Gardening

So I have had a little time on my hands

That's the bad news. The good news is that I have time to get out in the garden and do some work. --read more

Woops!--read more

Another day in the garden. We got all the tomato and pepper plants in, tucking them here and there into and between the "guilds." I nearly finished weeding the perniciously overgrown raspberry/fig guild, revealing beach strawberries putting out runners at a fantastic rate. Hooray! They're so cheerful, with their deep green shiny leaves and pretty white flowers. I don't even care if we get any berries.

Also hooray: The futsu squash germinated, so we'll have Japanese pumpkins in the fall, with luck.

Today Anhata brought over an armful of the stinkiest Polish garlic I have ever encountered--wonderfully stinky if you like garlic, which we do--with little "baby" bulblets hanging off them ready to be planted. She also brought over some silk scarf blanks and some Kool-Aid and we did a little microwave dyeing, but I'm not gonna tell you more about that until Wednesday. Suffice it to say, my fingertips are purple and green.

And! Ima brought me a kombucha scoby last week and the tea's almost ready to decant! A banner week, folks.

PS: The summer slipcover's up. Traditionally I plan for Memorial Day Weekend, and I'm on time this year.

My David Austen roses are blooming. The scent comes through the open windows on gorgeous days like today. The rose alley leading to what passes for a gazebo around here had become completely impassable, so I went out with the clippers and brought two aprons-ful of roses in.

Our tomato and pepper plants arrived today, so we'll be scattering those around the "guilds" in the next day or so: Gypsy peppers, a couple of varieties of jalapenos, red and gold cherry tomatoes, several different varieties of Roma including a stripe, and one heirloom tomato (Tiffen Mennonite, a pink tomato).

Still no peep from the squashes. John got the hardy kiwis in. Remaining are the second fig tree, the elderberries, and a few errant currants. Try saying that five times fast.

Being outdoors so much makes me want my clothesline back, really badly. Our old one has become completely engulfed by the dogwood tree and the laurel hedge. Even cutting them both back, it's in the shade. Which makes me nuts, because it's a really good one that goes for something like $150 now.

The people who owned this house before me (20+ years ago) planted so many trees too close to each other, too close to the house, too close to the clothesline. We've been cutting down trees ever since we bought the place, sadly.

I can't bring myself to cut down the dogwood outside my kitchen window, the one engulfing my clothesline. I look forward to its pink blossoms every spring, and there's nothing wrong with the tree. The clothesline's just on the wrong side of it.

So we're trying to figure out where to install a temporary retractable one, and when things become a little more settled in the yard, move the old clothesline to a better location. That will be a job; it's really concreted in there.

My mom didn't hang laundry out that much. I remember when I was really little she did, but as soon as we had a dryer that was that. And later, we lived in so many places where clotheslines were illegal--I spent most of my adolescence very near to the writer of this piece, who is secretly hanging out laundry on an illegal clothesline. Illegal clotheslines. The concept blows me away. The illegal line-dryer frets about the stiffness of clothes, but in my experience you just bring in towels still slightly damp and fluff them in the dryer a couple of minutes. Clothes soften up almost as soon as you wear them, and if you iron them, they lose their stiffness entirely.

We could cut more than 3% of our nationwide energy consumption just by hanging laundry in the sunny months of the year. Do you know what that makes line-drying? PATRIOTIC. That's what.

Memorial Day is for remembering our war dead. The best way you can remember the dead from this current war, besides writing and phoning your congressmember to end this nonsense, is to cut your energy use. Clotheslines are a start.

I'm trying to do 20 minutes in the garden a day. I've always believed that if you can throw 20 minutes at something, if you do it every day, you can accomplish a great deal. I used to do piles of sewing that way, virtually everything I wore.

So I did some weeding in the still-horrid raspberry/fig bed and planted old-fashioned yellow crookneck squash in an empty spot in that bed. It's the old warty variety that I really love.

In a big heap of dirt that looked promising I put Futsu Japanese winter squash. John never liked winter squash until we went out to dinner once for our anniversary at a really expensive restaurant here in town (it was an anniversary gift).

