Makin' Hay

Or more accurately, straw.

What’s the difference, you ask? Well, straw is usually the by-product of a grain crop. In my case, this was winter rye. You might recall that grain crops are grasses, and rye is indeed a grass. It grew tall all winter, and then began to go to seed to produce that grain that makes such delicious bread. I didn’t grow it for the grain, though. I grew it for its stalk. The ‘straw.’

Ok, so what’s hay? Hay is not a by-product, but a product in itself. Hay is often a mix of legumes and grasses, such as alfalfa and wheat, and is used as a dry feed for livestock. This is not to be confused with silage, which is green hay that is compacted into bales and put up ‘wet’ in order to ferment and increase the nutrition, and then is fed to livestock. Confusing?

Rye straw piled up under the apple tree, waiting to be used as mulch

Technically, what I did was grow hay - a green crop of rye and clover (grass and legume) - but I didn’t use it to feed livestock, and I didn’t use it for people food. As I’ve mentioned, I grew it only for the straw.

Why would I do such a thing? In a word: Biomass.

Grain crops - grasses - grow a ton of biomass, both above and below the soil. The above-ground part of the plant can grow many feet in a very short time. I actually reduced the size of my plants several times, to prevent them from setting seed. The first time I chopped them (reducing them by about two feet), they were already five feet tall. Then they grew that same amount back again and I chopped them again a second time. After that, they were slower to grow again, but still put on several inches before I chopped them down the final time. It’s just in their DNA to grow tall. This produces a huge amount of biomass above the ground, which can be used in several different ways.

But grasses also grow an enormous amount of biomass underground. They have vast and complicated root systems, which have evolved to anchor them, and that tall growth, in windy conditions. Think about where grain grows best - flat prairies in the middle of the country, where the soils were formed by ancient lakes, and are loose but nutritious, and there are no mountains around to block the wind. The grain (and other prairie plants) needed to evolve to have very strong roots to support their growth.

a famous illustration of prairie plant roots by Heidi Natura c.1995

What does this underground biomass do? It takes the sugars (made by the plant in the process of photosynthesis) and pumps them into the soil, attracting the trillions of microscopic creatures - bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes - to their roots, increasing the interactions between the plant and the life in the soil. This creates an ecosystem which is incredibly favorable to the plant, providing micro-manure for nutrient uptake, as well as allowing for shared resources between plants. When the above-ground biomass (that is, the actual plant) is removed, that whole underground ecosystem is just there waiting and ready for the next crop. The soil ecosystem has been vastly improved.

This is why cover crops are so valuable. They can provide food for us, food and habitat for insects, and biomass for use in the garden. That biomass is also of great use in the compost.

The compost pile in the chicken run, under the fig tree

As you can see, much of the material that I am not using as straw goes onto the pile in the chicken run. They like to eat the bits of things I throw there, such as the green leaves and stems of the clover, and they find all kinds of bugs to enjoy, too. After the chickens are done scratching around in it, it all rots down into a deeply nutritious soil that I add to my veg beds in the fall, thus completing the cycle.

This whole process is a fun one. A bit of work, yes - but any crop requires a bit of work in order to reap a lot of benefit. It’s taken me a week to remove the covers from the North Garden, separate out the straw, put the rest on the compost, and then plant summer crops. It’s good exercise, and it feels wonderful to bend and stretch and squat and sweat in the warm spring sun. Summer is on the way, and soon this space will be filled with good things to eat, like tomatoes and basil. And I can feel satisfied knowing that I’ve improved the conditions for those crops, and that I’ve made my own organic straw with which to mulch them.

Mayan Milpa Garden

There are many things that I love about teaching. One is that my students have terrific ideas and are enthusiastic about making them a reality, which lights a fire under me to try new things. Another is that I am on high alert for any program that will send us free stuff to use in the garden. I belong to many such organizations now, such as CalCAN, the California Agriculture and Climate Network, which provides helpful information and resources. Through them, I got a notice of a cover crop seed company (Green Cover Seeds) providing milpa seeds, for any organization that wanted to grow them, as long as some of the food it provided was given away to the community for free. We are already giving lots of greens to our school food bank, Merritt S.O.U.L. Food Pantry, so I knew that I could also contribute some of the produce from the milpa bed, in time. And, my students themselves eat what we grow, both taking extra home each day, and also they enjoy it at school (they make salads and smoothies every time we meet)!

Ok, so two things to share with you here: One, what the heck is a milpa garden? And two, what kind of bed did we build to house this garden?

A milpa garden is simply a bit like a three-sisters garden, based on indigenous knowledge of growing certain plants together. In the three-sisters case, it’s corn, beans, and squash. The corn grows tall, the beans twine up the stalks and also provide nitrogen to the soil, and the squash spreads out and covers the soil, preventing weeds and water loss. A milpa is a similar kind of idea. It’s also sometimes called a ‘chaos’ garden, because it’s lots of different seeds in one place. Above you can see how many different kinds of seeds were in this package! It’s fun to see which seeds are coming up and picture how the bed is going to look when it really gets going.

