Seedlings

After spending some quality time under Lara Hughey's tutelage volunteering at the San Pedro garden church I sprung for my own styrofoam seedling starting tray.  I couldn't find them at a local garden shop and $31 I paid for them through Amazon seemed steep.  These seem sturdier than the plastic trays I've tried to use of seasons past that got brittle in the sun or too floppy when full of just watered soil.  Since I had a bunch of warm season veggie seed packets languishing on the back porch, I decided to start some experiments.  Each cell in a row has a different variety of seed in it.  I add 2 additional rows every weekend so that the plants will be at different maturity levels to prolong harvest.  The knives mark what row I've filled up to and the start+end of the bean section.

Here are some notes on performance so far (moving into week 5) reading the cells from left to right.  If I'm super organized, maybe I will come back to this post to keep adding updates.    

Tomatoes-- 

Riesentraube (Baker Creek "free gift").  A disappointment so far, none have sprouted.  There are a bunch of volunteer tomatoes in the aquaculture bed and the side yard to pick up Risentraube's slack.


Zucchini--

Black Beauty is coming along nicely.  It is starting to show its first characteristically squashy leaf rather than just those initial 2 cotyledons.

Gray Zucchini hasn't germinated yet at all.  These were pretty old, much abused seeds, so this is not entirely a surprise.

Cucumber--

Lemon Cucumber seems like it will be the leggier variety.  Its sprouts are about a half inch taller than the Bush although it is at the same stage of leaf out.

Bush Champion has a more erratic germination rate going on so far.  One cell had 0% germination, the other had 100% (all 3 seeds).  So they may be shorter because it is 3 plants using the resources of one cell.  It could be they are a year older than Lemons (packed for 2015 vs. 2016).

Melon--

Kajari is one of the most exciting front runners.  It has the highest germination so far (4/6 seeds from week 1) and they are taller than the Lemon cucumbers.  These should hopefully yield pretty striped melons that taste like honeydews.

Squash--

Table Queen acorn squash seems to be reluctantly starting a single sprout of the 6 originally planted.

Beans-- the instructions suggested soaking these for a couple hours prior to planting, so that was what I did.  It helps that almost all of them look distinctive from each other so you can soak several in the same container without worrying about which is which.

Purple Podded Pole fastest to sprout and has shot up the highest of the bean section.

Golden Wax has made slightly less progress when compared to Calima, but like the Bush cucumber, this may be due to erratic germination and 2 seedlings sharing a cell.

Calima Bush is showing promise as the most vigorous of the bush beans and may give purple pole a run for its money.  Evidently we pick these at pencil thickness or less.

Red Swan hasn't sprouted at all yet :(

Dixie Speckled Butterpea (lima) Lima's seem to sprout faster than typical bush beans.  Dixie seems to be more prone to rot or damping off, but the 1 seedling that is established is the most mature developmentally of the 2 lima varieties.

Henderson's Bush (lima) seems to have a higher germination rate than Dixie, but may take a little longer to get going.

Watermelons-- like gray zucchini, these were all in the tiny plastic hand labeled seed packets that lead me to believe I purchased them a long time ago (when seeds were novel and I was organized) and have not conscientiously stored them in a cool dry place.  Fortunately, a lot of them still sprouted.
Black Diamond is middle of the pack with 2/6 germination and developmentally, they're all in relatively similar sized cotyledon stage.  Baker creek claims these can get pretty big.  

Black Seeded Ice Cream has the lowest germination of the watermelons (1/6).  Baker creek claims these store well into winter.

Blacktail Mountain has highest germination of the watermelons (3/6).  They seem the leggiest, but they are at the end that gets extra shade so they may have to be in order to grow.  Baker creek claims they are one of the earliest melons at 70 days, so they may just be early bloomers.

Plant Starts

Sunday was an R&R day because of house party adventures Saturday and because I might have broken 30 day Mormon challenge with bottomless mimosas at brunch.

I'm baking off a couple styles of beets, onions, soybeans, dill, basil, and the like in seed trays.  The last couple times, they've gotten pretty waterlogged and turned into mosquito pits, so I'm trying to keep the trays damp, but not sitting in standing water.  Also trying moving the more water-loving varieties into the center which has a deeper indent and the dryer sprouts towards the periphery.  Planted some peas in an overflow planter under the Thai peppers and carrots (which are going nuts).  Excited to see spinach sprouting in the waterfall pots because I was eating quite a bit of it from Whole Foods (good way to move coconut shaving imitation bacon).

MaGyver accomplished more in the garden on the Saturday of MacGyver's birthday than I have gotten done in quite some time.  She cleared pathways and cut back a lot of crab grass.  She also diagnosed the lemon tree with over watering, which makes sense what with the grey water out-take aimed at its roots (now rotated to a new spot).  She also wiped the aphids off the rhubarb with Dr. Bronner soap, so hopefully the ants that were nursing the infestation don't get them restarted too soon.

