May 12th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

This week I got the chance to attend a private tour of the properties that comprise the 2011 Travis County Master Gardener’s Association Inside Austin Gardens tour. Given that I’m unemployed, the weekday-date of this preview tour wasn’t as daunting to me. All in the name of professional development, networking and inspiration, right?

Jenna and I went on this tour in 2009, and I still borrow ideas from the gardens from that year (Cheryl Goveia’s garden of art and whimsy being the stand-out property for me). So, I wasn’t going to attend this year’s tour on the actual date (Saturday, May 14), but the private tour afforded me a chance to experience the tour without toting the tot (who, recently, has made this type of hopscotch travel difficult.)

The theme of the tour is water-wise gardening: increasing rainwater infiltration, rainwater catchment, xeric plantings, etc. I can say some wonderful things about all of the properties with relation to that and other aspects of gardening. Each had significant strengths, and a wealth of stealable-ideas. I loved Rebecca’s tenacity at transforming her yard one small bed at a time to the point she no longer has grass. I appreciated the sheer lushness of Sue’s garden, and the tip about “cemetery rock”. And Sheryl’s garden was an oasis of low-water ideas, even with its lush vegetable production areas. Oh, and did I mention her enviable water collection systems? Yeah.

But I definitely wanted to focus this entry on Link Davidson‘s creations. (Oh, and if you missed this energetic self-described ox of a designer, catch him on CTG from this past week. (And if you watch his interview, stay a little longer in the program for a few photos of mine CTG used.)

Technically, the property on the tour is Wendy’s, and was created with her interests and aesthetics in mind. It sits next door to Link’s property, and he has fused the two landscapes into one by continuing certain elements between the two. A dry creek bed reminiscent of Wendy’s love of the Barton Creek Greenbelt, for example. This feature rolls gently downhill from Link’s property before heading south through Wendy’s. Naturally it ties the two together visually, but serves as a channel for run-off and rainwater infiltration for the surrounding plantings.

Another feature, a cut concrete path, conjures up Wendy’s desire that as much material be reclaimed and reused as possible. To that end, Link cut the formerly-straight sidewalk into rectangles and squares using a concrete saw, and then moved the pieces into a curvy stepping-stone arrangement with generous space between for granite gravel. Additional pieces he tipped on their sides and used for varying vertical interest.

Steel compressor tanks and rusted, bent metal edging have been used to add other sculptural elements to the space. Many of these things were scavenged on Austin’s bulky trash day, and turned into pure art. As Link said, if he can’t get it out of the trash, it had better be on clearance at Target or Home Depot.

And while it’s probably not kosher of me to say too much about HIS yard, which we also toured, I’ll post a few photos of his space on my Flickr account to give you an idea of the depth of this man’s creativity. Needless to say, I was blown away at the artistry and resourcefulness at creating highly-inspiring spaces on a budget. I’m sure in some weak-kneed moment I heard myself tell him we were kindred spirits.

The What, When and Where:
Inside Austin Gardens Tour
Water-Wise Gardening
Saturday, May 14, 2011
9am – 4pm
www.tcmastergardeners.org/what/gardentour.html
$5 per garden, or $10 for all

May 7th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

It may be a little late for such things, so we’ll see. Planted okra and jalapeño transplants this week, as well as bush and vine green bean seeds, sweet corn seed, and summer squash seed. The bush beans are already past seed-leaf stage, while the other stuff seems to be biding its time. In a year with actual rainfall, the lateness might not matter much. But I think the drought may impact my success. We’ll see.

However, to help with all this, I am still letting tap water outgas its chlorine, and I have used parts of a bag of Revitalizer Compost from The Natural Gardener to make two 5-gallon buckets of compost tea. I was inspired to do this because I had potted a passionvine cutting directly in Revitalizer. Every time I went to water the sprout, the water in the saucer below was a rich dark-chocolate color. I could hear my other plants begging for it.

Today I need to strain that into storage jugs so it doesn’t become a haven for the blood squad. Though, a b. thuringiensis dunk would probably help that, and not hurt the compost tea.

