Photo Update

All the perennials are out of dormancy.  Here's a photo update.

 

The picture above is the north walkway.  In the foreground is one of the pecans we planted this spring.  Behind it are the "Kashmir blend" pomegranates, and behind them you can see one of the Afghan pines we planted last winter.

The picture on the left is the "Wonderful" pomegranate in the northwest yard - one of the first trees we planted at Sage Garden.  And the one on the right shows the Barbados cherry and Violette de Bordeaux fig we just planted in the northeast yard.

The picture on the left is of the pear we planted on the north side of the house last fall.  Along the wall of the house you can see the volunteer dichondra.

The picture on the right shows the mountain sage in the center of the labyrinth.  Behind it is one of two volunteer tomatoes that sprouted in the labyrinth, along with some of the neighborhood hollyhocks.  (These grow throughout the neighborhood.  The ones in the labyrinth were contributed by one of my neighbors.)

On the left, you can see the young canyon hackberry tree in the northeast yard, with grapes growing on it and a small chuparosa to its right.

On the right is the peach tree in the east yard, with one of the wolfberry bushes in the background.

Above are some blossoms on the plum we planted last fall, and you can see some of the tomatoes ripening on the volunteer tomato in the background. (Mother Nature really likes planting tomatoes around here!)

On the left is the dwarf mulberry we planted last fall near the east walkway to the mailboxes.  Beside it you can see the mountain sage we recently added.

And the picture on the right shows the apple on the other side of the walkway.  In the shade to its left, you may be able to see the white sage we added this spring.  And you can't miss the volunteer hollyhocks growing to its right.

In the picture on the left, you can see the figs in the south yard by the clothesline.

The picture on the right shows the pistachios we planted this spring.  These are also in the south - just on the other side of the sidewalk from the figs.

And I couldn't resist taking a picture of the Chunky Monkey patch (below).  In the foreground is another "Wonderful" pomegranate, and in the background are the bananas and peanuts.  The peanuts went dormant in the winter, but I left the plants in the ground, and they're growing new leaves this spring.  Mixed in with the peanuts, you can also see - you guessed it - yet another volunteer tomato plant.

Spring to Life

The rains and warmth of the past couple weeks have brought many plants out of dormancy.  The figs are starting to bud.




















 Brittlebushes are in bloom, and the wolfberries at Sage Garden are bearing early fruit.























One of my favorite returning volunteers, London rocket are in full force this year.  If you like horseradish and you see these popping up, before you mow them, taste one of the leaves.  They're a great addition to a tuna sandwich.  You might even want to designate a small patch for use in the kitchen.  If it's in a visible place in your yard, I recommend putting a temporary border around it, so your neighbors don't mistake your intentional non-interference for neglect.











Speaking of volunteers, we have another volunteer tomato this year!  Why does this place grow so many tomatoes?  Last year we had a huge volunteer tomato plant in the chunky monkey patch that gave us hundreds of little snacking tomatoes.  In fact, it's still there among the bananas and peanuts.  This one just popped up next to the plum we planted last fall.

I see we have fairies this year.  In the background of the picture above, you can see the work of the neighborhood children.  They built a fairy path into the labyrinth.  In the foreground is a canyon hackberry tree, and the orange colored flowers are chuparosa.

Also in the labyrinth, we recently planted a passionfruit vine (on the left), where it can climb up the olive tree.

On the right is a sage called salvia newe ya'ar which we planted just this past winter.  This is one of my favorite species for Arizona.  It's aromatic and edible, and it thrives in our hot, dry climate.  If you look closely on the upper right (just below the aloe in the picture) you can see its first flower of the year.

New Bike Rack

Today, we finished building a bike rack.  We picked an area under one of the carport roofs in order to protect the bikes from weather.  To maximize our use of a small footprint, we went vertical, installing six hooks for adult bikes.  Under the hooks, we built a frame that the bikes can be locked to.

We ran into a wrinkle when we dug the hole for the center post: there was a large concrete footing about three inches under the surface.  So we bolted the center post right to the footing.

Finally, we can store our bikes outside!  We took a ride along the canal to celebrate.