It was a "prix fixe" dinner, where you sit down and food just arrives. Among the dishes was a winter squash puree. I think because the place was so expensive, he tried it. Next thing I knew he'd practically licked the plate! It turns out that he'll eat winter squash served savory but not sweet, and his favorite is Japanese squashes like the one we had that night. I always fix it for him roasted along with garlic then pureed with butter and cream. What's not to love?

We'll see if any of it comes up; the seed is from 2005! So I planted about 3 times the seed I normally would. If I get lucky, I'll move the extra seedlings to other locations or give some away.

It took closer to 45 minutes than 20 to do what I wanted to do. Now I'm pooped.

[Pictures courtesy Wikipedia.]

Isn't this lovely? It's an angelica plant out back in the same permaculture "guild" as the apple trees. I have no idea what to do with it yet, other than admire it. Ima took the picture when she was here yesterday.

This is the front of my house today, a sunny and warm day. See those flowers? That's one rhodie bush, a variety called "Sappho." It's white with an eye that's so purple it's nearly black. It came with the house, and once it finishes blooming we're going to clip it back pretty hard. And by "we" I mean John.

Portland is known as the Rose City but really, we are the rhodie city. Rhododendrons do so well here, you can't kill them with a stick.

See the bee in there? Bees love this bush. When I first bought this house 20 years ago there were a couple of rhodie bushes that were a color I really hated (a violent fuschia) and were planted against the foundation, which I also really hate. They were big bushes, but my ex-husband and I dug them up, wrapped the roots and gave them away. Both of them lived--thrived, in fact. I can still see one of them just a couple of doors down.

I'm not sure how this has happened. There are seedlings everywhere.--read more

Dahlia tubers, terracotta tiles, scarlet carnations.--read more

It's a gorgeous day here in Portland, and I'm thinking about gardens and plants and such. My lilacs are blooming, a big springtime treat for me, and I just finished weaving in all the willow branches budding out of the living archway. So I loved finding Victory Gardens 2007+ via the really great new blog Sew Green.

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Alan Titchmarsh explains it all for you in a 4-hour series from the Beeb, and by "explains it all" I mean just that: The how-to that is often missing in gardening programs. Who knows how long it'll be up at Google Video, so watch while you can. Titchmarsh, you will remember, was long a presenter on the British "Ground Force" garden make-over show. --read more

Sorry for the delay in getting pictures of Day Two up. We spent most of yesterday lazing around recovering, or rainboot shopping for the girls. Do you know there is not a single decent pair of size 2 rainboots to be had in this town? Josie's peeved. Off to the catalog we go.

Here are Karen and Leonard, the people who made all this happen:

Karen put the call out for help for me, and Leonard answered it. I will be forever grateful to them both. Isn't Leonard adorable? He is. I also have to thank Gail. I don't have a picture of her, but she was here through the entire process and my family's great thanks goes to her.

Here is Spencer with his trellis:

Spencer is a crazy boy, also adorable, who was out there building that trellis until 12:30 am the night before. Grapes will be on that trellis. Or something. Maybe squash or cucumber vines. Or all of the above. We haven't figured out yet what's going up the trellis. Talk to Leonard. But ain't it purty?

Speaking of adorable boys, here is JJ in the pond, and our friend Tom helping him:

They emptied it, mucked it out, found the holes that had been draining out water, patched them, fixed the fountain pump, and got it all running again.

Everyone had fun making seed balls:


Inside these balls are seeds for all kinds of flowers, herbs and edibles. Scatter the balls into spots where the world could use some green--empty lots for instance--and voila! instant wild garden with no further input from anyone else. Karen made me a big one shaped like a goddess figure--she's holding it in the top picture--but it broke! I'm going to let the pieces dry out the rest of the way and then scatter them in the front by the kiosk.

At the end of Day Two the group had finished about half of what we've set out to do in the yard.

--The swingset has been taken down, the old garden beds taken out, and five new "guild" style plantings are now in that area, anchored by two apple trees, a nectarine, a pie cherry and a fig. Underneath them are gooseberries and currants. Underneath THEM are medicinal and culinary herbs including "fraises des bois," the little wild strawberries that do well in dappled shade. I have yet to get a good picture of one of these plantings but I'll keep trying.

