• Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures

    August at Finch Frolic

    Black Beauty zucchini.

    This year Finch Frolic has been particularly beautiful. Of course, this year we had to close down throughout the spring. Fortunately we’ve been able to reopen for limited-capacity tours with safeties in place. However, I really miss sharing how lovely the garden is, and I want to let you have a little tour right in your home.

    Little Marvel Popcorn. It tastes so good!

    These photos were taken this morning before the temperature rose; its in the 90’sF here today, in North San Diego County. I apologize for the phone camera, as my good camera is in for repair. I only wish that you could also smell the moist mulch from the light overnight dew, or hear the clug-clug of the crow, the tittering of a flock of bushtits and the scuttling of lizards through leaves, which I experienced as I walked around the garden. All of these friends and so many hundreds more are working the garden today and every day, keeping it in balance.

    A blue dasher dragonfly, one of many species that patrol for insects all over our property. Their larvae in our ponds look like little dragons, and they eat mosquito larvae as well. Watercress behind.

    Our food forest is a low-water-use garden, on poor soil, using no additives to the ground other than occasional compost. There are no herbicides, pesticides or other factory-made chemicals used here, and there are two of us who care for the garden. Most of the seasonal beauty this year is due to the diligence of my daughter Miranda who took seed sprouting to a whole new level even before the pandemic arrived. We rely heavily on the insects, birds, lizards, frogs, soil and water microbes and creatures to do all the work protecting the plants, and the plants themselves to create good soil. All we add is a low dose of salty well water which the humus cleans, and leaves or sheet mulch on top. Our fruit trees receive a dose of blender compost once in awhile. Miranda and I hope that these photos bring you peace and lift your spirits, and that knowing you are looking at a safe habitat that is thriving with life gives you a feeling of security as well. It can be done. Permaculture must be done. Best of health! Diane

    From the driveway looking down the main pathway into the garden.
    Lorenziana Gaillardia, to feed the pollinators.
    Rock steps cross the large rain catchment basin. Sycamore leaves protect the soil from the heat.
    Our new orchard, with beans trained up a teepee over a fruit tree, and tomato cages behind.
    Our old Ca. Live Oak. Oaks are home to over 300 species of bird and insect.
    Our jasmine-covered gate in the sun.
    Resting place, made from recycled wood.
    Figs! Panache Striped Tiger.
    Dawn through the birch trees, with Naked Lady amaryllis blooming behind the blackberries.
    Our small bamboo bridge next to our little pond.
    Dawn through an olive tree.
    A native mallow wildly blooming over a bamboo footbridge Miranda just built.
    Black Krim.
    A plant guild combines plants with different functions for the benefit of all.
    The Torch Tithonia is over 5′ tall, and butterflies and birds love it. A plum, squash and orange tree in the foreground.
    We pollarded our willow trellis in January, and these tall interesting limbs are waiting for some creative project to arise.
    Kabocha squash.
    An army worm taking a sleep in a mallow flower.
    We grow the timber bamboo, and eat it, too!
    This beauty is a carrot, Lunar White, allowed to go to seed. Gorgeous and great food for our tiny native insects.
    Lorenziana Gaillardia.
    Straw flower and carrot.
    Apples do very well in hot weather. Cripps Two.
    Red Kuri squash vine past the seating.
    A whole mess of Naked Ladies!
    Tall Double Mix strawflowers, (Helichrysum bracteatum).
    The Withy Hide, or willow hut.
    Hard to believe that these massive trees grew so quickly. It has everything to do with water capture in the soil.
    This stump has personality! Brachychiton rupestris, Australian Bottle Tree.
    The leaf cover makes this rain catchment basin look full.
    California sycamore, 8 years old.
    A covered bridge over the rain catchment system.
  • Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures

    A Video Journey Through Finch Frolic Garden with Kaye Kittrell

    PERMACULTURE PARADISE Garden Tour | San Diego, California

    Kaye tours Finch Frolic garden, a permaculture paradise in San Diego County, California. Diane and Miranda Kennedy developed an educational food forest which…

    We were visited in early November, 2019, by Kaye of Late Bloomer video blog fame. Come have a short virtual tour of our permaculture food forest in the Fall.

    Please visit Kaye’s YouTube channel, Kaye Kittrell | Late Bloomer Urban Organic Garden Show , to see more of her adventures in gardening. Also, please ‘like’ the video to show Facebook that you care! Thanks for watching.

  • Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures

    The Battle of the Bulge

    POND FROLICS

    In the still of the night….

    “AHAAAAAH! ‘INGO! Om wi’ EE, ithter ‘ummy!”
    “…Iddle ard oo ‘thallow…”
    “Utht ‘otta adust.”
    “Abee oer ere….”

    [Five minutes later…]

    “Oou know, imma juuuust –“
    “You know, I really feel like worms, anyway. Yeah. Alright. Let’s go get some worms! Yeah.”
  • Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures

    Owl Be There

    POND FROLICS

    That nocturnal birds eat at night is a pretty straightforward piece of knowledge — awake at night, ergo eating at night.

    It’s also pretty clear to anyone who finds a large dropping on their car in the morning that wasn’t there the evening before that other functions of life have to happen in the hours in which we sleep or stumble into things as well.

    It’s funny how surprising it was to me to be confronted with the fact that owls — as of course they must do — also bathe at night.

    Need to install an owl-dryer out there!

  • Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures

    The PĂșkas of Caerbannog

    POND FROLICS

    Finch Frolic is home to many Desert Cottontails.

    Dah-DUM. Dah-DUM. Dah-DUM, dah-DUM, DAH-DUM –!

    More all the time, in fact.

    “Whoa! Do you see what I see?” “Yeah, yeah — when did that rabbit get there?”

    Or at least very solid population replacement.
    We see them all the time because they are pretty comfy here and used to us, just scooting around nibbling grasses and fighting the ducks (I gotta see if I have photos of that to share — hilarious bunny sass…).
    The funny thing is how infrequently they appear on the wildlife cameras, and when they do, they’re invariably being rather sneaky.

    “Oops, still in shot, sorry.”

    Sometimes, it can start to feel a little spooky….

    (Nasty, big, pointy teeth.)

    — Run awaaaay!

  • Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures

    Coon Tales: The Beginning

    POND FROLICS

    When we first put out our wildlife camera over the big pond’s north bog, we quickly found that aside from the oppressive scourge of the querulous ducks, raccoons are our most frequent visitors.

    “Ooo — I wonder if that little red light is edible?”
    “I can just sneak right up on it….”
    “Hmm — nothing inside this shell to eat. A pointless object.”

    The story they present is also generally a much more compelling one than the ducks’ — they both have intrigue, romance, action and comedy, but when you’ve watched ducks go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth in petty squabbles for the zillionth time, you come to respect the way the coons economize their time.

    INTRIGUE
    COMEDY
    ROMANCE
    ACTION

    The ducks take the whole day to execute their drama, but the raccoons squeeze it all into night visits lasting only a few minutes, perhaps a quarter of an hour.
    Or perhaps only the time it takes to capture a single, perfect picture.

  • Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures

    Getting Your Feet Wet

    POND FROLICS

    “Oooo that is definitely squlechier than I expected–!”

    Either this juvie Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus) thinks she just caught something or she’s just realizing bathwater with duckweed might not be the best choice….

    Subduing an unfortunate young bullfrog? Carefully scraping off tiny, free-floating aquatic plants? Blocking out a new rhythmic gymnastics routine? We’ll never know.

  • Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures

    From Heron Out

    POND FROLICS

    Lessee, what can I tell you about the Black-crowned Night-Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax)….

    “WHOA, what was that back there? Gotta check that out….”

    There’re small herons. They have blackish feathers on top of their heads. I guess you could call it a cap. A blackish cap.

    “They were fast – as – light – niii-ing–!”

    They’re the most widespread species of heron in the world, apparently. Noisy, social, not too fussy.

    “Hey! What’re you lookin’ at, lady?”

    Oh, and this is surprising: they do most of their hunting and such at night or in the dusk: evening and early morning. Herons of dimness. Darkling herons. Gloaming. Blackish-capped. Herons.
    …Yep.

  • Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures

    Puppy Time

    POND FROLICS

    Four silly yappi-yotes!

    We viewed the latest batch of wildlife camera photos the other day and were treated to a stop-motion movie of young coyote antics in the back of the little pond. Every year, we’ve only had the evidence of crepuscular play, so it’s nice to finally get an idea of what shenanigans resulted in the traces left for us (I refer you to the episode of the Great Snake Vanishment). Critically, we gleaned important clues in the mystery of how the hose that tops up the ponds from the well got kinked; 12 hours we put the station on, and the pond level got lower!
    Puppies, y’know?

    * Yeah. We do good work. *