Canyon Prince Native California Grass

Then.
Canyon Prince leymus condensatus in January 2006.

Now.

Raised Bed: Almost Done

Just a few finishing touches to go. I wish it had been done months ago but as my father-in-law says, wish in one hand and spit in the other and see which fills up faster.

Today was probably physically the hardest part - digging out the slight slope so that the box will sit level. Yesterday I put the sides on and stapled the hardware cloth to the bottom of the bed to keep the gophers out.


Hopefully we'll be planting next weekend.

Saint Catherine's Lace

Erigogonum giganteum in bloom, proudly spectacular. A California coastal scrub indigenous to Santa Catalina Island but quite happy at Camp Ramshackle.

No Dig Gardening in the L.A. Times

(Robert Lachman / Los Angeles Times)

There was a great article in the L. A. Times this weekend about Pat Marfisi's Hollywood Hills garden planted in alfalfa hay, straw and compost.

"Since he began gardening in this fashion, he says, he has been 'inundated' with food. With the exception of some recent losses to raccoons drawn to the soil's abundant grubs and earthworms, Marfisi's garden is thriving with beets, collard greens, chard, celery, tomatoes, chives, peppers, basil, chives, lettuces and leeks. He estimates he grows enough food to feed three people daily."

Lisa Boone, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Thanks to Mark Frauenfelder for bringing this to our attention.

Link

Raised Planter Bed Progress

job-site supervisor

We've been planning to build a raised planter bed for months. I wasn't able to finish it this weekend but we are very close.

The bed, when finished, will be 8 x 4 feet and about two and a half feet high. I used 2 x 10's for the sides and 4x4's for the posts. It is made of douglas fir so it will rot though in a few years, but that's how we like it here at Ramshackle Solid - kind of dilapidated, but in a nice way. Once it has completely fallen apart, we may decide we want to change the location or the materials.

I'm always happy when I get to use my Japanese hand saws. This time I used them to finish the cuts made with the skill saw.

The pieces of the box are cut, drilled and half assembled. Next I need to finish assembly, cover the bottom with hardware cloth to keep the gophers out and paint and prep the inside to slow the decay a bit. More to come.

Planting Succulents

A bit of early morning replanting. From windowsill to pot.


Much better.


These little cuties I've heard called "hen and chicks" (if anyone knows the real name, please let me know). If the conditions are right, they grow like crazy with many small pods nested against each other like bubbles of boiling water. They push up and a few will dangle from the sides of the pot. I plucked these from my mother's plant. I hope they will be as prolific as hers.

Update: Thank you, Doc Quinn. Doc Quinn notes the plants in your photo are Sempervivum. Check out comments for more information.

Rebar Bean Poles

Ever since reading The Year I Ate My Yard by Tony Kienitz, I have wanted to experiment with using rebar in the garden. I like that it is an unromantic material which can actually be unexpectedly beautiful as it ages from new iron to a dark rusty brown. We have also discovered that it can easily become a whimsical yet still practical addition.


"Three-eighths rebar can be curled and coiled, bent and boxed in just about any direction and it can be done by hand...

...Rebar gives the garden a sense of age, of decay, and ruin, but ironically, it is sturdier and easier to negotiate than bamboo stakes, redwood or any of the other manufactured verticality offered."

Tony Kienitz - The year I ate my yard

We decided to try it out on two wine barrel green bean plantings. The concept was to create a vine or tendril-like top to the typical teepee shaped bean support. The supports were fun to make. We'll see how they look once the vines have climbed to the tops.

Beans & Reads

A small gift to Eric, bean seeds.

And a few good reads:
Guerilla Gardening Movement Takes Root in L.A. Area by Joe Robinson in the LA Times
On the Trail of a Sustainable Feast in Sonoma by Taylor Holliday in the NY Times

Planting Tomatoes

At Ramshackle, some plants have a tendency to linger in pots. It doesn't take long to put a plant in the ground, but often the poor plants awaiting a transplant get pushed to the back of the line in the constant triage of living/life activities. I put these tomato plants near the kitchen door to keep them on my radar. Nothing like guilt to serve as a motivator. This morning, the dishes remained dirty, the toys scattered.


Today is a triumphant day for the tall heirloom Carpasian and the smaller Roma, a gift from a friend. Now, if I could just remember to water them.

Tree removal -

I finally took down the dead plum tree in our yard today. Our extension cords weren't long enough to get to it with our electric chainsaw so rather then borrowing one from the neighbors I just decided go at the rotten rotten wood with an ax.


It only took about 15 minutes to get to this point where I was able to push it down with my hands. That's the trick with cutting down trees. You cut it from both sides until you get a little hinge-like section in th middle. Choose the alignment of the hinge to get the tree to fall where you want it to. You cannot defy gravity (a leaning tree will not fall the other direction) but, combined with clearing as many of the top branches as possible beforehand, this is a very effective method for landing the tree where you want without too much damage. Just keep cutting until you get it to the point where it cracks a little when you push on it. Once you push it past the point of no return, get out of the way and yell "Timber!"