--A grape has been planted to grow into the laurel hedge.

--The pond is cleaned out, patched and working again. This spring we'll restock it with fish and tadpoles.

--The front of the property has been planted with forest/shade plants like salal and oxalis, and mulched.

--The new swingset is taking shape. As soon as it stops raining later this week John will start that up again, and if the weekend weather cooperates he'll have it finished then.

--The rose and iris beds have been cleaned out and the irises, overcrowded and unhappy little rhizomes that they were, have been divided. You can now get into the gazebo from all four sides.

Still to come:

--Annual garden beds sized so we can put the chicken tractor over them.

--Herb spiral plantings.

--Cane berries and kiwis on the back fence and shed.

--Guild plantings in the western half of the garden, including paw paw trees. Pickin up paw paws, put em in your pocket...

When the rest is going to happen I don't know, but I think it's soon.

About 15-20 people have been marching in and out of my yard today. Things are winding down so I thought I'd post some pictures of the guild planting and sheet mulching techniques that they're using in the yard.

First they put down cardboard:

You can see in this picture that some of the plants (the big ones) have been planted in holes cut in the cardboard. Some smaller, shallow-rooted ones are being planted right on top of it.

Then they put down a bunch of rabbit litter--straw and rabbit droppings--donated by a gal associated with City Repair who has a whole lotta bunnies:

Another view:

Then in some of the guilds (like the one directly above) topsoil is put on top of that; in all of them, mulch--in this garden's case, shredded tree--is the top layer.

So that's what's going on right now. It pretty much looks like piles of mulch surrounded some little trees; if you didn't know better you'd think we'd just hauled in some piles of wood chips. I have to be careful about letting people step on them, because some of the plants are small.

The thing I really want to show you is the trellis Spencer is building along the side of the house, out of bamboo and pieces of the deceased apple tree. SO cool.

I leave you with one last thing--the garden plan, which I meant to post yesterday. Click on it to get a bigger view:

I'm exhausted and the build hasn't even started yet.

I spent all day and night Tuesday, all day and night Wednesday and a good chunk of this morning dealing with the server problem, just in time for the start of work on the garden this morning. Leonard was here bright and early with a chipper to chew up the remains of the apple tree, which now sits in a big pile in the driveway along with a truckload of tree shreds from a service. A bunch of volunteers started clearing out the garden in preparation for tomorrow's build.

Plants are arriving: A fig, currants, a male kiwi, grapes, Oregon grape, salal, a nectarine, two apples--one of them a Cox's Orange Pippin, one of my favorites, the other a Melrose, another favorite. Two beautiful trees, I'm excited; I actually clapped my hands and squealed when Leonard told me about the apples. A honeysuckle. Ferns. Strawberries. One by one, two by two, they're trickling into the yard, these plants.

I spent the afternoon clearing out the dirty, messy gazebo so I'll have a space tomorrow for feeding people. I'm fixing two kinds of porridge--vegan and vegetarian/omnivore--and two kinds of soup--vegan and omnivore.

And now I am completely and utterly exhausted. This is exciting and wonderful and I'll be glad when it's over.

UPDATE: I finally found my card reader, so here are some pix of the end of day 0.

City Riparian
10/13/06-10/14/06

If you're interested in learning about permaculture, here's your chance. The City Repair project will be planting a food forest in our yard throughout City Riparian. There will be workshops, too, on "guild" planting, sheet mulching, making seedballs, and spinning yarn (taught by yrs trly). The work/learn party is free; the workshops and nighttime events are suggested donation, but no one will be turned away.--read more

Well, the garden and orchard are winding down, I'm in full scale harvest-n-store-it-before-its-good-for-nuthin-but-the-compost mode now, gardenwise.

The veggie garden is about done, I only have to pull up the carrots and start winterizing the veggie beds. --read more

No, not my apples--my apple tree. Yesterday, as we got ready for the installation of our food forest garden in two weeks, we were horrified to discover that the trunk of our apple tree had caved in. On further investigation we found it was hollow at least four feet up the tree and the base was rotted.

I woke up this morning to the sounds of chain saws--across the street. A crew was taking down a neighbor's tree. John ran over, negotiated a good price, and now we are less one tree.

