Garbage Warrior

I walk around the neighborhood a lot with the pups. While I walk, I often find pleasant surprises that I would not otherwise discover. I know where the vegetable patches and good fruit trees are. I can basically do an edible walking tour in the neighborhood. I also tend to get the first dibs on many curbside freebies. A few days ago I came upon a box of free stuff while I was walking Cracus. In the box, there was a copy of Garbage Warrior. By looking at the photos on the back cover of the DVD, I could tell the guy on the front cover, Michael Reynolds, uses garbage such as used tires and bottles to build houses. Wow!  He uses things people throw away and turns them into something everyone needs. This is a movie that is right up my alley! I was very excited to take the movie home with me.

When people think of garbage, it's often something ugly, dirty, and useless. The houses Michael Reynolds built are beautiful and functional. I didn't even realize the colored glass balls embedded in the walls are actually used glass bottles! 

After watching the movie, I Googled more about Michael Reynolds.  I realized this movie was released in 2008, so there had to be more progress on his projects in the last 8 years.  I found out that people can rent one of his "Earthships"  to experience living in a fully sustainable house, which provides food and electricity. Some of these nightly rentals are even dog friendly!  People can also attend Earthship Academy to learn to build these sustainable off-grid homes. This is just incredible. I knew there are a lot more fascinating sights and inspirational creations for me to explore and experience. The movie is available on Youtube and Vimeo for free. I am happy to share this movie below with anyone who is open minded. Enjoy!

Garbage Warrior Full Length from Louis Stamatelos on Vimeo .

Planting for Winter

Green onion seedlings and 1 daikon seedling. I must have dropped a seed in there by accident.

Back in July, I harvested a lot of green onion seeds. I know growing onions from seeds take a lot longer but people say they taste a lot better. On September 19, the day before I was leaving for my trip to New York, I planted a tray full of green onion seeds and a bunch of daikon, Japanese radish.

I normally grow my seedlings at home. Since I was going to be out of town, I left the planted seeds in the green house on campus. I also left my young Soapworts, French lavender, and passion fruit in the green house while I was out of town. Today I found all the daikon seeds have sprouted. The tray of onion seeds is now full of onion seedlings! They sure grew fast in the temperature controlled greenhouse! 

Daikon seedlings

Bad Bird!

I have been nursing some Japanese cucumber, cantaloupe, and honeydew melon in the garage. I planted all of these earlier, but most of them have been devoured by pill bugs long ago. I have been trying to figure out where to plant these newly acquired seedlings.

I walked in the garage this morning and was surprised to find a bird chirping inside. The bird must have gotten in there last night when I was unloading all the stuff from solstice convergence. I walked over to the table where the seedlings were. "Bad bird!!!" I yelled in my mind.

The bird had chomped off an entire 4-inch cantaloupe plant, ate about half of the new leaves and torn off several bigger leaves. I opened the garage door, and the bird slowly made its way out by hopping on the floor towards the light. I moved the seedlings into the sun room where I can keep a closer eye on them.

This was not the first time a bird was trapped in the garage during all the years I have lived here, but it was the first time it has attacked my plants.

Cuttings

It's 90 degrees today. This is too hot for me to be out there fighting the weeds but perfect for working in the green house. I clipped some red monkey flowers, Provence lavender, Spanish lavender, rosemary, and Roma tomatoes. I will start with these since I have plenty of them. I purchased 3 pots of monkey flowers 2 years ago, but only one of them survived. The surviving bush is doing really well, so I am going to see if I can expand the monkeys. Master Ken, my mentor, always makes it seem so easy to grow anything. He also makes his cuttings and pruning in an amazing speed. It's all second nature to him. It took me almost an hours just to get these cuttings ready for rooting.


I don't t think any of my peach cuttings had rooted from a couple months ago. I also didn't use rooting hormone on those cuttings. This time I got a bottle of rooting hormone. Since I am trying to keep my cost down, I decided to make my own rooting medium instead of buying perlite. I know it has to be light and airy so the roots can grow easily, so I mixed some potting soil (1/3) with completely dried horse manure mixed with wood shavings (2/3). I misted the mixture with the water bottle.


I dip each cutting into the rooting hormone powder then stick it into the rooting medium. Tomatoes are supposed to root very easily, so I am skipping rooting hormone on them. After every cutting is in place, I mist everything thoroughly. Since I don't have a sprinkler system in this makeshift greenhouse, I will be misting these cuttings several times a day whenever possible. If everything goes well, they should root in 3 to 5 weeks.