Sugar Cane and Chives

That's chives on the left and sugar cane on the right.  Blogger is driving me a little crazy these last two days, not letting me place the photos and the text where I want.  The first couple of posts were no problem but now I just keep fighting with it.

So here's my report from yesterday April 9.  I called it "Yi Ju Liang De." It’s a Chinese expression which literally means “One lift, two Gains.”  It’s similar in meaning to “Killing two birds with one stone.”  But it sounds so much cooler in Chinese.  I guess I was in a showing off mood yesterday ;-)

The two “de” or gains were first that I successfully pruned the sugar cane along the side of the driveway down to about five feet (photo) so to give better light to the new side door garden (SDG).  And second I realized I could eat that sugar cane.

As I was doing this my very nice next door neighbor Refki (who gave me the original cuttings for the sugar cane from his trees) looked over the say hello and told me that the most delicious part of the sugar cane is the section nearest to the ground. He also mentioned that for it to be good the canes have to get lots of water.

I’ve been watering them pretty regularly so to test I cut one down to the base (photo right) and shucked off the bark with a knife. I chewed on the exposed portion and was able to enjoy lots of very sweet juice. At least three feet of it was extremely edible, and then it became too dry and fibrous. You only swallow the juice - the fiber you spit out onto the ground after you get the juice out - as one does in China.  I don't know if they still do that everywhere, but in my day the floor of the train car would be covered in chewed up sugar cane and peanut shells.

That’s about it for today except that the chive transplant (above) seemed to take fine and the bulbs are opening and they are really beautiful…

On the seed germinating front, I have figured out that the only way to water the seeds in the pots is from a tray under the pots.

Not only is does it work very well and most of the first group of seeds are sprouting now, but since the water is there for one or two days before it is used up or evaporates it actually makes the task of keeping the seeds and soil moist very easy. Even easier than when you plant into the ground because you can easily see when the tray is dry and you need to add more water…

I'll end with a photos of a cross section view of sugar cane (above) which has some strange disease. Cool red color, no idea what the disease is but it seemed to effect many of the cane that was split. You can see the split on the top of this one...

Homemade Dirt

Planted some seeds today – some in plastic pots and some in the side door raised bed garden (SDG) which I just built. I’m using the same frame which I used for the lasagna garden in the back – and the same dirt too – I carted over about ten wheel barrows full.  Here's a photo of the new garden at left.

I suppose it is kind of weird to have a vegetable garden right up against the wall of the house but this is only a temporary measure for this season so I can redesign the backyard and optimize it for gardening.  And hopefully also build a deck off the back for outdoor dining, cooking, relaxing, etc.  Below left: south exposure before laying the wood frame. Below right: the wood frame before adding the homemade dirt.

A lasagna garden is a raised bed garden which is also an automatic composting machine because you fill it with the same stuff you would throw into your compost pile. Nice! It composts under there while your plants grow. You need a frame of some kind as it is above ground level.  In my case it was the frame from a yoga platform Bobby built balanced on top of three layers of brick. Not so sturdy but held up well for one season. It was less than 24 inches high which I would have thought wouldn't be high enough, but it ended up working just fine.

It’s called lasagna gardening because it is about layering (no noodles involved). At the bottom you first lay a cardboard barrier to prevent weeds from growing for a while. Then you add organic trash: fallen leaves, vegetable scraps from the kitchen, egg shells, grass cuttings, dead plants, etc. Middle layer is mid or rough compost - the same things as in the bottom layer but already about halfway decomposed/compostsed. Photo at left and below are of the beautiful dirt in the already decimated lasagna garden.

The top layer is topsoil and/or backyard dirt so you can plant your seeds or seedlings.

In the one season I used it I planted tomatoes, lemongrass, basil, carrots, chives I was successful with pretty much everything. Everything is already gone except for the chives and the lemongrass which appears to be dead. So I decided to use this dirt for the new garden on the south side of the house while the backyard is demo-ed.

The amazing thing is that when I dug it up and moved the dirt the other day I found that ALL the pre-compost organic trash has already transformed into hummus. The cardboard barrier had also completely decomposed. So I had many cubic feet of free, organic, nutrient-laden, earthworm-laden premium dirt! Black gold as they call it. Making soil is an amazing thing. It feels like you are making air or water or something. Below is a photo of the chives I transplanted out of the lasagna garden.

