Compost
- Compost, Gardening adventures, Hugelkultur, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Rain Catching, Soil, Vegetables
Hugelkultur: Irrigating with old wood
Hugelkultur is a joy forever. Hugelkultur is a German word (pronounced hoogle culture: it should have some umlauts over the first ‘u’ but I have no idea how to do that) which translates as hill culture. It is a process of building raised beds with a core of old wood. The benefits are that as the wood decomposes it not only releases nutrients into the soil, but it holds water like a sponge. Rain water is collected inside the bed, then as the warmer weather sets in and heat dries out the outer shell, it will wick that moisture back out. Presto! Irrigation in the dry season. As the wood decomposes it creates air holes into which deeper roots may penetrate and absorb nutrients that aren’t being washed into the ground water. Also, growing on a tall hugelkultur bed makes harvesting easier because vegetables are often located higher off the ground. The process was popularized by Sepp Holzer, although he didn’t actually call it that.
Hugelkultur may be started flat on the ground, by hand or by machine, dug into the ground, stacked very tall or short, or even level to the ground. The best way to build a bed is to place it on contour where rainwater will collect, preferably facing North and South so that both sides receive equal sun.
I have areas of ground that are either very heavy clay, or are decomposed granite with stones left over from the building of the house. Some trees don’t receive the drainage they need from irrigation because of the clay, which causes the roots to suffocate, or else plants dry up because water perculates too swiftly through the soil.
This brush pile against the fence was reduced to a quarter of its size. I also have stacks of brush that were left when the garden was created as hiding places for animals while the garden grew. I don’t need that many brush piles anymore now that the garden is large. I have three wire cages filled with woodier weeds and prunings that are in ‘slow compost’ mode, and leftover trimmings from bamboo used in bridge construction. Perfect hugelkultur components!
I targeted an area between the pathway and a plant guild with two apricots and vegetables in it. When it rains that area has standing water on it because of the clay content. The area should become part of the guild, but the soil needs mucho amending. I have areas like this all around the property. How to amend two acres of soil? How to get rid of the ever-rising mountains of prunings? How to make the rain water permiate the soil and perculate down rather than sheet across? One guess. Yep, hugelkultur. I bury that wood!
I had made a small hugelkultur experiment a year ago with a raised strawberry bed. There was old lime firewood rotting on the property, so I placed several of these logs along the side of the bed, then covered them with soil and planted strawberries. It worked very well. The strawberries loved the acid, even growing into the decomposing logs, and the logs held the moisture. Some wonderful showy fungus came up, too. I will be reworking that bed and this time I will cover the ground with logs, throw on some llama or horse manure, cover with compost and replant the strawberries. I shouldn’t have to fertilize that bed or add soil for a long time.
For the big hugelkultur bed I wanted a deep hole that would capture rain and allow the wood to absorb it. My faithful assistants Lori and Steve and Jacob work on this project with me. Steve and Lori dug this ginormous serpentine pit about 2 1/2 feet deep and the same wide.
Lori and Steve digging a huge trench. Since the paths had just been covered with mulch, the dirt was piled on top of plywood layed over the mulch for protection.
Plywood over the paths helped keep things neat and tidy. Then we began filling the bed with the largest wood first.
The empty trench with still-intact drip systems over it. We didn’t have large logs which would have worked well, but we had lots of thick branches. This hole took a lot of prunings and we jumped on them to compact them down.
A bear trap! There are a lot of branches in this pit. The hugelkultur bed was left for a few days to settle (and we had run out of time and energy that first day!), and then we worked on it again. Extra dirt from the rain catchment basins that the men were enlarging was hauled down and thrown into and around the wood.
Dirt was added to the mix The mound was watered well. In dry areas it is important to water the wood and the soil well as you are building or else the bed will want to draw water from the area around it, drying up any seeds or plants planted on it.
Some of the long pieces that really stuck out were pruned off. Of course if this is a temporarily boggy area, the hugel bed would help dry it out. There were subterranean irrigation lines across the area already, and since we have a dry climate and the wood I used wasn’t old spongy logs and would take some time to become absorbant, we reestablished the drip system across the top of the hugel bed.
Steve reconnecting the subterranean drip, which runs from a well powered by solar. Because there weren’t large logs, there were a lot of spaces to fill with dirt. Gradually the mound grew and was sloped down to the pathway. Finally a couple of inches of dirt was packed on top. Unfortunately this was mostly clay from the excavation site, but if it had been good soil to begin with, I wouldn’t have needed the hugel bed now, would I? Yes, I did give it a sprinkling of sugar just to get the microbes feeding.
All topped up! There was so much clay that this could have been a big fire pit! The next day I dug up soil from the bottom of the wire cages that were now empty of branches, vines, and sticks. In less than a year since making the wire beds they’d begun to decompose and there was several inches of nice soil at the bottom. I hauled it over to the new bed and topped the clay with the compost.
