Scrounged Garden Dec

Aw, I had so many outdoor plans for today, but the winds kicked up and I don't want to be taken out by a flying widower-maker. So I'll share a few of my projects.
I collect rocks from wherever(which apparently there's a bill in Congress which would make this illegal) because I love geology and they make pretty good souvenirs. Eventually they find their way into some doo dad. The bowly rock above came from the east side of Mt Hood where we ride motorcycles, the round white rocks came from Lake Wenatchee in WA. In the summer I'll put some water in the bowl-rock for butterflies. I saw the first swallowtail a few weeks ago!

I made a trellis in the garden, this year I'll grow some scarlet runner beans on it. Again, scrounged oak branches(the size of small trees) and sticks picked up in the woods. I haven't wired the top together yet, but it seems pretty solid(it survived the 50mph+ winds today) and I like the idea of adding or taking away sticks.

A work in progress next to the house. I'm not sure how I'll finish it off yet. I got the rocks free from a lady who was ripping out half her pond. I took those toothy rocks from the first picture to make the sunflower/sun/maybe a sundial(some installations are temporary, ha!). I think I'll get some creeping thyme (creeping time?). The violets and dovefoot geranium will be allowed to stay when they creep in there. I'm not putting down any sand or crushed gravel like I'm supposed to(no money--unless I find some for free). I started sorting the pebbles Andrew Goldworthy-style in case I get an idea.

The things I wanted to do today:

Pick up rotten logs in the woods to lay in the new garden beds a la "hugelkultur"

Ride my dirtbike.

Start work on a new trail(actually it's cleaning up a deer trail).

Transplant two Oregon Myrtles from the woods to the garden. Also Fringecup, Oregon Iris and Lemon Balm. And stuff.

Clear my head by listening to the wind in the trees and nothing else--that's what I needed to do the most.

The Other Side of the New Leaf

For awhile I've been mulling if I should include my gardening here on this blog. The focus of this blog is the "natural" ecology of my home, not neccessarily the artificial ecology of my garden. However, in spending 8 years now observing and contemplating the forest, who lives there and how they live there together, I find things I learn about the forest have influenced how I think about my garden.

Gardening in the temporate rainforest at elevation has its difficulties(technically it's located in transition between oak savannah and fir forest, at 1000 feet). The soil stays colder and damper longer, making seed germination iffy, at least when I wish seeds to sprout. The soil is a heavy clay, with lots of nutrition, but understanding is needed to unlock those nutrients. One can't just add compost ad nauseum to clay soil either, there are chemical bonds that are affected by certain elements. All a bunch of science very fun to learn. Over the years I've learned to improve the tilth of my soil, but I wanted to move beyond using outside fertilizers and amendments--for reasons of money(none to spare), and also the idea I should be able to use what is available right around me.

So after years of seeing the forest around me produce a jungle of biomass--I'm thinking why can't I produce that same abundance in my garden, instead of so much traditional spacing out. I've known about the Three Sisters concept--corn, beans, squash--but wanted to learn how to expand that for other vegetables. Of course this draws from basic concepts like square foot gardening and companion planting. But in the back of my mind I was making connections more based on relationships I observed in my forest and wanted to mirror those, in species and habit, rather than a vegetable garden that essentially is still full of a monoculture of non-native species I have to coddle.

Completely by accident I came across a group for Edible Forest Gardening on Facebook, and was happily gobsmacked that my idea was actually a "real" theory...so now I have a name for it. I'll continue my gardening experiments and share the info here, since inspiration comes from the forest--the land itself where I am gardening. making my garden native, instead of invasive.

The photo above shows my food garden before I started messing with it this year. The deer are voracious here as well as bionic, so the fence needs to be tall. It's mostly set up with raised beds. Last year I did nothing with the garden except mulch most of the beds, with either tarps or leaves, and added wood ash from the stove.

I gave myself a few parameters to work with this year:
1. Use free stuff, scrounge, beg, repurpose, recycle stuff from the junkpile.
2. Learn more about how the forest nourishes itself and use those same materials in my garden. After all, the dirt I've been working with has evolved to work with those resources, why not use them(relationships!).
3. Use more native species in the garden, either as food(Oregon Myrtle for example) or as nutrients to compost or mulch.

(and don't worry, I still ride my dirt bike in the woods...responsibly)

Striped Coralroot

Usually parasites are considered disgusting wormy things, but this one is certainly pretty! This orchid feeds through the mychorrizal soil fungus, one of those beings whose existence utterly depend on the total ecosystem package of soil, fungus, trees, and other living things.
Standing tall with its hosts, as it sucks their bloooood.

Dandelion Whine

Yup! that's me.

I've always loved dandelions, and spent a lot of time picking them, even before I could say their name. My dad let them grow in the side yard just for me. I love their bright yellow pop and watching the flight of the seeds...what's not to love? (Thus the whine...)

Turns out dandelions can practically cure cancer(and may well do that too!). I came across a wonderful foraging-foodie blog http://fat-of-the-land.blogspot.com/. I tried the recipe for Dandelion Bread and it turned out great!!! (recipe here http://fat-of-the-land.blogspot.com/2008/04/dandy-muffins-and-bread.html ). Even my boys loved it.

The recipe calls for 1 cup of petals, this was all I could find in my yard. They made almost a packed cup.

