My husband goes to this business club called BNI
One of the guys there is called "The Tree Doctor"
And he came out to our house a couple months ago
And did an "assessment" of our yard as a free service since we are in BNI
At the time, my yard was nothing special at all
My garden was looking AMAZING
We had finally got grow boxes in
And everything was growing like crazy
And I was so proud of it
(he didn't seem very impressed at all and didn't seem to notice it was there)
So Monji walks around our yard
And mostly what I heard from him was a lot of huffing and puffing
I heard a lot of "tst tst" and sighs
I was a little irritated, I gotta be honest
He tested our soil and said that it was compacted
Meaning that we were basically trying to grow plants out of solid concrete, our soil was so hard
He said our soil was high in alkaline
And that we needed to water less
So a few weekends ago,
I went to an actual Gardening Class at BC
And Monji was the teacher
Now Monji is a professional landscaper
But really, he's more of a tree guy
When he was at my house, he tells me:
You gotta take care of your trees, because trees are people too
I wanted to laugh but then saw that he was really serious:
Trees are people too
Okay....
So here is a list of Monji's advice about gardening:
1. WATER LESS: most people in Bakersfield water too much he says. (sprinklers set on a schedule have ruined most lawns he says) You have to let your yard actually dry out before you water again or you end up with most like swamp conditions, but WORSE, watering too much will compact your soil (like in my yard), which gives the plants less oxygen, which means they don't grow as well. Drying them out actually opens up the soil and allows oxygen to get in, helping them to grow better.
2. SNAILS: put out small dishes of vinegar and beer :) That kills them and you don't have to buy snail bait all the time.
p.s. and for those of you with children like mine who like to drink out of the dog's dish so would think this was also one, HIDE them under bushes and things, that's where the snails are anyway. I put out a few of these a couple days ago and three of the four have done nothing, but the one I put under this bush: dead snails all around. It's FANTASTIC. :)
3. FRUIT TREES: Citrus trees are the best for this area. "Hard core" fruits like Pear, Apples, Peaches, etc, don't really do very well here because it never gets cold enough to kill diseases so you have to do all kinds of maintenance on them to keep them healthy and in the end, it'd be cheaper to just buy them at the store anyway and save yourself the hassle of having to chop down your trees because they contract Fire Blight. So get Orange, Lemon, Lime, Grapefruit trees all your want and there are different ones that go at different times, so if you plan it right, you can get fruit all year round.
4. Spray your yard with Peroxide and Lemon Dish Soap once a month to kill bugs.
Seems like a good idea, but I tried this and a week later all my plants got DEVOURED by ants and snails so I'm not sure that it really helped, or maybe it did and it would have been worse, who knows?
5. Your Trees Need Oxygen: to keep your trees healthy you need to put oxygen tubes around the bed of the tree. This helps them get oxygen and grow better. When you do this, you can also put in these vitamin packs he has and this is fertilizer for 5 years
Haven't done this yet but it's a way good idea, you should see pictures of trees he's done this to, they looked like they should be chopped down and he did his little oxygen tube/fertilizer pack trick and a week later they are healthy and green, It's crazy.
