Hey there,

It would help to know where in So. Cal you are. We have a very diverse state, here.

There was a hand written quote from Toby Hemenway in the copy of Gaea's Garden I read. It said "Build soil first." I thought it summed everything up pretty well.

Have fun,
Ken

I live in Newport Beach, which is North Western OC, a couple houses from the water (rich friend, cheap rent). I think that's Zone 10 or 11. I can't really tell on the maps I have. That's the house with the balconies. Since I just poured Dr. Earth potting mix and what my worms had made over the past few months, I don't have much soil building to do there at this point.

My parents live in Yorba Linda, which is North East OC. I've gotten the message about soil, so that's why I'm sheet mulching and cover cropping the area my mom will let me. I'm going to do a scaled down version of Henenway's sheet mulch. The cover crops I'm going to plant into that sheet mulch are Buckwheat, cowpeas papago, and sweet yellow clover, all of which I bought from seeds of change. I'm going to do that this weekend, so any pointers there ASAP would be sweet.

I can plant the cover crop into the sheet mulch, right? It didn't seem like it would be a problem from his descriptions of both the methods.

Before you go nuts,

Have you tested your soil yet? You may not have to go through all that if you happen to be growing in loam(which you probably don't have, but just might). Or, is it sandy or clay like? Is your soil acid or alkaline? What is the level of nitrogen in the soil? Potassium? Phosphorous?

As for cover crops in your sheet mulch: You can go ahead and put in your cover crop seed into your mulch. It won't hurt anything. If, however you are going to plant anything for harvesting, you will notice most of your plants are going to be leggy and unhealthy in general. This is because the sheet mulching is going to be using up all the available nitrogen to decompose itself. Unfortunately, even nitrogen fixing plants need nitrogen in the beginning, because the plant needs the nitrogen to grow, just like any other plant. It isn't until the bacteria in the soil begins creating nitrogen storing nodules on the roots that the nitrogen fixing qualities occur. If you do end up getting the soil mulching in this weekend, you may want to consider waiting until fall or so to plant the cover crops (that is the best time anyway).

Since I am on a roll here, I notice you are using alot of nitrogen fixing plants. After your test, you may or may not want to continue with so much. Nitrogen fixing is good for soil, but it can be bad too if you have too much of it. Anything from massive foliage growth at the expense of flowers/vegetables/whatever at one end, to contamination of ground water at the other.

BTW, you are zone 11. Sunset 24. Your parents live in 10, Sunset 22.

Thanks for all the advice.

I did test my soil PH. It's right at 6.5. The other tests I didn't do, mainly because I didn't know they existed until a few days ago when they were meantioned in John Jeavons "How to Grow More Vegetables". I'm sure glad I came across permaculture before reading about the double dig method. That sounds like a real pain.

The soil I'll be working with is hard packed clay. It looks like barren desert. It makes me feel like there isn't a nutrient of any kind. I figure this is just because of watching cartoons or something. Can I assume there is more or less of a particular nutrient in this type of soil? I think I'll wait on the test a bit because I'd have to order it and I've already got busy people helping me this weekend.

I'm not sure the seeds I've bought will do well in fall. I purposefully picked spring, hot-weather crops. Will they be fine with my mild winters?

Thanks for the description of what will happen if I do plant the cover crop. I hadn't really thought about the fact that the nitrogen-fixers wouldn't fix nitrogen at first. Makes perfect sense though. How would root nodules form without any roots?

I'll talk to my mom about it and see if she can handle possibly sickly plants or if she's up for riskier experimentation. Do you think the cover crop factor will actually help me better understand the sheet mulching process due to the plants reactions or will it just create an overwhelming number of factors?

It's not a huge area I'm working with at this point, and my mom can't get anything to grow there anyway, so I'll probably have free reign. I think she's mostly worried about me stinking up the joint. Any pointers on how to ensure a good carbon/nitrogen ratio?

Thanks again for the advice.

Anything more would be awesome.

