How to Begin?

Recently, a reader wrote to me with a big question: How do I make a garden? I think she was hoping that I’d give her a few brief tips to get started, but honestly it’s just not that simple, especially if you want your plan to be successful.

Planning a new project is extremely exciting, but it can also be quite daunting, so much so that it might be hard to know where to begin. Scaffolding can be helpful in this situation, allowing us to break the process down through a series of steps. I thought I’d share how I teach this in my classes, which are often design-focused and follow roughly the same process that I will suggest here.

These steps are just a suggestion, and you can also think of them in terms of cycles: You can go back to any of the steps at any time in the process and refine or change things. You will also be taking feedback from your garden throughout this process, and that might then change your plans. All of that is ok. The ultimate goal is not to think of these things as apart from each other, or separate components. Rather, all of these should work together like an ecosystem, with one part affecting, and being affected by, the others.

This is also a process which will never end (or, at least, it shouldn’t). Your garden will evolve. Your needs will evolve.

Let’s get started.

Step One: Identify your Goals

Allow yourself to dream. Get out a notebook, or your computer, or whatever way you like to take notes. What are your goals for the garden? Think of everything you want and need. Maybe you like to cook and want lots of delicious, healthy produce. Maybe you love flowers and want to provide beauty. Maybe you want a place to relax and listen to the birds. Maybe you have heard that insects are in decline and you’d like to create a safe space for them. Maybe you have dogs or kids and you need to reserve a space where they can play. Maybe you want to explore healing with medicinal herbs. Maybe you want all of these things! Write it all down, without judgement or considerations of practicality. That’ll come later.

Step Two: Observe

This is an important step that is often glossed over, but it will save you from a lot of mistakes that might cost time, energy, or money to undo. It will also ensure that you don’t come into your space and bully it into submission. As much as possible, we want to gently enter into the systems already in place. In order to do this, we must learn what’s already happening in our gardens, and we do this by spending time in them. Set aside some time every day to go out and sit in the space. Ideally, this would happen at different times of day, in different seasons, in different types of weather. Take your notebook with you. Watch the path of the sun. How does it cross your property in summer? In winter? What parts of the garden are in full sun, and which are in shade? Will that change in six months? Observe the way water moves over the property. Is there slope? Are there spots that are wet most of the day, and spots where it’s particularly dry? Is there wind, and if so, from what direction does it come? Do you notice animal behavior? Are there tracks or scat or holes? Do you hear birds, or see insects? Is there city noise that you’d like to filter? Are there view that you want to highlight? Does the garden need privacy, or can it be opened to the neighborhood? Write all these things in your notebook, and draw pictures if it’s helpful. Make a list of trees and plants already on the property, too (and if you don’t know what they are, you’ll have to figure that out!).

Step Three: Research

Spend some time determining the geography, geology, and history of your site. What’s your watershed? How much rainfall do you get, and is the amount higher at different parts of the year? What are your average temps, both high and low, over the course of the seasons? Over the course of the year? What USDA climate do you live in (which will tell you how hardy your plants need to be in cold weather)? If you’re in the West, which Sunset zone do you live in (which will give you more localized information including microclimates)? What’s your soil type (sand, silt, loam, clay)? What was on your property before your house was? Do you have toxins to consider, like lead? The answers to these questions will take some digging, but they are crucial to your planning, i.e. why would you plant an azalea in an arid desert region, or a yucca in a wet, humid climate? Your success depends on your research.

Step Four: Mapping

Now that you’ve got a sense of your site, it’s really helpful to do some simple mapping. This allows you to start to shape your future garden and see what’s truly possible in terms of allowable space. You don’t need anything fancy to do this, but it will take you some time and effort. You can use google maps for this, or a good old-fashioned tape measure and a piece of graph paper. Your footage will determine your quantities of materials and save you money in the long run. Plus, it’s fun to have a map of your site that you can refer back to. You can also add things like where the sun is in summer and winter, where the wet places or dry places are, or where you might want privacy. It’s helpful to see things from this birds-eye view.

You can use a copy of this map (you’ll probably want many copies) to draw possibilities, variations, or iterations of your plan. Maybe the sunny south corner would be best for veg beds? Maybe that wet place is good for your blueberries? Maybe this weedy spot is the future home of a wildflower garden? Maybe the place with the gopher holes is a good place for an owl box? Start to sketch out your ideas until you get to a place where you’re satisfied and are ready to start making the garden.

