The Cat Poop Portal: Litter Box Composting, Installment #1

View up the side yard, looking toward the back yard. The new bin is all pretty and shiny.

Mrs. Homegrown here:

I posted about cat litter composting a while back, and got lots of interesting comments and suggestions. If you're researching the topic, I suggest you check out that post, the comments especially.

Since then, Erik and I have decided on the method we're going to try. We're just going to do straight up, classic composting, Humanure Handbook style. The only difference between this style and ordinary composting is that we'll let this compost rest for two years before we spread it, to be sure the bad beasties die off. And in case they aren't gone, we won't spread the finished compost around edible plants.

No, this is not orthodox practice. It is not considered "safe" to compost pet waste--all the standard advice tells you not to-- but we're doing it anyway, because we trust time and bacteria and worms and our own composting skills to make good compost out of cat litter. Also, the standard advice is mostly in reference to a home's one-and-only compost pile. You would not want to add cat or dog poop to your regular compost pile. It needs to be kept in a separate pile that is managed more carefully.

The biggest challenge in this scheme for us was figuring out where to put yet another compost container. Our yard is already overrun with barrels and bins. Worse, when we thought it through, we realized we needed room for not just one compost bin, but at least two, maybe three, because of the aging issue.You know, fill one up, set it aside, start on another. The barrels pile up!

The solution is our south-facing side yard. That "yard" is a 3 foot wide strip of sun-baked soil that no one ever sees. It's divided from our neighbor's side yard (also rarely used) by a hedge of tenacious jade plants. There is no access to the back yard from the side yard. It has been a wasteland for all the time we've been here. This year Erik put in two tiny raised planters there to see if he could grow hops on the side of the house. But it is still mostly unused, invisible space--perfect for compost bins.

The only problem was access. It's an awkward hike around the front house to get to that side yard. It would be no fun to have haul the dirty litter over there. This is where Erik's genius came to play. He decided to cut a hole in our back yard fence--a little section of fence convenient to our back porch-- and make a small door that will let us dump the litter directly into the barrel, which sits on the opposite side of the fence. We're already calling this the Cat Poop Portal (tm).

The Portal from the back yard, looking down on the drum

Questions about cats

recharging for mayhem

As new cat owners we are puzzled by a few questions regarding cat behavior. Maybe you can help us?:

1) What do cats do all night long when you're sleeping and they're not?

2) What is the irresistible allure of the flat object on the ground for cats? (e.g. a piece of paper, a yoga mat, the map you're trying to read, etc.) What makes them sprawl on said object and refuse to move?

3) Why must our cat make use the litter box when one of us is using the toilet? Why the sharing?

4) And speaking of the litter box, why is changing the litter so exciting for cats? Why does she rush to use the box the moment it's changed? (Actually, the first time she watched me change the box, she jumped into the empty box and peed, soaking her feet. Now I really hustle to get the litter in there.)

5) And while we're on bathroom matters, will the flushing toilet always be a source of wonderment, or will she grow out of it?

6) Would it be a very bad idea to push the kitty into the bathtub? She's always balancing on the sides, looking at the water. It's very tempting to give her a closer acquaintance with wetness.

7) What is it with cats and bags??? Don't kittens know that kittens and sacks have a very dark history? Ours not only loves a bag, she likes to be picked up and swung around in the the bag.

8) How is it that our cat gets off on watching mice on YouTube when she has never seen a real mouse in her life? Does the distinctive rodent silhouette come pre-wired branded in their brains?

9) Why does our cat find headphone cords so irresistibly tasty? We've lost 4 sets so far. Now that she can jump pretty much anywhere she wants, I have to keep my ipod in a drawer.

10) Why is our kitten intermittently possessed by the devil? Why is my lip bleeding? 

And finally, the bonus question:

Why do cat people talk about their cats all the time?

Cat updates:

• Did we tell you we decided on Phoebe for a name?

