Recap from an annoying gardening summer:
Last summer's vegetable garden was not a huge success - again - but it was much better than the summer before. Partly this was due to unforseen circumstance. I had made plans to build up the beds and co-garden with a neighbor, but then she had to bail. I had planted some things that she preferred - things like golden beets and tomatillos. Im not crazy about either of those, but of course those were the vegetables that did best. (of course). I have a freezer full of tomatillos and I guess I had better make some verde sauce with them or something.  I also planted fewer of the things I love - like pole beans and eggplants. Oh well. Lesson learned.

I outwitted the cucumber beetles with moderate success by making a raised bed behind my house and growing my winter squashes in there. I got some good Spaghetti and Hubbard squash by training them to grow up my fence. I tried some Cherokee Trail Of Tears Beans which did ok, but there were not really enough of them to do anything but munch on. Not bad though! I saved seeds and will grow more this year. My Kentucky Wonder pole beans did great and I got some good seed from those as well!.

There was more water available this last summer, so my  tomatoes were better and no two legged pests stole anything out of the garden proper, although Bambi found it and ate my Valerian flowers. I did get a decent harvest of Valerian though, and it has been keeping me suitably sedated though the beginning of this new political regime. Not sure what to do about Bambi though as  the two legged pests stole the chain link fence that used to keep the deer out. I am afraid of so many things this year. Did the humans really need to steal my fence as well as my country? I digress............

A few of the heirlooms got buggy and I was always fighting those off with neem oil and soap. I even found a tomato caterpillar for the first time and made a mad dash to drown him. Never saw another one after that. I never gor those beds raised much, but I did continue with the keyhole garden idea and I love, love, love it!

Plans for the new year - and hoping to actualize them this time............

Raise my beds to cover up the compost bins in the middle. (right now, they are exposed)

Plant some things from starts and not from seed. Things like onions. I dont have great luck with onions from seed. They start fine and then they fail. Maybe I will have a chance with bigger starts.

Make more raised beds in the back yard now that I know where the sun hits best back there (there used to be a huge shade tree).

Maybe only plant one tomatillo plant. I think that will do me just fine. Two at best.

A Summary Of Last Summer's Garden

My summer garden was so disapointing that I just gave up for a bit. Despite all my attempts to garden effectively with specific water allocations, the garden just didnt prosper.

Im going to get snarky here: while the city of Napa still got away with green lawns and water running freely in the gutters from overwatering, I got my rent raised with the excuse that the property owner was getting fined from all our water consumption. Seeing as I was using grey water for the most part combined with limiting my showers, using greywater for most of the toilet flushing, and using the DIY ollas that I posted about earlier, this didnt make sense. I dont know if anyone in my building was using more water, but I really dont think so.

But whatever.

The ollas worked, but I didnt plant my seeds and seedlings close enough. I had used a diagram found online, and the roots did indeed find thier way to the containers, but everything should have been planted closer to the ollas and it was just too hot.  Very little thrived. The beans were sick. The tomatoes were sick. I got blossom end rot and all the plants were stunted. My garlic was small. The bugs were out in full force. Very little had a chance out there. Oh, a few things did alright once the weather cooled down. I found out that Snapdragons are a wonderful drought flower! And my Kale and Cauliflower did alright eventually. But I was a very sad little gardener for the most part.

So "Fuck That", I said when I stopped grieving. I spent all winter researching new ways to go about having a thriving vegetable garden in a desert. What I came up with were keyhole gardens. Raised beds with a compost basket in the middle and based on permaculture. So I have been working on raising my beds with found objects and cinder blocks. Ive been collecting rocks and bricks bit by bit. This bed is ready to fill as soon as I grab a few more cinder blocks and fill in some edges..

They wont be very high to start with, but I never know how long I'll be able to garden out here. I'll raise them higher next time if I can.

