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Planting, finally! AND Soil Making in Leaf Trench Highway

Jan 112012

Garden Log (what I did):

071509 Leaf Trench Highway. Soil has been harvested from the trench, between the slate walk path and the planting bed. The trench will be prepped for more soil making, starting with a base of straw from the awaiting bale. Since this picture, lots of organics have been composted onto and into the trench. Those organics include: tree prunings, wheat straw, alfalfa straw, oak leaves, carbon harvest (for example, pumpkin vines), twigs and stout tree limbs, wood chips, and horse manure. Beautiful, rich, high quality tilth soil has been harvested several times from the trench.

1. Constructed a low retaining wall to increase the soil volume of a planting bed, Leaf Trench Highway. Leaf Treanch Highway got its name back in 2007 when we were installing irrigation supply to our garden’s back corner. The water supply was trenched along a walk path, buried about three (3) feet and encased in 3″ perforated plastic drainpipe. The depth and casement were to allow “mistakes” in the garden — a shovel could graze the drainpipe and might not break through and bust the water supply. Lots of digging since then, and no busted trench pipe, yet. The trench was called a “highway” because, when filled with leaves, or other organics, it’s a corridor for critters to move about the garden.

So, there we were, in 2007, with a sizeable 3-foot deep trench running along the property line’s planting bed. We decided to use the trench to make soil; we would use the trench to turn compostable material into planting soil.

"Opps! Did I spill that?" No, Anita, Leaf Trench Highway is getting a rotten apple harvest -- Sebastopol's finest for our dear soil-making critters.

About every six months, the trench is dug up for a soil harvest. That harvested soil is then used to amend the soil in the gardens. And yes, sometimes waiting the six months or so is difficult. But having fresh, new, teeming-with-microbe, alive! soil on hand when we do harvest is all that much more a treat after the wait.

Potato (broad-leaved), garlic (along fence), red and white clover grow in Leaf Trench Highway in the summer of 2010. The red and white clover serve as both insectary and nitrogen-fixing plants.

This time around, in 2012, I want to grow a crop above the composting trench. I want us to produce a garlic and vegetable crop WHILE the trench is composting. I have also found that new crop love a good compost under it. BUT, the compost can not be too hot or the new crop will burn. For this planting, there is a good base of wood chips, green manure, oak leaves, and a recent magnolia tree pruning. Especially with the magnolia twigs and limbs, those bulky organics will supply microbes, miosture, and nutrients to the growing crop. Also, as the crop plants grow, their roots will travel the moist, nutrient-rich paths along the decaying wood. Great mulch for the coming dryer months. Throughout the spring, we will harvest salad from the composting trench. By July, the garlic will be ready to be dug up — harvest garlic, harvet soil. Garlic for the kitchen, soil for the garden.

Low retaining wall built to increase the soil capacity of Leaf Trench Highway's planting bed. Old redwood fence boards were cut in two-foot lengths and pounded into the gap between the planting bed and the vertical slate border. Using a wood block between the fence board and the sledgehammer kept the fence boards from splitting.

20120108-LTH-retaining-wall, close-up. Note the beautiful mosses and lichens on the old fence board. Not only is this FREE!!! redwood fence board functional (it will last many years in the soil), it is also beautiful. Moist soil from the planting bed was rubbed into the board cuts to instantly age those fresh-cut surfaces -- we are talking art here! I am interested to see if that soil smear will promote moss growth on the top edges of the boards. Stay tuned.

2. Manure run. Collected both hot (fresh) and cold (old) horse manure from my secret source (nothing personal). The hot manure was laid down at the bottom of the fence boards to create a little heat for the wintering crops. The cold manure, which is pretty much a sandy loam soil because it has broken down for so long, was thrown on top of the bed. That cold manure was thrown into and on top of the magnolia tree prunings, enough of it to plant the crops in.

Collecting horse manure from a neighbor's pile. The bins/barrels help keep the job cleaner and easier. Using the barrels, my truck does not have to be washed afterwards and the manure can sit in the bins until ready for use. Sure is nice to load it once (into the barrels) but not have to clear it out of my truck's bed the same day. Note the looseness of the fresh (hot) pile at the rear of the truck. That pile was moved twice -- once to get it out of the way so the buried old (cold) manure could be harvested, then again to fill up the hole that cold manure harvest left. Perhaps in 6 months, that filled in hole will be cold manure soil itself. Just another example of our wondrous revolving World at work.

