Save the Swales

With Fall upon us, we have to get moving on our transition from urban crop growers to landscapers. The cowpeas and buckwheat in the front yard are supposed to be taken down before they go to seed. I am incompetent so of course our cowpeas are already producing seed at a shocking rate. Letting them go this long will come back to haunt me.

Step 1: So I mowed down 4 foot tall plants in the front yard, readily scattering all the cowpea seeds and planting them nicely in the dirt which I later tilled (step 2). This was an error as it turns out, since two days later I had an entire yard of baby cowpea plants. So I repeat Step 2 and till up all these baby plants. Two days later the yard is somewhat less full of baby cowpea plants. Mkay. Gonna have to do this again.

You might have noticed that our yard is on a fairly steep slope. In order to prevent erosion and to retain water, one of our reference books recommends digging a "Swale." This is a lateral mound that you create through hours and hours of backbreaking labor. Below is a visual representation of what a swale looks like (I'll add my own photos later).
It serves a few purposes: one is to collect water which then slowly seeps into the ground where it is retained. Secondly it slows erosion. Ours looks a lot like this except sloppier.

We have numerous goals for our landscaping. One of the first is to plant a ground cover that meets a number of requirements: evergreen, heat and drought tolerance, durable and organic matter producing. We are going with a mixture of seed that we bought from Peaceful Valley Organics yet again. This one is part fescue, part perennial rye and part New Zealand White Clover. It's our expectation that this will stay pretty green until Summer kicks back in by next June/July, at which point we may need to overseed with some more clover, which is more heat tolerant than the rye or the fescue. We'll broadcast the seed next week and post updates.

Black Eyed (cow)Peas

Both our buckwheat and cowpeas we planted back in June are almost completely matured and ready for harvest. Now since we're using them to enrich the soil, we are not going to "harvest" the buckwheat or cowpeas (plus I don't own a combine). What we've found very interesting are the fact that both plants continue to bear fruit in cycles. The buckwheat blooms and then reblooms. The cowpeas grow several cycles of pods, as shown in this picture. As you can see, there are both "ripe" tan pods along side green yet-to-be-ripe pods on the same plant. Really cool that these plants continue to bear fruit over and over.

I was curious to shuck some of these bad boys and just see what I got. I spent about an hour and a half pulling these beans out of the pods and was amazed to realize that we actually grew food.


The hour + of work I did yielded about enough beans for two people to eat dinner and it's actually quite tedious work. Gives you a real appreciation for how people in the old school did it. Here's what I got:
I mean, there's enough of these beans on the lot to feed a whole family for a few months, I'd venture. I got this little basketfull of beans. I've decided to store them away as food for the inevitable mass-migrations that will occur as global warming continues to hasten its pace. See below for a visual representation of what I'm talking about.




While I don't actually think that we'll have a tidal wave, tornados over L.A. and a frozen Statue of Liberty over a nine hour period, I do believe global warming exists and that human kind is at least in part to blame (maybe completely to blame). Otherwise, I think the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" seems pretty accurate for what we're in for. So when the shit hits the fan, I'll have two servings of cowpeas all saved up, so ha ha.

Here's all the left over husks I dumped in my compost pile. Yeah. I compost. It's awesome to see the volume of crap you end up not throwing in the trash. Plus it gives you an "in" with indie chicks, so yeah. I compost.

Texas "Mountain" Laurels

I'm not sure how they got their name, but I love them. Texas Mountain Laurel is an evergreen shrub/tree that is very hardy (once established but a major pain to get to that point). It is known for the very beautiful and lovely-scented purple blooms it gets in Feb-March each year. Here's what they look like:

Anyway, I have a major obsession with these guys. In February I took seeds from one of my full-grown guys and attempted to start my own Texas Mountain Laurel nursery/farm in my backyard. I started with 23 of them and have lost about 8 since. These trees grow little seed pods in the spring. Inside those pods are rock-hard red beans. These are your seeds. Do not try to eat them. You will break a tooth.

Did I mention they are SLOW GROWING. Geez. The ones I've grown are about 6 months old and 3" tall. Ridiculous. Of course, this is why they are so expensive to buy if you get them at a fairly mature age. Here's the group I have now.The two guys on the front row didn't make it. I've notified their families.

The Sand Lot

We have another part of our property that was just beat to hell when the house was being built. The ground got so compacted that it looked like it'd never grow anything again. It was another one of those things I didn't take a picture of, but the following photo reenactment sums up what it looked like:
























We had a similar mission to our front yard: build soil and prevent erosion. Because this side yard area is covered with trees and due to the abundant shade, buckwheat was not an option. My wife, who likes to read, figured out that the perfect ground cover would be Strawberry, or Palestine, Clover. It is heat tolerant, builds soil well, grows moderately fast, and can even be mowed if one so desires. The seeds were again purchased from Peaceful Valley. These things look like poppy seeds, but sadly can't be made into street-grade heroine. We again tilled up the ground (hard in spots where there was just bare limestone, but I did my best to ruin the blades on my tiller) and then planted. Here's what it looks like after three weeks:

Now bear with me for a sec. Please understand that this used to look like a scene from the 70's D Movie Cannibal Holocaust. Allegedly the clover is supposed to grow quite thickly once it's established. Here's a closeup of the little guys:
They are a little slower growing than I'd like, but they are getting the job done. They stand up to being walked on and stuff (like when I have to move the sprinkler and whatnot). This will hopefully be our default ground cover once we decide what to do with our overall landscaping plan.

