Pacific Madrone My Beloved

This season, the Houston Zoo released more than one million Houston Toad eggs into protected habitat in Bastrop County—one of the program’s most productive seasons yet.

Working with Texas Parks and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and our colleagues at Dallas Zoo and Fort Worth Zoo we are helping this endangered species recover in its remaining east-central Texas range. This year, we also introduced a major innovation to our Houston Toad Recovery Program: custom egg-counting software, developed in collaboration with Houston medical physicist Dr. Moiz Ahmad. By using photos to quickly and accurately count thousands of eggs, this new tool helps us scale our impact and move our mission to inspire action to save wildlife forward.

Read more:

A previous gardener told my client that 'sometimes raspberries just fade away'. Uh, no. Raspberries are survivors. They will survive neglect, forming thickets over the years, just doing their own thing and slowly spreading. If you want the best fruit yield, you will want to give them a lot of fertility and irrigate properly, but no, they don't 'fade away'.

This gardener also made the choice to cut the canes, floricane and primocane both, down to two feet tall. Just below the bottom wire on the trellis. This is infuriating to someone like me who cares a bit too much about plants for a number of reasons:

1. Reduces fruit yield. Even cutting them back to 6 feet reduces yield, much less to 2 feet!

2. The new growth does reach above the wire, obviously, but it's a lot weaker than the over wintered cane, so if I tie by that, it's liable to rip off the branch entirely.

3. They are now extremely branched and much more crowding is going on knee to waist height. Annoying to pick at that level, and there's less light and airflow. This means less photosynthesis per cane and a greater risk of disease.

4. They left the spent floricanes! Bah.

5. It is my considered opinion that you should prune and tie canes at the same time. Like, even just from an efficiency standpoint. If prev gardener had done this, they might have noticed after the first cane that they were creating a problem.

6. They didn't even remove the canes that were too far away from the trellis.

7. If you did think they were weak and fading away, then why in the good green world would you prune away three quarters of their mass?

Ah. Between 3 & 7 I just realized why prev gardener thinks raspberries just fade away sometimes. Don't prune them like this.

I feel like I shouldn't leave without saying what I do so here:

1. Grow in a row with a trellis consisting of two sturdy posts and a wire strung at 5 feet/150cm ish.

2. In the fall, after they have dropped their leaves, cut out the canes that overwintered last year and fruited in the summer. These would be good to use in a bug hotel or deadhedge.

3. Tie any canes that are within a foot of the trellis at their base to the wire. Use a square knot around the canes so it can't sinch down:

4. Once it's tied at the wire, arch the tip over and tie that down too, so it's not flopping all over the place. You can shorten it a bit if you want. This is a simplified drawing to give you the idea of what I mean:

5. Dig up any canes that are too far to reasonably tie to the trellis, and either give them away or replant them closer if there's space. Or make a new row.

6. Mulch over the winter, and then feed with rich compost in the spring. Cover that with a layer of mulch.

7. If you're in a dry summer area, you will get a much better harvest by irrigating. One good strategy is a soaker hose run under a layer of mulch.

Some of the things I was told about bokashi composting when I started doing it weren’t accurate, and it was a struggle for a while. But I learned a lot after doing it for a year, and it’s actually an awesome composting option for apartments and other small and/or rented spaces.

So here’s Mod J’s Post on Why Apartment-Dwellers Should Do Bokashi Composting, with a few things I wish I’d known starting out.

What is bokashi composting?

Here’s what I understood when I started bokashi composting:

Bokashi composting is a method of composting that uses microorganisms in a powder called “bokashi bran” to speed up the composting process and eliminate the smell. Put your food scraps in the bin and layer with the bran. Once the bin is full, let it sit for two more weeks, and you’ll have good dirt ready for planting.

That’s not entirely accurate. Here’s a more accurate description:

Bokashi composting uses fermentation to turn organic waste into two components: a solid pre-compost and a liquid “bokashi tea.” The tea can be dilluted with water (a 1:100 ratio is recommended because of its high acidity) and used as a fertilizer. The pre-compost can be buried in dirt and within two weeks will become nutrient-rich compost dirt itself.

How does it work?