What types of weeds grow there? What type of irrigation does the area get? What might it look like it if got no irrigation? These ecological minded questions are my best teachers -- ("allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolutions" (Mollison, ix) even if in your imagination. (and by observing neighboring wild areas, even if its the weeds coming up through the sidewalk)

I do not know So Cal ecology all that well. I would suggest Evergreen Elaeagnus (edible and nitrogen fixing, no care, takes abuse). Daylilies as well (very tought and edible bulbs). . Feijoa is another good one. I tried to think of things that have stacked functions, are good for the zone, need little care, but mostly things that won't upset your mother! -- as I tried a similar project in my mother's backyard recently.

As far as balconies go, potatoes give you the most calories for the bang. They can grow very well in buckets. Perennial greens and herbs could be nice. In So Cal, though you could probably have perennial potted peppers, too!

Hope that helps!

"What types of weeds grow there?"

I just read "Botony in a Day" by Thomas J Elpel's, which is actually Botony in an hour because all you read is the first couple pages and then you go plant identifying. I plan to identify local weeds. There was an empty lot next to my old house near my own house now where there was a mound of dirt that was reclaimed by pioneer plants after the rains. They built on the lot but I took pictures and plan to identify all those. Not sure if I'll be able to with just my pictures, but we'll see. If not, I guess I'll be looking for weeds between cracks.

"What type of irrigation does the area get?"

In ground sprinkler system, so as much or little as I need, within reason. Without irragation, I'm ashamed to say I'm not sure what it would look like. At this point I couldn't imagine what it would look like without stip malls, track homes and suburban sprinklered landscaping on every inch. I'll have to drive around next time I'm home and see if I can find a few empty lots.

I have trouble totally understanding what I do with information like this. I remember it seemed in Hemminways book that plants in the same family were interchangeable. At least that's what I infered from the way he made guilds. Am I mistaken? Is that way too simplistic? Can I figure out what families the weeds are in with my Botany in a day book and use that information to choose plant families that will work well in my mother's backyard?

"As far as balconies go, potatoes give you the most calories for the bang. They can grow very well in buckets. Perennial greens and herbs could be nice."

I'm not really going for calories at this point, more just practicing growing healthy plants of whatever variety, keeping perrenials healthy, and controlling insects. What are some perrenial greens? I know there is a perrenial kale, but from the descriptions I've read I'm not sure it'd do well with my summers hot summers. Am I mistaken? Are there other perrenial greens? Is an hernaceous plant like chicory a green?

I think my brain is going to explode. We were not meant to learn this way. Hopefully my children, or at least my grandchildren, won't have to. Hopefully something will remain to learn about.

Oh, and as far as the plants I might plant at my mothers house, I was hoping for advice on where to get information on guilding in my area. I'd like to be able to plan out what might work well together and what is worth splace before I just start sticking trees in the ground. Can I pretty much just go with any combination that grows in temperate to subtropical climates that can take the heat since I'll get so much sun, and have an in ground irragation system?

Thanks again for all the advice.

If I were you, I would spend this first year just improving the soil. Sheet-mulching usually doesn't stink unless you put in a lot of fresh grass clippings. Buckwheat is definitely a warm-weather crop.

Water falls from the sky, even in SoCal. Catch it and store it. One inch of rain on a 1000sqft roof = 625 gallons of water.

One reason that Permaculture isn't very popular with a lot of people is that there's so much to learn. And some of it is contradictory! AND it requires thinking.

Don't shy away from growing things that you can eat. You need the practice, not just the theory. Potatoes can be grown in a garbage can. Carrots and onions grow well together. Bush peas can be grown 3 or 4" apart in the fall there. Malabar Spinach (not a true spinach) may grow there all summer, it's a climber. Does your mother like asparagus? Strawberries?

For the guilds, you should ideally have an accumulator, a mulch producer, something to attract beneficial insects, a
pest repellant, a ground cover & a nitrogen fixer. Just to make it more difficult, all these have to grow in your climate and soil pH.

Sue

I'm trying to make sure I understand your situation. You say "balcony". But you also talk about in ground sprinklers. Is this an elevated platform, or more of a patio or lanai? If it is an elevated platform, think about structural loads and what the structure was designed to support before putting to much heavy dirt and water on it.