I'm Ready for My Closeup Mr. DeMille

Say cheese Buckwheat!

Oh, own it, Buckwheat. Give me some emotion! Make love to the camera!

Little House on the Prarie

Uh. So our front yard has some buckwheat in it. This is after about 4 weeks of growth. The highest plants are about 3' tall. The stuff that gets more shade isn't as robust. Here's another picture from further back.

So the stuff is really blowing up. There are a few bald spots which we re-seeded yesterday to help fill in.

It also just so happens that our next door neighbor is a bee keeper. I'm not making this up. She said that her bees are now off the sugar water (literally) and using our front yard. This is great news because bees are important to human life and stuff. Here's a photo of me in the front yard.





























The plants have these teeny tiny white flowers that the bees actually prefer to larger blooms for some reason.

Hi, I'm Buckwheat.

According to several sources, Buckwheat is a very good ground cover/soil builder.

After learning that the buckwheat these sources spoke of was not the character from the Little Rascals, but rather some sort of plant that grows in the ground, things made a little more sense.

Buckwheat is a fast growing, drought tolerant, heat resistant cover crop. Additionally, it builds soil and forces out weeds. We planted in early July and it was over 100 degrees for several days in a row.

Here's what we did:

1. Tilled up the entire front yard with a tiller. It took all day, but beat the alternative of walking on it for a few days with those spiky shoes your dad had to aerate the lawn when you were a kid.

2. Took the seed mixture (Buckwheat/Cowpeas) we purchased from Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supply, followed the instructions and then spread them with a seed/fertilizer spreader.

3. Used a rake to even out the dirt and at least partially cover the seeds.

4. Watered 3 times a day for the first two weeks.

After one day, you could see the seeds sprouting and putting down roots. After a week, the plants were all about an inch or two inches high.

We Bought a Book and Now We're Farmers

After the dustbowl fiasco, we spoke briefly with our landscaper who wasn't really on board with supplying us with a new supply of buffalo grass seed. His recalcitrance lead us to abandon our reliance on corporate landscapers (that's an exaggeration) and try things on our own. We've always had that do-it-yourself spirit so we bought some books on urban farming.

The first book my wife purchased was Gaia's Garden "A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture."

Whatever that means.

What we found out is that if you want to do a broad scale landscaping plan that is responsible and really utilizes the land in an urban setting, you have to do a lot of planning...which I hate. I like to go down to the nursery, buy up the most exotic thing I can find, plant it in my yard and hope for the best. Apparently this isn't encouraged by people "in the know."

What you have to do is observe how the sun, wind, bugs, etc. interact with your home and yard. Then you have to plant the stuff that will maximize the value of the land in terms of production, water use, etc. Geez.

I had hoped to maybe landscape the whole yard in a few weekends but that's not a good idea or something. My wife learned from her book that the best time to really plant stuff is the fall, so that's our goal. Of course, in the meantime we have this whole dirt farm problem in the front yard. Every time it rains we lose soil into the street. We needed a stopgap measure.

According to the book, look to annual cover crops.

Oh No! We Suck Again!

Well, this was a pretty depressing chapter in the evolution of the home's landscaping. The company we'd hired to landscape said they'd scalp (mow the grass very low in order to kill it) the winter rye and then immediately broadcast the buffalo grass seed.

They forgot part two.

About three weeks after the lawn was scalped and VERY dead, the landscape company came out and spread the buffalo grass. Now, this timing was bad because the point was for the winter rye to hold the seed in place while it germinated. With no rye in place any solid rainstorm would wash away the seed.

And as luck would have it, we had a monsoon.

The aftermath was a scene of devastation that was far too depressing for us to take pictures of. However, this still photo reenactment sums it up:

Step One: Erosion Control. Step Two: ? Step Three: Profit.

Our initial plan was to go with local, low water plants and vegetation that supported a modern, minimalist look. Part of this was to get some ground cover in that would prevent erosion and help build the soil. It was February, so our local landscaper suggested Winter Rye.

The plan was to go with the winter rye for a few months and then to scalp it in May/June and then put down Buffalo Grass which would be low water and low maintenance (no mowing).

Here's a pic of the house with the winter rye growing. Looks beautiful!



Now, winter rye grows fast and needs a lot of mowing. That's why we only used it as a stop-gap.

Our House-The Dirt Farm

My wife and I built this house in North Texas over the last year. It was finished in February of 2009. Over the year or so that it took to build, we became more and more interested and motivated to use green / sustainable materials, etc. As the construction progressed, we incorporated materials and finishes that were recycled, chemical free or low chemical, etc.

So then we had a house. And we needed a yard. At first we were okay with just a dirt yard because we were so excited about the house. Plus, dirt is a neutral color and goes with just about anything. But we had to do something about erosion...