The weeds took advantage of the warm weather and my absence last week to really get some growing in. I’m pulling each weed by hand, shaking off the dirt (trying not to get showered with it in my eye), and composting them. The greens when layered with brown material (dead clippings, etc.) will cook nicely for use next year. I have a tall wire cage set up in one of the raised beds I haven’t filled yet, so the compost will be made right where it will be used.
Meanwhile the garden grows. Melon vines are dying, but the squash continues on!
Luffa vines grew up the palm trunks, then down again to the ground!
With permaculture the idea is to mimic a forest dynamic, with lots of plants helping each other grow by providing elements other plants lack, such as nitrogen, mulch, shade, flowers to attract pollinators, etc. You can fit a lot of plants into a small area.
You can fit a lot of plants in a small space with adequate nutrients and water
Trouble with citrus
The orange tree above is receiving too much irrigation water due to its placement on sloping land and the nearness of water-loving plants. Planning beds with compatible plants providing adequate initial nutrition and water can result in happy masses of plants.
The palm walkway has become a jungle tunnel
Bamboo and sugarcane
Bee and butterfly seed mix
The pond, now six months old, looks as if it has been on the property for years.
The pond looking natural
The melon vines and pumpkins have not only protected the land from the scorching summer sun, but will provide good compost and certainly are decorative as well as sources of food. I always wanted to wait for the Great Pumpkin!
Cinderella pumpkins, with purple cosmos across the dry streambed
Sages, mints and butterfly bushes continue to flower, providing much needed pollen sources for bees in this season of dearth.
The entranceway
Bananas and sage
Meanwhile in the vegetable garden many crops have had their day and I’m composting them as I get to them. Some such as the eggplant are still going strong. (See my steamed eggplant recipe! Yum!) .
Another giant eggplant hiding in the strawberries
A garden as large as this can be overwhelming, especially in its first year. I’m trying to think in sections. I enjoy working the garden, making it mine and seeing the surprises that show up. My back and hands aren’t as happy, especially the morning after, but… too bad! “Get over it, guys!” I say, then realize I’m talking to my body parts. Alone in my garden, only the plants really care, and they aren’t looking. Or are they?
At the beginning of this summer, the new subterranean drip irrigation system was installed on my property. It features tubing with holes at either twelve or twenty-four inches apart. When it runs (from my well) it leaves circles of dampness polka-dotting the soil surface. I had purchased two packets of wildflower seed, one with a selection of plants to attract bees, and the other for butterflies. Mixing them together, I figured that they wouldn’t fare well scattered, at least this year. My daughter and I pressed seed into many of the wet spots and hoped the rabbits wouldn’t notice.
What happened was a delightful surprise, as only a garden can provide. In many locations around the yard grew mixed bouquets of wildflowers.
Mexican sunflower, cosmos, nasturtiums, zinnias, surround a white calla lily
If we had separated selected seed and planned the planting, nothing so beautiful would have come of it. Although many species either didn’t emerge or were eaten, the most common survivors were zinnias, cosmos and borage.
Cosmos, borage, zinnias and alyssum.
I was amazed and thrilled; I had purchased a borage plant and then fed it to the rabbits (at least, that is what they thought). Here now are borage plants all over the yard, their royal blue, cucumber-flavored flowers dipping modestly behind the flaunting cosmos.
Sweet basil, cilantro, dill and zinnias
In fact, I now have several very hearty sweet basil plants that put the carefully cultivated plants in my raised veggie beds to shame. There is also dill and cilantro growing well even this late in the season.
There are some plants in the bouquets that haven’t reached maturity yet, so there may still be some surprises. The only flower that emerged that I didn’t recognize and had to look up was camellia balsam (Impatiens balsamina). Two stalks of it, one pink and one red, give these ‘arrangements’ a vertical line.
Camellia balsam (Impatiens balsamina)
Although not all of these wildflowers are native to San Diego, or even California, they provide food for birds, bees and are host plants for butterflies, providing the caterpillars food, a place to form their chrysalises, and nectar for the mature butterfly. Bees like small flowers with little drops of nectar too small to drown in, with a nice landing pad of a petal close by. Everything in the carrot family works well. Here are some suggested flowers to plant:
Back to travel photos! While in Cornwall, we had to go to the coastal city of Penzance (because one of our favorite Gilbert and Sullivan plays is, of course, The Pirates of Penzance). From there we walked to the neighboring city of Marazion (don’t do this… drive!) to see St. Michael’s Mount http://www.stmichaelsmount.co.uk/ . From about 350 BC the Mount was a place where much trade took place, especially in local tin. Smuggling, too, I’m sure. Then in 495 AD some fishermen saw on the rocky island the vision of the angel St. Michael. Not long after a chapel was built and religious pilgrams flocked to the Mount.
