As head of Hawaii Tropical Fruit Growers on the Big Island, Ken Love often gets asked to talk to folk about what he does and how to do what he does. This week, he’s in L.A. and I was invited to go a gathering of neighbors at the Hollywoodland Orchard to hear him talk about fruit trees – how to propagate them, how to feed them, how to trim them, and how to love them.

I think the original plan was to talk to us about how to prune citrus, specifically one particularly rambly lemon tree on the property. But we’re in mid fruit and flower right now — pruning now would “confuse” the happy tree — so he suggested we work on, “that poor loquat,” that was shading the ground behind him instead.

That “poor loquat” actually looked pretty spectacular to me — tall, big broad leaves, and lots of potential little loquats (those will be ready for harvest in May). Ken’s worked with loquats for over 30 years and some of that time was spent in Japan, where they’ve not only mastered the peculiar art of growing big and juicy loquats (a complete mystery to me up until now), but they’ve bred over 600 varieties of them.

I’ve never liked loquats. Or rather, I never liked the loquats from my tree. They have always been more seed than fruit and had all the sweetness of soaked paper towel. But it turns out that’s what you get when you don’t actually tend to your loquat tree. I can leave my navel orange and lemon trees alone and they’ll give me big juicy fruit each season. Do that with a loquat and you get what you give.

Who knew having all these little fruits on the tree was actually a bad thing? Proper pruning for big fleshy fruit dictates only the three base fruits of the crown remain. I spent part of my morning carefully clipping excess fruit bud off of my tree.

I also harvested some leaves. Ken blew my mind when he told me the leaves (which I needed to thin out anyway) would make a passable tea. Not only was it a nice way to achieve a homegrown cuppa, but the tea would allegedly help me with my lungs. I was diagnosed with adult-onset asthma about a decade ago and breathing in the colder months can sometimes be a bit of a chore, especially post-cold and cough. I had been growing and ignoring a potential medicinal helpmate this whole time?

Even after working for the Traditional Acupuncture Institute in Maryland, even after benefiting from acupuncture and various holistic herbal therapies, I am still an “alternative medicine” skeptic. I question its real efficacy all the time, and often wonder if it’s mostly my desire for it to actually work that manifests a result. Placebos anyone? This makes me a flawed test subject for things like checking how much better I feel after drinking my homegrown loquat tea.  As much as I question it, I am also, thankfully, curious.  After checking to make sure the tea wasn’t actually toxic or potentially harmful, I plowed forward, washing leaves in preparation for dehydration.

My worst chest congestion and breathing issues occur first thing in the morning, linking perfectly with my preferred tea time. Loquat tea is called Biwa-cha in Japan. A lil research, a lil testing, and voila, I had a sizable tin of dried leaf flakes ready for brewing. I set them aside and waited for sunrise.

How to prepare Biwa-cha and the results…tomorrow.

This is Ana (she poses like this for every picture, I swear) at EcoFarm schmoozing with Urban Homesteading coauthor Rachel Kaplan.  As a farm coordinator for Oregon Tilth, Ana is required to attend such conferences.  Verily, I am envious.  However Ana will be posting about her week at the EcoFarm conference shortly, which I am sincerely looking forward to.

I interviewed Rachel’s coauthor, K. Ruby Blume, last year for an article I did on urban homestead trademark issue.  Her Institute for Urban Homesteading (IUH) up in Oakland, CA was one of many organizations that received a mild type of cease and desist letter from the trademarkers in question (who were also interviewed).

As you can see, their book is still called Urban Homesteading (there was some question about changing it during the height of the dispute) and they’re doing quite well working in tandem with other urban homesteaders to build community and educate people who want to live a more sustainable urban life.  Ana picked up a great deal from the urban homesteading panel (aside from just ‘plant milkweed‘) and it looks like we’re going to be reevaluating some of the projects we’re contemplating in the coming year.

Quail, anyone?

There a unique micro-climate in Lompoc that allows for year-round harvests of artichokes, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, broccoli, and cauliflower. I love California.