It's late, but the garlic is in. Come tomorrow, I will throw a thin mulch of rice straw over the veggie seeds and garlic starts. Note how the low retaining wall of recycled (reused) fence board allowed enough soil to be added to the bed to cover most of the magnolia prunings. Will be exciting to see what crops actually do rise out of the straw mulch and to see how well they thrive in this compost, soil-making bed. Oh, did I tell you -- it's an experiment. 🙂

You, the Habitat Gardener (reflections):

1. Leaf Trench Highway is a major no-toll pathway in our garden. True, there is often construction along this roadway, but the improvements are always worth it. This year’s road upgrades include last year’s woodchip pile from Santa Rosa’s waterways cleanup (oak and willow), oak leaves from the neighborhood, our ridiculous Jack-in-the-Beanstalk pumpkin patch green manure, the magnolia tree’s prunings, hot manure, and cold manure soil. Microbes party down! All insects and amphibians welcomed. Just add water, as the soon-to-come rains will do, and the entire length of Leaf Trench Highway will be a mess of healthy fungi, vegetables, flowers, microbes, crawly critters, and birds. And that’s just at ground level. The length of the trench, along the fence, is a fedge — food hedge, a permaculture term. That hedge planting includes fig, pineapple quava, loquat, and pomegranate.

2. Our soil gets better every year as we grow more food each year. And we share — without an atom of pesticide, herbicide, or fungicide, the trench and fedge will take on a natural balance. The critters will get some of the planted crop, but by far, we will get our fair abundant share.

Happy soil making to you.

Tony

The Next Day and Night:

1. More cold manure soil was added to the bed tocover the garlic and to give the veggie seeds more soil to establish themselves in.

Bowl-O-Seeds. Rooting powder was used to help the seeds germinate, a tall task during these wintery days.

2. The vegetable seeds were all mixed together with rooting powder (only because I didn’t have any mycorizzae spore on hand). Life is good!, especially when I get to open dozens of seed packets that I prepared throughout last growing season. Round and round, mixed in a large stainless bowl, or bucket, and dusted with a little love (spore or rooting powder). Then I’ll carefully toss the seeds out onto a prepared planting bed — a dash here, a dash there, some over my right shoulder, some underhanded between my legs. Most importantly, I get to have fun being ridiculous. I get to plant way too many seeds. Yes, I work hard to collect seeds all year long so that I can have a Chia Pet garden. Too many plants that grow too much means I will eventually get to havest them, in whole or in part, and reap the green manure they are. I will be harvesting carbon — all that alive, green plant material is merely bottled up sunshine to be poured onto the compost pile. Sun >>> plants >>> photosynthesis >>> juicy packets of carbon >>> Tony’s compost >>> SOIL MAKING. And with that carbon-rich soil, we will grow more STUFF, whether it be flowers, food, or fodder. And we will live happily ever after.

The seeds I grew and collected and mixed together are cilantro, parsley, Queen Anne’s lace, bok choy, gopher plant, impatiens, fennel, round zuccini, calendula, “Primo” danelion, and chard. Store-bought seeds that also became part of the mix are broccoli, cauliflower, and lettuce. SOMETHING ought to grow!

3. The seeded bed, also with its garlic starts, was mulched with rice straw to keep critters away from the seeds and to keep the seeds moist for germination. The mulch will also help the seeds receive waterings and/or rain without being washed out of the planting bed. Perhaps too heavy a cover of straw to be left on the young sprouts. BUT, I will keep an eye on the bed and will thin off some of the straw in a week or two. I will be curious to see what plants actually do come up during these frosty nights and cool days. Nice to have some ground warm perculating upward toward the seeds from the hot manure below. Even if nothing were to germinate now, surely some seeds will germinate further down the year when the sun warms the soil and spring rains moisten it. How fun to wait and see.

The seeds have been sown and the rice straw mulch is in place. A little water. A lot of waiting. Soon enough, though, a forest of food and flowers.

Anita’s Adobe Assembly

1- Residential Habitats -- Critters and Their Homes, 2- Food Forest Gardening No Responses »

Feb 212011

Close-up of black bellied slender salamander.

Garden Log (what I did):

3-sided carboard storage bin for adobe soil.

1. Made a 3-sided cardboard box for storing adobe (clay) soil.

You, the Habitat Gardener (reflections):

1. Time to get to some serious gardening in during these wonderful warm days of winter. First that comes to mind, after the long list of jobs that I am procrastinating, is to get some better soil on hand. Many ways for me to improve our garden’s soil — fetching oak leaves from the curb, collecting fallen leaves and rotten fruit from under a neighbor’s persimmon tree, hauling a truckload of free horse manure, or buying a truckload of mycellium-rich compost from a mushroom farmer. Those are just a few ways that are currently easiest for me. As with the infinite wonder of soil, how to improve it is also infinite. Yes, I do like to gravitate to the FREE, or at least fairly inexpensive, sources of material.

The adobe bin between stacked roofing shakes and the compost bin.

I will want to empty the 55-gallon plastic drums that I use for collecting soil/manure/compost material. Right now, half of those bins/barrels are filled with excavated adobe soil from the depths of Salamander Resort (see Watered Clay). What to do with the adobe? Lucky for me, we have some extra room next to our compost bins. We’ll pile the adobe there and feed the compost with it over the years. Adobe by itself is a tough sell for plants. But mix that adobe into already rich compost and wala!, you have a superb mix of soil tilth (consistency) and nutrition. A back-the-truck-up visit to our town’s cardboard dumpster and gathering some pruned shrub limbs is all the supplies we’ll need to create an outdoor storage bin for the adobe.

