- Animals, Birding, Gardening adventures, Microbes and Fungi, Ponds, Rain Catching, Water, Water Saving
Mallards in May
Every year our two wild mallards linger in our chemical-free pond. They mate, Mrs. Mallard disappears for awhile, returns with very small ducklings and… they all die within days.
Why? She hasn’t been a great mama. She runs them around too much, doesn’t preen them or give them time to eat. So this year when she showed up with four ducklings I didn’t even want to take photos of them. Who knows how many she began with? But these ducklings were a little older and larger than other batches had been. And they survived.
They weren’t eaten by the bullfrogs in the pond, or snatched by birds, or neglected by mama. We put out wild game bird food to help them along, but Mrs. Mallard has taught them how to dabble for vegetation (they eat mostly greens).The ducklings make a ‘weep-weep’ sound when they are asking for food. 
One day she repeatedly dove and came up under them, and then swam underwater to the other side of the pond and back: she was teaching them how to swim underwater! Now these babies have lost their downy feathers and are growing in their primaries. They’ll be off soon, hopefully to return. Mr. Mallard has been keeping an eye on Mrs. Mallard; he sometimes pushes the babies out of the way of the food, for which we chastise him greatly. 
His breeding plumage is holding so if the young fly off soon, he might try for a second mating this season.
Meanwhile, Mama Mallard looks pretty smug. Over 97% of California’s wetlands are completely gone, and what’s left is compromised by roads, pollution and management. Those billions of animals and trillions of insects which depended upon those wetlands have mostly died off, or make do with chlorinated water from the billions of swimming pools and bird baths they can find. The wildlife you see is a tiny remnant of what should be here.
To have a pond with rain water or well water in it, cleaned by fish and plants rather than chemicals, is to have a haven for wildlife. Good water is diverse with life, just as good soil is, and instead of drinking wet chemicals animals can drink water that is imbued with nutrients. The thousands of insects, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, marsupials and birds that use our pond are healthy because the water is not chlorinated. If you can put any size of pond – even in barrels – using rainwater and cleaned by plants and fish, you’ll be doing wildlife and yourself a service.
And here’s our ducklings dabbling for greens this morning:
MVI 0996
Older ducklings dabbling in Finch Frolic Garden pond, May 1, 2017.
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Native Insects and IPM
- Animals, Arts and Crafts, Bees, Birding, Building and Landscaping, Chickens, Fungus and Mushrooms, Gardening adventures, Heirloom Plants, Hugelkultur, Microbes and Fungi, Natives, Other Insects, Perennial vegetables, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Photos, Ponds, Rain Catching, Recycling and Repurposing, Soil, Water, Water Saving
Six Years of Permaculture
In February, 2011, I signed the contract with Roger Boddaert to create a permaculture food forest. The goals at that time were to stop the erosion on the property, to create a wildlife habitat, and to grow food, medicine, native plants, building materials, herbs and ornamentals in a sane way: no chemicals. So the journey began, and it hasn’t been easy. Nor did I at that time know that the garden would evolve into Finch Frolic Garden and my business would be education. In preparing for a talk about our garden, Miranda and I worked on before and after photos. The garden this April, 2017, is stunning, with blooming wisteria, fruit trees, red bud, roses, angel-wing jasmine, iris, and so much more. Best of all Mrs. Mallard has brought her annual flock of ducklings from wherever she nests, and the four babies are still alive and thriving after a week! So I thought I’d share the incredible difference between what had been, and what is now. All done with low water use, no fertilizer, herbicide, insecticide, additives or supplements. Come visit when you can! Slideshow images change in ten seconds:
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Native Insects and IPM
- Building and Landscaping, Compost, Gardening adventures, Hugelkultur, Irrigation and Watering, Natives, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Ponds, Rain Catching, Soil, Water, Water Saving
Installing a Swale
Last Saturday we hosted our first workshop of 2017, featuring Alden Hough of Sky Mountain Permaculture. Alden is a master at creating earthworks, and he spent three hours here at Finch Frolic Garden teaching a class of sixteen people how to install swales correctly. 
