Double Digging

Posted on May 25, 2015 by

Double Diggin'

Spent the last few weekends double digging the garden beds, and planted out the summer annuals.  Double digging is the process of creating deep soils by removing a bunch of dirt from a bed, breaking up the soil at the bottom – I also incorporated some manure – and then piling the soil back on top.  I’ve been experiencing a slow decline in yields from the garden proper, I think because the whole thing has become choked with roots from the surrounding trees.  Due to the ongoing drought, I’m scaling back my annual beds this year, so I’m focusing on better yields from fewer plants.

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Native Plot, Planted

Posted on April 19, 2015 by

Spent the day in the garden proper, and finally fixed the fencing that the bear wrecked back in 2012, after which I planted out the natives in the new native food forest plot.

Food Forest Plot #6 - Natives

I had originally planned to erect a temporary fence around the whole business, in order to discourage deer from eating the plants during the critical establishment phase, but I’m running out of long runs of fencing, so I created individual barriers for each plant.  There maybe be rain on the horizon, and in any case it’s likely to be cloudy for the next couple of days, which is ideal weather for new plantings.  Looking forward to some chokecherry fruit leather in the distant future.

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Planting Native – A New Forest Plot

Posted on April 4, 2015 by

It being spring, I’ve been itching to establish a new food forest plot down on the property.  After reflecting on the drought, and the general state of the weather of late, I’ve decided to base the new plot on native plants, which tend to be better adapted to local conditions.

Food Forest Plots

After scouting the property, I created the map above of the forest plots to date, using a satellite image from Google Earth.

1.  Garden/Main Food Forest
Those are my annual beds as seen from space.  They yellow line represents the fence, and the green area north of the rows is the main and most established plot, containing the largest variety of plants of all the plots, and also the most mature, though none are more than a few years old.

2.  Hibaku Hackberry
This small, fenced plot has one of the hibaku hackberry trees and a small cherry tree as anchors, supported by blueberries, figs, and some herbs and onions

3.  Walnut
Nothing but two walnut trees, spaced widely.

4.  Cherry/Fig
A cherry and a fig anchor this plot, with Mediterranean herbs and a grape occupying the sunniest side of the plot, adjacent to the sled run/fire break.

5.  Hibaku Ginkgo
Two of the three hibaku ginkgos are planted far from the house, should they eventually fruit.  By all accounts, gigkgo fruits smell terrible.

6.  Native
The new plot (6 above) is a relatively moist, semi-shady spot east of the garden proper.  The tall tree layer is the same as on the rest of the property, consisting mainly of oak, cedar, various pines, and madrone.  The El Dorado Chapter (http://www.eldoradocnps.org/) of the California Native Plant Society (http://cnps.org) held their annual plant sale this morning, and I picked up a few edibles for the plot, which will be anchored by hollyleaf cherry (Prunus ilicifolia) and western chokecherry (Prunus virginiana var. demissa) in the small tree layer, with pink Sierra currant (Ribes nevadense), and Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium) joining another native gooseberry to fill out the shrub layer, and wild strawberry (Fragaria vesca) for ground cover.  In the next week or so, I hope to put up temporary fencing as in the other plots, to keep the deer out while the plants establish themselves.  I’ll also need to figure out what other natives might do well in the herb, root and climbing layers.

In other news, rain is very likely tomorrow and into next week!

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Plants Have Plans

Posted on April 1, 2015 by

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In spite of, or more likely because of the dry and unseasonably hot weather of late, this apple tree, which was likely planted many, many years ago – it came with the house – has decided to flower such as it hasn’t since the late nineties.  Perhaps it has decided that the times, they are a changin’, and now would be a good time to reproduce.  The drought has, after all, lasted about four years, and the water outlook here in California is bleak.  Perhaps it is simply an age thing, or a temperature thing.  In any case, this old apple, and other mature trees around the property, including pears, other apples, plums, and even the native madrones, are flowering such as I’ve never seen.  A good fruit year might well be the silver lining on what is otherwise looking like a generally bleak year for plants.

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Plans Have Changed

Posted on February 26, 2015 by

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Harvested the total of the kumquat fruits, and the tree seems to be happy.  This has been another mild and dry winter, which is certainly not my preference, but seems perfect for establishing citrus.

Given the dryness of the hour, my friend Kate – she of A Garden in Bootjack fame – recently asked a poignant question:  “How do you think your plans will change?”  I’ve given this question a lot of thought in general over the past couple of dry years, and even more so since asked directly.  The answer (in a threefold nutshell) is a) probably fewer experiments in out-of-region plant husbandry, b) more drought-tolerant plants, c) more effort and energy into edible natives, which of course are probably more likely to weather local conditions than, say, kumquats.

This doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll dig up the citrus or forsake entirely the various unusual and possibly thirsty experiments that I’ve attempted over the years.  It does probably mean I’ll devote more space to things like olives and pomegranates, and that I’ll put more effort into establishing toyon and manzanita and dogwood and other natives, especially if the drought is a permanent or semi-permanent feature of living here.  It seems as though it might be.