Isn't drinking from the firehose a blast?! I think that in your climate (with which I have about 10 months experience long ago) you're going to learn about making irrigation work. Water storage is always a problem. Here in Maine, we've had a very wet May, but we do some market gardening in trays on tables. These have to be watered very regularly. We're moving things from the greenhouse (which is getting too hot) to a structure that will become a shade house. In the greenhouse we have a 12' above ground pool as our resivoir to bucket water from. We got it used for $30 through the want ads. For the shade house set up, I put together six pallets (from the dump) in a hexagon using some stainless cable (from the dump, old sailboat mast stays), lined it with carpet (from the dump) to smooth out the rough spots and distribute the load, and then lined that with a blue tarp (sigh: actual boughten stuff). Then we filled it up with water. Something similar could do for a cheap rainwater storage tank. This one is 7-8' across and holds around 1000 gallons, all for the price of a cheap tarp. (Remember that 3' down the pressure is 226 pounds per square foot. It will take more than a few nails to hold it together.)

Anyway, whatever you learn is good, and with adaptation transferable to more liveable climates. Good luck and keep learning.

Dan

Thanks for all the tips.

My house has two fairly large balconies.

My parents house, which I sheet mulched and cover cropped, has the sprinklers.

Oh yeah, I went ahead and broadcasted the cover crop. It might not work due to nitrogen deficiency, but I already had all the seeds and got ants in my pants.

Also, I just noticed this not at the end of one of the above posts: "BTW, you are zone 11. Sunset 24. Your parents live in 10, Sunset 22."

What does the sunset number mean?

Sunset Magazine, who publises the Sunset Western Garden Book, has their own system of zoning. It's more precise than the USDA zones, which are based on annual low temperature only. It's kind of like asking what a person is like and being told only their height. The Sunset system breaks it down more by factoring in rainfall, sun, season length, etc.

Dan

Regarding the beginning of your thread - peak oil. I presume this means you are concerned about possible disruptions in the commercial food supply. If so, you are right to be.

I have been experimenting with low-input food production here on the east coast for aboput eight years now. I would term it permaculture because the best food plants are self-perpetuating, and if not one should learn to save seed.

Some things I've learned: the most important food for human survival is grain. Grain is also the most problematic to produce in a sustainable and survivalist fashion, that is, without fossil-fuel or animal power or their derived fertilizers. It's no accident that civilizations developed on grain and that they took a long time to do so.

I don't have personal experience of socal ag, but over here the small grains are easier to raise (far fewer pest problems and more drought tolerant) and are more nutritous than maize, but much more difficult to harvest.

In a necessity situation, I would plan to raise small grains in garden-type beds, fertilized with urine in rain water. Harvest will be extremely time-consuming, but would know this and be prepared to allot the time. It is also work that children could do.

Potatoes and squash would be key starch crops that will produce fairly reliably with small effort and low-input. They walking onion is a perrenial that will grow almost anywhere without help. A very important survival crop, as a reliable source of vitamin C and some greenery. Some other greens such as kale, chard, and lettuce take little space and are fairly easy though irrigation is generally necessary and saving seed for chard and beets can be problematic.

Legumes are critical also, of course. Lucky for you, the soil out there is genrally balanced. 6.5 soil with fairly low organic matter will produce some legume food without any amendment. Here I have to make sure to have dosed well with wood-ash in the fall and winter before planting. The large seed size is tolerant of fresh twiggy, leafy ground.

The most important thing for any of us anywhere, IMO, is to know what grains are most sustainable for one's region, and to keep a good supply always on hand. A least a year's eating supply, plus two seasons of planting stock (which doesn't amount to lot, actually). 50-100 lbs per adult should do it. The first season's growth will be doing well just to provide a good planting stock for the next season, I figure.

Keep some maize on hand, because it has the advantage of doing better in coarse, just cleared and amended ground. The large seeds will germinate better than small grains in forest litter. The east coast indians did it that way for centuries, although they didn't have the pest problems that exist now.