Day without MacGyver 2

When beets attack!  Found this grapefruit-sized beaut when clearing out 2 of the raised beds to top off with compost.  Definitely strafing towards a permacultureish-"spread and forget" approach to gardening these days.  Also found a half dozen almost grapefruit sized bug pupae of some sort in my 4 back breaking barrow loads of compost (I'm not exercising strenuously, Dr. Pham, I swear!).  I think they are what Mac and MaGyver call potato bugs aka "Jerusalem cricket" or stenopelmatus.  We threw into the compost whenever we dug them up last year.  Either that or radioactive cicadas.  

Turbo'ed my taxes.  MacG is letting me claim the entire mortgage interest, so I got a decent refund which I preemptively dumped into paying off more mortgage principle.  My stretch goal would be to get this mortgage into the 5 figures before I turn 30.

Last weekend, Sun Joe chipper shredder made pretty short work of a trumpet vine standing between us and an established lemon tree, so I dragged the tarp of his contributions into the chicken coop to deepen the bed a little bit.  

MaGyver and Ri were kind enough to swing by around noon which is when things really started getting interesting.  We loaded 2 dog crates into the Prius and headed up to Norco to shop for some heritage hens.  Ma got a very spunky Blue Andalusian, a Black Sex Link (sounds kinky), and a French Black Copper Maran (with hairy legs, of course).  She even subsidized a second BCM to be our Clyde 2.0.

2 has already proven herself a capable escape artist.  After breaking out of her a-frame holding pen, I had to follow her into the crawl space under the house and hustle her out through the basement past the house arrested Klee Kai's (all the while totally not exposing myself to dusty/pokey environments without my safety goggles, Dr. Pham!  >.<).  Blinky, true to her attack mechanic, immediately commenced pulling 2's feathers out.  Inky, I think out of BCM solidarity, would shield her a bit, but she was still getting whooped every couple of minutes.  So I shut the dog door (but not before Rho knocked a triumphant broccoli-grazing Blinky down a couple pegs), left the coop door open, and let them sort it out.  I came back at sunset to find the usual suspects roosting on their perches.  I'm not convinced 2 knows how to flail-flap yet, and eventually found her hunkered down in a sort of sheltered area by the foundation.  I was able to gradually herd her back into the coop.  She's still doing the adolescent bird thing of wandering around nervous-clucking, which attracted the liberated dogs' attention.  I caught Rho at dusk more than half way tunneled under the coop entrance and put him in another time out.  Hopefully tomorrow things will go more smoothly.  

Kai dislocated some tendons playing with Rho yesterday and spent the remainder of the day hopping on 3 feet and yodeling her plight to sympathetic vets.  I managed to sneak her anti-inflammatory meds into some peanut butter (surprising considering we gave her a PB and hydrogen peroxide cocktail not so long ago after she'd helped herself to a PB and rat poison cocktail).

Villa D'Este

Why is Villa D'Este not all over Pinterest?

At a girlfriend's wedding in Sorrento, another guest suggested a day trip from Rome to check out this awesome water garden in Tivoli.  For the gardening/engineering inclined, this place easily trumps the heavily touristed attractions within the city limits.  Normally, I abstain from photos, but this time I couldn't resist.

tl;dr a Cardinal in the running for Papacy decided to drown his loss by decking out his hillside govenor's mansion with some serious hydroponics (1550-72).

I had to walk to the other end of the property to capture this one in its full glory (better pro pictures here).  It is the culmination of 3 terraces and 2 fountain installations.  Having just come from St Peter's in the Vatican the day before, the top fountain (Fontane Dell'Organo) struck me as run of the mill ornate.  However, in its heyday, it was a water-powered organ, thus elevating its status to Epic.

Behind the falls, there is a second terrace you can cross.  There are 3 grottos behind the falls, each with their own fountain.  This made for some rad mid-day A/C, but was a bit too loud to carry on a conversation.  All the same, it was amusing to picture fussy Shakespearean era ladies cruising around the gardens in fashionable, if not entirely functional attire.

I also managed to capture an awesome triple rainbow from one of the two turrets on that second tier (the middle of the Fontane di Nettuno), despite my suboptimal 3 megapixel vintage iPhone camera.

At the bottom level is a series of pools (peschiera) with some heavy duty carp.  These guys are arm-length+.  Inside the Villa, the exhibits were focused on food during Rinascimento.  From what little I could understand of the Italian program, the kitchen of this property could put together a pretty serious spread, so I wonder if they actually fished these guys up and cooked them.  After reading about the chicken's Southeast Asian roots in my "On Food and Cooking" book last night, it was also pretty neat to see medieval sketches of the typical poultry of the region (with a quail-like crest) and something exotic called Indian gallus, which looked suspiciously like our modern chicken.  Despite the well-stocked fish pond, I still managed to get a couple mosquito bites in my reverie.  I guess this is to be expected with so many water features for expectant mosquito mothers to choose from.

This massive ferny trough was also pretty impressive.  Le Cento Fontane (100 fountains).  While I was thinking that if a setup like this didn't get too hot, it might make an excellent tank for trout, MacGyver was noticing that the ones on one end of the causeway seemed to have more water pressure.  Could have been attributable to the gaping 101st "fountain" which we found midway.  Tivoli is a giant hill and Cardinal Ippolito was savvy to realize that this landscape held great hydroponic promise.  Even so, the amount of planning that had to go into getting a works like this into equilibrium without the help of pumps and what not is pretty astonishing.  

