Frost!

Slept terrible with this flu and was up most the night.  Chui went crazy barking at 8:45 this morning because my buddy Chris was here to borrow the lawnmower.  I stepped outside to give him a hand and he tells me "Man, it was freezing last night!  Literally, there is ice on things"  "Shit!" I said as I realized my new little plants were just exposed to their first frost.  I naively thought that we wouldn't get a frost in Orange but we did.  I checked the garden and sure enough there was frost on several of the leaves, hopefully it's not enough to kill them.

I don't intend to set up hoop tunnels but I think I will spread a trash bag or two over my few plants Tonight just to play it safe.  More farming lessons learned...

Mystery bug identified as Boxelder

I have thousands if not hundreds of thousands of these small black beetles with red markings and red eyes all over my yard.  If you stop and look in one place for a few seconds you will see 10 or more crawling around.  I've never considered them a pest, they don't seem to chew on plants, in fact all they ever seem to do is mate constantly.

I finally did some searching Today and identified it as a Boxelder (boisea trivittatis).  Apparently they are not much cause for concern; they don't bite, they are pretty mellow (as you can see with the one crawling on my hand) and they don't harm any of the plants that I have.  So as far as I'm concerned they can keep cruising around and humping away in my yard - I don't mind them.

This site is a great source for boxelder bug information.

First batch of seeds ordered

I finally bit the bullet and made some decisions on what seeds to order.  I placed the order with Johnny's Selected Seeds and they've already shipped out.  In addition to the seeds I ordered a case of 90 "Dot Pots" to start my seeds in.  Dot Pots are natural pots made from wood fiber and other recycled organic material, you just place them right in the ground and the roots will grow through the pots into the soil; makes transplanting easy and reduced root and plant shock.

Here's what I ordered (items in green are organic seed):

• Arugula (OG)-Mini (Vegetables > Micro Mix)
• Red Ace (F1)-Packet
• Touchstone Gold (OG)-Packet (Vegetables > Beets > Golden Beets)
• Belstar (F1) (OG)-Packet (Vegetables > Broccoli > Hybrid)
• Tango (OG)-Mini (Vegetables > Celery & Celeriac > Celery)
• Claytonia-Mini (Vegetables > Greens > Specialty)
• Clodia-Mini (Vegetables > Chicory > Endive)
• Natacha-Mini (Vegetables > Chicory > Escarole)
• Bright Lights-Packet (Vegetables > Swiss Chard)
• Red Mustard-Mini (Vegetables > Micro Mix)
• Guardsman-Packet (Vegetables > Onions > Bunching/Scallions)
• Red Cardinal (F1)-Packet (Vegetables > Spinach > Smooth-Leaf)
• Tyee (F1) (OG)-Packet (Vegetables > Spinach > Savoyed-Leaf)
• New Girl (F1)-Mini (Vegetables > Tomatoes > Indeterminate)
• Brandywine (OG)-Mini (Vegetables > Tomatoes > Heirloom)
• Valencia (OG)-Mini (Vegetables > Tomatoes > Heirloom)
• Nepal (OG)-Mini (Vegetables > Tomatoes > Heirloom)
• Tatsoi-Mini (Vegetables > Quick Hoops™ crops > Leaf crops)
• Red Leaf Vegetable Amaranth-Mini (Vegetables > Greens > Specialty)

Most of these will be started indoors, working backwards from the last frost date in my area (February11th).  I may also build a cold frame or two outdoors to try my hand at that.  I still need to buy or make:

• Seed starting mix - Going to use this recipe
• Flats to place the pots on
• Clear lid for the flats
• (maybe) heating pad to increase soil temps to expedite germination
• Kelp based fertilizer
• Fish emulsion

Reduce grubs in compost

These can literally grow to 2.5" long

I've had problems with big (thumb size) white grubs in my compost ever since I started composting 6 years ago.  I usually pick them out and pitch them against the block wall where they explode into gooey guts on impact.  I find great satisfaction in this, I hate them and feel nothing but pleasure when they die; I'm convinced they develop into Japanese Beetles and then swarm around my yard eating the leaves of my many trees.  Although it is fun to use the wiffle ball bat to hit them as they fly around!