By the way this is what I planted today:

Brand Veg Type                       ORG DTG DTH
FM Long Bean Zi 28-2                   N 6-8 50 pots
FM Snow Peas Melting Sugar        N 8-12 72 Pots – need to trellis
FM Basil Sweet                             Y 5-10 - SDG (2)
FM Zucchini Black Beauty             Y 7-10 63 SDG (1)
FM Pak Choi BonsaiHybrid           N 10-14 40-45 SDG (6)

The zuke, basil and pak choi went into the new garden (the rest in pots) so I’ll see in the next few days/weeks how valuable my black gold really is….

Making Fresh Orange Juice

My backyard Valencia orange tree looks like one of those overdone Christmas trees, when people just can't stop adding more and more ornaments and trinkets and lights and tinsel and etc that you can't even see the tree coz there's so much stuff on it. You know what I mean?  Lots of oranges.  The orange this year have thick skins (making them easier to peel) and much less seeds than in the past and as compared to the normal thin skin Valencia. This is the first crop since I had the tree cut back hard two years ago so I wonder if the pruning caused the change in the nature of the fruit.  Seems unlikely but I can't think of any other possible reason.  Anyway, this year there's so much juice in these sugary and tart treats that on average just three or four oranges make a 12 oz glass of juice. I know it doesn't sound possible but yes some of these oranges have four oz of juice in them! That’s very little work for a big glass of fresh OJ.

OK so here's the squeeze.  After much trial and error over the last couple of years trying to find the easiest, fastest, most efficient, cleanest method of juicing I think I have discovered it and would like to share with you. It's the humble wooden citrus reamer.

You can buy a fancy electric citrus juicer for over $200 easily, or a cheap one for about $25. You can also buy a mechanical handheld or tabletop citrus press for about the same price.  They are all OK but often a pain to clean. Even the really expensive ones.  And those are so big that it's a problem finding counter and storage space for them. Unless you have a huge kitchen, which I don't.

After all that I found what works the best is the wooden handheld twist reamer. Williams Sonoma sells them for $8.50 and I’m sure they are cheaper at Bed Bath and Beyond (where I got mine).

Besides the reamer here’s what you need:

Large sharp knife
Cutting board
One bowl to catch juice
One bowl to place peel after juicing (not in photo)
Mesh sieve (I prefer stainless steel)
Apron
Rubber dishwashing gloves (optional)

A large flat workspace which is easy to wipe clean when you are finished.

It’s pretty straight forward. You need the apron because 100 percent of the juice is not going to end up in the bowl - a little is going to fly over in your direction. If you have the apron on you don’t care but if not and your clothes get some juice on them that's a bummer.

I like having the second bowl to drop the rinds into just because it is easier than reaching over to the garbage bin or compost pail six or eight times. When you are finished you can just dump them all in the trash in one fell swoop.

I guess everything else is pretty obvious. The sieve sits on the bowl collecting the juice and strains out the seeds. If you are juicing limes or other small, hard citrus, thick rubber gloves make it much easier on your hands when you are pressing with the reamer. I don’t use them for the oranges right now because these oranges are quite soft. And before you toss the peel give it one last squeeze over the sieve - you'll get some more juice.

That’s about it except to say that any friends who are in LA and want some oranges you are welcomed to come over and pick as many as you like (same goes for lemons – no limes yet).

And although it doesn’t seem like people order them any more, you must remember The Screwdriver, the classic alcoholic drink from the 1980's? Just imagine one made with Stoly and OJ fresh squeezed off the tree. Yummm.

Monday April 5, 2010

Just a brief update and a bunch of photos of stuff in the old (backyard) garden.  I harvested beets (at left), parsley and collected a bunch more avocados which were laying on the ground.

As for the recently planted seeds, besides radishes I now see a couple of spinach sprouts, and some broccoli. Not sure what is happening with the okra - the seeds appear to be almost at the top of the soil.  Have to go buy more potting soil, and a mister as well for watering as the little pots dry out quickly.

The main event in the backyard today was Kong and Salty rough housing, which is just about the funniest thing I have ever seen.  I will post some video on Youtube soon.  It's the first time I actually saw them doing it. 

Here are some photos of various crops: the small apples on the apple tree (at right) , and below left is  the flower/seeds on the green onion (scallion), below right are some new strawberries and the last photo is the chives getting ready to seed.

Sunday April 04, 2010

 

The first seeds to sprout are here.  It is the radish and I think they sprouted yesterday so that would make six days.  Radish must be the hardiest vegetable of all - only one step away from a weed.  Looking forward to seeing what comes next.  I'm hopefully that at least half of the seeds will sprout...

