Maybe I'll keep the firethorn bush

I've been worried about the wild birds this week ever since I saw a wren picking through some tree moss for bugs and not seeming to find any. It's unusual for Seattle to be covered in snow for more than a day or two, and it's been a week now. Today I was glad to see someone finally making use of the firethorn berries.

I've decided maybe I'll keep the bush after all. Or maybe I'll get Moe to help me figure out how to pick plants that offer food year round.

Snow!

Today's post is pure frivolity -- I just wanted to show you the pretty snow pictures.

Snow berries.

Snow stream.

Snow frolic.

Snow tolerance.

December discoveries

Here are a few things we discovered in the yard this month:

Moe swears he did not put mushrooms on the outpost; they just grew there themselves.




The creek monster continues to elude capture...






The stream is high enough for some mini rapids.





The baby conifer sprout survived the dog mauling and grew some new branches. (This is not the photo I originally posted. I replaced it with this one because it's easier to see).

Do trees still grow taller when they've been topped?

There is still snow on the east-facing slope west of the creek. There is no snow anywhere else, so this is probably the coldest spot on the property. (This is not the photo I originally posted. I replaced it because it's easier to see in this picture).





For BJ, clover that grew in spite of being planted late late in the season. :)

Jackpot! Resources for sustainable planting and wildlife support in Washington State

I had a busy, obsessive-compulsive night. After taking out my planning frustrations on the blog, I started looking around the web for “companion planting” instead of “guilds,” and I actually started to find stuff!

Here’s the list of the best resources I found:


“Companion plants” (vegetables and herbs)

• Long list on Wikipedia

Food plants that grow in the Northwest

• WSU Northwest horticulture

“Plant communities”

• Northwest native landscaping, organized by landscape conditions. (You can research and select plants and have the site mail you the plant list).
• Northwest native plants -- Western Washington, Oregon, and BC
• Northwest native plants -- Eastern WA, OR, and BC
  

Sustainable gardening

• King county site on rain water collection, composting, etc.

Wildlife

• Wildlife management resources on the PAWS site
• “Living with Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest” (book). Information about what supports and attracts local wildlife, and how to care for streams and other important natural features.
• “Wild Neighbors: The humane approach to living with wildlife” (book) How to work with wildlife on your property and in your garden.

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I’m hoping to attract an Ensatina or a Western red-backed salamander – my brush pile and leaf litter beckon – come on little guys! It might not work, though, unless I attract Pacific Tree Frogs too. Darn web of life. I guess I need to pick some grasses for the streamside.

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Here’s an interesting tip from the Northwest native plant alliances plant communities publication: “Propagation of mosses can be achieved by mixing live moss plant segments in a blender with buttermilk. Pour blended mixture on soil during rainy season.”

I once had a dream in which I was told that blending moss with milk was good for dental problems. Maybe there's a multiple use function in here somewhere… (please don't try it --ew).

November Discoveries

Here are a few things we discovered in November.


Leaf litter patterns. This is probably useful information.
Or I am getting beyond geeky.

Firethorn berries are not as popular with the birds as cherries.

Burried treasure?

Procrastination pays off. I never did call the yard mowing guys and ask them to stop raking up the cool glowy moss. They gave up in the face of moss power anyway, and now it's back in full force.

We missed a blueberry...

Permaculture Planning Paralysis

Because there's not much labor going on in my yard right now, I've turned my attention to planning for the spring. What do I want to plant?

The more I think about this, the more it frustrates me.
So, as I understand it, here's what I'm supposed to be focusing on.

• Guilds.
• As much food as possible.
• Perennials.

And here's what is also important to me:

• Supporting the local eco-system, keeping it as native as I can for the sake of the birds.
• Keeping the land and the stream that runs through my land healthy.
• Pretty birds, cute Douglas squirrels, butterflies.

For some reason hummingbirds elude me. I have awesome animal karma -- whales and bears seem to love to emerge from hiding to perform for me, but hummingbirds avoid me -- maybe for the lack of food. Manatees avoid me too, but I don't know how to fix that with my garden yet.

Apparently there is no shortage of hummingbirds in Seattle to attract. A quick look at the species lists on ebird.org shows that birders all over King County see Anna's hummingbird all the time, all year round. So I know it's possible. But I digress... back to my angst about garden planning.

Complaint #1: Every time I hear someone talk about permaculture, they talk about guilds. And those same people can't seem to give you any ideas for good guilds beyond corn/beans/squash and apple tree guilds. Have you ever tried to find information about guilds on the web? Nothing. This poor guy was also trying to find help, and he got about the same response that I seem to come up with. Apparently you need to know how deep roots grow, how tall the plants grow, and whether they fix nitrogen, attract insects, whatever. Fair enough. So why won't anyone publish this information anywhere? Is it a secret? Or is this all just snake oil? I don't have the kind of time it takes to compile every property of every plant and then evaluate whether it's suitable for all the goals listed above. Aargh!

Complaint #2: Are people serious when they say that they can feed themselves entirely from their own yard? How does that work exactly?
My big, beautiful, loved pear tree produces enough pears for 2 24oz jars of pear sauce, which Spot and I can eat in under a week. The only kind of perennial food producing plants that seem to grow here (Zone 5, Seattle) are berries. I'm not ready to become a fruititarian, and I don't even like most berries. What are people thinking they can plant here that they can eat and yield enough of that it will feed their entire family for the whole year, even with canning?