Guess which half has the good soil on it? I want to break up the clay soil so I threw around a cover crop mixture of peas and wheat. The peas will fix nitrogen in the soil, the wheat roots will stabilize and break up clay, I can harvest food from both and then slash and drop the plants to bring nutrition to the soil surface. I also had a bag of mixed old veggie seeds. Last year or so ago I pulled out all my little envelopes of veggie seeds that were very old and mixed them all up. I planted batches around the property and had many things germinate. I still had about 2 cups of the seed left so I threw it around the new hugelbed along with the cover crop. Why not? If the seed isn’t viable, no loss. If it is, terrific! I can always transplant the sprouts if there are too many of any one thing.
Organic cover crop and a bag of old mixed veggie seeds. I watered the seed down, and then raked out the old straw from the Fowl Fortress. Here is a warning about straw: it will germinate. People say straw doesn’t have seeds in it because the seeds are all in the tops which is cut as hay, but they lie. They live in a dream. Straw still has seeds in it and I had a nightmare of a time weeding pathways the first year of the garden because they were all strewn with straw mulch. However if you put straw down for your hens first, they will eat all the seeds, poo on it, kick it around in the dirt, and then you will have a much better quality straw to use. Straw is difficult to get wet, and it needs to be wet when placed on the bed unless you live in a wet climate or have timed the planting to be just before a long soaking rain.
A thick layer of wet straw went over the top of the scattered seeds. Even then it is good to soak the straw first and then apply it to the bed. Some people soak the straw in an enriched liquid, using manure tea, kelp, microbial brews, organic molassas, etc. The mulch acts as an insulator for moisture and warmth (the decaying wood will eventually produce some heat to warm the little plant feet), and a suffocator for weeds. It can also be a home for sow bugs if too thin. In wetter climates the straw layer can be an inch or so thick. In drier climates the straw or whatever you use as a top mulch should be several inches thick or else it will just wick moisture out of the bed. The same rule applys when using newspapers as a mulch. TIP: don’t let your chickens near the new bed! They will ‘rediscover’ their old mulch and start kicking all your work apart!
If I had wanted to plant established plants on the hugelkultur bed rather than seeds, I would have forgone spreading compost and just covered the poor soil on the mound in wet newspaper or cardboard, and then piled on the straw mulch. To plant I would have cut a hole through the paper, added a handful of good compost and planted in the hole.
So the bed was done, and just before a predicted rain event, too. As it rains the water will roll into the bed, be absorbed and held by the soil around the branches which will eventually begin to absorb the moisture as they decay. The seeds will sprout through the mulch and their roots will hold and amend the clay on the mound. Eventually the roots of the apricot trees will reach over towards the hugel bed, and that patch of icky clay soil will become beautiful. All the while I can still grow crops on the raised bed. My three wire bins are empty, an enormous brush pile is reduced to a small mound, and extra dirt found a new home. Plus we all had some fantastic upper body workouts. A winning situation all around.
More hugel beds will be created in troubled spots; some may only be a couple of feet long below a tree’s root line to help with soil drainage while amending the planting bed.
Wire cages filled with old weeds, prunings and vines are terrific for hugels! If you are in an area where the top mulch might wash away in heavy rains, make a latticework of sticks held down with landscape pins or more sticks over the top of the straw. Or cover with wire until the plants begin to sprout; you don’t want the wire to remain on the bed.
So try a hugelkultur bed, big or small. You’ll wonder why you never tried it before.
- Animals, Birding, Compost, Gardening adventures, Living structures, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Photos, Ponds, Rain Catching
Frost on the Pathways
It doesn’t often frost here in Fallbrook, which is located about an hour from both the mountains and the Pacific in northern San Diego county. When it does, the fruit growers have to take drastic steps to keep their citrus, avocados and other tender plants from dying. The last frost happened after a long steady rain, just after a thick mulch was applied to all the trails here at Finch Frolic Gardens (thank you, Lori!). I awoke to a magical result: just the pathways had turned white with frost. Beautiful! (You can click on the photos to enlarge).
Frost on the newly mulched trail. Between the two ponds. Ice skating rink for birds. Mr. and Mrs. Mallard enjoying some breakfast scratch. Sophie following the trail Little frosty bridge Past the new little bamboo bridge. Strawberries to Frost: “Bring it on!” These wildflowers survive frost just fine. Winter blooms, too! - Animals, Bees, Chickens, Cob, Compost, Composting toilet, Gardening adventures, Health, Heirloom Plants, Herbs, Natives, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Ponds, Rain Catching, Recipes, Salads, Soil, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian, Worms
Southern California Permaculture Convergence! Be there!
Southern California Permaculture Convergence If you are interested in any aspect of permaculture, such as organic gardening, herbs, planting native plants, aquaponics, natural ponds, beekeeping, keeping chickens, and so much more, then you must come to the Southern California Permaculture Convergence. It happens on March 9th and 10th at the Sky Mountain Institute in Escondido. The keynote speaker will be Paul Wheaton, lecturer and permaculturalist extraordinaire of www.permies.com fame. Oh, and I’ll be one of the many speakers as well (cough cough). The Early Bird special of only $50 for both days ends at the end of January, and then the price will rise, so buy your tickets now!
Also, for a full-on demonstration of taking bare land and creating a permaculture garden, there will be a three-day intensive class taught by Paul Wheaton on site the three days prior to the Convergence.
You can read about the convergence here at the official website, which will give you the link perm.eventbrite.com where you may purchase tickets. Also visit the SD Permaculture Meetup page to see all the free workshops that happen monthly all over San Diego.