But! Now I feel Phelan's pain. I processed only one big bowl of apples--enough to fill my soup pot--into applesauce. Well, AM processing, they're still boiling down, to be partly eaten tonight with sausages, garlic mashed potatoes, sauerkraut and salad (German, no?), partly taken to church tomorrow night for the potluck, and the rest to be eaten or stored. I was pretty damn tired of apples by the time I got that one pot done, and was sticky from head to toe with apple juice. I can only imagine how bad it is for her--bushels and bushels worth.

I tell you, I'll miss that tree. The yard looks very weird without it, and it gave four different varieties of really delicious apples. But once the food forest is in, not only will things get a lot more low maintenance, we'll have a wider variety of perennial food crops and the apple tree(s) will be in a more logical spot than where it was. And I'll be investing in: 1) a better juicer (Hata and I are considering coercing the spousal units into a shared fruit press since they have fruit trees and grape vines too); and 2) an apple peeler/corer/slicer gizmo. I could have sworn we had one but it's vanished.

I'll tell more about what's happening in my yard in an entry soon. Here's a preview, and if you're in the Portland area, I invite you to come take the workshops and work in the garden. It's gonna be a great time.

According to the University of Pittsburg, Montsano's Roundup weed killer is highly lethal to amphibians.

This report was published over a year ago and somehow I've only just heard about it.--read more

Just dumpin' links here you'll enjoy.

--The Gentle (and Possibly Profitable) Art of Complaining: Don't trash broken stuff; send it back. Read this article now. You may end up saving a ton of money.

--Treehugger TV: Urban Homestead. Video of the wonderful people behind the Path to Freedom project.

--Paging Ray Bradbury: A house that optimizes itself. I kept thinking of that house in a Bradbury story that ends up defending itself from the parents that want to unplug it...even though this house looks completely benign..no holograms, anyways...

--Grocery Warning: The Seven Most Dangerous Ingredients in Conventional Foods. Sodium nitrate is the one I have to watch out for the most; it affects my medication. The rhyme the butcher who parts out our yearly pig taught me is "nitrites are right, nitrates we hate." Ignore the book pitch.

--Wee Wonderfuls: Make-a-Long Story. Read a story and make the dolls that act it out. Just go look, she explains it better.

Since we're on the subject, take the Local Food Challenge:

From September 12th through September 18th, check to see where the foods you eat are grown. Measure the amount of each food. Measuring by weight is best, but if you do not have scales, please feel free to measure in cups or by metric volume. As long as you stick with one measurement method for everything, you will be able to evaluate your information. ...

1. How much of your food is grown within walking distance (3 miles or less)?

2. Are there any food groups central to your diet that come from far away?

3. If you altered your shopping to get as much local as possible, how did this affect what you ate or the cost? Did you like the taste of any of the items more or less than usual?

4. What items from more than 3 miles away could be grown within the 3 miles? 50 miles?

5. Did you discover any local fresh or prepared foods or markets that you hadn't tried before?

6. How much of your food did you eat fresh/raw (without cooking)? (Note: For the sake of your intestines, don't try to change a mostly-cooked diet to an all-raw diet at one time.)

7. If you have a nutrition program, did the local foods meet your overall nutritional needs?

OK, so we are now moved in. Whew!!! BUT, the yard is, umm, ugly. So, it needs some plants. I have wants and wishes, but the local nurseries are SO expensive. Any ideas on ways to get the plants I want at a decent price? Also, has anyone ever used the mail order catalogs to plan a garden? How did that go? I'm leery, as I have had some neighbors say the plants got here all mushy, but I need a less expensive way to plant.--read more

My silly little deck garden is growing and producing like crazy! We've had several cucumbers with several more ready today, I made pesto, (we didn't love it ), I'm snipping chives and parsley into everything, my rosemary is lovely, both of my tomato plants (one roma, one cherry) are full-to-bursting (but not red yet) and my peppers....OHHHHH my bell peppers! --read more

I have so much basil right now, I don't know what to do with it. I have a son that can not have milk products so making a pesto with cheese is NOT an option. Can anyone think of a recipe for milk-free basil recipes?--read more