So this afternoon Cassie and I arrive home from a trip to Yarnell (about which later, in a less tireder moment) to find this interesting flower growing on a weed that volunteered in the vegetable garden:
Does anybody have any idea what this critter is? Click on the image for a larger view.
Four of these plants popped up in the garden, arriving from where, no one knows. (Probably via bird droppings, one expects.) They had a suspiciously cultivated look to them, so out of idle curiosity, I decided to resist the impulse to extirpate them. Whatever they are, they have a pretty flower.
Looks a little like a gazania, ’cept for the leaves, which are most ungazania-ish.
Here’s what the whole plant looks like:
It’s about 15 inches tall. Whatever it is doesn’t seem to mind downright extraterrestrial climates: the temps have hovered around 110 degrees here for the past week, occasionally rising to 115.
Here’s another attempt at a photograph, which, when clicked upon, does give you a nice blow-up:
A couple weeks back, I purchased a would-be composter from Costco. Rejected: too complicated to put together, too obtrusive, and at around $100, too expensive. Lucky Costco has a generous return policy.
You may recall that I had a wonderful composter, a gift from my friend La Bethulia. I really loved it. In the first place, its design was the soul of simplicity: a round plastic barrel that fit in a base, allowing you to turn it like a ferris wheel to mix and aerate the compost.
It died a gruesome death at the hands of a so-called “beekeeper” who wrongly decided the feral honeybees that had invaded it were nesting inside it. This idiot filled the thing with powdered insecticide—after I told him not to. It not only destroyed the compost inside, I couldn’t get the contaminated compost out because every time I tried, clouds of powdered poison flew up into my face.
These things are surprisingly expensive: around $170 at Amazon. They’re probably worth it, because of the simplicity of their design, their effectiveness, and the fact that they do not contribute an eyesore to your garden.
However, in my current state of chronic unemployment, that’s a little more than I’d like to pay. Hence the unsuccessful attempt at the cheaper model from Costco. Ninety-nine bucks looked pretty good for a 75-gallon tumbler. w00t!
Having returned it, I was depressed. A big old plastic plant pot covered with its (now sunlight-crumbled) pot saucer was decocting a small amount of compost, mostly compiled from the pool’s leaf-catcher and pump pot. But it wasn’t enough to do much for the garden, and a plastic plant pot the world’s most efficient composter does not make.
Then the other day I cut back the cat’s claw, which after reviving from its drubbing by last fall’s hail and the winter’s hard freezes has decided it’s a jungle plant. Had to scissor it back from around the pool equipment so the Leslie’s guy could service the filter. Along the way I pulled spent veggies out of the garden, harvested the leeks and trimmed off their tough outer leaves, and raked some leaves. The result: a large pile of highly compostable vegetable matter that I really, really, really did not want to throw in the garbage.
The yard needed a composter. It needed one that did not take three men and a horse to put together, would not cost upwards of $150, and would not be plug hideous.
So I decided to make one. Here’s how that came down:
The trash can
First: the Home Depot run. There, purchase a plastic trash bin (round, not square, and not the kind with wheels). Be sure it has a lid that snaps on securely.
Drag this home and take off the manufacturer’s glued-on stickers. Place it in the backyard near an electric outlet.
Haul out your trusty electric drill and a handy-dandy extension cord. Install the heftiest drill bit you own.
Beloved drill
And yes, gentlemen! I know that’s a masonry bit and I do know the plastic is gonna melt all over it, but I’m past the time in life when I crave to drill any more holes in concrete. Besides, as a practical matter, the plastic didn’t melt onto it at all.
Okay. Flip the trash bin upside down and take the drill to the bottom of it. You want to drill plenty of drain holes all around the bottom, because compost likes to be damp but not soggy.
While you’re at it, drill a bunch of holes around the trash can’s sides, too. The idea here is to let enough air in to please the little compost bugs. Although much of composting is an anaerobic process, compost bugs go a long way to break down vegetable matter, too. These useful little creatures will suffocate unless they have enough air. Voilà…
Once the bottom and sides are thoroughly punctured, set the can upright in the corner of the yard where you’d like to keep it. Throw in some stuff you’d like to compost—just about anything organic that is not meat or animal waste—and sprinkle lightly with a little water. Don’t overdo this: moist is good; boggy is not.
