March 10th, 2012 by Marc Opperman

My rain barrels are full again! Not too surprising, really, but I had emptied them in preparation for this rain event. I made 10 gallons of compost tea with some of my stored water. Two 5-gallon buckets with a few ounces blackstrap molasses each, a shovel of freshly-dug compost each, and daily stirring. Hopefully, the vegetables enjoyed the foliar feeding they got just before the rain.

Oh, and I added a couple teaspoons each of bacillus thuringiensis v. kurstaki for the rampant worms that have been devouring my plants nightly. As early as the last week of February, I was seeing nasty cutworms. The last couple years, these have caused a lot of damage to my vegetable crops, and seem indiscriminate as to what they’ll eat… onion greens, broccoli, carrot greens, potato shoots, strawberry leaves. This year they seem even more numerous. And I’m seeing them as nocturnal pests, with two different behaviors: some cut the stems of plants, and leave the fallen plant. Others climb into the foliage and eat leaves. I can usually pick off the leaf-eaters, but the stem-cutters are harder to find. Sometimes I can poke around the base of cut plants and find a cutworm. Helps to have a good headlamp.

So, I’m trying the kurstaki. I read the caterpillars eat the microbe, which then releases crystallin toxins as the microbes multiply in the caterpillar’s gut. Sounds nasty. And fitting.

I finally finished removing the fire pit and replaced it with a sizable full-sun raised bed. I used spare cedar lumber, a few logs of cut juniper, and a block of sandstone to make it. My brand of economy leads to such eclecticism.

I had good help:

I filled the bottom with freshly-dug compost, and covered that with Natural Gardener Lady Bug soil. In one end, I planted three tomato transplants from my parents, Heinz, Ace and a large cherry. The other half will get cantaloupes, I think. I still want to plant a few more tomatoes, mainly indeterminate Romas or the Viva Italias I had last year.

Probably not much gardening this weekend… rain, and CAMN training. Tomorrow is spiders, insects and birds. Taught at Hornsby Bend. I’ve never been there, but I hear good things.

January 8th, 2012 by Marc Opperman

We’re supposed to get a new deluge of rain tonight, but I’m a little reticent to revel in that. I could jinx our chances.

That said, I got all the leaves mulched into fine particles suitable for direct mulching or the compost bins. I made perhaps 6 wheelbarrows of fine leaf litter, some of which went around the raspberry and blackberry canes. Much of the rest went into the compost bins, where I turned it in to be amongst the happy microorganisms that are already burning overtime to create some rich soil.

I finished my rain barrels last week in time for anything that might happen tonight. I’m really happy with the setup. Two barrels, a small length of garden hose between them, and some swank brass spigots. They are happily leak-proof after the application of both silicon and construction adhesive. The best part is that the pair of them cost about $70. And that includes the concrete block-and-brick bases.

I have radishes, lettuce, onions and carrots in progress right now, as well as some baby kale, cauliflower and broccoli. I probably could have planted these earlier, but they seem happy for now, and the radishes, for one, appear nearly ready for harvest.

December 17th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

My old makeshift rain barrel platform (constructed of pieces of old pressure-treated lumber) was sinking into the ground, and my rain barrel was listing. So I got a few concrete blocks, some spare brick, and a couple 24″ pavers and constructed a new one:

It is very sturdy, level and ultimately reusable. Nothing is mortared together – just heavy enough to stay in place, even if the barrel is empty of the 440 pounds of water it could hold.

I arranged the blocks in such a way that toads and other small critters have an opening to the interior and can access the inside and hide out in little “rooms” formed by the different blocks.

I want to go back to the homebrew store and buy another barrel. I’m eager to double my capacity.

September 28th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

I haven’t been all that motivated to write considering I’ve spent less than a couple hours in the yard in the past month, and that was mainly just to haul brush to the curb for the City of Austin collection day in our area. The cooler weather has been was nice, but with zero rain during the past few days of scattered thunderstorms, my yard is still a desiccated wasteland, and somewhat depressing to behold.