A slender salamander discovered between wooden roofing tiles (shakes).

Clearing a space in this out-of-the-way part of the yard proved interesting. First off, you should know that the immediate yard was reclaimed by ivy, thick ivy. Sheet mulching a couple of years ago has proven effective in keeping down the ivy. And when clearing away the stack of roofing shakes that were next to the compost, I found out just what a great habitat the back yard is. Salamander Haven! Sheets and sheets of moist cardboard covered under decaying straw — the black bellied slender salamanders (Batrachoseps nigriventris) of our neighborhood have thrived here. Dozens were under and in the small roofing shake pile that I re-organized to make room for the adobe bin.

Black Bellied Slender Salamander. Note the minimal front AND back limbs.

I wanted a flat surface to create the cardboard adobe bin/box. Getting the surface flat mostly meant sorting through some ivy vines (no sheet mulching here) and the crumbly wood shakes that were at the bottom of the pile. Lots of salamanders to avoid hurting, too. After piking out the shakes worth saving, I made a pile of the old scraps and some rich soil to house some of the salamanders not insulted out of their habitat. All that was then covered with the thickest cardboard to form the bottom of the bin.

Close-up of black bellied slender salamander found in wooden roofing tile stack.

True, perhaps a very rough day for some relocated salamanders, that is, those that went off into the surrounding vegetation to escape the upheaval of their Roofing Tile Palace. But, also a good day for those that will stay in the immediate area. Not only do those local salamanders get new accommodations in a well-stacked highrise apartment complex, but also they get yearly renewable membership to Anita’s Adobe Assembly. Actually, the salamanders will probably not be too interested in the adobe clay pile itself. My guess is, though, that the moist underneath and sides of the clay pile will be this summer’s, and many summers to come, happenin’ place if you’re a sally. The clay pile will keep cool and moist long after the surrounding soil dries up from warmer weather. That moisture-laden microenvironment will attract much food and shelter for the salamanders. So, salamanders, sorry for the unannounced housing move — hope the neighborhood improvements make up for any inconvenience.

Adobe anyone?

…………………………………………………………Tony

Dano’s Great Newt Grotto

1- Residential Habitats -- Critters and Their Homes, 2- Food Forest Gardening No Responses »

Feb 022011

The new Olympic-sized swimming pool at Critter Convention Center.

Garden Log (what I did):

1. Installed an underground watering hole habitat, called Dano’s Great Newt Grotto.

Trellis habitat, House Finch Hideaway. The subterranean habitat, Dano's Great Newt Habitat, was installed while the Center Pole posthole was being backfilled.

You, the Habitat Gardener (reflections):

Center Post (2 posts) in ground, yet to be backfilled. The posts were dug in on the back side of Captain Cicada's Buried Treasure, a buried wood pile animal habitat. The adobe soil in the foreground is from the posthole digging and covers the small hill's topsoil.

1. The celestial heavens were so kind to me the other day. Dan and I were on our way to completing an awesome garden project — a 6-post two-tier trellis built to grow food and provide privacy. We had just lowered the Center Post (which is actually 2 posts; see House Finch Hideaway — Completed ) into its hole when the noontime lunch whistle blew. Dan was off to follow his stomach’s commands. Cool!, now I have some time to throw in a habitat up against the center posts before the area is backfilled. A quick search of material caches and I was back with a toilet tank top, a small piece of flagstone slate, two old kitchen tiles, a water-catching boulder, and a bucket lid. Habitat here we come!

The habitat's tiolet tank top will catch and hold water.

The habitat's toilet tank top will catch and hold water.

Water. So often when building a habitat, I include a focus of making water, or at least moisture, available for garden critters. Perhaps I am so drawn to water because one of my strongest passions in building animal habitats is to increase amphibian populations in residential gardens. And amphibians LOVE, thrive, and do water well (pun accepted!). This habitat’s major water feature is a toilet tank top rescued from a dumpster. “Help, help, please help!”, I faintly heard coming from the bottom of a commercial renovation project’s 10-yard dumpster. So I took the beautiful uncracked enamel critter swimming pool home with me and vowed to incorporate it in a habitat. Alas, Toilet Tank Top is delivered to the soil and its critters while Dan is off at lunch. A little water in the upside down lid helps me install it level (to hold the most amount of water possible).

The new Olympic-sized swimming pool at Critter Convention Center.

The enamel coated top side of the toilet tank lid seals the pottery and enables it to hold water. The underside of the lid, which is pictured holding water, will absorb some of that water because it is not enamel coated. But that’s okay — moisture-loving critters, like insects, snails, slugs, salamanders, frogs and toads, will seek out that cool dampness in the dryer months.

I stand on the upside down lid to press it into the adobe soil at the edge of the posthole and up against the Center Post. It sets in firmly and gives me confidence that it will hold at least some water, that is, stay level, for a long time.

