Tearing down the trellis

iPod Ready Video

Elsewhere Online: Trench composting saves the day

Jane Perrone, over at Horticultural has a post on trench composting and it sounds interesting. I have much more waste than a typical compost pile can accomodate, so I might think about adding a trench or two to my garden instead of sending out tons of leaf mold, etc in the garden bin.

Googles Search: Trench Composting

Trench composting saves the day As fellow composter Simon Sherlock pointed out in the comments to my previous post, it will be some time before my new worm composter can take all my kitchen waste. Add too much in the early stages and the worms won't be able to eat it before some of the stuff putrefies, making the worms unhappy, and possibly dead. I forgot to say earlier that my solution to the excess kitchen waste problem, now that my allotment site has banned it from compost heaps, is trench composting. I am assuming the powers that be won't object because in trench composting,...

(Via Horticultural.)

Wisteria trim and other small tasks

Finally took a few moments this afternoon to clean all the "whippy" growth off the wisteria before it starts it growth for the year. I have been meaning to do this for a while, but circumstances finally provided the time and I provided the inclination. I wanted to get outdoors for a little today. It is cool, but very nice outside and it seemed a waste to spend the entire day indoors.

I saw a few more things I have to attack in the next couple of days. After a long time, and 2 new full compost bins, I am finally getting down to the compost at the bottom of our old bin. There is some good stuff there, I will probably sift out what I can and use it to top dress the roses for their Spring growth, too. Some might go on the new lavender bed, too. I bought the wire cloth to make a compost sifter ages ago and it looks like I am finally ready to put it to use, I will take some video when I am making/using it.

Something stinks in the Valley!

As if we needed yet another reason to dislike lawns in this near-desert environment, this month brings yet another, pungent,reason.

Since I don't have a lawn on my property, I am not exactly sure why this is done each Fall, but steer manure seems to be the top-dressing of choice. Of course, this has to be the stinkiest top dressing ever invented. Where most manures seem to be composted and most odorless, this manure can be smelled blocks away. Now imagine 25% of the lawns on a given street covered with the stuff. Yeech!

My wife and I like to take a walk through the neighborhood for exercise and usually follow a particular route of a know length. A few nights ago, we spent the entire walk choking on the smell.

This article, Winterize? Some truths about cool season lawn care gives some reasoning behind the manure for "winterizing" your lawn, although winterizing seems a grand word to use here in Southern California. This article, Ann's Organic Garden: Simple technique transforms a sorry lawn advises against it due to the high salt content.

Whatever the reason, though, can't we all find something a bit less smelly to get the job done so we can enjoy the usual fall smells without feeling we live next to a feed lot?

Video: Garden Fork TV - http://gardenfork.tv

A few weeks ago, after finding nothing on broadcast television I wanted to watch, I went in search of more video podcasts to fill the void. One of the shows I have fallen in love with is Garden Fork TV with Eric Rochow. He covers everything from making Pasta Carbonara to fixing the shackle on his old pickup to building raised planting bed.

This is exactly what television should be -- engaging, educational and comfortable. To many traditional media shows are over-produced and glassy and lose any real heart they might have. Garden Fork TV is the antithesis, while still being great entertainment. Erik is more personalable than almost any host on television today and he's never afraid to show the everyday reality of gardening, video production and life.

Then, of course, there are the dogs!

Check out Garden Fork TV directly from the web site or subscribe using iTunes.


Watch this compilation video from the first 50 episodes and you'll get a great idea what the show is about.



Technorati Tags: garden, gardener, gardening, video

This guy has way too much fun with pumpkins!

I came across Tom Nardone and his ExtremePumpkins.com while wandering the Internet for Halloween ideas. As I said in the title of this post, he has waaaaaay to much fun with pumpkins.

Stop by and check out his website for a few ways to get into the Halloween spirit this year.

Along with his pumpkin carving hints he shows you how to have your pumpkin belch fire, how to carve a pumpkin in one swing of a hammer and more. Nardone even as a book of the same name -- Extreme Pumpkins: Diabolical Do-It-Yourself Designs to Amuse Your Friends and Scare Your Neighbors.


Check out this video with the author!



