Permaculture Is What Happens When You're Busy Making Other Plans

April 16, 2022

Spring is a yearly invitation t0 new beginnings, and an annual reminder of age-old renewal. It is the time of year that I am certain Khalil Gibran wrote the words "And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet, and the winds long to play with your hair."

But sometimes, life gets in the way.

Although life has gotten in the way for much of the past 3 years, permaculture additions over that time allow me to participate in this year's rebirth.

Last fall, thornless blackberries and raspberries were added, along with the fabled pawpaw tree and dwarf peaches. The pawpaws are just beginning to green out, but the peaches are blooming the prettiest pink blossoms.

Just Add Water

May 20, 2018

It has rained all day, every day for a week now and the sky has run itself out of water! I stole this break in the rain to check on sown seeds and the herbs and berries.The back half of this box is mixed lettuces and the front left is daikon radishes. The front right is leftover bibb lettuce from a Victory Garden project at my son's school.The tomatoes and peppers are hardened off and ready to be planted in the beds. I have my own saved seed serranos as well as an heirloom yellow pepper this year and for tomatoes I am growing an heirloom grape tomato and trying my first F1 hybrid for a red slicing to improve yield.The blueberries are trying to live up to their names with a hint of purple starting to stand out against the green.The sage flowers have been a favorite of visiting bees but are ready for their spring pruning now.The chives are also sporting lovely dead head flowers and at last they seem to be truly established in my garden.Soggy but smiling!

First Day of Last Frost

April 15, 2018

The last frost date for this area passed without incident on April 9th and today was my first day home to survey the perennials and sow some annuals.I'm just going to say it, my over-wintered herb garden is just darned pretty this spring. And I am beside myself that the chives are not just alive but thriving! After years of refusing to grow for me, they are vigorous and even blooming.I was also ecstatic to see the blueberries bountifully in bloom!Last year the blueberries were conned into blooming by the false spring and a hard, late frost killed most of the flowers. A feeble second bloom happened after the last frost but didn't amount to much.The strawberries were also a pleasant surprise, not just sporting a healthy head of blooms but some hard green strawberries already just waiting for the warmth of the sun to make them blush.I threw caution to the wind a few weeks ago and mixed up the assorted lettuce seeds I had on hand and sowed them thickly in 1/2 of a bed. I love the mix of the reds, greens and the little ones already wearing speckles.And lastly I laid down 18 rows of spinach in the front 3/4ths of these beds that will also host 2 tomato plants each in a few weeks.Ahhhhh...the gardener's Spring has finally sprung!

Permaculture Summer

June 27, 2017

To create your own permaculture summer:

Start with a good variety of fruits, berries and herbs that pretty much take care of themselves year after year.
Add to that background of growth, some tender green leaves (lettuce and spinach will do nicely) and one hungry rabbit.
Voila! You are back to your permaculture staple of fruits, berries and herbs with no pesky greens to worry about.

This, in a nutshell, is my summer.The herbs bolted and are setting seed now. The strawberries are producing well but I haven't covered the bed so the birds are beating me to many of the berries.The tower of asparagus is holding up very nicely under the accumulating mass of growth and the asparagus themselves are inexplicably sending up sporadic spears (3 in the pic below).The figs are plentiful and beginning to ripen. The birds also beat me to the first fig of the year but they don't seem to have seen the one on the other side yet.The blackberries are ripening by the handful daily and the blueberries are plentiful, but stubbornly green.The rabbit problem appears to be solved so now I am just patiently waiting for August when I can plant more greens for fall.

Summer Already

June 4, 2017

After an early, false spring in February that fooled blueberries and peaches into blooming followed by the rest of a perfectly normal winter that felt like it lasted forever, spring finally did come and then go in a flash and we are now fully into summer in Zone 7b.My asparagus harvest was light this year, which I attribute to the early burst in February, with many spears freezing at the end of the false spring. I don't know if the freeze affected the crowns or if it was just a coincidence. An interesting side note, for each of the last two years I have had a second burst of spears in fall when nighttime temps dip into the 40s. It will be interesting to see if I do and how much it produces this year.In the meantime, each of the crowns has a few spears that have been allowed to grow tall and fern-like. Every summer I try something a little different to contain all this greenery that feeds the crown for next year's harvest and each year the greenery either slowly or not so slowly overtakes my supports. I think I may have won this year with this 4 pole support, similar to what I have used for snap peas on a larger scale. Currently the asparagus are around 5 1/2 feet tall and being easily supported.The herbs that overwintered are in full flower, some so prodigiously that I trimmed them back to allow everyone a little sun and space.While I wait for the blackberries and blue berries to ripen, my favorite summer treat this year is free-stone peaches halved and grilled for 4 minutes per side. They are a perfect addition anything you are serving up!

