Planting Madness

This picture is at night. The moon was so bright and looked so wonderful reflected in the pond. And the clouds looked so mysterious. When the moon is full and it's clear, I really like the moon shadows and the bright clear moonlight.

With the rains we have been getting, the soil is as soft as it gets around here. So we have the planting bug bad. We have planted over 50 fruit trees this winter. Every day it's not raining we think,"what can we plant?"

Yesterday on my way to pick up eggs, I stopped the car on the side of the road. There in the ditch was my prize. Cattails. yeeesss. I decided I need to get some for the pond to help bring diversity to the pond and help camouflage the water birds who might nest there. I tried to pull some out but wow they are strong! The soil was slipping under my weight but the cattail remained anchored in the ground. I finally gave up and simply took a cattail head which was still intact. Once home I went down to the pond and spread the seeds all over the edge. I hope it works. I may go back and dig one up with a shovel. The real problem for us is the pond goes dry by the end of summer. That means the water plants have to go dormant during the end of summer and fall. The only plant in there now are the sedges that came with the water birds. They do go dormant. No one I have spoken with seems to know of any nursery plants that do this. I am hoping the "weedy" aspect of cattail may allow it to survive.

From watching more of Sepp Holzer youtube videos I think we need more stuff in our pond. I plan on dragging some woody debris that washed over the bottom of the road during the flood and put it into the pond. I would also like to stock it with mosquito eating fish this year.



Today I planted the Kumquat we received as a gift. It is very close to the Meyer Lemon in the soil which is two inches of gravel and then straight clay. I made a little urbanite wall to protect it some. We got more liners of pineapple guava, and rosemary. Those liners are the best. So easy to plant the kids can help me. I planted the white fig we got and the chinese elm on the down slope side of the north swale. I also planted more baileyana acacias to be a nurse tree to the almonds on the west and the Lemon on the west. They will take more of the brunt of the wind on that side.