We'd been brainstorming ways to feed a more modest (affordable) system with greywater, rain water, and the like.  My concern was that all the lint and debris coming out of the wash would gum up the system, but a banister like this might provide some basic filtration and complete the look of our cement back steps....




If swimming pools could look like this, I would understand why people take the trouble.  Not sure if the sanitary effects of chlorine fully offset the awesomeness of having mossy ferny walls for landscaping.  Perhaps a modern rendering wouldn't turn out quite as awesome because a lot of the sculptures and raised beds were cut out of corral which is a bit of a faux pas to harvest these days.  Judging by its depth, people probably didn't actually swim in Fontana dell'Ovato, but how rad would it be to have a second story semicircular catwalk you could dive off of or lounge in the shady arcade behind the falls on the ground level?

Sprinklers, Blinds and Hops

Some updates:

• Sprinklers installed in the front yard. Hopefully the barren wasteland look will be a thing of the past. Still need to get the back half by the star pine.

• Replaced the blackout blinds in the dining room. Reused the bamboo blind as it fit perfectly across the two windows and only took slight modification to fit on the existing brackets.

• Fully harvested the Saaz hops. 18oz total which is pretty good for a first year plant. Cloned a start of it for a buddy at work. Also hope to clone more and get them on the perimeter fence.

• Mounted some mirrors in the 'greenhouse'. Belle has set up an office there because it has been so hot.

Bonus Material -- Details of Installing A Skylight on an old zero degree roof:

I had relatively no idea how to do this moving into the project and the instructions given by the manufacturer while helpful mainly focused on ehhh newer construction. There were some good takeaways but some gripes as well (why don't you just tell me what to cut my 2x4's to instead of giving the outside dimension?). Anyhow I first built the frame and verified the skylight fit. Then I investigated the roof, which turned out to be tongue and groove 3/4" redwood with a 3/8" particle board mat on top which the shingles were nailed to. I measured the spot to put the skylight and drilled 4 1/2" starter holes at each corner. I then went up to the roof and traced the inside diameter of the frame on the shingles. I then cut a massive hole in our roof. At this point I became very timid to step on the area between the hole and the edge of the roof, as the only support (at the time) was the grooves and the wall. I would recommend this to others as well, there is no need to risk it, so keep to the solid side. I then cut back the shingles about 3" around the entire hole and pulled it up so I could slip the underlayment and the flashing under it. The flashing kit that was built for the specific skylight while expensive was worth it as it fits extremely well and required no modification. Prior to attaching the flashing I screwed the frame to the roof from the inside of the house. Then screwed the flashing to the frame (keep this above the level of the seal). According to the manufacturer this is enough to completely seal the skylight, but with a 0 degree roof I felt I needed to do more. I took some spare torch down tar we had left over from the wet room and a blowtorch and proceeded to go to town on that. The easiest and safest way was to do it from the inside with my torso sticking out the top while standing on a ladder. Finally I cleaned up my saw cuts with a sander and added some metal we used on the egg carton. Also skylights cost more than I expected (~450 bucks on sale).

Shades of greywater

What's wrong with this picture?

With the help of our awesome friends, Jen & Nina, the FrankenFruit (left) and Christmas Lamb Haas Avocado (right) made their way to the southern end of our lot for optimal sun.  Sadly, our 50' hoses did not stretch the length of the lot and watering was a hit or miss process involving the "jet" setting.  So when the pumpkin seeds from a failed solar baking experiment germinated in the compost mulch, I let them go, thinking the ground cover might provide a microclimate that prevented water evaporation...  I cringe to admit that I might have even planted zucchini down there...  But even with limited watering, things got huge, with stalks overtaking the lower branches of the trees.  I also learned that these gourd things are heavy feeders, apt to compete with the trees for water and other resources.  Our haphazard watering process had also unleashed a crop of spikey weeds which climbed to heights of 4' before we could don gloves to cut them down.  Zombie Rose Hedge re-emerged in all of its extra thorny heirloom glory, further dissuading us from taking care of the trees.

The idea of using the less-toxic water we create in the house was appealing; if it went into sewers, it would probably end up in the ocean and need to be desalinated before it would be potable again.  Stuff like the water MacGyver uses to speed cool homebrew had no solvents in it all all.  Why not keep it closer to home?  That said, we have a tendency to over-engineer things (see: shower curtain experiments).  We'd put this project off, thinking we'd need to wait for the bathroom and laundry plumbing renovations to go in with diverters, giving us plenty of time to plan elaborate greywater bogs and aqueducts, complete with ducks, koi, and catfish.  We ignored the tactical designs included in this book for the more involved ones...  (the golf balls are part of the Fertile Chicken project, the clicker is a token of Rho's status as "teacher's pet" his first day of Puppy K, and the zucchini-- heavy feeder, 'nuff said).  

But desperate times call for simpler measures.  The former owner had been kind enough to leave us with not one, but two broken water softeners.  The first one made its way into the dumpster with the help of surgery with a sawzall.  MacGyver emptied the second one this morning, leaving us with a cistern.  We had some left over cinderblocks from our composting stall that we used to build a base and increase the height differential of the tank.  It was just the perfect height to nuzzle up to the former dryer vent hole on the back porch.  No DIY project is complete without a trip to Home Depot...  

