Chop-and-drop mulching, or If you can't beat 'em, use 'em!

 Part of what attracts me to permaculture gardening principles is that I'm a lazy gardener. So when I saw a reference to "chop and drop" mulching in the Desert Gardeners of Maricopa County Facebook group, I was intrigued enough to do a little research. Here's one explanatory link I found and here's a Youtube video demonstrating the process.

Bermuda grass, mint, Mexican petunia, and Mexican primrose have long been the bane of my gardening existence .In the past I've spent a great deal of time and effort trying to dig them up by the roots and throw them in the trash. According to "chop and drop", I not only don't need to do that, I am removing nutrients from the soil that will have to be replaced somehow.

I especially don't enjoy weeding in the heat of the summer, so I think now would be a good time to experiment with this method on the mint and grass infesting this raised bed. I don't think there is much danger of the stolons rooting themselves during our hot, dry summer, so I just cut them off at ground level, chopped them up with clippers, and left them to dessicate in the sun. Theoretically, they will provide a cooling, weed-supressing, moisture-conserving layer of mulch now, and eventually will decompose and add  their nutrients back into the soil. As a bonus, I got to enjoy the lovely, soothing smell of mint as I worked.

Word of warning: Don't include weed seed heads in your chop-and-drop mulching, or you will come to regret it next spring. I do include flower and vegetable seeds, if this is a place I might want to see those particular flowers and/or vegetables.

Squash

It looks like will we get at least one zucchini this year. The urban legends about zucchini that multiply like tribbles haven't usually been born out in our experience. Generally, we have more luck with yellow squash than zucchini.

No fruit yet on the pattypan or acorn squashes, although the plants seem healthy. I'm seeing an abundance of female flowers and a deficit of male flowers on all the squash plants so far, and it takes two to tango, or to make squash. Thanks to zinnias, alyssum, and other heat-tolerant flowering plants we have plenty of bees and other pollinators. So, if the female:male ratio improves before it gets too hot, we ought to see more in the way of squash.

I spent a few minutes clearing out mint and Mexican primrose that was encroaching on the pattypan squash's access to water and sunlight. I do believe if a giant asteroid were to wipe out most life on earth, mint and Mexican primrose would survive, along with cockroaches. While doing so, I found a surprise in the way of a pepper plant I didn't know was there. I had pepper plants in that spot last year, so I assume this one either self-seeded or came up from the roots of a plant that appeared to be dead. I often just cut away dead or spent-looking plants, rather than uprooting them, so I don't disturb the roots of other things growing in the same area.

Grapes, continued

Here's the grape arbor that has produced our only edible grapes so far. It is in full sun in front of a fence that hides our pool equipment. The grapevine on the left is a Thompson seedless grape that's about seven or eight years old. The one on the right is a Flame seedless that we just put in today to replace one that died.

Originally, the two grapevines were in large wooden planter boxes with the bottoms cut out, placed on either side of a purchased bench/harbor. We had plastic planter boxes on top of the half-wall planted with asparagus fern and annuals. After a couple of years of the bench getting almost no use because the location was too hot and sunny to be an enjoyable sitting area, and the annuals routinely dying of heatstroke, we decided to replace the bench and planter boxes with this raised bed. We built the raised bed up to the same height of the wooden boxes holding the grapes, removed the boxes, and filled in the area between the grapes with soil. Both grapes did fine up until last year, when the driplines malfunctioned and we didn't notice until it was too late.

Today, in addition to planting the new grapevine, this time on the inside of the arbor rather than the outside, we dug out the Bermuda grass, Mexican primrose, spent nasturtiums, and a dead miniature rosebush that also succumbed because of insufficient water. We left a volunteer asparagus fern in the middle, sprinkled the area with marigold seeds, and mulched everything heavily. Oh, and we also revamped the drip lines to provide more water.

That which survives

We lost one of the grapevines on this arbor hiding the pool equipment, as well as the miniature rosebush that was in the center. But the Mexican primrose, which I did not plant here, is going strong. I decided to leave it until its blossoming period ends and/or it gets attacked by weevils. It's an attractive plant, if only it weren't so invasive and susceptible.

Planting, interrupted

We've completed clearing out the raised beds, for the most part and for now. The grass may fade and the flower wither, but Mexican primrose is forever. Once it warms up, we will also be battling Bermuda grass invasions. We got some of our spring plantings completed before we were interrupted by rain, which is always nice, but it would have been nicer if it had waited until we'd finished planting and mulching. Some areas of the Valley actually got a light dusting of snow and/or hail, but not here. It really didn't get that cold, which is also a good thing.

The bed in the foreground, which adjoins a pavestone patio, will contain mostly flowers. Coreopsis, larkspur, and snapdragon seedlings are already coming up, and I added petunia transplants as a border on the patio side. I also planted one hill of yellow squash and one hill of zucchini in this bed.