Technorati Tags: garden, gardener, gardening

Elsewhere Online: How to build a rain water collector

Heck, I'd almost build one of these if there was any expectation of rain in the next 12 months.

I am sure we will get some rain this Winter, but prospects don't look good. Then again, maybe I SHOULD build one of these so I can capture what little we do it.

Decisions, decisions...

How to build a rain water collector

In this instructable, I will show how I made a rainwater collection system to water my garden. This helps to conserve water and make good use of a free and renewable resource.



Note that this involves using many different tools and proper safety precautions should always be taken.

The beginning -...

By: iPodGuy

(Via explore.)

Technorati Tags: build, environment, garden, gardener, gardening, make, outdoors, project, green

Elsewhere Online: The Urban Compost Tumber

Cold Climate Gardening has an excellent and in-depth review of one type of tumbling composter that we have all heard about. Can this help improve your compost production/ Definitely worth a read. Lots of pictures, too!

The Urban Compost Tumber Readers of this blog know I tend to get absorbed in the details of garden projects. But somehow the making of compost has been immune to such obsessions. To my mind, compost just happens. I...


(Continues)

(Via Cold Climate Gardening.)

Technorati Tags: compost, garden, gardener, gardening, how-to, howto, composter, review

Autumn in the Garden and more! - October 6, 2007

by Douglas E. Welch, agn@welchwrite.com
Reader/Listener Line - 818-804-5049



In this show, I talk about our long, dry summer, an early rain, Autumn beginning and a rat in the compost (Oh, my!)

What's happening in your garden? Let me know by calling the listener line at 818-804-5049 and leaving a message. I just might use it in the podcast.

A Gardener's Notebook Pictures on Flickr
A Gardener's Notebook Photo Sharing Group on Flickr

Listen to the Podcast



Theme Music: The One by The Woodshedders, aka the Hot Club of West Virginia, courtesy of the PodSafe Music Network

Support A Gardener's Notebook:

Join AGN Mailing List | iTunes Review | Digg.com | Podcast Alley | Call the Reader/Listener Line @ 818-804-5049

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, hobby, california, grow, build, make, DIY, howto, how-to, outdoors, losangeles, 91411

Introduction to Cottage Gardens - VideoJug.com

I have often contemplated a cottage garden retrofit to my garden and this video offers some great insight.



VideoJug: An Introduction To Cottage Gardens

Technorati Tags: garden, gardener, gardening, outdoors, video

Summer Sun(s) - PaD 7/8/07

Summer Sun(s) - PaD 7/8/07
Originally uploaded by dewelch

These flowers caught my eye as I walked around the campus of Stephens College. We are here for the Stephens College Summer Film Institute, where I am teaching about podcasting and Rosanne is the writer-in-residence.

More photos from the workshop and our time here in Columbia, MO on Flickr. Click the photo to see more.

LIVE from the Garden - June 9, 2007

by Douglas E. Welch, agn@welchwrite.com
Reader/Listener Line - 818-804-5049

Links mentioned in this podcast:

The Lavender Fields - Photos
Animalbytes with Keri Dearborn
Squarefoot Gardening with Andy Helsby
A Gardener's Notebook Pictures on Flickr
A Gardener's Notebook Photo Sharing Group on Flickr

Listen to the Podcast

If first link does not play, try this one.



Theme Music: The One by The Woodshedders, aka the Hot Club of West Virginia, courtesy of the PodSafe Music Network



I used one of my photos from our trip to The Lavender Fields to create these lavender themed products -- available from from CafePress.com

Support A Gardener's Notebook:

Join AGN Mailing List | iTunes Review | Digg.com | Podcast Alley | Call the Reader/Listener Line @ 206-338-5832

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, hobby, california, grow, build, make, DIY, howto, how-to, outdoors, losangeles, 91411

Book: The Water Lily Cross: An English Garden Mystery by Anthony Eglin

Update (5/10/07): The Water Lily Cross is now available at Amazon and other book resellers -- Douglas


The Water Lily Cross: An English Garden Mystery
Anthony Eglin
A Thomas Dunne Book for St. Martin's Minotaur

Although he would be more comfortable restoring gardens and traveling about in his sporty 1964 TR4, Lawrence Kingston, botanical expert, finds himself once more engaged in another mysterious adventure.