We picked up a spare 100' hose, a washer, a spigot, some gaskets, silicon sealant, and a 10' extension for our current washing machine hose.  All in, about $80, $30 of which was the hose and $15 was an impulse purchase of a spigot manifold.  

MacGyver nearly suffocated himself mounting a spigot on the bottom of the water softener cum-cistern.  It needs to be at the bottom because we aren't using a pump and if it were higher, it wouldn't drain fully.  He also indulged me by taping on a sheet of mesh to help filter the lint out of the water (MaGyver had mentioned this was a barrier to her using greywater).     

We tested it by filling it a third of the way by hose-- that's a lot of hosewater, so it took some time to fill.  MacGyver is bolder than me, attempting to "prime" it by sucking air out of the hose.  I think this "priming" step is optional once your system is set up and you know there are no kinks in the hose.  Any roller coaster loop-d-loops eat into your precious height differential as well.  It can only drain downhill (hence mounting the water softener cistern on cinderblocks).  

Then we tested the washer connection by running a load of laundry.  For detergent, I used this baggie of Soap Nuts which are supposed to be biodegradable.  There was a thin film of white foam on the top of the cistern after rinse.  I'm not sure if that was the Soap Nuts or residue from previous washings.  Clothes smelled clean when the load finished, so I guess it works fine.  I probably didn't need the mesh filter as it appears to be clear after the first load.  We'll see in a couple days if we've killed our plants in this adventure-- we're focusing mostly on fruit trees, not applying greywater directly onto crops we would eat (i.e. spinach, peppers, beans).  The Building an Oasis book has a lot of tips on how to filter greywater to limit risks of contaminating/killing your crops.    

Even though 1/3 of the cistern felt like a lot to fill with the hose, our washer uses more water than we gave it credit for.  If we'd put in a second rinse cycle or tried to hold the water to cool off before irrigating, we probably would have had an overflow situation.  With those caveats, this turned out to be a relatively quick and easy way to increase the amount of water we route to our thirsty fruit trees.    

In other news-- The Great Bean Bakeoff Results:

for folks comparing notes from further afield, we are growing in full sun raised beds in Zone 9b (SoCal) with a timer soaker hose irrigation system.  

Best Heirloom Bush Bean:  Royalty Purple.  Velvety purple pods are both prolific and easy to see.  You can tell that they are done cooking because their casing turns green (but the beans remain a pastel purple).  Bountiful proved to be anything but (that said, it was at a disadvantage hidden behind the Zucchini).  Painted Pony beans were pretty, but slow to germinate, if at all.  Burpee's Stringless feature sounds appealing, but the yield was underwhelming.  

Best Heirloom Pole Bean.  tie.  Cherokee was the prettiest, easy to spot purple.  Turkey Craw provided the most impressive yield.  In the future, pole beans are easier to work with than bush.    

Lazy Sunday

The PaGyver Pack stopped by to play with fire and make some serious headway on the wet room.  MacGyver has more detailed updates but has inhaled a prodigious amount of tar (or Gypsy Den grog) and seems to be making a slow start today.

Last Sunday was particularly cold and we decided to give the fireplace a shot.  I was pleased at the amount of scrap shop and yard wood we were able to dispose of in the process.  I started stacking scraps on the side door staircase leading up to the living room in readiness for the next fire.  By the end of the evening, we had a slightly warmer, slightly smokier front room.  GrandEpics suggested a grate to improve air circulation, so I ordered one on Amazon that rotates the burning space 45 degrees so much of it rests on the back wall instead of the ground.  This should route smoke further up the chimney and expose more hot cinders for heat.  We shall see.  Cleaning up was pretty easy.  I read chickens will sometimes roll in ash as a way to smother parasites in their feathers so I dumped the remainder in their coop instead of experimenting with the trapdoor into the unfinished basement.


The hen house is doing well.  The chickens are big enough to sleep outside instead of needing to go into a dog carrier on the front porch.  They developed a taste for spent brewing grain, so MacGyver indulged them by brewing a replacement batch yesterday.  They looked so cheated when I checked on them that morning I tried letting them sift through the most "done" worm bin.  I'm not sure if they've figured out worms are edible yet as there were still plenty when I took the bin out this morning.  We will need to go snowboarding and reprovision in NorCo soon because they are running low on straw and eat a lot of chicken feed.  I did order some grain seeds which could be used alternately for feeding chickens, people, or beer.  Those will take a long time to grow and probably not support hen appetites though.

The main purpose of that seed order was rhubarb which GrandEpics say makes great pie...  If you're willing to wait the 2 years for the stalks to get established.  The timing should be just right for us as we don't really have an oven to bake said pie in right now anyway.  We do, however, have an awesome diy magnetic spice rack.  The lids turned out to be press on when I was hoping they'd screw on, so there were a few spills.

Also looking forward to a few major appliances.  I ordered a compact dishwasher that needs to be shipped by freight because our counters are too low to accommodate a standard sized one.  We also got a pretty competitive quote for furnace and A/C plus removing all the asbestos duct work, so we'll schedule that as soon as MacGyver saves China and can get off mandatory over time and do whatever prep to be ready for them.

