds of things with no relief. He was missing work, and he was the sole supporter of his family. Finally someone recommended that he visit a chiropractor… a chiropractor? For a skin condition? In the 1930’s? This was radical thinking. Thankfully he was desperate enough to go. He visited the chiropractor’s office, sitting across from him at his desk, and told the doctor about his affliction. The chiropractor asked what he did for a living. My grandfather was a delivery man for Bordon’s milk. The chiropractor said that my grandfather had developed a milk allergy due to all the dairy products he consumed. My grandfather went off dairy, and the skin problem disappeared within days. (This was at a time before cows were fed pellets of corn and chicken feces laced with antibiotics as they are today, too.)
All that said, I make my own meat with organic products, as well as my own vegan butter , and am now experimenting with vegan cheese (more on that later). Do I have a lot of time on my hands? No. I spend a couple hours once a month making the seitan and the butter, enough for a month, and freeze both.
Seitan isn’t pretty before it is cooked. It is grey and spongy. However compare it to the flesh of a butchered animal and it is beautiful. You can buy vital wheat gluten just about anywhere now, but different brands have different quality. I use Bob’s Red Mill which has outstanding flavor and never gets rubbery. I also use Bragg’s Liquid Aminos instead of soy sauce, tamari and often other salt. It is organic and nutritious, and a little bit brings out the flavor of soups, main dishes, salad dressings, scrambled eggs, and anything its added to. Compare prices online for both; Amazon.com has good deals if you want to buy a lot.
When seitan is frozen, the patties are quickly thawed in a lightly oiled pan. The ‘meat’ is juicy, flavorful and delicious, and can be used in place of chicken strips, ground up instead of meat for stuffing or sausage, used as is in a sandwich or hamburger, or cubed for stew, curry… whatever. The problem I have is wanting to eat it too often!
⅓ cup Bragg's Liquid Amino Acid (or tamari sauce, but it is saltier)
8 cups water
¼ cup tamari sauce
¼ cup Bragg's Liquid Amino Acid
½ teaspoon organic onion powder
1 4-inch piece dried kelp (kombu) (you may omit)
Instructions
In a large non-reactive bowl, mix together the vital wheat gluten, rosemary, thyme, sage, cumin seed and garlic powder. In a measuring cup mix the 2 cups water with the Bragg's. Quickly add the liquid to the dry and working fast mix thoroughly. The gluten will develop quickly; use your hands to work it to make sure there are no patches of dry gluten. There should be extra liquid. The gluten will be rubbery. Shape the gluten into a long loaf, about 3 inches in diameter. Allow to rest while you make the broth.
In a tall stock pot combine 8 cups of water with the Bragg's, tamari, onion powder and kombu and bring to a boil.
Cut gluten log into slices no wider than ¼ inch, or in strips (you can always cut the finished patties into strips later). Individually drop pieces into boiling stock (they'll stick together otherwise). Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 45 minutes. Drain and either store seitan in refrigerator in some broth for no more than 5 days, or layer seitan patties flat in a plastic freezer bag laid on a cutting board or plate and freeze. When frozen gently break apart patties in the bag and keep frozen, taking out what you need. Patties can be heated quickly in a pan, sliced and stir-fried, thawed and breaded and baked or fried, or used any way you'd like.
I tried several seitan recipes, most of which were either too bland or too strong and muddy flavored. This recipe I really like for all-purpose, chickeny seitan. I freeze the finished slices flat in a plastic bag so I can pull out however many I need whenever I want them.
Finch Frolic Garden is located in Fallbrook,CA, in sunny San Diego’s North County. Dry and hot conditions are the norm, with temperatures rising above 100 in the summer,and an occasional frost in the winter.
This is a prime Southern California winter scene: palm trees and red tile roofs – and traffic – with snow on the mountains. The peaks are usually only dusted in snow in Jan. or Feb.
A rain around Thanksgiving means lawnmowers are humming around New Years. This past year, 2014, has experienced strange weather as has the rest of the world. We had back-to back Santa Anas (hot, dry, high winds from off the desert) in May, which caused many trees and plants to drop flowers. The lack of food and water induced many animals to not reproduce, which affected the rest of the food chain. Then we had fire season in May as well. Unfortunately arson was the cause of some of the fires, but many homes were lost as well as hundreds of acres of our precious endangered chaparral and the baby animals that lived there.
These mountains are northwest of us – they never get snow!
Our heat wave came in June, and our ‘June gloom’ – a marine cloud cover – came in July. We had several significant rain events in late Fall, and then on New Year’s eve, it snowed.
The pathway down to the Mock Pavilion.
So many of you who live in snowy areas are saying, “Who cares?” The last snowfall in our inland valley area was in the late 60’s when I was probably 8 or 9 years old. I lived with my sister and parents in Carlsbad, a town west of here. All I remember about it is that my dad made a snowball and froze it, and in the summer threw it at the neighbor.
On the 30th we received an inch and a quarter of cold, Canadian rain overnight. The rain came in heavy showers and swales we’d created had filled and prevented flooding. In the morning I looked out on a white garden.
