Spider Web Framed by the Vineyard

It is Sunday morning and I’m cleaning out our chicken coop. Life just might be returning to normal after our remodel. On the way to our chicken coop I couldn’t help but notice this garden spider art, a beautiful silk web gently swaying in the morning breeze amongst our grapevines. Take time to smell the roses. Take time to experience the little miracles in your garden, like these delicately spun architectural webs.

Spiders in your garden are a good sign that your garden is healthy. Spiders do not eat plants, but are voracious predators of insects. Their web art is an enlargement of their highly specialized sensory support system, and how they trap their prey. I looked but did not see this talented spider who created this delicately engineered web. Maybe this busy spider was fodder for something else in my garden.

Quickly my thoughts went to the classic story, Charlotte’s Web. Could this be my Charlotte? How does she know how to create such an artistic web? How long does it take to spin her web? How long will this web serve her? What attracted Charlotte to our garden? Where did Charlotte go?

Spiders, in general, are not to be feared. Most spiders are not dangerous to people. Create an inviting environment for spiders, or your Charlotte, in your garden by following these steps. Use mulch in your garden which provides spiders protection and humidity. Provide tall plants or gates for ease of web attachment. Leave some open areas in your garden for their over-wintering habits. Grow plants that attract insects. Take a moment to realize, just like snakes are beneficial in your garden for eating gophers and rodents, spiders too, are beneficial. Don’t use pesticides in your garden.

VintageGardenGal Tidbit Thyme….

VintageGardenGal, “a garden lifestyle blog” celebrated  its 2nd anniversary this week. Many thanks to all of my loyal and interested readers. I appreciate your support, comments. and interaction. My hope in writing VintageGardenGal, is that I can help, inspire, and provide you tips on intermingling more garden into your own lifestyle. Please tell your friends. Thank you!

Photo Courtesy, Janet Loughrey

When I saw this piece recently highlighted on the witty garden blog, Garden Rant, who in turn, saw it originally on Sunset’s fabulous garden blog, Fresh Dirt, it was another “aha” moment for me. It is worth mentioning yet again. How many of you want to “lose your lawn” and transform it into a more sustainable garden bed? You can do it in a very simple green organic way.

On Sunset’s Fresh Dirt blog, contributing editor Jim McCausland walks us through the step-by-step method, Portland Landscape Designer Margaret de Haas van Dorsser, uses to magically transform a lawn into a new garden bed simply by way of “composting” on top of your lawn and designated new garden bed, using layers of newspaper, manure, and a little time, Turn Your Lawn Into A Flower Bed. This is ingenious. No more hiring someone, adding chemicals, intensive labor, and fighting of missed seeds or grass. You can do it yourself, in a very safe green organic way, and it is easy on your pocketbook, too.

I’m just amazed at how effective green, simple, organic methods and tips work for your garden. It takes a little bit of digging, no pun intended, to find a simple, green, organic solution but the rewards are worth it. Before you start a new garden project try researching for a green organic simple solution. Chances are you will find one, and you will be be very surprised and pleased. Please comment if you have tried this method of transforming your lawn into a garden bed. Please share if you are on the band wagon to reduce your lawn area.

The Many Surprising Benefits of Compost

As gardeners we all know without healthy soil, there will be no beautiful healthy garden. It’s just that simple. What better way to ensure healthy soil then backyard composting. Don’t laugh, but there is something magical about backyard composting. It is something akin to the “sum is greater than the parts”, or two separate delicious ingredients will never compare as well alone, as when complemented and combined together as one.

As I have mentioned before, backyard composting can be paralleled to making a vegetarian recipe. It is equal parts of layered greens and browns, add water to keep moist, and turn frequently to aerate. For more detailed information, please go to VGG related post, How To Compost In Your Backyard.

Here are examples of but not limited to, what is regularly in my compost bin. I add egg shells from my beautiful eggs my hens have laid. I add raked leaves from our trees that I cherish in our garden. I add my spent coffee grinds and recycled coffee filter from the aromatic French Roast coffee I enjoy drinking each morning. I add fresh grass clippings from our lawn. I add sweet potato peels and green bean tips from an evening meal preparation. I add my chicken manure as an extra bonus.

