Invasion of Color

I've lived in California for 39 years. When I go back to Missouri (pronounced Mazzuhra

by the locals) in the fall I'm reminded of the amazing display of fall color in that almost

entirely deciduous forest. In California, near the coast, we have to rely on exotics from

ecosystems near and far. One of the trees now blazing away is the ornamental Chinese

Pistache (Pistacia chinensis). Here are two photos of this stunning introduction from

parts of China. Enjoy it while you can. In Texas it's considered an invasive plant.

It's showing up in Sacramento riparian habits as an escapee.

Soon to be on the hit list of the native plant enthusiasts in California.

Please post a comment - I want to know what you think.

Visit my web site to learn about my new book on drip irrigation and other gardening books.

NOTE: The comments section at the bottom of the post has disappeared. Click on the "___ Comments" button or the title under the "Blog Archives". Thanks, Robert

Bean Hole Beans (?!)

It’s end of summer and the rainy season roared in with a vengeance—three to 15 inches of rain in northern CA. Great start to the rainy season. Didn’t add hardly anything to the reservoirs and thus the drought continues.

Alas, the beginning of the rainy season means the end to the “bean hole” season. I’ve been cooking beans underground in a Dutch oven buried under 12 inches of sand for 20-24 hours for over 15 years. People beg me to prepare a pot of bean-hole beans when they are invited to an evening of food and conviviality.

I started by digging hole big enough to be able to line it with bricks and still have enough space to accommodate a Dutch oven with room to spare. My hole is lined with bricks and as well as the bottom and is about 24 inches deep.

I soak the beans for at least 2 days and change the water two to four times, I cheat a bit and use a pressure cooker to soften the beans a bit, but make sure they are still firm. (These steps plus the slow cooking time seem to make for flatulence-free beans.)

The next part of the “recipe” starts with a large fire fed by scrap wood–hardwoods work the best–to develop a huge pile of hot coals and to store plenty of heat in the bricks. Takes 3-4 hours depending on the wood. (I live in dry-land forest. For protection, I make a cone of ¼ inch hardware clothe to trap the occasional drifting ember. There’s also a gravel four-foot radius circle around the bean hole for extra protection. And I hose down the nearest foliage.)

Next I take out ½ of the coals into a metal wheelbarrow. Put the Dutch oven filled with the “secret” bean mixture in with a few layers of moist newspaper to protect from getting sand in the Dutch oven. Then the rest of the coals go back on top of the Dutch oven. Sand is added to mound up to 12 inches above the top of the Dutch oven. The beans slow cook for 20-24 hours for eating the next evening.

[Footnote: I found some discarded clay features that look like a large spine. I added them next to the bean hole to prove this was an ancient BBQ place dating back generations and when lost Italians in the 1800s (many of my neighbors are Italian) stopped to feed themselves.]

Here, never revealed before is my “secret recipe” for the bean-hole beans.

Bean Hole Beans Recipe

2# beans, kidney, black, or white (slightly pre-cooked in a pressure cooker)

½# bacon (Can be deleted by vegetarians, vegans, the overweight, or potential heart attack victims.)

3 TBS Mustard

¾ TBS black pepper, freshly ground

½ cup dark molasses

2 (or more) large heads of garlic, peeled and diced into big chunks or left whole

1 cup of your favorite hot sauce

1TBS chopped rosemary leaves

1 TBS or less, fresh-ground French roast coffee grounds (The real secrete ingredient.

Combine all the ingredients and fill the Dutch oven.

My oven is big enough to feed six to eight people, depending on their waist size.

You can cook the beans for hours in a Dutch oven in an oven. But where’s the fun in that!

Enjoy!

Please post a comment - I want to know what you think.

Visit my web site to learn about my new book on drip irrigation and other gardening books.

NOTE: The comments section at the bottom of the post has disappeared. Click on the "___ Comments" button or the title under the "Blog Archives". Thanks, Robert

Oaks, Watered to Death

I rained 4+ inches yesterday. This got me thinking about water and native coastal oak trees.

I live in the arid Mediterranean zone of California where the oak trees get no rain from May through September. To native oaks, summer water is a poison which can quickly kill. These trees spent a millennium, or more, evolving to thrive without summer rain. In the process, oaks were able to tolerate a number of hitchhiking fungal hosts. These predatory mycelium—examples include crown, armillaria, and heart rots—need two things to thrive: moisture and warm soil. As evolution arranged it, the soil is plenty moist during the wet California winters—but too cold to promote fungal growth. During the dry summer, the soil is warm enough to stimulate fungal growth, but the upper layer of the soil has dried out enough to retard most fungi. These seasonal alternations insure that there's very little time when both necessary ingredients are in abundance together. Thus whatever limited amount of fungus survives is not enough to threaten the 300 year life expectancy of the oak.

