Green Part 9: Growing some food, and the start of rainwater management

We have managed to keep alive a few fruit trees that were present when we bought the house, and have now added a number of new fruiting trees and vines What was here originally:

• Apple tree - it seems to produce two sets of apples a year, one very early and one at the more standard time. Both are quite tasty eating apples.

• Fig tree - this was severly damaged by a 'gardener' when they cleared the back yard, but we are starting to get it back into shape. The squirrels are very good at knowing exactly when the figs are ripe, though

• Native yellow plum bush that is outside our kitchen window on the north side of the house. After 2 years we finally realized what it was, as it was so unhappy initially that is was not producing fruit. We have now pruned it into a tree, and it is starting to produce more fruit each year

Kiwi fruit vine, with our first flowers

We have added:

• Two pluot trees. One is producing, the other was hit hard by the deer the first year, and is now battling the curly leaf aphid. I hope to be more on top of it next year to give it more of a chance.

• Kiwi vines (two female, one male), which have shown flowers in year 3.

• Passion fruit vine, which is prodigious

• Persimmon tree

• Pomogranate bush

• Seville orange tree (in a half barrel because we could not decide on a final location)

• Blueberry bushes (only 2 of the 4 survived a move from a closing blueberry farm in Petaluma)

We are still hoping to add an olive tree, and a lemon or lime tree

We also have installed a raised vegetable bed, made from leftover metal roofing material

Rainwater management:

Rainstorms seem to be intensifying, producing significantly more rain in a much shorter amount of time. This can highlight any deficiencies in the gutters and downspouts in a home! In our case, we had chosen to use rain chains instead of downspouts (which are much cheaper and fun to watch when it rains), but it does mean we need to plan more carefully on how to handle the water they deposit at the foot of the foundation.

Our property slopes from front to back (east to west) and also from the north side to the south side. The home to the south has a cemented garden in the back that is about 1' lower than our property. I have been told by building inspectors to be very careful not to let any water runoff end up in our neighbor's yard, which is a bit challenging. One option is to pump the water back up to the street. However, we have decided to start exploring ways to enable the water to remain on our property and infiltrate the ground. Swales are a good way of doing this, and we are in the very early stages of hardscaping our first (small) swale.

See also Green Part 10: A deck, free from pressure-treated wood.