Ten Ways Compost Benefits Your Soil and Ultimately Your Garden:
-It improves the soil structure by causing mineral particles in your soil to naturally clump together.
-It improves soil ability to hold moisture, and means less watering.
-It improves soil aeration and the ability to carry oxygen to your plant’s roots.
-It acts as an anchor to hold in soil nutrients, and not allow them to wash away with ground water.
-It increases the number of beneficial microorganisms and worms in your soil.
-It has the ability to neutralize acidic soils and acidifies alkaline soils, this is big.
-It has the ability to consume harmful fungi spores, if present.
-It introduces trace elements often hard to add, and in proper amounts to your soil.
-It kills harmful pathogens in the soil, which keeps your plants and garden healthy.
-It creates a healthy environment for healthy plants to thrive, and inhibits weed growth.

Your compost is a custom mixture, an interesting by-product of your life. All of these ingredients throughly combined become an organic rich humus with incredible benefits to your soil, garden, plants, trees, and yard.

Besides the many advantageous perks of adding compost to your soil, composting benefits your pocketbook, and piece of mind. Please share if you compost now. Please comment on what got you started composting? What benefits have you seen in your garden since composting?

For those of you in the San Diego area, there are “Free Composting Workshops” offered this spring through Solana Center for Environmental Innovation. Pre-register online at Solana Center for Environmental Innovation or (tel) (760) 436-7986 x222

Blooming Paperwhites Dancing In The Sunlight

I can’t say enough about the effectiveness of combating gophers “the green way” with bulbs. I owe my good friends at Easy To Grow Bulbs for the “aha” moment, when I learned that planting any type of jonquil, paperwhite, or daffodil bulb, in a somewhat strategic mass planting in your yard and garden will effectively deter gophers in a very green and very beautiful organic way. It is a gopher solution that is simple and appealing.

Last year I wrote about the benefit of planting bulbs to deter gophers around my chicken coop in the related VGG post, Narcissus Bulbs Naturally Deter Gophers, and how effective it has been. I also planted bulbs around the perimeter of my potager to deter any gopher invasion, as shown in the photo above.

Jonquil, paperwhite, and daffodil bulbs once planted in the ground send out a year-round message to deter gophers, rabbits, and even deer in their immediate area. These particular bulbs send out a “toxic fragrance” or odor that animals sense even without biting into a bulb. However, if these bulbs are bitten into, they have the capability to burn a gopher’s tender mouth and cheek tissues. The result is a natural tendency for gophers to move away from the area where you have planted your bulbs, hence limiting their food source, and population. It takes a little while, but it really works.

I love this green solution because it is humane to wildlife, your bulbs look fantastic when blooming, and they bloom year after year. Your initial investment is your time involved planting your bulbs, and a generous amount of bulbs planted in your gopher problem-related area. Plant your bulbs one after another in a line 3″-4″ apart, or planted randomly throughout a flower bed amongst your other plants. Once your bulbs bloom, cut them back after they are spent and dried. You won’t see them for the rest of the year, yet they are sending out their gopher-deterrent message year-round.

Please share how you combat gophers in your garden and yard. Do you have any other green solutions for gophers?

Compost Bin And Ready Compost

Would you like to do something great for your garden, rewarding for you, and green for planet earth? It is called composting. It is very easy to get started. One, you save money on conserving water and not having to buy commercial fertilizers and soil amendments. Two, you enhance your soil health, fertility, and inhibit weed growth. Three, your gardens will require less water because the soil is able to retain water moisture more efficiently. Four, by composting and recycling, less of all of this is going into land fills, and the organic humus material is going back into your gardens for your benefit. Does your city have a “Compost Bin Subsidy Program”? See below.

Everyday I add to my compost, by following my kitchen- to chicken coop- to compost bin routine. First, by my kitchen sink corner, I keep a little open triangle plastic container with drain holes. In it goes my brewed coffee grains and filter, fruit and vegetable clippings, etc. Each morning when I open up my chicken coop for the day, I skim my chicken manure box, adding chicken manure and some pine shaving bedding to the mix. I put all of that in my compost, and layer it with grass clippings, which we heap in a pile outside of our compost bins, after mowing our lawn.

