Spring is slowly moving into summer here in Southern California. I had been waiting to see what changes spring brings. So far there has been a cute new baby in the family, blossoming flowers, bunches of broccoli, seeding winter plants, harvested fall potatoes, ants trying to get into our house, groups of starlings that keep me busy while my scarecrow relaxes, a second vermicompost bin, different kinds of insects eating my plants, thriving perennials in a lot more sun, and brand new seedlings emerging. “Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.” - Basho perhaps Let me begin by telling you about how well the fall plants are doing. Almost all winter the perennials and annuals such as the woodland strawberry, oregano, rosemary, piemont salvia, yarrow, scarlet runner beans, nastursiums, and more showed barely any growth. But I knew that deep changes were happening even if I couldn't see them. As soon as spring has come upon us (more sun and rain) they have already tripled in size. What a pleasure for a gardener! I want to share about two plants that fascinated me and touched me as a parallel in my own life. The grape vine that a previous tenant had planted looked completely dead over the winter. It was dry and parts of its stem had broken from being brittle. I pronounced it dead about two weeks ago. This is how it looks now. I was so wrong. Even something that you have given up on can come back to life. In fact more rightly that is what happens to it every winter. Just a natural process of death and rebirth - a Taoist kind of death that we too go through when things turn out differently than we expected. Things fall apart and then gather up again, only to fall apart again. Not my words...inspired by Pema Chodron. Death is when things become difficult and that is how the winter has been. I often came close to pronouncing certain aspects of my life as dead. But just like with spring, there has been an unfurling within me, a reaching outwards, an inner understanding of who I am, and how I want to live. I can laugh like the blossoms, be angry like the wind, and cry like the nourishing rain, instead of being a fake, landscaping rock. What a discovery! The second incredible plant is the native, edible, scarlet runner bean which has already surprised me once last winter by surviving two weeks without watering. This time the natursium I had planted a bit too close to one of the beans, began overshadowing it. The bean plant's leaves started yellowing and I was wondering if I should do anything about this situation. As usual in my lazy, reluctant-to-make-any-changes style I procrastinated only to find to my amazement that nature doesn't depend on me. The bean had shot out a long tendril high up above the nastursium, latched on to the fence and was vigorously growing new green leaves. It found the sun despite the odds. It reminds me of Maya Angelou's words; "Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise." I too am learning to rise like the bean plant, out from under those who stole my sun and drained me of what I needed. I am doing my best, giving it my all, and I have the support I need to wrap myself around. Maybe someday I will be able to offer support to others who need help rising up. Like the bean plant I will add nitrogen to the soil that will enable the nastursium to flower. I may love to think of myself as a plant, but I am definitely a human. I killed an animal bigger than a spider. Can you guess what? You are right, it was a rodent... a gopher. They live in the ground and eat the roots of plants and can even kill trees! Of course I had to save my garden too. It died in my trap that snapped it because I don't use poison. Poisoning gophers can result in worse problems like a dead hawk that eats it or if it reaches a water source etc. It was a gruesome death and I had to call Alex to handle the dead body. I am a predator. I must embrace all of me no?
With summer approaching there is a lot of anticipation building to see whether seedlings will emerge, if they will grow to bear fruit and feed my tummy, and if my experiments on the land have been effective. Will I get that horticulture internship that I have applied to? Will I be able to make sense of all the hard lessons and transform my life through them? All I can say is I have enriched the soil, mulched it, sowed the seeds, and cared tenderly. I watch them emerge. I leave the rest to time.
