Garden News, early spring quarter 2022

 

loquats are getting ripe, you want them when they are slightly turning orange. i heard that someone was in the garden gathering them with a bucket, unlike most of our trees there are probably enough loquats to go around, though they don't keep well once picked so that's probably not the best idea.

remember we have a most excellent library in the toolshed for garden members. cookbooks for inspiration and gardening books for knowledge. use the whiteboard on the cabinet to sign out books.  

with the late rain, weeding your plot and around your plot is going to be important for your enjoyment of the area.

i have a couple of volunteer tomatoes that sprouted next to my compost pile if anyone would like to get started early this season. my guess is they are a cherry variety. let me know if you'd like one. 

we are anticipating one last soil delivery soon, hopefully next weekend.

we had good results with me assigning tasks via email over spring break, so this quarter there will be 2 ways to do your garden hours, Hanna is in the garden tuesdays & thursdays (i think), and she'll do some weekend workdays. If you'd rather work alone/on your own time send me an email.

last, we got a UCSB accessibility grant a while back and they finished up our new greenhouse door this week. so now anyone can roll into the greenhouse, and wheelbarrows, too!

 

 

Garden task pics, spring break 2022

 

soil to go into bed E7. also the soil in the bed to the left of the pile that is falling apart (made of 1x6s or 1x8s) can go onto the tarp when E7 is filled.  DONE

we will put in a 4'x8' bed in these 2 locations near E7, pull all weeds, and move the rocks in front of the cage with the G1 sign on it. also the wooden fence thingy should be removed. weed in front of the bed with the green fencing, too.

Update, when weeding by the wooden fence thing be careful of a couple plants. Leave the hummingbird sage (rough, triangular leaves, has a woody stalk sticking up). There are also a couple kale plants to leave. Both are in the red circle on the pic. Otherwise lots of thistles and mallow to pull!

the bed in the empty plot next to B2 should be moved and the soil on the tarp used to fill in the hole. there's also some 1/2" hex chickenwire in the ground to the side of the tarp to dig out.

Native Plant Area #2

 The SW corner of the garden borders on a seasonal wetland, we've wanted to turn it back to nature for a while but haven't had the time/manpower. Enter Alyssa, (web) (ucsbplannbee on Instagram) who is working on getting UCSB certified as a bee friendly campus / installing pollinator gardens in the community.We've had a number of workdays mulching the space, making gopher cages, etc. Planting will start in a month, here's our rough plan.

Native Plant Area #1

We are in the process of collaborating with CCBER and Alyssa from Plan Bee to put in a huge pollinator garden / native plant area in the SW corner of the garden. But a few years ago a CCBER employee / garden member named Scott put in the native plant area just west of the greenhouse patio. Garden member Anne-Marie ID'd the plants that have survived, here they are:

Common Name	Scientific Name	Family
California poppy	Eschscholzia californica	Papaveraceae
Seacliff buckwheat	Eriogonum parvifolium	Polygonaceae
White sage	Salvia apiana	Lamiaceae
Jimson weed	Datura wrightii	Solanaceae
St. Catherine's Lace	Eriogonum gigantum var. gigantum	Polygonaceae
California aster/pacific aster	Symphotrichum chilense	Asteraceae
Narrow leaf milkweed, Mexican whorled milkweed	Asclepias fascicularis	Apocynaceae
Ragweed, western ragweed	Ambrosia psilostachya	Asteraceae
	Solanum ssp.	Solanaceae
California rose	Rosa californica	Rosaceae

the cactus

 Here's some photo documentation of the old cactus area, a blast from the past. We took it out because it was rodent habitat which made it hard to garden for those nearby.

view from the southwest entrance trail to the garden. P13 also still had it's full cage

view from greenhouse patio, bonus perched red shoulder hawk, too

marborg dumpster with plywood ramps, we filled it!

