He Fooled Around & Fell in Love with Plants

Elvin Bishop loves to garden. And though perhaps best known for his gold-record Rhythm-and-Blues classics like "I Fooled Around and Fell in Love,” Bishop, 62, is serious when it comes to growing things. For 27 years, along with his wife Cara and daughter Emily, he's been cultivating a medley of flowers, vegetables, herbs, berries and fruits around his Marin County, California home.
(See the photo on the left.)

He uses Toro’s brown-colored in-line emitter tubing in much of his garden. (As recommended in my book Drip Irrigation, Foe Every Landscape and All Climates.) The photo is a close up of his beans with in-line drip tubing.

Bishop's interest in Oriental vegetables was initiated by his marriage to Cara Wada, whose Japanese-American heritage and traditional cooking style brought more far-eastern vegetables into her husband's diet, then into his garden. “Cara's family made me aware of different tasty Oriental vegetables. I figure if it tastes good, then it’s worth growing. Besides, it’s nice to have vegetables to give away to the family.”

Many Oriental vegetables are members of the cabbage or crucifer family (Brassica spp.) and thrive in moderate weather. In the Marin-County "Mediterranean" climate, winter gardening makes good sense; plenty of winter rain keeps things moist and, after temperatures drop, the cold keeps most pests (including the aphids and root maggots which can thwart summer plantings, but not, unfortunately, slugs and snails) at bay.

The secret to a garden which can be harvested from mid-winter through the following spring is timing, and Bishop’s sense of the rhythm of the seasons is finely tuned. His brief recipe for cultivating Brassicas : choose seed for early-, mid- and late-season crops to spread the harvest. Seed everything on June 1st in six-packs, using sterile potting mix. In two to three weeks, transplant deeply into four-inch pots. Set out into the garden at the beginning of July. Shade for several days if the weather is hot. Water till the rains begin. Weed as needed and harvest when ready.

Reaping the Rewards
In addition to its other rewards, Bishop's garden offers an abundance of produce; each year he personally puts up about 300 jars of beans, corn, pickled beets, dill pickles, applesauce, apple juice, peaches, plums, pears, tomatoes and various jams, including kiwi.

Elvin Bishop may sing the blues for a living, but in his garden, life is sweet.


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Wet Spots in Your Garden

The wet spot on the surface of the soil is misleading. The wet spots are at certain intervals, but don't represent what is going on. The photo on the left shows the misleading wet spots. The drawing on the right (from my book Drip Irrigation of Every Landscape and All Climates) shows that the wet spots beneath each emitter merge to form one continous zone of moisture. The soil for the entire length of the in-line tubing is moist some four to six inches beneath the surface, depending on the soil type. Sandier soils require tubing with the emitters pre-installed 12 inches apart. While heavier, clayey soils only need emitters every 24 inches.

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Proper Drip Irrigation Layout

In Drip Irrigation, For Every Landscape and All Climates, I recommend laying out parallel lines, or “laterals,” of tubing throughout the entire bed. I always stock the 1/2-gph, 12-inch-interval version because I install drip systems for different clients with different types of soil. The 1/2-gph tubing with the 12-inch spacing along the hose’s length is the only one that will water sandy soil. You can have your local irrigation supplier order tubing with 6-inch spacing in the drip hose. Yet, clay-loam soils can also be irrigated by turning on the system for a shorter period of time because the water easily spreads laterally. The parallel lines of tubing might be as close together as 6 or 12 inches in sandy soils and as far apart as 24 inches in heavy clay-loams. If you have a fairly heavy soil and want to save money, buy the tubing with 18-inch or 24-inch intervals between emitters, and you’ll save 25% or 40% respectively. Also, a higher flow rate, such as 1 gph, will help the water to spread wider than with the slower 1/2-gph emitter tubing. At worst, you’ll just have to run the system a little longer to get the wet spots to meet underground along the length of the tubing.

The photo on the left was taken at a winery here in Sonoma County. The one on the right I found at a museum in Paris, France. It's really catching on even though there is no French version of my book, as far as I know!

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Let me 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

Healthy Roots

As mentioned in my book Roots Demystified, Change Your Gardening Habits to Help Roots Thrive, if led by available moisture and nutrition, a tree may tunnel its roots through soil space ranging from an area one-half wider than the dripline to as much as three times further. A deep sandy soil offers little resistance to growing roots and allows for root exploration of three or more times the width of the tree.

This oak tree has mulch out to the dripline of the tree. While not the ideal it sure is a great improvement over how most developers treat native trees. This is the best example I have seen. It is located at a public community center. The sign offers great educational advice.

Unlike the dying tree in the previous blog (3-24-10), this oak trees is thriving.

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Let me 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

Concrete Kills

In my book Roots Demystified, Change Your Gardening Habits to Help Roots Thrive I talk about how important it is to allow the soil to breath for the best growth of roots. Roots with compaction or hardscape don't thrive. Here's a large, formerly beautiful, oak tree surrounded by a parking lot, driveway, sidewalk, and street. As the butchered pruning shows, the tree is rapidly dying over the past five years - a short period of time for an oak tree that can last for several hundred years or more. Such a glorious tree slowly dieing due to an anaerobic form of root bondage.

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Don't do this at home!!

A futile attempt at pruning an ornamental ‘Bradford Pear’ tree to keep it from blocking the name of the business. The tree was bought on a whim by somebody that wasn’t thinking about the tree's future size. The pitiful attempt to turn them into some kind of pollarded tree sure doesn’t seem to working. This tree has been pruned (hacked) this way for over 5 years. Don’t make this mistake! Sycamore/London Plane trees work much better and are the common tree for pollarding trees in Paris and other cities and countries.

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Let me 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