Halfway planting the seeds on March 29 I realized I had not correctly prepared the Jiffy potting soil.  I was putting the soil dry into the little pots and then adding water, but eventually realized the soil was not absorbing the water.  Finally it occured to me that I had better first mix the soil with water in a big bucket and then put the pre-moistened soil into the little pots.  So about half of the stuff from March 29 is in the dry soil and half in the pre-moistened soil.  Should be interesting to see what happens.

From the long-standing backyard garden I harvest kale, broccoli and strawberries this week.  Everything was insanely delicious.  I was going to steam the broccoli but ended up eating it raw because is was super tender and tasty.  I also had the kale raw in the recipe for Kale, Avocado and Tomato salad which is a recipe everyone should know because it is delicious, easy and makes you feel great great after you eat it.

The apple tree (in photo at left) set fruit at least two weeks ago and the little apples are growing fast and getting some pink color now.  I can't wait for those Ana apples.  The have been delicious in the past.

I haven't made much progress establishing the front veg garden so that's my immediate goal.  Got a wheelbarrow from Home Depot last week so I have no excuse not to start.

That's about it for my Easter update.  Happy Easter to all those that celebrate.  I went to REI today to buy a birthday gift for a friend and (of course) ended up getting some stuff for myself as well, including a book on making knots (photo at right).  My knot tying skills are below even the basic level so I thought I'd try it out to learn some useful knots (for when I get my trailer for the car so I can carry around my farm equipment ;-)) and also to give my brain some exercise.  As an alternate to suduko maybe (in which I am still at the beginner level :-(

March 29, 2010

 Welcome to my organic garden diary. My garden is in Glendale, California, 91201. 

I am using this blog to :

1. Keep a written and visual record of what and how I plant.

2. Exchange information with other backyard (and frontyard) gardeners

3. Share photos of my successes with friends, family and other gardeners.

Right now I am preparing to roto-till the entire backyard, redo the entire thing, using the back 3/4 to build a raised bed garden as well as add more fruit trees.  For the remainder I am planning a deck/entertainment area at the back of the house.

Since I am going to miss the first summer planting season due to the backyard demo and construction I’ve planted some tomato, pepper, basil and dill seedlings along the driveway and in the front yard.  I did the first planting around March 26.  We’ll see how that goes….

Today I planted a bunch of seeds in seed starting pots, something I’ve never done before (I usually sow into the ground) so this is a learning experience.  I am going to attempt to keep detailed notes.  Below is the first entry.
As a side note, I discovered today that Microsoft has a free offline blogging software called Microsoft Live Writer.  I downloaded it today and am using it now for the first time.  Another learning experience.

Using Jiffy Organic seed started mix and Jiffy pots and some recycled plastic seedling trays I planted the following seeds.

	Brand	Veg	Type	ORG	DTG	DTH
1	FM	Okra	Clemson Spineless #80	yes	12-14	58	Planted in Jiffy Strips. Pick when pods are 3-4 inches long.
2	FM	Cukes	Straight Eight	yes	8	60	Planted in Jiffy Strips.
3	FM	Carrot	Scarlet (Nantes)	yes	8-12	60	Planted in Jiffy Strips.
4	FM	Cilantro	x	yes	7-10	x	Planted in Jiffy Strips.
5	FM	Lettuce	Bib	yes	7-10	57	Planted in Jiffy Strips.
6	FM	Tomato	San Marzano	yes	7-10	85-90	Planted in Jiffy “Greenhouse”
7	FM	Broccoli	Green Sprouting Calabrese	yes	10-14	70-90	Planted in blue plastic container
8	FM	Radish	Cherry Belle	yes	4-7	22	Planted in blue plastic container
9	FM	Cantaloupe	Hearts of Gold	yes	7	70-90	Planted in green plastic container
10	FM	Green Onion	Evergreen Bunching	yes	10-12	60	Planted in black plastic container
11	FM	Tomato	Brandywine	yes	7-10	90-120	Planted in black plastic container
12	FM	Spinach	Bloomsdale	yes	8-10	45	Planted in black plastic container

This is my first time planting seeds in pot and my method was less than scientific, or neat, or orderly.  It’s just a learning experience.  Let’s see if anything germinates at all.
Problems I foresee:
Water: It’s already 80 degrees during the day so I am going to have to water a couple of times a day. Might have to set up a timer.
Birds: I’ll have to find something to cover the pots before the birds and squirrels pick out the seeds.
That’s all the planting for today.  Tomorrow I’m going to get a nice wheel barrow and bring the “black gold” from the backyard to the front so I can plant some more stuff along the side of the house.
I’m also considering trying Roundup…

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