Garden Workday, September 2021

 The first workday of the quarter, the day after the dorms re-opened. I gave advice on building a couple raised beds, Alyssa and Katja organized folks building gopher cages for the native plant area, and Hanna bounced between both groups and organized weeding abandoned plots. I enjoyed watching 2 freshmen who had never met before build a raised bed over the course of 2 hours and leave as friends :)

 

drilling pilot holes

making gopher cages from 1/2" aviary wire. you form a cylinder, then cut slits and fold the wire to make a bottom

 

Garden Lending Library

We procured a bookcase (with doors to keep critters out) for a garden lending library. It's in the regular toolshed, focusing on books on gardening and cooking. I think the two go hand in hand as gardening allows you to grow things not commonly available in stores and/or grow better tasting veg than you can get anywhere, and you need recipes/skills to cook them; meanwhile, cookbooks introduce you to ingredients that you may want to grow in the future! For now please use the whiteboard on the front of the other shelves for a sign out sheet.

For the garden books, there are/will be some all-around books, some focusing on composting, an insect pest ID book, some on heirloom seeds, and some books from ES faculty members Liz Carlisle and David Cleveland that I've read and really liked. 

For the cookbooks, some are seminal veg texts from the 70s, some are photo heavy for inspiration, some text heavy for knowledge. Currently it's a bit biased towards America and Europe but that's only cause I haven't tracked down some of the other books I want to get. 

There are also some books from garden member Andy that are really good and some cookbooks I had laying around that may or may not be of interest. Here's an annotated bibliography of the books I recommend.

The Kitchen Garden, Sylvia Thompson, she gardens up in the mountains above LA so somewhat relevant to our climate. Very thorough info and she has growing tips for many, many types of plants.

The Kitchen Garden A-Z, Mike McGrath, the author is super knowledgeable, he ran Organic Gardening magazine for many years and also hosts a radio show about gardening. Pretty sure I've mentioned him before on the garden blog. Big coffee table-style book, lots of pictures, basic text. Great for beginners and inspiration.

Baker Creek seed catalog, we recommend the local store Island Seed and Feed, but I don't drive, so buy alot online. Baker Creek (rareseeds.com) has an astounding variety of veg - both different species and variety within each species. Their catalog is great for inspiration.

Cooking from the Garden, Rosalind Creasy, fantastic and prolific author. This book is organized around growing specific gardens in order to have ingredients for specific ethnic cuisines. Also a ton of general gardening info.

Earthly Delight, Rosalind Creasy

Blue potatoes, orange tomatoes, Rosalind Creasy, a children's book, basic gardening info

 the Art of the Kitchen Garden, Ethne Clarke, garden design, nice watercolors

Worms eat my Garbage, all about vermicomposting

Let it rot!, good book about composting

Mike McGrath's book of compost, good book, has a humorous bent

Rodale's color handbook of garden insects, useful

On Good Land, History of Fairview Gardens and a bit of history of Goleta Valley in general. 

Heirloom Vegetables, book on seed saving, old varieties, etc

the Heirloom Gardener, book on seed saving, old varieties, etc

American Grown - the White House kitchen garden, by Michelle Obama

Hippie Food, I loved this book, ties together the natural food movement that began in the 70s with organic gardening and the back to the land movement. Very well written.

Grain by Grain, Liz Carlise, about Kamut wheat farming in Montana, how growing non-commodity crops might save american small farmers. Super inspiring

Lentil Underground, Liz Carlise, about lentil farming in Montana, how growing non-commodity crops might save american small farmers. Super inspiring

Food Gardens for a Changing World, David Cleveland

Golden Gate Gardening, about SF but also generally about gardening in coastal (foggy) CA which is us

The California Landscape Garden, a ton of local-ish info

 

Tassajara Cooking, Edward Espe Brown, written by a Zen Buddhist monk who worked at the Tassajara Hot Springs retreat in Big Sur. Beyond excellent book for the beginning cook, shows how to hold a knife, how to cut veg, how to use veg, helps you understand food and cooking.