This convergence is such a deal, you really shouldn’t miss it! And such a bargain, too. One of the best things I find that come out of these convergences is the exchange of ideas and networking among the attendees, and all the practical information you can take home and use right away. One of the largest parts of permaculture is building community, which means sharing with and assisting others.
Really. Don’t miss this! Tell your friends!
- Compost, Gardening adventures, Natives, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Soil, Vegetables
Gardening secrets: Epsom salt and sugar
This veggie bed soil isn’t very active. So I buried frosted tomato vines in it and sprinkled on my powerful duo, and in a month I’ll plant seeds. Gardening shouldn’t be expensive. If you believe everything you read, especially those wonderful gardening catalogs and even advice from professional gardeners, a garden could be quite an investment. Talk about golden carrots! I have spent my fair share of money for gardening products in my time. Then this permaculture stuff got into my head and it makes me rethink everything. Permaculture proves that gardening shouldn’t be labor intensive, just labor-wise. Make things work for you and let plants get on with what they want to do. Makes some forehead-slapping sense to me.
Organic fertilizer is a plus for firing off poor soil, but it is expensive. There are two other very inexpensive household products that you can use to really charge your soil, promote growth, make fruit sweeter, reduce some weeds, release the bound-up vitamins and minerals in the soil, promote world peace… well, I’m getting a little carried away, but not by too much.
Epsom salt is named after Epsom, England, where the active ingredient Magnesium sulfate was originally created. Not found naturally, it must be processed, now most often from dolomite. Dolomite is mined in the United States and internationally. The sustainability of dolomite mining and the environmental impact of mining, processing and shipping Epsom salts may be something to consider, if you worry about the locality of products you purchase. I don’t know what impacts those are. Epsom salts can actually be made at home by chrystalizing magnesium sulfate, but I’m thinking that although I enjoy do-it-yourselfing, this is a little too much.
Epsom salt is inexpensive and readily available. It is recommended for tomatoes, peppers and roses, but I use it around citrus trees, in the veggie beds, and anywhere leaves are looking sickly. The Epsom salt bag recommends sprinkling 2 tablespoons around the base of each plant, so you can see a little goes a long way. It is also a wonderful bath salt which eases sore muscles and leaches impurities from your skin (often recommended as a diet aid because of this). (Also if you have a greywater system, your magnesium-enriched bathwater will flow out to nutrify your plants! Such a deal!) Some sites tell you never to take it internally; the bag and others recommend it for… let’s say… loosening things up inside. It is also used as a curdling agent in making tofu. There is a relationship between calcium and magnesium whether it be in the soil or in our bodies. Taking too much calcium without enough magnesium can lead to many health problems such as arthritis and hardening of the arteries. Don’t take more than a ratio of 2:1. (Dairy products don’t have that ratio, so if you drink milk you may not be absorbing the amount of calcium you thought you were). Also, calcium and potassium compete with magnesium for uptake into roots, and even though your soil samples may indicate enough magnesium your plants may not be receiving enough. If you have heavy clay soil, you could have a ratio as high as 7:1, yet in sandy soil you need more magnesium to hold soil together so you can go to about 3:1. Here are some good sites for looking into the science behind it if you’re interested: National Gardening Association, a book excerpt here which goes into more details about how its made and how to use it medicinally, and even a site about how to make crafts with it.
Also, don’t let the name confuse you. Epsom salt is Magnesium sulfate, not salt as in table salt which is Sodium chloride. Applying Epsom salt to the ground is not like applying, well, salt. Applying Sodium chloride to your soil is to kill it. I’ve read and overheard inexperienced gardeners say that they’ve poured salt on weeds because, after all, it comes from the ground so it shouldn’t do any damage. Ummm, no. Invading armies would salt the fields of their enemies so they couldn’t grow crops there for decades. Heavy salt in the soil is a huge problem (which, of course, if you’ve been paying attention to past blogs you know can be readily solved by….. what? I’ll give you a chance to fill that in and reveal the answer at the end!)
As for my other ‘secret’ ingredient is sugar. Yes, my soil is on junk food. Actually using organic molasses dissolved in rainwater would be best, and I have done that when making a microbial brew, but I am but one person with a thin purse so sugar it is. Why sugar? It is a complex carbohydrate which plants need to produce protein, starch and fats. Plants produce their own sugar through photosynthesis, and by secreting their own sugars through their roots determine which microorganisms they want to thrive near them. I use a little sugar on ailing soil; all those millions of microbes and fungusey things that are in the soil get a jump-start with something sweet. Have you ever made bread and mixed a little sugar in with the yeast to proof it? Same difference. The soil critters feed off the sweet, multiplying like crazy and making your soil turn into healthy goodness. If your soil is healthy, you don’t need it. When the sweet is gone they munch on organic materials processing them more quickly and opening up all those locked nutrients in the soil. If there isn’t enough for them to eat and there is a die-off, then their little bodies become nutrients for the soil (as they would anyway). To put this into perspective, let me relay to you an interesting fact I learned in my Permaculture Design Course. When a field is plowed and farmed, the first year crops are good. Each successive year that it is plowed and farmed the fertility is less and the crops worse until the ground is barren. That is because with the first plowing or tilling gajillions of microbes are slaughtered and it is their dead bodies that fertilize the crops. Each successive year there are fewer microbes available to slaughter until they are all gone and the soil has become dirt. And then we have dust bowls and run-off, erosion, loss of the water table, the drying up of streams, climate change, universal discord… well, you get the picture.
