Trouble

You know there’s a problem when you get home from work and see this truckload of manure in the driveway that TOWERS over your garden deposited there probably under duress by the guy with the tractor from across the road where the horses are and the first thing that runs through your head is “oh no that’s nowhere near enough.”

Methuselah the Date Sapling

Two years ago Dr. Elaine Soloway germinated a 2000-year date seed found at Masada in Israel. This was the oldest seed ever to germinate. The seedling survived, and now Dr. Soloway is planning to transplant it. If the sapling, named Methuselah, continues to flourish and is female, in several years time we may find what the dates of Judea tasted like — according to Pliny the Elder they were renowned for their succulence and sweetness.

Attacked by a Pomegranate and Other Gardening Dangers

I was planting a pomegranate tree yesterday morning when I grazed one of the sharp branches with my right eyeball. No major harm done, though there are lots of sharp things in gardens and it’s good to be reminded to avoid them.

Numenius doesn’t do a lot of gardening, preferring to potter with radio stuff nearby while I dig. So when I begged him to go to a worm composting workshop at Project Compost today on my behalf, since I had a bird trip to lead for Duck Days, and he complied and schlepped a newly-filled worm bin to his office, he earned a nice lunch. There are now lots of worms in the house, but I’m hoping they’ll stay confined to their bins till we figure out exactly where they’re going to end up. (One will go to Mary and Jim’s across the street, I’m hoping, since I already pick up their scraps for the compost.)

The leeks have emerged from their potting soil disconcertingly quickly. I now have to work out how to keep them uncovered and their neighbors not… and at what point to pull the gardens apart and line them with gopher-proof wire mesh. Should have done that last year when I was putting them in.

Oh it’s all such a lot of work, and aren’t I happy as a clam when I have dirt under my fingernails…

Loss Of A Topiarist

If one takes a hard look at the hedges on the far side of a campus parking lot bordering 1st Street here in Davis, one will notice that they have form. One is a dragon, another a whale. There are other topiaries scattered around Davis — a locomotive, an elephant, and others.

Sadly, the landscape artist who created these topiaries, George Sommerdorf Jr., just died Friday in an ice-skating accident up at Donner Lake in the Sierras, breaking through thin ice. Davis will miss his sense of whimsy.

Native Plant Links

I sometimes wonder where one might find a particular native plant for Pica’s garden. The California Native Plant Link Exchange figures to be a good resource here — among other things one can query it by species to find out what nurseries stock that plant.

Gobs More Of Weather Data

I’m not quite sure how to directly make use of the data for Pica’s garden, but at least there’s a good source of such information for us. This is CIMIS, the California Irrigation Management Information System. The state Department of Water Resources maintains a set of over 120 automated weather stations in the agricultural portions of California to provide measurements of evapotranspiration — that is, water loss from soil and plants to the atmosphere — for irrigation planning purposes. Conveniently, there’s a station less than 2 miles from our house. It’s a very solid data record, and it’s neat to see an event like last Friday’s bitter north wind reflected there.

Vertical Garden

Patrick Blanc’s work literally takes landscape architecture to a new dimension. There are more than a few buildings I wouldn’t mind seeing thus adorned.

(Via Urban Cartography)

Digestive Table

Those folks who have trouble getting their dinner leavings outside to the compost pile might want to consider building a digestive table. This project, designed by artist Amy Youngs, is a vermicomposting system built underneath a round dining table — she terms this a “ a convenient, personal waste processing system built into a table.” Construction plans are provided on her site.

(From World Changing)

A Really Stinking Compost

These days are full. I’ve been seeing dear friends, enjoying the wonders of Cold Canyon again with other dear friends, getting things done. But one of those is not, alas, my novel. I have felt discouraged since the demise of my pen and while that might seem to be just an excuse, I’ve written little since. I’m not giving up, but I can’t get 50,000 words written by the end of November…

Mary dragged over two months’ worth of kitchen scraps from across the street, fetid and rank. She kindly dumped them on my compost pile, where they have attracted so many flies that the black phoebe sitting on the edge needn’t even take wing to get her fill. For a compost maniac such as I’ve turned out to be, this was like winning the lottery.

I turned the compost this evening in the dark, a stinky job, pondering on pens (it’s my niece’s birthday and my present to her was her first fountain pen, a pink girlie job made by Kukuxumusu in Spain, along with purple cartridges and a purple Clairefontaine notebook) and on the World Bank (o evil institution) and on manzanita bark and on small falcons.

A stench like this gets you right in touch with what’s really going on. In your head and otherwise…

Eggplants-ho

In between writing a novel, entertaining a Paulist priest, taking the cat to the vet, and getting my new garden in, as well as making sure Numenius is doing his wound care fine on his own (yes, I’m happy to report), I’ve pulled out the summer garden. There are way more eggplants than I thought, lurking about their plants like elongated easter eggs.

I’ve frozen basil, chard, peppers, and chiles. But I hesitate to do the same to these eggplants. Anyone have any idea what I might do with them? There are about 10…