Step Five: Determine an Order of Operations

It makes no sense to install that veg bed before you’ve installed an irrigation system. It makes no sense to scatter those wildflower seeds before you’ve removed the weeds. It makes no sense to get chickens before you have a coop built. Think of the order of operations. What needs to happen first? You might need a delivery of compost, or to buy wood, or to hire a specialist, before you ever put a plant in the ground. Figuring this out first will save you a lot of heartache. Make a plan. Make a timeline. You might even want to break up your site into manageable sections, rather than revamping the whole thing at once. Consider your time and your budget and get real with yourself about what you can and can’t do.

Step Six: Prepare the Ground

In an earlier step, you learned the texture of your soil. Whatever texture you have, you’re stuck with. But that doesn’t mean you can’t improve the structure of the soil. To do this, you’ll add organic matter, and lots of it. Compost and mulch are non-negotiables. Sometimes you need to add organic matter at the outset, and sometimes at the end – most likely both and more than once. This step will probably be done in conjunction with step seven, because your plants might determine what kind of soil you need, and/or your soil might determine what kind of plants you can actually grow.

Step Seven: Choose your Plants

Most people like this step best and start here, and honestly, I’ve fallen into that trap. Browsing a plant nursery is my idea of heaven and I often come home with something I never intended to buy, only to realize that it’s a) inappropriate for my particular site or b) there’s nowhere to put it. It’s much better to have a well-thought out plan for your plant purchases. Again, this requires some research, and maybe some trips to local garden centers (please, do not go to Home Depot for your plants; give your business to small, reputable nurseries with knowledgeable folks to help you) to see what’s available. Be realistic about your site and what will grow there. Focus on plants that will meet your vision and your needs. Focus on plants that will provide something sustainable in the form of food for your belly, food and habitat for wildlife, flowers and beauty for the soul.

Step Eight: Install your Garden

This is pretty straightforward! Start the process, and keep at it, little by little.

Step Nine: Maintenance

You’re not going to spend all this time observing, researching, planning, purchasing, and planting just to let your garden slowly decline. What a waste that would be! Instead, you’re going to figure out a schedule; what needs tending and when? There will naturally be busier times in the garden, and you’ll need to reserve some days for that. There will be daily chores, weekly chores, monthly chores, and seasonal chores. You can keep track in whatever way works for you – your trusty notebook, calendar reminders, spreadsheets. But don’t let your garden languish. Take care of it.

Step Ten: Keep Good Records

It’s really smart to get in the habit of recording everything you do in the garden. The benefits of this are many but it basically comes down to having an institutional knowledge of your site, what you’ve planted, how you’ve taken care of them, what works (or doesn’t) and what you like about it (or don’t). I consult my garden records nearly every day. Again, the ‘how’ of this is really up to you, but I cannot stress enough how important this is.

Step Eleven: Enjoy your Garden!

Don’t forget to go out and enjoy your garden every chance you get. You’ve spent a good deal of time, effort, and money to make this beautiful place; hopefully you’ve included some places for sitting so you can go be in it. Invite your family and friends over and show it off. Invite other gardeners over and share ideas, information, and seeds. Watch and marvel at the wildlife you’ve attracted. Close your eyes and listen to the birds. Pick your produce when it’s ripe, and eat it. You’ve created a place to give yourself and your loved ones health and respite. That’s no small thing!

Step Twelve: Begin Again

As I said, this is truly a cycle, not something that is ever finished, and how great is that? We can always find new plants, skills, or creatures that delight us. Go back to any of these steps at any time as you learn from your garden.

This is just a brief introduction to the vast question of how to begin, and this list is not comprehensive or nearly detailed enough. I’ve written blog posts about nearly every aspect of this plan, so if you search my site, you’ll likely find more information to help with both the theory of the thing, and the practice. And if you’d like to delve even more deeply, I’d suggest signing up for a class with me at Merritt College in Oakland. This fall, it’s likely that I’ll be teaching Permaculture (LANHT 28A); in spring 2027, I’ll likely be teaching Edible Landscaping (LANHT 76). Both of these are design-focused. If you’re interested in learning more about food sovereignty and justice along with your garden skills, I’d recommend taking Intro to Urban Agroecology with me this fall (ENVMT 35).