By the Books

Speaking of that idyllic shot of bookshelf and comfy chair (consignment shopping for the win)...

Some of us have the gift of grok, we can disappear into a powertool encrusted cave and emerge with-- reclaimed romex wrought iron window-mirror knock off...  I am not that some of us.  I'm more like the Diablo archivist, Deckard Cain.  I surround myself with stacks of topical literature trying to triangulate on consensus and brinksmanship from myriad points of view.  As a consequence, I'm inordinately interested in friend's libraries as a mirror into their soul or breadcrumbs as to why I like them.   

In the event you find yourself more in the Cain camp, here is my current literary canon:  

*Letters of a Woman Homesteader. Stewart, Elinore Pruitt.  Collected correspondence from a widow who moves to Wyoming in 1909.  Free download from Amazon, quick read.  Holy cow were there some optimistic, git 'er done types at the turn of the century!  Makes the small complaints about lack of heat or shower seem trivial, plus better tune into the spirit of the times when Halladay broke ground.  

*The American Frugal Housewife.  Child, Lydia Maria Francis.  1832.  Housekeeping tips from pre-Halladay era.  Free download on Amazon.  You won't recognize half of the inputs, so these aren't actionable recipes, but the spirit of frugality and industriousness is strong with this one.   

*Getting Things Done.  Allen, David.  When people say I have "my sh*t together," it's largely a credit to this book.  Like most people, I've settled on a lighter weight version of the project management routines he outlines (with periodic returns to the well).

*Three Black Skirts and One Hundred everybody needs a couple pink girl power books.  Three Black Skirts was the first how to stay sane as a semi-autonomous 20-something guide.  One Hundred appealed to my compulsion to make lists and collect stuff.   

*The 4-Hour Body and The 4-Hour Work Week.  Ferriss, Timothy.  Tim is the ultimate hacker, tearing an objective down to the studs and finding the most expedient way to get there (bonus points if its also unorthodox).  The TF diet helped MacGyver and I slim down last summer while the work week helped me escape from a career that was all about optics and being first in/last out/first to respond to weekend email.  

*The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer.  Lived up to its title (twice) and has a super accessible training schedule.  I was hoping it would have tips on speed training for an upcoming relay, but sadly, this is all about finishing and not about setting PR.  

*Making It and The Urban Homestead.  Coyne, Kelly.  Granted, she came across a bit extreme when the first chapter discussed alternatives for the toothbrush.  This was the first survey into sustainable living.  Have found myself pulling these out of the archives when looking for natural cleaning recipes to grey water capture designs.  

*Home Comforts.  Mendelson, Cheryl.  A home ec geek!  Super rare spawn!  Her book is super fun to page through sighing about how long it will be before making sure we vacuum the blinds fortnightly tops our to do list.  

*A Random Walk Down Wallstreet.  Malkiel, Burton.  Loved it, helped me to save the majority of my income to go back to school.  I still use the asset allocation suggestions he provides in the last chapter.  It was written pre-housing bubble, so he's a bit more optimistic on the ROI of home ownership vs. renting, but so are we.  

*Your Money or Your Life.  Dominguez, Joe.  Sparked the realization that to be independently wealthy needn't take the form of a trust fund and an approach for "fully loading" your hourly wage to account for costuming/elbow rubbing/decompressing.  In short, this book got me aspiring to be more of a cottage industrial.  

*The Tightwad Gazette.  Most of this is too tight for me.  Plus it's a compendium of e-zines put together before the internet was so big, so a lot of the tips aren't really the most frugal anymore.  That said, I love the concept of documenting and celebrating ways one saves money.    

*Enough.  Bogle, John.  Deeply respect this dude for coming up with the concept of index funds and making them available at Vanguard.  

*World Changing.  Found this one in a library in Oregon and loved it.  It's basically an encyclopedia of the things they think are broken in the world and what cool skunkworks projects are underway to address them.  

*Gaia's Garden.  Hemenway, Toby.  First introduction to permaculture, the concept of plant guilds, and the concept of allelopathic walnut trees that can poison everything beneath them (except agapanthus I'm desperate to uproot).  

*The Vegetable Gardener's Bible.  Smith, Edward.  Deep beds!  Cold frames?  

*Victory Garden Cookbook.  Loved the backstory about it being a supplement to a TV show encouraging folks to start victory gardens and not knowing what to do with the bounty.  That said, skews towards the sub-zone 9b crowd and some very unappealing staple veggies.  

*City Chicks.  Foreman, Patricia.  A bit misleading, her "microflock" is 20+.  This was the best book I found geared towards folks with the luxury of a yard, but the responsibility that comes with close neighbors.  Deep dive into chicken diets and how to diy.  You will have a minor in composting when you finish this book.  

*The Art of Raising a Puppy.  Monks of New Skete.  Read this on the plane from Boston to Orange County with a 4 lb bundle of joy under the seat in front of me.  Got me through the first months until Kai was old enough for puppy K and doggie day care. 

*The Whole Pet Diet.  Super helpful when Kai was having health troubles.  Turns out most of it was puppy immune system catching up and sketchy chemicals sprayed on the apartment complex lawn.  That said, we learned how to cook her chicken dinner and accidentally started eating more vegetables to get rid of her scraps.   