The project was a small pond that overflowed and flooded when heavy rains hit. The soil is heavy clay and therefore the small pond doesn’t percolate. It is kept filled by the well, and its overflow feeds the bog and the big pond. Right now the little pond is full of native Pacific chorus frog tadpoles, which will evolve into small frogs that will go out into the landscape and eat bugs the rest of the year.
He created a urbanite (cement chunks) spillway into a twenty-foot swale. The class learned what a bunyip was and how to use the water level, and how to use a laser level. The swale will hold about 300 gallons of water that would have overflowed into another area, spread and sink the water. 
The swale was measured and marked on contour.
Bermuda grass was pulled from it and set into trash cans to cook in the sun and hopefully be destroyed. The swale was then dug by hand.
Old wood – branches, logs, boards and old posts – were laid below the swale, and covered by the dirt. This hugelkultur will absorb seeping water, aerate and enrich the soil, and provide food and water over time for the trees downhill.
More dirt was needed to cover the wood so we emptied the first rain catchment basin on the property of silt and hauled it down the hill. This was a lot of heavy work, and several of our attendees worked extremely hard with the wheelbarrows. Miranda and I have a lot of experience doing this heavy work, and we are glad that this swale project also emptied this basin. Our wonderful workshop attendees worked very hard in the heat. The end result was a swale of beauty.
By creating level swales dug on contour, you can see how right it looks. It hasn’t been dug deeper into the ground at one end to force the swale to be level. If you measure on contour your swale can be of any size, and it will collect, passify, spread and sink rainwater into the landscape. Earthworks are the best way to hold water, and are imperative to reestablishing water tables, keeping wells running, keeping trees alive and maintaining springs and streams. A little earthworks will make a huge difference.What needs to be done now is to create a dedicated overflow from the swale into the main pond. As this area receives a lot of foot traffic, we’ll also need to haul more silt to make the raised walkway more gradual and blended with the paths around. Once the tadpoles have grown and left the pond, we can drain it and use that silt. Two projects in one.
Prior to the project Miranda carefully removed a lot of healthy creeping red fescue from the work site. After the swale and spillway were dug she replanted some of it. Native yarrow will also be planted to help hold the swale.
A huge thanks to the many people who came to learn and work on site. No matter how many movies you watch or books you read, having hands-on experience makes the education click. And an extra huge thanks to Alden Hough for his expertise and hard work. Please visit Sky Mountain Permaculture in Escondido for more classes – earth bag dome building included – coming up there.
Our next Finch Frolic Garden workshop will be in April: April 22, 2pm – 4pm: The Many Benefits of Trees: Care, Nurturing and Pruning . Roger Boddaert, the Tree Man of Fallbrook and professional landscaper who planned the original garden that would evolve into Finch Frolic Garden, will talk about trees. So many trees are dying due to the drought, and we need to replace them to help shade and cool the earth and hold onto moisture. But what to plant, where and how to care for them? Roger will take you through tree care based on fifty years of experience in landscaping. Visit https://www.southernpalmetto.com/services/ and get all the details.
Go forth and dig swales!
- Building and Landscaping, Compost, Gardening adventures, Hugelkultur, Irrigation and Watering, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Rain Catching, Soil, Water, Water Saving, Worms
Earthworks Workshop
Happy March! Finch Frolic Garden is officially open, and the trees are bursting into leaf and bloom. Birds are twitterpating and the ten inches of rain we’ve received since October are slowly working through the soil thanks to our earthworks.
Here’s an opportunity to learn just how to create accurate swales and hugelkultur so that they work. Saturday March 11th from 1 -4 we have the privilege of having Alden Hough from Sky Mountain Permaculture hold our first monthly workshop here in the garden. Alden has
years of experience with building earthworks on all scales, from guiding excavators across hillsides to hand-dug. Alden will describe how to build swales and hugelkultur beds, show off equipment, and then its hands-on in the garden. You’ll learn how to use a laser level and a bunyip, and get the feel of how to build on contour. Bring your gloves and be prepared to have some fun creating earthworks, so that you can do it properly on your own property.The workshop fee is $20/person. Please RSVP to dianeckennedy@prodigy.net. Wear appropriate work clothes and sun protection. Complimentary vegetarian refreshments will be available. Attendees may stroll Finch Frolic Garden as well. Don’t wait!