An imposing structure
A priory joined the chapel and the old, glorious castle appeared, jutting out of the hard stone and overlooking everything. Although a place of worship, many times in its history did the Mount have to take arms. Most notably it was from St. Michael’s Mount that the first beacon light was lit to warn of the Spanish Armada.
At some times the priory saw battle.
After the Dissolution, it was purchased as the home of the St. Aubyn family, which it has remained ever since. In the 1950’s one of the family gave the structure into the hands of the National Trust, with the codicil that the family could live in it for 999 years. What makes St. Michael’s Mount very special is that it can be walked to across a causeway when the tide is low; when the tide covers the cobblestones, it becomes and island. We’d come to know about the causeway as it was used the in movie version of Shakspeare’s Twelfth Night.
The causeway underwater
We walked across the ankle-twisting cobbles to the imposing and ancient fortress.
A ruined gatehouse, with the causeway far below.
We were still experiencing the very heavy winds from Hurricane Irene, so at times sand blew into our faces and it was a little hard to stand. Otherwise it was a clear and gorgeous day. Although still a private residence most of the castle can be toured.
The 'front door' of the castle, facing west.
Legend has it that a giant once lived on these giant stones.
There is a grand library, and the place is rife with window nooks with the most incredible views of the English Channel.
A stony window seat.
The amount of labor that went into building these stone fortresses,
Beautiful and centuries-old workmanship.
to make them last for centuries, always amazes me.
At the top of the priory
The chapel boasts a rose window dated from the 15th century,
The Rose Window in the chapel
as well as other fantastic artworks.
Artwork in the chapel
In every room there are displays of beautiful handicraft,
Ornate sugar spoon
and some unusual furniture.
An unusual chair
Below the castle are sub-tropical gardens, which were closed the day we were there. We peered down at them and discovered… a good portion of the plants we have here in San Diego!
A view of a window nook, the gardens and the Channel.The sub-tropical gardens in temperate Cornwall
When we were to leave, the water had just begun to cover the causeway. Some souls were crossing but getting their feet wet as the winds brought the tide in quickly. We waited for a boat ride and for only one pound fifty pence (!) each, we could achieve the mainland!
Heading back to shore.
The water was choppy but we were with people who joked a lot, which we often found to be true in our British travels, and that made the crossing fun. There are festivals held on the Mount, along with re-enactments and garden tours. Check their website for announcements if you plan to visit, and keep an eye on the tides!
If you ever go to England, go to Cornwall and spend at least a day at the Lost Gardens of Heligan (http://www.heligan.com/ ). Due to a flat tire we only spent four hours there and we didn’t see even half of the 400 acres of incredible restored gardens. The story is this: a thousand acres on the southern coast of Cornwall has belonged to the Tremayne family for about 400 years. At the end of the 1800’s, one of the Tremaynes had built extensive theme gardens. There were walled gardens, enormous hedges, glass houses, cold frames, a pineapple pit where the only pineapple grown in Cornwall grew warmed by horse manure. Melon houses, leisure gardens, formal flower gardens, woods, kitchen gardens and unbelievably, tropical gardens, filled the estate. Due to Cornwall’s position by the English Channel the climate is such that with care tropicals can be grown there. The estate was fantastic; then came WW I, and almost half the family and staff were killed. The gardens were abandoned. Subsequent wars and taxes took their toll, and the gardens became overgrown. Vines, brambles, trees and weeds ran rampant, breaking through the glass roofs, pulling apart brick walls, upsetting carefully laid pathways and covering every trace of the gardens under a head-high blanket of tangled, thorny brush.