 Im also making new little beds in my back yard that will have little compost buckets scattered here and there. As soon as I get my truckload of soil, my neighbor Homirah and I will be planting a whole new garden that hopefully with the use of keyhole technology, compost buckets, and better use of the ollas from last summer,  will give us way more bounty.  And she can help me rig shelter from the sun for our tomatoes. It has been raining a lot and the reservoirs are filling. So that is promising. The aquifers are not filling, though, and this will be bad.

I am a determined woman in a desert land.

The Loring Street Olla Project

My garden went from lush, green, and rioting with color, to dried up and dead. And this will happen in the summer here without a steady supply of water,

The severe drought in California is forcing stricter measures to be put into place for the average citizen while Fracking and big water bottling companies like Nestle are pumping water out of our aquifers at a terrifying rate. We're being told that we can only use 35 indoor gallons per person a day, which isn't bad, yet you can still wash your car as long as you have a nozzle on the hose that you can shut off while you soap up. Its not making sense. Total bullshit. We're watching greed and entitlement in its true colors right now. We gardeners and people really working hard to actually conserve our resources are suffering while lawns are still green, water is being bottled for a profit, our dwindling ground water is being sucked up and polluted forever, and you can still wash your car.

 But aside from all of  that, I'm managing to have a small garden this year because I did some research, thought ahead, and took some action. I discovered Ollas. (Pronounced oh-yah) The pretty, large, round ones are just too expensive for my meager budget, but I discovered how to make them myself using plain  terracotta flower pots and matching saucers. People have been using ollas for thousands of years in arid countries. So why not. I bought some pots at that big box home improvement store, but if you are good at scrounging and have cheaper places to shop at, all the better. I made the first batch by just sealing them together with a silicone sealer that comes in a tube for use with a caulking gun, I should have considered whether it was a food grade composition, but I didnt. I read that aquarium caulk is best. I dont think this is a huge deal, but I will be more careful next time.  I made another batch by gluing them together first with hot glue and then using the silicone sealer. Some swear by using Guerrilla Glue, but we'll see how these work out.They don't last forever, some will inevitably break, but it seems like such a reasonable way to conserve water and not spend a fortune.

 Unfortunately, I had  put my tomatoes and cucumbers in the ground beforehand and the plants really could have benefited from the ollas being planted closer at the same time. . I planted some as close to the tomatoes as I dared  get. You have to dig fairly deep - and of course, it depends on the size of the pot.  I had already set plastic grow pots near their roots, but it didn't seem like they were getting enough water. I hoped that this would help.

The idea behind the olla watering system is that by filling them with water and letting the ground dry out, the roots of the plants will be drawn to the water and collect moisture by pulling the water from the submerged container. It has to be a porous container so that moisture will be able to escape to the thirsty roots. Some people get all fancy by installing an irrigation system that fill the pots, but I just do it by hand with a headless water wand. You just unscrew the head. I went out and bought a funnel to make the system less wasteful as I still end up spilling some.

By trial and error, I am learning how to use this wonderful watering system! Next year, I will plant my tomatoes around  larger Ollas and use the smaller ones for the other veggies. . Ive been covering the holes with rocks and little chunks of found concrete, but next time I'll paint all the tops white and cover them with saucers to alleviate some of the inevitable evaporation. And everything will get planted around the ollas at the same time.

While I was doing my research, I saw a lot of pictures of things newly planted around the Ollas, but not so  many photos of plants as they grow with this system - or the end results. So I'll try to remedy this by showing how my garden progresses over the summer.
'

Lets start with the tomatoes. Mine are all mostly Cherokee tomatoes. Ive also got a  Black Prince and an Egyptian somethingorother that appears to be a paste tomato, I started most of them from seed indoors and they just seem a lot smaller than what they should be. They are all producing fruit, but they are tiny as compared to last year. The soil should be fine and I used the same techniques that I used last year. They might need more sun - maybe they don't get enough hours of it. I think putting in a couple of Ollas and mulching with some rotting hay has helped. We have had some hot days, so all in all, the plants seem a lot happier now. Ive got more flowers, so I am ever hopeful.