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Winter Chores

Posted on January 5, 2015 by

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Compared to the last week, temperatures today were rather warm, so I spent some time doing winter chores in the garden. Performed some grape and blueberry pruning, potted up some cuttings, and mulched here and there. Decided also to transplant the red and black currants from their spots in the garden proper to the blueberry patch. In their old locations, they were restricting the walking flow in that part of the garden, and having joined the blueberries, they’ll now be protected from birds when the blueberry defenses go up in the spring.  In other news, both the kumquat and mandarin trees made it through the recent freezes, and the kumquat fruits are ripening nicely!

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Finally Rain

Posted on December 7, 2014 by

Rain Gauge

After a long, dry summer, raining is finally falling pretty regularly, and the plants seem happy! 156 mm (just over 6″) since November 27th, which is the day I finally installed and configured the self-emptying rain gauge pictured above.  Soon the winter garden chores will start.  This year I’ll be tearing out the raspberries and blackberries – too thirsty, especially if the drought is going to continue – and building a raised bed for asparagus, as the older bed seems to have essentially given up.  I plan to also plant another walnut – the one from a few years ago is alive but barely hanging on, having been ravaged repeatedly by deer – and perhaps another almond.  Garlic and elephant garlic and shallots are in the ground and growing, though slowly.  Some of the various mustards and other cole crops out in the food forest are starting to naturalize as reseeding annuals, and with any luck, all of the various trees and food forest perennials will awaken in the spring.  One can hope…

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Groundnut!

Posted on June 13, 2014 by

I started gardening seriously out of a desire to try new fruits and vegetables, especially those that are not readily available in the produce section or at the farmers market.  One plant I’ve been eager to try is the American groundnut (Apios americana), which is also know by a host of other names, including potato bean and Indian potato.  The plant is native to North America, and is grown for its edible tubers.

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I was finally able to order one, and it arrived in the mail on one of the hottest days on record.  It suffered miserably in transit, losing leaves and generally looking as though it was going to give up the ghost.  I placed it in a cool, shady spot to recover, and babied it for a week or so, and fortunately it began to put out new growth.  I’m hoping that it has recovered from its journey, but I’m reluctant to plant it out, given the brutally hot weather of late, and the general dryness we’re experiencing.  Instead, I transplanted it into a much larger fostering pot, and will place it out in the main food forest plot in the fall or spring.

In the “7 layer guild” construct, I suppose groundnut is part of both the vertical layer and the rhizosphere, and it’s a legume, meaning that it will help to enrich the soil by fixing nitrogen.  If it’s at all tasty, it could be the perfect plant!

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Sanding Seeds and Preparing for Fall

Posted on June 13, 2014 by

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Gardening is a year-round endeavor. Having finally finished (mostly) the summer vegetable infrastructure – toms, peppers, squashes, beans, tomatillos, cucumbers, and melons planted, irrigation set up and automatic timers ticking, structural supports and trellises in place, rows mulched – I spent some time planting seeds, in the hope that they will germinate and grow over the summer, ready for fall planting out in the food forest. Specifically, I planted green tea (Camellia sinensis) – the seedling I planted last year survived the winter and seems happy – passion fruit (a reportedly hardy type), mulberry, licorice, and canna – this last one will probably go into pots for the winter, but I’m curious to try the starchy rhizomes.  The camellia and canna required some sanding and pre-soaking, as they both have hard seed coats, and would likely not break dormancy any time soon without some assistance.

It’s been quite hot lately, and with the ongoing drought, I’ve scaled back on watering – it’s going to be a tough season for perennials around here, but I suppose it’s survival of the fittest…

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Tree Project Project – New Seeds, and Ginkgos in the Ground

Posted on April 27, 2014 by

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A few days ago, I received in the mail another shipment of Hibaku seeds – two more ginkgo and two jujube – from my friend Hiroshi Sunairi, he of Tree Project Film fame.

In the package was a screener of Hiroshi’s film, and it is beautiful and thoughtful and has a gentle rhythm, and the skies and clouds of Hiroshima remind me of the skies in Miyakazi films, and many of the Hibaku Trees are camphor besides – recall that in Tonari no Totoro/My Neighbor Totoro, Satsuki and Mei move into the Japanese countryside, a giant camphor tree nearby being one of their father’s main reasons for choosing the house.

Last weekend, I planted two of the Hibaku trees – ginkgos both – out into the forest, establishing a new plot in the far northeast corner of the property. Should one of the trees turn out to be a female (and with any luck I’ll end up with one of each, though I probably won’t know for many many years), their position far from the house will hopefully keep the smell of rotting ginkgo fruit (which is reportedly a formidable and disgusting one) away.

Ginkgo Fortress

I created a small pen from some old wire and cedar branch poles, in an effort to keep the deer at bay.  Deer will eat nearly anything, but I don’t find them to be especially ambitious.  With plenty of other forage more easily accessible, they will hopefully choose to dine on something other than ginkgo leaves (assuming they don’t hunger for a taste of the exotic).

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