Tribal Grasses is striving to create an alternative
outlet in response to our modern consumption-based, "bling" lifestyle.
We are a couple of folks trying to learn how to be more self-sufficient
in today's economy. We are taking the practices that our elders used in
the past and using adapting them in to modern environment. We also
offer to you: knowledge, hand-crafted goods, and a
selling forum for local artists - August 27th, 2009
The apartment garden was so long ago, all my pictures of it were taken on a standard film camera (aging myself). I will see if I can scan the photos and post them on the site...one of these days. Apartments usually equal containers. Half a wine barrel made into a large planter seems to work wonderfully, especially for evasive herbs like mint, comfrey, thyme, oregano. When we had the apartment garden, we did not produce any food more than a few novel tomatoes a year, but we had more fresh herbs and flowers than you could shake a stick at. I miss my little apartment garden, the roses I planted there are still blooming all these years later.
When we moved into the ranch house it was the big turning point for us. We moved to organic gardening and away from a more consumer-based lifestyle. We got chickens and put in garden bed after garden bed.
We successfully killed off all the cultivated flowers (ie pansies, petunias, snapdragons, black-eyed susans). We discovered that hanging baskets dry out really quickly and that puppies love to play with plants in pots. We also learned the value of a fence.
The compost pile was distributed around the apple tree. Rick also prunned the apple tree, just the lower limbs. Hopefully we will have fruit from it this year. Nothing from the mushroom logs yet. This is the start of the new compost pile.
UPDATE: The tree was renewed and produced more apples than I had even seen it produce. A little bit of TLC can go a long way!
We have used tires that will go infront of the North/South lateral bed for potatoes.
The sage did very well this winter, but it did come down with a bit of powedery mildew-looking fungus. We removed the infected part of the plant and are keeping an eye on it. THe infected plant material was thrown away instead of composted to prevent further spread of the fungus.
As a bonus (you can't see them in this picture) the sage mulched the asparagus and kept it nice and protected from the cold winter. As a result, the asparagus that are coming up in the sage bed are strong, sweet, and big; the others, not so much. As soon as I know all threat of frost is gone, I will be propagating that sage through the entire bed.
Well, that was a fun three months! We went camping, hiking, fishing, and had a wonderful time all around. In that time, I neglected the garden, watering just when necessary and allowing weeds to spring up here and there. I have learned much about what works for me and what doesn't.
Beautiful Mount Hood - Summer 2010
Rule #1: No more containers. I put quite a few flowers out in containers this year, thinking I would save the ground space for food plants. I am not dedicated to watering enough for plain container gardening. Next year I will either throw out the containers all together, or I will invest in making a wicking system for my containers. These poor pansies never stood a chance on those long hot weekends.
Blueberries have to have more than one bush near eachother to cross pollenate, much like corn. I will leave these two here to grow with eachother. We did not get enough of a crop off of them this year to make anything, but the bushes are still young and I have high hopes for them. Thanks Mom for having blueberry bushes in the backyard growing up (for the whole garden for that fact!).
(should have left the picture bigger) That is our Asparagus bed. We started to have spears come up a few short weeks after planting the crowns. Asparagus needs a year or two to store energy before harvesting every year for the next 10 years. Some Asparagus beds can even last up to 25 years! Make sure once you start harvesting yearly to leave a few spears in the bed. Those spears will help make your follow year's harvest plentiful. My cats keep laying on the stalks though. These and the onions.
Giant Pascal Celery, Everything I've read says it's a biannual that is treated as an annual and takes 95-110 days for harvest. The plants have been in for 3 months (well, since we last talked) and they are not ready yet. I sure hope the warm weather has helped them head into a growth spurt. Maybe I can cover then over the winter and see if I can get them to seed out next year. It's a Heirloom variety...I think it's worth a try. I'm hoping for a good harvest this September.
Tomato rings are a must next year. Maybe I will try to stock up this fall. I have tied most of the tomato plants up with yarn to keep their fruit off of the ground. It is working, but I think tried and true tomato rings work better. However, next year I'm trying a lattice wall for the tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers.