And speaking of the bed: My students wanted to build a hugelkulture bed, with logs and branches that we found on the property, as well as much of the contents of our compost pile. We dug a trench around the perimeter, then laid down cardboard to smother the weeds, then set the big logs in the trench, and lined the bottom with smaller logs and sticks. Then we carefully packed it with all the dry matter from our compost pile. Then we covered the whole thing with soil, watered it, and planted the seeds!

This is a birds-eye view (literally; my co-worker climbed a tree on the nearby hill to take this picture) of our garden space. You can’t see another space between the house and the barn on the left, which is where we have a bed of peas and a bed of potatoes, as well as an enormous pollinator garden. We got the seed for the pollinator garden from Pollinator Partnership, a local non-profit who I’ve been collaborating with for years. Below is a picture of some of the flowers coming up - native goldfields, tidy tips, and California bluebells! We are finally starting to see lots of bugs on the property. At the start, when this was just a weedy, abandoned place, we didn’t see any bugs at all.

It’s fun to try new things. One of my students was keen to build a keyhole bed, so we made a double keyhole using old slate that we found on the property (and took turns breaking up using a pick, the only tool we had that was somewhat appropriate), and planted our tomatoes in it. You can see that in the top photo up above the milpa bed.

It’s been tricky making a garden with very little money. Most of our budget has gone to buy soil, gloves and eye protection for the students, and seed. It’s very helpful to find these organizations who are willing to donate seed to a good cause. I’ve even had some friends give me seeds and starts and trellises (thanks B!) which has been terrific. Of course, it’s a good lesson to build an urban farm using only materials that are found on the property (we call this ‘scrappy farming’), so there’s definitely a silver lining to making do with less.

Bio Blitz

Yesterday, I participated in a Bio Blitz.

Have you ever done this? My first was years ago, with my insect class at Merritt, and we looked primarily for insects in a particular garden; I think my teacher hosted that one. The Bio Blitz I joined yesterday was through the Save Mount Diablo foundation, in tandem with the California Native Plant Society, and it was specific to a certain area within the Diablo Range. Two years ago, in August of 2020, a lightning strike started an enormous fire called the SCU complex. It burned through nearly 400,000 acres during the 44 days the fire was active, and spanned five counties.

This blitz was held to determine if certain species were recovering, as well as to discover evidence of new species appearing - those that only bloom after a fire. We were given a span of two weeks in which to hike in the affected area and record our observations. Since the area is not easy to get to, I decided to give myself one full morning to ramble about in a specific corner. I went to Round Valley Regional Preserve (on the East side of Mount Diablo; the mountain is at the far north end of the Diablo range), and hiked out into Round Valley itself between Morgan Territory and the Los Vaqueros Reservoir.

I walked about 8 miles through mostly Oak savannah and grassland plant communities; this area is ranched and highly grazed, which means that invasive, non-native plants are dominant. However, I did see some interesting things…

… like Digger bees building their nests. I found a sort of ‘seep’ - amazing in itself, as we’ve been in drought now for months - and this seep was within two embankments about 2-3 feet tall. I sat and watched dozens of these bees get water from the muddy seep, then go back to the embankment and wet it with the water they had collected, in a focused spot. Then they started to dig a tunnel into the softened dirt. There were holes all over the embankment and bees flying in and out. I just sat there and experienced it. The bees were busy and didn’t pay me the least mind.

I also saw…

… a lovely long Pacific gopher snake. These snakes can grow up to 7 feet long, although this one was closer to 4, and it was likely a male out looking for a mate. It was in a sort of shady spot and so it surprised me and I nearly stepped on it. Isn’t he a beauty?

Later, I allowed myself to sit for a while by a large patch of mustard (invasive and non-native, yes, but also a great source of nectar and pollen for insects) and saw all kinds of interesting creatures, but was particularly enamored with …

… this California Hairstreak butterfly. These creatures breed and lay eggs in trees, mating in the tops of them, and gluing clusters of eggs in the bark. They like species of oak and willow, both of which were near this patch of mustard which was near a dry creek bed. This whole area was filled with both blue oak (my favorite) and valley oak trees. I’ve since learned that the population of CA Central Valley hairstreaks is endangered, since the valley oaks themselves are endangered (loss of habitat due to continuing water issues and the constant expansion of farming). It made me happy that I had gotten to see one here, a little farther north.

Near the end of my ramble, I came upon a slope leading up to the higher peaks above the valley. These slopes were nearly devoid of vegetation, and quite rocky. I started turning over rocks to search for scorpions. I found dozens of Sawfinger scorpions; shy creatures who stay out of the sun during the day and hunt at night. These are quite small, not even the size of my thumb, and so skittish that it was hard to get pictures of anything but their tails. They reminded me of children who believe, during games of hide and seek, that if they can’t see you, you can’t see them. But the scorpions’ tails showed me where they were hiding.

A little later, I flipped over a log to search for beetles, and I found…

… this little Sawfinger scorpion, who gave me a great photo op before scurrying away.

