By Andrew Haupt
It’s amazing how much time everything takes. Seems like every day I set out to do eight things and end up getting two of them plus half of another done. That’s how this weekend felt -- the clock is ticking and I’m really going to have to buckle down for the next few weeks to get the garden ready, the apples and cherries grafted, and the goat pen up and running.
Thursday we checked out a friend’s place who lives up in the Cuyamaca woods, in a really unique secluded spot. There’s a lot of groundwater and I saw quite a few species I haven’t seen anywhere else in Southern California -- red osier dogwood, currants everywhere, chokecherry, and giant wild pear trees.
Over the weekend I spent a ton of time setting up irrigation, re-routing the water from the duck ponds to hit some of the new fruit trees and hazelnuts on the slope behind the orchard as well as covering all the goji berries and chinquapins and hazelnuts close to the house. It’s tedious, but feels good to know we have that covered now.
Bernie also potted up a bunch of cuttings we took last week -- apple, bing cherry, various wine grapes, and mulberry from Camp Stevens, as well as some local heirloom apple varieties, pomegranate, rose, and boysenberry from a neighbor. I made up a rooting solution by taking fresh green shoots from our willow and brewing a tea with it that sat for a day, then soaking the cuttings overnight.
We started marking off the boundaries of the new garden and bucking the logs in the way and now I’m having doubts about this being the right spot. There’s a lot of tree cover, and a good section of it is heavily shaded. I don’t know why that didn’t set in until now. I’m considering our other options, but aside from the other section of meadow, there isn’t really a viable spot of decent size. The problem with the other section of meadow is that our property line ends somewhere within it, and I’m not sure exactly where. The best bet seems like it might be approaching our neighbor (who we do not know well) and asking if we can use the whole thing for a garden, and offer to share the produce.
Last, we tackled the rest of the soil blocks. Most of the existing ones are doing pretty well, but some of the peppers are getting a white fuzzy mold growing on them, which concerns me. The blocks seem to dry out really quickly, so I may be overwatering.