I topped my recent cuttings with the half-composted stuff in the plant pot. If you already have a little compost, it’s a good idea to put it in with the new material, because it acts like starter dough: the organisms that break down plant matter are already thriving in it, giving you a head start on the new batch.
Snap the lid on firmly, and then just go away. Over time, the organic material in the dark, warm, damp environment will cook down into lovely black compost, which will make your plants extremely happy. You can keep adding kitchen waste and garden trimmings ad lib.
Now and again you should toss compost to aerate it and mix it around. A small pitchfork would work with this contraption, but I have a much better plan: when the time comes, in a few weeks, to shake it up, I’m going to secure the lid with a tight bungee cord run through the handles. Then flop the thing on its side and just roll it back and forth a few times. That will accomplish the same thing the fancy tumbling composter does, for about a quarter of the cost.
Speaking of the garden, here’s what’s been growing lately…
Another set of student papers are read. Another 90-degree day. It’s still storming in the South; still cold in some parts of the country. But here spring (such as it is) has almost passed, and in just a couple of weeks the cool evenings will be over and the heat will rise.
With all the winter rain we’ve had, it’s been a spectacular spring. Check out a few sights from around the yard…
These little posies grow in a clump out of the crushed-granite xeriscape.
Thanks, God, for leading the late, great tax lawyer to shuck me off her rolls and for moving a tax accountant into Dave’s (former) Used Car Lot, Marina, and Weed Arboretum. She and her husband not only are splendid neighbors, she saved me a ton of money on this year’s taxes and charged a fraction of what the lawyer’s been billing.
If this doesn’t warm the cockles of Frugal Scholar‘s heart, nothing will.
So I’ve been building a berm around the north side of the biggest orange tree, where the grade slopes enough to draw the irrigation water away from the tree and direct it under the gate and out into the alley. This has been a longstanding annoyance, but I’ve been too lazy to do much about it.
Having dug a couple of deep holes for a pair of new roses, I finally had some nice, clayey, sticky dirt with which to form a low semicircle that I hope will trap the water…without my having to find enough dirt to build an entire circle. That’s the plan. To shore up this mound, I want to cobble its surface with river rock. I do not wish to purchase the river rock.
Luckily, the alleys around here are full of loose rock, quite a lot of it just what I have in mind. So I spent half a morning walking up and down the alleys scavenging stones. As I’m skulking around, what should I find but a big framed giclée print, brand-new, still in its Costco cardboard protectors, just sitting there next to the garbage can.
Why is it in the alley?
Its glass is cracked.
Somebody paid $29.99 for this thing, marked down from $39.99. Think of that.
First, it means one of my neighbors can afford to throw $29.99 directly into the trash. Second, it means they don’t have enough sense or craftsiness to schlep to the nearest glass shop, ask them to cut a piece big enough to replace the broken pane, deconstruct the cheapie frame, and fix it themselves.
Granted, Aaron Brothers or Michael’s will charge more to replace the glass than the junk print is worth. But a glass shop will charge just a few dollars. And taking a picture frame apart is just not very difficult.
The thing is an awful cliché, of course. But I couldn’t leave it to die in the alley. My plan is to replace the glass and then hang it on the back patio, well in under the overhang where it can’t get wet. In time it’ll fade, of course. But for the nonce…hey! Free décor!
Moving on, the rock quarrying endeavor is slowly yielding a nice variety of stones and rip-rap. I found some thick broken slices of unpolished milled granite (??? what do you do with that?), a few pieces of flagstone, and many, many desert stones and river rocks. Here’s the nascent project; it’s much further along now than it was here. I expect another two or three alley expeditions will retrieve enough rocks to cover the entire semicircle.
I hope this works. Sometimes my berming schemes succeed, sometimes not. An awful lot of water pours out of that tree’s bubbler. This mound may not be tall enough to contain it, or it may flow downhill toward the gate fast enough to wash the dirt away, stone paving or no stone paving.
Hurrah! At last I managed to break free enough time to dig some compost and manure into the soil and plant the winter garden next to the pool. Nothing much to photograph…besides, iPhoto has decided it won’t read my pictures or download from my camera, so that’s moot anyway. Right now the garden is mostly dirt, with a couple of bell peppers and a cuke that La Bethulia gave me, plus a few pots hosting an Italian parsley plant, a basil plant, a thyme plant, and a sage plant.