Ana, my Oregon Tilthing, eco-village living sister is currently attending the EcoFarm conference up in Monterey and I’m not. I’d be more ok with this if she would share more of what she’s learning up there. If she virtually introduced me to some of the incredibly intelligent groundbreaking eco folks she’s enjoying sustainably-distilled vodka tonics with. See that? I’m ending sentences with “with.” I’m really worked up about this.

I did get one text from her. One. Cryptic. Text. It said only, “plant milkweed.”

Bio-dynamic juggernauts, sustainability panelists, and urban agriculture advocates as far as the eye can see and she’s telling me to, “plant milkweed.” Was it some kind of code? An eco-message that carried with it all the promise of the Year of the Woman?

Turns out, no. By saying, “plant milkweed,” she was actually suggesting that I plant milkweed. In a conference where there are, “…over 60 workshops featuring a comprehensive array of technical sessions for farmers, ranchers, handlers, marketers, activists, students, and educators,” if the one take away she shares is to plant milkweed, it must be pretty important. And it turns out, it is. From Monarch Watch:

Milkweeds have a unique and fascinating pollination mechanism in which the plant relies on Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) and Hymenoptera (bees, ants, and wasps) for pollination. Hundreds of pollen grains are packaged into two connected sacs or pollinia, which is collectively referred to as the pollinarium [see SEM photo at right]. When a foraging insect lands on a flower, the pollinarium can easily attach itself to its leg. Once removed from the flower, the pollinia actually re-orient as the translator arms bend as they dry. Upon landing on another flower, the properly oriented pollinarium is deposited into a receptive stigmatic groove where the pollinia breaks down and the pollen germinates, growing pollen tubes through the stigma to the ovules in the ovary.

In short, it’s the equivalent of a Las Vegas buffet for bees and butterflies. It’s also the host plant for monarch butterflies, feeding their caterpillars and then sheltering the eventual chrysalis. It’s also a wild, foragable food. And you can apparently get free seeds from a woman in Florida. But here’s a list of people who sell both started plants and seeds.

Most info out there on milkweed pertains directly to the monarch butterfly, which is losing available habitat fast. And apparently Monsanto’s GE crops are killing them off at an alarming rate. But in a weird display of sad irony, the US Forest Service says that milkweed, “interferes with crops, and is an agricultural pest,” and then details what pesticides work best to eradicate it. I must have been living under a rock, but I thought the US Forest Service was in the business of maintaining habitat, not advocating its demise. That’s how the mission statement reads anyway.

Ana’s simple, cryptic text was more cryptic than I thought. And she probably knew I’d tumble down the rabbit hole on this, searching for a deeper meaning in her laconic, two word missive. It’s more than just planting a bee and butterfly friendly garden. It’s creating habitat and islands of safety for a species probably not long for this world. Those epic migrations of fluttering wings are, very soon, going to be a thing of our past.

It feels like an impotent thing to do in the face of Big Ag, government mission creep, pesticides, probable extinction and ecological collapse. But it’s something worth doing that needs doing. And it’s within my ability to plant seeds in more than just my garden.

Plant milkweed.

T

It was the weekend of mea culpa. I’ve been “thinking” and “planning” to install rain barrels at strategic locations around the house. The barn in particular needed a runoff abatement plan for the new roof and gutter and it is advantageously placed (elevated and adjacent) to help irrigate one of our most productive little plots – the arbor garden.

Fast forward to last week. Thursday specifically. All the big storm hoohah hitting the PNW was about to dump a much needed rainstorm on L.A. Eep, I say. Rain coming and not a barrel in sight. I’ve refused on principal to buy a prefab kit. My grandparents used old wine casks for their rain barrels and they worked just fine. But as the closest, usable wine casks were a two hour drive away, I hit Craiglist.

Carl Kruegermann, the latest in a long line of German pickle masters, talking about the importance of hand-packed pickles.

Enter Carl Kruegermann. He and his family have been pickling in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles since the 60′s. And a lot of his product comes to him in these 50 gallon, food grade plastic barrels. He only needs so many and only has so much space. So he’s selling them for $35 a pop.

There are some pretty kits out there. But for me, spending $100+ on what is essentially a bucket with a spigot doesn’t compute. Carl had about 12 barrels for sale. Now he only has 10. I took two home, both of which were formerly used to import gherkins in acetic acid from India. The label even tells me what village they came from. I Googled it.

