Organic Gardens: The practice of gardening organically flows from a desire to exist on the earth in a respectful manner AND to eat food that has delightful aromas, is delicious to taste, and chemically free. Putting this into practice in the Sierra Nevada foothills is a distinct challenge. The land has never been farmed before and that is an advantage that we count among our blessings. Another is that we can grow all year round. The winters are quite mild; this last one had only two hard touches of frost. Coping with the many predators is something that we’d not fully anticipated and we’re still in process on this one. We are in competition with gophers, deer, and now grasshoppers for the fruits of our hard work.
The raised beds in the back, between the main building with the B&B; rooms, and the Gallery, are of redwood. Neighbors were taking up their 25-year-old redwood deck and we hauled the boards atop the 1982 Toyota to our place, skill sawed off the rotten wood, and used the remainder for the beds. The resulting design is reflective of the size of the pieces of redwood that we salvaged. And they are quite beautiful. The beds in front are also recycled. We found staves of redwood barrels that once held olives, a major commercial crop in the California Valley. Each bed is lined with hardware cloth and stapled to the wood to prevent gophers from chewing up the roots, stems of each plant. Everything we plant here—vegetables, California Natives on the hillsides, and the 20 tree fruit orchard put in after the winter rains—have to have some protection against gophers.
Deer continue to be a major problem. There is a family of deer that live on the property and they come and seem to bring their friends to dine on the tender vegetables. This year Saundra designed and built a fence around the organic front gardens and around the back gardens. It is high and aesthetically pleasing, something hard to accomplish with a fence. Chinese locust trees are planted on one side of the fence in front. 2002 saw no deer in the organic gardens. Lots of tracks outside the fence and a not infrequent sighting also!
It’s all a learning experience. We’ve lived here since March 1995 and when we look around at the many raised beds of vegetables, herbs and flowers that are located on the property, it is really quite amazing.
A fun-loving person with an extra passion for gardening, making better homes, and an environmentalist. An expert with years of experience in helping people with their homes. When I design I always try to be unique and push the boundaries. I also make sure my projects are environment friendly and is doing good favour for Mother Earth.