Flagstone and kitchen tile cover the habitat's grotto.

Now to protect the top of the swimming pool to keep it from completely filling with soil. Some soil will likely backfill into the swimming pool, and that’s okay, but we would like some of the upside down toilet lid’s volume to be available for water. Completely sealed off would not be good either — the critters would think the pool is closed. “Oh man, we always come on the wrong day!” A small piece of flagstone slate and kitchen tiles are the strong, non-biodegradable materials I come up with to protect the habitat’s pool of water. Two kitchen tiles are used to add strength and to provide another crevice (between the tiles) that critters can take advantage of. Sure there’s a gap between the tiles and the slate but we’ll deal with that shortly. For now, we’re sitting pretty because the swimming pool was just upgraded to a grotto. How European! The subterranean pool, or grotto, will shelter and feed many a microbe and larger critter that had never dreamed of travelling to such places.

Water-holding boulder sits above the grotto.

Now to cover the small gap between the tiles. And I just happen to have a bucket lid that will cover that gap. One good thing about the plastic lid is that it will last a zillion years. Sure, some people would cringe about burying plastic in the garden but I figure that the trade-offs here are worth it. If it never breaks down, then some critters will have shelter security. If it does break down, then we are doing our part to return this human-made atrocity to the soil. Hey, why get out of bed in the morning if your rationalization system is not intact?! And now back to the plastic bucket lid on top of the kitchen tiles and the flagstone slate. Yes!, the bucket lid turns out to more helpful than I thought it would be. Not only will it cover the gap, but also it is a coaster (like a table coaster protecting delicate wood) for the brittle tile and crackable slate. Now a good-sized rock, AKA boulder, can be stacked on top of the grotto, tiles, and slate.

Leveling the boulder to hold water. Wood frame protects the tile.

Multi-tasker boulder will 1) keep the materials below it securely in place because of its heavy weight, 2) provide temperature modulation to the habitat, and 3) hold a smidgen of water in the small indentations on its top surface. That’s pretty much the bulk of the habitat, but now I want to take measures to protect this underground waterhole, this subterranean grotto. Because it’s underground, or hidden, foot traffic could easily kick it apart by accident. I grab a couple of fireplace logs and frame the exposed tile corner. That sits pretty but why leave things up to chance?

Firewood log staked with gap awaiting compost fill.

I take the extra time to secure the downhill side of a log with a hefty wooden stake pounded into the ground. The stake is surely very secure BUT I missed my mark. The stake is a couple of inches away from the fireplace log instead of snugly up against it. Once again, THE PROBLEM IS THE SOLUTION (a permaculture axium). In other words, there’s good to be found here so why not go with that? Lucky for me, I sometimes take my own advice. I snug the firewood log up against the post to expose a gap alongside the habitat. That gap, or couple of inches “off”, will now allow me to throw in some nutritious compost soil. There will be more good soil for the jasmine vine I will plant above this habitat.

Jasmine vine planted above Dano's Great Newt Grotto.

Time to plant the jasmine vine that will grow up Center Post and create a thicket on the trellis. The grotto habitat is nearly complete except for planting and cosmetic issues. The jasmine vine’s roots will help secure the “hillside” of soil and help tie together the habitat’s elements. Perhaps those roots will find the grotto and drink its water — hard to say because the roots will not develop in the intended air cavity of the habitat. In the end, though, I vote that the jasmine will be a happy camper as a result of the grotto habitat. If nothing else, the poop factor will benefit the jasmine — there will be so much poop (that feeds the soil) from the snails and slugs that come to vacation at the grotto.

Compost soil is strewn over the habitat and surrounding area. The jasmine vine is wiggled into position next to the boulder and surrounded by as much compost soil as will stay on the little hill of Captain Cicada’s Buried Treasure. Forget-me-not plants that were moved to the side for protection are returned to the hill, above the habitat. Some bamboo stakes are pounded into the ground and strung together to make small fences to protect the area from foot traffic. Lastly, old straw mulch is used to keep the compost soil and plants in place. Also, the old straw mulch will keep the area moist and humus-rich as it breaks down. The decaying straw is a habitat unto itself!

Dano's Great Newt Grotto habitat is buried under old straw mulch (left). Grape cuttings at a post's base for the trellis habitat, House Finch Hideaway.

What a great day! A habitat within a habitat day. Hard work and looking forward to my vacation. See you at The Grotto.

……………………………………………………. Tony

Zen Canyon Snake Pit completed AND persimmon harvest

1- Residential Habitats -- Critters and Their Homes No Responses »

Dec 102010

Zen Canyon Snake Pit -- slate stacking completed

Garden Log:

1. Completed slate stacking to bring Zen Canyon Snake Pit’s ceiling flush with surrounding edges, which finished the installation of the habitat.

Zen Canyon Snake Pit covered over with soil, leaves and branches. The topmost slate of the slate-layered chamber will support a branch/twig/stump/log pile. That pile of organic material will be a thriving animal habitat as it breaks down, soon to be thrown onto the compost.