Twenty-one years ago, the Tremayne who inheirited the gardens, asked one of the founders of the neighboring Eden Project ( http://www.edenproject.com/ ) to try and restore the gardens. The task was phenomenal and reads like a mystery. Hacking through the overgrowth they found the walls, the foundations and the clues as to what had been. Since then the gardens have been restored. They are everyone’s dream of a garden combined. There is a mound that was a beacon mound during Nepolianic times, but then discovered dates back to the Armada, and then back to Medieval times! There is a jungle with massive gunnera plants and palm trees, about half an acre of vegetables all grown from seed that dates from the late Victorian time, walled flower gardens, ‘antique’ poultry and cattle, unique sculptures recently added, and a wildlife garden to encourage the existence of so many insects, birds and animals that are disappearing. Even with weeding through photos I came up with so many that I want to share, that I’ll just post them below. Visit the website and read up on the Lost Gardens, voted Britain’s Finest Gardens. They are magical.
Entrance to a magical world.
The Tremayne who built the gardens holding a single Gunnera leaf in front of his famous pineapple pit.
Flavors of ice cream… we didn’t get to have any!
A mysterious mound was uncovered and thought to have been a beacon site in Nepolianic times, and for centuries beyond that.
Stone steps into the ravine
The Italian garden
Ivy coming through the roof, trying to reclaim the building once again.
Hot houses and cold frames
Cold frames for veg.
Espaliered pears of many varieties.
Writing on the wall of the ‘thunder room’, or original composting toilet
All plants and veg grown are from the late Victorian period
Espaliered fruit trees make use of warm wall space
About a quarter acre of mixed greens.
Bee skeps (baskets, pre-movable hives) were kept in boles for winter protection.
A bee skep in a bee bole
History of the Bee Boles
A banana grows in Cornwall!
Melon houses
Potting shed with greenhouses in a walled area. Sigh.
Cold frames in the potting shed
A robin watches, just like in The Secret Garden
The overgrown remains of mud brick walls
A very steep pathway lined with chicken wire to prevent slipping
The Jungle
A wire sculpture of a woman with her arms out… can you see her?
Plants have been enjoying the beautiful weather and the constant irrigation from the well, and the garden is flourishing. So, unfortunately, is the Bermuda grass, but that is another tale. Since I see it everyday I don’t notice the change so much, but when I show someone around I am thrilled all over again with the incredible change that has happened on this property. There are so many birds, insects, reptiles and other animals either already here or scouting it out that I know the project is a success. It is a habitat, not just for me and my family, but for native flora and fauna as well. It wasn’t so long ago that I had a cracked, weedy asphalt driveway, a termite-ridden rickety porch that needed pest control, a house with a stinky deteriorating carpet and old splotchy paint, a tile kitchen counter with the grout gone in between and a cleaning nightmare, and a yard full of snails, weeds and Washingtonia palm trees, with the embankment eroding each rainfall. Over the last four years we’ve survived some pretty intense construction projects (none of which were done on time, no matter what they promised!). My house still has some repairs that need to be done but I no longer am embarrassed to have anyone over. The garden is wonderful to walk in and explore. I’ve taken some photos this evening to show you how things are growing:
Bees enjoying purple coneflowers
The luffa squash has mighty asperations.
A luffa squash and bloom. They are edible small and green, but I’ll leave them to dry.
Five eggs today! Each laying hen participated for the first time! The little girls have grown up.
The small lower pond and the palm pathway.
The veggie bed.
Rushes, fleabane, waterlilies and other plants are growing in nicely around the big pond. The boat is still on loan from Aquascape.
A pumpkin tree? This apricot isn’t healthy, but the pumpkins sure are.
These bare areas I’ll fill with plants that will make up guilds, each plant filling a niche to help the others grow.
The entrance to the bee garden.
Native vinegar weed loves a place we left untouched, and so do the bees.
Sugar pumpkins ready a little early for Halloween.
A feral zucchini, still producing at least one a day.
Melons, passionfruit, pitcher plant and many others under the back porch we call the Poop Deck.
Very eager bamboo, sugarcane and hops.
Olive trees tied to painted PVC pipe to make a hut.
The ‘Nest’ beyond the dry stream bed.
A thud and a swish… with no warning the neighbor’s tree fell across the fence.
A green roof for the entranceway, just beginning to show.
The watermelons in the vegetable beds were tiny… these monsters are wild. That one grew on the rock on its own.
Entranceway flower tunnel… with dogs waiting to go inside!