I layer my compost bin with my kitchen additions, chicken manure, leaves from the yard, and grass clippings. The smaller the pieces you add to your compost, the quicker your added materials will break down into compost. I make sure my compost bin mixture is moist. Continue to add water if your compost bin mixture is dry, and rotate it every few weeks with a pitch fork to aerate it. In a matter of 6-12 weeks, especially if you keep your compost bin in a partly shady area and moist, microorganisms break down these materials and create an extremely rich-nutrient dark organic mixture.

The formula for composting is to use about 50% greens, which is the nitrogen or the fire, and 50% browns, which is the carbon or the fuel. This formula does not have to be exact. With the addition of water and oxygen these two elements begin to breakdown and create heat. You might want to splurge and buy a compost thermometer which has a long stem to poke down into the heart of your compost bin, and read the temperature. You want your compost pile up around 120-150 degrees F, to start the decomposition process and kill any weed seeds, etc. Eventually your compost will stop heating up, after it has been turned. This means your compost is nearly ready, and it will benefit by leaving it be, for a few weeks more. Don’t be alarmed if you see a few large grub worms in your compost, they are not harmful, and actually aid in the compost process.

Greens are fruit and vegetable clippings, fresh grass clippings, yard trimmings, egg shells, tea bags, coffee grinds and filters, and breads. Manure is nitrogen, and also considered greens, which is an extra bonus to your compost, but you must add other green to your mixture other than manure. Horse, cow, sheep, and chicken manure are wonderful to use. Be mindful that manure can be “hot”, as in potential to burn your plants, if not composted adequately and given time to break down.

Browns are dried leaves, wood materials, ground up branches and twigs, bark, straw, hay, pine shavings, sawdust, shredded paper, and wood ashes. Some browns take a long time to break down such as pine needles, so I do not include them.

What does not go into your compost bin. Think of your compost as vegetarian, therefore no meat, fish, poultry, bones, oils, lard, grease, dairy products. No dog or cat manure, or your cat litter box fill. No treated wood products, charcoal or pressed-log ashes. If you are unsure of something, leave it out.

Space required for composting is about a 3′ square area. I have three bins going at one time, so I have more area devoted to composting. Don’t forget about the potential for composting at school, or work, too. You want an area which is partially shady spot, and one which is easy to maneuver around in. Locate your compost bin in a “tucked away” but convenient area.

Compost bins can be home-made with simple materials such as stacked pallets, or quarter inch wire mesh 12′ long, wrapped in a circle, and held together with a hook and eye at the top and bottom. There are also plans available on the Internet to make them, or manufactured bins available for sale at nurseries, and mail-order.

If you want to start backyard composting, check with your city first to see if they subsidize a “compost bin program”. For instance, my city, Encinitas, has been quite proactive in recyling, compost workshops, and encourages residents to compost by subsidizing “Smith & Hawken” compost bins, http://www.smithandhawken.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=prod21199&categoryId=cat240046p&sku=21199 that normally retail for $129, for only $35 each, limit two per year/per Encinitas household. These compost bins are available for non-Encinitas residents too, for a special non-profit reduced price, price and availability is subject to change. For further information visit, www.solanacenter.org or call, (760) 436-7986, x222.

The City of Encinitas has set aside funds for this program, and has had this program in place for many years now. If your city does not have a “Compost Bin Subsidy Program” like Encinitas, contact your city and ask for one. Make your voice heard. Start with the “Recycling Department” within your city. Does your city have a great “green” program in place, that you would like to share? Do you know of other benefits of composting that haven’t been mentioned? Please share your comments.

Composting has made gardening easier for me. It is so delightful to see my gardens flourishing, and every time I dig into my soil, there is another good sign, an abundance of worms.

Garden Tools Ready For Spring

Last year my husband, John, and I were featured in an article called “Grow Greener” highlighting our flower/vegetable gardens, and organic practices in, Nature’s Garden magazine, Spring 2008, http://www.debraprinzing.com/articles.php?article_id=40, written by friend, Debra Prinzing, an incredible garden and design features writer. See below, for more information on Debra. For this article, she asked me my “top ten healthy garden practices”, and the last one I chose was “order before beauty”, which Debra so aptly penned, “Chores Have Their Rewards”.

One of the chores I was particularly thinking about, was caring for your tools. Tools should always be cleaned, dried, and stored away in an orderly manner. If you have the due diligence, go one step further and wrap clean rags or towels around your tool heads before stowing away. Spring is especially a great time to prep your garden tools and have them ready, for all of your busy gardening needs, so you can “hit the dirt running”.

