Sky Garden

2^ndUse From a Father/Daughter Art Project to Thoughts of Divinity and Down Streaming

A view from my front porch

Water is amazing; it is the elixir of life. I can see, when looking at a sunset, why we often think of our gods as residing in the sky. And, through contingent thinking, we perceive rain as a gift from the deities. 

Living in an arid environment and working with horticulture has heightened my awareness of the stuff. It seems to me that after a big rain I can sit and watch the yard green up. For me, experiencing a good rain feels much the same as a good laugh or cry.

I have always known that water is infinitely renewable as it cycles over and over again from ground to sky. As example, my father used to revel in telling us that when we drank water we were actually drinking dinosaurs’ pee. But even though it is infinitely renewable, we all know that it is quite finite in supply.

My kitchen garden is in our front yard in an urban/suburban neighborhood. This being said, I need to expend some energy in my landscaping towards curb appeal. A monoculture agrology approach would not fly with my wife. The initial idea was to build some flower boxes for the tops of my new trellises. I wanted to plant flowers that were either edible or in some way beneficial to the garden whether they attracted predatory insects or repelled pests and for their color and interest. The way it worked out was the girls and I built these boxes to go on top of our trellises during a take-the-daughters-to-work day.

We talked about nature and what plants need, how big to make the planters, what we could plant in them, and of course themes for the decorations since they love to paint. The project was finished in a day. 

Picture of neighbor’s view, which receives the painted sides—gifts from my daughters Maddie and Maura

I like the simple esthetics of the raw materials and I chose the unpainted view from my kitchen window. The height of the trellises is nine feet and made of 2x4’s and 6”x6” wire lathe.

After I installed them I realized that, due to their height and daily watering needs of container growing in Colorado, they should be hooked up to the drip water system. It was also because of their height that they were titled ‘Sky Garden’; we felt God got the best view.

After planting came the first watering and I observed that there was a fair amount of water draining through the containers and dripping down to the lawn. 

So I to made flanges from left over roofing materials that directed the overflow into the garden trellis beds.

I planned on using the trellises for growing cucurbits, such as cucumbers, squashes, melons, and what ever else I could grow vertically.  

But I must admit that this bonus of extra water was not all pre-thought, but more a series of discoveries that led to my better understanding of the responsible use of water through down streaming and just the gratitude for the gift of water. 

The fruits truly seem to appreciate the extra water.

             

The Locust Plague

2^ndUse - From Abstract Art to Comparative Biblical Story

Shelley has an abstract collage hanging in her office, and has recently confided in me that she saw grasshoppers in the image. I fully understood why.

My dear friend and chicken whisperer, Shelley, was hit big time this growing season by a grasshopper infestation. She lives with her wonderful husband Bill in a rural area of Longmont with several acres that are surrounded by fallow fields.

Shelley and Bill have worked very hard on their land and have had great success with chickens for eggs, which she refers to as the ‘French chicks’, as well as an ambitious kitchen garden, and the planting and nurturing of some fruit trees. They have been able to grow a great deal of crop.

This year started hopeful but early in the season I remember her telling me that she noticed a lot of small nymph grasshoppers, simply seemingly just to appear as if proof for pre-Darwin notions of spontaneous generation.

Then as mid summer progressed so did the stories of devastation and we began speculating and evaluating her attempts to try and find organic solutions to what was now an infestation.

By late summer, early fall, the infestation had become a full-blown plague of locust. It was heart breaking for Shelley to watch these animals grow in size and number and the green of the gardens disappear.

The only saving grace is Bill developed a method to herd this pestilence to the chickens where they were furiously eaten; getting their just deserts. But this was in no way a pest control activity; no it was a pure act of revenge.

All said and done what I learned from Shelley, who was faced with a plague of locust, is that one must remain hopeful and rely on the old adage, “It’ll be better next year.”

The following photos were all taken by Shelley.

Grasshoppers on Rose

Apple tree striped of vegetation by grasshoppers

Grasshoppers in kitchen garden beds mid summer

Kitchen garden bed with all vegetation eaten by late summer

Dirt Makers

2^ndUse Decorative Containers To Soil

This project was inspired through my investigations in uses for straw. Living in Colorado this material is very available. Often you can find it for free either used for fall decorations or bedding that is slightly old and moldy. I have used it for mulch in my garden beds to help keep in water and slow weeds. One word of caution, straw is flammable so I never use it in beds around my house. I have also used it as carbon supply for composting and I have seen it used as a building material for hay bail houses.

Dirt Makers are straw bales used as a pedestal for containers to grow bedding plants. In my landscaping I use the Dirt Makers as an architectural element that acts as a divider or border between my driveway and front yard. My first experiment used flowering plants with the center being purple fountain grass. I thought it was an interesting mimetic play to have grass growing in grass.

The idea is that as the plants grow on top the roots will help break down the turning the straw in to compost. This means that there will be an element of entropy in the installation as the straw decomposes the Dirt Makers shrink and pitch. Eventually the straw will break down to compost that will be used perhaps as the soil in the next generation of dirt makers.

