Gardening

These pictures mostly show the south lot. See the House Yard, South Lot, Savanna and Prairie Garden, and Back Toward the House.

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These pictures are from the left side of the Charleston Food Forest.  See Part 1 Right Side.

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Today I planted most of my new rocks! \o/ I'm waiting to sink the pink mica rock until I get a second one to point the other direction along the road, to catch headlights from both ways.

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These pictures are from Sunday, but it's after midnight so the timestamp will say Monday. See the savanna and house yard.

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Here are more pictures, mostly from the savanna and prairie garden. (See also the House Yard and South Lot, Midwinter Grove, and Heading Back Toward the House.)

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Almost everything in the Charleston Food Forest is something I'm growing, would like to grow, or at least recognize from edible plant studies. So I thought it would be fun to break that down, listed in approximate spatial order moving through the lists of pictures ...

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This continues the tour of the Charleston Food Forest. (See Part 1: Right Front. Part 2: Right Back.)

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My partner Doug spotted this place recently, and today we explored the Charleston Food Forest and its plants. (See Part 2 Right Back, Part 3: Left Back, Part 4 Left Front, and What I'm Growing.) It's a skinny rectangle, and not all that big. If you cut it in half and lined the halves up as a square, then it would fit in a typical town yard around here. It has a LOT of plants in it, thoughtfully chosen and arranged. I wouldn't call it a food forest myself, because while it has multiple layers, it is really short. I doubt anything is more than about 10-12 feet tall. That's sensible in a garden this small. But when I think of a forest, I'm thinking one that at least has a canopy layer. Mine has emergents, the main canopy, the subcanopy, and then all the shorter stuff as shown here (understory trees, shrubs, herbs, groundcovers, roots, fungi, vines, etc.). So I'd probably call this one a permaculture garden. (See the layers of a food forest and permaculture design principles.) I didn't spot actual guilds, but everything is arranged in logical order. Someone has done an amazing job setting this up in the space available.

The really subversive thing: it's not a garden to be looked at, it's a garden to be used, for free, by everyone. A little slice of Terramagne, or Turtle-Island-That-Was, especially since it's located right next to a government building with several human service offices. So I helped myself to some seeds. Sure, I might come back later for things to eat. But what I am really interested in is gathering things from here that I can grow at home.

I could only think of two things I'd really add to make this even better:

1) A Little Free Seed / Plant Library so folks could swap things.

2) A community bulletin board, chiefly for people to post their Have / Want lists for trading, but could also be used to announce things like plant swaps or sales, garden open houses, etc. There is an Events section on the back side of the welcome sign, but it's under glass.

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Cicadas are hatching! I've seen a few hatch earlier, but this morning after the rain there are lots of them. The biggest concentration is around the forest garden and edges of the patio. :D These are red-eyed cicadas, technically periodical cicadas. Their carapaces are almost hard, their wings fully extended but still too soft to fly. It's a feast for everything that eats insects. Humans can eat them too. (I'm not planning to try that.) Usually what we get here are various types of the larger green cicadas, like the dog-day cicadas.

For maximum birdwatching benefits, keep an eye out on mornings after a rain. Once the nymphs shed their shells, they are soft and vulnerable. Many birds eagerly feast on them.

See also the poem "The Flying Jewels of Spring."

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I took photos of new flowers today. These are mostly from the house yard.

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