• My allergies aren't bothering me anymore. They seemed to get worse before they got better--though pollen may have been the real culprit. The stories of those of you who've overcome allergies kept me strong through the moments of doubt, and I came through the other side. Mind over matter!

•  Phoebe has tired somewhat of Erik as her Sole Object of Affection, meaning I get some kitten love, too. Which is nice.

Why we moderate comments

 

When you leave a comment on this blog, it doesn't appear immediately. It's held for us to approve. We're not afraid of what our readers have to say (Root Simple readers are always very civil) but we have to protect the comments from the inanities of spam. We thought you'd might like to see some of it, so you know why you have to wait for your comment to go up.

The majority of the spam is of the False Reader sort. These comments are always agreeable and sometimes almost slip past us. Variations on "Thanks for sharing" are a real tip-off, though. Most of these types of spammers will use it, while I don't know if any real reader has ever used that phrase. I mean, why would you thank us for sharing? We're bloggers. It's what we do.

PDF Lip Balm Instructions

There's a little piece on us on the Good Magazine Blog right now.  Good got our publisher's permission to offer a PDF excerpt of our book. By coincidence, they chose our lip balm recipe. So if you'd like a set of instructions a little more organized than Monday's meandering post, click here for the pdf.

U-Dig-It Folding Shovel

I came across this nice little folding hand shovel called the "U-Dig-it" at a surplus store. It measures 5 3/4 inches when folded and weighs six ounces with the convenient belt holster. I used it this morning to transplant some okra seedlings and I can also see taking this tool camping.

I dig the U-Dig-It design, and I already prefer it to the hand shovel that got buried in the yard somewhere a few months ago. I can see this tool becoming part of my gardening "EDC".

Making Salves, Lip Balms & etc.: Close of the Calendula Series

My calendula after-bath salve. The camera refuses to capture the deep butter yellow color

On Saturday, as a part of this long series on Calendula (here, here and here), I posted about infusing oil with herbs.

If you've got some herb infused oil, you can make that into a medicinal salve or balm. Salve is nothing but oil thickened by the addition of wax. I prefer beeswax salves, though there are vegan alternatives, like candelilla wax. They are used similarly.

Of course, you don't have to make salves with infused oils. Plain olive oil and beeswax are a powerful healing combination on their own, great for a no-nonsense lip balm or hand treatment. You can also use essential oils to bring herbal essences into a plain salve. 

Once you know how to make salve, you can not only make skin salves, you can make lip balm and headache balm and stick deodorant and homemade cosmetics. It's a simple technique, but it opens a lot of possibilities.

My favorite herbal salve is made out of a mix of equal parts Calendula (pot marigold), chickweed (Stellaria media) and plantain (Plantago major) oils. These three work together to make an all purpose salve that is as good for gardener's hands as it is for diaper rash or skin scrapes or bug bites or dry cuticles or badly chapped lips or mild sunburn or whatever. I always have a jar on hand and I give jars to friends and family.

Yesterday I made a batch of pure Calendula salve, a big jar of after-bath moisturizer. Like body oil, salve works best as a moisturizer if applied to wet skin. Calendula extracts are found in a lot of high end cosmetics because it's a mild but effective skin herb. It's anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, soothing, and helps skin regenerate. I love smoothing it from my cat-scratched ankles and my mosquito-bit knees up to my sun-baked face and arms.

How-to after the jump.

How to make a Calendula oil infusion

Love that golden orange color. It's prettier in real life.

So finally I get around to finishing off this mini series on Calendula (pot marigold). This post will be on infusing oil, and next week we'll have the one on salves.

We've already covered the growing and drying Calendula:

Why not plant some Calendula

Harvesting and drying Calendula

Oil infusion is as simple as can be.  Oil infusion is soaking. Think of it like making sun tea. You take a nice clean jar with a good lid, and fill that about half way full of dried herb, top it off with oil, and let that sit in the sun.

