Monthly Archives: March 2010

The Scary World of Garden Sculpture

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Thoughtstylings
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 “The Present Order Is The Disorder of The Future [Saint Just]” from Finlay’s Little Sparta. Photo by Michael Loudon

I’ve always been a big fan of the late Scottish artist and poet Ian Hamilton Finlay. He’s probably best known for his enigmatic garden Little Sparta. As Finlay demonstrates, there’s nothing like a carefully placed bit of artwork to tilt one’s perspective on the landscape and make you see it in a different, and perhaps more perceptive way. But good luck finding said piece of garden sculpture unless, like Finlay, you can manufacture it yourself. Just for kicks, I took a look at Amazon’s garden offerings. They are so over the top bad that I think a clever garden artist could actually work with them. .

This one is my favorite Amazon sculpture offering. Looks like something Saddam Hussein would have installed by one of the shark ponds. Suggestive and creepy all at once.

There’s a lot of kids in the garden sculpture world, but this one seems to come with a Jeff Koons kitten. Or is that a Jeff Koons jackalope? A genetically modified puppy/kitten hybrid? I can’t tell.

Perfect for an age of “zombie” banks–a zombie for your garden. Also seen in the Sky Mall catalog, a favorite shopping resource for zombies.

Stick this on one of your trees and you’ll soon find hair sprouting on the tops of your feet.

Depicting smiles is always a tricky one in the world of sculpture. At least you get a stand with this masterpiece.

You could argue that greys are the malevolent elemental spirits of the 20th century. Unfortunately this one will set you back $100 if you’d like it to grace your garden.

 For some reason you can pick up a halfway decent Buddha. Now can we switch out the molds on the other stuff? There’s an opportunity for an entrepreneur here . . .

Update: As reader Paula points out, how could I have forgotten the garden gnome? Must be the terrible head cold I’ve got. Well, here goes:

Plantasia: Music for Plants Part II

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Thoughtstylings
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Not only did Homegrown Evolution reader Avi, track down a downloadable copy of Dr. George Milstein’s 1970 album Music to Grow Plants, but  he also suggested two more cultural landmarks of the 1970s “chattin’ with plants” period.

Mort Garson’s Moog generated album Plantasia: Warm Earth Music for Plants and the People Who Love Them is pretty much what I would imagine a macramé suspended spider plant wanting to listen to. Its groovin’ Moog bleeps and blats seem more likely to enhance photosynthesis than Dr. Milstein’s orchestral wall of sound. Plantasia is pretty much guaranteed to add a foot of growth to your ficus plants.

Avi also provided a link to the entire 1979 documentary version of The Secret Life of Plants. It took me two evenings to make it through the endless time lapse and interpretive dance sequences. But there’s plenty of wackiness to enjoy, including a soundtrack by Stevie Wonder who appears at the end singing to, well, a bunch of plants. The highlight for me was seeing the laboratory equipment of Indian scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose, inventor of the cresnograph a device for measuring plant growth.

Seriously, though, the best thing I’ve heard on the relationship between humans and plants recently is a lecture by anthropologist Wade Davis, “The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World” that you can listen to via the always excellent Long Now Foundation’s lecture series and available as a free podcast in the Itunes store. Davis eloquently describes the Anaconda people’s intricate botanical knowledge and how they came to concoct ayahuasca.The plants, it turned out, talked to them.

Though, after listening to Plantasia, I’m hoping the ficus plants don’t start talking to me.

Ordo Ab Chao

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Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
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There’s a lot of conflicting advice in the vegetable gardening world. You’ve got your square footers, biointensivists, permaculturalists and survival gardeners, just to name a few. The truth is these often conflicting techniques probably all work for someone. I’ve been thinking lately that the next book we write should be a version of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders turned into gardening advice.Got attention deficit disorder? Well, here’s how ya mix up your own potting mix.

Face it, we’re all in the diagnostic manual somewhere. I suffer from a chronic lack of organizational ability. Square foot gardening has never worked for me–I just can’t keep up with the schedule. For some folks, I’m sure it works great. John Jeavons’ biointensive methods, however, have worked well for me. That is, when I actually follow his advice. I offer as evidence two beds from our winter garden. The one above, containing chard, carrots and beets turned out really well. It has produced an abundant and attractive harvest. The one below, on the other hand, is a mess.