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Zone 0: Taking Care of Yourself
I just spoke with a vibrant, funny friend of mine who happens to be in her 90’s. She told me that she had slipped in the bathtub and couldn’t get out (it was dry) for a day and a half. She beat on the wall hoping her neighbor would hear, and then finally heard someone walking their dog on her lawn and she screamed until the woman called 911. Fortunately she only broke a couple of ribs, but is black and blue and deeply embarrassed. She couldn’t reach the taps, which are placed high for easy access, so she was dehydrated, not to mention hungry.
Another friend several years ago fell in her home, hit her head, and couldn’t get up. She was there with her poor dog for three days until someone came. She is only in her sixties, and she never fully recovered from this; she’s since sold her home and moved into a senior care center.
Still another friend years ago slipped, hit her head, lay on the floor for several days, and then died before anyone came. A horrible death for a wonderful woman.
My yoga teacher, Ann Wade from Wade Into Fitness here in Fallbrook (a well-deserved plug!) is always preaching that you must be able to get up from the floor. It seems so simple, but without practice those muscles can be lost. She’s also big on balancing exercises, which help you prevent falls.
One of the three ethics of permaculture is ‘people care’, and fundamentally that means your own personal health. In permaculture, designs are defined by zones of usage, from 1 to 5, and your personal health is often referred to as Zone zero, or the epicenter of everything that happens. You can’t do a lot of good for others if you are ill, yet there are few of us who keep a good balance of food and exercise. Some are hypochondriacs, some overwork figuring the body just has to keep up (I’m a bit on this side). Your body will always hand you the bill in your middle and old age for what you’ve done to it early on, so be good to yourself.
This post is for all ages. If you get up and down from the floor easily, keep it up. Practice. If you have a hard time or can’t, then you have to work on it. No matter your age you can build muscle. Make sure that your arms are strong enough to pull you up. Work on balancing exercises in a safe environment. Find a healing yoga class or strength-building class and practice your balance and your ability to get up from the floor.
Please take care of yourself, for your own sake and for the sake of your family and friends, and for all those people who look forward to seeing you smile.
- Frost and Heat, Gardening adventures, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Vegetables
Manipulating Cold
In areas such as here in flatland San Diego we don’t receive a lot of cold. We’re growing both tropicals which don’t want the frost, and stonefruit, brassicas and other plants that do better with a good chill. So when frost comes we need to manipulate it.Of course the best possible practice is to plant where there are optimal conditions for your particular types of plants and trees. Trees that need chilling should go down where frost settles. Tropicals should go higher where frost will roll past. However, circumstances change and you can’t be perfect all of the time, so here are some tips for helping your plants receive what they need:
For young tropicals, some frost protection through the first winter is important. A very easy way to protect your trees is to set four stakes around the tree; the poles should be taller than the tree.
As much as I don’t like to use plastic, a 6 mil white plastic works best for this. Otherwise wrap in heavy burlap, blankets, etc. The thing about white plastic is that it lets in light so that you can set this up at the beginning of the cold season and leave it up until after the last frost. I open and close the top just on nights when it is going to be frosty.Wrap the plastic around the poles, allowing some to be on the ground in a skirt which you can hold down with rocks, and some to extend above the top of the tree. Staple the plastic to the wooden poles. Frost rolls across the ground like water, so you want to make sure that it can’t roll under your plastic. It also comes down like water so you want to protect the top leaves. You can have a plastic flap that you can secure – tie down if its windy – over the top.
I used several layers of burlap on my mango and rose apple trees, and I’m using an old sheet on my papaya, as if that frosts at the top it will come back the next year, and I didn’t have poles tall enough to reach above the highest leaves. Burlap, particularly wet burlap, would be too heavy.
Be sure to uncover the tops of your plants in the morning so that they don’t cook. The plastic will act like a small greenhouse and help your plants keep cozy during cold days as well. This is a treat for a tomato that came up next to our mango and is enjoying the greenhouse effect.