The resulting oil is medicinal. It can be used straight on the skin, or fashioned into salves and balms. I'm particularly fond of Calendula. As a skin treatment it displays regenerative properties, making it really helpful for healing dry, scraped up, or otherwise damaged skin.

 But lets step backwards a bit and talk about materials. 

Another item for the plastic haters file

Photo: TWRA. More at link.

As if the specter of hapless marine animals ensnared in six-pack rings wasn't enough, here comes a story out of Tennessee about a bear who spent three weeks with his head stuck in a big plastic jar. (Perhaps one of those things that holds several gallons of Cheetos?)

They cut it off him, re-hydrated and released him. This is being presented as an happy ending story. And true--it's a miracle that he survived at all, but he's lost 3 weeks' worth of fat reserves. Can he reclaim that weight before winter?

Why do people leave plastic crap lying around in nature? Can we just stop with the throw-away plastic already?

Color me cranky this morning.

Link to the full story at knoxnews.com  (via The Awl)

One way to salvage stale bread

Mrs. Homegrown here:

So I bought a baguette this week, which caused Mr. Homegrown to grumble with hurt indignation. His homemade bread is better than any store bought, it's true--but he hadn't baked in a few days, and I wanted to make caprese sandwiches. However, my plans went awry and the baguette went stale.  Oh, the shame on my head! Just where did we put out our supply of sackcloth and ashes?

However, tonight I salvaged the bread by making it into Melba toast (?) or rusks, maybe (?).  I have a fondness for hard, blandish cracker breads like this. You can pile an amazing amount of dip-like-substances on them, and as I've said, I could live on chips and dips.

I have to admit that for anyone who's ever made croutons, this recipe is a little "Well, duh"-- but, nonetheless:

Versailles Without a Ladder

Mongolian Giant Sunflower

Nothing much to say about the Mongolian Giant Sunflower other than, "wow". I got these seeds from Seed Savers Exchange and they have lived up to the "giant" in the name. I'm going to have to climb a ladder to harvest the seeds.

Though I don't see the need to get competitive with my sunflowers, Renee's Garden has some good harvesting advice,

As the petals fall off, the center florets dry up and the seed kernels begin to swell in the disks, carefully climb a stepladder and cover your flower head with a mesh onion bag or loose burlap or paper bag. This keeps marauding birds from robbing your seeds so that the heads look perfect and complete when you are ready to show them off to friends or proudly display them on their long stalks at your local county fair. Cut the stalks at the base when the ripened seeds develop a hard shell. If you plan to eat your sunflower seeds or preserve them for your bird feeder, wait until the seeds are completely dry; then remove them by hand or by rubbing them over wire mesh into a basket. Store in tightly closed containers to keep rodents away.

In addition to the native sunflowers that reseed themselves every year I think I'll plant a few Mongolian Giants each summer. If you've got a favorite sunflower variety, either ornamental or edible, please leave a comment.



Mrs. Homestead here: Turns out sunflowers can also help clean up radioactive contamination. Good to know! They're planting them in Fukushima. (via Boing Boing)

Spinning Wheel Restoration?

Do any of you fine folks happen to know of anyone who repairs and restores old spinning wheels? I have a spinning wheel that my great-grandmother brought over on the boat from Norway, but it is in some sorry condition. I'm not sure if it can be repaired, but I'd like to try.

Winter Squash Disaster

Those of you who follow this blog may recall last summer's "squash baby" fiasco.  This year I planted a few Marina di Chioggia squash plants (technically a pumpkin) in one of my vegetable beds located in a more secure location. Instead of some homo sapien making off with my squash bounty, it looks like the neighborhood raccoons are having a gnocchi party somewhere. All I've got to show for three Chioggia plants is one small squash and the one pictured above.

Household animal tracking expert Mrs. Homegrown assures me that the nearby scat pile belongs to some raccoons.

My thoughts after another year under a squash curse: winter squash takes up too much room to devote precious vegetable bed space if, like me, you don't have a lot of room. In previous years I've tucked it in unused corners of the yard and let it sprawl around. That's what I'll do next year.

