Of Creatures Orange And Black

No, it's not what you think it is: sitting on that Hemerocallis flower bud is not a miniature Alligator perched on top of wires. It's a Ladybug Larva. In their larval form, Ladybugs eat far, far more garden pests than the adult.



So, two things:

1. Don't squash these! They eat the bad guys!

2. Orange and black creatures are not always what they appear to be.


Let us consider another orange and black creature with a hearty appetite.



This orange and black lovely joined our menagerie last week.

Think of the soothing quality of watching a Koi swim. Gliding in and out of lily pad shadows, elegant and ever-so-graceful, they sail silently, rippling glassy water, casting a mesmerizing spell upon your tired eyes, creating a relaxed, meditative calm in your weary mind. Their deep jewel-like colors sparkle in the sun. So serene, so relaxing, so peaceful! You think: "I want me some of those!"

Well. As Mr. Spock said, "Having is not so pleasant a thing as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often so.". This applies to Koi, big time. Koi are not quite as soothing and serene as you'd think. You get into Koi ownership thinking about the serenity of it all. Quickly, you discover what they're really all about: sewage treatment!

Koi eat. A lot. Those beautiful thickets of water lillies they glide through? After Koi are done with the lily gliding, they eat the lillies. And all the food you give them. And the green velvet algae carpeting the walls and floor of the pond. And every insect that lands in the pond. And anything else they can get in their mouths. And of course what goes in, must eventually come out. In amazing quantities.

So you learn about filtration. Gluing pipe. Dissolved oxygen. Turbulence. Cavitation. The difference between Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter. How many horsepower of pump you need to drive a water fall. And much, much, more. So that by the time you are one tenth of the way to properly caring for your Koi, you desperately need them to lull you into a place of serenity, because you are utterly exhausted by the ascent of a very steep learning curve. Spock was right. Doing is tougher than Dreaming.

The dream of Koi in the garden has led me into things I've never expected. I now know the name of plumbing fixtures (they are not all called "thingies"). And the adventures continue. Right now, I'm too frazzled to do anything but sit out by the Koi. Mesmerize me, kids. Glide.

Upside Down Tomato Update III

Based on comparing the Upside Down tomato with the condition of the ones in the ground, I decided to put UD into the ground, too. My reasons are:

1. I think we'll get more and better tomatoes if the plant is in the ground.
2. It will be less work if it's in the ground, in the veggie garden where the drip irrigation system is already set up and operating.

The bucket was so brittle I cracked it open with a couple of whacks from a wrench.



Even though I ended the experiment early, I have formed opinions as to the worthiness of growing tomatoes upside down in pots. Here they are:

Yes, it works. I got tomatoes. And to an extent, it was easier than the conventional manner. No staking required. If I'd set up an automatic dripper to water it bucket, it would have been a lot easier. Remembering to water was the biggest task. And no special $20 container required. An old bucket worked, a 5 gallon nursery container with a wire added as a handle would work, too.



Was the plant healthier, or as healthy, as the ones in the ground? No, not nearly so healthy. The fruits on the conventional tomatoes are larger, and the plants are larger. What the Upside Down tomato did have was a robust root system, nearly filling the five gallon bucket. With a root system like that, it should grow well in the ground.



Was the experiment a failure? Not at all! In the right situation, I think this is an excellent way to grow tomatoes and probably other vegetables as well. By "right situation", I mean: a sunny spot with a sturdy structure for hanging the container, combined with either a drip system to keep it watered, or enough time to water them by hand regularly.

For the gardener with only a small space, perhaps just a concrete sitting area with a sturdy patio cover, or tall fence, facing south or south-west, this is a great way to have home-grown vegetables. For seniors who are less mobile, or anyone else unable to stake or provide good structure for conventional tomatoes, this would indeed probably be easier.



For me, with an available veggie garden, and lacking a sunny, easily accessible place to hang them up, hanging tomatoes is not the ideal method at this point.



Even though the experiment is over, I'll update the status of the tomato plant in a few weeks anyway. I'm curious as to how well it will do now that it and its large root system are in the ground.

Upside Down Tomato Update II

There it is! What all the work is for: the fruit!



There's 5 or 6 small fruit. I'm beginning to see, however, that the plant is in poor condition compared to its brethren planted in the ground:



The hanging plant has smaller foliage, some of it yellowing. The upside down tomato was a 4" plant while the in-ground were six-pack sized--quite a bit smaller--yet the UD is less than half the size of the ones planted in the ground, and the fruits are much smaller as well.