The bokashi method works by fermentation. Keeping it in an airtight bin allows it to ferment instead of rot, and the “bran” is supposed to help it along. (Sometimes white mold grows on the stuff inside -that’s perfectly fine and normal.) Fermenting breaks down the organic material a lot faster than ordinary composting. You end up with two components: The solid pre-compost and the liquid bokashi tea. The tea needs to be drained from the bin regularly so the excess liquid doesn’t impede the fermentation process, which is why bokashi bins have a spigot at the bottom.

Does it really have no smell?

Yes and no. If the bin or bucket you’re using has a good seal on it, you won’t smell it while the bin is closed. However, the fermenting stuff inside and the liquid that comes off it smell absolutely vile, and you will smell it when you open the bin or drain the liquid.

Do I need to use the bokashi bran?

All the companies selling bokashi stuff say you do and it helps the process along and whatever. But never trust marketing. I’ve done full bins with a lot of the bran, some with a little bran, and some with none at all, and I’ve noticed no difference. You can try the bran and see if it works better for you, but if you don’t have any or don’t want to buy more you don’t have to.

Do I need a specific bokashi bin?

It’s definitely helpful. Bokashi bins are set up with a seal in the top to keep it airtight and seal off any smells, a bottom that tapers down to a spigot for draining off the tea, and a screen to keep the solid stuff from going all the way to the bottom and clogging up the spigot. You could absolutely build your own, but I recommend a similar setup just for ease of use.

What can I put in my bokashi bin?

Anything you would put in regular compost - vegetable scraps, leftovers, eggshells, etc. Moldy food you forgot about in the refrigerator is also great, and since bokashi uses fermentation instead of rotting, even cooked meat can go into the bin. I’ve thrown in everything from paper napkins to whole zucchinis to a compostable toothbrush (although admittedly, that last one took closer to four weeks to fully break down). There’s no need to worry about ratios of anything - the fermentation will do the work for you.

Why use bokashi?

Turn foods scraps into dirt that you can use to grow more food even while living somewhere you can’t have a compost pile. It’s faster than regular compost (a full bucket takes two weeks of fermenting and two weeks of being buried until it’s done), there’s no smell when the lid is closed, and a lot of bins will fit under a kitchen sink. It’s great for apartments, rentals, and small spaces.

The one downside is that it costs a little more to buy a bokashi bin than it does to just throw some old vegetables in a pile. (I got my bin on eBay for about $50, and many of the name-brand ones are more expensive.) But I live in an apartment, and bokashi composting lets me still have the benefits of turning my food waste into good dirt that I can use to grow more food without needing a yard to put in a full compost bin. That makes it worth the investment for me.

I sent it to my spouse and he sent back this

Making Kanuchi - Sheri Pack (Cherokee), Cherokee Outpatient Medical Center, no date, Tahlequah, Oklahoma

Kanuchi

"Traditionally, a form of Kanuchi was made by our ancestors in the east. In 1835, John Howard Payne documented Cherokee elders describing a thick drink, made from pounded Hickory nuts, served cold, without hominy or rice

Today, Kanuchi is considered a delicacy.

I'm obsessed with gardening systems that utilize rainwater without the use of barrels or cisterns. My ultimate fav is using bioswales to catch and filter stormwater on the street.

Fun addition: Dams that utilize trees to catch dirt/ stop erosion, and prevent disaster that can come from broken dams.

SUSTAINABLE URBAN DRAINAGE! SUDS!

We need more of them, in the right places!

Also, using these to reduce stormwater loads in storm events, particularly in places with combined stormwater and sewage systems, could/would be helpful at reducing river discharges of raw sewage. (If climate change is factored in at system level cos more rain in less time needs to be accouted for at rhe large scale designs...)

This guy Brad Lancaster has totally transformed his neighborhood is Tuscon from a concrete and asphalt heat island into a biodiverse landscape that passively cools itself using passive rainwater harvesting and native plants. He goes super into detail about how he's accomplished this and has even written his own book. It's a super cool example of these concepts, ideas, and principles applied and really shows how effective they can be! Here it is featured on Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't:

Absolutely gorgeous Orchid bee— Genus Euglossa. 💚

One of my wish-list insects to see on my trip! So glad I was able to!!

📍Monteverde, Costa Rica

📸 OM tough TG-7

'Stepped' Garden, California,

Courtesy: KAA Design,

Credits: photo 1, photo 2