2. Dug out soil around irrigation zone #3’s last riser, in corner of back garden, to expose the tee connection. Threw the soil on top of Zen Canyon Snake Pit.

3. Cleaned magnolia leaves off spa deck and on pathways in back garden — thanks Glory! Leaves were dumped on top of fresh soil just thrown on ZCSP.

4. Began stick debris pile on top of Zen Canyon Snake Pit; sticks were from dying birch and miscellaneous piles around the yard.

5. Tossed old straw “tiles” into the trench that was the base of Rock Pile Planter.

6. Harvested persimmon fruit from neighbor’s tree. Thanx for the persimmons, Sunny!

You the Habitat Gardener:

1. What a great session in the garden today. Always a good day when an animal habitat is completed. All the ideas, the what-if’s, the how would that be’s, the plans and sketches, the gathering of materials, the actual work (imagine that!) to manipulate space and materials are over. Sometimes, finishing a habitat installation is anti-climatic, especially one that has been in my mind for months, maybe years. But today’s completion of Zen Canyon Snake Pit brings our back garden to a new stage.

Now that Zen Canyon is bridged over with slate, we can begin to create an organic debris pile (sticks, tree limbs, etc.) on top of it. Debris Pile Food Court is born! Where there once was a hole in the garden, there will be a through-fare for the wheelbarrow and a large-item compost pile, that is, a debris pile. We will keep the debris pile to one edge of the top of the snake pit and have a path for the wheel barrow over the other edge of it. The filled over “canyon” will become the base, or floor, of the debris pile, a new habitat in of itself.

Habitat stacking in the garden — the debris pile will shelter many microbes, insects, snails, slugs, spiders, and small animals feeding on them. Perhaps some of those critters will seek shelter below the debris pile, in the staking of slate and stone or in the two toilet tanks that make up the cracks and crevices of Zen Canyon Snake pit. And all the while the debris pile breaks down we will be making soil. Eventually most of the organic debris pile will be tossed on the nearby compost pile. We’re making soil!

Organic garden debris, too large for the compost pile, will be piled to create the Debris Pile Food Court above Zen Canyon Snake Pit. Perhaps larger critters will live below ground and feed on the debris pile's smaller critters above.

2. Today began the creation of Debris Pile Food Court (Garden Log #2,3,4) — a pile of sticks , logs, stumps, tree limb sections piled above Zen Canyon Snake Pit. The debris pile will stand alone as an animal habitat, friendly to critters from microbes to insects to birds, amphibians, and reptiles. Maybe even a garden snake! Soil was thrown at the base of the pile to help sustain such biodiversity. Maybe some of those microbes working (breaking down) the wood pile will take shelter or food from the soil floor of the pile. Maybe that soil floor will be where the insects, snails, and slugs lay their eggs to keep the explosion of life going. And, that soil floor, rather than the slate floor is was, will also keep water available to further sustain animal life.

3. The magnolia leaves (Garden Log #3) cleared of our spa deck and off our garden slate pathways was thrown on top of Debris Pile Food Court’s soil base. Not great science, just wanted some place to put the leaves till our compost pile area is ready AND the leaves under the wood pile will add to the bio-diverse habitat of the now-planned soil-leaves-wood pile. Note that I said the leaves were only cleared away from the spa deck and the pathway; all other leaves will be left to break down on our small grass patch and in the beds of the back yard. What a mess! But that mess will provide great nutrition, shelter, and insulation for the soil microbes, larger critters, and plants ALL WINTER LONG. And be assured, by spring, the ground cover beds and grass will not only have recovered, but will be thriving and happy.

4. Used straw tiles (Garden Log #5) to fill up the base trench to the demolished Rock Pile Planter. Pulling off a few inches at a time from the end of the bale made nice thick, wet, heavy, partially-decayed slabs, or tiles, of straw. Perfect for filling in the thin trench. Eventually that straw will break down and leave a nutritious layer for the soil. Sure beats the adobe that was in the trench. And, in the meantime, the area has been leveled off and will have wheelbarrow access to the area.

5. Persimmon Harvest (Garden Log #6) is here. The beautiful fruit is ready to pick off of our neighbor’s tree. Enough fruit is left high in the tree, beyond reach with a 12-foot orchard ladder, to treat the birds of the neighborhood. No fruit goes unused — we will throw any harvested damaged fruit into the Earthworm Bin. Had some fun harvesting persimmons this year by using Nature-provided packaging. We used persimmon leaves between layers of fruit — the leaves provided a soft cushion AND are ripe with beauty. Will be fun to pack away some leaves as we pull out the fruit. Now you know what old phone books are good for; they have thin, absorbent paper that easily makes a flower or leaf press.

Hachiya persimmon fruit and leaves, pulled in from the cold (some frost on fruit).

Competed installing one animal habitat and started another — what a great day!