I did remove a native (and dead) inland sea oats grass from a large pot and move a stray little bluestem grass to the pot. I tried something that I hope will help foster deep roots and some moisture retention in the pot, as well as help some of my potted plants survive drought. And the seeds of the idea came from a project I’d been a part of.

A couple years ago I volunteered on a City of Austin Wildland Conservation Division work project to plant little bluestem in an arroyo on a preserve to mitigate erosion. We used a donated (but otherwise expensive) product called DriWater to help establish the transplants in the absence of continued watering.

The idea behind the product is that a non-toxic, degradable cellulose matrix bearing water within a carton would slowly release the water to the plants over an extended period as soil microbes helped the cellulose matrix decay – ideal for a preserve where watering wouldn’t be available. I heard anecdotally that the product helped and that some of the grasses got established.

Fast-forward to the past year. I have a toddler bumbling around, and one thing we certainly have is a supply of diapers. Occasionally one tears or fails in some way while still clean. It occurred to me at one point diapers probably use the same technology as the Dri-Water does, even if they don’t come pre-loaded with a water supply. (You need a toddler for that.)

I’d collected a few “bad” diapers, eventually to support my experiment. I tore the elastic and extraneous junk off a diaper and, while planting the little bluestem in a pot, buried the diaper pieces in the soil.

Diapers seem to hold buckets of… liquid. I’m curious to see if this helps the transplant grass weather our drought. I might try a planting in a raised bed with some diaper pieces at some point near transplants, or adjust potted plants to have more than one diaper in them. It’s been a week, and so far my transplanted bluestem looks good despite minimal watering.

drought, little bluestem, water

August 20th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

Since Austin is hurtling toward heavier restrictions on outdoor watering (Sept. 6 if our rainfall doesn’t improve), I’m considering a rather drastic experiment – no supplemental watering of anything in my yard.

This more or less means no Fall vegetable garden. But it will be an opportunity to see how tough my various natives are. And if I lose some St. Augustine grass in the deal, so much the better.

I was rather spooked by an article in the New York Times yesterday on the possibility that Texas could see another decade-long drought – it has seen droughts lasting as long as 50 years in the past – and that what we’ve endured so far this Summer could appear mild by comparison.

I’m trying to convince my family to accelerate our plans to move to Portland. So far no success.

drought, natives, water

July 15th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

I’m nothing if not a do-it-yourselfer. I love the challenge of taking stuff I already have and finding the best way to make something useful out of it. Part of this comes genetically – my grandfather was, and my father is, crafty this way. And like them, I keep a lot of salvaged stuff around so that I have options when it comes time to make something.

But one project eluded me – a rainbarrel. It’s been hard for me to locate a source of barrels suitable for tinkering. Most sellers know a finished rainbarrel sells for between $100 and $200, so they tend to price empty food-grade barrels accordingly.

Back when I wanted to make fresh mozzarella, I stopped by Austin Homebrew Supply since they are apparently the only place in town supplying the ingredients for cheese-making. However, they sell empty 55-gallon barrels very cheaply, as well. They have a supply of them because they sell beer-brewing malt syrup in bulk. These barrels are a very sturdy blue plastic with a metal ring and rubber gaskets to seal the top. I bought one on the spot the last time I was there.

It didn’t take too much tinkering to create a functional rainbarrel.

First, I had to clean the leftover malt out of the barrel. Because malt is basically a sugary syrup, this was a pretty pleasant-smelling – if sticky – task. I didn’t use any soap, and all of the leftover water, I poured directly on parts of my garden.

I drilled a half-inch hole near the base of the barrel to accommodate a spigot. I had a cool, weathered brass spigot leftover from who-knows-where.

I also had an appropriate gasket and half-inch nut for the inside to secure the spigot.

Next I cut a hole in the lid of the barrel. The lid already had two threaded 3-inch holes in it, but I needed something bigger to be able to use a proper downspout diverter ($8 at Home Depot). I used my Skil saw to cut a hole in the lid that matched the diameter of the downspout diverter. I had marked this with a Sharpie.