This 3rd book in the English Garden Mystery series has Kingston searching for an old friend who has disappeared, quite possibly kidnapped. It seems Kingston's friend has discovered a way to use water lilies to solve one of the world's most pressing problems. Crossword and anagram clues, helicopter flights and threatening messages lead Kingston on a whirlwind and dangerous chase across the English countryside.

Eglin's mysteries are always a great romp combining two of my favorite things -- mysteries and gardening. Lawrence Kingston is a character you wouldn't mind inviting into your home on a regular basis and each new book is an opportunity to do just that. I can imagine sitting across from him, sipping his single-malt Scotch, as he recounts his latest tale of mystery or the details of a garden rejuvenation somewhere in the English countryside. Both are equally interesting to me.

I will say, Eglin is so good at creating interesting supporting characters that I sometimes miss the young couple who discovered The Blue Rose and the American woman who owned The Lost Gardens from his earlier books. Perhaps he can return to them for a future adventure.

The Water Lily Cross and Eglin's previous books are the perfect choice for some relaxing reading between your gardening chores. Pull the chaise lounge under your favorite tree, or within the scent of your favorite roses, and delve into the mysteries of the garden.

Highly Recommended

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, outdoors, writing, london, uk, mystery, english, flowers, gardener

Flowers on my walk - PaD 5/2/07

Flowers on my walk
Originally uploaded by dewelch.

Another walk through the neighborhood this afternoon and a few more cameraphone shots of what is in bloom today.



Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, california, grow, flowers, photoaday

Guest Post: Beneficial Wild Creatures In Your Garden by Keri Dearborn

Beneficial Wild Creatures In Your Garden
Guest Blogger, Keri Dearborn

(After talking with my friend Keri Dearborn over at AnimalBytes.net, I got the idea to have her write this blog post. She is an expert on wildlife and a gardener herself, so it seemed the perfect combination. Enjoy! -- Douglas)

I see my garden as an oasis of native habitat in a nature-hostile world. If I can sit on my patio and watch an Allen's hummingbird raising her latest batch of fledglings or pick up a pot and find a slender salamander hunting for earthworms, my faith in the resilience of the planet is restored.

But some wild visitors offer more than beauty and soul rejuvenation. These critters are beneficial to your garden or to you directly. You should be inviting them into your garden and encouraging them to stay.

Super Pollinators
We all learned about honey bees in Elementary School. While a great producer of honey, the European honey bee is not an efficient pollinator. It also is in serious trouble with introduced diseases. Native bees, like that big black valley carpenter bee that comes through your yard at the same time every day and the California bumble bee with its single stripe of yellow are much better at pollinating plants. These bees live in small groups or are solitary. They are docile and seldom sting.

But bees aren't the only pollinators. Many plants are pollinated by flies, wasps, beetles and other insects. A flower fly may look like a skinny bee hovering over your flowers, but this fly does double duty: it’s an important pollinator and their larva feed on aphids.

Super Predators
Wild predators are vital to a healthy ecosystem, even in your yard. If you have a problem with aphids, don’t spray insecticide, attract insect-eating predators. Nobody eats more bugs than spiders and other insects. Learn the good bugs from the bad.

You probably know the lady bug and the praying mantis eat a variety of insect pests. But so do ground beetles, ant lions and paper wasps. The golden polistes, a large common paper wasp, is frequently sprayed and their papery nest knocked down from house eaves. Do they have a stinger? Yes, but they seldom sting people. These wasps prey on tomato worms and other caterpillars that dine on your flowers and vegetable garden.

The other predators you need are insect-eating birds: wrens, bushtits, California towhees, black phoebes and hummingbirds. That’s right, hummingbirds are catching insects on the wing. This crew of birds can clean up the bugs in your yard in no time, but they won't come if you are spraying. Nobody wants to eat a toxic bug?

Hawks also play an important roll. Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks will maintain a balance among your seed-eating birds. Red-tailed hawks hunt rodents and rabbits by day, while owls hunt them by night.