3 pieces of cardboard to keep the
grubs out of the compost

I've been working on preventative measures lately and one trick that is working well is to line the bottom of the pile with cardboard.  This prevents the grubs that are in the dirt (there are many) from digging up into the compost.  I know they are still getting in from the sides but there isn't much I can do about that without making substantial changes to my design.  I think the best approach will be keeping it HOT and flipping a lot, basically just cook the little suckers.

Slugs, DIE!

Sigh....
Slugs are devouring my young vegetables.  I've been observing the damage for a couple weeks now but for some inexplicable reason I have done nothing about it.  I thought about doing something, but I think about a lot of things so that doesn't really mean much.  One possible explanation is that due to my adoption of organic gardening methods I can't use the usual snail poison I have used in the past.  In fact yeah, that is the reason for my inaction.

The other night I did a little research on organic methods to kill slugs (and snails) and came across this great site. I had already used the copper tape method on the underside of my raised bed cap and it works PERFECT - never had a single slug in there that I know of. The copper option won't work on ground beds though so I used some of the other techniques mentioned.  The beer traps are my favorite of the suggestions because it's so simple and I always have stale beer I can use.  I also liked the ammonia idea that is further down in the comment section, but I need to read up if that is in any way considered an organic solution, I doubt it is.

I had been saving my Coffee Bean coffee cups for the trap containers and then I bought (cause I'm actually out of normal beer due to a cold) a twelver of "Natty Light" (uck!) to kill snails with; actually appropriate in some ways and should work as long as slugs don't have good taste.

I'll post some pictures of them installed once I get around to it, need to get over this cold first.

Additions to the raised bed

I've had great success with the spinach and red leaf lettuce in my raised bed so I figured I'd add some more plants to increase my harvest for salads.  I'm on a salad kick right now so the more spinach, chard, arugula and lettuce I have the better.  The soil in the raised bed is awesome, I wish my other ground beds were as healthy.  I turned in 4-5 bags of leaves and other green waste two years ago and it's made a substantial difference, the soil is crawling with worms, drains well and has this great loamy texture.

In the middle row I added 4 more spinach and two chards.  The two plants on the bottom right are cabbage.  On the ledge of the planter you can see the strawberry pot (with a lettuce on top as well) and the rosemary plant my friend Sarah gave me for Christmas.  In the far background is the huge pile of tree trimmings that I need to shred for compost.

Swamptown

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I LOVE rain.  Everything about it, the noise, the smell, the way it makes things look.  However since starting my farm I'm beginning to find the rain a pain in the ass; it keeps setting back my plans and creating more work for me.  We were blasted by a storm that ended up overflowing my rain gauge which has a capacity of 6".  Everything dried out fine except my compost which is soggy and basically went from a 150 degree hot pile to an anaerobic swamp pile of crud.

Call for Composting Materials

I need more composting materials so I can have 2-3 large active piles going at once.  I decided to write a letter and distribute to my neighbors asking them to donate materials.  A bit odd?  Yeah, so what's new?

Letter to neighbors
(click to see full size version)

Kitchen Junk

Too busy to write anything so here's a sample of kitchen stuff headed for the compost.

pears, carrot tops, paper towels, bread,
egg shells, tomatoes, Etc.

Thunderstorm

Had a great thunderstorm last night, ended up dumping about 1/2" rain.

Almost a record

...and that's where it peaked.

It's raining right now; probably my favorite sound in the whole world.

Carolina Cherry Plan

I've heard from a couple people that I should not expect an arborist to be able to tell me what's wrong with my tree,  That there can be so many different issues that they shouldn't be expected to correctly identify the problem.  They don't sound all that useful to me then.

In light of this realization I dug deeper in my research and have learned quite a bit more about Prunus Caroliniana; that many people hate it (scroll down for user submitted content), that there isn't a whole lot you can do about an advanced fungal or bacterial infection and that everything about the tree is toxic (i.e. if I get chickens and they eat the berries they will die).  Combine that with the fact they are severely chocking my garden of precious sunlight and I'm starting to wonder if I really want to save the little bastards.  See, I hate them too now!

But I do want to save them, if for no other reason than I can't stand to not solve a problem or abandon a challenge.  With that said, here is my plan:

• Check my inventory of fungicides and identify any appropriate treatments.  Solutions containing copper are apparently quite effective however high doses can be fatal to the tree and reduce soil health.
• Dig up some of the stumps of recently fallen soldiers to inspect the roots and rule-out various root rot problems
• Cut away a section of bark on a sick tree with excessive trunk gumming (sappy ooooozzzz....) to inspect the cambium for signs of necrosis.  This would indicate potential bacterial cankers (i.e. bacterial infection)
• Compare soil around healthy trees with infected trees - making sure to disinfect shovel and any other tools in between
• Remove dropped leaves from under all trees
• Cut back dead or diseased wood
• Uhm, that's it.  Anyone else have any ideas?