A Small Organic Home Garden

Does starting a vegetable garden seem too overwhelming? You might consider getting a jump start with a master gardener lending a hand. Our neighbors and friends Jessica and Carl Bronson worked with Homegrown LA to create this beautiful vegetable garden.


Carl used his brawn and smarts to create the raised beds. And Homegrown LA supplied the plants and gardening know-how, including the strategic planting of plants for natural pest control.


And a praying mantis sack.


Even their daughter enjoys eating salads now, knowing that she has watched them grow.



American gothic, Carl and Jessica.


Jessica's inspirational pottery.

Planting Seeds

Camp Ramshackle had a bountiful oak acorn season this year. Eric harvested bags of them, shelled, ground, and leached out the tanic acid from them. His hard work yielded a delicious pancake breakfast. We hope for another one soon.


Even with the copious acorn harvest, many volunteers found a spot, shot out roots and set to grow up. Perhaps to become like their parent tree, which can grow up to 85 feet in height. Quercus agrifolia is beautiful.

We start so small, like the majestic oak, we grow bit by bit.

With small steps, stitch by stitch.

Rethink Your Yard

Thinking about starting a garden? What about a small suburban farm? A group of inspired Colorado individuals are doing just that.



Maybe take that stimulus check and make it work for you.

Thanks to www.SouleMama.com for the link.

The Great Strawberry Experiment

About two months ago on a walk with my sons, we stumbled upon a strawberry patch. The eldest spotted the small green fruit and exclaimed, "Mom, a strawberry."


The discovery inspired us to plant our own. I picked up six young plants at the local hardware store and threw them into the pots we had available. As a devoted slow learner, I'm a big fan of throw-it-in-some-dirt-see-what-happens style of gardening. I do my share of research and planning. That's what makes breaking the rules so fun. I used a few large pots for the bulk of the plants but decided to put the last two plants in small pots and try to grow them on a sunny shelf in my kitchen.

Witness my folly:


There was no amount of water to keep these plants happy. The poor things never had a chance. In the "duh" section of strawberry cultivation, they like large pots and need that extra soil to keep them drinking up the water.

Now I understand the age-old ubiquitous terra cotta strawberry planter.

Photo by Corey Harmon

The other four plants, however, are thriving and delicious.

Pictures of Spring

Spring is a beautiful time in a California native garden. The bulk of our garden is just over three years old. Here is the verdant Yankee Point ceanothus from the California lilac family, beloved by bees and little children.


Heuchera maxima 'Opal' also known as choral bells.

A festuca 'Siskiyou Blue' volunteer. One of many this year. I look forward to replanting some of these throughout the yard.

Inside & Outside

Inside the house, a giant palm seed pod known as Big (harvested many moons ago by the eldest on a walk to the library and carried all the way home by himself) sails across the livingroom with the carrot, peapod and the doll Funny Legs (pattern from Hillary Lang's fantastic Wee Wonderfuls).


Outside, the rain of olive blossoms begins, coating chairs, ground, children--everything--with a dusty yellow pollen and small delicate white flowers. "It looks like snow," says the big guy.

15 Minutes a Day

A large garden can seem overwhelming at times (22,000 square feet). Every where you look a weed needs to be pulled, a faucet fixed, a wall repaired. Focusing on what needs to be done, however, misses the point. Gardener Tony Kienitz author of The Year I Ate My Yard gave the best advice for gardening: spend 15 minutes a day working in your yard. No more, no less.

I can usually find 15 minutes to work while my children play in the yard. And those few minutes yield a familiarity with the events large and small of the garden. Like visitors.


And helpers.


Before and after exploring the yard.

Sprouting Acorn

We have two California Coastal Live Oaks in our yard. This year they produced a bumper crop of acorns - enough to make several breakfasts of acorn pancakes. I knew that there would have to be many sprouts if we got enough rain but I was really astounded by the number. They have sprouted like weeds. A. This one isn't even covered by mulch and it has sprouted and shot out a tap root. It is really cool how the meat of the nut is actually photosynthesizing.

Where to start?

You have to start somewhere, so the beginning is as good a place as any.

Sometime about May, 2002 my wife Julia and I, for the 10th time, placed a bid on a house we hoped to buy. This was the last chance, the wedding was approaching and we had decided that we could no longer handle the stress of signing an over-asking-price offer on the trunk of our realtor's car moments after having walked through a house for the first time.

This time was different. We were on a routine MLS drive-by when we called our realtor from the chain link fence in front of lucky number 10 without having been inside. "We want to make an offer on a house." The offer was exactly the asking price this time. There were no competing bids where previously there had been up to 20 or more and there was a certain sense of resolve: either we would get the house or we wouldn't. The one thing that was certain was that we would no longer be in the market for a house.



To try to make the start of a long story short, we got the house - 1000 square feet of ramshackle loveliness set on 23,000 square feet of a former olive orchard, moderately sloped and slightly terraced with a view to the six or so mile distant downtown Los Angeles skyline.

We have been slowly working to transform the property and our lifestyle into something that makes sense for us. We hope to document that transformation and it's lessons through this blog. We hope to connect with others who share some of our interests (urban homesteading, organic gardening, native plants) and values (DIY, creativity, simplicity) exchange ideas, and, if all goes well, find a sense of community.