Wow, it’s been some time since I posted anything to the blog! This blog business is tricky because the times when you have the most interesting things to say are also usually when you have no time to post. I’ve been really busy lately hosting the Bay-Friendly garden tour and wrapping up my Master Composter training.
The Bay-Friendly Garden Tour went very well and was a lot of fun. According to the official count, we had 316 visitors to our garden. There were several thousand visitors on the whole tour.
It turned out to be one of the hottest days of the year so far, getting up toward 100. Fortunately, I had people making sure that I took a break from yammering at visitors now and then so I could have a drink of water and something to eat. Otherwise, left to my own devices, I probably would have passed out.
I think garden tours generally have a reputation for being sort of hoity-toity affairs, but the Bay-Friendly Garden Tour is designed to be very accessible and to give people real, practical examples of how to reduce garden waste, cut down on the use of chemicals, decrease runoff, conserve water, build healthy soil, provide habitat, and save energy. I've been interested in these things for some time, and it was great to be able to share my experiences with people. Almost everyone who came was looking for ideas to take home and try on their own.
I think the garden looked pretty nice for the tour. I did a lot of work to get everything cleaned up, and I think it paid off nicely. Here are a few pictures:
The place cleans up OK.
Everyone asked what the big red plant is. It is Jupiter’s Beard, sometimes called Red Valerian, botanical name centranthus ruber. It’s beautiful, but I had to warn everyone that it makes millions of little parachute seeds, and volunteers come up all over the place. A significant part of my weeding involves pulling up volunteer Jupiter’s Beard.
I never plant California poppies anymore because they reseed like mad, but I scattered some seeds this spring to fill in some empty spots, and they really looked nice for the tour, providing some nice spots of orange color.
The tour organizers gave us signs to highlight specific Bay-Friendly practices. This garden bed is on drip irrigation with each plant receiving water tailored to its exact needs --- some get none at all, some get a deep watering once a week, some get light water 2 times a week and some get heavy water two times a week, but nobody gets more than they need. So this area highlights how irrigation techniques can save water.
Here are the reliable old succulents.
And more succulents.
The azalea decided to cooperate and bloom the week of the tour.
The clivia cooperated as well.
Awwwww … what a lovely vignette.
Kathy and I yammering at guests in the vegetable garden.
In addition to prepping for and hosting the tour, I also finished my Master Composter class. I successfully graduated and am now a Master Composter.
This is the Master Composter Class of 2008, posing with our instructors.
I shared the honor of being the class Vermadictorian with another student. Here we are posing with Wriggly.
I’m sure many of you are wondering what ever happened to Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile. As I mentioned I was just a bit too busy for the blog for awhile, but, to be honest, I also felt maybe that pile had gotten a bit out of hand. Don’t get me wrong, she was no problem as a compost pile and was doing a great job of making compost. But Myrtle seemed to me to be having wild unpredictable mood swings, and I was never really sure what she might end up posting. If I had thought she was able to leave the bin, I probably would have sought a restraining order, because she seemed to have an unnatural obsession with me. Kinda freaky. It seems like she has matured a bit, and maybe it’s time to hear from her again. I’ll see if she has anything to say.
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