As an aside I like the idea that the straw bales hold water. This helps with keeping the soil in the containers moist, which is critical in the Colorado environment. It is like using mulch to hold the water, but up side down.

After making these I have heard that people grow tomatoes in straw bails, I would be afraid they would tip over in the wind. Perhaps an herb garden would be nice.

I made the containers for the soil out of found material in a metal scrap pile and my colleague Evan Blackstock, taught me the tools and techniques to make them.

I placed the structure on the bails on bails, added 3 inches of potting soil. Plan on using the soil created for the next generation of Dirt Makers.

Dirt Makers ready for planting with the metal containers and three inches of potting soil.

Dirt Makers when first planted in Mid Summer

Dirt Makers in Fall after one season

Dirt Makers In Fall, notice the tilt from decomposition and enjoy the wabi sabi.

My Shaman

2^ndUse Chance Meeting to Ancient Wisdom

I was out working on my beginning kitchen garden when I noticed a man on an old newspaper delivery bike coming up the street.

We made brief eye contact and I noticed him circling back and, stopping. He got off the bike and let it rest on the ground, and sauntered up to me. I noticed immediately that he was Native American in heritage, which is a bit unusual in my area.

He said, “looks like you are doing some farming, I used to farm.”

What a gift, someone that shared my interest, which is a bit unusual, in that I chose to grow produce in my front yard.

I gave him the tour. He didn’t say much but I knew he was listening.

As he left on his bike the same direction that he came from he shouted over his shoulder, “remember you must first feed the animals.”

I didn’t give this gift much thought. I mean, come on, I live in the city.

I have been humbled seeing the squirrels, skunk, raccoons, and a plethora of insects go after my crop. I have been amazed learning the roles of the microbes, worms, and ‘bugs’ in the soil. I have learned to feed and attract predators to my yard to control pest.

He was right, ‘my Shaman’- you must first feed the animals.

This is the first feeding station, a bird feeder, from my daughter Maddie's drawn designed.

Making Peace with Field Bind Weed

2^nd Use from Weed to Crop

My father-in-law told me the first time he looked at my newly purchased house that, “if bind weed was a crop I would be rich.” He was right, the stuff was everywhere. It was a constant losing battle to try and manage. Most interestingly I was hit with a bit of anxiety when I went to out into the garden because I hated bindweed. I was investing in hate; this was a bad energy so:

I had to make peace with the bindweed or suffer. I do not think that we are destine to suffer.

I was already past the pretty white flowers stage because of the way the vines of the plant would encase and choke everything I was trying to grow. So I had to change my criteria. I did this through research; know thy enemy and they may become your friend. Anyway I started by looking at the vigor of the plant as impressive rather than oppressive. The plant obviously belongs here if it is thriving in the environment. I started marveling at how it could search for light under landscape fabric and mulch. I have observed shoots as much as 10’ from the mother plant. I thought about how prolific this plant is, being able to grow not only from seed but stem and root nodes that could be found every couple of inches in both tissues. This means if you were to rotary till or try and hack it to death with a hoe, it would grow a clone plant from the many segments created. And lastly, that the roots go down to a recorded 30 feet deep when the conditions are right; and again if you leave any root segment in the soil it can create another new plants.

So if I can’t beat it, then how can I use it? If in fact the roots do go down 30’ to the parent rock level, and since plants are systemic due to there vascular and food making systems, this means the roots will bring up minerals or nutrients from deep below to the surface. These minerals and nutrients can be harvested from the green vines above grade, composted to prevent any regeneration, and then used to add nutrients to the soil to add vitality to the plants you intend to grow.

All this said, I must confess that this is pure conjecture, but it works for me because now,” I am not weeding - I am harvesting.”

I am so over the pretty flower

This is the area I harvested the bind weed from, it was previously harvest three weeks ago.

The harvest was about one and a half bushels of bindweed and it took 2 hrs. It was worth it, right?

An Optimistic Practice

 9/11/11
2nd Use from Manure to Optimism 

My neighbor and I were loading up a full load of manure in his truck for our garden beds when he said, gardening is the most optimistic practice I know of, you are always looking to next year.

This I am sure was inspired by the load in the back being for improving the beds for the next year’s crop.

These were welcome words considering the date.

Two happy guys with a truck load of horse poo. I am on the right with Mike to the left. You can see the tools of choice in our hands.    

The pitchforks are good for wet poo,and grain shovels are a better choice for dryer poo.

My preference is horse manure because horses are given better feed and less antibiotics.  
The poo was aged and dry with no ammonia smell, which means it was ready for top coating the beds.

First I removed the weeds from the fallow

Then I put on some brown paper I had to help keep down the weeds

I then put on about three inches of manure top dressed. I also put down manure with out paper to compare results in the spring to see if the paper impacts weed growth. Now next spring I can simply aerate with a digging fork and plant.