New Ad Campaign for our Book

I suspect neighbor and fellow thoughtstylist Doug Harvey may be behind this clever sign mod in support of our book Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World.

Music for Goats

Tuvan musicians Igor Koshkendey, Mongun-ool Ondar, Aldar Tamdyn, and Aidysmaa Koshkendey performing music for an audience of goats. Another gem from Ken Sitz of Tularosa Farms.

Interview at Three Squares

There's a nice interview with us up at Three Squares right now. Thanks, Riki!

The grape that ate the world

grapefail or grapewin?

We've posted about our grape problems before. Pierce's disease makes it hard to grow grapes in SoCal. We've been trying to get resistant varieties to grow on our patio arbor (aka The Masculinity Pavillion) with no success. Our most recent planting attempts are stunted and unhappy, meaning that once again we're experiencing A Summer Without Shade.

While our "resistant" varieties are proving not-so-resistant, there is at least one grape that laughs at Pierce's disease: the native California grape, Vitus californica. I believe this sturdy wild grape provides the root stock for the vineyards up North. We planted one of these near our north side fence maybe five years ago now. While the rest of our grapes wilt and struggle, this one is completely the opposite. It is monstrously huge, cheerfully indestructible, and absolutely out of control.

Without water or any encouragement whatsoever it has grown all along the side of the house, from the back yard to the front yard--some 50 feet. It long ago swamped the 6' chain link fence and now entertains itself by making grabs at both our house and our next door neighbor's.

This week we have to go next door armed with pruners and machetes and flame throwers and beat it back out of the neighbor's yard. Meanwhile, tendrils of the vine are reaching into our kitchen window. I've allowed this to go on because it pleases me to be reminded of the supremacy of nature--and also, it ensures we can't forget to go save the neighbor.

(And yes, we really should have done this over winter, when the vine was bare. As I recall, I made noises about it, and Erik grumbled, "Put it on the list..." Anyway, the monster didn't lose its leaves until quite late--maybe December or January, then seemed to sprout again immediately.)

The grape grows about six inches a day. Since I took these photos, 3 more vines have made their way in and one has reached the ceiling. It's going beyond cute to somewhat alarming.

Oh, and do we at least get fruit from this beast? No, we do not. It has never fruited. Not a single grape. californica does make fruit, supposedly, but we've never tasted it. Our vine is too busy putting all of its energy into swamping the world.

You may be asking why we don't plant a Vitis californica on our arbor. The answer is we probably will next year. Erik had his heart set on a tastier grape, so resisted that option, but judging how the newest set of contenders are struggling out there, I'm thinking we have a native in our future. Perhaps the beautiful Roger's Red.

If we do so, we will definitely be better about staying on top of the pruning. This is our lesson learned.

Help Us Choose a Grain Mill

At the Huasna Valley wheat farm I blogged about yesterday, they have a grain mill made by a company called All Grain Mills out of Utah. What the farmer liked about this company is that the mills they make have stone wheels instead of steel. Steel burrs can heat up and destroy the enzymes in the wheat. Furthermore these All Grain mills are considerably less expensive than other ones I've seen. I'd like to know if any of you readers have one of these All Grain Mills? If so, please leave a comment. I'm also interested in recommendations for other mills.


And I can't help but comment on the aesthetics of the All Grain Mills. The company's website is so bare-bones it's almost hip (promising in my opinion when you're looking for pre-interweb technology). And that fake wood paneling reminds me of my childhood:

Why we love fennel

Fennel is an invasive plant, and there are plenty of fennel haters out there, many of them our friends, but every year we let a stand or two of wild fennel take root in our yard anyway. We just had to pause now, while the fennel is high, to say that we love it, because it is hardy and beautiful and grows with no water and no encouragement. Feral fennel bulbs aren't as good as cultivated bulbs for eating, but we eat the flowers, the fronds and the seeds from these wild stands.