In the August of one of my most successful years of vegetable growing, as the squash vines wither to reveal the graceful shapes of winter stews, and the cabbage moth caterpillers chew collards into lace, I am able to review and make notes on triumphs and things not-as-good-as-one-would-hope. Gardening is as much a practice as medicine, but healthier. What works one year may not work the next; for instance, there are melon years and no-melon years. A gardener can worry about the soil, the water, the sunlight and the bugs, but come to discuss the problem with enough other gardeners and there is sure to be at least one who didn’t have a good melon year either. Whether there is astrological truth in it or not, it matters not except to bring relief from the strain of worrying if there were no melons because of a fault in the gardener.
Here is my list of things that didn’t go as planned, and resolutions to improve next year:
1. Trim back foliage to make sure there isn’t something drinking all the water.
Ginormous Swiss chard root
2. Check for volunteers, especially those hitchhikers from the compost who decide to sprout.
One of three avocado volunteers in the collards
3. Don’t think you’re going to pinch the tomatoes back so that they grow onto a large trellis, especially since you don’t make the trellis. Tomatoes need some light to produce and ripen.
waArkansas Traveler just ripening
4. Warn visitors early about the rubber snakes.
Soybean and rubber snake
5. Count backwards from Halloween the estimated ripen days on the seed packet, and don’t plant too early. That way your pumpkins won’t be ripe in August. Also, plant herbs such as dill and cilantro early and thick long before cucumbers, so that you have the seed heads ready when it is time to make pickles.
Ripe pumpkins in August
6. There only needs to be one zucchini plant.
Monster zucchini
7. Prepare to stake everything. With wire-lined raised beds you can’t plunge a stick down into the soil next to a wobbly plant. You have to attach the stakes to the sides of the bed, or drive them down outside of the bed and make T’s. Whatever the choice, it is best done before the plants are mature.
Quinoa: pretty but floppy
8. Plant lots of kale. It is extremely tasty sauteed, and drying the oiled leaves to make kale chips (see recipe section) makes a nutritious and addicting snack.
Kale is yummy
9. Again, keep volunteers under control. This kabocha squash took over three vegetable beds and two pathways. However, it is producing some mighty fine squash.
Kabocha squash volunteer coming from the bed behind this one, around and into the end bed.
10. Rubber snakes are remarkably effective in preventing crows from eating seeds. However, besides warning visitors, don’t forget where you’ve tossed your rubber snakes if you are reaching into a leafy dark space at twilight!
There are a few very peculiar specimens in my garden, thanks to Roger Boddaert. They have nothing to do with edible forest gardens, drought tolerant plants or permaculture. They simply are fun. One of which is the Dutchman’s Pipe (Aristolochia), named that because it’s very odd buds look something like… well… the pipe a Dutchman might smoke, I’m guessing. I’m thinking that the Dutchman was either blind or drinking heavily to put something that looked like this in his mouth! Another less imaginative name for this variety is Calico Flower. They look like hanging squash when they are immature.
Many buds waiting to open
There are many varieties of this vigorous vine, each having different sized flowers. Mine has flowers in Summer and Fall, and they are sizable.
Flower Opening
The vines can grow 30 feet high, and the plant can easily cover the side of a house. They originate in the Southern United States, preferring moist soil.
Flower opening more
This is the larval host plant for the blue and black pipevine swallowtail butterfly, which don’t migrate this far west. Perhaps something else will find it useful.
Opened flower is flat
The flower develops as a miniature version of its large self, and then continues to grow into these sack-like buds. When ready, they fold open to become flat, with the seed pod in the back. The flowers catch the wind and twist on their stems like decorations. Or like those things in the original Star Trek that flew across the cave and attached themselves to Spock’s back. So another fun and kind of creepy plant, which will provide shade, food for butterflies, and a lot of conversation starting. Gotta love it!
My daughter’s eagle eyes spotted a cluster of insect eggs on the underside of our parsnip leaves. Many moths and butterflies are laying their eggs right now, so seeing a little white pearl glued to the underside of a leaf isn’t strange.
Unknown Butterfly Egg
The parsnips in question are late in the garden; they’ve been in the ground for a while and don’t like the heat so they are stressed. Just as we become sick when stressed, so do plants, and the parsnips are under attack by aphids and ants. Ants feed off of the sticky excretions of the aphids, so they have become ranchers. Ants cultivate herds of aphids on stressed plants, grooming them and collecting their, um, poo. So trying to put that image out of your head, if you see a lot of ants on a plant, expect aphids to be there also. Aphids have rasping, sucking mouthparts that they use to eat away at a plant and suck the vital juices out of it. Sorry, there is another image that you probably don’t want. How to get rid of aphids? The natural way would be to make sure your plants aren’t stressed, and allow ladybugs to flourish in your garden.