I also learned that I should disinfect my shears and other tools when pruning sick trees to avoid spreading the infection.  Makes sense, but what a PITA.

Just not enough sunlight

I was around the house most of the day working from my home office.  I wandered into the yard 7-8 times throughout the day just to take a break.  I realized just how little sunlight actually makes it into my growing area during winter.  Trimming my carolinianas will help, but it's really the neighbors 2nd story add-on that casts the largest shadow.

It's a bummer as I had hoped to get a fall/winter crop going but I'm not sure I will even be able to grab the 5-6 hours minimum needed.  Of course the obvious solution is to burn down my neighbor's add-on, I'll sleep on it.

Prunus Caroliniana - trunk oozing and leaf problems

Trunk sappy seepage, this is present on
all trees showing signs of the problem

When I bought my house I knew I was going to plant a perimeter of "Carolina Cherry" (prunus caroliniana) to create privacy and shade.  My parents had experience with the trees and they seemed perfect

I purchased 70 15 gal trees at a killer price and had them in the ground the first year.  Over the past 5 years I have lost 9-10 trees and I fear I'm going to lose even more.  The symptoms are a yellowing and red color blotching of the leaves and seepage on the lower 30% of the trunk.

I never water these trees because I've been told by so many people that they were getting TOO much water, so I just left them be and the rain seemed to be enough.  I should mention that the majority of my trees look great, dark green and reaching for the sky.

There is also some obvious insect damage but I think it's most from the Japanese beetles that I have flying around, I don't think it's related to the trunk and leave problem.

Once the problem enters the advanced stage the leaves will drop very rapidly, finally they will look wilted and droopy and that is usually when I cut the tree out.

I hired an arborist to come out 3 years ago and look at some problems and he was useless, all he said was "Well... it could be this and it might be that.  It's hard to say"

What the HELL am I paying you for??!!

At this point I'm ready to spend some money to get an accurate and concise assessment of the problem and clear instructions on what to do about it.  I just need to figure out who to call...

First lessons learned

Today was the first day I worked "with" my new raised beds, that is I planted something and worked the beds.  It was a bit impulsive, was at the supply store picking up manure and there were some winter veggies and I grabbed them.  I learned or observed a couple things Today:

• 36" is too wide for a row.  On several occasions I wanted to step over the row or plant on the other side and it was too wide for my short stubs
• Using chopped-up sod for the bed base makes digging transplant holes a bit more work that it needs to be.  It remains to be seen if the soil quality will benefit from the inclusion of old sod, if it does then I suppose it might be worth it
• It's best to break up clumps in bagged soil and amendments BEFORE casting out on the rows, otherwise you need to break it up on the row which ends up knocking a lot of material into the paths
• Pack down the top layer just a bit before attempting to drag a furrow, it makes it easier to control the depth correctly

The best the bed will ever look

Finished the first set of 4 raised beds Today.  After speaking it over with a couple people I decided to keep the raised planter my Dad and I made right where it is and layout the beds around it.  I'm still unsure how much shade the liquid amber is going to cast but I'm hoping it's very little.

The base of the beds is ripped up and chopped sod.  Using a maddox the sod was lifted up, then chopped with a spade into softball sized junks.  The chunks were raked into a long row in the middle of the 36" bed, then spread with a metal rake.  After that soil from the fence post holes was dumped and spread on top.  Finally my first batch of compost from 2010 was spread on the first bed (background in the picture above and right on the pic below)

I expect these will settle and flatten out a bit as they are rained on and the sod chunks compact.  Hopefully they will prove an excellent environment for worms and other critters so I can start building some healthy soil for spring planting.

Chui did absolutely nothing to help in any way.

Heatin' up!

Compost maintenance Today, flipped one batch and it looked like it would really react from the infusion of oxygen, very soggy and very anaerobic looking.  I was right, 6 hours later it was already up to 150+ and climbing.  It's odd, I know but I get so much enjoyment from managing composting and making it as productive as possible.  Very odd.

