Baja Yard Update

 My matilija is growing and thriving.

Ed planted my other favorite plant: marigolds- they are so tall. Normally they bloom in fall, so it’s so wonderful seeing them blooming in spring as well. 

Toyon is also growing at a steady pace.

In 2014 I planted poppies- one packet, one time.  Each year, they pop up on their own in different areas of the yard.  After so many years, the poppies have changed: they are much smaller than the original poppies and they are able to thrive without being watered or cared for.

Monarch Butterfly Garden

I’m a big fan of edible gardens.  So having a small garden in a tiny space in Los Angeles I try and get creative- even with my monarch butterfly garden container.  While eating milkweed can make humans sick- monarch caterpillars love it.  So finding Ca native native plants that attack monarchs and safe for human consumption was quite a task. I searched Theodore Payne and tree of life websites. I also visited several gardens including Artemisia (a small local garden store).  

Round 2 butterfly container:

-Narrowleaf milkweed

-Ceanothus - (I like the bonsai look of this plant and the flowers are soapy).  They are host to a 

ceanothus moth.

-Achillea millefolium - Yarrow 

-Trichostema lanatum - Woolly Blue Curls (ice cream, simple syrup)

-Clinopodium douglasii (syn.   Satureja douglasii) -Yerba Buena

-Verbena lilacina 'De la Mina' - De 

 - la Mina Lilac Verbena

I also included a bladder pod plant- it’s also edible.

Edibles: Yerba Buena, wooly blue curls, bladderpod and Allen Chickery Cleveland Sage are edible.

 Resources:

https://youtu.be/Dkm0MYuhbSU?si=AkyZcRp-GmikCtyO

Up to the brim in galvanized pot

 Here’s a recently taken photo the galvanized tub with all its edible edible plants and herbs:

My first galvanized pot holds: 3yr old Swiss chard, lovage, epazote, jellybean flower monkey, lavender, onions, ghost pepper, white flower borage, asparagus, nasturtium, and strawberries 

Purple basil, green basil, winter savory, sorrel, coyote mint, wooly mint, strawberries and parsley are all thriving together in this small space.

I have a white flower borage blooming beautiful in full sun.

Baja in full bloom

 In addition to having edible native in our tiny container garden in Los Angeles- we decided to give native birds and insects a natural habitat slope.  We found ceanothus, toyon, coffeeberry, and other chaparral shrubs and plants. 

Here’s a quick photo drop:

Galvanized Pot update

 Can’t believe I stopped blogging for a couple of years- just felt like it was one growing season! 

I had my double pot method with worms and food scraps in the bottom pot and a plant on top of it. Everything is growing well and I do find worms throughout the galvanized soil container.  I decided this year to plant more native edible plants. So I’ve added coyote mint, hummingbird sage, woolly mint, borage, berries, and Salvia blanca.

When it rains, any extra water flows out so I don’t need to worry about my plants drowning (lol).

You can visit my Instagram : gardening_with_Liz for daily dose of gardening updates.

Overflow level

 I saw several videos on people making new holes on their galvanized tub. I don’t have a metal drill cutter - and really you don’t have to do that. A simple elbow attachment with 3-4” pvc pipe is all you need and this odd tool [ratchet] to remove the plug.

On the Belhen galvanized tubs the drain outlet is 3/4”… wish I would have known that sooner because I had bought everything 1/2” pvc.

For those like me who have 1/2” pipes… replace outlet drain with a 1/2” outlet drain. If you have a 3/4” elbow that screws into the original drain (like I do now for my 2nd tub) you can skip this step.

This is the inside part.

On the outside part, be sure to have an opening that fits a 1/2” pvc pipe or the pipe size you are using.

I couldn’t attach the elbow directly to the top part so I had to cut a 3”pvc pipe to join them. I used 4” black tubing for the top part so I wouldn’t get confused when installing it to the tub.

You can zoom in in this picture and see that the clay pebbles are just slightly above the groove line tub. I cut my black tubing just slightly under an inch from that mark.

I filled the tub to make sure the overflow works and doesn’t leak.

On my 2nd tub I found a 3/4 pvc pipe that screwed right in and found an attachment that goes from 3/4” to 1/2” and with just those 2 pieces it was enough for the overflow to work. I haven’t got 4” flexible irrigation Tubing to make sure it’s at the tight height so I’m not 100% sure on the overflow level. But with those 2 pieces I was able to install it in seconds.

Thankfully I installed it before it rained so I can see the water level and how well it holds it. Once it stops raining, I’ll post an update. (Update: new idea and water level worked great and I used it on a third galvanized tub. )

Add the soil, worms, compost and plants

 

We left off part 1 in layering the landscape fabric.  I need to add a tube to fill the water reserve. The fabric has 2 purposes: absorbs water and blocks soil from going into water reserve. The clay pebbles under the fabric also absorb water. These two elements help the soil from rotting while insuring water gets absorbed up.

I made a hole in the fabric. I also cut the pvc pipe on an angle so the water can flow thru and the pipe won’t suction.

I placed my pots to see how many would fit and begin thinking of what to grow in the tub. These empty pots will be filled with worm-loving kitchen scraps. 

We filled the tub with 4” of coir, potting soil and garden soil. Many advise to only use potting soil and coconut brick soil- but that wasn’t within my budget so I had to mix with 1/2 garden soil and potting soil and some coir.

Potting soil and coconut coir are super absorbing materials that will help wicker the water up to the plants. I also lightly misted the soil to help it maintain its moisture. This layer of soil will be like a worm super highway.  They will use this soil to “travel” from pot to pot in search of food.    

Then I added my composting worms with some of their food.  They quickly began to burrow down. I spread them and there food throughout the soil so they could have room to wiggle.

Why 2 pots?  The bottom pot holds composting worms and kitchen scraps that worms like. The top pot holds the plant. The worms travel back and forth from pots to help improve soil with their casting (poop) the liquid and moisture they release help moisten the soil for the top plant. 

When kitchen scraps are about halfway in pot, I cover with an inch of soil and begin adding to a new pot.

 

My plan is to fill the tub with more potting soil and plant in the tub some root vegetables.