Beneficial Bike BLOB MOB

For her final project my classmate Linette organized a beneficial bike blob mob; a group of us biked around as a blob visiting gardens in Berkeley.

Our first stop was to Christopher Shein's Wildheart Gardens. Christopher Shein is the permaculture teacher at Merritt and has an impressive food jungle of a backyard.

He has a small nursery in his yard for his landscaping business; beneath the tables of starts he keeps recycled mushroom blocks gleaned from Far West Fungi. These blocks stay wet from the frequent watering of the starts, producing pounds of mushrooms for Christopher and his family.

Christopher has chickens in the back that consume much of his green waste and provide manure for the garden.

In this picture you can see the bamboo dome structure that is the structural center of the garden; this was made with bamboo harvested from local Oakland gardens. There is a kiwi vine climbing up one side, with some kale tucked in beneath it. In the background you can see his recycled material, local clay and straw bale studio/guest house:

Below you can see a massive tree collard, which is behaving like a vine, climbing on the bamboo structure:

Next stop was Redbeard's place. Along with a very compact and tidy garden, he collaborates with fellow housemate Todd on rotating their chickens and crops. The picture below shows Redbeard telling it as it is with Todd holding Trainwreck, the rooster, on the left hand side:

Redbeard uses plastic cold frames to grow zucchini and peppers in the cool East Bay summer.

The blob helped to start renovation of the fountain area in preparation for creating a pond there. We removed the cement pedestal to allow for the installation of a pond liner.

After Redbeard's we went to Jeremy's. Along with a vegetable plot Jeremy has an old jacuzzi that has been transformed into a pond, a mushroom garden, two ducks, and plans for using grey water from the house for a marsh and creek set-up.

Here are Linette and Seth enjoying a peaceful spot under the redwoods:

Redbeard climbed the redwoods to camouflage and do some trimming to allow in more light.

Seth demonstrates how to use the outdoor urinal:

At the last stop, Seth's place, we worked on setting up a worm bin for him to utilize kitchen scraps gleaned from his work, Three Stone Hearth.

We had three plastic bins which stacked on top of each other. We poked holes in the bottoms of the top two and added shredded paper, kitchen scraps and worms (donated by Redbeard) in the bottom tub. Fresh scraps can be added to the next bin up as the bottom layer breaks down; the worms will climb up into the fresh food, leaving the bottom layer of compost to be harvested.

The lovely organizer of our blob poses with one of Seth's magnificent succulent trees:

Explosive Bloom

While our class was wandering around the UC Botanical Garden we stumbled upon this impressive blooming plant. The color of the petals is unlike any I've seen in nature before.

We discovered that the flowers held droplets of nectar that could be shaken out and eaten--soon many of us were trying this delicious treat:

Botanical Bonanza!!!!!!!!!

My class Introduction to Landscape Horticulture with Lawrence Lee had a field trip to the UC Botanical Garden last Tuesday! Lawrence used to work there so he had a lot to tell us. The first stop was the cactus jungle:

Many of these cacti and succulents are over 50 years old, some even approach 100. The UC Botanical Garden has many rare and endangered specimens that are threatened by international collectors. Today when the Botanical Garden sends a collector into the field for these types of plants, they generally collect only seeds, and with permits.

Here's Lawrence in the Asian aquatic section. Here we observed Newts, a water snake, and cherry red dragonflies. They were drawn by Lawrence's beguiling lecture:

In the edible garden area we found a blue bellied lizard! These cute little fellows help prevent limes disease. When ticks bite the lizard the disease is killed by the lizard's blood. More reason to create lizard habitat. Megan held him up for the paparazzi:

Kitchen Table Garden

On my kitchen table I am growing some nasturtiums and a succulent. They have both grown twice their original size and are blooming away. The succulent I propagated myself from a specimen snagged from a neighbor's yard; for many succulents you can put any little piece of them in dirt and they will root and grow into a full plant.

Exotic Flower

I need help identifying this flower--let me know if you have any idea what it is.

Magnolias in Bloom

February in Berkeley

Making Yogurt with Mama

This yogurt making session happened this fall back in Sebastopol.

My Mama uses the Tassajara Cooking for her yogurt recipe. This fabulous old-timey cookbook has lots of great recipes, including how to fry an egg.

We used goat milk, because at this time I was helping Sarah Silva milk her two diary goats.

First you pasteurize the milk, bringing it to 161 degrees for a few minutes to kill any bad bacteria.

After pasteurization, you introduce the beneficial bacteria; we used Pavel's yogurt. Mix a few tablespoons of finished yogurt into a small amount of the cooled milk. Then pour this mixture in with the rest of the milk.

Then put the yogurt-culture and milk mixture into sterilized jars; we put these into the dehydrator on the 'yogurt' setting for 8 hours. The dehydrator will keep the milk-culture mix between 110° and 115°. Other ways to achieve this temperature are putting the yogurt in a warm oven or putting the yogurt in a portable cooler with hot water.

The finished product:

With granola! Yum!