A limitation I ran into this year is not having enough open planting space to plant certain crops on time. Basically, I’d love to have the corn where the potatoes are, but the potatoes have yet to vacate the space (but they are seeming close to digging time). The strawberry bed would make a good spot for squash, but they still seem happy…even if my total berry output this year could be measured in the single ounces column.

Notable Arrivals
I’m reading reports of ripe tomatoes all over the Central Texas blogosphere, and my garden is not one to be out-performed in this regard. So far I’ve picked several handfuls of a small cherry tomato (don’t know the variety, but they are about the size of small marbles and VERY sweet.) I’ve also plucked the first two Viva Italias. Basically very much like Romas, these are a paste tomato that should be good for sauces and cooking. Verdict on taste is not in (I had a lot of tasteless tomatoes last year), but they are gorgeous, unblemished and heavy.

Also, we had one blackberry. Jenna reported it to be delicious. She got it since she requested the blackberry brambles back in January. We may get one more ripe berry. This is only notable since one shouldn’t actually get berries on first-year brambles. Berries develop on last-year’s canes.

What Else?
I was supposed to be going to the Wildflower Center’s Gardens on Tour today, but the boy is still sick, and would probably be pretty fussy. Momma and boy are sleeping right now, so plans are up in the air.

beans, compost tea, corn, okra, squash, vegetables

May 7th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

I won a pair of passes to the Wildflower Center’s Gardens on Tour this weekend (courtesy of the Statesman’s Renee Studebaker at Renee’s Roots, so we’ll be loading up the child and hoping he doesn’t want to stay for 14 hours at each place we visit.

All of the gardens appear to be professionally designed and installed, and I sometimes feel these don’t necessarily incorporate the soul of an inspired homeowner/gardener. But they WILL be pretty, and a testament to what you can do with a lot of resources. And hopefully a showcase for native plants, always a plus.

From the official description:

Last year’s drought and hard freezes put plants to the test. These gardens demonstrate how our natives can beautify a space, no matter the rigors of the region. Moreover, wildflower gardens are highly sustainable. They are conservative in water use, don’t need excessive chemicals to make them thrive and are easy to maintain.

May 5th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

For some time I’ve lamented that I never manage that seemingly perfect mix of compost heap ingredients that yields a little backyard furnace of thermophilic microorganisms, the one that keeps me from spreading weed seeds all over the yard (I’m damn tired of Arizona ash, sunflower and frostweed sprouts everywhere). I vowed to do better with composting this year, but wasn’t really doing anything systematically better to get there.

A week ago, however, I went to bury some kitchen scraps in the pile and flipped over a layer of organic detritus and discovered… heat!

The temperature needs to be a little higher… 135-160 degrees is the optimal temperature to destroy seeds and pathogens (not that I suspect THOSE are a problem… yet). Could be I need to get more air or moisture – or less – into the mixture.

But I think I stumbled into the right mixture of “green” to “brown” materials for the compost heap quite on accident. And a way to reproduce it in a somewhat reliable way. Last week when I mowed the grass for the first time this season, I had a bag of scavenged mixed oak leaves and grass from another yard I was mowing near. The bottom of the bag had rotted out, and when I went to move it, the leaf mixture spewed forth. Did I bother to rake it up? No. I had my gas-powered vacuum cleaner already running, so I kicked the leaves around and mowed them up. Since it’s a mulching mower and I bag the clippings, I had inadvertently created a really good mixture for the compost heap, probably achieving close to the 30:1 ratio of carboniferous to nitrogenous materials.

But it has been exceptionally dry here, too.

So, to help with that, I’ve been allowing tap water to sit in white plastic jugs. This allows the city-provided chlorine to outgas and prevents it from damaging the microbial community in the compost heap. Every week I dump a 5-gallon jug into the heap to help keep it moist. I generally turn it (or at least give it a good prodding) on the same rough schedule so it maintains some oxygen.

Last night I checked the temperature again, and it had fallen to around 110?. I suspect a lot of the nitrogen-bearing grass has been used up. It’s getting close to time to mow again, so I’m definitely going to toss in more leaves as I do.

And if that doesn’t work, I might resort to peeing in my compost pile.

carbon, compost, nitrogen