And while you might not think of a snake as something you want in your garden, think again. The gopher snake not only preys on gophers and mice, it is harmless to humans. It is such an efficient hunter, a rattlesnake doesn't want to compete with it. When a gopher snake moves in, the rattlesnake moves out.

Even a rattlesnake is providing a service by reducing rat and mice populations, but few people are comfortable having them around. To keep rattlesnakes away, provide habitat for their predators. Both red-tailed hawks and red-shouldered hawks prey on rattlesnakes. California kingsnakes are immune to rattlesnake venom and also eat rattlesnakes. The beneficial kingsnake is harmless to humans.

Super Defenders
With all the hype about various diseases swilling around us, there are a few animals that offer humans valuable protection. Case in point the species that started this joint effort, the western fence lizard. For more on how the western fence lizard helps protect you from Lyme's disease check out my post on www.animalbytes.net .

West Nile virus is a real concern in Southern California. Removing standing water that offers mosquitos a breeding place is the first line of protection but there are a variety of predators that will help your efforts. Orb spiders with their classic webs are extraordinary insect hunters and mosquitos are on their menu. Admire that web, don’t knock it down. Birds, that eat flying insects, like the black phoebe provide mosquito patrol during the day. While at night, bats are eating mosquitos by the ton. Bats are vital members of the southern California ecosystem. I’ve seen big brown bats, Brazilian free-tailed bats and a western red bat in my neighborhood. We put up a bat box last fall and April 25 we noticed bats milling around the bat house at twilight. Good bye mosquitos!

Go Native
There are few native animals I would deter from my garden. (Yes, I have had rabbits that munch my lettuce. (Desert cottontail) The key word here is "native." Most infestations and seriously troublesome critters (from insects to rats) are non-natives, they have few predators and even the weather may encourage them to over reproduce.

Why invite wild animals into your garden? Many of them can be beneficial. But it is also a global issue. Southern California is one of the world's biodiversity hot spots, just like Borneo and the Amazon forest. Our native plants and animals are disappearing rapidly as their habitat is lost to human development. Some of these creatures are international residents. The hermit thrush that spent the winter in my yard is now in Canada or Alaska, while black-headed grosbeak and western tanagers have just returned from Mexico and Central America.

If you want to save the world, there is no better place to start than in your garden. I’ve had 114 native animal species in my yard, including 63 species of native birds. How about you?

How do you go about attracting beneficial wildlife to your garden? Check out my post “Creating a Garden That Attracts Wildlife” on AnimalBytes.net.

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, hobby, california, grow, howto, how-to, outdoors, losangeles, wildlife

Audio: Interview on "Chrysalis" by Kim Todd (Audio)

I came across this interesting edition of Tech Nation while listening to podcasts today. When we are gardening, it always pays to learn more about the other creatures that inhabit our gardens.

I love both science and biography, so I immediately requested this book from my local library. The podcast, though, gives an excellent introduction to the book and definitely worth a listen.

Tech Nation with Moira Gunn - Click to listen

Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with Kim Todd, who in her book "Chrysalis" recounts the tale of Maria Sibylla Merian and her documentation of the secrets of metamorphosis.

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, hobby, outdoors, insects, science, audio, itconversations, butterfly, book, books

Roses on my walk - PaD 4/29/07

Roses on my walk
Originally uploaded by dewelch.

As I mentioned in my last Gardener's Notebook podcast, the roses in the neighborhood are putting on quite a show this year. Here are a couple of cameraphone shots as I took my walk around the neighborhood today.


* Previous mentions of roses in A Gardener's Notebook

Finally, a little (or a lot of) rain...

We awoke to this on the radar this morning and, as I type, rains is coming down. We haven't quite got to the intense rain (marked in yellow), but it looks like it is finally going to make it here. I have watched several storms pass to the north of us with no measurable rain at all, so I am happy to see that this one looks as if it will finally give us a little relief.

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, hobby, california, grow, losangeles, weather

Today's 10-minute Gardening Time

I am trying to split my time between the front garden and the back. Things don't look horrible, but the gardening face I am presenting to my neighbors could be better. Today, I cleaned up the leaf litter from most of the driveway, filling an entire green garden waste bin. Overall, I spent about 30 minutes.