So what would you do if you saw THIS in your garden?
Ladybug Larvae Eating Aphids
Run screaming? Hit it with a trowel? Wait! You shouldn’t do any of those things! These are baby ladybugs! Just as many children do not resemble the adult into which they will grow, ladybug larvae look like something that Godzilla might take on… if the larvae were the size of a house or something, which they aren’t. Okay, I’m digressing here.
Back to that cluster of eggs my daughter saw. They were hatching ladybug larvae!
Hatching Ladybug Egg Cluster
I’ve never seen them that small before. Good news for the garden: rescue forces are being hatched!
Ladybug Larvae Hatching
Ladybug larvae eat more aphids than the adults do (just think of teenagers and refrigerators). When they’ve grown as much as they can, they will transform in to the ladybugs that we all know and love (even though we sing a horrible song to them about leaving the garden to check on a false alarm about fire and their children. And people complain about not being able to keep ladybugs in their yards!)
Ladybug!
So if you see a creepy bug on your plants, the sides of your house… anywhere… don’t squish him! It may be part of the Ladybug Larvae Special Forces out to break up the illegal ant ranches in your garden!
Problems in Chicken Land! Of the seven hens we’ve raised from chicks, one has played us false! Or so my daughter (the birder) speculated upon her arrival home from college. Our one Rhode Island Red, which is a larger breed so we chose the smallest chick in the batch, is showing signs of not being, shall we say, hennish. First of all, she is large. Really big feet. Ever hear the Fats Waller song, Your Feets Too Big? That applies here. Most notably, though, are her tail feathers, which are starting to take on a more colorful life of their own. They are a little longer and have some bluish-green hues in them that hens, well, just don’t care about. She has become a bully to all the others, especially the largest Americauna, Chickpea.
And I thought they were being hen pecked!
I had attributed the temper to her being a redhead, but apparently there are other explanations. She is developing admirable wattles, which is something I don’t get to say to just anyone. Also, she has very shiny neck feathers, and roosters have an oil gland they use to preen their feathers. However, she hasn’t yet crowed, but Internet research tells us that some crow early, some late, some not at all. Also, she hasn’t grown spurs yet, but the story is the same as the crowing. One chicken site informed us that it was easy to sex Rhode Island Red chicks because the females have a black stripe on their heads.
It seems like only yesterday....
No stripe on this one, yet if it is so easy to sex them, why was this male in with the females at the store? If indeed she is a male.
Trying to blend in....
So what if she is a he? I don’t know yet. My neighbors would have a fit if I had a crowing rooster in my yard. Rural as it is here, there is a certain peacefulness that rolls across the land and a screaming bird just doesn’t fit in. Also, I’m a lacto-ovo vegetarian. I eat eggs, but not animals, so I don’t want fertile eggs or chicks. Nor do I want my other girls harassed all the time. However, I’ve raised this bird from a day old, and I don’t give over my responsibilities lightly. The hens won’t begin to lay for a couple more months, so I have some time to consider.
I wonder if my vet would fix a chicken?
Here is the whole cast of characters:
Emerson
Emerson: if our speculation is in error, and she is not a he, but she is a she, then she can assume the name Emily.
Blondie/Evelyn
Blondie. Not the most original name, but the song Heart of Glass comes to mind whenever I see her. Blondie is Emerson’s chosen consort (another reason Emerson must be a male…. going for the blonds!) UPDATE: Blondie has been renamed Evelyn to move from music to fiction genres. Emerson, Miss Amelia and Eveyln are all characters in Elizabeth Peter’s Amelia Peabody series.
Lark
Linnet
Lark and Linnet: the youngest chickens by a few weeks, these Barred Rocks pair off and are quite smart. Comparatively. Lark is darker than Linnet.
Miss Amelia
Miss Amelia: the Silver Wyandotte. Named after the intrepid heroine of Elizabeth Peters’s Amelia Peabody historical archeological mysteries. She likes to sit on the highest perch.
Kakapo (a New Zealand bird... she looks like one!)
Kakapo: the lighter colored Americauna. Her posture and neck feathers are much like the New Zealand bird after which she is named.
Chickpea
Chickpea: the largest Americauna since the beginning, but the most picked upon. Her coloring is dark where Kakapo’s is light. She manages to hide under the others effectively.