FYI those French cornichons you love? Most likely made from imported Indian gherkins. No one locally, either here in California or in France, cultivates those tiny pickles anymore. Very labor intensive. But they grow them in India. And they export them in giant 50 gallon barrels to gourmet producers in Europe and America.

It is still raining here in L.A. And even WITH the barrels in hand, I am not yet catching rain. As usual, we’ve been too busy to get things in gear. But the conversion will happen soon (hopefully before our rainy season ends), following this guy’s steps (he uses a barrel almost identical to mine), with a few minor engineering adjustments:

Will let you know how it goes! In the meantime, L.A. Locals – If you’re looking to install rain barrels at your home, Carl still has barrels for you. Touch base with him via the Kruegermann Pickles website.

Saturn and Spica (one, a planet, the other, a chunk of the constellation Virgo) turned a little quadrille this morning, dancing next to a nearly perfect quarter moon while all the big players – Orion, Taurus, etc. – had long since gone to bed. Saturn – the Roman god of agriculture and harvest, son of Terra (the personification of earth) and Caelus (the god of the sky) – actually married fertility goddess, Opis. But if he wanted a turn with Spica, well, who could blame him?

Spica is an incredibly popular star and has been for centuries. She’s the brightest star in Virgo (sometimes called the Alpha Virginis) and is said to be the star that helped Greek astronomer Hipparchus define the equinoxes somewhere around 170 B.C.

Her constellational placement is somewhere near Virgo’s hip, or on the tip of a handful of wheat resting against her thigh in the more ancient drawings used to represent Virgo. If wheat is Spica’s home, and Saturn be the god of agriculture and harvest, well, let’s just say nothing of matches and heavens and turn our heads to allow them a moment of privacy.

But this is L.A., so I took a picture of the famous couple and posted it on the Internet. Gotcha.

You’ll be able to see them again tomorrow, albeit around 1AM instead just before sunrise. Both are very bright and require no special equipment to view. And if you’re feeling frisky, join them in the dance with a little music.

ru·bric  (rbrk)  n.
1. A part of a manuscript or book, such as a title, blah blah blah. (Nope, not it.) ; 2. Ecclesiastical A direction in a missal, hymnal, or other liturgical book. (Warmer, but much less judgmental.); 3. An authoritative rule or direction. (We’ll take it!); 4. A short commentary or explanation covering a broad subject. (Meh, this could work, too, but 3 is closer.); 5. Red ocher. (Which we love for barns, but not this post.)

Even with much-coveted yard space, we’re still pretty limited garden-wise, and not just because of the acreage (or lack thereof).  There are shade issues with both our trees and the ones belonging to the neighbors.  Then there’s the slope – we live on a steep hillside that breaks the yard up into slightly-less-sloped terraces which require some dirt moving or very creative planting and irrigation to prevent erosion.  And speaking of irrigation, that’s getting addressed but right now, if an area doesn’t have easy access to water (see previous remarks about the slope)?  It’s out of the planning matrix until I have time to hook up the plumbing pipe and drip systems.  Hah!  Until I have time…what is that exactly?

These myriad limitations mean that I am far less likely to save space for growing a zucchini than I am for, say, French tarragon, Spanish black radishes, or English peas.  I choose wisely, or I hope I do, using a set of criteria, a rubric, for what I’ll grow and not grow in the vegetable patch.  It keeps me from wasting valuable resources on mediocre harvests by outlining my priorities.

Do I stray from the rubric? Hell, yes.  But the rubric almost always saves me time and aggravation.  As I head into 2012, with a resolution to adopt better planning and scheduling in the garden, I have a feeling the rubric is going to grow and change and take on a new importance.

Creating the rubric actually eliminated a lot of ridiculous purchases.  That six pack of Early Girl tomatoes I spied last week failed three criteria right off the top.  The standard Mission fig tree failed two.  I will say that the sadly maligned zucchini I mentioned earlier got a reprieve because Steve asked me to plant some, even though it failed all my criteria.  Bottom line: love knows no rubric.  You can try explaining the rubric all you like.  Don’t.  Love can spare some square footage.