So what to do about capturing cold? Again, frost rolls downhill. Capturing it with obstacles such as earthen walls, stacked sandbags, bushes, railroad ties, or anything that keeps it from passing by will help deliver the chill hours needed. Be sure that the cold trap is created like a smile downhill of the plant; fishscale swales are in the same direction but placed above plants for water catchment. You want the cold to be caught in a cup.
This short video I took last week on Christmas day showed a very light frost, and how dramatically different it was between a path that had no obstacles, and the side that had.
https://youtu.be/1YgG7sTDfrA
After I shut the camera off I realized that I should also have wished you a Happy Hanukkah, an early Happy Kwanzaa, a general Happy Holiday for others, and now I wish you a Happy New Years, as we are five hours before the end of 2016.
Thanks for reading, thanks for doing permaculture and helping to save the planet. We can make the change we want to see happen.
- Compost, Gardening adventures, Hugelkultur, Irrigation and Watering, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Ponds, Rain Catching, Seeds, Soil, Water, Water Saving
Swales and Basins in Action!
This week here in Fallbrook, CA, at Finch Frolic Garden we received almost three inches of rain in 18 hours. Our storm pattern is changing so that there are fewer rain events, but when it rains, it really rains. 
For many this was a flood. Precious rainwater is channeled away from properties and into the street. In permaculture gardens the water is harvested in the earth with simple earthworks such as swales (level-bottomed ditches) and rain catchment basins.Visitors have often expressed their desire to see the earthworks in action, so I took my camera out into the food forest.
That was when the rain gauge was at about two and three quarters, with more to come. (I wanted to photograph the garden after the storm had passed but my camera refused to turn on due to the indignity of having been wet. A couple of nights in a bag of rice did it wonders.)
Please excuse the unsteady camerawork, and my oilskin sleeve and dripping hand making cameo appearances in the film. I was using my hand to shield the lens from the rain.
- Fruit, Gardening adventures, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Recipes, Seeds, Vegan, Vegetarian
Jackfruit: The Largest Fruit in the World
I’d heard a lot about vegetarians using unripe jackfruit in the place of pulled pork because it can have the same texture. I had looked for canned jackfruit to no avail until a friend on Facebook (that most reliable of news sources) wrote that they had seen fresh jackfruit at 88 Ranch market in Temecula, a neighboring town.Off Miranda and I went. Not only did we find amazing and wonderful produce and mushrooms there, but we found the jackfruit.
Jackfruit are the largest fruit in the world and are produced on the largest fruit-bearing tree in the world. The fruit can weigh 80 or more pounds. The more manageable one we purchased was a mere fifteen pounds.
Jackfruit has latex in its core and stem, so butchering one (does one simply slice something that large?) requires some planning. We did it outside. Following Internet advice (which is always true and sound) (at least in this case it was) we spread out plastic with newspaper on top, covered our knife handles with plastic wrap, and used nitrile gloves. What I forgot to do was coat the knife blades with oil, but it all worked out okay.
Indeed, the inside was amazing. The core in the center of the fruit did weep white latex which we wiped away. This fruit was ripe, although the bumpy outside had been green.
The scent was tropical and enticing. The fruit is actually the fleshy sections that surround the large seeds. This we tore out with our fingers. 
It was firm and yet soft, not mushy, and a light apricot color. The seeds are edible too. 
We boiled a batch, then had to slip off their protective coating then pan-roasted them, and they tasted like baked potatoes with the skin still on. 
We roasted more in the oven and they didn’t taste so great, but I think that was my fault not theirs.
I planted several, and one sprouted and is now in the greenhouse about two inches tall and wondering how far he fell from the tree.
The ripe fruit has a flavor that is both mango and pineapple. It is SO GOOD. As it wasn’t goopy or full of juice, the fruit was easy to deal with. We lay most of it on cookie sheets, froze them and them put them in freezer bags. The frozen pieces taste like mango popsicles, and the fruit thaws without much change in texture; I brought some along for snacks on a trip. 