Soon, though…soon we’ll have Swiss chard, bok choy, leeks, fennel, lettuce, cilantro, red onions, and enough parsley to garnish Brennan‘s dinner plates for a week.
It should be interesting: I’ve never grown bok choy or leeks, but from what I can tell they’ll do all right here in the cool weather. It may be too early to start leeks from seed here; temps will be in the low 100s for at least another week, and I expect we’ll have 90-degree weather for another three to six weeks. Oh well. If they don’t germinate now, plenty of seeds are left over…some more can go into the ground a little later in the season.
It’s been years since I grew fennel. Make that decades. But the last time the stuff was invited into my yard, it thrived, producing feathery sweet anise-flavored leaves for months. In those days—I was just a dumb kid—I had no idea it made a tasty bulb. But now I do. 😉
Haven’t tried to grow cilantro here, but from what I understand, it’s a weed. People who do grow it say to keep an eye on it, or it’ll try to take over your patch of the world. Consequently, the seeds went into a big pot, where they’ve already germinated.
I’ve given up on imagining that gardening is an especially frugal activity. Really, I think it costs more to pay for manure and compost, fertilizer, gardening tools, hoses, plants and seeds, and water than it does to just buy the food in the grocery store. KJG recently joined the Bountiful Baskets co-op. For $15, she brought home more produce than she and Mr. KJG could eat. Last time I was at her place, she shared a gigantic head of romaine lettuce that was just gorgeous, along with several other high-quality veggies.
So, given that we have here a hobby and not a pursuit of frugality, this year the garden will be heavy on herbs, which are expensive at the store and grow happily for months on end. I love cilantro, but it doesn’t keep well in the fridge. Every time I buy a bunch of it, the stuff spoils before I can use it up. Parsley lasts longer and I should buy it, but I’ve become so accustomed to stocking up at Costco, which doesn’t carry fresh herbs, that I now hardly ever buy parsley, or cilantro either.
Bok choy! Yum! I love bok choy. Hope it will grow this winter. That is something that I will eat. Ditto Swiss chard, which has occupied a fair amount of the little poolside flowerbed for the past three winters. That stuff is the Southwestern veggie, as far as I’m concerned. It grows here all winter and well into the spring. It’s resistant to frost, and it tolerates weeks of warm weather before bolting to seed. Even after it throws out seed stalks, the leaves are still edible—unlike lettuce, which gets bitter as soon as it goes to seed.
Eagerness to bolt notwithstanding, some red lettuce also will occupy a little of the garden’s real estate. Costco does sell lettuce, but in much larger packages than I can consume, and so—again, because I rarely go into grocery stores anymore—I don’t buy much of it. And I love lettuce! It’s a great convenience and joy to be able to step outside the back door and pick a few leaves for a meal.
Last winter’s red onions were somewhat mixed, in the success department. A few sets didn’t grow at all. But some did, and the result was pleasing. When M’hijito grows them, they come out juicy, sweet, and truly superior to the grocery-store version. Mine were just OK…but again, there they were, and I didn’t have to drive to a supermarket to get them.
The carrot seeds didn’t get planted—ran out of room. I may put them in a pot, but that will have to wait until next weekend.
I wish there were more space in the yard for a garden. Because of the fruit trees, most of the backyard is too shady for veggies, and besides, to break loose more gardening space, I’d have to dig up the (expensive) desert landscaping. It has occurred to me to build a raised garden in a low area where a bunch of leftover flagstones form an unused and unusable “patio,” but that would be a lot of work, a lot of expense, and it’s in an area where dragging a hose would be a pain. Knowing me, I expect that if I had to lift a finger very far, a garden in that spot just wouldn’t get watered, and so everything would die.
Better to have a small garden full of favorites and unusual newcomers than a big one that’s so much trouble it never produces much, eh?
Images:
Red Bell Pepper. Fir0002. GNU Free Documentation License. Please note that this image is not in the public domain.
Parlsey. Franz Eugen Köhler, Köhler Medizinal-Pflanzen. Public domain. Fennel in blossom. Carsten Niehaus. GNU Free Documentation License
Bok Choy. Public domain.
Red Onions. Agricultural Research Service. U.S. Department of Agriculture. Public dopmain.