But the real reason we let it grow is because fennel attracts more beneficial insects than any other plant, native or imported, that we've ever grown in our yard. It's impossible to photograph, but our fennel stand is swarming all day, every day, with flying insects of every sort, honeybees, wasps, butterflies, ladybugs and many, many small pollinators which we cannot name. At least ten species at any given glance. It is truly a sight to behold.

Sonora Wheat at the Huasna Valley Farm

Ron Skinner

I had the great privilege this week of visiting the Huasna Valley Farm in California's central coast run by Ron and Jenn Skinner whose visible joy is infectious. The Skinners grow Sonora wheat, an heirloom variety brought to the Southwest by the Spanish.

Sonora wheat is well suited to dry desert and Mediterranean climates. It produces a cream colored flour that was historically used for tortillas and posole. The Skinners served us some Sonora whole wheat biscuits that tasted as light as white flour but with a rich and complex flavor.

Jenn Skinner

To fight weeds (the big bugaboo of wheat farming) the Skinners plan on introducing Black Medic (Medicago lupulina) a leguminous plant that will fix nitrogen and out-compete unwanted weeds. The tall stalks of Sonora wheat will allow the medic to grow far below the seed heads. This is in contrast to conventional wheat farming with its short varieties and heavy reliance on herbicides. Norman Borlaug, the father of the "green revolution" used Sonora wheat to create Sonora 64, an early green revolution wheat. Ironically, as we face an uncertain energy future, we may have to go back to the original Sonora wheat as it performs better in organic circumstances and needs less water than modern wheat varieties.

Ron shows off the combine.

One of the challenges the Skinners faced in farming just a few acres of wheat was figuring out how to harvest it. Large industrial farms use enormous and very expensive combines. Small and medium sized combines simply aren't manufactured anymore. Luckily the Skinners found a vintage Allis-Chalmers combine across the road which Ron and his son disassembled and rebuilt.

I bought twenty pounds of Sonora wheat flour and a few pounds of wheat berries and am really looking forward to baking with it. I might even grow my own mini-Sonora wheat field this winter (you plant it here in Southern California in January for harvest around the 4th of July.

For more information on Sonora wheat see:

The Huasna Valley Farm website, particularly their informative newsletters.

Sustainablegrains.org has a Sonora Wheat tortilla recipe.

Slow Food USA has a page on the history of Sonora wheat.

If you're in the Los Angeles area, join the Los Angeles Bread Bakers to participate in farm visits, baking classes and oven building sessions.

And a special thanks to LABB member Joseph Shuldiner for arranging this trip!

Quick and Easy Fire Starters

I came across these fire starters this week while sorting out our camping gear, and thought I should blog about them. Then I realized we already have--long, long ago: way back in 2006, when we were all young and innocent.

These little babies are made out of paper egg cartons, dryer lint and old candle stubs. Once lit, they burn long and mightily. I always keep one down at the bottom of my backpack, along with the first aid kit. They're really handy for starting fires, especially for the fire-challenged, or to give you extra security when you're working in difficult conditions. Best of all, they cost nothing, and take only a few minutes to make.

Read our original post for the how-to's.

Vertical Garden Success!

Regular readers of the blog know that we're dubious about vertical gardening, but this is a vertical garden we can really get behind. Here, a cherry tomato is growing out of a crack in a retaining wall in our neighbor's yard. (It's just off our front stairs, and is almost certainly an offspring of one of our tomatoes) It is thriving with no water whatsoever. You can't see them in this picture, but there's tons of fruit on it. And its tomatoes were ripe before any of our pampered plants were bearing. 

Moral: Plants grow well where plants want to grow.