Tony

Happy Thanksgiving weekend AND Saving a Pond

1- Residential Habitats -- Critters and Their Homes No Responses »

Nov 272010

Salamander Sunny Swimhole remodelled and flushed

Happy Thanksgiving weekend all!

So nice to have a little more focus on what we have to be grateful for.

Garden Log:

1. Emptied the kitchen compost into the Earthworm Bin.

2. Emptied the kitchen wash basin onto Salamander Resort.

3. Removed leaves and sunken oak wedge from Salamander Sunny Swimhole, the pond over Salamander Resort. Flushed pond water.

4. Potted red currant and jostaberry starts that were saved during the demolition of Rock Pile Planter.

5. Photographed what was a caterpillar yesterday and is a pupa today. Just outside our front door, where the sun’s warmth is wind-sheltered, a caterpillar was crawling along the siding yesterday. In just about the same space today — “You haven’t gotten very far Little One, have you?” Well duh! That caterpillar may be there all winter. In fact, it’s not even a caterpillar any more. It’s a chrysalis, attached to the siding with a sticky silk ball.

Butterfly chrysalis on wood siding.

Close-up of butterfly chrysalis. Yesterday it was a plump, cylindrical, light-green, soft-skinned caterpillar. Today it is forming angular, hard ridges (natural I-beams) and a dark, thick crust.

You the Habitat Gardener:

1. The nights are getting chilly, even for cold-blooded invertebrates. I like to use planty of straw in the Earthworm Bin to keep it well insulated and to create a compost-breaking-down situation. All the die-hard microbes will generate heat, that will allow the straw and kitchen food to breakdown (from the microbes, of course), which puts off still more heat. The bottom will fall out of this Pyramid Scheme when we run out of kitchen scraps to add to the compost — “Quick!, gather up those rotten fallen apples and feed them to the worms.”

2. The Salamander Resort, our 6-foot-deep habitat hole/cavern/rock, wood, and soil pile, still has an unplanted surface. Intense soil making for now. The surface has been covered with different layers of organics, including manure soil, oak leaves, wood chips, magnolia leaves, straw. Great place to dump the kitchen washbasin, which is considered blackwater. “Blackwater” is a notch more ecologically volatile than greywater because of either sewage (toilet) or food particles from the kitchen sink. Sewage or food — all the same to a microbe. So for our garden, we purposefully wash our dishes in a half bucket, let it cool, then dump it in non-food areas or on the ground being careful to stay away from any leafage or root crops. Food particles and nitrogen-based “Earth-friendly” soap. [Pill Bug to his family]: “Soup’s on!” When in doubt, spread any greywater/kitchen water around then garden so you won’t drastically inundate any one plant. And don’t forget to save the bottom of the wash basin for one of your favorite plants. “Who will get all this yummy oatmeal flake- and baked eggplant polenta-infused water today? Who’s been good?”

3. My heart broke this week. All the hard work I did to set up a cooler-than-cool pond habitat in Salamander Sunny Swimhole turned out to be a flop. A cold snap, with some nights as low as 26 degrees (well, after all, this is sunny California!) set in and forced a lot of falling leaves. Between the shorter days of low-angled sun, the flood of organics falling out of the air (leaves), and the lower temps, the half-barrel pond ecosystem could not keep up. Murky water filled with fallen leaves AND a touch of “oil slick” on the surface. It was the slick that told me this pond is going anaerobic — it’s being starved of oxygen. All the precious muck that I saved during the the relocation plus the current conditions were just too much for it to keep up, for it to recycle life from the decaying matter being quickly added to it. A note about the shiny, multicolored slick: it’s a sign that there’s too high a concentration of nitrogen in the water, usually from muck on the bottom.

Sure, there’s some lesson to be learned here about our pond that went flop. But the bigger picture lesson I want to convey is how freeing it is to learn from a mistake and to feel the satisfaction of having corrected it. My heart broke not because the pond wasn’t working. My heart broke because I was WRONG. Don’t you just hate that! I was so jazzed to include a neat piece of wood (a freshly cut oak wedge with rotted out holes) when setting up the pond. What design, what art! All my visions of tadpoles and other aquatic critters meandering through the wood’s passages, perhaps escaping a foraging raccoon, gone up in smoke. How couldn’t this be Paradise?

Daily cleaning out of some of the fallen magnolia leaves postponed more effective action. Luckily, I was smart enough to finally give up the ghost and hauled the wood wedge out of the pond. Smelly! Foulness that bespoketh rotteneth (Old English, so old that they may not even know about it). Clearly an inorganic situation, AKA anaerobic, going on in the pond. How cool once the wood wedge was out. More water could be added to make up for the displaced wood. Also, I was able to scoop out leaves and muck more easily. Then I gave the pond a good flushing with fresh water.

Be careful when flushing a pond, especially if you are flushing with city water which might contain health-related additives in it. Those additives, like fluorine and chlorine, will bubble out if you let them sit overnight. But straight from the city-water hose to the pond in an excessive amount might overwhelm some critters and kill them. But back to Tony’s state-of-the-art foul pond. For our pond, it was already foul, so I flushed it, flushed it, and then flushed it some more. Hey, we’re starting over, both me and the pond. The pond will recoup and achieve it’s ecosystem. I will find something to be right about, again, some day.