Climbing Don Juan here was a miserable, spotty rose last Spring, while all his friends were tall and lovely. I added Epsom salt and sugar, and he fought off the black spot and is thriving. Only lightly sprinkle the sugar around your soil; too much can hurt plants. I have used sugar successfully to kill off an invasion of nutgrass, something about which I read on the Internet. This sedge turned up in my pathways and although I hand weeded the little guys (I didn’t eat them although they were cultivated as a crop in Egypt) they just kept on coming, even after I had put plywood over the top for awhile. So I sugared them then threw the plywood back on, and Bob’s your Uncle, no more nutgrass in that area. I envisioned millions of little mouths biting away at the nutgrass bulbs underground… I need to stop thinking about that. What really happened is that the microbes fed off the sugar and multiplied wildly to a point where they locked up the available nutrients in the soil which non-natives need to grow. Native plants won’t be bothered because they can thrive in poor soil. Here is an article about the research behind sugaring to prevent weeds. I lightly add sugar around established plants that aren’t doing well, and water into new vegetable beds where the soil isn’t vigorous yet and allow the beds to sit awhile before I plant seeds.
Refined white sugar is of course empty calories. Any dissolved sweet will work well, too. Beet sugar, agave syrup, leftover pancake syrup, sorghum syrup, honey, molasses, diluted jelly… use your imagination and your pantry. The more nutrients in the sweet the better for your soil, but also the more expensive it will be. If you are using sweet for houseplants then you should be wary of possible interest by house ants. Outside it isn’t a problem.
So share your bath and your jelly donut with your garden and you’ll both be happier and healthier!
(Answer: compost! You knew that!)
- Compost, Gardening adventures, Hugelkultur, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Soil, Vegetables, Worms
Lazy Composting
Tomato vines… what to do? I have a Rubbermaid compost bin where I dump my kitchen scraps, and a nifty three-bin pallet compost bin for larger stuff, as well as wire cages where I’ve heaped tough weeds and vines.
My wire bins floweth over. All of these methods of composting are great. They also require some physical work that I’m wary of these days. I still keep my old raised veggie beds lined with chicken wire and use them for controlled or experimental crops and extra seed. The soil in them settles after awhile and because I don’t turn my compost heaps enough I don’t produce enough compost to haul over and refill the beds.
Soil is at a low level in the raised beds. Today I decided to try mini hugelkultur beds. Hugelkultur is the practice of heaping wood and other organic matter, covering it with soil and planting directly on the pile. The berm catches water and the buried wood holds the moisture, releasing it slowly to the plants and gradually decomposing to create beautiful soil. When I planted my strawberry bed two years ago I buried old lime tree logs all along the edge. Now that soil is beautiful as the logs decompose, helping to acidify the soil for the acid-loving strawberries, and holding moisture by the roots. Some strawberry plants have rooted right in the logs.
Strawberries have rooted runners directly into the rotting lime logs. The soil around the logs is perfect. In one of my long raised veggie beds I cleaned out the frosted tomato vines and what sweet potato vines were left after our harvest.
Frosted tomato vines: treasure, not trash! I don’t like to disturb the soil because that kills microbes, fungus and worms, but this soil hadn’t been perfect to begin with.
Digging up the soil and trying to protect the worms from the persistant chickens. I shoveled out a portion of the soil then cut up the tomato vines and dropped them in the bed.
Heaping on the vines. Then I shovelled the dirt back over again, and made my way down the bed until all the vines had been covered.
A few vine ends stick up, but that’s okay. If I had more soil I’d bury them more. I also sprinkled on sugar and epsom salts, to feed the microbes and add magnesium (I’ll blog about these two garden wonders another time).
Magnesium-rich epsom salts and sugar (organic molassas is better) invigorate the soil. Burying garden leftovers like this does several things. It quickly feeds the microbes and worms in the soil without the critters having to gnaw on them from underneath or wait until the plants decompose more. The vines keep the soil from compacting and help hold moisture when it rains.
I cut the tomato vines and leave the stem and roots. Worms love roots. The vines had taken nutrients up into the leaves and fruit, and now many of those same nutrients are being returned to the bed in which they grew. Keeping the soil moist from underneath is a valuable way to protect seedlings from bugs. Top mulch I have found to be a nursery for damaging pill bugs, which you might call ‘rolly-pollies’ or sow bugs.
A sow bug on my glove (No, I’m not a Smurf). Although experts say that sow bugs don’t directly damage plants and fruit but rather feed off of already damaged produce, I have my doubts. If so, I believe that mine hired another bug or bird to damage about half of my strawberry crop last year so that they could feast on them.
Because decomposing green matter will initially take nitrogen from the soil, I’ll let this bed sit for a couple of months before planting, or if I can’t stand to wait I’ll plant nitrogen-fixing peas as a cover crop. I won’t repeat the same crops in this bed because it is smart to rotate families of veggies for many reasons, including pest control. Whatever I put in here, however, will be a mix of seeds.