The bread even looks yummy. It has a cornbready texture with just the right amount of moistness. I had to tweak the recipe a tad because I had to sub sugar for honey, here is my modified recipe:

2 cups unbleached flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup dandelion petals

1/4 cup oil

scant 1/3 cup sugar

2 eggs

scant 1 1/4 cups milk

I can feel that dandelion miracle cure zapping through my veins...my dad is visiting this weekend to celebrate his birthday, I'm going to make him some Dandelion Bread!

Hummingbird Chick Photos

I've often thought about hummingbird eggs and chicks--how impossibly small and fragile they are. The grown up bird is a wonder in itself--so much ferocity and daring in a such a small package--and then this package dares to migrate a thousand plus miles twice a year! Kind of makes my own derring-do seem pansy by comparison(no offense to pansies). And the nest is an architectural work of art to boot.

Eggs the size of a tick tack. Will wonders never cease. NO!

http://community-2.webtv.net/Velpics/HUM/

A New Leaf

After an extra long winter(for here), spring is creeeeeeeping in . My camellia is blooming a month late. Been puttering around toting rocks, making new garden beds, adding native plants. I've also started researching and experimenting with using "foraged" fertilizer--or rather stuff that the homesteaders here would have used a hundred years ago because a) they had no money and b)that was all that was available, just like my situation. This entails learning about the characteristics of my native soil, how it behaves, and how to work with it so it will grow happy plants. I'm finding there is quite a lot of good stuff just lying around! I'll report back on the native resources/chemistry/garden interface here. Still thankful, more every day, to be planted here. Utterly.

Good Morning

Here's the view as I turn down the hill on the way to the bus stop in the morning. It was cool to see the sun just crack open over Mt Hood's southern side. I like catching the sun when it first comes over the hills(or sets in west) because you can see the movement of the earth, and realize how fast we are rolling through space. I took this through my foggy windsheild--I lucked out that the camera didn't focus on the windsheild but rather on the trees. A trick I'll have to remember.

Tree Bones

One aspect of snow I really enjoy is how it show the form of the tree as an individual.

Update on the mare's tails--when I looked up mare's tails on the web, it said they "foretell" a major change in the weather(in our case going from dry and very cold to wet and cold), as well as a warm air mass moving over.  Now the weather man was saying "snow"--which is essentially a cold air event.  How does the warm air "aloft" fit into the weatherman's schedule?  The next day had freezing rain, rain that falls and freezes on contact with things in the cold air below the warmer air.  Then the next day came the snow ;0).  The mare's tails were more accurate than the weatherman who is looking at blobs on radar.  All I had to do was look up.

Mare's Tails at Sunset

I thought these were beautiful examples of some mare's tails (um, I think), caught in the sunset.  The weatherman says snow's a comin', mare's tails say a big weather change's a comin'.  Maybe the weatherman will be right this time! 

Going to Town, Coming Home

Pix taken while driving,  point and hope I get it.  A cool sign on main street. 

Going home, one of those cloud windows opened up.  My home is back up in the hills to the right under those really dark grey clouds.  I did stop to take this pic, but took a lot more aiming out the window just pushing the button as I drove.

A Walk in the Snow

It's been snowing(and melting) of and on since Christmas.  It's still magical every time it happens.  I'm the type who would go to Alaska for a vacation in winter.  

A rare peep of sun...

Deer tracks...
I love how shapes and textures are simplified and amplified by the strong contrast of black and whites...
Thought these oaks were kind of Sleepy Hollowish...
Just having fun taking pix, and comparing what I'm seeing with what the camera sees.

My Christmas Miracle!

Snow in Oregon on Christmas Day. The night before the local news gave something 3% chance of snow on Christmas in the Portland area. We are a ways out of town, and higher up, so we have a bigger chance, but it was still pretty cool.
I took a little walk and got this pic of a circluar rainbow in the mist--and there's three of them, co-centrically! Never seen that before, and I also saw it with my naked eye, so it's not a trick of the camera lens. Happy Holidays!!!!

Winter Solstice 2007

For the past handful of years I've been trying to take a picture of the sundown on the Soltice, and it seems like since I've been paying attention, the sky is clear enough to mark where the sun falls on the horizon. I couldn't "get" the warm orange in the sky, and started messing around with the photo editing buttons, exaggerating, abstracting, and I think I "got" the feelings I felt--the warm fire in the belly sort...that all is well, a new year has begun. Today is really what I think of when the new year starts. And actually the sun will set in the same spot for the next few days, the earth can't turn on a dime. Though I suppose for its size, it does!
I started looking at the reflections of the orange in the potholes in the road...and actually got to thinking my potholes are pretty, nicely rounded, smooth mirrors of the sky, still holding light as the land loses its own light. Potholes are generally cursed, but sometimes you find some mighty interesting things inside, like one day I saw a junco in every pothole on down the road, each one of them taking a bath.
Merry Christmas!!!

Almost Dark, Almost Solstice

Here's the view from my kitchen window, just before 4 o'clock, when I drive the two gravely miles down the mountain to get the kids from the bus stop. A few minutes after we get home it's dark, so they are leaving and coming home in twilight, and at the end of next week before Christmas break, it will be dark both ends. Then...the earth will stall, teeter and wobble, letting us have more light each day.

Bagging My Christmas Tree

Here I am, snapping off a Christmas tree! Saw was dull, so I just broke it off. It IS the prettiest Christmas tree ever!