Removing a Tree

Normally, we’re all about planting trees here at Poppy Corners. In the last 20 years, we’ve planted nearly 30 of them on this 7,000 sq ft property, most of them smaller in stature (and pruned to keep them that way). But there were three large trees here when we moved in: A valley oak, a catalpa, and a southern magnolia. I’ve written extensively about the oak (here, and here, and here, among others); we absolutely love it and so does all the wildlife that feed and shelter in its canopy. The catalpa is also lovely, providing bees with a feast when it blooms in late May, and arching gracefully with enormous heart-shaped leaves and foot-long seed pods.

But the magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora)? Seriously mixed feelings.

First, the good. In general, magnolias can be beautiful trees. They have an attractive white bark, and large leathery leaves that are dark green on top and rust-colored on the bottom. The huge white flowers sit like lily pads on top of the dark leaves, making a lovely contrast. The seed pods are interesting, with bright red ‘beads’ set into a corn-shaped husk.

Specifically, our tree is certainly beautiful most of the year (it always looks a little peaked after blooming, but only for about a month or so). Its sturdy branches held a swing when the kids were little and the tree saw a lot of action, as it was also very climbable, limbs conveniently and regularly spaced. It provides good shade and is a good shield from western sun on hot summer afternoons. Its roots are polite, only marginally displacing the sidewalk.

And, it’s old. Historical, even. We are not sure, but since there are many of these trees in the neighborhood, we think they were planted when the houses were built in 1949.

These good things, though, pale next to the long list of not-so-good things about this tree. It’s weak-limbed, and branches fall down in both wind and heavy rain, often taking out cable lines running to our home from the street. No birds ever nested in its branches, and no bees ever foraged for nectar or pollen in its blooms. I never saw anything eat its seeds. Its shade is deep and dark, rather than dappled. It blocks the sun from our solar panels.

It’s also native to the Southeastern United States, and prefers high humidity in summer. Since it doesn’t get that here in arid California, it sucks up a tremendous amount of water from the surrounding landscape. It’s just not climate-appropriate for this area.

And the leaves. Did I mention the leaves? Huge, tough, and leathery, the leaves never break down. And the tree, being evergreen, sheds them all year. There is a constant carpet of them on all the other plants in our landscape. They are buried in them. Once a month we need to hand-pick the leaves off other plants, and rake out the drifted dunes of them under, in, around, and on top of everything within 30 feet of it. The leaves don’t compost (at least not for years), so they have to go in the green bin. To my mind that means it’s wasted material. I can give some of them to the chickens but even their sharp claws and beaks are no match for the un-tearable fabric of these leaves.

Meanwhile, our remaining vegetable-growing area was receiving less and less sun. Especially afternoon sun, which is crucial for the ripening of summer crops like tomatoes and peppers. Our perennial herbs were also suffering, as was one of our main flower beds.

In short, the magnolia doesn’t improve things. It doesn’t provide what we want it to provide, while providing too much of things that are not useful. It’s a water hog. And ‘beauty’ is only one consideration in this garden, and it’s not the most important one.

So, every five years or so, on his annual visit to check out our trees, I’d get a quote from my guy to remove it. And every time, I just couldn’t pull the trigger. Who cuts down a mature tree in this CO2 crisis we’re living in? Who takes away shade when shade is desperately needed in cities?

Apparently we do.

Now, I had all sorts of feelings about this. Some were practical: Everything I had planted underneath this tree was intended for ‘dry shade.’ With the tree gone, would I be needing to re-plant this entire area? How much time would that require, and how much money would it cost? Would our bedroom (which was shaded by the tree) get super-hot in summer? Would we feel the lack of privacy its large leathery leaves had afforded us?

And then other feelings were purely emotional. Before he left for work, Tom put his hand on the bark and thanked it; before the tree guys came, I went out and put my arms around it and cried.

But then the guys arrived and for the next hour I was positively riveted by their expertise and care. Cranes! Ropes! Huge branches going into huge chippers! I mean, I get the trees pruned every year or so, I’m no stranger to a good chipper, but watching enormous pieces of trunk go into that thing was mesmerizing!

