The Orchard Project, Part Two

Step Two can be summed up in one word: Digging.

In order to add new fence posts, we have to dig holes at least two feet deep. Posts come in 8-foot lengths; we need 6 feet of height to our fence in order to deter the chickens from hopping over, so we’ll put two feet in the ground, which will give us the required fence height. Digging holes two feet deep is no joke with our heavy, 100% clay soil.

Side note: Did I ever tell you about the time I did a soil texture test for our property? It’s a simple procedure, and if you’re interested, Clemson has a great tutorial. The goal is to get a rough idea of the percentage of sand, silt, and clay in your soil, by separating out the particles. My sample never separated out. It remained a thick, oily, dark sludge. 100% clay, baby.

Anyway. Digging the post holes takes many tools, lots of time, and mental fortitude. I tend to dig until my hands are about to fall off of my wrists, and then I go do something else for a while. Tom and I have been taking turns and we are making progress, though it’s slow going.

The second kind of digging is not strictly necessary, and in fact I would normally not do it at all. I think you know that I support no-till practices; I don’t normally dig at all in my garden unless I need to plant something or harvest something. I believe that letting the soil maintain itself is the best way to encourage lots of biological diversity, and I would never willingly disturb it.

HOWEVER. These raised beds have been in place for almost ten years, and all my crops have been failing in them lately. I felt it was time for a deeper look. So I took my trusty garden fork and dug them over. And what I found, completely infiltrating every bed, was this:

Roots. Thick roots, thin roots, single long roots going from bed to bed, clumps of short roots, every size and shape of root you can imagine. Basically these beds are acting as a beautiful source of nutrients and water for a nearby tree. Which tree, I’m not sure. It could be the pine in my header picture (Pinus thunbergii, or Japanese Black Pine), which is just on the other side of our fence in our neighbor’s yard. I don’t think that tree gets any supplemental water, and so it would make sense for it to come into our yard seeking some. But the tree doesn’t look as good as it should with getting plenty of water. So it could be our valley oak (Quercus lobata), which was planted by a squirrel twenty years ago and is now a thriving, enormous, and healthy tree that we have to have pruned every other year. However, that tree IS getting regular water, as I have a lot of perennials planted underneath it. So who knows? Both types of trees grow deep tap roots for their water supply, so this shallow, vast root system is a bit of a mystery.

What I AM sure of is that this issue has definitely contributed to the crop failure that I’ve had in these beds the last three years. The soil seems dry, even with daily water; seeds have trouble germinating; and the plants that do manage to make it here are stunted and do not produce. So not only is it getting hotter and drier on this side of the garden, the compost and water were going mainly towards supporting the established root system of an enormous tree. No wonder nothing grew!

This discovery only cements my choice to change this area over to perennial fruit and nut trees. They will have a large enough root system that they can compete with the big trees, and in fact might work well in symbiosis with the big trees as part of a network.

Speaking of networks, while digging over the beds, I found a ton of mycelium and fungal hyphae; this is good news and makes me very happy. I was sorry to disturb it, but it’ll grow again. I also found lots of fat, happy worms, which means the soil biology here is healthy.

Step three will be building the actual new fence. More soon!

The Orchard Project, Part One

This is a picture of our North Garden in summertime. We call it that because it’s on the north side of our property (go figure). This is where the chicken coop resides, and many of our fruit trees are here, too, and the asparagus bed in a shady corner.

Even though it’s on the north side of the house, this is the hottest part of our property in the summertime. We reserve it for tomatoes and peppers, and that worked fine for years. However, the last few years we had to cover this whole area with shade cloth because the plants were getting TOO much direct sun and literally burning up. The shade cloth didn’t seem to help much, and neither did more water. After three summers of failed crops, I got very frustrated. I started to feel like a big change was needed.

Back in September, at the same time we were experiencing temperatures of 115 degrees, I had one of my fall classes over to visit. It was humbling, because there was a lot of plant failure that week, and it was embarrassing to have fellow gardeners over to see the fallout. But I also figured, well, this is how we learn things. It’s important to see failure as well as success, and since I too will never stop learning and growing as a gardener, it was a good exercise for all of us and fostered some good discussion.