Bee Hotel

From an old beekeeping book (thanks Steve!),  How to Keep Bees and Sell Honey:

This is probably the finest bee hive in the world. It was built by E. S. Williams, St. Petersburg, Florida, who spent 6 months constructing it. It holds two standard 10 frame hive bodies and a bottom board. The second story lifts off for hive manipulations. It is wired for 110 volt current, has window shades and curtains. The front plastic doors swing easily and fit snugly. There is a flag pole, also a sign, that is not pictured here. This has been displayed at the Kentucky and Florida State Fairs. It is unusual items like this that make a few fair exhibits stand out.

 Not sure the bees appreciate that electricity.

Cornmeal Zucchini Pancakes

 

  

More things to do with zucchini!

Many of you know Rosalind Creasy, Queen of the Edible Landscape. If you don't, look her up. She wrote Edible Landscaping, among others. It turns out that she's not only an amazing gardener, one who makes colors and textures sing, who makes edible gardens more beautiful than any ornamental garden I've ever seen, but she cooks, too.  Darn her and her...her...competence!!!

Erik found her Recipes from the Garden at the library and brought it home. This is the first thing we've cooked from it, but we liked it a lot. These are savory pancakes that suit for breakfast, brunch, or even dinner. I imagine if you made them without the onions they could be served sweet, with syrup or jam, as a veggie-infused breakfast pancake. 

Note: She calls for yellow zucchini or summer squash, but we used green zucchini.

Cornmeal Zucchini Pancakes

1 1/4 cup cornmeal

3/4 cup all purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 tablespoon of sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 egg

1 cup of milk

2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

1 cup of grated zucchini, yellow or green, or yellow summer squash

3 tablespoons yellow bell pepper, diced fine (we skipped this)

3 tablespoons finely chopped onion

Salsa for serving, homemade or store-bought, optional. 

(We just chopped up some red onion and cherry tomatoes and called it salsa, but I think a fruity salsa (e.g. mango) would be really good with this.)

In a big bowl fork together the dry ingredients (the first list). In a smaller bowl mix the wet ingredients (the second list). Dump wet ingredients on top of the dry and mix just until incorporated--Creasy says "until barely moist."

Cook these like any pancake: in a greased skillet over medium heat until they're golden brown and the sides are firm. Keep the finished ones warm in the oven while you cook the rest.

They keep well in the fridge. I just ate one for breakfast after rewarming it in frying pan. Still tasty after 3 days!

Droopy Leaves are Not a Good Thing

Droopy Dawg

Mrs. Homegrown here:

So I just learned I've been taken in by a popular myth. You know how in the summer, the leaves of some plants go droopy in the heat of midday, then bounce back when it cools off? I'd heard...somewhere...who knows how these things get planted in your brain...that this was nothing to worry about. I'd also heard that was ineffectual, anyway, to water them midday.

Well, I was wrong. Erik just sent me a link to a post from one of his favorite blogs, WSU Extension's The Garden Professors titled Hot Weather and Not-So-Hot Advice, which scientifically refutes this myth, and gives us permission to water midday, if necessary, to save the plants.

In a nutshell, droop is bad. Droop is stress. There should be no droop.

Help, I fell down a grain harvesting "youhole"

It's the new Dancing With the Stars: the mesmerizing Hungarian Grain Harvest Competition (2010 edition). Trust me, it's a lot harder than it looks. Using a scythe is a real talent. Thanks for Ken Sitz for tipping me off to this.

Are Raised Beds a Good Idea?

Raised bed fail. Our appalling parkway beds. Extra demerits for having used treated lumber! *

Raised beds have some pluses and minuses. Lately I've been thinking about their drawbacks. Namely:

• Cost
• How fast they dry out in a hot climate.

Now I can also think of a few reasons one might want to grow vegetables in a raised bed:

• You do a soil test (and you should do a soil test, especially if you live in an urban area) and the results come back showing that you have heavy metals in your soil.
• You live in a very wet climate.
• A disability prevents you from kneeling or leaning over to garden.
• Your soil has no contaminants, but has some other problem, say bad texture or lots of buried rocks/chunks of concrete.
• You have dogs/rabbits/chupacabras, etc. 