I planted tomato transplants and bush beans in the left rear bed, and plan to border it with marigolds. In addition to my favorite Early Girl, Roma and Yellow Pear tomatoes, we're trying some new varieties that are supposed to be more heat tolerant- Phoenix, Solar Fire, and Summer Set. The new asparagus trench is in the rear of this bed. The right rear bed contains strawberries and a small fig tree.

For now, I'm waiting for things to dry out a little bit so that I can get back to planting!

"You can do anything for 15 minutes"

One of my favorite "Flylady" motivational quotes is "You can do anything for 15 minutes." I really do not enjoy the digging part of gardening, but this bed was particularly overrun by Mexican primrose (see Things I Wish I Hadn't Planted" here). It's a nice day here, sunny with temperatures in the high sixties, the ground still has enough moisture in it to be worked easily, and our prime spring planting season begins in mid-February. So I set my timer for 15 minutes and went to work and as you can see, I was able to get quite a bit of the bed dug up. The timer is a great motivator for overcoming inertia; I tell myself I can quit after 15 minutes and that usually gets me up from my nice comfortable chair in front of the computer.

The tree in front of the bed is a young Comice pear we planted when we put in the raised beds a couple of years ago which so far has not produced any fruit.  When we originally put in the raised beds, we had just taken a class from the Phoenix Permaculture Guild where the instructor suggested that some shade is helpful in the summer for vegetable plants here, and we thought that deciduous fruit trees would be a nice option as they would lose their leaves in the winter when more sun was desirable. Since then I have heard from at least three other instructors from the Master Gardener Program, Phoenix Permaculture Guild, and Urban Farm that it isn't a good idea to plant fruit trees where you grow grass, vegetables, or flowers because the watering needs are too different. This may be why we lost several trees this summer. For now this one seems healthy, so we are leaving it where it is.

Behind the tree are kale and Veronica romanesco cauliflower plants. This is the first time we've planted kale, and it did rather well, but neither one of us particularly likes kale so we probably won't plant it again. I tried this recipe for kale chips and it was okay, but I was the only one who ate them. The cauliflower are heading and should be ready to harvest soon, but they are really strange looking with kind of a seashell pattern of growth to the florets.

As you can see, the hibiscus plants lining the block wall have significant frost damage. They are unsightly to see, but we have to leave them this way for another month or so. Frost-damaged plants should not be pruned until new growth resumes in the spring.

Surprises amid monotony

Today I cleared another patch of primrose-infested ground under the apricot tree. Weeding is a monotonous, Sisyphean job. By the time I work my around and attend to all the places that need weeding, the first place needs weeding again. However, if I don't do it, primeval chaos is certain to overrun our backyard Eden.

Weeding is boring, but it's fun to walk around the perimeter of our yard and see what's new. Today I saw the first tiny head of broccoli beginning to form, gladiolus shoots poking their way through what appeared to be a barren dirt patch near the lower pond, and an errant sugar snap pea that decided to sprout in a gravel pathway. The ones I so carefully planted at the proper depth, right under a drip tubing hole and next to the sturdy trellis Mike built for them, germinated poorly, and are still struggling to reach the first rung of the trellis. Yet here is one, carelessly dropped in a seemingly hostile portion of the yard, stubbornly growing and apparently healthy. Gardening, like life, is surprising and unexplainable at times.

Starting small

 What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.”

It isn't that I haven't been doing anything in the garden...it's that I haven't been writing about it. Among other things, we completely reworked the drip irrigation system this summer to what will hopefully be a more effective and water-efficient plan. We harvested massive quantities of tomatoes in the early part of the summer, and an amazing number of eggplant this fall from only one six-pack of transplants, and I've tried growing some things I've never tried before. I've put up some rather impressive amounts of our produce, and tried some interesting recipes. Although I've frequently thought about writing, I've managed to also find various excuses not to do so. Either I couldn't come up with a good philosophical observation relating life to gardening, or I couldn't think up a clever title for the post, or I was just plain lazy. So today I decided to start small, and post about what I did today, even if is rather mundane.

Today I decided to tackle a neglected part of the garden which has been overtaken by the Mexican primrose I planted as a drought-tolerant border along a fence well before we converted the backyard to raised beds. I wish I had never planted the stuff...it spreads by stolons, seeds, and runners, and is as impossible to eradicate as Bermuda grass...but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I pulled up plants and used a spading fork to turn over the soil in an area of about five square feet, and pulled out as many of the roots and stolens as I could. Now I'm considering what to plant there.

Only a small thing....but small things add up over time. So it's a start.