The part that is used for pulled pork is the fleshy parts that weren’t pollinated and didn’t develop a seed. They can be cut out and marinated. As this fruit had ripened, these parts had a bit of a fruity flavor to them, but we used it anyway.
Clean up wasn’t as bad as we had thought. Throughout the process we had to switch gloves because the latex would make the fruit stick to them. The knife blades cleaned up after soaking in boiling hot water.
We also bought the canned fresh and unripe fruit, but haven’t tried them yet.
Jackfruit is mostly grown in Asia, but also has popped up in South America and even Southern California and Florida.
When jackfruit come back to the store, and the weather is warm, it will be a fine day for another butchering. Or I can wait for a decade for my little jackfruit sprout to grow up and shade out part of the Finch Frolic food forest and produce monster fruit. Until then we have really superb jackfruit pieces frozen on which to nibble.
- Arts and Crafts, Breads, Cake, Condiments, Dessert, Fruit, Gardening adventures, Herbs, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian
2016 Marketplace and Last Tours of the Year
Our Marketplace is extended to Sunday, Nov. 20th, 9 – 2!
At Finch Frolic we’ve come to celebrate the end of our season with a Marketplace. This year our Marketplace will happen one day only, this Sat. Nov. 19th from 8-3. Finch Frolic is located at 390 Vista del Indio, Fallbrook, CA. We’ll be selling our abundance. Here’s some of the goodies you’ll find:Tiny Cocktail Mouse Melons (cucumbers… so cute!)
Amazing, milk-free Passionfruit Curd
Incredible tropical Guava Jam
Pickled Garlic
Whiskey Cranberry Relish
Nectarine Amaretto Jam
Tangy Plum Jam
Our very best dill Pickles
Jelly Palm Jelly
Spicy Jalapeno Carrots
Hand-grated, homegrown organic Horseradish Sauce
Guava Halves in Simple Syrup
Guava Paste squares – eat as is or put them in baked goods, or pair with slices of cheese. Ummm!
Frozen Passionfruit Juice cubes
Our famous Pomegranate Gelato
Frozen Pomegranate Arils, all ready to sprinkle on your baked goods or mix in a salad or stuffing.
Clear, amazing Guava Jelly
Frozen Plum, Guava and Peach slices
Frozen strained cooked organic home-grown pumpkin, all ready for a pie or bread!
Our best-selling Cranberry Biscotti
Gingerbread Houses. Pair them with our Passionfruit Curd for a memorable dessert!
Lilikoi (Passionfruit) Poundcakes. Small amazing tropical bundles of yum.
Guava Sauce, like applesauce but guava. Very low sugar!
Fresh Jerusalem Artichoke (Sunchoke) roots. Cook them or plant them!
Layered Curry Mix – a sensual trip to the Middle East, either layered in cute little jars for a gift or in bags for use at home. Make a curry with these organic spices!
Lime Juice Cubes
Candied Orange Peels. From our organic oranges. A much better stocking stuffer than hard candy. Or top your baked goods with a twist.
Fresh, fragrant guavas, both white and pink
Fresh kiwanos, those thorny African fruit that sell for a fortune at the stores.
And more!
Plus, we’ll be selling some knick-knacks, and a few garage sale items . A punching bag anyone?
PLUS, we’ll have a selection of native plants lovingly grown locally.
And we’ll have amazing succulents from our neighbor Rosa of Roja’s Succulents. You’ll pass by her business on the way in, so please stop by on the way out and see her incredible inventory of plants, all organically hand-grown by Rosa. I never loved succulents until I saw her collection, and her very low prices!
Except for the gelato, we’re dairy (milk) free this year. We use organic eggs from cage-free hens, and otherwise use vegan butter that I make at home which is coconut-oil and rice milk based.
Our last two tours of the year (the garden closes from Thanksgiving until March 1. We will still be available for consultations and appearances) will be this weekend, Nov. 19th and 20th, both at 10. [UPDATE: THE SATURDAY TOUR IS FULL. THERE IS STILL ROOM FOR THE SUNDAY TOUR]. The tours are our usual 2-hour concentrated Intro to Permaculture walks through the garden. The tours cost $15/adult and you will come away with so many ideas and so much information that you’ll spend the next week working in your garden! Please RSVP for the tours to dianeckennedy@prodigy.net.