I was honest with my students. I told them that the North Garden had once been the jewel in our garden crown, but that it had been a disappointment three summers running. I told them that, with climate change, if I kept doing what I’d always done, I’d keep having failures, and that seemed futile. I shared an idea with them and asked them, as part of their homework, to give me feedback: Did they think it was a good idea, and if so, how would they implement it? And if not, what would they do instead?

My idea was this: To stop growing annual crops on this side of the garden, take out the raised beds, and plant an orchard instead. This would stack several functions:

1) It would still provide food for the family, to eat fresh and to preserve. One thing we’ve discovered is that when the kids are away at college, we really don’t need as much produce as we used to. We need things that freeze, can, and dehydrate well, for use in the off-season. Plus, Tom and I have been eating fruit as our dessert every night, so it would be good to have more of that available.

2) The garden on this hot sunny side would be fully perennial rather than annual, and after they are established, perennial plants need less water. Less water is good now and will be even better in the future.

3) The shade provided by the trees would help the chickens out. They also get very overheated in the summer, and tend to shelter under the quince and fig trees at the back of the run. If we gave them more shade, that would be good. More shade would also be good for the property at large, providing a more comfortable place for the humans to hang out, as well as wildlife. The soil biology would also enjoy a forest canopy and root system.

4) Reconfiguring the North Garden would allow us to build a better run for the chickens, more stable and more attractive, as well as better-proportioned for the humans trying to move around in it. The compost pile resides in the chicken run, and the way it is configured now, it is impossible to get a wheelbarrow in there. I’ve also torn many items of clothing on the makeshift fence we put up. It’s time to make a better enclosure.

My students were enthusiastic about the idea and had lots of ideas for which trees to plant. In October, I pre-ordered my trees from Peaceful Valley Organic Farm Supply. After a good deal of research, I decided to buy one each of All-in-One almond, French-improved prune, Burgundy plum, Jiro Fuyu persimmon, Comice pear, Bosc pear, Arctic Glo white nectarine, Freckle Face nectarine, Montmorency cherry, and Cox Orange Pippin apple. They will arrive in early February, except for the almond which has already arrived.

Tom and I have some time off now that our respective semesters are over, so in the next two weeks we will completely redo the North Garden. This is how it looked Monday morning.

You can see the cover crop I planted after the tomatoes failed, and then the smaller beds held basil and squash, which I tried this year instead of the usual peppers in this spot. Indeed, the peppers did better in the South Garden so that was good. However, the squash and basil didn’t do so well, confirming our feelings that this area is just too darn hot for annuals.

Monday, Tom removed the raised beds. Tuesday, he dug out the irrigation hoses so we’d know where they are. Today, I moved the compost pile from one section of the chicken run to another. The chickens loved that, and immediately started hunting in the area where the pile USED to be. They found all kinds of worms and roly-polies!

Tomorrow, I’m hoping to start work on the fence. Even though my semester has ended, I still have a lot of work to do at the school garden, so I’m trying to divide my time between the two places. But the fence is a crucial next step, as we can’t plan the spots for the new trees until it’s is built. Tom is drawing a plan, and we will be digging deep holes and mixing a bit of cement and putting in posts. After that, we’ll attach the wire fencing and move the gate to a better place. The chickens will have a bit more room, and we’ll be able to maneuver around in there better.

Part Two to come soon!

A New Way to Ripen Late-Season Tomatoes

You will not be surprised to hear that I learn as much from my students as they do from me.

Two weeks ago, my Edible Landscaping class had to take out all the summer crops from the veg beds at school, and plant up our fall and winter crops. The tomato plants were still pumping out fruit, despite their blighted leaves, and so a conversation ensued about what to do with them. I mentioned my old trick of picking them green, putting them under a tea towel, and letting them ripen. Several students talked about good recipes for green tomatoes. Then, another student mentioned that she always cuts the vine at the base, then hangs the tomato plants (vine and all) upside down outside, and the tomatoes ripen beautifully.

The class went for that idea, and when I suggested that they be hung indoors, I was promptly overruled. The vines got hung up on the fence that surrounds our garden.

At first, not much happened. The vines started to die and looked awful, while the green fruit just hung there. But as you can see, slowly, the tomatoes started to ripen. And then suddenly all at once, the rest of them changed color. And now we’ve got a bumper crop of tomatoes, that somehow the birds have ignored.

Today, for the first time this fall semester, there were finally enough greens to harvest for a salad. The students made a big bowlful of greens, radishes, borage, and yep - tomatoes - all dressed with a parsley vinaigrette. It felt good to see that process happening all over again; the garden providing a weekly lunch to my students this semester just as it did in spring semester.