The rubric also required that I significantly up my skills in seed starting, since a lot of what fits the rules won’t be found in neat little six-packs.  While I do have an awesome local nursery, and their plant selection is downright mind boggling sometimes (peanut plants?  quinoa?), it’s still pretty limiting.  I’m basically at the whim of their buyer.  So to seed I go.

Seed starting yourself also saves a lot of money.  $3.99 for one pre-started organic artichoke plant?  Or $2 for a pack of seeds that could give you a whole row, assuming you have the space?  Plus, your extras can go to appreciative neighbors or you can trade with other homestead folk who tried things you didn’t.

Another aspect of the rubric involves meticulous record keeping.  When something doesn’t work in one place, it can be tried in another or eliminated altogether.  If it does work, keeping track of locations, sun patterns, and water simplifies crop rotations.  But that’s another very long winded post for another time.  Like, when I actually know what I’m doing when it comes to crop rotation.  Gardening, whether for vegetables, flowers, ornamentals, or trees, is so not for the uninquisitive, the willingly ignorant, or the always impatient, that’s for damn sure.  You’ve got to have the ganas.  It’s no calculus, but you do need to practice it until it become a habit.

So keeping it simple?  Highly desirable.  So I present… The Homegrown Rubric.

Tender slender asparagus – requires significant space for cultivation.  Fails Rule 1, too.  Local microclimates make great quality asparagus available year round here in L.A.

1. Thou shalt not plant that which is commonly available at the farmers market.  Example: regular brown-skinned onions – no.  French shallots – yes.  Common “artichoke” garlic (supermarket softnecks) – no.  Youghiogheny Purple – yes.  Fuji apples – no.  Gravenstein – yes, if you have the climate for them.  Dutch ball beets – no.  Chioggia beets – yes.  Maybe you love artichokes?  Fine.  Plant Purple Globes.  Carrots?  Atomic reds or Cosmic purples or if you like them small, Thumbelinas.  Albion strawberries – no.  Elderberries – yes.  You get the idea.  If you have a grower who produces superb heirlooms – better than homegrown and reliable, organic, and of good quality, save your time and space and give your money to them.  The exceptions to this rule are…

Albion strawberries – fail Rule 1 on type, but fit Rule 2 on harvest to table quality.  Albion’s a good commercial crop that produces uniform fruit. I’d plant Seascapes or Chandlers first though.

2. Thou shalt plant fruits and vegetables at home that suffer severe declining quality the further they are from harvest.  Some heirloom strawberries come to mind. They go soft very quickly after being picked, but usually have superb flavor.  Same with most berries actually.  Tomatoes, too.  I don’t care how many tables full of rainbow-hued heirlooms I see at the market.  Plucking a sun-warmed tomato from your own garden and eating it on the spot attunes you to the glory of nature.  Hokey spiritual clap trap?  Absolutely.  I encourage you to try it.

3. Thou shalt plant at least one unknown-to-you annual vegetable each season.  This season’s?  An Italian heirloom spinach.  It has fought me every step of the way.  But I’ve been promised unsurpassed flavor, so I’m giving it a go.  Last season it was mizuna and shiso, which aren’t so much unknown-to-me culinarily as much as horticulturally.  I’m also eyeing some not commonly available additions from Kitazawa Seed Company out of Oakland, CA.  They have Poha Berry and Molokeyhia, both of which intrigue me for completely different and fascinating reasons.

4. Thou shalt plant for economy as well as diversity and include species which play a major role in your household diet that have a high price point.  The major plant that fits this rule – herbs.  All of them.  At least in my house.  In yours is may be strawberries, kumquats, artichokes, or avocados.  Mentally calculate the plant matter that most matters and see if it’s worth dedicating a patch of soil to produce it.  You may find that what you grow is better than what you can buy and it saves you a little cash down the road.  Keep in mind the money savings are usually only realized if you’re planting from seed.  The minute you get someone else to sell you a tray of pre-started plants, you’re paying a premium for what is essentially minimum convenience.  At my house, Rule #4 covers herbs, pickling cucumbers, sugar snap peas, and a variety of lettuces and other “salad” greens.