Take a good look at your tool inventory and their condition. Do you know where your favorite tools are? Are your tools clean, or a bit rusty? If so, deep clean and lubricate them. Do they seem dull when using, or do they still have their sharp edge? Make sure your tools are sharp, it will save you physically. Are your tool handles rough or soft to the touch? If rough, lightly sand your wood handle tools with fine sandpaper, and apply a generous amount of linseed oil with a soft cloth. If the oil absorbs quickly, reapply. Your tool handles will be as soft as velvet and a treat to work with. Properly cared for tools can last generations, and can be handed down from one generation to the next budding generation of gardeners.

It is all the same, whether it is your personal life, your home, or your garden. If you are organized and tidy, you will be much more effective, efficient, and accomplish more effortlessly. You will soon experience the rewards. There is a great quote that reinforces this message. “When you do the things you have to do when you have to do them, the day will come when you can do the things you want to do when you want to do them.”–Zig Ziglar, Author.

Debra Prinzing is a Southern California-based writer and lecturer who specializes in interiors, architecture, and landscape design themes. For more information and articles, please visit her website, www.debraprinzing.com, and her blog, www.shedstyle.com. Her latest book, with William Wright, architectural and interior design photographer, is called “Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideways”.

Can You Spot the Rain Barrel?

Here in Southern California our average rainfall is twelve inches. With the looming cloud over of us whispering “water rationing” it is wise to take advantage of our precious rains. Why not try to collect, contain, and utilize your precious rain water for your garden. Here are six easy tips I use, that I would like to share with you.

1)  If you hear on the news of an incoming rainstorm or showers, turn off your irrigation water. The news has gotten quite accurate reporting on all the details of rain coming, enough to give you advance warning to prepare.    

2)  I have a compost bin, actually three to be exact, that I add to everyday and make fabulous “worm worthy” compost for my garden. That is another post subject on its own. They are stackable and have a removable lid. When I hear it is going to rain, I remove the lids from all of my compost bins to catch all of the rain and moisture. Compost needs to be kept moist, and what better way then a fresh rain. After the storm, I put the lids back on.

3)  Install an actual rain barrel or large urn under one of your convenient downspouts to collect water. In the photo, there is actually a plastic 33 gallon barrel within the beautiful wooden barrel, adorned with succulents on its top. My dear neighbor gave me this vintage barrel, that I slipped over a new plastic barrel. If you look closely you can see the downspout which is coming off of a storage shed rain gutter. I went one step further, and connected a hose at the bottom of the barrel with an on/off valve. The lath structure by the rain barrel is actually my potting shed. I have the ability to fill a watering can from my collected rain water barrel, inside my potting shed. It does not take much rain to fill a barrel. You will be surprised.

4) If you can not install an actual rain barrel of some type, put your watering cans, or something similiar under your rain spouts or gutters.

5) Place your easily moveable pots and containers out in the open air to receive the rain. Rain water has a lot of nutrients in it, that our irrigation water does not. Give your plants that extra boost.

6) Once again, when you hear rain. Prepare. Clean your bird baths, and empty them. The rains will fill them with fresh rain water and your wild birds will enjoy the treat.

I would love to hear your green tips for rainy days…in comments.

Narcissus Bulbs Blooming Alongside Chicken Coop

If gophers are a problem in your garden or property I can recommend an organic green solution you might not have tried yet, the beautiful narcissus bulb. Any type of narcissus bulb, which includes jonquils, paperwhites, and daffodils will be a deterrent to gophers, rabbits, and deer in your garden and property. For simplicity sake, I am writing mainly about gophers and daffodils, but this solution works just as well for rabbits and deer, using all types of narcissus bulbs.

It is important to plant bulbs that are hardy for your climate. Check the packaging information included with your bulbs, or with the source you are purchasing your bulbs from. Generally speaking, these type of bulbs are planted in the fall time frame, and are cold hardy blooming in early winter, depending again on your specific climate zone.