*The Singularity is Near.  Kurzweil, Ray.  I personally don't believe I'll live forever, but that sliver of possibility really changes the way one approaches life and the decisions one makes, eh?  

*Willpower.  Baumeister, Roy.  Partially because I love spinning through the pop lit version of the heavy duty lit review authors of theses past.  Partially because when times are tough, I'd rather believe I just need to muscle in 10,000 hours, however crappy they may be, and I too will be considered a virtuoso (see also:  Talent is Overrated)...  oh, and Baumeister offered more insight into why MacGyver is so careful to make sure my glycemic index does not drop perilously low.   

*A Pattern Language.  This group rocks.  They pull apart all of these patterns that change the way you look at architecture and space.  I was so inspired, I got MacGyver to rotate my work desk 90 degrees in order to have a more "quiet back" and feel less paranoid.  Elements of their observations are baked into every home design decision we've made, and even the meta-process of slowly revamping and prototyping, rather than gutting the house and designing it's rennovated version in a vacuum.  

*Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft.  Buckland, Raymond.  You ever have something you just couldn't bring yourself to purchase when you knew someone else would be reviewing the credit card statement.  Yeah.  Not planning to do any "skyclad" rituals on the next Samhain, but it is kind of cool to see where Science and Religion (however disorganized) diverge and maybe laugh quietly to myself when the trend reverses.  

*The Secret.  Byrne, Rhonda.  See above.  

*The Illiad & the Odyssey.  Homer.  Because we needed some handsome leather bound tomes.  Plus I've read both as an almost-classics major and James Joyce enthusiast.  

*The Lord of the Rings.  Another handsome leather bound tome.  Plus a good overall story, if you have the time to sit down and crack it.  

*Faceforward and Making Faces.  Kevyn Aucoin.  Incredible coffee table books of one famous actress being a dead ringer for another famous actress/actor using the magic of makeup.  Eye Candy.  

*Caravaggio.  Him and Bernini were the highlight of studying abroad in Rome.  Eye candy.  

*V for Vendetta.  More eye candy.  And nerd cred.  

*Fell... misc. Ben Templesmith graphics.  Modern day Caravaggio, imho.  

*Game of Thrones.  Martin, George.  The HBO series was so good!  and true to the books!  Midway through book 2 and this is my go-to read on my phone for those long plane rides.  

Small photo updates.

Finished laying the pennies. Going to do the surface tomorrow.
Belle planted a lamb hass avocado tree:I painted my beer kegs with chalkboard paint to keep track of what is in which keg.

Fired up the gas lamp. (Belle has been busy stripping that wallpaper):

Botany 103: companion planting

The Great Bean Bakeoff

Raised bed #4.  During installation, MacGyver uncovered a massive decomposing palette.  This may have been to store treasures off the ground when house storage was no longer an option.  It also may explain why the pecan tree looked so sick/thirsty.  After spending an inordinate amount of time with  companion planting quick reference, I decided to plant all 6 heirloom bean varieties (bush & pole) from my apocalyptic readiness kit in conjunction with garlic, shallots, carnival carrots (multicolor), and zucchini which I received as gifts (thanks!).  This builds off lessons learned from raised bed #1:  different varieties of the same plant perform wildly differently (see: cherry tomatoes) and one trellis of peas doesn't yield enough to make a persistently harvestable full serving of veggies.  I've also heard horror stories about prolific zucchini, so I started a few of them in a potting tray to avoid an Audrey II type situation.  I tried to plant the purple podded beans towards the less-accessible side and center to streamline harvesting.  I used the companion plants to designate the boundaries.  We threw some chicken wire on top to keep the tunneling Klee Kai from messing up the plan.  

Bitter Greens & Beer

The mixed greens we planted in front of the spinach took on a life of their own.  We tried clear cutting them and juicing them, but the ones that were thriving were the super bitters.  No amount of banana, OJ, or chocolate protein powder was going to make that smoothie palatable.  I clear cut and composted most of it.  To fill the void, I started a couple basil plants from gift seeds.  Our last basil in molecule garden got decimated, so I want to plant the replacement where we can keep an eye on it.  Fortunately, basil plays nice with its future neighbors (pepper, lettuce, tomatoes, and spinach).  To free up space in the potting tray, I transplanted the 7 globe artichoke starts to be ground cover under the Reed avocado tree.  These guys are doubling as landscaping since they take a year to mature. 

MacGyver also ordered myriad hops varieties for Operation Home Brew.  Maybe they should grow up the house after it gets repainted.. or maybe the final fence when it's installed...  we're weighing our options and testing out how much sun these guys need with some planter prototyping.  

Finger Foods

Raised bed #3 is a petite triangle of snack food.  We started with edamame (which is finally sprouting). Strawberries are also starting to sprout.  The hope is they will be low-profile edible living mulch.  If this batch doesn't work out, we've got gifted seeds (w00t!).  We set the triangle up on the major thorough-fair between the gate and the backdoor right by the mega hose, so we can stay on top of it. 

misc Epic innovations

• Office Yacht desk converted to back porch work table (aka MacGyver's junk drawer)
• Upgraded front room theater keyboard and mouse to ones which are more responsive
• Sleeping bags in bed to minimize draft (now with bed buddy bed warmer)
• El cheapo paintbrushes for wood stain crevice application and paint stripping (better finish, less chemical burns)
• Lil victorian dog door concept (implementation was all MacG). 