Kitchen garden in snow.
Not everyone in the area received snow this week, but streets were icy, nearby Temecula was covered as were all the mountains even those west of here.
Good-bye ’till next year, apple mint!
The landscape looked like a large powdered sugar shaker had been at work overnight.
Perhaps this year we can have bees again. Last year they all died – someone spraying in the neighborhood is my guess.
Again about 10:30 in the morning snowflakes fell and strangers grinned at each other in delight.
Creeping red fescue, which is an excellent soil holder and groundcover here, just laughed at the cold.
Not so the growers of frost-intolerant plants such as avocados, citrus, succulents and tropicals. After the snow we have had clear, frosty nights which have done more damage than the snow had.
These are now ripening in the house.
I don’t expect overwintering tomatoes this year, and we’ve been harvesting the last of our zucchino rampicante, eggplant, jalapenos and tomatoes, and marking where the sweet potatoes lie underground.
Poor little frosty zucchinos.
Our hens aren’t happy about the weather change. We hung towels and tacked up cardboard in their coop for insulation, although now it looks like a cheap harem. Today I bought a heat lamp to keep them warmer.
Buddha’s Finger citron and snow. I candied the citron this year and used it in holiday bread. Wonderful!
Most of them are done molting except, of course, the Turken or naked-neck. Besides having a naturally bare neck, poor Malika has dropped over half of her feathers and has no insulation at all. Its a good thing that days aren’t frozen, too.
Poor Malika! An unfortunate molt.
By Monday daytime temperatures will be in the low 70’s again, and I’ll be worrying about planting spring crops already; despite the snow, there really isn’t a winter here. However, I thought I’d share some New Year’s eve photos of Finch Frolic Garden in the snow – not something I’d ever thought I’d see.
Rain compacts bare soil, and in this case making clay soil slick. No percolation is happening here!
World-wide we have a fresh water shortage, and the seas are rising. Erosion is cutting into our fields and washing our precious topsoil into waterways, causing them to silt up and die. In some areas of the US, unprecedented flooding from rain is occurring, while out West drought is drying up wells. The reasons for these happenings have to do with our farming techniques to begin with. How to fix the problems all boils down to some very simple methods that everyone can do – that everyone needs to do. It all comes down to making level-bottomed swales, and rain-catchment basins, to make the water penetrate the soil rather than roll over it. Rain compacts soil more than a tractor does – when it falls on bare ground. We have been trained to rake up leaves and burn them or send them to the dump. Leaves, dead vines and other organic matter cushions the rain and keeps the soil from being compacted. That organic matter also feeds the soil microorganisms that make soil hold manage rainwater. With the lack of organic matter, and the use of herbicides to kill off all vegetation, and the proliferation of huge swaths of lawn that is treated routinely with chemicals and therefore make the ground hard, rain rolls across the landscape taking topsoil with it.
Raised mounds on the downside of swales keep rainwater by plant roots.
Many neighborhoods have large culverts through their properties – mine included – where runoff from properties above is purposely channeled through and away from homes. All that precious water is wasted. The same happens in areas where rain is abundant. Rainwater is directed away from properties and into storm drains that fill and overflow, or it puddles in low spots because it has nowhere to go.
A rainwater and silt basin at the end of a series of rain catchment basins, has turned into a permanent pond.
By creating regular level-bottomed swales perpendicular to the flow of water, beginning as high up the landscape as possible, rain will be caught before its momentum running downhill becomes destructive. The water in the swales percolate into the landscape, reestablishing water tables and re-energizing wells and streambeds. Swales should be level at the bottom, dug on contour if large, and have a dedicated overflow into another swale, rain catchment basin or dam. Small property? Dig a small fishscale-shaped swale with a trowel above each of your small trees and plants, perpendicular to the flow of water. Filling these small swales with coarse mulch such as woodchips will keep them moist and weed-free.
With 97% of California wetlands gone, animals have no place to drink. Help them!
If your property is the recipient of water from uphill, then talk to all your neighbors above you and convince them to dig swales as well (neighborhood swale-digging party??). The amount of water raging down the hill will become insignificant, and everyone’s trees and plants will flourish due to the water being caught in the soil. The plume of water slowly moving through the landscape encourages tree and plant roots to grow deeper. The roots break through hardpan, produce sugars and proteins and carbohydrates to attract microbes, and create good soil for you.
A hugelkultur bed is made from layering wood with dirt and organic materials. It will absorb rainwater and release it slowly as the ground around it dries, while improving the soil.
So dig swales and rain catchment basins to passify and hold rainwater. Leave your leaves to prevent compaction and to feed your soil microbes. Enjoy having healthier plants, soil and waterways while helping to put the brakes on global warming.
Due to popular demand, we’re having one more short Marketplace this Saturday, 9 – 1.