Your continued support helps Miranda and I keep our consultation and tour prices low, and enables us to keep teaching and spreading the word on permaculture. So thank you!
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Adventures with Fruit: Pindo (Jelly) Palms
Evaluating the usefulness of the plants in your yard is a big part of permaculture; once you understand what each plant does, you will know if it is useful either to you, to wildlife or to the environment, or if it is causing harm. There are many food-producing plants that we think of as weeds or as ornamentals. Always, always, always be sure before you pop something in your mouth. So by identifying your plants you can add to your diet, and if something is already successfully growing in your yard and you can use it, fantastic!
You’ve probably walked past them, or even looked askance at the dropped fruit without realizing. Also called Jelly Palms, the pindo palm is a common landscape tree for drought-tolerant hot areas. The fronds look very pokey, but are rather soft. That is a relief because once you’ve tasted the ripe fruit you’ll be thrashing through the fronds trying to pick more of them.Pindo palms (Butia capitata) are called Jelly Palms because the fruit has a lot of pectin in them. The trees are also called Wine Palms because you can make a cloudy wine from the fruit. But then, mankind has proven that you can make alcoholic beverages from just about anything.
The fruit is small and fiberous with a big seed, and falls to the ground when very ripe. They taste amazing. The burst of flavor is as if a pineapple and an apricot had a little yellowish baby. The best way to eat them is to gently chew the whole thing and swallow the juice, then spit out the fiber and seed.
We have two jelly palms at Finch Frolic Garden, only because they didn’t have identification we didn’t really know what they were. At the beginning of this year Miranda and I were evaluating the garden plants using the Three Positives rule (where everything in the garden has to give you three positive things. If it doesn’t, then it should be turned into hugelkultur or mulch). Several trees were repurposed and we were eyeing the palms. These palms are squat and short, not slim and tall like the very similar Queen palms. Fortunately for them, and as it turned out, for us, the trunks were too thick for my small chainsaw so we didn’t remove them with the others. This threat seemed to work because they set fruit on long stalks. We hesitantly tried one… and then just about ran each other over trying to get more!
Queen palms also produce an edible fruit that is sweeter, but is only edible when very ripe.
The fallen ripe fruit can attract bees and wasps because, well, everyone wants some. We waited until the stalks were just about completely ripe then cut them off and left them in a paper bag. The fruit then ripened and dropped off in the house where we could have them all.
Most of what I know about the Pindo Palm comes from the website Eat the Weeds by Greene Deane.
We cleaned them and froze them. Now we’re making Pindo Palm Jelly. Or maybe Jelly Palm Jelly, which sounds better.
Freezing and thawing the fruit actually helps break down some of the fiber and release juices, and makes them much easier to pit. The pits are high in oil, so advice for cooking the fruit whole says the jelly can pick up bitter flavor from the seeds. We sat with trays laden with cutting boards, a knife and bowls and pitted them. Yes, this is how we spend our evenings when I’m not out dancing, processing fruit and watching a movie or reruns of the Bob Newhart show or something. Yep.The thawed fruit was easy to push away from the seed, so the process went very quickly although our fingers were pretty cold from the fruit.
We covered the pitted fruit with water and cooked it for about an hour, then strained out the fruit. There isn’t a lot of pulp because of all the fiber.
We used the National Center for Home Food Preservation’s recipe which used a lot of sugar, but the juice is so tart that it needed it.What we got was a beautiful jelly that,despite the natural and added pectin was fairly loose. The benefit was that it can be used as a syrup as well. While the flavor of the jelly isn’t quite as astonishing as the fresh fruit, the tart tropical flavor is very good.
So walk around your weeds and trees and identify them, read up on them, and perhaps you can find a treasure in your yard as we have!
(We’ll be selling Jelly Palm Jelly at our annual Marketplace here at Finch Frolic Garden on Sat. Nov. 19th, 2016)