Considering the lilies of the field

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

The closest thing we have here to "lilies of the field" is Mexican primrose, one of the plants at the top of my "things I wish I hadn't planted" list. It reproduces by both seeds and runners, and if I'm not very aggressive about weeding it out, it could take over the planet....or at least our backyard piece of it. As you can see from the photo above, I haven't been sufficiently aggressive lately. Two weeks of vacation followed closely by forced inactivity due to lower back issues = the invasion of the Mexican primroses. But they are beautiful.
My chiropractor has temporarily forbidden me from "lifting and bending over" which precludes a lot of garden activity. But walking is supposed to be good for me, so I can still enjoy my neglected garden by walking in it, which I do several times a day. I find that, because I can't do the things I think need to be done, I perhaps notice things I might not otherwise have seen. The peaches I had so carefully thinned are rather small, and I wonder why. Did I not thin them enough, or give them enough water and fertilizer? We experimented with several new plantings this year, and potatoes are going gangbusters in three different locations, but the raspberries I planted in a carefully-chosen sheltered location look terrible. There are tiny figs on the fig tree, and the Don Juan and Iceberg climbing roses may not be trellised properly, but they smell heavenly.
My Mexican primroses, and the "lilies of the field" passage remind me that life goes on just fine with or without our intervention. I'd be embarrassed if the RGFRP selection committee came to visit right now, because I don't think it would be what they are looking for. Yet it is beautiful in its own way, and I enjoy walking through it and noticing what has sprung up, all on their own, without any help from me. I realize that I'm a controller....I think that by thought and planning and making good choices, I can control life. But that's not true. I can increase the odds in a particular direction, but I am not in charge. And yet, there is still surprising beauty, and resilience. Life will find a way.

A long overdue gardening update

I've neglected posting updates here for several months, primarily because I've essentially been working as a long-term sub for most of this school year. Where time constraints force me to choose between writing about my garden, and actually working in my garden, I usually choose to work in my garden. But I'm inspired to start posting again, because I just submitted our garden as a possibility for a future Master Gardener Real Gardens for Real People tour. If our garden is selected for the tour, I think it would be fun to do a kind of "Julie and Julia" blog and try to write something nearly every day for the next year (or two...they plan these things quite a ways in advance!) There is a science and an art to gardening, but there is also a lot of trial and error and experiments that don't work. I think people might be entertained and informed by reading about those- not just seeing the finished product, and thinking "I could never do that!".
So here's the several-months-overdue update: Yellow squash was a smashing success, producing a continuous and abundant crop until this year's December frost, as did our one Japanese eggplant. The six summer-planted tomato plants that I coddled with shade screen until late September were loaded with green tomatoes at the time of the frost, which was earlier than usual this year. We experimented with various suggestions as to how to save the tomatoes. We attempted to protect two of the plants with frost cloth and left them in the ground, we pulled up two of them by the roots and hung them upside down in the garage, and we picked all the green tomatoes off two of them and put them in baskets on the kitchen counter to ripen. The counter and garage tomatoes ripened gradually over a period of weeks; we still have of some of those left. The frost-protected plants were still hit pretty hard, and the tomatoes never ripened. I finally gave up on them so I would have room to plant another crop of lettuce as the first one went to seed in January. (I almost never have to buy grocery-store lettuce, except in the summer.)

We planted broccoli, cauliflower, and bush sugar snap peas in place of the tomatoes, eggplant, and squash. The broccoli did really well....we enjoyed fresh roasted broccoli, broccoli cheese soup, and wound up freezing 23 quarts to enjoy later. (Here's a link to my favorite roasted broccoli recipe. If you haven't tried it that way, it's amazing!) The cauliflower didn't do as well, although we did up with a bit fuller heads than we did last year. Because I was working, I didn't have sufficient time to address the never-ending Mexican primrose invasion into the place we'd planted the sugar snap peas, so the number of surviving plants was limited. However, the half-dozen plants that weren't choked out produced a surprising number of pea pods.

What didn't work? The picture above shows where I planted several varieties of lettuce and spinach, along with the vining variety of sugar snap peas. Note to self for next year: If you are going to put ground-up spent hollyhock plants in the compost bin, make sure all is well-composted before using it as mulch. There are actually a few lettuce and pea plants among the fine crop of hollyhocks you see growing here. Not exactly what I had planned, but then a garden seldom is.

Of pruning and life

I've been doing a lot of relentless pruning this week. The Carolina Jessamine that we planted on the block wall behind one of our ponds seven years ago hasn't looked so good lately. There was more dead undergrowth than green vines, and fewer blossoms. I'd pruned one of them almost to the ground- the one on the end that is easiest to get to- a few weeks ago and it is happily putting out new green shoots. So I finally decided to attack the other two, which required straddling the pond rather precariously, and taking the tangled mess out chunk by chunk. The wall looks bare now, but I think it was the best course of action in the long run.