Oh my poor onions. I am building fences next year to keep my animals out of the beds. Not only did I have cats laying on my onions and garlic but I also had squirrels in the beds digging and planting things of their own. I expect a few peanut plants next spring.
My cats also ate through my garlic. There were about a dozen cloves of garlic planted between the onions and that mess of mustard in the back. They chewed through each stalk. Darn cats.
Yeah corn! I will not plant in the three sisters style next year. It did not work out well for me. I will use rows, 2-3 rows of 15 plants each for next year. I like the mounds, I like how easy they are to weed and how I can let everything else grow up around them (notice the plethora of Belladonna) Once we have our harvest in, we are going to sink 4x4 posts into the corners of this bed and build a frame for a winter garden. I am going to do my best with winter veggies and specific herbs to create a micro-climate in the greenhouse over the winter. I will post photos as the terrain changes.
The other bed of onions and leeks. Only lost about 5 onions out of this bed. Darn cats.
We have noticed one of our cats, Rosemary (the black and white one) loves to be outside. She will sit in front of plants and watch them, moving from one bed to another after some time. She really likes the potatoes growing from the compost pile.
So, I have a really good excuse for flower beds. I am calling them Pollenator beds and they are for the future of the bees! I really would like to keep honey bees and hope to have a hive by next year. I think I will put it behind the shed. Sure hope those darn cats are smart enough to stop getting stung by then. They keep thinking those flying things are for there entertainment only.
I started my calendula bed against the chainlink fence that separates us from our neighbors to the west. They have produced a fair amount of flowers, but I think I let them go to seed to early. I have collected around 50-100 seeds so far of Calendula officinalis mixed with Strawberry Blond Calendula.
Wildflowers under the tree. I love my garden.
My mushroom logs, now outside and being watered with the garden, about once everyother day.
We left the house and have moved into a duplex. It is a much smaller, cozier, and warmer space than the ranch house, I am very thankful for such a good environment. The problem/challenge is the small yard. We have a south-facing backyard and a north-facing front yard with no sun and lots of wet, compacted soil. And, the blackberries...
The blackberries are not in our yard. Our landlord had someone come in and hack the berries back out of our yard. However, the blackberries are in a part of our neighbors back acre that is behind a shed and looks like it was neglected for years.
We will be rehabilitating it for them, maybe they will notice, maybe they wont. But my chickens sure will enjoy running around back there once it's cleared out and planted!
After the first clearing, we were able to get back into the berry vines. We found lots of rotten wood, wood loving fungi, lots of usable wood, some usable tile, an entire turkey burner, a roasting pan, a vacuum, some toys, and lots of garbage.
I love it when work progresses smoothly. We have key-holed the blackberries and have started building up a path of layers for walking and harvesting. Our layers consist of corrugated cardboard on the bottom, with chunks of old wood and MDF board (reclaimed from the blackberries) weighing down the cardboard. We picked up a 60lb bale of oat straw at the feed store to mulch with, but I think we will need a few more bales to finish the job.
Slowly but surely things are coming together. Bed are in and we even have two new chickens! The coop is a work in progress. Eventually, the girls will have a roosting box up top and access to the ground level as well.
Coming soon!
Lettuce and potatoes in the front yard, what will the neighbors say?