Complaint #2b (digression): Permaculture seems to have this "every person for themself" mentality when it comes to food. Why do I have to grow enough food to feed my family? Spot, whose grandparents, aunts, and uncles grew up on farms that they still maintain says that no one in their community ever grew all their food themselves. They grew some food for themselves, and they grew some food to trade. That makes more sense to me. I'm pretty sure I can grow enough blueberries to feed the neighborhood, and maybe in return someone (Moe) will bring me some awesome cherry tomatoes in mid-summer. Besides, how many persimmons do I really want? Further, if we're really that concerned about food shortages, why not work with grocery chains to encourage the purchase and sale of local food? Or improve the farmer's markets? Or expand their business into local agriculture?
This fall, Spot has been volunteering at a farm in South Seattle that grows food for the local food banks. Apparently it can be done. Why does it have to be everyone for themselves? Why can't it be everyone for everyone? Besides, if I'm the only one with food in a crisis, there's nothing to stop someone with or without a shotgun from raiding my garden at night. I think we're better off if we all look out for the collective interest.

Complaint #3: See the note about berries above. I don't like most berries. What else grows here that is perennial? How do I create a microclimate for a mango/banana/pineapple/avocado/cocoa bean/sugar cane/olive tree guild?

On the bright side, Spot is learning all about compost from the volunteer farm work. I am hoping that means that I don't have to. Actually I'm hoping I can avoid compost all together by using a lot of clover. Hemmenway seemed to suggest that that was possible. Am I being naive?

Anyway, for all my complaining, I'm no closer to having any clue about what to plant next spring. So far my plant list is a taxonomy of berries. At least I'll have a good time bird watching.

Oh, also an update: Moe tells me that I actually do have hairy vetch in the cover crop in my yard. Yay! Hairy vetch, hairy vetch...

October Discoveries

Here are a few things we discovered this fall.

Sunshine missed a few pea seeds when she tried to eat the cover crop seeds through August and September. No matter, she likes to eat the pea sprouts too.



This cool moss started growing on the bare dirt after the cover crop had been there for about a month. To my horror, the guys who mow our lawn raked it out last month, but it's re-appearing now. It's a cool glowy green color.



You can actually visit the stream at the bottom of the hill again. Nice.



Moe has begun his fungal manifest destiny. Here's a mushroom outpost I discoverd at the bottom of the hill today.

Before and After: Aug 08 to Oct 08

Two months after the weed genocide, we have some pretty cool before and after pics. Don't feel bad for the weeds. Many/most were noxious and/or invasive.
They're taken with 2 different cameras, and some of the after pics show a wider angle than the before pics.

NW slope in Aug. 08


NW slope in Oct. 08

NW hilltop in Aug. 08

NW hilltop in Oct. 08

SW slope in Aug. 08

SW slope in Oct. 08




NNW slope view in Aug. 08

NNW slope view in Oct. 08

Late summer preserves

Despite the suicidal plum epidemic early in the summer, we still found ourselves with plenty of plums and pears to preserve in September. We didn't want to see the food go to waste, and having gorged ourselves on more pounds of blueberries than I care to count in July, we decided that preserving might be a good idea.

To be fair, Ollie and Sunshine helped. We spotted them them sniffing, picking, and eating blueberries off the bushes, and twice I saw Ollie, who can jump 6ft straight up in the air, pick a pear and eat it.

We had never preserved anything before, so it was an adventure.
Spot can cook and I can't. Together, we peeled 9lbs of plums. I think I peeled 2 plumbs to Spot's 10. Fortunately after 16 years together, Spot knows that it's lack of aptitude and not lack of sincerity that makes me slow, so the plum peeling was a harmonious event.
9lbs of plums made 7 8oz jars of plumb sauce.

All of the pears on our pear tree made 2 24oz jars of pear sauce. Ollie ate two of our pears, and another 5 or 6 fell before we could harvest. Another two pears fed one of the local pileated woodpeckers. I got to watch him eat it while I was home in bed sick one day.

What I learned from our preserving adventures:

• You don't need to add sugar to fruit because it sweetens as it cooks.
• I love pear sauce.
• 2 24oz jars of pear sauce can be easily consumed in fewer than 7 days.

Find!

Moe has an interest in permaculture and horticulture, and he likes manual labor. We worked out a mutually beneficial agreement, and he started working on our yard in August.

The first thing he did was to pull the weeds and replace all of the bare dirt and former weed haunts with cover crop. I was looking forward to having "hairy vetch" in my yard so that I would have the opportunity to say "hairy vetch" more often, but no such luck. The cover crop is clover, rye grass, and some kind of pea.

While pulling weeds, Moe made some interesting finds.

- Two dog toys: a small rubber tire and an orange plastic satellite, now dismembered.

- Oregon grape, lurking in the shadows of the fence behind the plum tree.

- A bucket, a few plastic plant pots, and two plastic drinking cups (watering can not included). You'll need to tilt your head -- the editor won't import the photo in the correct orientation.

- A lawn furniture set that was completely covered in weeds down by the stream.

The beginning

I don't like manaul labor. I do, however, care about plants, animals, people, insects, and everything and all of the relationships in between.
After taking a class in permaculture this summer, I decided to give my northwest, zone 5 backyard a permaculture make over. Here's the story.


Cast of characters:

• Me
• Spot: My better half
• Moe: My friend who likes manual labor
• Ollie: My 14lb rat terrier
• Sunshine: My 9lb rat terrier
  

Here are a few pics of where we started in the August of 2008:

A yard full of weeds that took us 3 years to cultivate.







Prematurely fallen plums, and a fallen plum haiku that I wrote at Moe's behest.

Why do my plums fall
Premature, so sad, too soon
weary purple hearts

A rose!

An abandoned dog house and, uh, leaf storage.

The previous owners built this for their pups.

My pups sniffed it, and then trotted away from it wearing looks of confusion and disgust.

Here is my base map. Sorry, I know it's a little hard to read, but the blog space isn't big enough for a larger pic.

We're focusing on the backyard. The top of the map is north. The yard slopes down to the stream gently at first, and then steeply below the "bare dirt" patches.