I spy a sweet potato that hid the harvest by growing under through the wire and under the board! Another bed I’ve been playing with had been empty and needed soil. Over the last season I’ve thrown in garden debris and a layer of llama poo topped with sweet potato vines. Last week I balanced a piece of plywood over it. Today I took a peek and the vines are covered with bugs decomposing in the moist darkness of the plywood as the heap gradually settles. I’ll leave it be and keep checking on its progress.
Plywood balanced on piled garden debris I have more lazy composting ideas for the entire property. I’ll let you know.
- Compost, Gardening adventures, Giving, Health, Natives, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Soil, Vegetables
Stinging Nettle and World Peace
One of my very good friends asked me what to do about a proliferation of stinging nettle in her yard. There is a creek running through the bottom of her property, and while once there had been Jimson weed and other natives growing there, now there is just nettle which is spreading to her lawn. Her hand hurt for a day from inadvertently pulling some out bare-handed. Her neighbor had told her that “nettle was bad” and would take over. She was laying cardboard on some of it, but was afraid that wouldn’t be enough.
One of the main practices of permaculture is to take what is considered to be a problem and look at all sides of it, just as in Zen you must think like your enemy, or in some Native American beliefs you must walk a mile in another’s shoes.
Fortunately I knew some things about nettle, and told her that nettle was not only edible once the acid had been blanched away, but highly nutritious. Here is a good description of what it can do. It is a superb compost enervator. The disappearance of the other natives by the streambed was evidence that someone upstream had sprayed an herbicide that washed downstream and killed everything. The prolific growth of stinging nettle, which is an indicator plant for high nitrogen in the soil, showed that someone’s high nitrogen lawn fertilizer came the same way.
Nettle’s acid is simply an excretion by the plant on the hairs along its stem to discourage browsing animals. The sting is immediate and temporary, unlike poison oak which has an irritating oil that can spread with touch and takes a few days to cause a rash. In nature often the cure grows near the problem, and therefore both the riparian plants mint and plantain can be rubbed onto the area to alliviate the sting, but soap and hot water works just as well. Nettle reproduces only by seed, not by rhizomes or other invasive tactics. It likes water therefore it takes root in lawns which are watered frequently and are fertilized with nitrogen.
My friend is always ready to embrace new information, especially where nutrition is concerned, and immediately stopped looking at nettle as a potentially dangerous invader of her property, to an indicator of other problems (stream pollution) and a health goldmine. To control what she doesn’t use she knows she can cut it down before it seeds and it won’t spread (and the cut plants will charge her soil), and if she wanted to restore the wetlands area she could continue to lay cardboard to cover most of the nettle, then top them with soil and straw, cut holes through to the dirt and transplant native riparian plants into the sheet mulch. There are no invaders, no monsters in her yard.
While pulling ragweed out of the pathways at my place with another friend (I have become so rich in friends this last year!), I told her about the nettle. Her reply was that while she worked in the garden she’d see things in a new perspective. Knees to the earth, eyes choosing between ragweed and sprouting wildflowers, lungs full of the scent of good soil, permaculturalists steer away from the stereotypcial gardening approach and see benefits where others see problems.
And this is what this post is all about: applying permaculture practices to everyday living, from personal to global thinking. In permaculture there are no invasives, no bad guys. Even my hated Bermuda grass is a plant in the wrong place, spread because people insist on seeding lawns with the stuff. Its function is to hold soil and moisture and break up hardpack. It does this admirably well, only I don’t want it in my garden. In permaculture, problems are like little moons where you see nothing but black on the dark side until you turn it to see the incredible sunlit topography on the other side, and understand that all those details are there on the dark side as well. A problem is just an opportunity for creative thinking; a resource whose purpose isn’t clear as yet. Therefore there are no ‘weeds’, no stereotypes.
So take these phrases and look at them with the eyes of permaculture: Teens are irresponsible. Old people are antiquated. Dark-skinned people are dangerous. Light-skinned people are dangerous. The government is out to get us. All businesses are bad. All politicians are corrupt. Men are incompetent. Women are hysterical.
Imagine these phrases as balls you can turn in your hand, like little moons. Examine, understand, see that anger and violence all stems from fear. Look at all sides of the phrases and see that they cannot be true. Just as stinging nettle isn’t an invasive plant out to get people, but a plant rich in potentials doing its job, then any potential imagined threat to our safety can be understood and appreciated until we no longer face it with fear. We hire and train youths. We listen to the life experience of the old. We vote to change the government. We support small businesses. We offer training and workshops to teach. We offer safe, sane gardens in which to meditate. We produce good organic food to nourish brains and bodies and activate good health.
By gardening with permaculture in mind we can so easily imagine a more peaceful world, both for our small personal worlds and on a global scale. Therefore it is imperative that we introduce others to permaculture, for the saving of the earth and of ourselves.