I also took out a lot of Mexican primroses that were growing behind the lower pond and into the hibiscus bushes. They are in full bloom now and beautiful, especially since the hibiscuses aren't blooming very much yet. However, they were already encroaching on one of the new raised beds, so I felt I needed to take them out before they dropped seeds, or I'd face the same problem I have in one of the older beds.

While I was working, I thought a lot about pruning and life and the fact that I have no contract next year. Maybe a little (or a lot) of pruning is necessary to bring out the best in people- a chance to get rid of what is unsatisfying and unproductive, like my overgrown Carolina Jessamine, or deceptively easy and attractive, like the invasive Mexican primrose. Maybe.

Under my own vine and fig tree

It has been unusually cool today, and I have the day off, so I spent the morning pulling weeds in the gazebo area, mostly Mexican primrose that would otherwise take over the planet. I was feeling sluggish and "blah" until I did; it's amazing how a little time outdoors can lift the spirits, particularly when the temperature is pleasant and I'm actually making progress on something.

Some of the annuals (petunias, stock, nasturtiums) are beginning to look pretty scraggly, and the seedlings that will hopefully replace them are coming up. Honeysuckle and snail vine have replaced the lilac vine in blooming behind the gazebo, and it looks like the jasmine will bloom soon. I could really smell the honeysuckle while I was weeding. The Mexican primroses are beautiful now; I only wish they were more easily confined. As you can see in the picture above, they are growing into the lawn and up the hibiscus plants.

I saw one fig on the tiny tree we planted a few months ago and moved twice, and there appear to be what pass for blooms on the grapevine arbor. It made me think of Micah's vision that "they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid."

Backyard wanderings and musings

Enjoyed my backyard walk today, although I'm feeling rather morose in general about many things. Lots of zinnias coming up in the raised beds; most other things unrecognizable. Spent some time deadheading marigolds and snapdragons and scattering their seeds, in hopes that they will grow.

Roses are in full glory now; mostly Queen Elizabeth and Iceberg. The Black Cherry looks really good; Mr. Lincoln and Peace aren't doing much yet. Won't be long before the heat gets them, though.

Speaking of full glory, the invasive Mexican primroses look wonderful now. This includes the ones in the lawn and growing up the hibiscus, thevitia, and other places they do not belong. Too bad they won't (a) stay where I put them and (b) bloom for more than a few weeks in the year.

Grapevines over the arbor trellis may actually make it into an arbor this year. We're trying to prune the older ones, on the fence behind the lemon tree in hopes of actually getting edible fruit this year.

Hollyhocks are blooming; mostly yellow, some tinged with pink. No Punnet square representation here. I guess if I want red ones again I need to purchase new seed.

Romaine lettuce is still edible; everything else has gone to seed. We've picked a few strawberries, mostly from the hanging basket thing...those in the ground have been eaten by various nonvertebrate species. Peaches are golf ball size and although we aggressively thinned this year, probably too many for the tree. Apricots and nectarines are much smaller; a little more than marble sized for the most part. There are some mystery plants growing in the vegetable garden area that I haven't identified as yet.

One of the plumeria looks like it may actually put forth leaves. The other one has a dead-looking top that I cut off, hoping to inspire growth on some of the lower nodes. There are blossoms (I think) on the avocado tree that we are trying this year. The Carolina Jessamine I cut back is vigorously regrowing; that was obviously the correct thing to do and I should attack the others when I get the time and energy to do so.

Things I wish I hadn't planted

There are two plants I wish I had not planted: Mexican petunia (Ruellia brittoniana) and Mexican primrose (Oenothera caespitosa) Although they are attractive (when blooming) and drought-tolerant plants, they are very invasive and difficult to eradicate from places I would prefer that they not be.

I originally planted Mexican primrose on a mound in our front yard, which is desert landscaped with gravel and scattered plants on drip irrigation. The mound had been suggested by a landscape designer we consulted when we first moved here and faced a large barren lot. I don't particularly like looking at colored gravel, and I thought the mound was boring, so I planted this pretty pink flower with the idea that it would spread and cover the mound with blooms. Big mistake.

First of all, it has been a battle to get it to cover the mound as planned. It would prefer to reseed itself in random areas of the yard where it is indistinguishable from weeds when it is not blooming. This resulted in several calls to our concerned HOA, which threatened fines if we did not remove the weeds from the gravel. It has also spread to our backyard, where it chokes out other things I'd rather have growing there. I pull it out on a daily basis and add it to the compost pile, but sometimes think it is winning the battle. It is a Hydra plant....pull up one, and several more arise to take its place.

Second, it doesn't have a particularly long blooming period. It is also susceptible to a beetle which eats holes in the leaves, leaving it alive but very tattered and weedy-looking with no blooms. Of course, the beetle prefers to attack just prior to the plant's limited flowering period so that we have the worst of both worlds: a ratty looking plant and no blooms.