I asked the guys to cut me some rounds from the trunk, so I could put them throughout the garden and we’d have part of the tree still with us. They graciously agreed.

The stump grinder got wheeled in; and then it was done.

No more tree.

I was glad I had called the solar-panel cleaners, because it was now painfully obvious that our panels were desperately in need of some care. We wondered what would happen when 1) they got more solar energy because the tree was gone and 2) they got more solar energy because they were cleaned. Let me tell you, our data showed a swift uptake in energy collection.

And now it’s just all about watching the light. How does it move, where does it move, how does the increased amount affect the garden and all my established plants? What needs to be transplanted elsewhere? What could be added? How does the removal affect the house and the temperature within it? What should replace the magnolia, if indeed we decide to replace it?

All of this will become clear over time, and we do intend to take a good amount of time before deciding. But it’s weird to have that hole in the landscape, when it has been here the whole time we have lived here. Removing a tree is not an easy thing.

Nothing Gold Can Stay*

*Thank you to Robert Frost for this line of poetry!

The rain has finally begun. Rain, or the lack of it, marks the seasons for us in California. When the rains arrive, we know that the ‘long dark’ (as Tom likes to call it) is upon us; winter is nearly here. It transforms our dry landscapes into something green and lush, and all the native California plants wake up and start to perform.

But before that happens, the hills still retain the gold of summer, and that color is reflected in the garden. I look around, and suddenly everything is yellow.

The Chinese pistache trees are dropping gold all over the ground.

The gold of the spice bush picks up the gold in the neighbor’s tulip poplar.

A white-crowned sparrow with a beautifully yellow beak complements the yellow in the elderberry leaves.

The nectarines are reflecting the gold fronds of the asparagus behind them.

The Japanese maples are starting to show their signature flaming colors, which mirror the Asian pear, just starting to turn at the edges.

A yellow-rumped warbler shows off its coloring, and is framed by the neighbor’s changing crepe myrtle tree beyond the fence.

The raspberry’s yellowing leaves mirror those of the just-beginning-to-turn Western redbud behind it and the liquidambar tree up the street.

And coming full circle, the mock orange tree’s yellowish-green fruits are highlighted with the Chinese pistache behind.

We even see yellow in abundance while out hiking. The lovely golden grasses of California are set off by a perfect blue sky and a paraglider with a yellow sail floating down from the top of Mount Diablo.

Nature’s colors are lovely, no matter the season, but I’m especially enjoying the warm golds of autumn.

A golden sunset

Rats like Brassicas

This photograph is from the end of September, the day that my Edible Landscaping class took all these seedlings, both in the greenhouse and on shelves and tables outside, and planted them out in our garden. (Did I tell you about the new greenhouse at school? It’s excellent.) There are always so many seedlings that there are extras for the students to take home and plant in their own gardens, and then for a few weeks there are a few stray seedlings in the greenhouse just waiting for a taker - maybe someone from another class, or the garden club. But finally, when I’m sure the ones left are definitely up for grabs, I bring them home. It always yields an interesting assortment of things, some I would have definitely planted on my own (broccoli, cauliflower, turnip) and some I probably wouldn’t have (mustard greens, always there are a ton of mustard greens… not my favorite, but good in small doses, and also for the chickens). I reserved my two 4x4 beds for this purpose, and planted them out the third week of October.

And then, suddenly, they started disappearing. Just the leaves - and not the mustard leaves, no, just the brassica leaves. Very weird. I thought, well, the snails are back (we had one very light rain), or maybe it’s birds. I went to a local nursery and bought a bunch of cabbage seedlings, four different kinds. Tom and I like a leafy salad that also has some crunchy things in it, and cabbage fits the bill. I planted them out and then spread netting over the beds, figuring job done.

But every morning, I’d go out and one or two would be eaten. Pretty soon, not much was left, and I was frustrated. It’s getting towards the time, here in Nor Cal, that the nights are getting very chilly and even though the soil is still warm and the days are sunny and in the 60s, the plants aren’t going to do much growing, or even get their roots firmly established by the time true winter sets in. So I asked Tom to place the wildlife camera IN the bed, at soil level, to see what was eating the greens.

