- 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!
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- 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.
- Cob, Gardening adventures, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Soil, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian
Harvesting Sweet Potatoes with Gratitude
Beautiful yam harvest. I am in sensory heaven. Outside frost is again settling – a rarity here in Fallbrook, CA. Inside…. mmmm. My daughter is juicing today’s harvest of oranges. On the stove I’m poaching the last of the Harry and David pears my son sent before Christmas, in a bath of Julian apple cider (I’ve had frozen since October!), cinnamon and vanilla. There is a touch of woodsmoke from the wood burning stove. The mingled aroma of vanilla, orange and cinnamon in the air is incredible. In the fire are two homegrown potatoes in foil baking for dinner, and I’m cutting squares of homemade bread (it rained the other day… great baking and soup day!) to toast in the fire on fondue forks with mozzarella cheese and drizzled with Just Dip It (an olive oil, vinegar and herb blend from Temecula Olive Oil Co.). I am saturated with contentment and gratitude.
I wanted to write a blogpost for the first day of the year about gratitude. Instead I’m writing about harvesting yams and sweet potatoes, which, I believe, amounts to the same thing.
Tiny Russian Banana potatoes I grew in a nursery container Today the air was clean and almost 60 degrees F. Maxfield Parrish clouds filled the sky making it hard to pay attention to anything else. My daughter and I finally fired up Harry Mud, the cob oven. We experimented by baking small frozen pizzas, to success. Then in went homegrown, wrapped sweet potatoes, garlic and russet potatoes to slowly bake in the ashes. I hope I can convey sweetness of sitting outdoors on New Year’s Day eating pizza and smelling home grown potatoes and garlic cooking in a mud oven that we built, from mud from our property, as a snowy egret watched us carefully from the pond and our hens figured out how to beg. Peace. Enjoying the payoff of hard work. Eating health.
In the last few days we’ve dug up several patches of yams and sweet potatoes, the greenery of which had just been frosted black. I plant them all over the property to fill the groundcover niche of the plant guilds. I also grew some in my raised veggie beds. Some of the sweet potatoes had been small last year and so I left them in the ground. They grew.
This enormous one was six pounds! The flavor of homegrown, organic potatoes is beyond description. You don’t need sugar and marshmallows dumped on the yams; potatoes aren’t just a vehicle for toppings. I steam them, eat them with butter, salt and pepper. Phenomenal. On Christmas I roasted wedges of yams with garlic and olive oil, and not only were they terrific, the leftovers I mixed into a hash for breakfast and it was sensational.
Freshly dug sweet potatoes Yams and sweet potatoes are what Americans call the orange or white tubers, respectively, sold in the grocery stores. There are actually hundreds of varieties of sweet potatoes of many colors and flavors. They are semi-tropical and like warmth. To grow, buy an organic sweet potato or yam and allow it to sprout on your counter. This is the easiest way. You may also buy slips from organic growers. Please, please don’t buy non-organic seed, slips or bulbs. Please don’t be Round-up Ready.
Colorful yams full of antioxidants. Take a sharp knife and cut slices from your sprouted yam, each containing at least one sprouted ‘eye’ , and lay them out to air dry for a couple of days in a cool, dry place out of direct sunlight. This hardens them off. Don’t plant a whole potato because the plant will have all the food it needs to produce greenery and won’t feel the need to make as many tubers. Plant the slips in well-drained soil that isn’t heavily manured; as long as water doesn’t sit around the roots, they will probably grow. I’ve had luck in many kinds of soil. The plants will spread out in a lovely, glossy-leaved groundcover that protects the soil and reduces weeds. Let the vines run and enjoy the small yam flower. Harvest in late fall, or when the greenery dies off.
Frosted leaves of sweet potatoes Carefully dig and lift the potatoes. The skin will be more delicate than on yams store-bought. Lay the dirt-caked potatoes out to dry off before you store them in a cool dark place. Keep small slips and roots for replanting. The flavor of homegrown organic potatoes will make you wonder what the tasteless mushy things you’ve been eating have been.
This last year had its share of terrible losses, worry, pain and disappointment, along with great joy and contentment if I opened my eyes to them. They say that you reap what you sow, and as the garden and my experience deepens, and as my life mellows, I feel the truth in it. This morning we had fresh juice made of passionfruit, guava, oranges and pomegranates, all of which we grew. The potatoes, garlic, squash, greens, pickles, passionfruit curd, strawberry jam, dried tomatoes, all are at hand because of planning, sowing, nurturing, harvesting and preserving or storing. This may seem incongruous, but I am astonished at how many friends I have gained this year, through my volunteer work and exercise classes, in addition to those gained while working with County Parks, Sullivan Middle School, and the SDZoo Safari Park. So many that I wrote out the names and counted and marveled. Perhaps the list would be small for others; I don’t know, but it is wondrous and enough for me. At age 51, I have more friends and good acquaintances than I’ve ever had in my life. I am so grateful. I not only reap what I sow, but just as in my garden harvest, I have more than I could have imagined.
I do not follow a religion. In Buddhism it is said that life is a walking meditation; that every step you take is a prayer. As I put one foot in front of the other walking through the last part of my life, as I dig yams and eat them redolent with the health of good soil, as I watch those Maxfield Parrish clouds, as I laugh and work with friends who miraculously smile when they see me, I wordlessly pray my gratitude to the universe.
I very truly wish for you a year filled with gratitude and peace, and health-giving food that nourishes your heart and soul as well as your body.
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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.
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Native Insects and IPM
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Summer Tasks That May Be Too Late To Do
Dutchman’s Pipe eating my lawn chairs. 
The lawn chairs are on the second floor balcony. 
Notice it taking a quick look through the sliding glass door leading into my bedroom, and noticing all that unused space. 
I don’t mention the word c.l.i.p.p.e.r.s. outloud up here. Umm… help! - 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. -
Protecting Fruit
Strange fruit. We have many young fruit trees, including three figs. We have a Black Mission, a white and a Strawberry Jam fig. The trees are a year in the ground and not quite head-height, but all produce small amounts of fruit which ripen sequentially.
The birds know about the figs.
I’m glad to share a percentage of my crops with wildlife; this is a habitat after all, and there is more than enough for me and for sharing. However, there aren’t a lot of figs to go around. My daughter while home from University this summer took on a competitive attitude when harvesting the figs. She was out early testing for perfect ripeness, testing again as the sun set, being foiled by pecked fruit when it was at its peak of perfection.
Netting trees is not a good idea. The netting sits on the trees and the birds sit on it and peck through. Meanwhile it snags and sticks on the trees and is almost impossible to remove without doing damage to the trees. Also that plastic or nylon netting, if left on the ground, will often be deadly to beneficial snakes which become entangled in it (read about how I released one here).
Miranda came up with a wonderful, easy solution that re-purposed something of which we had plenty: plastic berry baskets. These baskets were hard enough to form a space around the fruit so that a bird couldn’t get its beak down through it. They also allowed air to flow around the fruit and sunshine in to ripen. They were also incredibly easy to quickly twist-tie onto the branch around an almost-ripened fig, and reposition to the next fig when it was time to pick the first one. The long twist-ties often used to hold heads of lettuces together worked best. Extra baskets were handy to put the picked figs into as well. This solution could be used for small grape clusters as well.
Obviously this solution is for small trees; but then, when the tree is large it will be producing plenty of fruit to share with the birds. Or, we can get a ladder and a lot of berry baskets and twist-ties.
That, however, may just cause talk in the neighborhood.