5.  Thou shalt always think of the local fauna and include plantings for hard working pollinators and beneficial insects.   Lavenders, aloes, and a variety of field flowers  attract honeybees, butterflies, and hummingbirds year round.  Try to select plantings so that you have bloom cycles each season.  I also plant fennel and let it go to seed – it becomes a ladybug  nursery.   As do the rest of your vegetable plants.  Just because your chard is bolting, doesn’t mean you have to tear it out.  Let it flower and complete its cycle.  Same with your winter brassicas.  Harvest what you need and let the rest bloom as nature intended.  Will you end up with a mess of seed everywhere and volunteer plants where you don’t want them?  Maybe.  I have baby kale coming up between the cracks in the concrete  pathways because I pulled the plants out  right when the seed pods were popping open.  I saved what I could (free seed!  woo!) but a lot of it went all over the garden.  And I’m totally ok with that because I loved watching the bees and the butterflies make repeat visits.  Do I get some non-beneficial bugs?  Yes.  Cabbage butterflies come to mind.  And they are omnipresent here whether I have things in the ground or not.  I opt to provide what I can for most and don’t begrudge the few opportunists that I’d rather not see.  That’s gardening.  Well, that and flipping over leaves to crush the larvae and eggs dead dead dead.

Many seed companies now offer a variety of seed blends designed specifically to attract beneficial insects to your garden.  Johnny’s goes down the nondiscriminatory, equal opportunity path, while Botanical Interests and Kitazawa both have “Save the Bees” packets, complete with depressing Colony Collapse Disorder marketing language.  American Meadows offers large quantity honey bee seed.  Applewood Seed Company has several different types of beneficial insect seed blends.  This year, I’ve purchased both the Botanical Interests and the Kitazawa blend for the hillside.  We’ll see how that goes.

And that’s it.  There are holes that allow for flexibility.  And each person’s rubric will be different depending on what’s important to them. But when faced with tough decision making, having a rubric, ANY rubric, decides all and yields a much better return on investment in both quality and variety.  It also means the garden is always changing, growing, and evolving while I’m learning, unlearning, and learning again.  Which for me is part of the point of gardening in the first place.

Do you have a rubric? Feel free to add your own rules in the comments.

It has been above, at, or near 80 degrees since January 1st.  It’s one of the joys of living in L.A.  It’s why people move here from all over the country.  It’s hard to believe anyone would be grumpy about it.  And generally, I’m not.  Except for this:

Bud pop.  That branch is on my Shiro plum tree.  She’s a bit of a hussy, my Shiro, and flares skirt at the first sign of spring (I was also told she needed a pollinator.  I’ve never had to plant one.).  But we do get frosts here.  Sometimes well into March and April.  If this keeps up, she’ll bloom and then a frost will hit and there goes this year’s batch of Hussy liqueur.

And that’s just my lil tree.  What about an orchard full of them in Ojai?  I love wearing short sleeves to the office, but this is getting ridiculous.  Yes, boo hoo and all that.  I just know it won’t last and want it to end before all the trees are tricked into thinking spring has sprung.

Click the image to see a larger version.

Since I’m in a sharing mood – this is our lower yard, which actually has maybe four distinct levels of its own.  Five if you include the slope on the right that banks sharply toward the upper yard.  Ideally, it’d all be one, managable level.  But it’s not.  And it was neglected way before my arrival in 2009, in part because accessing it is a pain in the knees.

To the right is the troubled roofing debris yard where the previous owners erected the weirdest and most uneven arbor I have ever seen (are you sensing a trend?).  We took that arbor apart to make the new one on the mid-level.

The left side has received a little more attention, but only a little.  And that’s because there are fruit trees that need tending (persimmon, a fruitless avocado, and now a fig and a pear).  The drought tolerant cactus garden is one of its redeeming values and becomes a haven for bees and hummingbirds in winter when the aloe and agave decide to bloom.  Another happy thing?  The whole yard is irrigated, which means a flip of a spigot up top waters whatever I want down below via custom targeted drip irrigation systems.  That’s a potentially major issue that I don’t have to worry about.

In 2012 we will see much change down below.  Much. Change.  I have drawn a line in hard-packed clay soil.  This far.  No farther.  We will no longer be pushed back by encroaching entropy or daunted by the amount of labor ahead of us.  To cross the streams of multiple questionable geeky references, so say we all.

Happy New Year.