: Oak wedge and flowerpot habitats in Salamander Sunny Swimhole.

: Set-up of Salamander Sunny Swimhole. Beware, the leaves are coming!

: Salamander Sunny Swimhole without oak wedge and with new water. A new start after the pond went foul.

: Butterfly chrysalis on wood siding.

: Close-up of butterfly chrysalis. Yesterday it was a plump, cylindrical, light-green, soft-skinned caterpillar. Today it is forming angular, hard ridges (natural I-beams) and a dark, thick crust.

Stay posted — I’ll post a pic of the pond’s success as it comes.

Tony

Wicking Pots AND Huckleberry Trunk Split Repair

2- Food Forest Gardening No Responses »

Oct 222010

Garden Log:

Fed Mexican lime, Kaffir lime, and Lemon Guava kitchen scraps before mulching with earthworm harvest, wood chips, granular spore, and a sprinkle of water.
Chop and drop throughout the back garden.
Western Fence Lizard Liar with dock (left) and comfry (back right) grown for "chop and drop". Insects will come to eat the red currant berries (taller green plants alongside slate) and lizards from the rockpile habitat will feast on the insects.

Wood chip mulched Hister Beetle Huckleberry Habitat, apple and pear trees, and Sea Lion Splash’s kiwi vine.
Harvested white clover mulch from under Norwegian Hill Basket to seed/mulch Salamander Redwood Lodge with white clover.
Digging in SSSC’s Lower Chamber, slowly but surely. Lined waiting toilet tanks with cardboard over holes in bottom. Filled tanks with wood chip.
Prepared 15 gallon tubs with layered alfalfa and clay from SSSC. Tubs stored near Earthworm Box and will be used to mix material into box contents. Also layered 15 gallon tubs under deck that wick water to jasmine and grape; top layer is adobe so rotting alfalfa does not stink too bad.
Tied string around split trunk of huckleberry.

To you, the Habitat Gardener:

About those 15 gallon nursery pots used to wick water (#6, above), that’s my solution to not having drip irrigation EVERYWHERE. Sure, everywhere would be most efficient, but I do wallow in procrastination at times. The wicking pots, also provide a place to make poor soil good soil, as the mulch breaks down AND it’s habitat. All that soil/clay/mulch/wood chips/water — you know there’s a multicultural neighborhood going in those pots.
“Chop and Drop” (#2, above) is about carbon farming — plants grown for their ability to harness the sun’s energy and turn it into green leafage. Both the comfrey and the dock in your garden can be grown “as weeds”, leafing out wherever you want to build soil. The plant grows, you chop it down, NOT PULL IT OUT. That dock or comfrey plant will grow back, you will chop it again, Pete and repeat. The beauty of your labor will be making soil. As the plant grows, it will send out roots. Chop to ground level, and those roots die back AND, in the process of dieing back, leave organic matter in your soil. Not only has the plant busted its root down into the soil, but also it will leave some of the water and organic matter in it behind when the above-surface life is cut from it. And even better, the comfrey will also nitrogen fix the soil. In other words, the rhizomes clinging to the comfrey roots will release nitrogen into the soil when the root dies back. Emphasis on “when” there because most gardeners that grow comfrey as companion plants in their gardens don’t realize that significantly more nitrogen is released when the rhizome dies back. Chop to the ground, release nitrogen to the subsoil, mulch the surface with the nitrogen-rich leaves, and know that that comfrey plant will thrive again, to be chopped again. You might want to get to the comfrey before it goes to seed; controlling the rhizome spreading plant is challenging enough. Also note that the comfrey is a very medicinally useful plant. As for dock, the very young (inner) leaves are tasty raw by themselves and in salads. Don’t forget that mega salad you’ve got growing in the back of the garden, AKA “the compost pile” — dock greens are a great way to jumpstart the pile.
For huckleberry trunk repair (#7, above), I used 1/2 of garden twine (knotted one end and split the string open) to create a thin strand that will decay by the time the plant is ready to bust loose from the bondage. I had thought that the huckleberry shrub was dying from a water issue but then found that the trunk was split during planting. Since planting this spring, the wound seems to have healed partially and the plant has bulked up — it’s going to live! The berries will be enjoyed by many critters, including me and the birds. Check out the pics to today’s repair job for that split huckleberry trunk below or at: BEFORE and AFTER.

: dock (left) and comfry (back right) grown for “chop and drop”

: Before

: After

Save a life (yes, plants count), enjoy a berry or two.