Imma Be - Black Eyed Peas In the Garden

July 23, 2016

So maybe the July garden isn't classically beautiful, but it does have a quirky beauty...While bolted lettuce is a tall, straggly creature on its own, the Tom Thumb lettuce is also a bit elegant against the backdrop of collards:The glass gem corn is doing incredibly well (note, strawberry popcorn is not nearly so prolific):The blueberries are abundant this year:The figs, while still green, are also abundant this year:The asparagus is still throwing up occasional spears:And the tomatoes...all those tomatoes!But the star of the late July garden for me is my first ever harvest of California Black Eyed Peas! These cowpeas were planted to fix nitrogen for the corn they are growing next to and up, but now that I am seeing the beginning of what looks to be a good harvest I am excited about them for their own sake:

Finally Spring - Garden Update

April 17, 2016

The average last frost date for this area has come and gone and the lowest nighttime temp forecast through the end of the month is 41. I think spring is finally here to stay!The French Breakfast Radishes are speeding toward their 25 days to maturity and the Lollo De Vino Lettuce is by far, the prettiest lettuce I have ever grown.The strawberries are already thickly covered in blooms and green berries.And speaking of "thick", the June-bearing variety I have put out an outrageous number of runners. I tried to stay on top of it last year, giving away dozens of rooted starts and adding many more to the compost bin, but they still managed to do a little guerrilla gardening of their own, sneaking out some late season runners to plant offspring around the designated 4'x8' beds.The blueberry bushes are also covered in unripe berries and continuing to bloom. This is their second summer in place and I am hoping the January pruning results in even larger, more plentiful berries than last year.I am growing 2 varieties of Sugar Snap Peas this year, finishing out the last of my Sugar Anns and also growing a variety call simply Sugar Snap.The collards and lettuces in the garden are off to a slow start which I attribute to the mostly cooler weather we have had this spring. With daytime highs starting to reach into the high 70s and low to mid 80s, I think their growth rate will pick up quickly in the next few weeks.And last, but never least, the tomatoes.Of the 38 tomatoes that were emancipated at the end of March, I have 37 that are doing very well. The septoria leaf spot has dramatically slowed in it's progression since they were moved outside and the one Rebekah Allen tomato plant that was lost to a nighttime nibbler, has been reseeded indoors and will be replaced outdoors in a month or so.This weekend I will be sowing more herbs in the front and reseeding some of the spinach that has had less than stellar germination rates this year."In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." ~ Margaret Atwood

Springing Ahead

March 18, 2016

After a week of travel, timezone jet lag and leaping ahead an hour, I returned home to find my spring garden well underway.The blueberries and strawberries are already in bloom and hoping the 33 degree overnight currently forecast for Monday night doesn't damage them.The collards, cabbage and kale have been hardened off and were transplanted yesterday near the sprouting spinach, pak choy, lettuce and sugar snap peas.The 8 spears of asparagus that have been harvested so far have been well worth the 1 year wait and I hope some crowns that have not yet produced will begin to send up spears soon. In the meantime, I am becoming an expert on making a little asparagus go a long way in dishes.

December Morning on the (Urban) Farm

December 14, 2015

Some keep the Sabbath going to the ChurchI keep it, staying at HomeWith a Bobolink for a ChoristerAnd an Orchard, for a Dome

Some keep the Sabbath in SurpliceI just wear my WingsAnd instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,Our little Sexton sings.

God preaches, a noted ClergymanAnd the sermon is never long,So instead of getting to Heaven, at lastI’m going, all along. ~ Emily Dickinson

Mornings like this never fail to bring the words this poem that I loved since I was a young girl to mind. The beauty of the rising sun was rivaled by the sunset colors of the blueberry leaves all decked out in their fall colors.And the tender green leaves of the Tom Thumb lettuce growing in a container on my deck made the morning feel more like a late spring day than a warm winter one.Now, if I just had that orchard dome...

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