A Mulch Mystery

With the digging completed, I planted the Three Sisters triad using seed varieties from Native Seed Search. The Yuman Yellow corn was started indoors three weeks ago, and then transplanted. They seems to be thirstier than I expected, taking time to acclimate. Just over the weekend, I planted O' Odham Vayos common beans. They popped up and put out two pairs of real leaves almost overnight, like Jack's magic beans. If they keep up this scorching pace, they might overtake and overwhelm the corn stalks!  I've started Dark Star zucchini to be the third sister, under the partial shade of my living mulch. 

Over the winter I let my plots go fallow to be overtaken by all the dominant herbal species that I had innocently planted: chocolate mint, "best" mint, catnip, lavender, parsley, and last but not least, a mystery plant, the dominant weed of my back yard. What makes it a dominant weed?  It's just a (native or naturalized) plant growing where it's perfectly suited, but totally unwanted. This one had certainly taken over a part of the back yard, poking up through the crushed rock, proliferating everywhere there's moisture, sipping at the landscaping drip irrigation. There aren't any specimens of this plant outside the boundaries of my backyard wall. Like dandelions, it's got terrific tap roots! The above-ground part of the plant breaks off leaving the buried root to send up more greenery. It's irritating as a weed, but a garden workhorse if the roots are allowed to dig into heavy clay soil, and the foliage is allowed to shade the roots of the wanted plant, acting like a nurserymaid plant. The foliage is lacy and attractive as weeds can be.  They form a continuous fluffy layer of green 10" high. I don't remember ever seeing any blossoms, but there must have been some in order to propagate so broadly, so readily.  

Last year's sunflowers have also been propagating across the yard from their original flowerbed, but haven't made it to the vegetable plots yet. I'm told that sunflowers are sometimes called a Fourth Sister for their help in attracting bees to pollinate the corn. They are welcome, and even deserve being planted directly!  (Note to myself - go plant some sunflowers in the corners of the plots.)  In the meantime, the composite living mulch is shielding new carrots and the golden offspring of last year's marigolds, by keeping soil moisture from evaporating in the 90 deg (nearly 100 deg) Arizona temperature.  Green, yellow and orange bell peppers have been planted in mini-clearings and the yellow and orange tomato varieties will go in as those seedlings develop. Has anyone ever had a pale pink Georgia Peach tomato? Come by my house in a few months and maybe you'll taste it for yourself! 

A Perennial Vegetable Garden

I haven't written anything in a while, Easter being a very busy time of year. But now we're in May and the weather is right for planting.

It's amazing how the clay soil becomes increasingly workable with daily watering.  I am very grateful for no-till gardening which is keeping my top soil from blowing away on these windy days. The recent wind gusts have thrown all sorts of garden debris around, but plentiful soil moisture remains 5 inches below the ground. Soil is the best place to store water where deep healthy roots will be able to access it.  Most days I haven't had to water the older beds, the lush ground cover of parsley, mint, catnip, lavender, as well as "backyard weeds" has kept the soil in the old plots moist and friable.  

Japanese permaculturist Masanobu Fukuoka wrote in his books: "One Straw Revolution" and "Sowing Seeds in the Desert" about his technique of using white clover as a perennial no-till cover crop.  Whenever he needed to plant new crops, he would remove a plug of white clover and insert the new seeds or seedlings, pat it down and repeat.  His hillside plots, unlike mine, have been developed for decades, but I'm sure his techniques as well as those of other permaculturists will benefit my garden, however long mine lasts.

My backyard garden expansion is nearly done.  The area looks so much better now that I've straightened out the old plot boundaries skewed since created a  year ago. A new raised bed has been planted with native sweet corn in a 3x4 pattern. I've started heirloom yellow-orange tomato seeds indoors and the bean plants will be sown around the corn.  The squash will go in last. The soil in all of the beds has been treated with beneficial nematodes which I'm hoping will prevent last year's crop failures from grubs and other garden pests. 

My experimental plants the Moringa oleifera and the Malabar spinach have arrived and the spineless cactus too!  The Malabar spinach does taste like mild spinach, but it needs to grow much more before the leaves can be harvested. The moringa tree is starting its growing season - I think it's grown an inch over the last week and can be expected to grow 3 feet in a single season. The tree grows well in the tropics, is said to be nutritious; the drumstick pods are edible and they are used to purify water.