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Since moving to California, I have begun growing my first very own garden! Its my own well until we leave this apartment and someone else rents it. I have never known before this the pleasure of watching your own garden blossom, waking up to the view of the young plants you planted, and eventually finding such delight in swallowing the tasty salad that you grew with nature's help. A simple and profound contentment. With the passing seasons, my garden is changing, going from creation to taking root to blossoming and more. I feel as though it is not just the plants that are transforming, but I too am deeply changing. A metamorphosis of which the end is not yet in sight. Perhaps in Spring... Look at this huge backyard I am privileged to have! When I first saw these orange trees and 650 sq ft of dirt (not a fan of the 880 sq ft of lawn) just waiting to be gardened I was filled with energy to create. A chance for me to create my very own BEST permaculture garden. An ambitious thought...quite unlike nature. It was the end of summer and I thought to myself, 'Ah! fall is the perfect time to start a garden!'. In the mild winter of Southern California, I knew that whatever I plant in fall will either bear fruit in the winter or spring. I made a map of my backyard and began my research... Looking for the right seeds and plants. I was looking for native, edible or useful, drought tolerant, and perennial plants. That's the true permaculture way of not introducing anything into the system unless it has multiple functions and is in tune with the biogeoregion. I ended up with four special plants; 1. Piemont salvia (medicinal, native, drought tolerant, perennial) 2. Woodland strawberry (edible, native, drought tolerant, shade tolerant, creeper, perennial) 3. Yarrow (birds, butterflies, and bees love them, drought tolerant, native, perennial, flowering) 4. Scarlet runner bean (Native American favourite, edible, climber, perennial, drought tolerant) Through the fall and winter these plants have stayed small, but I know that what I can see is not the only truth. The plants use these seasons to let their roots go in deep and spread around. They can grow in the worst soil and with least amount of care once they have set. And they sure are hardy... They survived 2 weeks without any watering while I swam around with whale sharks in Baja! I think my life has been just like them these past 5 months. Autumn I was trying to settle into this new place I am living in. Transitions are never easy, but these months have been of tremendous growth for me, just like the roots of these plants. And I always knew that when spring comes, they will burst into life, shooting upwards. Spring is almost here and I can already see it happening. I wonder what spring will bring for me? I am a lazy farmer. Despite my ambitious thoughts I don't toil hard in my garden. I barely spend an hour a week pottering around there. And lately I have been going in simply to harvest and water my worms. An absolute luxury. Maybe one week I was filled with energy and creativity, and up popped my first bed of vegetable and salad seeds and tiny plants. I realized soon that I could not buy compost any longer, its too expensive! I have to make my own. I set up an extremely simple vermicompost system; a plastic crate with a lid bought for less than $5 at a thrift store. I put soil and raw food in there from my kitchen to encourage the native worms in the soil to come eat. And they really did show up! But I realized these worms are not efficient eaters of the amount of waste I was generating. So I called up a lady who sells worms and bought half a pound of wriggly red worms. She looked skeptically at my set up. "You know, its too dense. You have too much food!" "Oh!" I said "The native worms are here!" "Well I don't know how well this will work, but I'll just put the red worms in there and we'll see" I thanked her for her advice and support and later called her to inform her the worms very doing very well! They had grown fat and multiplied within a couple of weeks. I did take her advice and make my vermicompost less dense by adding horse manure which I found for free on Craigslist. 6 whole bags of horse manure! Yay! On another slightly less lazy day I bought Toby Hemenway's Gaia's Garden. I sat on my favourite seat in the house (the edge of the sofa from where I can see the garden) and became completely absorbed. I became immediately motivated to create a sheet mulch area. By this time I had realized that the hard clay soil in my backyard was extremely infertile and not much could grow there except what probably should grow there... that is cacti and succulents. So instead of buying compost I was interested in building great soil. So I followed his method of ultimate bomb-proof sheet mulching and added my own touch to it. Potatoes! I planted the potatoes in the ground and sheet mulched over it. The materials that I used for the sheet mulch were; Cardboard - $ free - saved from all the stuff we had bought for the apartment Horse manure - $ free - Craigslist Leaves/dry stuff - $ free - collected them from someone else's backyard and dried grass clipping Bed edgers - $ free - I found the cinder blocks down the street where they were tearing down a house. They did look at me weirdly when I asked if I could take some of them but they didn't really care. I have been very moved by the trees in my backyard. They have been an example of abundance. When my husband and I moved into this apartment we ate the sweetest valencia oranges. Once they were done, we were given a huge amount of juicy persimmons, and finally all winter we've had an endless amount of navel oranges. I've made marmalade, marmalade cake, OJ, OJ Margaritas and enjoyed just eating them. I have had nothing to do with the fruits that the trees have provided me. I feel very grateful and humbled by them. I am also simultaneously aware of how they don't belong in this desert landscape. But its not their fault. When a friend visited, we were motivated and made a scarecrow for all the birds that had now begun visiting my garden trying to eat down the tender leaves of the tiny plants trying to grow. Of course the scarecrow was more an artistic element and the birds enjoyed perching on it. I mostly wake up in the mornings now and rush out towards the garden like a mad person shooing the birds and threatening them. Its just a routine now. Who said gardening was all peace and quiet? In fact its easy to become possessive and start believing that you are solely responsible for the growth of these plants and that the fruits belong only to you! A common human mistake.. Lately I have been even more lazy than usual. I haven't even had to water that often thanks to the on and off rains even if meager. Water has been a major issue for me from a permaculture point of view. Since this is a desert area with an ongoing drought, I wanted to be careful with water consumption. I have managed to water my plants 75-80% with my own kitchen waste water. I also use a soaker hose which consumes very little water in the drier seasons. Its a dedication over which I do have small tiffs with the husband who has to lug the kitchen water out to the garden every now and then. But I believe it is the number one thing to be concerned about during this severe drought while choosing to grow anything.
As spring approaches, I am beginning to get out of my lethargy and gear up for the exciting planting ahead of me. Tomatoes, eggplant, basil, raddish, okra and so much more... But only with 80% waste water. Do come back to read more as I reflect on my lessons from nature and continue to change and hopefully blossom in the spring like all the plants. But before I leave, some photos of the changing landscape and harvests... |
Lessons from my Permaculture Design Certification and experiments thereafter Archives
June 2016
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