Oh squirrels, how I want to love you...

It seems I have been slacking on the blogging a bit, many apologies. I have not, however, been slacking in the yard or working on our goal of a permacultured urban homestead. As my previous post states, I have been making an effort to do at least one thing every day having to do with nature. This past week has been filled with planting bulbs, a little yard cleanup, gathering seeds for storage, trying recipes for seed bombs and getting the winter greens started. We also now have 3 pollinated cucurbits (two butternut and a pumpkin) growing quite nicely, protected from the voracious squirrels.

Quite the bane of my existence lately, those squirrels. I have to say I have been really struggling with my feelings about the squirrels. They ate almost all of the squash blossoms this year, dug up countless seeds and seedlings, peed on me, chewed right through the stems of a few plants but did not take the bounty and, just yesterday, stole my gardening gloves and ripped of half of one finger and part of another. There is a mated pair who live in one of the trees that hang over our yard. We actually have no trees in our yard, sad to say, but thankfully the neighbors have quite a few. The squirrels seem to have taken a liking to our yard more than any of our neighbors though, I suspect it's because we are actually growing edible plants. There are very few gardens in our part of the neighborhood, and the few neighbors I've talked to with gardens have all told me about the squirrels raiding their's as well.

Some days I am quite angry with them for eating the plants. We have worked so hard to bring life into this yard and seeing them destroy it can be rather heart wrenching. I can also see how the squirrels see our yard as a buffet, easy pickings to get those much needed calories. I have been putting out seeds, fruit that should be composted and water for them, yet they stil raid the flowers. A few of the moms I know have said they trapped the squirrels in their yard and drove them out to the mountains. They also talk about pellet guns, and though there are days I have fleeting thoughts about their demise I could never go through with any course of action that would harm them. The squirrels have made their home, which just happens to be right outside our yard and no matter how crazy they drive me, it is their home. Personally I think the whole trap and release thing is silly, not to mention a waste of energy. Trapping the squirrels that are here now will do nothing about the squirrels in the future. The best course of action is to find a way to live in harmony with the wildlife.

The ridiculous lack of diversity in the ecosystem around here is much more of a problem than the squirrels, and really that is a major factor in creating the squirrel pest problem. When all the yards are lawn, sumac and ornamentals there are very few food crops the wild animals can enjoy, which drives them to consume all the food crops they do find. If every house in our neighborhood had at least one animal friendly food crop, I think the squirrels would cease to be "pests", instead they would become more like gardeners, ensuring that the crops stay healthy and don't over do themselves with production. Garden pests are only a problem if there is a lack of diversity, the stronger the eco-system the less impact any one creature will make. Now all I have to do is convince my neighbors to start gardening, that shouldn't be to hard, right?

Oh and one more thing, some woodpeckers have built a nest hole in the tree that is almost in our front yard. It's so neat to see them hopping around the yard in the morning, feasting on the plethora of ants around here. I can't wait to see if they have little babies in the spring. Yay!

Everyday Nature day 1

So we started a new activity in our household yesterday and we're calling it everyday nature. In order to get us more into the spirit of things, and get us even more used to working with the elements, we have decided that we must do something, anything, oriented toward the natural world every day. Doesn't have to be much, but it has to be something that will further our understanding of the earth.

I started with a bang yesterday. There has been this clump of iris in the back, just on the outside of the fence by the garage, in a tiny space of maybe 2x2'. How long they had been there is a mystery to me but I don't think they had ever been divided, which really wouldn't be such a problem if they had room to grow somewhere. Since they were so compacted and overgrown they could not bloom anymore and there was just a big sloppy mess. Now I have never had to divide iris before but being rhizomatous I figured it would be pretty easy to work with them. I had no idea what I was in for.

Honestly the entire space was one giant rhizome. Seriously. I have never seen anything like this before. There were three layers of rhizome laying on top of one another, roots growing every which way, and feet upon feet of spent bulbs. It took me almost two hours to dig it all out, then another hour to sort it all and snag the useful bulbs. The entire time I worked all I would think about was how sad it was to let a plant suffer like that for so long. This poor yard has just been abandoned for so many years that all the existing plants are suffering and in decline. There is a huge difference between natural gardening and torturing your plants, hopefully we'll be able to rehab this yard enough so that it can maintain itself through neglect and become more of a natural garden when we no longer occupy this space.

