February 17th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

This is going around the garden and food-centric blogosphere. A single family has trademarked a term that has been in use (print media) since the 80s, and is now sending out cease-and-desist letters for any blogger who dares use it to describe their lifestyle of growing their own food and living off their urban land.

The controversy is well-documented here.

Basically, I’m just angling for my own cease-and-desist letter from these idiots. It’s an abuse of trademark law, and perhaps the more people who flaunt it, the less likely they’ll be able to continue this stupidity.

urban-homestead

December 6th, 2010 by Marc Opperman

It’s that time of year in Central Texas… leaf season. Twelve metric tons of leaves fall from my one ash tree or blow in from the neighbors’ yards and generally bury everything in the yard. And every year I agonize – mulch the leaves in place in the yard or rake, suck up with mulching mower, and put them somewhere useful? Rake leaves out of the beds? Or leave them there to compost?

Yesterday I opted to do more raking off the grass and out of the beds so that I could suck the leaves up with the mower and mulch elsewhere. In the process I threw in a lot of still-green clippings from other plants to give the “brown stuff” of the leaves a little “green-stuff” fuel for composting.

But given that our rainfall has, well, fallen behind again, composting in Central Texas can be a real challenge. Keeping leaf piles and compost heaps moist is difficult. Without the moisture, leaves and other “brown” materials just sit… for a couple years in some cases. Using city water to artificially water the pile poses some challenge, too, as the chlorine and other minerals in tap water change the balance of beneficial microbes in the compost and soil. A rainwater collection system feed to water the compost pile would be ideal, but could be hard to rig. Yesterday, I dragged out my hose-end chlorine filter and let a small sprinkler water the compost for about 45 minutes after mixing in some of my leaves and some pine needles imported by my parents from Houston. Hopefully that’ll help jump-start the compost again.

While turning the pile, I did find some dynastes beetle grubs, so I know the pile is not dead.

I also managed to plant some oxblood lily bulbs my mom gave me. I panted them in a row along the edge of a path in my back yard, so hopefully, come next Fall (usually on my birthday), I’ll have a red-lined walk.

September 22nd, 2010 by Marc Opperman

I’m really happy the weather has seemingly made a turn. With it, my willingness to claim I even have a yard/garden has returned, and the urge to hibernate has receded.

This weekend I had a very productive time of it in the yard. The usual mowing, weeding, trimming, etc. But some of my effort was motivated by the city’s bulky brush collection day in our neighborhood. I wanted to get the dead chinese tallow out of the yard for good.

Another small project involved a few pieces of 50s-era pine I got from my friend Grog. He’s been remodeling his own kitchen (yes, he did most of his own work), and he tore out some old cabinets. Those had some very serviceable 1×12 pine boards that immediately looked to me like good material for a raised planter box:

Here’s what the box looked like after it was put in place. The box is in the middle of the photo, and on the lower portion, I attached a 12″-piece I built out of some old shipping palettes. I piled a bunch of shredded grass/oak leaves I had saved in them so they could compost down.

It was nice to have a couple cuties visit, too! And, in the background, you can see the box with my bush beans. I’ve not gotten tons of green beans yet, but as of tonight I’ve had two solid handfuls in the past half-week… enough for two people to have them as a side at dinner. And many more are on the way!

I don’t see a lot of mantises in the yard (though I have at least seen them consistently), so was a little thrilled to see this mama staking out my compost pitchfork:

Lots of other good visitors, blooming things and volunteers – the rain has been a huge blessing. But more on that later.

August 1st, 2010 by Marc Opperman

I have a 5.5 horsepower chipper-shredder made by Craftsman in probably the 80s. My dad acquired it when a neighbor of his decided to sell or give it away – not sure which. I had to replace some rubber aprts of the air intake, and the starter cord, but that was pretty easy and cheap. It’s a solid machine, and does a very good job of turning bits of organic matter into smaller bits of organic matter. On the minus side, however, it uses a lot of gasoline and spews pollution like nobody’s business. And it’s loud. I have to use ear protection with it.

Still, it’s a great piece of the composting arsenal at my disposal. It does take some prep to break down stuff to be shredded – branches and other materials generally need to be trimmed down so they don’t get hung in the chutes, but once you get things to that stage, it’s wonderful to use. Oh, and it helps if branches aren’t too green. If they are, they tend to – sometimes – bend more than shred and get stuck in the blades.

This past weekend I hauled it out, parked it in the shade, and managed to get it started with the first pull of the cord. That impressed me. I have so much material in the yard I knew I wouldn’t finish the job, but I did make a two-hour dent in it. I took a substantial pile of branches from the ash tree in front and turned those into a whole wheelbarrow of mulch. Next up, a bunch of partially-rotten cedar fence slats. Those make wonderful, arromatic mulch. Lastly, I made a decent dent in the Chinese tallow branches I’d stacked up. Much of that material is 1″ – 3″ inches in diameter, so I had to use the secondary chute for those.

All said, I made three wheelbarrows of mulch, some of which went in beds, and some the compost heap. Though, considering how much gas usage and pollution this thing is responsible for, and how much time it takes, I’m not sure making my own mulch balances out all that well. Still, I like using this thing, It reminds me of my grandfathers (though there’s no real connection I can discern) AND that end scene of Fargo. Okay, maybe that’s disturbing.

There’s still much more to do, but it was a great start.

From this:

to this:

chinese tallow, chipper-shredder, craftsman, mulch

July 24th, 2010 by Marc Opperman

Well, it’s a little ghetto – the poles are crooked and covered with mildew, and the lashing is sloppy. But I recently had a minor epiphany about this simple, two-hour project I started back in, oh, May. The passion vine and trumpet vine are growing so quickly and prolifically the whole trellis will be completely covered in, what, 3 days?? So who cares if it’s ugly. It just needs to be strong.