The cucs, which I never have any luck with, seem to be pulling out of whatever bad mood they were growing up in. Ive been upping the fertilizer - mostly worm castings - seems like they should be bigger, but they look like they might live. I actually got two medium sized cucumbers out of this one. Maybe its just too much to hope for a healthy cucumber plant in my world of mega cucumber beetles (they spread a virus). I have one growing in a more enclosed space out back, and it looks much healthier - no cucumber beetles. I am convinced that they like the Olla watering system.

 So far, the pole beans that were planted around the Ollas are the healthiest I have ever had. (this is a photo after a long hot day - they always look a bit wiltie after the heat) They look like they are supposed to and I didn't lose a single one. Not a single one. I had saved up a lot of toilet paper rolls and gave them little collars as they poked their little heads up out of the soil. It works like a charm. There are a few that were planted a bit far out of reach of the water, but I save the watering can or the hose for the ones that wouldn't otherwise make it. More Ollas next time!

Eggplants, Zucchini, Kale, and Cilantro are all doing well. Now that they are established, I water about every two - three days and use so  little water as compared to last year. I have not planted any root crops because I just didn't have all that many pots. But Ive got more space since digging up my garlic. It would be fun to see how carrots and radishes grow around these.

The bottom line is: if you have the time and some DIY skills, you can do this as well. They do take up some room and have to be stored somewhere if you dig them out of the ground, but if you plan it out, it looks like you can actually get quite a bit  out of a small amount of space. Stay tuned.

The Tweakers Stole My Tomatoes

They did. I literally walked out my front door in a rush to get to the Post Office one day and ran right into two meth heads walking out of my garden with a big bag of the last of my unripe tomatoes.  I was taken by surprise and a little intimidated by the one - who got into a car much nicer than mine, btw - but I did maneage to sternly scold them and told them to ask next time. Right. Thats gonna happen...........

I saw it coming and I was warned. They made off with my biggest pumpkin and the one tweaker was always making comments on the garden when he walked by. He was, in an off-handed way, telling me that he was about to steal from me. Thats how it often works. But in broad daylight. In front of people. Nobody lifted a finger to stop them or tell me.  I know the one guy and see him around a lot. I doubt that I will be able to not say something to him in the future. I called the cops and felt like an idiot for doing so. But when I went to the last police liason meeting, they did express the need to know every little thing that these guys were up to. Its just tomatoes, but they were my tomatoes. And I was so very proud of them. :(

I either have to find another place to grow tomatoes or I have to build a fence that I cant afford. Its always something, isnt it. But I grew some damned fine tomatoes and I can now take that knowledge elsewhere.


On that note, the plants were shutting down and I recently pulled them up, dug in a bit more aged chicken shit, tore down and built back up my bean poles, and planted peas and garlic. Lots of garlic. Im just going to plant things that have worked for me in the past and keep my fingers crossed........

Heirloom Seedlings

 

These tomatoes and pumpkin starts turned out pretty nice. I had enough to pass out to family and friends. (This is just a few of them)

The ones that I kept for myself did terribly. The ones that I gave to friends did not grow or produce well. The ones that I gave to my sister grew and produced like monsters.

The first mistake that I made was to put them in terrible soil. I had put all the compost from my bins into the soil first. I had turned the soil a few times. I had added a few bags of purchased organic garden soil. I added coffee grounds, an organic fertilizer and worm castings before I planted. But soil needs time to be amended and I didn't realize just how bad and depleted the ground really was. Next spring I will have better soil. I'll also add some calcium and fish in the hole before I plant. A woman down the road told me that she adds a dead fish down by the roots and always has great tomatoes. Ive read about it. I'll do it.

An early warm spring fooled me. We had a spurt of great weather and I went crazy with planting things. The tomatoes went in way too soon. When the weather turned windy and chilly, these became stunted. They didn't have a chance in hell to become great producers. But I limped them along all summer and I did get a few tomatoes. What a waste of water and effort though. I learned things. I learned. I'll wait until May next time. I'll start the seedlings later.