What's on the agenda for today? Just a little thinning of the radishes in the planter out front and a little experimentation with using the native clay soil for seed bombs. I am really excited about both actually, I am super happy radishes came up, thanks to mulching, and I can't wait to spread some seed love with native plants and soil. Woohoo! What are you going to do today that's nature related? How are you bringing yourself closer to the natural rhythm of things?

Little video tutorial...

So we are starting to venture into the world of vlog and video tutorial! YAY! I am so excited to really be making something happen. This morning I recorded a little video all about female squash blossom identification and pollination. We have been having a really really hard time with the squirrels this year, they eat every bloom on the squash before they have a chance to do anything. Out of 25 cucurbit plants we have 1 fruit currently on the vine, and that is all we have been able to keep from the squirrels all year! I started putting small milk crates and wire cages over the plants so the squirrels can't get them and it seems to be working. I hope you all enjoy the video! I promise to have my weed identification blog up in the next few days, I have been enjoying the end of summer a bit too much! I hope you all have a great weekend!

http://youtu.be/-yS1_pk-D14

Permaculture Media Blog: Dirt! The Movie (2009) - Documentary film online

This is in my queue for tonight,

Permaculture Media Blog: Dirt! The Movie (2009) - Documentary film online: DIRT! The Movie --directed and produced by Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow--takes you inside the wonders of the soil. It tells the story of E...

mini yard update

Well I know things have been quiet around here lately but around our house they have been hectic! Tons of planting, transplanting, pulling of more spurge from the yard and lots and lots of work on the Permaculture Project. There aren't any pictures tonight, should be some tomorrow, but here's the deal anyway...

We finally had our first pollenated female squash blossom, it was a lovely spaghetti squash and I was so looking forward to eating it, but the squirrels got it. I won't lie and say I wasn't bummed, kinda makes me wanna take the lid off the compost again. The good news is that there are finally tons of female flowers so we should be getting lots of yummy stuff very shortly, better late than never right?

We have started harvesting our bush beans and the edamame and pole beans should all be ready in the next few days. We haven't decided whether or not we're just going to mulch the edamame, either way the plants are going to be chopped and dropped. It ended up being too late in the season for the snow peas, it was just too hot and only one plant still survives, I'm just glad they got their little roots into the soil.

It also ended up being too hot for the artichoke this year, and I'm pretty sure the ground was just too hard for it as well. It stopped growing entirely a few weeks ago and is now definitely done. I planted a bunch of chard and kale seeds in the area that was supposed to be taken up by the artichoke and pumpkins, the ground is ridiculously hard there as well, all of the wild plants were going at the soil though, hopefully they broke it up a little and left some organic matter as well.

Last thing, our zinnias are blooming! hooray for planting in the grass! Actually I think that the plants that were planted in the grass are the happiest ones in the yard. I'm sure that location also factors into that but the grass as ground cover idea has really seemed to work, and if it gets too long I just rip a bit off the top by hand, super easy. Besides the zinnias we have a bunch of basil, cilantro, dill, sunflower and lavender hyssop, and a few sage too, that bee mix has turned out to be quite awesome.

That's all for now, the next post is going to be on identifying and using our lovely native and naturalized "weeds", enjoy the outdoors tomorrow, there's really nothing like it!

Permaculture Media Blog: Book Giveaway - The Quarter-Acre Farm

This book looks fantastic! Check out this give away from one of my favorite permaculture sites, Permaculture Media Blog: Book Giveaway - The Quarter-Acre Farm: This month we’re giving away The Quarter-Acre Farm book giveaway to ONE lucky PermacultureMediaBlog Reader! The Quarter-Acre Farm: How I K...

Learning

I just applied for the 2011 CSU extension's Building Urban Farmers program, ya, not only do I hope I get in but I also hope I can get a scholarship. It would be even better if we had the proper funding for the NPO in order to pay for it, especially since these are the foundations that would make our project incredibly strong. We want to do whatever it takes to ensure the sustainability of our community, including everything we can in order to give more inspiration for others to do so as well. I would be so honored to take both this course and the permaculture design course. Yay for positive change!