One of the most important lessons I am learning, is to know when to say enough. I could have spent hours in the garden, but the fact is my back won't take it and I have other things that must be done. It can be so difficult to stop before you are officially "done" with a task. This is where most of us go astray and push ourselves a bit too hard.

The truth is, while I didn't get "all" the leaf litter, I did get "most" of it and that will be a large amount that won't have to deal with next time. This will also allow me to use the leaf blower (electric, thank you) to clean up whatever is left.

Overall, another successful bit of work in the garden.

Elsewhere Online: DIY newspaper seedling pots

You have probably seen something like this before, but this has nice, illustrated instructions. A great way to recycle a bit of your newspaper.

DIY newspaper seedling pots

Outside it may be Nor'eastering, but inside it's time to get your seedlings started for summer planting. Eric from Japan details how to recycle your newspaper into biodegradable seed-starting pots. (Continues)

(Via Lifehacker.)

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, hobby, build, make, DIY, howto, how-to

Event: Free trees in Sherman Oaks this Saturday - April 21

The gang over at LAist clued us in to this event. If you have a need for a tree in your landscaping, be sure to stop by.

---

Million Trees program comes to Sherman Oaks

Contributed by: GM Communications on 4/13/2007

What: The Fashion Square Car Wash, in association with the Million Trees program, will give away free trees to the public from 8 a.m.-2 p.m. on Saturday, April 21, at the car wash.

The program, created by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, distributes trees to all areas of the city. People who pick up a five-gallon tree are asked to plant the tree on their home or business property.

No car wash sale is required to participate in the program. The car wash plans to give away 200 trees during the Saturday program.

Where: Fashion Square Car Wash, 4625 Woodman Ave., Sherman Oaks

When: 8 a.m.- 2 p.m.

Event Dates: This event takes place on 4/21/2007.

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, hobby, california, grow, outdoors, events, losangeles

10-Minute Gardener Update

I took my own advice and talked a couple of 10-minute projects today.

First, I swept the leaves from one portion of the driveway area. The wind piles up the leaves in this particular sector, so this had a lot of effect for fairly little effort. I am still dealing with a lot of leaf litter throughout the garden, but the next step is probably a complete "blow" of the garden using the electric leaf blower. This takes a but more time and energy on my part, though.

Second, I repaired the geranium pot that hangs from the eaves of the front porch. A few weeks ago, one of its rope supports gave way and it had been sitting on the stoop since then. A little rope from the leftovers in the garage, though, and I had it back in its rightful position in about 10 minutes.

Both of these projects are the perfect type for the 10-Minute Gardener. They were discrete little actions that needed doing -- that I could complete in about 10 minutes. Tomorrow, I need to do the same thing -- and the next, and the next and the next.

Previously in the 10-Minute Gardener Series

Removing Friction
Today's 10 Minutes in the Garden
Introduction

Technorati Tags: garden, hobby, california, grow, build, DIY, outdoors, losangeles, gardener

Elsewhere Online: How to Make a Garden Feel Welcoming

I received in this excellent article today as part of the Fine Gardening newsletter. It has the warm feeling of someone giving you a tour of their garden, something I always love.

Great ideas, too.

How to Make a Garden Feel Welcoming by Gordon Hayward

Use furnishings to create familiarity, invite lingering, and give a sense of coherence

Objects and structures can make a garden feel inviting and personal. A weathered birdbath (B on Site plan) passed on from the author's grandmother enhances a hosta bed.

Every time I walk past the 75-year-old birdbath in our garden here in southern Vermont, I recall when I first saw that cast-stone ornament as a boy in my late grandmother's garden near Oyster Bay, Long Island. It sat in the center of a boxwood-edged rose garden that was crisscrossed with crushed-oyster-shell paths. While visitors to our garden don't know what associations I hold with that birdbath, they can tell that it's old, that it anchors the broad curve of a hosta bed, and that birds do surely visit it. Objects such as this, rife with history and meaning, make our garden feel personal, anchored, and peaceful.

(Continues)

(Via Fine Gardening.)

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, hobby, grow, build, make, DIY, howto, how-to, outdoors

Don't let your garden water go down the drain....

LA Frog makes note of one of my pet peeves, wasted water in our desert environment and provides a bit of the history of Los Angeles and its water.