Botany 102

Hidden object game!  Can you find the still-potted rosemary?

Rotate 90 degrees, trim deadwood, and voila!  Replacement for trumpet vine and garnish for Kai's food.  (Kai helped dig up trump stump on far right).  

Also planted 2 avocados (Reed and Hass) in the backyard.  While we had our eye on a Lamb-Hass because it yields monstrously sized avocados in its formative years, these were sold out and it turned out we could get 2 whole trees for 1/3 the price of the illusive Lamb Hass.  

MaGyver dropped in to fill MacGyver's truck with green waste for our field trip to the Prima Deshecha landfill (outgoing truck load 4/10) and jump start two raised beds for herbs and veggies out of salvaged boards in the yard.  Approximately $110 project ($8 of which was pure bull sh*t).    

More documentation to follow if/when things start to sprout.  

Veggies Planted:  

• Sweet potatoes:  Grab a sack from Trader Joe's, cut into halves/thirds, bury in bullsh*t/leaves/nitrogen boosted soil, cover in mulch (partial shade is OK).  
• Spinach/Mesclun:  Scatter each seed package over approx 6-9 sq foot expanse and cover lightly with more of the above.  Make sure to water daily while getting its start.  Once established, "haircut" periodically for salads.  
• Bell Peppers:  bought a started plant.  Provide a support stake.  
• Cherry tomatoes:  bought 2 started plants (a yellow pear and a red cherry).  Provide a support stake.  Research the cool heirloom varieties we beeline for at Trader Joe's.  
• Peas:  scratch with screw, etc. if you didn't start them in a wet paper towel.  Dump them in a trench in front of a wire trellis for them to grow up.  Best if trellis is towards the back of the bed on the north end in order to ensure the rest of the plants get sun (or in the middle, in order for plants to grow up both sides).  
• Marigolds:  Evidently, these tell bugs to GTFO.  
• Chives:  See above, but slightly more edible. 

Herb garden, (shadier, less trafficked corner under the orange tree because it needs less TLC).  This one MacGyver used whimsically patterned river stones instead of mulch to increase heat, retain moisture, and dissuade weeds.   

• Rosemary: remnant from apartment container gardens.  Rocks in rosemary sweet potato fries (a la Clover food truck at MIT).  
• Stevia: remnant from apartment containers.  This stuff is super hardy and sweet!  It doesn't make hard apple cider (aka MacGyver Redbull) taste any smoother, but works wonders in "Nohitos"
• Mint: because we decimated our last apartment mint plant in our Tim Ferriss no-sugar-mohito summer (mint, stevia, limes, rum).  
• Basil: remnant from grocery store TBM run (aka Operation Caprese)
• Garlic:  MaGyver gift from previous visit-- it might or might not be elephantine.
• Sage:  good in stews (because I cook so many of those...)
• Oregano:  Italiano?  idk
• Thyme:  I really don't know, except some kid in my 8th grade class used it with a seafood dish in home ec that won our "Iron Chef" before Iron Chef was a glint in a producer's eye final.  
• Parsley:  last one was never used to garnish anything and eventually went to seed... hopefully destroying the unsettling symmetry of The Park's ferngully below.  

Homework:  water veggies every morning for 3 days straight. Potentially locate onion start bulbs.  Find uses for above before the bumper crop final.    

Also learned:  carotene (vitamin A) boost Koi color.  Tried feeding cooked shredded carrot to the ghostly trio. No bites.  After killing the horsetail, it would be nice to slide some plants into their pond sometime soon.  Perhaps after I convince MacGyver to relocate it to the front porch... 

Vermicompost: Say hello to my little friends!

As you might imagine, space in the weekly waste pickup dumpsters is at a premium.  Our gardening endeavors also demand viable soil and amendments.  

Hence, the "tiny tower" worm condo.  

MacGyver:  absolutely not in the apartment, it will stink!
Belle:  er, there are expensive ones on Amazon that don't...

Our cheap ($30) diy one doesn't stink and can scale.

Materials

• 2 (or more if you home cook for a big wolf pack) stackable storage bins with lids ($8.47 each)
• enough mesh to cover the a bin's footprint ($4.98)
• 4 "feet" to elevate the bottom bin like these plastic curtain mount cradles (approx $5.00)
• 1/4" and 1/8" drill bits + drill
• 1 lb (approx 1000) red wigglers ($27.95)
• couple cups of starter dirt (say from the failed hanging garden of bathalon)
• shredded paper (not the glossy worm poisoning ink kind)

1.  line the top and bottom sides of each bin with 1/8" holes (a/c for worm condo)

2.  cover the underside of each bin with 1/4" holes (elevator shafts)

3.  line the interior floor of the first level bin with mesh (drainage system)

4.  put lid on floor concave side up and add stability feet (sewer)

5.  balance first floor bin on stability feet

6.  fill with starter dirt

7.  watch mail diligently for worms (they die and get stinky if they languish in your mailbox)

8.  add worms

9.  slowly introduce organic matter.  Worm populations can double in 90 days, so expect to scale up.