In considering the results so far, I've decided to end the experiment early. I'll explain why in my next tomato update.

Rilke's (and my) Roses

Is there anything they can't be: wasn't this yellow one
that lies here hollow and open the rind
of a fruit of which the same yellow,
more intense, more orange-red, was the juice?



And isn't this batiste one a dress, with
the chemise still inside it, still soft
and breath-warm, both flung off together
in morning shade at the bathing pool in the woods?



And this one here, opalescent porcelain,
fragile, a shallow china cup
filled with little lighted butterflies,



and this one, containing nothing but itself.



And aren't they all doing the same: only containing themselves,
if to contain oneself means: to transform the world outside
and wind and rain and patience of spring
and guilt and restlessness and disguised fate
and darkness of earth at evening
all the way to the errancy, flight, and coming on of clouds
all the way to the vague influence of the distant stars
into a handful of inwardness.

--from Rilke, "A Bowl Of Roses"



Isn't there anything they can't be: a hobby,
a way to spend the day,
a way to spend the bank account,
a handful of jewelry for the house's wrists and fingers,
a pain in the wazoo,
a chorus that screams like crows for water in an arid land,
to the house painter, a bunch of damn plants,
to the Fire Marshall a hazard,
to the neighbor, a mess.

An escape from the world, an embracing of the earth.

A Moment of Peace For A Turbulent Monday Morning

When by my solitary hearth I sit,
And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom;
When no fair dreams before my "mind's eye" flit,
And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head.

--Keats, "To Hope"

Upside Down Tomato Update I

Healthy, a reasonable amount of growth, pest free, plenty of flowers, but no sign of fruit-set. My conventionally planted tomatos have a few fruits, but this one has none yet. I'm concerned that the balcony spot might be too far out of the way for pollinators, so perhaps it's time to move it somewhere that will give the pollinators better access.

I've watered it only twice since I hung it up, because we've been enjoying our visit from "Catalina Eddy": "Catalina Eddy" is a Southern California weather pattern in which, due to a slight low pressure swirl roughly around Catalina Island, a humid layer of marine air hangs over the mainland in the form of overcast. It's also called "May Grey", and "June Gloom". Raymond Chandler called it "high fog".

This cloudy layer holds daytime temperatures down to the high 60's Fahrenheit (roughly 15-21C), so the soil stays moist. Sometimes it remains continually overcast for several weeks, and is typical May or June weather. It is a coastal phenomenon--the inland deserts miss out on this and are already headed for the 100's (>38C). Beach goers and tourists hate it, but flowers (and gardeners) love it. Tomatoes, on the other hand, being sun and heat lovers, merely wait it out. Here's the tomato from upstairs, waiting out Catalina Eddy's sweeping grey cloak:



Not the best pictures, so some gratuitous Flornography to compensate you:



See what I mean about Catalina Eddy and happy flowers?

Making Corporate Marketing Budgets Worthwhile, or Better Than a Drawer

Corporate Marketing departments either waste a lot of money, or...um, not sure what comes after the "or"...anyway, rather than trashing a pricey Marketing Department doo-dad, I found a gardening use for it: as a better place to store plant tags than the kitchen junk drawer.



This particular Marketing Department doo-dad is a blank notebook that was sent to us when we bought the brother-in-law a home bar-code reader for Christmas. You were supposed to use this notebook to describe in detail what you did with the home bar-code reader, and the best story would win a prize. There's a Corporate Marketing Department for you! They have a lot of time on their hands, so they think you do, too. Since we bought the bar-code reader as a present, the only thing we could have written in the notebook was "gave it to brother-in-law". Probably not a prize-winner.

Requirements:
1. A notebook of some sort.
2. All the plant tags you know you should save but don't quite know what to do with.
3. A roll of tape. Do not keep the tape in your kitchen junk drawer, because you
want to be able to find it again. Keep it handy.



Using the tape, stick all your plant tags in the notebook, one tag per page.
As you plant new plants, stick the tags into the notebook. When it's pouring rain (a common California gardener's fantasy), look through your notebook and comment on your plants, such as "Purchased March 2008--worth every penny." Or "died the second I brought it home" or "piece of crap, obviously a favorite of the marketing department", and so on. I usually record when and where I bought the plant, and update the notebook every so often with a quick comment like "doubled in size", "smells like armpits", and the like.