So, a good idea. Cut the tomato plants at the base and hang them, vines and all, upside down in the garden to ripen. I’ll be doing that every year, from now on.

Tarantula Season

Look at this handsome fellow. About the size of my palm, I spotted him crossing the trail about two miles from my house, on the west side of the Diablo foothills. I was gobsmacked; I had never seen a tarantula in the wild before. Aphonopelma iodius are a fairly well-known entity around these parts - many people flock to Mount Diablo in the fall to see the annual tarantula ‘migration.’ This is a misnomer. The spiders do not migrate; the males leave their burrows in order to find a mate. Tom and I (and the kids, and my parents) have been on several tarantula ‘hikes’ which are held every year on the east side of the mountain. We’d seen burrows, we’d seen webs, but never an actual spider.

And then, today - Tom and I saw two (!) on another trail on the west side of the mountain, this time in a canyon before we started heading up a steep section. These two were also males (naturally, because it’s only the males that travel to find mates), but they were younger and smaller than the one I saw a week ago. Tom was just as giddy as I had been when I saw the first one. We really didn’t know that we’d be able to see them in broad daylight, on well-traveled trails.

This annual ‘migration’ used to happen later in October, coinciding nicely with Halloween and giving everyone some seriously spooky vibes. But due to climate change, it’s now happening earlier and earlier each fall, and in fact, now in late summer. I don’t know if our recent heat wave had anything to do with our seeing them so frequently (acting as some sort of trigger, maybe?), or if this is a typical occurrence on these particular trails, and we just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

I wrote my final college paper on our local tarantula population. It was a study design; my imagined study would make a definitive count of the number of female spiders in one particular section of the park. I thought you might be interested to read it, or at least the first third of it, which explains more about the biology and behavior of Aphonopelma iodius, and the conclusion, which discusses the phenomena of earlier mating seasons.

Heat Dome

You know, it’s already been a hot summer here in the Bay Area.

Actually, it’s been a hot summer all over the world, with new records being set all the time. The NOAA’s July report was, frankly, depressing.

And here we are again, on Labor Day weekend, about to experience another heat dome - and this one will create hotter temperatures than we’ve seen in a long time. What’s really bad about this particular event is the length of time it will be present (over a week in some places), and the fact that it won’t cool off overnight.

Southern California has already been baking for days; the Central Valley has been terrible; and it’s only going to get worse for all of us. Usually, the Bay Area tends to experience more moderate temperatures, since we are situated near the lovely cooling effects of the Pacific Ocean. That won’t be true this weekend or next week, unfortunately. And where we live in Walnut Creek, about 20 miles east of San Francisco, it’s generally hotter anyway (the fog rarely reaches us). It’s looks like we’re in for it.

The thing that makes this kind of heat bearable for humans is that it is extremely dry. Don’t get me wrong - we still have to be careful, especially if we’re outdoors (people die all the time hiking in hot California weather, thinking it’s not that bad). But heat plus humidity? That’s when things get really dangerous. Wet-bulb temperatures are deadly for humans. So in many ways, we are very lucky.

But the bad thing about the dryness is that our vegetation is at record low levels of moisture. That means fire. Many new fires have already started, unfortunately.

Most likely there will be more before this heat dome moves off the West Coast.

Due to the heightened risk of fire, most of our regional and local parks have been closed through Labor Day.

This means that everyone is out walking in the neighborhood, on the sidewalks, and on the streets, and most of us are doing it very early. Tom and I certainly got started early, and it wasn’t long before a fire truck passed us, siren blaring. We looked up, all around, at the open space hills that surround our neighborhood. No smoke, thankfully. We noticed that an older couple walking near us did the exact same thing. It wasn’t long before we heard more sirens, and a family with kids who was near us at the time also did the neck-crane. I realized that this has become normal, when you live in the West. It’s hot? Dry? Windy? You hear sirens? The head starts to move, warily eying the sky. It’s a chronic stressor, in late summer and early autumn.

Our family is lucky. We have air conditioning, and as long as the power stays on (another stressor), we’ll be ok. These sorts of times make me think a lot about the folks that aren’t so lucky. And about the folks who are being told to evacuate their homes, due to approaching fire. All we can do is hope that will never happen to us.