Adding irrigation in the summer insures the rapid growth of the sometimes fatal fungi. There is little more unnatural than watering beneath a oak tree in the summer. Such trees can die from rot in 25 to 50 years—a rather quick demise for something that could live another 100 to 300 years. Most houses are owned by two or three families in the quarter century it takes the tree to slowly die. Thus, the actual culprit who installed the irrigation system isn't around when the tree meets its brutal end.

One of the debates about oak trees revolves around how far away summer irrigation should be kept from an oak's trunk. The conservative answer is a zone free from summer irrigation for radius of six to eight feet from the trunk. Yet the more prudent gardener would agree that an unirrigated area equal to the width of the canopy—called the dripline—is the minimum distance. As described in my book Roots Demystified, the greater portion of any tree's roots, especially the majority of the tiny absorbing root hairs, are well beyond the dripline. In a heavy clay soil; roots, as a general rule, roots growth half again as wide as the dripline. A sandy soil, because of its lower resistance to root penetration, allows tree roots to grow as much as three times wider than the canopy. If nature selected oaks for no summer water, than the natural landscaper should avoid all summer water within the entire root system—up to three times the canopy's width, or more. Alas, if there are two or more oak trees on the typical suburban yard, this means the entire yard should be irrigation free—period. This brings up the delicate art of denial. Most homeowners rationalize—if they even give it any consideration—that some lawn or a few irrigated shrubs under part of the oak's foliage is alright. But this does shorten the oak's natural life—period

Fortunately, nature has developed plenty of species of plants which thrive beneath California oaks without summer moisture. The trick is to plant these special plants in the fall, in October or early November, so the winter rains can establish a healthy root system before the parched winds of summer arrive.

Please post a comment - I want to know what you think.

Visit my web site to learn about my new book on drip irrigation and other gardening books.

NOTE: The comments section at the bottom of the post has disappeared. Click on the "___ Comments" button or the title under the "Blog Archives". Thanks, Robert

Persimmons & More

I love persimmons. The first crops are coming into the specialty supermarkets. Soon, I'll be eating some from my own trees. I was fortunate enough to visit and taste some of the 81 varieties in the Wolfskill collection near Davis, CA.

The photo on the left documents that foggy, exciting day. The one on the right is just a few of the rare varieties of persimmons.

The Wolfskill collection is a fascinating occurrence between the private sector (Francis Wolfskill’s) and the public sector (the University of California at Davis.)

In 1934, when John Wolfskill’s daughter Francis died, she left approximately one hundred and seven acres of the grant to the Department of Pomology of the University of California, Davis, with the understanding that the property was to be used as an experimental horticulture station and the line of olive trees planted by Wolfskill in 1861 was to remain standing.

The collection is a virtual Noah's Ark of common and uncommon fruits and nuts such as:

As of 2009:

Actinidia (kiwi) 79

Diospyros (persimmon) 81

Eriobotrya (loquats) 36

Ficus (figs) 303

Juglans (walnuts) 552

Morus & Maclura (mulberries) 69

Olea (olives) 148

Pistacia (pistachio) 239

Prunus (all stone fruits) 1457

Wingnut (Pterocarya stenoptera, used to develop rot-resistant walnut rootstocks) 31

Punica (pomegranate) 180

Vitis (grapes) 3113

TOTAL # of varieties in the entire collection = 6309

USDA National Clonal Germplasm Repository (NCGR),
Wolfskill Ranch,
4334 Putah Creek Rd., Winters, CA

Here’s how to get some scions for your edible landscape:

Almost all plant material from the Davis gene bank is distributed as cuttings and deadlines for orders are those appropriate for such cuttings. These cuttings must be rooted or grafted/budded to produce a plant. Material of Juglans, Pistacia, and most Prunus are very difficult to root and the recipient must obtain appropriate rootstocks prior to receipt of scion cuttings.

Domestic orders are sent Priority Overnight by Federal Express. A packing list and certificate of quarantine compliance are shipped with the plant material when required. When orders are shipped within the U.S, it is necessary for the recipient to obtain and submit a Fed Ex account number. Fed Ex account numbers may be obtained by calling 1-800-GO-FEDEX.

Please indicate dormant cuttings, budwood/scionwood, or summer cuttings or budwood. Please use accession numbers when ordering material. Orders for dormant cuttings or budwood must be received by December 1^st, and are shipped in January/February. Orders for summer budwood/cuttings and open-pollinated seeds must be received by May 1^st, and are shipped in June-August. Orders for pollen must be received by January 31^st, and are shipped at appropriate times for each crop.

*Summer request for Punica and Morus germplasm should only be made if propagation will occur under mist.

*Due to great demand for dormant cuttings and their higher rooting success rate, we will no longer have routine distribution of Ficus summer cuttings.

Please be sure to include a phone number, email address, and Fed Ex/DHL account number.

