Phase 2: Devising a Welcome Mat

Here is what the pathetic front yard looked like after spending more money than I care to admit having it put in. Best we can figure, it wasn't properly prepared. We should have realized when the landscaper suggested we water it 90 minutes twice a day ... honestly, anything would grow with 3 hours of water.  What a ridiculous waste of natural resources.

So we (read I) came up with a plan for the front space becoming more hospitable to our winged cohabitants, namely the bees / butterflies / hummingbirds.  We are very concerned about the bees. Every February or March we see truckloads of beehives carted in to pollinate the almond trees. They can’t precisely predict when the trees will bloom, so the bees come in and wait sometimes a week or more for food.  The hungry bees are all over our place – you hear a loud drone of buzzing in our Italian Cypress trees from the porch and they hover over wild grasses looking for flowers. They're starving.

Bees have it hard. We percolated on this a while and an idea hatched to contour the ground with topsoil, add natural elements like rock and tanbark and flagstone walkways and plant a variety of perennial flowering shrubs they love, including ground cover, wildflowers and herbs.  Toss out a welcome mat for them, but do it in as natural a way as possible to tie in to the surrounding fields.

I'm a constantly surprised Idea Person so the actual follow through is always ALWAYS a shocker -- whoa! this is a lot of work! this is taking way more time than I expected! look at the cost!  I'm the LETSDOIT gal.

I conducted some official research (meaning I looked at pictures online) and came up with a 'sort of' plan. We will reuse the irrigation system. It needs to look purposefully random, but it is hard to explain that to our landscaper, a 76 Basque immigrant who lives in the concrete world of absolutes and has limited English. Nevertheless his crew moved around the mountain of topsoil and will be moving around two more mountains of rock, all the heavy stuff we can't do. Then we're on our own to achieve the goal.


I am nervous the Hubs won't like it, and I am nervous it will need a lot of tending, but still jumped in with both feet.  Juan scraped off the grass and rototilled it.  They wheel barrowed 20 yards of topsoil around, and there's 80 tons of rock to go.

Hey it's only a 5,000 sq ft space. Easy peasy. Pity the Hubs, do.

Dirty Gloves

To get something big, you have to start small.

Take old veggie scraps from your kitchen and garden, toss them into a composter, add twigs and leaves and a little water and turn it often and it magically becomes vitamin- and mineral- rich compost.

I love watching my gloves get dirty as the composted soil clings to them. Even castoffs have a purpose. The soil softens and smells peaty and rich, and I move the earthworms aside as preparations are underway for a deep base for the young roots to stretch out and grow.

One by one the sown plants that lined your counter or the ones bought at the nursery are rehomed and marked and a drip line brought. You leave them, tiny and small, wondering how they will face the elements and birds and put a big stake next to them for good luck.

The sun comes, and sprouts — four leaves, eight, twelve, and then flowers. From the kitchen window you can watch the beds change from mostly brown soil to green as the little plants grow and then burst into bloom.  To discourage the birds, you tie Mylar strips to the plants and give them some vitamin water during the growing season and some ladybugs for the pests. And then it’s a wait and watch.

Some of them make it, most of them do. You imagine the harvest basket with something in it, and before you know it you’re knee deep in tomatoes and carrying a pail. You scour recipes to use them up. You send veggies to work and leave them with the postmistress for your neighbors.

In no time the pantry and freezer is taken over by jars with hand-printed labels. The family have become seasonal eaters without even realizing it.

Late in the fall, the garden crumbles and limbs drape over the walkways. The last veggies of the season are picked, and the plants head to the composter for next year.  I sure love it here.

Phase 1: A More Edible Yard (or...taking the good with the bad)

There was this beautiful yard in front before the drought hit hard, and I have this hairbrained scheme to make it an edible yard.  ‘Plan’ is too strong a word.  I want to toss out some herbs and let them intermix and grow together into a massive tangle of unruly goodness, and gaze out at it from the living room window. There needs to be anchor plants, and wildflowers, and a hospitable environment for bees, hummingbirds and butterflies with tanbark and river rock to hold the weeds at bay.

 

There is a modest herb garden on the side yard that has basil, marjoram, oregano, mint, sage, thyme, rosemary and scallions.  It’s enough for us, but a big plant of marjoram reduces to just a few jars of dried herbs for gift giving. Ask me how we know that.

We are in CA Zone 9a, which says it should be ideal for a cool weather crop. Our first and only attempt at a winter garden of cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower and brussel sprouts happened the year of an unusually hard, extended freeze and all was lost.

The summer garden thrives pretty much on its own if we provide regular water, compost and ladybugs. We’ve got what they call farmer’s soil, nutrient rich and the color of deep mocha. In it we have had success with pole beans, cucumbers, eggplants, melons, peppers (sweet and spicy), tomatillos, and thank God for that!

Elsewhere there’s an artichoke, a couple of new boysenberry vines and a on-life-support nectarine twig/tree that we shamelessly neglect. That is on my list to nurse it back to health. It'll probably do fine if we actually water it.  More of the property has established trees of several olives, two pomegranates and an old fig with lots of character that answers to the name Figaro.

We also have a colony of ground squirrels or maybe it should be called an army, so food can’t be planted the easy way, directly in the dirt. The garden is constructed with a ground layer of chicken wire, then raised beds, then walkway tan bark shredded from tree limbs, and finally a perimeter electrified fence. (Just kidding about the electrified part)

So far the enemy is not interested in herbs, and hope springs eternal for a dirt planting in the front yard that will not involve the roots being pulled down into the tunnels like a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

The farmers just poison them, but we’ve got dogs to consider, and the hawks and owls who are our first priority. It is maddening to watch those cheeky devils sun themselves in the yard in full view of the window. We have flooded them, gassed them, and sealed them in.  Those little buggers push the empty gas canisters out of the hole. I think they like it.

I picked up a humane trap but how does one reconcile the moral dilemma of turning them loose 8 miles away to become someone else’s problem? The worst part is knowing all winter they are underground breeding Borg reinforcements.

Marking Thyme

Lots of times I’m in the kitchen and asking the Hubs to run out and pick some fresh herbs, and the Italian ones don’t look all that different from each other when the cute little garden markers are buried under full and draping limbs.

So this year I beefed it up and put out markers from stones, wood and brick from around the yard. Next year I’ll paint them, but this year I had a chiseled felt pen. We’ll be doing this with the vegetables, too.

(I tossed in the shadow of the gnarly old fig tree because it was just the right time of night)