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Wreaths from Scratch
Pine wreath. I haven’t bought a cut tree in ages. I used to buy a live tree, but after so many years of hauling in the heavy 15-gallon container while being face-whipped by the branches, I finally bought a very lovely fake tree about eight years ago or so. It works well, except it doesn’t have the fragrance of a real tree. In the ‘old days’ I could gather cuttings from tree lots, but the sellers caught on and now sell them or use them for wreaths themselves. I’ve been buying a wreath from Trader Joe’s which smells nice for awhile but is pretty expensive for just some branches.
This year my daughter and I used bits of plants that we trimmed as we pruned our fruit trees. Some pine branches had been left unshredded in the huge mulch piles I nabbed from my neighbor’s tree trimmer after they topped (shudder!) all his trees.
Pine branches that missed being shredded from the neighbor’s tree butchering (I grabbed the mulch for my yard!) A large eager rose had hung some large lovely hips low over the pedestrian gate and needed trimming back.
Fourth of July rose hanging low over the gate. A rosemary bush was encroching on a fruit tree and was cut firmly back. We cut some willow and sage as well. So one night last week my daughter and I had a ‘craft night’ and on spread newspaper with the help of wire and old wreath frames made three wreaths, a centerpiece and a huge mess on the floor.
A fragrant rosemary wreath studded with rose hips and some sage seed pods. Pine needles and cones with rose hips. Love to hang my Christmas cards! Curly willow cuttings woven into a wreath and studded with rose hips. My daughter is very creative. We had a lot of fun, and the wreaths smell of herbs.
Leftover rosemary became a centerpiece with the help of a small piece of firewood and some pinecones. What can you do with what you have growing?
My daughter hanging the willow wreath while Viola the hen gives advice (its past her bedtime. The hen’s, not my daughter’s.) - Animals, Books, Breads, Chickens, Compost, Gardening adventures, Giving, Health, Humor, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Pets, Recipes, Reptiles and Amphibians, Soil, Vegetables
The Life of Di, or Fall At My House
“And here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into!” I like to be involved with many projects at once. I picture my life as an opal, my birthstone, full of swirled colors and hues. I have several books going at once, projects chipped away at around the house, volunteer responsibilities strewn across my week, and far too many animals and acres to care for. When I’m exhausted I can spend a day on the couch reading with no trouble at all being the picture of laziness. Prior to Thanksgiving I underwent a skin cancer preventative treatment on my face and hands, which required applying a topical cream twice a day that brings suspicious cells to the surface and burns them off. By the end of the second week I was quite a mess, and then took another week to heal enough to be seen in public without alerting the zombie hunters. The treatment, needless to say, kept me from being in sunlight, therefore housebound. Always loving a clean, organized house but never actually completely cleaning or organizing, I figured I’d get some work done. I tried sorting about 15 boxes of photo albums left by my mother and grandmother… and got through one box before I had to stop. I wanted to bake bread, and I wanted to find something to do with the small amount of hops we harvested, so I experimented with a recipe that had a starter, sponge and rising that altogether took five days. The Turnipseed Sisters’ White Bread from the classic Bernard Clayton’s New Complete Book of Breads .
Turnipseed Sisters’ White Loaf starter made with hops. The starter really smelled like beer. Not in a pleasant way, either. However the bread was good, and baking was fun.
Good sandwich and toast bread. Just the extra carbs I needed for sitting on my butt for two weeks, right? Then I wanted to thin, clean and alphabetize the fiction section in my living room.
Books piled alphabetically… a little later there was a small avalanche. Yes, I have enough books in my house that they are in sections. Former school librarian and bookstore worker here. I haven’t done the non-fiction section as yet, which extends to most of the other rooms in the house. Maybe next year? I did a little writing, a lot of reading, surrounded by my elderly dog Sophie
Sophie enjoying good sleeps. who keeps returning from the brink of death to sleep about 23 hours a day, and one of my hens, Viola, who suddenly went lame in one leg.
Viola on a healing vacation. All advice was to cull her, but I thought that she pulled a muscle and hadn’t broken her leg, and being vegetarian I don’t eat my pets. Viola has been recuperating in a cage in the dining room, gaining strength in that leg, laying regular eggs, having full rein of the front yard, and crooning wonderfully. As I count wild birds for Cornell University’s Project Feederwatch, I keep an eye on the hen. The cats ignore her, thank goodness. I’ve quite enjoyed having a chicken in the house. Yep, I’m starting to be one of those kinds of aging ladies.
In between I’d spend time crawling under bushes to push and shove my 100-pound African spur thigh tortoise out of his hiding spot and into the heatlamp-warmed Rubbermaid house he shuns so that he wouldn’t catch cold in the chill damp nights. I always come out victorious, with him angry and begrudgingly warm, and with me wet, muddy, hair full of sticks and hands full of scratches. Does anyone have a life like this?
“I’m performing advanced trigonometry in my head, don’t bother me, Woman!” Finally my skin healed enough so that I was able to venture outdoors.
Garlic and seed sprouts guarded from birds by a rubber snake. I planted seeds of winter crops: collards, kale, garlic, onions, carrots, Brussels sprouts and broccoli rabe, and prepared raised beds for more.
Yellow perfection tomatoes still ripening, as are the green zebra. I ordered organic pea, lupine and sweet pea seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds , all nitrogen-fixers to plant around the plant guilds.