I, too, hate when I see sprinklers watering sidewalks and driveways, and watching all that liquid gold run down the street into the nearest storm drain. This is one reason why, when we bought our house 10 years ago, I converted 95% of the irrigation systems to soaker hoses and drip systems. Both if these put the water right where it is needed. This also helps to reduce weed growth, since paths and such receive no water, expect from our infrequent rains.

I only have one traditional sprinkler system -- an old set of retrofitted lawn sprinklers in the front garden. We run it as infrequently as possible and most of the plants there mainly azaleas -- have naturalized enough to not need much supplemental watering.

If only I could convince others to get rid of their lawns and the water they require, we would all be better off.

California Water Wars When I drive through residential neighborhoods, and I see water flushing the streets from the garden hosing systems, I sometimes wonder if people even remember that the true nature of Los Angeles is to be a dry, desert land. And that bringing water to the city came at stupendous costs.

It's impossible to summarize the history of the Los Angeles aqueduct -- and the subsequent water wars -- in a

(Via LA Frog.)

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, california, grow, outdoors, losangeles, urban, learning, education, water

Book: Melissa's Great Book of Produce

A geek in one thing, a geek in all things, I guess and here is a book for all the gardening and food geeks out there. I came across those book while trolling the sorting shelves at my local library. It is one of the best finds I have made in a while.

Melissa's Great Book of Produce: Everything you need to know about fresh fruits and vegetables is a information-filled and gorgeously photographed tome on produce both familiar and strange. For each piece of produce you get information on buying, storage use and even a few recipes along the way. There are some items in here I have never heard of before and it is great to get information on those I have heard of, but never encountered.

A wonderful book for the kitchen or the couch, Melissa's Great Book of Produce will surely expand your knowledge and, most likely, your appetite.

Highly Recommended

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, grow, books, photo, photography, learning, education, read, reading, library, food, produce

AGN Video: Windy

Click to Play

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, california, outdoors, losangeles, weather

Review: Flower Confidential by Amy Stewart

How much thought do you give to those flowers you pass in the grocery store aisle? Do you know where your Valentine's Day roses came from or how they got to you? For most of us, we don't know, nor rather care, but thankfully author, Amy Stewart does.

In Flower Confidential (Algonquin Books, 2007), Stewart takes us deep inside the huge and profitable business of flowers. From a lily grower in the American Northwest, to the rose fields of Ecuador she introduces us to the people, places and plants that travel all over the world to supply our human need for colorful and almost too perfect flowers.

Flower Confidential is a fun romp around the world that also holds some deep concerns. The treatment of the workers in the fields and greenhouses is an on-going issue no matter where the author visits. She also discusses how the need for a "perfect" flower that travels well and lasts long in the vase has removed their scent. It also puts us in danger of producing yet another industry focused on lowest-common denominator, where each flower looks begins to look much like every other flower.

Stewart's writing takes us along on her travels, describing people and plants alike in a visual style that gives us an understanding of who they are and what they are trying to accomplish. We feel the sense of amazement as she visits the Miami airport center where the majority of flowers enter the US. I particularly felt her desire to scoop up armloads of flowers or save those consigned to the compost heaps.

Immerse yourself in the little-known of flowers and the people who grow them. You will develop a new-found respect for what both suffer to provide that perfect arrangement for your dining room table.

Highly Recommended

Link: Flower Confidential:The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers

Tags: garden gardening gardener flowers flowers books read toread business

Repairing a damaged drip irrigation line

While the rest of the family was out on an excursion with Nonna to see the swallows return to San Juan Capistrano, I finally get a garden project completed to prepare for the quickly approaching Southern California Summer.

In this video, I show the repair of the drip irrigation line in one of my rose beds. This line has been in place for over 10 years, so it isn't surprising that it needed a little refreshing.

Link: Repairing a damaged drip irrigation line video




Support A Gardener's Notebook:

Join AGN Mailing List | iTunes Review | Digg.com | Podcast Alley | Call the Reader/Listener Line @ 206-338-5832

Technorati Tags: garden, gardening, hobby, california, build, DIY, howto, how-to, podcast, outdoors, losangeles,