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.
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 |
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.
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 :)
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.
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
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
Lizzy getting stoned on catnip, she loved the stuff. From Cameron and Madi
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
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
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!
This is one of my best memories of Lizzy, originally from November of 2015.