Inside the lid, I fashioned some metal window screen as a catch-basket for debris and mosquito larvae pouring in from my downspouting. Currently, zip ties hold it in place, but I may use a stainless-steel hose clamp in the future. Cleaning the trap is done by removing (and inverting) the barrel lid steel hoop and the diverter assembly.

I built a stand for the barrel using some pieces of 2×6 lumber and cedar fence slats. It’s not gorgeous, but it does the trick of elevating the barrel 18 inches to give me head pressure for watering parts of the yard. The wooden part of the stand rests on some concrete pavers to help reduce the chance the wood rots.

So far I’ve spent a total of $28 to make it. It’s not perfect, though. What this barrel is lacking is any form of overflow arrangement, or way to connect it to a second barrel. Adding a second barrel would be nice since 55 gallons doesn’t go far. I want to figure out a better way to connect the spigot (it leaks a tiny bit). Also, I didn’t remove the St. Augustine grass from below the stand. A gravel base beneath it might be tidier. In April I made a concrete block stand for a friend, and I might try that model in the future. Concrete blocks are cheap.

Still, we’ve had a couple brief downpours since I built this barrel, and even a few minutes of rain fill it completely to the point of overflowing. Now if we’d only have a few more.

barrel, diy, rain, rainwater, water

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 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

March 29th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

Well, things seem to be humming along outside. I have strawberries, blackberries, Viva Italia tomatoes and broccoli all setting fruit (though, broccoli isn’t technically a fruit… a head or a crown instead.) The blackberries are unexpected because I was under the impression the fruit would develop on this year’s growth but next year. In other words, on old growth. The canes I planted this year, however must be considered last year’s growth, so maybe that explains it.

Sunday I took the boy outside. He loves it. He’s a brave little explorer, and seemingly pretty tough, too. It’s not uncommon to find him bouldering over the various landscape features, carefully picking his way with huff-puffs of determination, and gingerly brushing the plants aside or avoiding them. So far he has not ripped any up. Most of the time, he dabbles in whatever dirt he can find, or waves sticks around. Sometimes he wanders, but he hasn’t gone too far yet. It helps that the back yard is enclosed.

While he explored, I modified my sprinkler system. I replaced one of the high-volume reciprocating heads with a drip irrigation tap and half-inch tubing. I also ran several eighth-inch tubes and spray heads to cover much of the former area of the higher-pressure head. One immediate and obvious benefit is decreased water consumption, and better-targeted watering. However, the nicest benefit so far is that the “chik-chik-chik” sound of the old head has been replaced by a gentle hiss. Watering just got a lot quieter.

My cutworm problems are in remission, and the green worms that were eating the lettuce are completely gone, too. Perhaps this was the application of Bacillus thuringiensis kurstaki last week, the cooler weather, or the worms are just in natural decline having passed whatever their season is. This seems like a nice reprieve, though I know other pests will soon be along to fill the voids.

In non-food news…
I met with a group of Austin garden bloggers for the first time this weekend at the home and gardens of one of the group’s members. It was wonderful to meet all these dedicated gardeners and plant aficionados. Part of the fun was a plant swap. And although I was remiss in taking anything, I brought back several nice natives that I installed around my yard. Among the haul: Mexican buckeye, Hill Country penstemon, Gregg’s mistflower, and a tradescantia gigantea. I’m excited about all these plants, and hope they do well.

January 13th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

It appears all the veggies in my yard survived the deep-freeze, though the “deep-freeze” was nowhere near as low as what I thought had been forecast. I can’t honestly say the “heat cisterns” did the trick, but they certainly did give me peace of mind. Lugging over 160 pounds of hot water each of three nights, however, was not fun. At one point I tried to hook a garden hose to the hot water heater tank in the garage to fill my 5-gallon jugs, but that proved slower and sloppier than I cared for.

The frostweed made its annual big show. Being a weekday, I didn’t take new photos even though this year’s display was more spectacular than last. More photos of last year’s frostweed display here.

cold weather, freeze, frostweed, vegetables, water, winter garden