I guess I didn’t know that rats would eat my garden. Or maybe was just naive, or maybe just hopeful. I’ve certainly never had this issue before. I mean, tomatoes, sure. But never the greens. The rats usually stick to the birdseed that has fallen from the feeder, or the scattered chicken food, or the odds and ends in the compost bin.

Anyway, I knew that it was time to change tactics. I planted two kinds of onion in this particular bed instead (“Candy,” and “Cabernet”) and netted it more tightly with the sides clamped down. Rats, of course, can tunnel under beds, just like voles (one of our tough customers at school), but hopefully the combination of alliums and netting will do the trick. Just in case they don’t, Tom has set traps all over the place by the bed in question. Hopefully, we’ll have lots of dead rats in the coming days.

Reminder - the rats we have in our neck of the woods are either roof rats, or Norway rats, both of which are non-native and invasive, and taking a few out of commission won’t even put a dent in the population. Normally I do not encourage killing any kind of wildlife, but this is one species it’s ok to target. However, I would never use poison on rats, because that would then kill their predators (opossums, owls, hawks), and that would upset the balance of the ecosystem. The traps we set are snap traps and kill the rats as quickly and humanely as possible.

Perhaps this is a good time to review Integrated Pest Management (IPM) best practices. I use the definition set by University of California Agricultural and Natural Resources: “IPM is an ecosystem-based strategy that focuses on long-term prevention of pests or their damage through a combination of techniques such as biological control, habitat manipulation, modification of cultural practices, and use of resistant varieties.”

credit: UCANR

Note that chemical control is the absolute last resort, and even then it’s done very carefully and mindfully.

So - we’ll see what happens with these two 4x4 beds where the rats have been feasting. I’m hoping my cultural, physical and mechanical controls (plus any biological control that would like to visit my garden - I’m talking to you, barn owl!) will help keep my crops safe, so we have a winter of good eating.

Pacific Chorus Frogs

A couple of nights ago, I was out watering the garden at dusk. It’s been quite hot here, and I’m finding that I need to water all my containers twice a day when it’s this warm. So there I was, making the rounds, when a little dark shadow popped up behind the seasoning celery/lobelia pot. At first I thought it was another black widow - the light was nearly gone and it was hard to see. I went inside to get my phone so I could take a look. Not a spider - a Pacific Chorus Frog!

Well, I was simply delighted, having never seen a frog in our garden before. We do not have a pond, only a water feature (a bubbling fountain with a large reserve of water underneath it). We do not have any excessively wet places, that I know of. We have found newts in the fountain area, and also under things like rain barrels, but that’s been infrequent. I don’t think of my garden as a good habitat for things that like cool wet places. So this was totally unexpected!

Pacific Chorus Frogs (also known as Pacific Tree Frogs) are found up and down the west coast, from British Columbia to Baja California, as far east as Montana; and from sea level to 10,000 feet, in anything from desert to redwood forests!

In this geographic range, there are two things that distinguish these frogs from other species: The presence of toe pads, and a dark stripe that extends from the nostril, through the eye, and past the ear. No other frogs found within the geographic range of the Pacific Chorus Frog have both of these characteristics. They are quite small, between 1-2 inches, though the females are larger than the males. Females have a smooth white throat while males have a wrinkly dark throat.

It’s hard to tell from my pictures, but I think this one is female. I’ve never heard any of the breeding calls this close to my house, and it’s also not breeding season, which is usually in spring through early summer. We do hear the males down near our creek, about 100 yards away from our house, at that time. They make quite a racket, but it’s a welcome racket!

Here’s the thing that’s really twisting my noodle: How did this frog end up in our garden? A neighbor a few doors down has a pond, but it seems like a long journey for such a little guy. Our water fountain’s water reserve is under 1/4” hardware mesh, so as far as we know, inaccessible. I suppose it’s possible that there’s a hole or something. I don’t know, it’s just a mystery! But I’m thrilled. This means our ecosystem here is healthy - it’s a good place to catch a meal. Lately I’ve been feeling very bummed out about the garden, because I have such little time to spend in it, but having a bit of a mess seems to be a good thing for biodiversity, which is cheering.

Reference: Michael F. Benard, Natural History of the Pacific Chorus Frog, Pseudocris regilla