Tranquility Tree

There's an olive tree at Sage Garden Ecovillas that I like to call Tranquility.  There are no structures or other plants within a 10 foot radius of this tree, so it seems sort of obvious to create a walking labyrinth around it, and that's what we're doing right now.  The first step was to design a path that would fit in the area.  Then we cleared away the rock and dug up any grass in the area.

Then we marked exactly where the borders would go.  The exterior border is low berm whose functions are to define the space and keep the medium that will cover the path from spreading into the yard.  The interior borders of the labyrinth will be marked by plants that fit the themes of tranquility and meditation.  We're digging trenches for the interior borders.  Part of the soil from those trenches is used to create the berm around the outside, and part of it is mixed with compost, sand, and peat moss to create a planting soil that goes back into the trenches.  We're laying down irrigation tubing under the outer berm, to supply water to the flexible drip tubing that will water the plants in the interior borders.  Here are some pictures at various stages of development.

The layout is based on the classical seven-circuit labyrinth, but simplified to fit comfortably in a small area.  The next steps are to finish digging and filling, install the drip tubing, mulch the border, spread the medium on the path (most likely sand), plant, and enjoy!

More Trees

Since I finished fall tree planting with some time to spare, and since I had a spot in mind to try a pear tree, I recently planted one.  (And because, pears.)
What made me think of this location for a pear?  1) It's perhaps the coldest part of the yard in the winter.  2) It's a good location to get rainwater, and air conditioner condensate in the summer.  3) A tree here will help shade two north facing windows during summer mornings and afternoons.

A couple things you'll notice in these pictures: 1) A purslane is growing between the tree and the sidewalk.  There are several places at Sage Garden Ecovillas where purslane likes to grow every year (as volunteers, or weeds).  Mostly I see horse purslane (Trianthema portulacastrum), but this is one of the few locations where common purslane (Portulaca oleracea) grows.  I'm hoping that by preparing this area for the pear, and giving it consistent water in summer, I'll encourage the purslane to spread out and act as an edible ground cover in the summer.  2) I dug quite a few rocks out of this area, so I used them to make a spillway toward the back of the well.  This is the direction rain water will enter from.

I've also been thinking about tree planting for next spring. I'd like to plant Afghan pines as part of an arc around the north part of the yard.  This arc is designed as sort of an outdoor passive solar arrangement, shading the yard during summer, and allowing the sun in during winter.  Afghan pines (pinus eldarica, also called Eldar pines, Mondell pines, or desert pines) are perhaps the best-adapted pines for this climate.  They use little water, grow fast, tolerate poor soil, stand up to strong winds, have a pleasant fragrance, and at a mature height of about 40 ft, offer a moderately high canopy for shade.  These trees are often sold in the Phoenix area as live Christmas trees.

My Way - Three Stories

“I did it my way” says the song.  It's a song about individualism, and the protagonist believes the way he's singing about is his own, an inherent and absolute property of himself.  But to ascribe the way in the song to the individual is to fall under an illusion, a trick of the mind's eye that accentuates the contrast of what is relative and mutes the absolute.  The protagonist's perception of his own way is dependent on the norms of his context and how they differ from his way.

If there were no prevailing ways to serve as a backdrop, there would be no "my way" to sing about, and unless the "its" that "I did" were common enough things for people to do, there could be no prevailing ways to do them.

My point here is not to deconstruct a song (if instead of "I did it my way" the lyrics said "I did it a slightly peculiar way that seemed special, but only in contrast to the way other people were doing the same thing," even Frank Sinatra would have had a hard time selling it) but to remind myself of the derivative, contingent quality of my own ideas and opinions about how to do things, and to introduce a personal story that begins with an insightful question once mused by a giant:

Which way is my way?

Good question, Fezzik.  The personal story I referred to is actually three simultaneous stories - a small one, a medium one, and a large one.  The small one is a sketch of what I call the regenerative business philosophy I'm developing at Sage Garden Ecovillas.  The medium one is my method for answering Fezzik's question.  And the large one is about creation and the creative impulse.  It starts like this.

