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I bought this new nifty microphone to attach to my iPhone, and - well, it worked about half the time. And I'd say that was 100% user error. There's a little voiceover on this episode, but we promise to fix that audio issue next week!
Join us as we get the mushroom spawn plugged into the logs, do a November check on the beehive, and various other projects. It's a beautiful weekend!
Here's the video:
It was 44 this morning, brr! Might be time to get the PVC hoops and Agribon fabric out, and build the low tunnels over the raised beds.
How was your Halloween? We had the usual horde. I buy between 400-500 pieces of candy, and when it's gone, the lights go out. This year we were dark by 7:45, a new record.
We decided to drill our pumpkins this year, mostly for time management's sake, and I was really pleased at the result. Above is a small selection of the pumpkins we drilled. You can change the bits to make different sized holes. Next year I'd like to try larger pumpkins and more elaborate patterns.
Adam, being nearly 15, decided not to dress up this year, but rather help a friend with a haunted house; and this was probably Kate's last year for dressing up. Halfway through the night, Tom and I looked out at the parents walking around with their kids, and realized we had crossed another age line. Somehow we've morphed from a couple with young kids into the next stage of life. Certainly there's a lot of good in that, but it does make one pause and experience a nostalgic pang. In that vein, I offer a retrospective, starting many moons ago.
Engineer (possibly saying 'choo choo') and Monarch Butterfly
Construction Worker and generic butterfly
Yee haw
Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs) and shiny generic butterfly (sensing a theme?)
Adam Savage (Mythbusters) and Snow Queen
Spy and Friar
Mars Rover, and...
Ginny Weasley
Combat Robot, and...
Starfire (Teen Titans Go!)
Secret Service Agent, and...
Generic witch
Woodworker
Chef
And this year, a pierced and tattooed Punk, wearing Doc Martens I would have killed for in the 90's. She looks a little too happy, even though I encouraged her to reflect on her angst and ennui.
Thanks for that personal indulgence. Now, to bring this gardening blog back to its ecological purpose, I have two recommendations for you. The first is a documentary called "Before the Flood," airing on the National Geographic channel. If you don't get that channel, you can watch the movie here. It's really wonderful, though of course not everything can be discussed in a scant hour and a half. For another view of the climate change debate, I recommend a book called "Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman" by Miriam Horn. These are stories of regular folks, doing what they can to mitigate the problem.
Today I seeded some spinach in the carrot bed, sauteed some tomatoes for lunch, and sliced just-picked green peppers for the freezer, after spending a little time with the Diablo Woodworkers. This great group of volunteers are helping an elementary school near here to build planter boxes as part of the school's 'Maker' curriculum. The kids were excited to build the boxes, and excited to plant peas, beets, and fava beans later on this week. Great to see the next generation 'making' and growing food!
I feel like I need to mix things up a little. I've been blogging for a while, and though I adore writing, I know it's an archaic form of social communication. I want to keep things fresh. In that vein I've decided to do a video series called "Weekly Walkthrough" - where I'll just walk through the garden with a video camera and record what's happening. Some weeks a lot might change, some weeks nothing might change. I might focus on a particular bird or lizard; I might do a planting tutorial. Mostly, though, we'll just walk through the garden together.
In my own searches through YouTube, I've found very little with regards to my USDA zone, which is 9b. There is a prominent Southern CA gardener, but nothing in my area. So it seems to me there is a niche to be filled.
Here's the caveat: I've never done this before. Just like with this blog, it'll take me a while to find my voice. Not to mention how to actually, like, film, or how to edit. I've already got pages of notes after this first video reminding me what NOT to do next time (#1 on the list: no fast movements; the goal is not to make your audience vomit). So hang in there, I'll get better with practice. (Honestly, I think that's my motto.)
This first video is more of an introduction to the garden. I forgot to show you tons of things, like all the fruit trees, or the blackberry vines, or the little free library. There'll be time for that. Anyway, enough excuses - here's the Walkthrough for October 29, 2016.
This week has been strange and exciting. On Monday morning I had one plan for my future, but by Tuesday afternoon I had a completely different plan. It's been a whirlwind of discussion, research, prayer, and anxiety - but ultimately, the next two years are going to be simply great for me, and I'm thrilled beyond reason.
Let me back up a bit. As you know, I've been looking for work. After spending five years as a para-educator with special needs children, I was feeling a desperate need to do something else. Part of this is age (I'm 48), part of this is that my children are growing up (Kate is 13, Adam is 15 in November), part of this is my relatively newfound joy/passion in homesteading and practicing sustainable, regenerative farming and gardening in our yard (I've always gardened, but have only gotten serious about it in the last four years), and part of it is looking towards the future and what will be possible and attainable as Tom and I move inexorably toward our retirement years (still a long way off, but now's the time to figure all that out).
Looking for a new job, in a new field, hasn't been going so well. I'm running up against the limitations of my own education and the fact that I never, despite seven-ish years in four different colleges, got a degree. Part of it is that, on paper, my experience with gardening looks pretty unimpressive. If you spent an afternoon with me in my garden, or any garden for that matter, you'd see that I have quite a bit of hands-on knowledge. I study a lot on my own. I like to learn new things. But convincing a possible employer that I can do a job I've never done before? It hasn't been easy.