Tony

Watered Clay AND Chicken Haven coop

1- Residential Habitats -- Critters and Their Homes No Responses »

Aug 202010

Garden Log:

1) Took a break from digging SSSC today but did water the clay in barrels and bins along the garden path. 2) Finally found the “missing” plans to Chicken Haven coop and pen

To you, the Habitat Gardener:

adobe clay from habitat installation awaiting fill stage

1) About the watering of the clay: A lot of that clay will go back into the hole that will become Salamander Shady Shallows Cellar. Some will get stored away for a future habitat installation. But for now, we want to keep the clay moist so it is usable — the hot sun will turn it into rock if it drys out. Not too much water, though. Too much water will drown the microbes and create an anaerobic (no oxygen) situation on the bottom of the containers. Smelly!, that’s anaerobic; think about decay, sulphur, methane, pew! So a light sprinkle of water will be just enough to offset the sun’s heat for a while. My plan so far (changes daily, and isn’t that fun!) is to install habitat features in the enormous hole waiting for our creativity. Oh, how I love being vague — “habitat features” could be anything, maybe even the kitchen sink. Actually that’s just a lead-in to what we will be using — enamel tiolet tanks. Yes, tiolet tanks saved from the dumpster at a water-reducing project I happened upon. Sounds like a fairy tale, doesn’t it? But better than a fairy tale, these enamel tanks will last FOREVER under ground. A lasting tribute to the amphibian world in the form of stone-like caverns with organic bedding. Dig hole. Fill hole with tiolet tanks packed with wood chips, tree limbs that jut out of the hole, cardboard tubing, straw bale “tiles”, and lots more wood chips. Pour in liquified clay (INGREDIENTS: clay, water. Not an approved source of daily nutrition!). Let it sit, and sit, and sit. Serves 500-1000 amphibians, and trillions of microbes! But why the liquified clay? Thanks for asking.

The vaulted Lower Chamber of Salamander Shady Shallows Cellars

Liquified clay will refill the hole and allow it to self support itself. The hole is large enough that although The Lower Chamber is vaulted, we wouldn’t want to run the risk of having it collapse. A collapse of any magnitude would change the surrounding garden features. This is a small garden (that’s why we are going underground!) and we don’t want the nearby slate path or planting beds to collapse. And what fun to visualize the liquid clay solidifying and creating structure to the hole. The sides, and the vaulted lower chamber, will become one again with the same clay that was dug, scooped, and shaved from the hole. The liquid clay will tightly fill around the wood chip-filled tiolet tanks and the rising tree limbs. Once the toilet tank wood chips and tree limbs decay (yes, will take years), hollows and tunnels, respectively, will be created. The hollows will have soft, moist organic bedding and the tunnels, installed at a climbable slope, will have critter-friendly soft, moist organic footing. A pond on top of the filled-in hole will allow salamanders, toads and frogs to breed in our garden. True, a small pond, but at least it’s wet, it’s water. Water — the g

iver of Life. And from that pond, perhaps an amphibian or two will seek refuge and everlasting happiness below in Salamander Shady Shallows Cellars. I love happy endings.

2) Check out my plans for Chicken Haven below.

Chicken Haven plans -- East view

Chicken Haven plans -- Top view

Chicken Haven plans -- South view

Chicken Haven plans -- West view

Chicken Haven plans -- West view and notes

Chicken Haven plans -- North view

Dream, and record it!

Tony

Winter Veggie Planting

2- Food Forest Gardening No Responses »

Jan 052009

Previously posted on the Spore Lore Forum:

Last week when I was pruning a rose bush and weeding around it, I found a small garter snake curled near the base of the rose bush under some leaves and debris. It was cold and barely moving, but alive. I covered it back up and left it alone. It got me wondering though, should I be leaving the unwanted plants (“weeds”) and leaf material alone right now, and in general not doing much in the garden (except perhaps the raised veggie beds) because there may be reptiles and amphibians hanging out too cold to move??? I don’t want to step on anyone!!! Any thoughts on this, in general, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks –artichoke

Tulip magnolia leaves left to mulch groundcover plants

Artichoke,
Thanx for asking! And I am also answering for the critters in your garden.

Absolutely! A good idea to leave most of the leaves, mulch, and “debris” (one person’s trash is another’s treasure) in the garden. Not only will the extra layer, or blanket, keep the microbes and other animals warmer, but it will also keep feeding them. Those organics will also continue to break down and nutrify the soil for next spring’s blast of Life. Also, the plants themselves, like some bulbs and roots of trees and shrubs, will be better protected by the blanket of soon-to-be compost. Soil run-off will also be less if your precious topsoil is protected from pounding rains by the fallen leaf layer.

The flip side — why to clear out (and note I do not use the term “clean out”) the garden beds:
— If the soil is poor draining and you feel a tree or some plants would apreciate drying out.
— If you won’t sleep well without the beds cleared out. If that’s the case, save your soul (I jest) by minimizing the damage to the ecology. Consider leaving a debris pile in the yard to create habitat. Perhaps next spring you will be able to harvest some good compost from the bottom of it. Till you do, the ecology will enjoy the food and shelter (and Jungle Gym).

Have fun with your garden “stuff”. I’d love to know how it goes.
Tony

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