Orders must be submitted via email to Bernie Prins (bernard.prins@ars.usda.gov)

Please post a comment - I want to know what you think.

Visit my web site to learn about my new book on drip irrigation and other gardening books.

NOTE: The comments section at the bottom of the post has disappeared. Click on the "___ Comments" button or the title under the "Blog Archives". Thanks, Robert

Santolina

Some sub-shrubs last–even thrive–in our deer-ridden, drought-resistant landscape. One of my favorites is Santolina. Lavender Cotton better known as just Grey Santolina (Santolina chamaecyparissus) shows up in most of my designs as it is also free of pests. Pictured on the left is a mixture of Grey and Green (Santolina virens) Santolinas in bloom. This was planted in 1983. The photo on the right is 26 years later. The foliage was still in pretty good shape. Down at the base is a trunk over four inches in diameter. Pretty good life for a wonderful plant.

Please post a comment - I want to know what you think.

Visit my web site to learn about my new book on drip irrigation and other gardening books.

NOTE: The comments section at the bottom of the post has disappeared. Click on the "___ Comments" button or the title under the "Blog Archives". Thanks, Robert

Spooky

It’s getting to be Halloween time. Here’s a fun arrangement from Maxine’s eccentric garden. Always the theme of death in eccentric gardens. As mentioned in my blog of September 14^th 2009. Enjoy.

Please post a comment - I want to know what you think.

Visit my web site to learn about my new book on drip irrigation and other gardening books.

NOTE: The comments section at the bottom of the post has disappeared. Click on the "___ Comments" button or the title under the "Blog Archives". Thanks, Robert

Shame on Bambi

Oh deer! (Old pun. Sorry) The bane of a forest gardener. As discussed in my blog of May 4^th 2009, lots of plants that were deer resistant in my garden are now readily consumed or dead. I lost all my red-hot poker plants (Kniphofia uvaria), also known as torch lily, over time. They went untouched for maybe 12 years when the deer started to nibble on the leaves. Soon all the leaves were eaten to the ground and no flowers ever formed. They were eaten so severely that the plants eventually died.

Now 10 years later it’s all starting over. The victim this time is the fortnight lily (Dietes iridioides). What’s so amazing is that one plant is untouched (on the left) while, only 40 feet away, another fortnight lily is being heavily grazed. Notice the number of severed leaves on the right. I predict that it will take only five years or less before the plant is too heavily browsed to survive. I like this perennial plant as one of the few straight, vertical lines in my garden. Drat. I’ll have to come up with another “deer-proof” vertical accent plant for these two guardians of the straight lines.

Please post a comment - I want to know what you think.

Visit my web site to learn about my new book on drip irrigation and other gardening books.

NOTE: The comments section at the bottom of the post has disappeared. Click on the "___ Comments" button or the title under the "Blog Archives". Thanks, Robert

A Chinese Puzzle

In 1998, my Dad & I went to China—before the outbreak of hideous air pollution. Our on-the bus-off-the-bus tour was misleading because we toured mostly cities—not the rural, farming communities which make up 70 percent of China’s population of over 1.2 billion. Where there are no cities or towns, there are provincial farms—especially during our cruise up the Yangtze River.

What was unexpected was the corn. Rows and rows of corn planted five to eight feet apart, but always planted straight up-and-down the slopes, not on the contour. Our guide Paul remarked that the corn was used expressly for feeding hogs for market. But the steepness of these unmulched slopes with a nitrogen-hungry crop was completely boggling to my gardening experience. With no mulch present on such precipitous hills, it was plain to see why, in part, the Yangtze River was a silty, murky-brown color. I wondered if vertical rows was a time-honored tradition, or a recent plundering of the soil’s fertility before the Yangtze River dam (which is now the world’s largest) inundates the area. The answer wasn’t available from our urbane guide, another enigma in this land of contrasts.

But, in talking with: Mr. Joshua Muldavin, Professor of Geology, Co-Chair of International Development Studies, UC Los Angeles, CA.

(Fluent in Chinese, spent seven years in China, talked directly with farmers along Yangtze river.)

I found out:

“The lower areas near the river have poorer soil and are prone to flooding. So, the farmers don’t want to invest the time and effort required for terraces. The terracing is done higher, above the flood zone. Also, the vertical rows allow the water from a storm’s deluge to go directly into the river. Contour planting collects water in the furrows between the rows of mounded soil where the seed is planted, this often leads to root rot. Sometimes the collected water in the furrows breaks through, washing some of the corn away—along with the soil of the planting mound.”

Who would have guessed it? Not me!

Please post a comment - I want to know what you think.

Visit my web site to learn about my new book on drip irrigation and other gardening books.

NOTE: The comments section at the bottom of the post has disappeared. Click on the "___ Comments" button or the title under the "Blog Archives". Thanks, Robert