I also planted them too close together. I knew this wasn't good. but they did ok up at Sam and Earl's last summer. So I went ahead and did it. Bad Move.

It was not a hot summer. They needed more heat. It was too windy. And I also don't think that they got enough sun. I'll plant them in different places next year. I also may put some of them in Smart Pots and see how they do.

As for my friends, they had neither the time nor the initiative to learn how to grow a vegetable. But it might move them forward for next year. At least they didn't die!

As for my sister, she lives in Napa - very hot in the summer. She had a walled in, protected garden and the soil had been amended for several years with chicken and rabbit manure. Her tomatoes went insane. Her peppers and eggplants were monsters. I would like to live in Napa. But here I am........................I will add some aged manure this winter.

I had lots of rogue tomatoes again this year, and I let them grow wild. Those did fabulously. I had cherry tomatoes again and the neighbors ate them to their hearts content.

To be continued next year.

The Day Roundup Arrived

The day arrived that my landlord told me that he was purchasing this property and that I could continue gardening to my hearts content because he didn't think that he would be building with this economy any time soon. As my heart swelled, it also came to a crash when he told me that he was going to level the weeds in the field with Roundup.

Roundup.

I begged him to rethink. I explored renting goats. I bought a weed whacker and set to chopping down the field. I was half way in when he drove up with his helper and started spraying. It was one of the worst days I had had in a very long time. My dreams of an organic garden had crashed. I don't want to go into the dangers of Roundup and the horrors and evil of Monsanto - not right now, Not at this very moment. If you know me, you know how I feel about these things. If you don't know what the fuss is all about, go look it up online.

He spared my garden and stayed as far away as he could. But it travels. I don't think it actually got on my growing peas. I don't think it actually got on anything but the soil around my sectioned off area, but I was heartbroken nonetheless. The coyote bushes got cut down and I said I didn't mind if the acacia tree was chopped down, but then I was regretful later on - it would have been a better place to grow lettuces under the hot sun. And of course, most of the brambles and weeds grew back anyway. But for the rest of the growing year, we had no hillside filled with Calendula. No field of raccoons and critters. Mice and bugs came into my house that had never entered before, we had the worst flea problem that I had ever had anywhere, and instead of feasting on all the grasses and weeds surrounding my spring garden, my seedlings were ravaged by bugs. I fought the bugs with neem oil and soapy water, diatomaceous earth, cut off pop bottles placed over the baby plants, and hand picked cucumber beetles by the bushel ...........stomping on or dropping into soapy water. The rape of the garden calmed down after spring, but I knew that it had been extra bad because of the demise of the field. If I get to do this next Spring, I'll jump on the weed whacking much sooner to keep ahead of The Man.

I continued to use my weed whacker after that. I kept most of it down. It wasn't that difficult. He came back once during the summer and went after the blackberries again. But there are other ways to take care of these things. A little hard work. Maybe a goat or two...........it seems to be the thing to use goats in Seattle...........I did my best to educate. All you can do is to do your best. I love my landlord. Don't get me wrong. But he isn't very progressive in this area. He thinks I'm a hippie. And that word is still used in a very dismissive way. So sad.

I just want to eat some good, wholesome food.

January/February 2013

I started digging up the grass and weeds in the area close to the house. I really started getting into it - and it provided me with a lot of exercise. It pulled up really easy. The weather was still very chilly, but it felt good to be out in whatever sun was available. All I could think of were the rows of canning jars filled with produce from my organic garden.

 Ta Da!

So bit by bit, to the entertainment of my neighbors, I dug this monster up with a shovel and my own two hands. I put down old bricks from the building that had once lived in this spot, rearranged rocks and concrete, and built myself the beginnings of a garden. I KNEW that I was probably not going to get the results that I was fantasizing about because I simply had no money or resources for new soil and amendments. But I was going to give it one hell of a try! I kept finding burned wood in the soil as I dug it up. The building here had burned down maybe 15 years ago or so. But ash is good for the soil. Right?