I've come to the conclusion that for Southern California and, by extension, any dry climate, raised beds are a bad idea unless, of course, you have any of the issues mentioned above. Particularly in the summer, the raised beds I have in the parkway, pictured above, have performed poorly. So poorly, that I'm going to remove them soon. If a soil test shows high heavy metal levels I'll just go with some ornamental/insectary plants.

 Above, broom corn (Sorghum bicolor) doing just fine straight in the ground.

A partially sunken bed. Extra points for finding the stinkhorn mushroom.

This bed is somewhat of a compromise. I cut the bed in half lengthwise to make it half as tall as it used to be thus getting two beds for the price of one. Then I sunk it into the ground In effect, the veggies are in the ground but I still have the neatness and defined borders of a raised bed.

Again, if you're in Seattle raised beds are probably a good idea. But here in SoCal, I'm going to skip them from now on if just because of how much water they waste.


*ETA: A note from Mrs. Homegrown re: that topmost picture of the sad, sad raised beds. They look terrible because after a couple of seasons of struggling with mysteriously declining crops within their borders, we've given up on them and did not plant them this spring. I don't want anybody thinking they look so poorly *only* because they are raised beds. That pair of beds has produced very well in the past, but has some sort of soil problem now--one which we can't figure out. So I wouldn't agree with labeling the picture "raised bed fail"-- it's more of a gardener fail. It may have something to do with the fact that they are raised, that the soil texture has deteriorated over time due to the elevation--that is Erik's theory. I'm not so sure that's all that is going on. Nonetheless, I do agree with the overall point of this post: that in this climate sunken beds make a lot of sense.

Stinkhorn NSFW!

Proof that the mind of Gaia has a crude sense of humor--something along the lines of, "Let's find another design context for that dog reproductive appendage, only this time we'll make it slimy and smell like carrion." I guess you gotta do whatever it takes to get those spores around even if it means pandering to blow flies. 

Extra points to the mycologist out there who pins down the scientific name of this fly attractin' stinkhorn mushroom. Comments!

Cheerful but Depressing Infographic

Cheerful Seeming but Oh So Depressing Infographic*

National Geographic has an article about seed saving and the importance of biodiversity in the food supply: Food Ark. I know many of our readers are seriously savvy on such subjects, so the material may be too basic for some of you. But for those of you who are new to the subject, or want to share with others, this is a good overview.

And as always, National Geographic is best at the pictures. Attached to the article are several photo galleries. These are my favorites:

Potato Porn
 
Chicken Porn 



*If you can't read the infographic labels, it is comparing the number of seed varieties found in seed catalogs in 1903 (upper register) with the current number of varieties in the National Seed Storage Laboratory in 1983 (lower register). An astonishing loss of biodiversity over an 80 year period. This is one of the ways in which the 20th century really sucked.

Vegetable Gardening in the Shade

New Zealand spinach in partial shade

Inspired by Scott Kleinrock's work at the Huntington Ranch, I've been experimenting with growing vegetables in partial shade. Two of our vegetable beds sit under two large deciduous trees. In the winter these beds get full sun, but in the summer they might get as a little as four or five hours of direct sun.

Now my shade gardening experiment may not be applicable to northern climates. In fact, the sun is so harsh here that partial shade can be a good thing, in that it keeps more delicate veggies from drying up and blowing away.

What has worked in our partially shaded beds:

• New Zealand spinach
• cucumbers
• tomatoes (not as much growth as in the sun, but they are fruiting)
• lettuce
• Swiss chard
• dandelion greens
• raspberry

Growing but struggling:

• bush beans (cover crop)

For more information on growing in the shade, check out this article in the San Francisco Chronicle,  "Best Edibles to Grow in Shade in the Bay Area"

Also, follow Scott Kleinrock's research on the Huntington Ranch blog.

And I'm interested in hearing other people's experiences growing vegetables in the shade so please leave some comments noting where you live.