Pepperoncini still producing. On Thanksgiving I hiked 1200 feet up Monserate Mountain in a record slow time; all that sitting and all that bread causing me to often stop and watch the slow holiday traffic on Hwy. 15, and be very glad that I was on a hike instead.
The neighbors had their annual tree butchering, paying exorbitant sums to have the same so-called landscapers come in and top their trees (shudder!) and thin others… for what reason I have no idea. Because being retired Orange County professionals they believe that trees need to be hacked back, contorted, and ruined? Possibly.
Please, please, please, friends don’t let friends top trees! Find an arborist who trims trees with an eye to their health and long-term growth and immediate beauty. A well-pruned tree is lovely, even just after pruning. A topped tree is brutal and ugly.
A topped coral tree. Ugh! Anyway, the upside is that I claimed all the chips, giving new life to the ravaged trees as mulch for my pathways. Two truckloads were delivered. I think I have enough for the whole property.
“The bear went over the mountain to see what he could see. He saw another mountain…” How to spread it? Yep, one wheelbarrow full at a time.
One wheelbarrow at a time. I can now condition myself for more hiking and weight lifting without leaving the property. The heaps have a lot of pine in them (they thinned the pine trees!???) so there is a pleasant Christmassy smell emanating from the heaps.
Hot steamy mulch. They are also very high nitrogen and were hot in the center on the second day and this morning were steaming right after our brief rain shower. Mulch piles can catch fire; when I worked for San Diego County Parks we rangers would joke about who had been called out by the fire department when their newly delivered mulch pile had caught fire in the night.
Steam from the mulch mountains. I stood on it just now and steam went up my pant legs and warmed me up! I also received a gift of seven 15-gallon nursery containers of llama poo!
The wealth of llama poo. Hot diggity! Early Christmas: My diamonds are round and brown, thank-you. I layered them in the compost heap and am ready for more.
I also wholeheartedly participated in Small Business Saturday, finding happy locals and crossing paths with friends and aquaintences at several stores. I received my first Merry Christmas from a man at Myrtle Creek Nursery’s parking lot as he waited for his son’s family to pick out a Christmas tree. I do love this town.
Sweet potatoes ready to harvest for Christmas dinner. That catches me up. Lots of projects, lots of volunteering, lots of cleaning up to do before my daughter comes home for the holidays and despairs at my bachelorette living. Lots of mulch to move. Lots of really great friends. Lots of sunscreen to wear. Lots to be thankful for.
- Compost, Gardening adventures, Natives, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Soil, Vegetables
Leave the Leaves
The world can be saved with leaves. Yep. No kidding. We are in a season named after leaves: Fall. When deciduous trees drop their leaves they are shutting down their systems for the winter. In warm climates native plants don’t do this, rather they shed leaves over a period of time, never turning off their ability to create food through photosynthesis. Evergreens also do this, providing shelter and food for animals no matter the weather. In cooler climates many trees go into semi-dormancy, kind of a half sleep.
Liquidamber trees provide gorgeous Fall color and lots of great leaves. They reduce the number of leaves on their branches so that their productivity reduces but doesn’t completely stop. In cold climates many trees become living works of art as their leaves turn colors before falling. Much has been made of the beautiful sight of bare branches in a winter garden. A traditional Fall activity is the raking and disposing of fallen leaves. Happy kids jumping into leaf piles. However, we need to stop thinking that bare is beautiful; at least, as far as the soil is concerned.
Plant trees that will provide you with lots of leaves. The disposal of fallen leaves should be made an environmental crime. Trees drop their leaves to protect and feed their roots, and all the microbes that aid and abet them. Those decaying leaves also protect and feed bulbs, shrubs and other overwintering plants. Ever notice how snow melts around leaves and fallen branches first? That is because they also produce warmth as they decompose, warming the soil to keep the microbes alive.
The whiteness is fungus breaking down the twig. The leaves are breaking down into rich, fragrant soil. To remove fallen leaves is to take away the tree’s food, nutrition, its disease and pest control by pest control san diego and ultimately its health. It would be as if you had stored up a cabin for the winter with healthy food and supplies, and someone came and took most of your supplies except junk food, took your blankets, your firewood and your vitamins and medicines. You’d probably survive until Spring, but you wouldn’t be very healthy, and you’d stay in a hospital and be treated with drugs to combat the illnesses and injuries you accumulated. Your health would be greatly weakened.
A young sycamore just starting its leaf accumulation. This is what leaf removal does for trees. People rake up the leaves in the Fall, then in the Spring buy fertilizer (usually chemical thanks to persuasive advertising), insecticides, foliar sprays and other junk that they don’t need, take time and effort and mess to apply, are often a human health hazard if inhaled or touched, and are expensive. None of this is necessary, if people would only do less work and stop interfering. If they would leave the leaves, plant companion plants around the trees along with natives, everyone would be healthier.
Rich avocado mulch. People rake leaves and dispose of them because the leaves come from specimen trees usually dotted around lawn areas. Lawns are unnatural. Fun, pretty, functional, but unnatural. Grass doesn’t like leaves on top because the leaves block the light. Exactly. A layer of leaves around the base of the tree will prevent invasive weeds and grasses from stealing rich topsoil.