Narcissus bulbs are such a wonderful green solution to deterring gophers for many reasons. Once you plant your bulbs, depth and spacing depends on variety, they bloom year and year. They are simply beautiful to look at, and often very fragrant. Bulbs planted in the ground send out a year round message to critters by actually “advertising” a toxicity odor or fragrance. Yes, that’s right. Even before a bulb is bitten into, it is sending a warning, that it has a natural toxicity ability to irritate (burn) the soft tissues of their mouth and cheeks. Gophers find it uncomfortable and stay clear of the bulbs, “taking a hike” out of the vicinity. To some extent by limiting their food source, you are limiting their population, and they have to go elsewhere. Once your bulbs are planted and in the ground, give it some time, and you will notice gophers staying clear of the area near your bulbs.

If you have ever had a gopher problem, you have probably tried trapping, poisoning, drowning, blasting, and a few other gopher terminator techniques. Gophers can be quite a menace taking out a rosebush, grapevine, shrub, or vegetable plant, usually by eating the root system. If you have chickens like I do, gophers can be especially persistent in trying to reach their “pot of gold at the end of the rainbow”, the chicken feed bucket and ensuing spillage around it. I even have a 1 1/2 foot wire fencing buried around the chicken coop to discourage gophers.

Try planting bulbs first in a few specific areas, such as along side your chicken coop or the perimeter of your vegetable garden. With time and budget permitting, you can expand your bulb planting as you see your success.

In vegetable gardens where you have a lot of rabbits on a regular basis, try planting bulbs among your vegetables, besides the perimeter. In flower beds, for instance where you have tulips, and a problem with deer, plant your narcissus bulbs mixed closely with your tulip bulbs. All types of iris and agapanthus are gopher, rabbit, and deer resistant, too.

One of my favorite sources for bulbs is the mail order business, www.easytogrowbulbs.com (tel) (866) 725-5361. They sell bulbs for all zones, but specialize in “warm climate” bulbs.
Featured in the above photo is their “Erlicheer” Daffodil.

Going Green This Holiday Season

This year I wanted to buy a live “green” tree for our holiday season. I thought it would be wonderful to have a live tree in the living room for the holidays. I could nurture and care for this tree throughout the year, and bring it inside in December, for an intimate few weeks. There is something so special about having a live tree inside your home. This evergreen beauty exudes the holiday season. Just look at the captivating shadows it leaves on a wall, in the photo.

I stumbled across this potted Oriental Spruce, Picea orientalis “Atrovirens” grown by the wholesale nursery brand, Monrovia, www.monrovia.com at Green Gardens Nursery, 4910 Cass St., San Diego, CA, 92109, Pacific Beach area, (858) 483-7546. This is truly a wonderful little nursery chock full of unusual plants for the holiday season, and throughout the year. You can find unusual tabletop topiaries, live christmas trees, hollies, garlands, and much more to accent your home and garden.

This beautiful Oriental Spruce reminds me of the Noble Fir tree in appearance. It is a slow grower, and ideal for keeping in a pot or container outside throughout the year, and bringing inside for a few weeks. It has dark green shiny needles, and grows in a pyramidal form which is fully branched to the base. It likes to be watered regularly when the top 3″ of soil is dry. Be aware, however, if you ever plant this tree in the ground with optimum growing conditions it can reach 60-80 feet high and 20-30 feet wide. It does best in zones 2-8.

The Oriental Spruce came in a 3.6 gallon sized pot. I took it home and transplanted it into a slightly larger container that drained and had a saucer. Before transferring it to it’s new container I did a little preparation. This Oriental Spruce was incredibly root bound, so I loosened the roots a bit, scored the entire root ball, and gave it a good drink letting it soak in a tub of water. I placed my newly potted spruce into a beautiful copper patina bucket to bring inside. The Oriental Spruce is so pretty, I am going to decorate simply with a single strand of tiny white lights. It needs nothing else.

Buying a live ornamental tree such as the Oriental Spruce is an investment, at least 2-3 times more expensive than a cut tree, maybe more depending on the tree. It is a worthwhile investment. One, you have a year-round tree. Two, you have an exceptional tree for the holidays. Three, you are being green, and kind to the environment. After the holidays, you don’t have to dispose of it, recycling it with the garbage. Live trees are generally smaller in size, than cut Christmas trees. This Oriental Spruce will fit beautifully in our living room, and it won’t be out of scale in size either.

The beauty of this tree and it’s simplicity, reminds me to embrace “the spirit of the holidays”, and seek other ways to be holiday green this season.