  Hope springs eternal.
The weather in late February was allowing me to plant some peas and replant some potted herbs.
And in the meantime, I started basil, pepper, and lots of Heirloom tomato seeds upstairs under my skylight. My friend Lisa and I were getting lots of  heirloom and organic seeds from places like Baker Creek and Territorial Seeds. I pored through the seed catalogs for hours, trying to figure out what would grow  well in this area. I did really well with getting my seedlings started.The conditions were perfect. In fact, people told me that they just couldn't do it well, gave up, and went on to get their plants from a nursery. So I was plenty pleased with myself.

January 2013 Part One

I started feeling sorry for the birds in early January and I draped a string of popcorn and cranberries in the coyote bush out in the field. Coyote is an indigenous California bush. Its not the prettiest plant Ive ever seen, but it works in our drought ridden fallow fields and countryside. I should have been paying attention to what grows in the ground in this spot. But what the hell did I know? Now I do: pay attention to what grows in the ground near your chosen gardening spot.And study your soil. Get pH tests. I did none of this.

The birds wanted none of my present, so I eventually threw it in the compost. Ingrates.

 As I said before, I started throwing vegetable peels and whatever could be composted out into the little patch of ground that I was able to dig up after the rains. I knew this wasn't really the way to go - esp. after I encouraged my upstairs neighbor to throw stuff down onto the soil for me. But it started getting out of hand with whole potatoes and stuff being tossed out her window. It was kind of funny though. I figured it couldn't hurt in the long run and that anything was going to help this poor, tired out soil. I did end up having  to rake up some food stuffs that were just going to attract rodents and other critters.

 My plan was to turn this field into a lush garden. There is an orb over there in the upper left corner that I cant figure out .........probably just a reflection. But of what - because there is nothing to reflect off of over there. Maybe the fairies were happy of my plan. Then I took another photo a few feet back.......

 Still an orb in the same place. So it must be a reflection. Right?

I told my friend in town the other day about my pictures with orbs in them and she just did a shoulder shrug thing and said, "oh yeah. I see those flying around your house all the time."
I was like..."WHAT???????? And you never told me?????????"
So I have orbs, dear friends. Ive always wanted one. And now I do. I have no idea what this means. She said that its "Magical Science". I like that.

 But anyway. My turnips were doing good in the bins and I vowed that I would plant some in the ground this spring. There was also kale and chard in a few pots, which was awesome to go out and pick when I needed some greens. I was determined to get a lot of future produce out of all of this. All of this abandoned splendor.

I have never really known what to call that strip of land between the sidewalk and the curb, so I googled it.
This is what I found:
Streetside Easement
Grass Bay
Parking Strip
Parkway
Grass Plot
Tree Lawn
Neutral Ground

Whatevs...........was just curious..........
Last year, mine was a neglected, weedy, clay and rock filled strip that nobody gave a shit about. This year, I decided to do something about it and make it pretty. I pulled up all the weeds by hand and shovel. I added dirt from fill dirt in back of the vacant lot. I added mulch from under the compost pile created with all the weed pulling from the year before. And I amended what soil was in those easements with the compost I made from leaves and vegetable scraps.

Some worker guy from over at the Sugar Factory across the street called over while I was weeding and expressed curiosity as to why I was pulling weeds by hand ( as opposed to chemical weed killers, I assume) and I responded that this is how our country was built - by hand - and I'm showing you all how its done. He laughed and said point taken. Honestly, you would think one had never seen someone working with their hands. Wait.............................

I planted wild flowers and marigolds. And then accidentally,  I planted tomatoes from the seeds from the year before. I'm not sure that I want to eat them as I don't know where the dirt came from,  but this little flower garden is starting to bloom and fill out. And it makes me happy to open my door and see a splash of color. Sure, it still needs some constant weeding that I can never seem to get to, but I think the neighbors appreciate it also. The butterfly's and bees sure do!