The difference: planning. Whereas some people can probably improvise a vegetable garden, my unique place in the diagnostic manual means that I benefit from some degree of organization. With Jeavons, you project how much of a particular vegetable you’d like and plant with tight hexagonal spacing. Plan ahead and you get an abundant and attractive garden assuming you’ve taken care of your soil. At least it works for me.

My new commitment for our summer garden is to carefully choose what I’m going to grow, how much of it to plant, and stick with the program. No last minute improvising. And better note taking! I attempted to weigh vegetables this winter, earning the scorn of Mrs. Homegrown who deemed it too male an approach, too much about bragging rights. All that weighing took away note taking time from what would have been more useful information: when things were planted, transplanted and harvested.  That data could help prevent gaps in the garden in the future and clarify the best times to plant, information that’s hard to come by in our unique Mediterranean climate. Not to say that weighing is without merit–it would be a good way to compare  methods–but I’m going to leave that to academic researchers and Mr. Jeavons. I’m also trying to figure out a way to share my gardening diary with other people in the L.A., area via Google docs so that we can all compare notes. More on that once we get our next book done!

As for keeping track of planting times, simply hanging the Stella Natura calendar by the stove has done wonders. I now keep better records of planting and transplanting dates. Cooking while looking at the calendar prompts me to plan ahead and think about the things I actually like to eat. Less turnips next year and more arugula!

Leave a comment about your vegetable gardening methods and, if you’re so inclined, your place in the diagnostic manual!

What’s the dirt on soap nuts?

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Cleaning, Domesticus, Water and Power
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Sapindus mukorossi fruits, image from Wikimedia Commons

Mrs. Homegrown here:

I’m trying to take a temperature reading on soap nuts. Have you used them? Did you like them? How do you use them–as laundry detergent, shampoo, soap? Do you use whole nuts or make a liquid? How long have you been using them? Do you find a big difference between brands?

If you could shoot me a comment, I’d really appreciate it.

On a more advanced level, I’m curious about their interactions with soil and compost, so if you have any thoughts on that, I’d love to hear them. I’m curious as to how they’re harvested, and if their growing popularity is impacting their local ecosystems.

If you’ve never heard of soap nuts, let me know that, too! I’m wondering where they sit in the general public awareness.

Soap nuts are saponin-rich fruits, usually of a tree called Sapindus mukorossi (though all Sapindus make soaping fruits), which can be used for laundry and other cleaning purposes. They’re usually sold only lightly processed: seeded and dried. A handful of these dried fruits, which look somewhat like small dates, are put into a cloth sack and thrown in with the laundry. The fruits release saponins, natural surfactants, which clean the clothes. Supposedly. I hear mixed things. I’m experimenting with Maggie’s Soap Nuts right now (and Erik is complaining about their…uh…rich organic smell…which doesn’t seem to linger after drying), but I’ve not used them long enough really judge how they work. The truth is, so much soap is embedded in the fibers of our clothing that you can wash the average garment a couple of times in nothing but water and it would still come out pretty clean. And, for better or worse, Erik and I don’t do that much wash. I feel like I need to adopt a Little League team or something to really test drive this stuff! So send your comments, or your ball teams, this way…

Updated 12/14:
I’ve continued to use soap nuts off and on– I also use Oasis Laundry Detergent, which is a greywater safe detergent which I trust.  Soap nuts are also safe for greywater, by the way. As far as use goes, I’ve come to the conclusion that soap nuts work fine for regular soil, but for tricky whites I always use the Oasis plus some kind of oxygen bleach (which I don’t send out via the greywater). Dirty whites just need more oomph than the soap nuts can provide.
Also, I mention Maggie’s soap nuts above–they used to be available by Amazon, but they are no longer. We’ve also sampled soap nuts from Green Virgin Products and they worked well, and they are currently available via Amazon. You may find soap nuts in your local health food store, of course, though in some areas it can be hard to find them in stores.