It's a quick way to give yourself the illusion that you're organized, or at least keep your junk drawer cleaner, You can make short notes over time, and remember the dud plants so you don't end up buying them again, or what the plant cost, so you can yell, "I paid fifty dollars for that!" if the neighbor steps on it. Resorting to an elaborate spreadsheet to record plants is--work. If you just tape the tag in the notebook when you get back into the house, it's reasonably fast and painless.

Either since you've read this far, or because you are in Marketing, you deserve some Flornography. Better that than a picture of the contents of my kitchen junk drawer.

Hemerocallis 'Victorian Lace':


Rosa 'The Wife of Bath':


Rosa 'Jubilee Celebration':

Rescue Bee

This blog is more for my own education than anything else. Educational it is: I've always thought the vibrant Motown classic "Rescue Me" was Martha and the Vandellas, but the artist was Fontella Bass. Now I know. I invite you to have a listen to her as you read this entry.

More education: Honeybee rescue! Yes, you don't have to slaughter a misplaced hive. At least here, in some of southern California, someone will come out for a modest amount of money (less than an exterminator!) and give your bees a new home, where they can forage and make honey as they were born to do. My neighbor found that one of her concrete sprinkler valve boxes had become home to a large number of highly ambitious bees--the box was runneth over with honey. Rather than killing them all, she phoned around and found Angel's Honey Farm, who was happy to come out and relocate the hive. Here's the valve box after the honey combs were removed. A bee was still checking it out.



The rescue took two days. First, the bee people brought out a barrel with a lock on lid. A hole in the lid with a screen on it but not blocking it, allows the bees to come and go from the barrel.



They placed the barrel near the valve box. Then they put some smoke into the valve box, to make the bees sleepy. They removed the queen and some honeycomb, and placed her carefully inside the barrel. Then they removed the remainder of the honey combs, a large amount. Pints of honey. The bee rescuer said it probably only took them three weeks to make that much honey.




The bees began returning to the queen in her barrel, instead of to the valve box. They were left to do this for 24 hours, so that all the bees would have time to learn to return to the barrel and abandon the valve box.



Bees return to the hive around sunset, after their day of labor, and they spend the night in the warmth of the hive. Just around sunset the following day, the bee recuer returned to the bee filled barrel, covered the hole in the barrel with a cap, and loaded the hive onto a truck for a journey to a new home and continued honey making.

Saving a healthy hive instead of killing it: doesn't that make you want to dance a Bee Barrel polka? (Yes, I should be stung for that).

Angel's Honey Farm can be contacted at: (714) 606-9539

http://www.angelshoneyfarms.com

Please note that I have no connection whatsoever to Angel's Honey Farm. This is NOT an ad. My neighbor told me about it, and I just think relocation is a far superior thing to extermination, so I'm blogging about it. That is all.

Die lawn! Die!

We have very little lawn. There are a couple of small areas by the pond and the front door where the dogs like to sleep, and there, lawn is appropriate. By the driveway, where the dogs don't like to sleep, three modest areas of lawn have functioned as pathways. Well, they used to function as pathways. Lately they've functioned as rabbit salad bars, increasingly brown, rabbit-poop-covered salad bars. So the other day, it was time to start scraping the lawn off.







Due to the drought, one reads over and over ad nauseum about The Evils Of Lawn. We are advised to "remove that thirsty lawn and plant California natives" Which is fairly silly. A Coast Live Oak and a lawn are two very different things, functionally speaking. A toddler can't ride a tricycle around on a Coast Live Oak. But more on that some other time. This is about rabbit crap.

I'm not in The Evils Of Lawn camp: I like lawn. In fact, I love lawn. I like a river of thick, cool green velvet curving around my house. But my lawn never looked like a river of green velvet. I won't apply the amount of water it needs to look like green velvet, because there is a drought on, after all. So off came the fescue and on went some flagstones:


I thought I would miss that little patch of grass, that it would make that area look stark and arid. Instead I was surprised that the color of the flagstone matched the color of the window trim and roof, bringing a bit of unity to what had been, I thought, a rather poor choice of paint color. Does it look that stark and arid now?



I'll put some Elfin thyme or Dymondia margaretae between the flagstones. I note with satisfaction that the rabbits have gone elsewhere.