Formal Separation

The separation of suburban manicured lawn and home farming is complete!  With tons of generous help from my Dad the fence is complete.

It represents a physical separation from the "nice" part of my yard and my farm area, it also sets a mental tone once you walk past it, as if you've truly entered a different place - this is what I was going for.

I will admit that I was not paying attention while setting the posts and as a result they are not equidistant from one another, by the time this was noticed the concrete had been set for days so there was no correcting the mistake.

The wire mesh is sandwiched between the posts and rails, I did it this way so that you could get a foothold to climb the fence and have a seat.  It also further secures the mesh.

I'm drawing a blank on the name of the screws that were used; they could be best described as between a lag bolt and a Deck Mate screw.  They are incredibly strong and even managed to bog down the Milwaukee Hole Shooter drill motor!  Each time my Dad drove one in and it really pulled tight he would let out satisfactory  "ah-HA!"

In the photo you can see just a bit of the custom hinge work that allows the gate to swing both ways while also being close to the post.  This was a real challenge and the key was moving the pivot point in from the edge of the gate.  Inspiration for this customization came from a door on display at Ganahl Lumber.

Drawing of the pivot location
relative to the post and gate

Funny Pipe

Funny Pipe is so much easier than PVC for quick, short runs.  There are many contractors out there that are starting to do entire irrigation installations using ALL funny pipe or flexible pipe.

Shredder Rebuild

Parts back from the powder coater, engine in the background

Funny, one of my first posts on this blog back in 2005 was about my Craftsman Chipper/Shredder that I purchased to aid my composting efforts.  The shredder worked great for years and even was even leant (a word?) out a couple times to help others with their yard projects.

Well about 3 years ago I left the machine out for the winter completely unprotected, in the rain, cold and wind.  The result of course was that it rusted out and fell into a terrible condition.  It wouldn't start and when I finally did get it running the blades had rusted so bad they had become dull and wouldn't cut.  It was a total waste, the machine was useless.

Lots of specialty hardware and pins - well worth the cost
to have it re-plated

Ah, but about 3 months ago I was itching for a project and spied the chipper, decided it needed to be rebuilt and immediately began taking it apart!  Like all my projects it grew in scope, cost and complexity, when the dust finally settled and my wallet cooled off I had ended up doing the following:

• 100% disassembly of the tool excluding the engine
• Had the parts chemical and oven stripped ($175)
• Replaced broken misc. parts (~$75)
• Had all sheet metal pieces powder coated caterpillar yellow ($150)
• Had all hardware zinc plated ($35)
• Engine tuned up and serviced ($50)

It was worth it though, I had two rewarding and relaxing evenings in the garage drinking beer and assembling everything and I've already logged 30+ hours shredding away materials for my compost pile.  This time I'll take better care of it though.

Beautiful!  I had to replace the nylocks
because the over strip destroyed the nylon

Google sketchup for fence design

I wanted to visualize the fence I was going to build in 3D.  I was a 3D animator for almost 10 years so I was drawn to this medium, however I don't have any valid software licenses for the application I used to use (Softimage, Maya or 3DS Max)

the flat 2D image is a couple layers from my visio
property file

I then found Google Sketchup - This is an amazing tool, especially considering it's free.  The modeling paradigm is odd (to me) but very fast once you learn it.  I've been using Visio for many years to layout plans for house projects and I already had a complete plan of my property, so I loaded that into sketchup and rotoscoped basic shapes for walls, house, etc.  The Visio file was used just as a guide, rotoscoping is "fancy tracing".

From there I:

• laid out the fence objects and verified their dimensions and locations
• Added some trees to get a better sense of scale
• Added a person for scale
• Exported several different camera angles and printed for review

I'll post some photos later of the fence that was a result of this conceptual designing and planning.

Show support, spend money in Arizona

I want to show support for Arizona and I thought that buying from the boycott lists would be a good way to send some of my crummy California dollars to Arizona. I found this list and will be giving business to any that supply what I need within a reasonable price range. I also intend to inform the businesses with each purchase WHY I'm buying from them.

Some choice picks from the list that I'm sure to do business with:

• PetSmart - I already shop here so not big whoop, but still worth a mention
  
• Sprouts Farmers Market - I don't usually shop here but they are a TJ's replacement so I'll change over
• Discount Tire Company - I need an alignment and rotation and would not normally go here but I will now!
• Dial - yeah, the soap. There are many other brands too, check out their site