10.  cover in shredded paper periodically to prevent smell

11.  put second lid on top of first floor

12.  when first floor begins to approach full occupancy, stack second floor directly onto first.  Worms will use the elevator shafts to migrate to the second floor.  

13.  bottom floor should smell earthy and ready to go about a month afterwards (your throughput may vary).  

14.  empty it for use as a "3rd" story.  Place its mesh liner outside of the currently occupied second floor.  

15.  you may notice your sewer filling up (particularly if your condo is located on a grade and fill it with watery coffee grounds).  This is worm tea.  It's like MiracleGro but way better and less chemicalicious.  Use it on your most troubled/prized plants.  

General tips for winning the bet with MacGyver that it won't stink:

• Start with small amounts of less stinky, already broken up food (coffee, tea, juicer pulp)
• Liberally cover with shredded paper whenever things start to look swampy
• Empty sewer early and often
• No animal parts or dairy (worms can eat egg shells, but can't keep up with our 4 a day habit)
• Go easy on citrus (sure, it smells lemony fresh, but if you put in the remnants from juicing an entire tree, it will get really acidic, taste like burning and take a hella long time to eat through)

Botany 101

MaGyver staged a much needed intervention on the yard this weekend.

On The Grand Tour, she identified most of our indigent plant species and their redeeming qualities (if any).  We are the proud owners of a $40,000 ailing Pecan tree, $400 of agapanthus bulbs, a giant bamboo grove, several hideous™ Trumpet Vines, and something ominously named Mother in Law's tongue...  The not-quite-oleander forest remains a mystery.

Then she appropriated a pickup truck bed to fill to the brim with yard debris.  This makes outgoing truckload three.  In the process, she brought the dead Black Widow count to parity with the dead fly count.  

Then we're scavenging bricks from around the lot to build circular wells for deep watering the orange trees.  Dust with citrus/avocado food, add heirloom blue flag and iris and cover with mulch to hold the water in.  Pretty crafty, knowing I don't want to water ornamentals, she plants them on top of my most productive fruit tree.  At any rate, blue flowers contrasted against oranges should look groovy if the color theory video I watched the other day is true.  

Cinderblocks for retaining walls and cow manure arrive to kick start a larger scale composting operation.  Potting bench is relocated near putative vegetable garden.  

Homework:  water compost, mulch Trumpet Vine, cover tree and 100 yr old rose with said mulch, order Felco2 pruners, and get juicing.  

Sun Tea, Lemonade, Tire Composter

Given the tell-tale signs of a thriving rodent population, I've been anxious to consume seldom-used food items, like sugar and tea.

Sun Tea
Cost:  $1.00/carafe

Steep 6 tea bags in carafe in direct sun until it assumes tea-like hue (approx 3 hours).
Put used tea bags in worm bin

Lemonade
Cost:  $1.50/8 glasses

Drink half of a gallon jug of water, leaving you with 8 cups and a container
Pick ripe lemons off your tree (you need about 20/batch)
Juice lemons - tire compost the rinds
1.5 cups lemon juice
1.5 cups white granulated sugar
8 cups of water
Mix

Tire Composter
Stack any tires the previous owner left you with (2)
Fill with a layer of veggie/fruit matter (citrus b/c the worms don't care for it)
Cover with brown matter (chipper shredder mulch of hideous tree)
Repeat (breakfast grapefruit!)

When we're super sophisticated, we may experiment with watering the compost, stirring it, and infusing it with chicken poop...

Hanging Garden of Bathalon: Don't Try This At Home

Has some potential, eh?  Speaking of houseplant "successes"...

Should you be toying with the idea of "back to nature" bathscaping, critique this picture before clinging to your own bathtub toe holds to balance a 10 lb planter in all its green Cthulhu tentacled glory on a make shift ledge.  While I haven't ruled out the vision of a bathroom that resembles the Lincoln Park Conservatory orchid room, let's just say there is no shortage of reasons the current crop is checked into rehab on the balcony.  

What's wrong with this picture?  

1.  No natural sunlight:  Even though these species are hardy jungle dwellers, they need some degree of light.  Our bathroom lights have motion sensors, so we couldn't even set those to stay on as a proxy (not to mention ideally, we'd upgrade to full spectrum fluorescent instead of incandescent).

2.  Pot positioning:  Most obvious-- Kai can (and has) knocked over the orchid and rooted around in the Dracaena.  Granted, reaching through a curtain of vines for your shampoo is rad...  but not if watering said plant washes soil particles into your soap, or if the hassle of taking the plant down to water it means it goes thirsty and you're reaching through a curtain of yellowed unhappy leaves. 

3.  Brown Leaves & Water Choice:  Watering some of the other planters with Koi water in the mornings created thriving beds.  However, I learned Dracaena is prone to tip burn caused by overly alkali conditions (and stress).  Fish excrement tends to be alkali as well.  Having plants in the water off-gassing C02 overnight helps to neutralize the water, but all we have in there is a bit of algae and some horsetail.  If we keep using pond water, perhaps we'll need to soup it up with more hyacinths.