Future Demonstrations:
-Group Meditation and Pathworking
-Canning of Fruits and Veggies
-Grow year-round produce
-Making Candles
-The health benefits of Mushrooms (beginning Mycology) - Mycology (from the Greek μύκης, meaning "fungus") is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their genetic and biochemical properties, their taxonomy, and their use to humans as a source for tinder, medicinal (e.g., penicillin), food (e.g., beer, wine, cheese, edible mushrooms), entheogens, as well as their dangers, such as poisoning or infection. ... A biologist who studies mycology is called a mycologist. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycology)
-Dehydrating your foods, recipes and ideas
Tribal - A tribe, is a social group of humans connected by a shared system of values and organized for mutual care, defense, and survival beyond that which could be attained by a lone individual or family. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribal)
Grasses or more technically Gaminoids or Poaceae - Graminoids are among the most versatile life forms ... Grasses have adapted to conditions in lush rain forests, dry deserts, cold mountains and even intertidal habitats, and are now the most widespread plant type. Poaceae is often considered to be the most important of all plant families to human economies: it includes the staple food grains and cereal crops grown around the world, lawn and forage grasses, and bamboo, which is widely used for construction throughout east Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Civilization was founded largely on man's ability to domesticate cereal grass crops around the world. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grasses)
Please remember that we are not experts in these fields. We do not have a PhD in Mycology or Herbilsim. We have not been gardening all of our lives, nor have we taken extensive classes in Meditation or Pathworking. We are every-day people who are exploring these fields and would love for you to join us on our journey. Together we can learn and grow. If you are interested in any of these demonstrations, please contact us. We will list time and dates and will be more than happy to sign you up. All demonstrations are free. Materials may be sold at cost, and donations are always accepted happily. All donations are cycled back into the Tribal Grasses, usually to the purchase of more supplies for demonstrations. Knowledge should always be free, after all wisdom costs a ton of experience
The compost pile was distributed around the apple tree. Rick also prunned the apple tree, just the lower limbs. Hopefully we will have fruit from it this year. Nothing from the mushroom logs yet. 
We have used tires that will go infront of the North/South lateral bed for potatoes. 
Well, that was a fun three months! We went camping, hiking, fishing, and had a wonderful time all around. In that time, I neglected the garden, watering just when necessary and allowing weeds to spring up here and there. I have learned much about what works for me and what doesn't. 
Blueberries have to have more than one bush near eachother to cross pollenate, much like corn. I will leave these two here to grow with eachother. We did not get enough of a crop off of them this year to make anything, but the bushes are still young and I have high hopes for them. 
(should have left the picture bigger) That is our Asparagus bed. We started to have spears come up a few short weeks after planting the crowns. Asparagus needs a year or two to store energy before harvesting every year for the next 10 years. Some Asparagus beds can even last up to 25 years! Make sure once you start harvesting yearly to leave a few spears in the bed. Those spears will help make your follow year's harvest plentiful. My cats keep laying on the stalks though. These and the onions. 
Giant Pascal Celery, Everything I've read says it's a biannual that is treated as an annual and takes 95-110 days for harvest. The plants have been in for 3 months (well, since we last talked) and they are not ready yet. I sure hope the warm weather has helped them head into a growth spurt. Maybe I can cover then over the winter and see if I can get them to seed out next year. It's a Heirloom variety...I think it's worth a try. I'm hoping for a good harvest this September. 
Oh my poor onions. I am building fences next year to keep my animals out of the beds. Not only did I have cats laying on my onions and garlic but I also had squirrels in the beds digging and planting things of their own. I expect a few peanut plants next spring. 
Yeah corn! I will not plant in the three sisters style next year. It did not work out well for me. I will use rows, 2-3 rows of 15 plants each for next year. I like the mounds, I like how easy they are to weed and how I can let everything else grow up around them (notice the plethora of Belladonna)
So, I have a really good excuse for flower beds. I am calling them Pollenator beds and they are for the future of the bees! I really would like to keep honey bees and hope to have a hive by next year. I think I will put it behind the shed. Sure hope those darn cats are smart enough to stop getting stung by then. They keep thinking those flying things are for there entertainment only. 
The blackberries are not in our yard. Our landlord had someone come in and hack the berries back out of our yard. However, the blackberries are in a part of our neighbors back acre that is behind a shed and looks like it was neglected for years. 
After the first clearing, we were able to get back into the berry vines. We found lots of rotten wood, wood loving fungi, lots of usable wood, some usable tile, an entire turkey burner, a roasting pan, a vacuum, some toys, and lots of garbage. 
I love it when work progresses smoothly. We have key-holed the blackberries and have started building up a path of layers for walking and harvesting. Our layers consist of corrugated cardboard on the bottom, with chunks of old wood and MDF board (reclaimed from the blackberries) weighing down the cardboard. We picked up a 60lb bale of oat straw at the feed store to mulch with, but I think we will need a few more bales to finish the job. 
Slowly but surely things are coming together. Bed are in and we even have two new chickens! 