I had a truly wonderful hike and a great time documenting everything I saw (by uploading it into iNaturalist). I realized that it isn’t often that I allow myself a good chunk of time just to experience nature. I mean, I hike and walk every day, often a similar distance, but I tend to do it at a much faster pace. I do stop and take occasional pictures (Tom would say it’s more than occasional!) but I’m also out to get it done, and done fast - a good workout with a good heart rate elevation in a short period of time, and then I’m able to get on to the next thing. It’s been a long while since I gave myself permission to saunter and stop and really look at things, or even truly wait for something interesting to happen. I was passed by the occasional trail runner and instantly felt a sense of guilt, or maybe more accurately shame, that I was being passed - I pride myself on walking so fast that no one can pass me unless they’re on a bike. But this time I realized how misplaced that feeling was. There’s absolutely zero shame in taking some time to simply ‘be’ in nature.

And this reminded me of my favorite Mary Oliver poem, which I’ve shared here before, but it bears reprinting because it is simply so great:

“Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”

— 'The Summer Day' by Mary Oliver

This last photo just doesn’t translate well - there’s no way it can replicate the sheer beauty of this spot upon which I happened near the end of my hike - consisting of a valley oak tree, the slope beneath it literally carpeted by hundreds of blooming Ithuriel’s Spear bulbs, each one a varied shade of blue or purple, singly majestic but even more breathtaking en masse. Beauty like this deserves our full attention. And so I stopped, once again, and just breathed it in.

That Time of Year

April is distracting, isn’t it? The house finches are plucking coconut coir from my hanging baskets to make their nests, the yellow-faced bumblebees are in the borage, and the clematis ‘Montana’ is a froth of pink. Nature is in the midst of transition.

And so is the garden! This is the time of year when the tomatoes and pepper seedlings have to be taken out of the ‘greenhouse’ every morning, and returned back every night. It’s still too chilly for them to be put into the raised beds, so they need to be babied a bit. Oh, it’s hard to wait.

But they’re still too little, and the soil too cold. However, other things can be planted! I’ve removed the lingering cauliflower, cabbage, chard, broccoli, and beets; in their places I’ve planted potatoes (Yukon Gold, Huckleberry Gold, and German Butterball), pole beans (Rattlesnake, my favorite) and the dry beans from Rancho Gordo. I’ll wait until May to plant cucumbers, basil, and winter squash.

We’re still eating peas, both shelling and snap, nearly every day, along with asparagus (six years after planting the most recent batch of crowns, and we’re finally getting all we can eat). Artichokes are coming on, and the herbs are going crazy - the oregano and marjoram and sorrel just overtaking their beds, and the chives and culinary sages blooming beautifully purple!

And the flowers… well, the flowers are abundant. Borage, and poppies, and phacelia, and heuchera, and columbine, and salvias, and echium…. the list goes on and on, and I haven’t even told you about the fruit trees and bushes yet. Summer is coming!

What’s happening in your garden?

Bean Buddies

Do you know about Rancho Gordo beans? I wrote about them years ago, but they exploded in popularity during the pandemic, and they now sell out regularly. You can get on the waiting list for their ‘bean club’ which guarantees you a monthly supply, but there are people on that list that have been waiting for years! They are that popular. They do have the most diverse variety of dried beans, all of which are grown by reputable farmers (some large, and some small, some in the Western US, and some in Mexico), and the supply is quite fresh, unlike grocery store beans, which may have been sitting on the shelf for years.

Imagine my delight when one of my students (thanks, C!) mentioned that Rancho Gordo was starting a Bean Buddies program, in which the company would supply a small amount of heirloom beans to try growing at home. I immediately signed up, both for my home farm and for Merritt’s farm (which is basically where I teach all my labs). I’ve just received four different kinds of beans to trial, and I couldn’t be more excited to get growing.

image credit: Rancho Gordo Beans (Good Mother Stallard)

Good Mother Stallard beans are well known to a lot of cooks. They are known for making the best pot liquor (broth, basically) and have excellent flavor.

But I don’t know anything about any of these other beans. Flor de Mayo beans are from Mexico, and are a bush variety. Apparently they are used frequently in Mexican dishes such as refried beans and soups. I can’t wait to trial them, as they have pink pods and pink beans!

Jacob’s Cattle Bean is another bush bean that is rarely grown in the United States. Slow Food USA says that it’s a speckled kidney bean, named for its resemblance to Hereford cattle. Apparently they get more flavorful, and smell even better, the longer they cook, and they hold up well under that long cooking time, which makes them ideal for soup.

image credit: Rancho Gordo Beans (Lila)

Lila Beans are another unusual bean, and according to Rancho Gordo, they come from the south side of the Popocatépetl Volcano. They are a pretty purple bean which pairs well with pork.

In my class, we are working our way through our last module of the semester, and it’s about partnerships and community building around agriculture and food. Naturally this leads to a discussion of food sovereignty, which has at the heart of its movement the idea that cultural, traditional foods, grown under the control of indigenous peoples, and consumed for the health of all peoples, makes eating these kinds of food a celebration of heritage and history. Beans, being a staple crop for so many indigenous people, and which are adaptable to a variety of climates and growing styles, are an easy and delicious way to find a way in to this wonderful and important tradition.