Permaculture Blog

Okay, the mice are not getting blamed this time :-)
I have seen birds come down and eat the leaves off the pea plants. Two different kinds of birds I have seen do this. One of the birds, a Towhee, in the summer hops up and down my rows of vegetables eating bugs. I really appreciate this and I would speculate that there are not a lot of insects to have as food as it goes into winter.

I guess if I want to have lots birds hopping around in the summer eating bugs I need to feed them in the Fall and Winter! They’re insectivorous but at least people are beginning to realize that animals don’t eat one type of food their entire life. But they are probably not big seed eaters and so I shouldn’t limit myself to bird seed and I ought to plant a few more (salad) peas for them in the fall. And not worry about them eating a few. They will repay me tenfold in the summer. I have also decided to plant my peas earlier so that they are a little bit bigger and thus can withstand the damage better by the time the “bugs run out”. Californians have ripped out all the native plants that used to feed our native animals and planted that one lemon tree in our yard and then are furious that the squirrel gets a few of _our_ lemons. Try planting back some native food plants too. Best to you all!

Couple of requests for pictures of the Gopher moat. So the picture shows on the left 2 apple trees and all the way down at the end a fig tree. Each of the trees used to have a trench dug around it. That trench has now been filled in with compost etc. But it makes the trench on the left a little ragged. Doesn’t bother me and I think the trees will be happy with the compost. Down the center is my tractor path. To the right is the outside trench and the Gophers au natural area. There is also lots of mustard that I am pulling out and it is where I let the Gophers that I dug up go. Well two of them, the other two I let go up where I had seen the bobcat and her kittens. She had two this year and from the internet the suggestion is that they often have two but 1 doesn’t make it. So I hope if the extra Gophers were caught and eaten it allowed both the kittens to make it. It is an ecosystem people please don’t kill everything.

Amazing Permies,

We are getting super-excited and excitable about the Southern California Convergence. In other words, we are nervous wrecks by now and can’t wait.

SoCal Permaculture Convergence ticket prices going up to $99 on March 1st. Get your discounted ticket today at www.perm.eventbrite.com, and don’t miss this amazing event! All details and a chance to win two free tickets at www.socalconvergence.org.

Thank you , friends. Looking forward to seeing you all.

Be ready, it will be fantastic!

To visit San Diego Permaculture, go here: http://www.meetup.com/SanDiegoPermaculture/

I have filled in all the old individual trenches around the trees with compost- well, and a lot of brush clearance debris. The trees should enjoy that. And I have 2 trenches 1 on each side of a path that goes around the entire orchard (a little tractor is amazingly handy). If the gophers break through the first 1, I will still have a bit of time to chase them back out before they can even start to cross the second and get to the trees.

If I was going to do it all over again I would rent a trencher or in my case a trenching attachment for my tractor and make a tic tac toe grid. I would make the distance between trenches somewhere between 5 and 10 feet. 10 feet probably would be better as it would be easier to maneuver the trencher. I would make the trenches somewhere around 9 inches wide so that I can just get a shovel in – but they make some fairly narrow shovels (trenching shovels) too. My orchard is over 200 by 100 feet. I would start in the middle and do what I could in 1 day. Or 2 days if I got a special weekend rate. Make sure I end up with an outside trench all the way around. Then I would plant my trees and keep an eye out for gophers. With the grid in place sectioning off the existing gophers with just a shovel would be easy. I would be able to tell where they are and even in a large area there shouldn’t be more than 3 or 4 — they’re solitary. I would dig them up and let them go outside the moat like I did this time. By the way if anyone ever tells you that it is impossible to dig up a gopher, smile and nod. That’s what I do — even though I dug up 4 :-)

Depending how much I got done that first day I would expand if necessary some other day. But I would certainly have a bunch of trees planted and an area with no gophers without killing anything to do it. And once the Gophers are out, fill in the inside trenches with compost, kitchen scraps, shrubbery prunings, go on Craigslist and advertise for tree trimmings. Live peacefully with the world ecosystem!

For raccoons.

Pseudacris regilla
Pacific chorus frogs

It’s been so warm the fruit trees are starting to bud. I get to give the bees pesticide free and GMO free nectar.

Anybody watch The Hunger Games or read the books? Maybe we’re doing that to our kids with neurotoxins rather than “Hunger Games.”

Except …. What do we do to “try to win?”

I really am glad that I’m not spraying toxins all over the place not only for myself but for the little critters as well. This little thing doesn’t really hurt anything. Especially since my seedlings are now unreachable in the center of the pond :-)

Western spadefoot toad tadpoles. He he he he. I’m not sure where the eggs were laid. When I saw the toads it was before I put in the seedling flotation system. SFS ?? But the tadpoles sure do like hanging around the sides and under the SFS. I am fairly certain that these are toad tadpoles. The frogs have just started laying their eggs and the tadpoles aren’t even close to hatching yet. The flotation system for the seedlings is working well. Although I have been putting more and more seed trays on and I’m going to have to put larger air bladders underneath isn’t it great when something works so well that you have to improve it to keep up.

by voice recognition on bob’s droid. Sorry for the Weird capitalization. Website http://www.puravidaaquatic.com/

The reason that they are called chorus frogs is that they have all different tones of “voices”. Some high some low, even though they are all the same species.  They are also able to change their color.  If you look under my constructed wetland tab (http://www.puravidaaquatic.com/index.php/constructed-wetland/) there is a picture with six of them sitting on a leaf.  They are all brown except for the back one which is green.

This is what I hear when I open the front door in the early spring.

Or walking up the driveway…

Sometimes it is fairly loud :-)

Unless the gophers take up snorkeling or scuba diving. My seedlings are also mouse proof, snail proof, earwig proof and as far as I know anything that will eat them proof — knock on wood. I put an air bladder under each corner of the PVC cross. With a little puff of air into a tube I can lift 1 side or the other. Or lower a side if I let a little air out. It is tethered in the middle of the pond. I tweaked it so that just the bottoms of the trays are in the water and I shouldn’t have to water them. I am such a freaking lazy Gardner :-) I just set it up so we will see how it works.