Once upon a time (well, more than once, and all the time) the world of ways to do things is formless and void.  And we say, "Let there be doing.  Let us do."  And then the world is no longer void; it is occupied by doing.  But it's still formless.  And sometimes the story ends there.  But other times we gain skill, we learn HOW to do, and we separate right ways from wrong ways.  And sometimes the story ends there.  But other times, when we've seen the right ways and that they're good, we ask, "But which way is my way?"

When I moved into Sage Garden Ecovillas (here's the medium story), all I saw at first was the "right way" to do business, but as I continue doing, I see hints of ideas flaking away from the whole of business as usual.  So I pull on those ideas to see what else comes with them, and that's how I find my way.  Say the idea is a belief; it may bring with it some values, priorities, or practices.  Or a practice might come with some attitudes, values, or other practices.

One of the first flakes I saw was the idea of valuing the well-being of people over the well-being of the organization.  It's tempting to think that if an organization (such as a business) thrives, so do its members.  This is not always true, and standard business practices nurture the business at the expense of the people.  Another flake I saw early on was the idea of working cooperatively and not competitively with other businesses, clients, suppliers, and everyone.  So I pulled on those flakes.

It's tempting at this point to criticize the standard way, but the standard way is perfectly valid.  It's self-consistent.  It yields long-lived organizations.  It's a step in the right direction from no way.  It's just not my way.

So I pulled on those two ideas, and some others started to peel away with them.  One was the idea of inclusivity.  The standard way is for organizations (such as businesses) to have discrete rosters and a clear division between members and nonmembers.  That's fine, but the way I would prefer is to have a fuzzy boundary, where the level of participation can vary.  Another idea was valuing the well-being of all, not just of the decision makers (or oneself, in the degenerate case).  Yet another was to give more emphasis to motives and less to methods, or to subjugate the how to the why.  In this case, it's easy to see the relative nature of "my way."  Both how and why are important.  What I observe in business as usual is a certain proportion of attention paid to tools and methods as compared to motives.  It's not that NO attention is paid to motives (every successful business has a charter or mission or vision statement, even if it's stale and lifeless).  And my way is not to ignore methods - it's just to devote a greater proportion of my attention to motives.

(To be continued - probably as long as I live)

Fall Tree Planting Part 2

We added six fruit trees to the eastern walkway this fall.  First we designed the layout.  In this picture, the proposed locations of the trees and benches are marked with yellow stakes.

Marking the locations like this made it easier to check the overhead clearance (both now and when that mesquite is fully grown) and to check the sun exposure (for all four seasons).  The mulberry, curry leaf, and plum will get the full sun they like for three seasons, and the plum (a Burgundy, which may grow up to 30 ft tall) has plenty of headroom.  The avocado and guava will get partial shade in summer, and we located the apple where cold air will sink in winter.  By the time the picture above was taken, we had cleared away the rock and grass.  The plan included a berm around the trees on north side of the sidewalk (in the foreground of the picture).  The berm isn't for irrigation (all six trees will be drip-watered), but just to keep the mulch from scattering.  The whole section of yard on the south side is already mulched, so no need for a berm on that side.

After clearing the rock and grass, the next step was to run irrigation tubing on the north side.  Once that was in place, we dug the six holes. 

Half of the dirt from the holes was used to build the berm (and this is why we ran the tubing on the north side first, so it would lie under the berm).  The other half of the dirt was mixed with some compost that has been aging since this spring.
Look at the beautiful black compost in that shovel.  Kitchen scraps, fallen leaves, and shredded junk mail.  This mixture is for backfilling around the trees once they're in place.
We dug the holes twice as wide as the pots and placed all six trees (pot and all) in their holes for a final visual check and some minor adjustments.

 

After running the irrigation tubing on the other side of the sidewalk, we popped the trees out of their pots and filled the holes with the dirt / compost mix.
Then we spread mulch and set up each of the trees with a set of drippers "tuned" for the size of its root zone.  The tallest ones (the apple and the plum) have 3 drippers @ 4 gal/hr; the medium ones (the mulberry and avocado) have 3 drippers @ 2 gal/hr; and the small shrubby ones (the curry leaf and the guava) have 4 drippers @ 1/2 gal/hr.We left crucial parts of the drip system unburied until we were ready to test it out.
And that's all for today.  Now these trees are ready to spread some roots and rest up for the spring.