So this past Monday I succumbed to a feeling of helplessness and interviewed with a school district near here, for a position as a para in one of their special needs classrooms. The pay was quite good, far more than I've been making; the position was totally within my wheelhouse, and was with children that were on the moderate side of the spectrum, so while not easy, would have felt easier than what I have been doing the last couple of years. The district is well-run, organized, and full of professionals from whom I could have learned a lot. I got the job, dependent on the usual fingerprinting protocols, TB tests, background checks, etc. I resigned myself to taking it. I even said to a friend, 'Maybe this is all I can do. Maybe this is what I'm supposed to be doing.'
So Tuesday morning I was setting up all my appointments for those things, working towards starting this job November 7. Right in the middle of scheduling fingerprinting, the phone rings. It's Kathy Kramer, the founder of the Bringing Back the Natives tour. I had sent her my resume weeks ago, on the off chance she was interested in hiring an assistant. She's not, but we ended up talking for almost an hour. I won't bore you with the details, but she totally got me thinking about the future of gardening right here, in the Bay Area, with our limited resources. Together we brainstormed what the needs of homeowners would be, the things they would be asking for, the services they would need performed. Then she gave me several recommendations for getting to the place where I would be able to advise homeowners on exactly these requests and services. It was an incredible conversation that allowed me to dream. And more than that, she had suggestions of concrete pathways to actually obtain that dream.
I had a serious talk with Tom that night. Here's some truth: He's the best partner I could ever wish for. Because he went there with me, he was on board with the dream. He didn't immediately say "but we need the money you bring in." He didn't say, "but you don't have the best track record with school." He didn't say, "I'm so jealous that you get to do something you are really passionate about, while I slog to work, in rush hour commutes for three hours every day, in a career that fulfills me but doesn't exactly ring my bell, having to be the sole wage-earner of the family and all the stress that goes with that." He could have. He'd have every right to. Instead he said, "Go for it."
So here's the upshot: I am now enrolled in Merritt College's Landscape Horticulture Department. Merritt is one of the excellent junior colleges that are a mainstay of the California education system. Their hort dep't is amazing, with certification available in Basic Landscape Horticulture, Landscape Design and Construction, Landscape and Parks Maintenance, Nursery Management, and Permaculture Design. This is a vocational program that will give me the knowledge I need to help advise folks on the gardens of the future. I will begin my studies in January.
Today I got to visit the department and tour the grounds. The department assistant, Meril Bull, spent a good deal of time with me and talked me through my plan for the next few semesters. What a blessing, because it's been a long time since I've done the college thing. The grounds are amazing, with three greenhouses, a raised bed area for edibles, a section for natives, and a huge area on a hill for a permaculture food forest. They also have several structures in the garden, such as an outdoor kitchen. There's large areas just for soil mixing and compost, as well as labs and classrooms. The whole area just felt like home to me, like a place I would be happy to hang out for the next two years. Here are some photographs.
What more can I say? I'm just happy down to my bones. I can't think of anything better than taking some time to really study this stuff. To LEARN things - that's like my favorite thing to do. Gosh I'm so lucky.
Here's how you know a place, and the people in it, are great - they give you food. On my way out I was told to take a bunch of collards, which were displayed as a bountiful bouquet in a seating area. So not only did I figure out my schedule for the next few months and get to know the department - I also got lunch.
It's been an eventful few days here at Poppy Corners, as I'm able to harvest tomatoes and peppers every few days. The tomatoes go on the piano (why the piano? I'm not really sure, except it's out of the way and any flat surface in this house gets used somehow) to ripen, the sweet peppers get roasted and put in the freezer, and I've been drying the hot peppers. My experiment in drying outside worked, until the weather changed and the sun got lower in the sky. So now I put them on a baking rack/cookie sheet and in a 175 degree oven, and check frequently. When they have zero moisture left, they can be stored. Some of them take half a day, some two days.
The green ones aren't so pretty dried, but the red ones go translucent and look beautiful. Those long ones are Maule's Red Hot, the short green ones are Jalepeno, and the round ones are Calabrese. Once dry, they go in a mason jar to add to my stockpile of dried herbs, to which I'm regularly adding.
I've also been doing my fair share of digging, as I had a wheelbarrow full of native plants to get in the ground before the next rain, and about 50 native bulbs.
I planted Cream Cups, Blue Witch, Silk Tassel, Virgin's Bower (a native clematis), Soaproot, Dutchman's Pipevine, Monardella, and Checkerbloom. All of these went into the Woodland Garden, except the Silk Tassel, which I planted in the part of the asparagus bed that died. Most of these plants will get zero irrigation after the winter rains. The native bulbs won't either, they went in a dry spot in the Woodland Garden, and the daffodils and alliums went where they'll get some supplemental water.
I'm not a huge fan of bulbs, but daffodils are always so cheering, and I do love the native bulbs, with their creative names.
I've noticed large amounts of Gulf Fritillary butterflies in the garden. They seem to drink nectar from all the usual suspects, but they are especially curious about the Passion Vines (totally non-native) that I planted this past spring. They flit around them, lighting on the leaves and opening and closing their wings. I haven't seen any eggs yet, but I think they must be checking them out for this purpose.
They aren't easy to get a picture of, as they are so fast to fly!!!
Kale, Chard, Broccoli, Carrots, Radishes, Peas, and Cabbages are all coming up nicely. The garlic and onions have a great head start. I've left the tomatoes and peppers in and intend to keep them going until the first frost. The baking pumpkins are coming along and might be ready to use for Thanksgiving pie (I had to buy some for carving, drat).
What's happening in your garden?