Citrus leaves and fruit. Even in grove situations, or under fruit trees, people are determined to clear every leaf off the surface of the dirt. Notice I say dirt, not soil. The trees know what they are doing; they know what they need and dropped leaves and fruit are there on the ground for a purpose. They feed the soil and thus the tree.
Leaving vegetable vines to decompose enriches your garden beds. What can be the compromise? Allow the space under your specimen trees to be cleared of grass up to and a little beyond the drip line of the tree; further would be better. When leaves fall, rake them all under the tree, being careful not to pile them up around the trunk. Plant all the shade-loving plants and bulbs that you’d like to within that space, but include members of a plant guild: a nitrogen-fixer, a groundcover, a deep tap root that mines the soil, a mulch plant, a pollinator, etc.
A leaf haven. This old oak has a large root base. I collect the leaves off the stairs only, and they are used to charge the soil under new oaks. Children like to play under the trees? Afraid of creatures lurking in the leaves? Then leave a space for human interaction. Make a barrier with stones or decorative edging that circles a little more than the drip line of the tree, but then cuts back to the trunk to leave a large wedge shape. Leave the leaves and fruit within the barrier, and keep the wedge clear for sitting and playing.
California peppers are one of many trees that drop leaves which emit a chemical that discourages competition from other plants. Still too many leaves? In their natural settings deciduous trees produce leaves enough to cover their roots and also the space between trees, which protects the fungal passageways that connect the tree roots. With a specimen tree that isn’t happening. What to do? Compost! Build an inexpensive bin with wire or pallets and cram the leaves in. Each leaf is a vitamin pill for your garden. Go in with your leaf-burdoned neighbors on the rental of a shredder and shred everyone’s extra leaves. Mulch all your garden beds and your lawn with shredded leaves. They will break down faster, heat up more quickly in a compost heap and take up less space. Your soil will turn into rich, fragrant loam.
Pine needles are high in acid; great to even out alkaline soils. Stilltoo many leaves? Post ‘free clean leaves’ on Craigslist or on your community bulletin board. Gardeners crave leaves, and may even come out to rake them up for themselves.
I only wish the leaves were this deep! The broom is just worn to a nub. Please, please don’t send your excess leaves to the landfill. The soil desperately needs those leaves and with them you won’t have to resort to chemical fertilizers, chemical sprays, high expenses and heavy labor in the Spring. You can instead spend the time watching your garden thrive.
- Compost, Gardening adventures, Other Insects, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Soil, Worms
Compost Happens
Good rich soil that needs screening Compost happens, whether you fool with it or not. Given moisture, air circulation and the creatures that help decompose and you can compost anything. Without these factors you have mummies. Or zombies, but that is another discussion. If you want to read about the many ways to compost without a heap, please read Fifty Ways to Leave Your Compost.
I am a lazy composter. When I weed I usually throw what I pull up under the growing trees to quickly mulch down. Excess weeds and branchy things I throw into a compost bin made of wire. Rats and mice enjoy the structures.
Wire bins of weeds have been gradually settling over the months. Kitchen scraps, paper towels, tissues, tea bags, paper cups and plates all go into a Rubbermaid compost bin I bought years ago. I don’t turn the piles. Compost happens, but it happens slowly. A little kitchen waste goes into another bin to feed sorely neglected worms.
I am also composting in place. A raised garden bed lined with wire to keep out gophers was empty, so I’ve been throwing in weeds and dirty chicken straw. By next spring it should be ready to use.
In this bed I’ve been composting in place. The Rubbermaid compost bin is in an inconvenient place. I’d moved it in early spring and now I’m moving it again. This doesn’t count as turning the pile, really, because the last time it sat in situ for years. It had the best soil under it on the whole property. Even without turning, and only over about six months, you can see that compost has been happening.
A lot of debris on top of the heap…. After I took the sides down, below the layer of debris there was about four inches of compost.
After about six months with no turning, there is great compost at the bottom This I screen and then use in the raised vegetable beds.
My garden’s demand for compost is more urgent these days, and the amount of debris to compost is larger. If I had a chipper or shredder, much of the debris would be composted in a short amount of time. However I’m going into the regular compost bin operation. I had a three-bin compost bin made out of old pallets. I already had the green metal stakes to hold up the pallets, and three pallets to use. Unfortunately they weren’t all the same shape or size, so the two wonderful men creating this for me, Jacob and Steve, went on a pallet hunt in their yards and came back with what was needed.
Wooden pallets make a great compost bin. Debris and yet-to-be-collected-from-a-friend’s-house llama poo will be layered in the first chamber and watered. As it decomposes it will be turned into the second bin, and the process begun again in the first. Then each will be moved again and all three chambers will be filled with compost in three degrees of decomposition. It should be easy to fill a wheelbarrow from the last chamber, screen it and deliver the rich compost to the base of the fruit trees and my raised veggie bed. Meanwhile, weeds that have recently been gathered, especially ‘trouble’ weeds such as Bermuda grass, are stuffed in black plastic sacks and cooking in the sun until they can’t reproduce anymore, and then will be added to the heaps. I don’t like using plastic, or contributing to the amount of plastic on the planet, but I am reusing and recylcing the bags.
Screening compost twice, once with smaller holes.