I Love My Home

I love my home. I wish everyone did.
She's my real mother.
Like true spoiled children, we just assume she will always be there for us.
Until she dies.
Or kicks us out.

Eating Dirt

My friend Homirah just posted this link on Facebook about how we humans eat so little dirt these days - and how this could be related to the rise in our absolute inability to be friends with organisms and bacterias - how we all are starting to have these ungodly allergies and immune disorders. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Unless we buy organic right from the farmer, our produce has practically been disinfected by the time it reaches our mouths. (not to mention all the chemicals and pesticides we are exposed to........)

When I was a kid, my dad always planted a huge garden. He had 9 mouths to feed, and a huge back yard. He raised rabbits and pigeons, and chickens for food - and this manure was used to amend the soil every year. There were no chemicals or fancy gardening implements that I can remember. We ate the peas that grew under the rabbit cages from the pigeon food that fell under the hutches - right straight out of the manure.
I ate bugs and poo and  I have relatively fewer allergies than most of my friends, it seems.

So while, this 21st century woman no longer is willing to eat a vegetable grown straight from poo - ok: I do eat mushrooms --  I don't mind brushing off a little dirt and eating something right out the ground. As long as it is fairly safe dirt. No radiation or horrible toxins that we know of.

Crockett

My little adopted town of Crockett has so many scenic little streets and nooks and crannies. Many of the roads I find as challenging as those of San Francisco. One hill after another...............

This is my view as I head back home from watering the garden during the transit of venus.today. The plants need all the love they can get.

Guerilla Gardening

 My backyard is too shady for growing much of anything. So Ive been forced to do myself some guerrilla gardening in the lot next door. I did obtain permission from the owner who subsequently put the land up for sale.

Sigh.

But I'm sure it wont sell for a while..

Fingers crossed.

This is my second attempt at growing container vegetables. (not counting all the failed attempts when living in San Francisco) My second attempt here in Crockett where it is  warm and sunny in the summer.

I set them out further into the field where they can get sun. I rigged up a hose to water them with (instead of dragging buckets of water back and forth - oh yes I did.) and this is already helping immensely.

 The tomatoes just don't look great despite water and some fish emulsion. I put compost in with the potting soil before planting. But I think I simply have a lot more to learn about this and all the info that I study online is either contradictory or just plain confusing. Too much water, not enough water, too much this, not enough that. Ive got baby tomatoes coming on finally, so we'll see. Maybe pretty plants just are not so important. And maybe its just going to take a lot to turn my thumb green.

 There are radishes and carrots planted in with the tomatoes also. We'll see if this was a good idea or not. I do want to plant a bin of coriander and one of lettuce. Maybe some more beans ...........maybe one for more carrots and radishes. And lets not forget all the herbs that I lust for. But that's a lot of soil and bins to buy. That's a lot of storing bins through the winter. Maybe small is best to start with since I have a tendency to be a homicidal plant killer.

I planted marigolds and wild flowers in the sidewalk also. I pulled up all the weeds and amended the soil with compost and regular old soil from the lot. I carefully put seeds in rows so that I would see where the plants were coming up. Unfortunately , later on, I had a fit of madness and threw in a mess of flower seeds - thinking they probably wouldn't grow - and whats a few more - the birds will eat the seeds, right? Well I was wrong and stuff has come up that I have no idea what on earth it is. So I thin and thin and hope Im actually pulling weeds and not flowers.. It does look like there are lots of  something flowerie sprouting  in there, so I'll continue thinning it out and see what happens. What a mess.

 2012 is the year of WHATEVER for me. So whatever. If it grows and I learn a thing or two, get to gaze on some garden color, and have some vegetables without toxins, I'll be grateful. Already the butterfly's are flitting around this. Ive done my small part to make them happy.