Moosewood Cookbook, Mollie Katzen, one of the original 70s veg cookbooks, pretty dairy heavy, handwritten/handdrawn. Classic

the Enchanted Broccoli Forest, Mollie Katzen, her second book

Chez Panisse Cooking, Paul Bertolli, one of the original farm to table cookbooks, CA, fantastic

the Victory Garden Cookbook, 80s, covers an insane variety of veg, definitely some you won't have heard of. a couple of pics are cut out of this copy

Faye Levy's International Vegetable Cookbook, excellent coverage of veg, recipes more interesting (to me) than Victory Garden

Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East and North Africa, I got this because it has a bunch of fava bean recipes. later got a hardcover version so the garden gets the paperback. Authentic.

Super Natural Cooking, a modern cookbook, a ton of pics, CA vegan cooking.

Verdura, Viana la Place, CA vegetable cooking with an italian influence, really good writer

the Unplugged Kitchen, Viana la Place, CA simpler cooking, really good writer

New Vegan Cookbook, Lorna Sass, smaller book but good ideas

From an Ecological Kitchen, Lorna Sass, bigger book, lots of knowledge

Jamie at Home, he changed the way I cook, focuses on ingredient quality, and makes difficult things approachable, this particular book is about farm to table recipes. The Naked Chef is also great.

Jamie's Italy, superb

Jamie's Food escapes, a travel book, shorter sections on Greece, Italy, Spain, Morocco

Bistro Cooking, Patricia Wells, fabulous french cookbook, practical/not fussy

Trattoria, Patricia Wells, does the same for italian food

Italian Country Table, Lynne Rossetto Kasper, one of the best books on italian food

the Glass Pantry, Georgeanne Brennan, prolific author, this book on preserving food is beautiful and great. I've made the eggplant/balsamic preserve many times

World-of-the-east vegetarian cooking, superb older veg cookbook

 

 

Runner beans (warning)

 I have a strong stomach. Yesterday I ate some undercooked fresh runner beans and a couple hours later did some pretty serious projectile vomiting!! Backstory. Winter beans I have figured out pretty well. Favas I can eat fresh raw, fresh cooked later in the season, and cooked dried throughout the year. Garbanzos I eat fresh raw or cooked dried. Summer beans I'm still figuring out. Green beans raw or cooked seem fine. I've grown a number of varieties of beans to dry and cook later. I wanted to try cooked fresh beans as it seems that picking the plant when they are mature but far from dry will encourage the plant to produce more. But I made a really big mistake, I didn't cook them much, kinda like how I treat favas when they are only just beginning to toughen up. This was the only time I've puked because of eating something that wasn't spoiled. It was gnarly. I remember reading somewhere that there was an issue with runner beans so I approached them slowly. Small raw green pods seemed ok. It's my understanding now that fresh beans you have to boil for 10 min in order to render the phytohaemagglutinin inactive. Only 6 beans did it to me! The flowers are pretty and the beans are pretty, whether I can ever stomach them again is an open question.

 I'd like to turn this smile upside down

There's a rule in nature that colorful things are often poisonous....

RIP Lizzy Girl part 3: gardener submitted pics

Lizzy getting stoned on catnip, she loved the stuff. From Cameron and Madi

 

 

 

Other blogs about our garden

In doing research about Lizzy's early years I've come upon some interesting old blogs / blogposts