Join us on Saturday, November 29nd from 9-1 for the annual Finch Frolic Marketplace, the Extended Version! We’ll have for sale fresh and prepared foods straight from our permaculture gardens. All are excellent gifts, or will grace your holiday table. We’ll have the much-desired Pomegranate Gelato again, and new this year, Passionfruit Gelato! Squash, fruit, veg, preserves, passionfruit curd, baked goods, and much more.
Herbs, veggies, frozen juice, gelatos, curds, jams, preserves… and much more!
Finch Frolic Garden is located at 390 Vista del Indio, Fallbrook, CA.
Directions:
Finch Frolic Garden is open by appointment only for tours, lectures and other activities. The address is 390 Vista del Indio, Fallbrook, CA 92028-2548. Please call only if you are lost or delayed; we use our house phone only and are often not inside. Please use the email above for any other communication.
From the North (Temecula and above): take 1-15 South to Exit 51 and turn right. Make the next right onto E. Mission Rd/County Hwy-S13. In .8 of a mile turn left onto E. Live Oak Park Rd. In 1.6 miles turn right onto Alvarado St. In .7 miles at the top of the hill turn left onto Vista Del Indio, at Roja’s Succulents. Make the very first right; 390 is at the end to the left.
From the South (Escondido and below): take I-15 North to Exit 51 and turn left over the freeway. Make the next right onto E. Mission Rd/County Hwy-S13. In .8 of a mile turn left onto E. Live Oak Park Rd. In 1.6 miles turn right onto Alvarado St. In .7 miles at the top of the hill turn left onto Vista Del Indio, at Roja’s Succulents. Make the very first right; 390 is at the end to the left.
From the West (I-5): take CA-76 East, Exit 54A and drive for 12.6 miles. Turn left onto S. Mission Road/County Hwy S13 for 4.1 miles. Turn right onto S. Stagecoach Lane (at the high school). In 2.8 miles turn right onto Alvarado St. At the top of the hill turn right onto Vista del Indio, at the Roja’s Succulents sign. Make the very first right; 390 is at the end on the left.
Jerusalem artichokes aren’t artichokes nor are they from Jerusalem. They are also called sunchokes, which sounds something like an unfortunate cosmic event to me. We grew them this year and I have only great things to say about them.
I ordered organic tubers from Peaceful Valley in California. By the way, all of the strawberries and rhubarb that I had ordered from them were inexpensive and yet of prime quality. The tubers grew into tall, sunflower-like plants that graced an area of the new kitchen garden that didn’t have the best soil in it.
JAs have beautiful sunflower-like flowers that pollinators love.
They flowered most of the summer and just this month – October – began to die off. The plants had some difficulty with lace bugs, but with good soil fertility and some actively aerated compost tea foliar spray they rallied exceptionally.
The Jerusalem artichokes made a nice living wall.
Today, for our Halloween lunch, we thought some creepy-looking tubers would be appropriate. They share a basket with Black Beauty zucchinis (caught them small!) and our first sweet potato of the year, Spanish Red Improved, which we also steamed and ate – heaven!
Our Halloween harvest.
The ‘chokes are supposed to sweeten up after a frost, but here in San Diego county that might take awhile.
The chokes grow tubers all around the base of the plant, and also spread them underground. They are very easy to harvest; the plant wants the tubers to make new plants so they break off easily.
Cover green tubers back up so that they can continue growing.
Although they are knotty, they wash off easily and the skin is thin and mostly easily removed with a vegetable peeler. I didn’t scrape all of it off and it wasn’t bitter or unpleasant at all. I roasted them after just washing them with a vegetable brush and the skins were a little firm and the insides very soft. There wasn’t any unpleasant taste.
Peeling them is kind of easy, but the skin doesn’t taste bad. Raw they are crisp.
Steamed, the JAs become very soft and – by gosh! – taste very similar to soft, buttery artichoke heart! Wonderful! My daughter and I ate them down with a little vegan butter . So wonderfully good. They can be easily mashed as well. We also roasted them along with other vegetables.
Jerusalem artichokes, carrots, beans, mushrooms, potatoes and squash are roasted with garlic, rosemary and olive oil. Yum.
I mix all the veggies in olive oil with dried rosemary, minced fresh garlic and pepper, spread out on a tray and roast at 425F for about an hour, depending upon the size and thickness of the veggies. Roasting keeps them more solid yet tender, and sharpens their flavor a little. Absolutely fantastic.
I’m saving small tubers to plant ALL OVER THE YARD! What a great perennial vegetable – perennial in that you leave some tubers in the ground and they keep coming up every year. They are attractive, give shade to smaller plants, are great for attracting pollinators, create good mulch when the tops have died down, and have wonderful tubers. The tubers may be eaten raw as well; they are crisp and mild.
The foliage dies off in the Fall. I’ll cut the stalks at the ground level and lay them down on top of the bed to feed the soil.
If you have a corner for some tall flowers, definitely try growing some organic Jerusalem artichokes. Yum.
However, I thought I’d share some New Year’s eve photos of Finch Frolic Garden in the snow – not something I’d ever thought I’d see.