A few of the lashings are done with wire for strength, and the rest are tied with normal cotton string. As the vines eventually cover the structure, they’ll begin to hold the bamboo poles in place. If the cotton string gets all fancy and biodegrades, it won’t matter much. Besides, the whole vine structure will die back if it freezes this winter.

With any luck, the top will begin to look like the bottom. Before long, the view of the neighbors and their South Florida back yard will disappear, and the fragrant passion vine will give us a little privacy on our back deck.

And just in case you missed it before, a gratuitous shot of wild sex:

June 27th, 2010 by Marc Opperman

Nothing particularly coherent to write about, but there were a few things I wanted to note for posterity.

Yesterday I planted green beans in the south-side bed. Originally I had saved that space for my wife to use. She wanted to get more involved in gardening, and we had researched the best things to plant given the late month. I was excited by that when she decided – it would have been a nice way to connect. But May stretched into June, and she hadn’t done anything with it. A week ago she finally admitted she wasn’t going to do anything with it. Disappointing.

So without a whole lot to lose, I planted green beans there… two rows of 3 seeds per mound… about 10 mounds. Already today they are sprouting. Beans are FAST! Now, it being almost July in Texas, it remains to be seen if anything comes of them. A long shot… but again, what’s to lose? I already had spare seeds.

Which reminds me, I need to hook up a water line to supply that bed from the sprinkler system. I have a micro-sprinkler tap nearby, but I need a few small parts to make it a go. Currently I have a hose-end sprinkler and chlorine filter supplying that bed, but with my 40+ year old brain, I’m likely to forget and leave that running all night.

And speaking of water, I have a PVC pipe over on the north-ish side of the house that captures the water from the A/C condenser. I had disconnected it over the winter – not a lot of A/C use until about February or so. I reconnected it today to water a small bed over there that contains a small thorny shrub whose name escapes me now. Damned 40-year-old brain. But it occurs to me that would make a good spot for the Gulf Coast penstemon, too… moisture and shade. I have had that plant for months, and I have yet to plant it. Poor thing. A wonder it’s still alive.

Lastly, since it has been Bug Week around here, I have to leave this post with yet another striking visitor to the yard:

June 26th, 2010 by Marc Opperman

I’m beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t make a chicken coop out of palettes! Readily-available, free, sturdy, endlessly-configurable. I could avoid using any new “forest products” from Lowe’s, HD, etc. And I work where we get a steady supply of them.

Thanks to Amanda for pointing out this brilliance on Flickr. My wheels are turning!

(I didn’t take the photo, and I don’t know where that barn is, but the whole set is viewable by clicking on the photo.)

UPDATE:

The goat shed builder can be found here.

June 15th, 2010 by Marc Opperman

Over the weekend, I had a lot of yard maintenance to do. Mowing, weeding, de-bugging, etc. I also wanted to turn the compost piles and swap the contents of the two. It’s a good way of mixing them up and making sure they are aerated. I was expecting them not to really have much in the way of useable compost yet. Boy, was I surprised.

Maybe I had neglected turning them for too long a while, but the bottoms of both contained a foot of rich, dark soil the color of coffee grounds. It was filled with earthworms and the daddy of all decomposers, hercules beetle larvae (probably dynastes tityus). 

I’ve only seen dead versions of the adults in my yard, and even that was a while ago. So hercules beetles are mostly a guess. But still, with larvae that big – the circumference of a golf ball – that’s probably the beast. I’ve seen these consistently in the bottom of the piles. I’ve always taken it as a good sign my compost pile was performing well.

I managed to dig out two wheelbarrows full of soil to top-dress a couple beds. I estimate there are 4 or 5 more wheelbarrows in there, and much more on the way. I added equal parts shredded live oak leaves saved from Spring and freshly-cut grass to the left pile. I covered that with some pieces of paper yard waste bags. I’m interested in seeing if the paper helps hold moisture in the compost. I left most of the useable soil in the right pile, though I did mix some in on the left to spread the microbial goodness.

compost, dirt, dynastes tityus, hercules beetle, wheelbarrow

May 17th, 2010 by Marc Opperman

I’m really glad Jenna and I are on-board with organics and growing as much of our own food as possible.

Study: ADHD linked to pesticide exposure – CNN.com.

May 11th, 2010 by Marc Opperman

I love touring other people’s gardens, even if it took them two orders of magnitude more resources to create their’s than I can put into mine. In a good garden – even one that took a half-million dollars to create – there should be some ideas that can be poached and replicated for practically no money, right?

Last Saturday Jenna, Lukas and I visited some of the gardens of the 2010 Wildflower Center Garden Tour. And while the two that we visited took considerable resources to implement, I came away with one idea I will be copying. And all it will cost me is about $1.89 in hemp twine.

That’s right… bamboo trellises. In a garden that has to have taken possibly a $100,000 or more to create (owned by Christine Ten Eyck, founder of Ten Eyck Landscape Architects), amongst the magnificent but earthy Berthold Haas fountains, the pervasive mile or so of drip sprinkler tubing, the uncountable tons of trucked Hill Country karst limestone, boat-loads of organic soil and hundreds of varied plantings, one idea struck me as being eminently practical, sustainable, and completely affordable. And it just so happens I have a pile of cut bamboo waiting for this little bit of brilliance.

Ideas I have in mind for it include a privacy trellis/screen for the trumpet and passion vines to help us gain some shielding from the neighbors (and their sterile South Florida yard), some walkway borders, and of course, vegetable trellises. A little scouting on Google revealed some simple methods of lashing bamboo.

Now all I need is that ball of twine.

More photos from the garden tour.

bamboo, garden tour, lash, trellis, twine