 This grad student got a plot in 2005

 Cbelle had a plot in 2009

RIP Lizzy Girl part 2

 I've been managing the garden since the beginning of 2011. One of the most important jobs was to feed Lizzy the cat every morning. So many interesting interactions over the years. One of the strangest is when she was losing her fang, 2012-ish, it started pointing more and more straight out of her mouth, she used to slobber when she was pet, and one day out came the tooth in a puddle of saliva. I still have it. There was a phase where she'd forget to retract her tongue into her mouth and walk around with it poking out a little. She generally stayed near the greenhouse but would walk the garden with me sometimes. She was a real free spirit, and provided comfort/entertainment to lots of people over the years. In terms of her early years, the earliest mention of her in old garden emails was March 2010, but she's older than that for sure. A blog post in 2005 suggests at least two of the late 90s garden cats (Smokie, Blondie, Cali, Mamma Grey) were still around. Garden management folks Kristen Labonte and Abbie Peairs both said she wasn't around in 2007. Alan Sechman who was manager spring 2008 - spring 2009 thinks he remembers a small quiet cat, so sounds like Lizzy. It makes sense that he didn't know her that well because her caretaker then was "Skypilot" Al, who was a real character. A true wanderer, he would go on walkabout throughout the West - he walked from SB to Reno, for instance. Lizzy kept pulling him back, until he finally had to quit the garden cold turkey around 2010. My guess has been that she was around 15 y.o., that seems about right if she came to the garden as a grown cat sometime in 2008, a pretty good, long life for an outdoor cat! Here are some pics thru the years:

May 2011

Aug 2011, she would sometimes venture out to our plot in the other side of the garden (taken from GBH 2, looking towards GBH 1)

Oct 2012

July 2014

 

May 2015, probably my favorite photo of her

 

Circa 2015, she used to like being up on the tables outside cause she could sleep and be away from any danger

 

Spring 2016

 

Nov 2016, the 1 fang, and her cute tongue 

 

Feb 2017

March 2017

March 2019, rainwater was always the beverage of choice

May 2019

 

June 2019, checking out her portrait

 

July 2019

 

Dec 2019

 

March 2020, she still had a healthy weight here, her last year her body slowly failed her

 

Nov 2020

Dec 2020, rainwater again

Feb 2021, she was a good eater

 

day before yesterday, nap in the shade

yesterday

Some more text after a few days worth of reflection

 In 1983 my family got 2 calico cats. My cat lived to be 17, my brother's cat 18. Cats are obviously fiercely independent, and mine was particularly so - it wasn't uncommon for her to go on walkabout for days at a time. Lizzy's independence was on a different level. She didn't really like to be picked up, and certainly not held. Very, very rarely she'd approach the idea of getting into my lap. She'd scratch me often - after happily being petted for minutes. She bit me occasionally. She didn't purr that often. I didn't consider her as a pet, and referred to her as the garden's cat. But damn I'm mourning her hard.

I began gardening at GHGP in the spring of 2009 thru using the plot of other Geography grad students; I have no recollection of Lizzy during that time, although I didn't use the greenhouse or the toolshed cause of my unofficial status, so wasn't in her territory. She grew on us quickly, though!

 She was a survivor. Aside from itinerant bobcats and coyotes she also had to deal with raccoons - she once got bit on the butt when one got too close (she was super patient/calm when going to the vet). Her safe place was incredibly hard to get to, there is a small gap in the upper wall from the greenhouse into the toolshed, then she'd walk along a "ledge", the 1/2" wide top edge of a piece of plywood, and sleep on top of the cabinet in there.

 The funny thing is despite her independence she was super dependent on humans for food, she wasn't a hunter at all! I saw her chasing lizards, but the only thing I ever saw her catch was a mouse. She caught it in the greenhouse and was so proud of herself she brought it to me at my plot. She then proceeded to drop it and it ran away. 

Sound was an important part of our relationship. Sometimes she'd visit our plots on the west side of the garden, meowing loudly to let us know she was coming. When I arrived at my plot by the greenhouse to feed her I had a whistle tone to let her know I was there. Our intern Hanna was telling me that when she hears a rustle in the leaves she turns around expecting to see Lizzy but instead it's one of the many garden lizards. Lizzy's spirit lives on! 

 

Lizzy, God light, April 2021

 

RIP Lizzy Girl part 1

This is one of my best memories of Lizzy, originally from November of 2015.

 

  Lizzy is a piece of work. She likes to be petted, but she has a limit, at which point the claws come out. At which point the catnip mouse comes out for her to burn off the crazy.

 

 

 

 

 

  particularly wild eyes

 

 

calm again, 1 min later