Category: Education

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Burbank Backyard Food Growers – 1st Annual Seed Exchange

I’m part of a solid group of backyard growers that occasionally come together to exchange excess backyard produce. After following some successful gardeners on Instagram, I got the idea to do our own local seed exchange. Not only would this be a great way to connect, but our seeds would be successful since the meeting and exchange would be really local.

We coordinated online, check out the group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1216601628460596/

A lot of people tend to collect a lot of seeds, and truly it’s nice to have a surplus, however, some seeds lose their ability to germinate as well as time goes on. Seed exchanges are good for sharing what you have excess of, and acquiring new seeds you may not have known about.

I was also able to learn a lot about what grows in our zone 10 in Burbank. Lot’s of experienced growers came out, and I was even able to gather some Yuzu seeds from a guest.

The other upside is that we’re trying to reduce our use of disposable and plastic goods. We were able to upcycle some of the pharmacy bottles and plastic containers from the dispensary into seed containers.

Check out some pictures of our rainy day exchange

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Mandarin Harvest

Finally my mandarins are here! Rejoice! Why am I so happy? First, these are so easy to peel and the fruit is just so sweet. My variety has seeds and so I tend to be careful when giving them to kids, but the seeds are small and sometimes soft, so I don’t worry too much.

Last year my harvest was appalling, there was enough fruit for the squirrels and maybe a remnant for me. This year, I vowed to take a more active interest in my trees – meaning, increase the amount of time I spent caring for them. Refer to my guava post.

My mandarin tree is located on the east side of our property and there is a little too much shade on the south side/east side corner. I cut down some problematic bamboo trees (more on this later) and am still working to cut through the root system of the bamboo for two reasons: 1. provide shade 2. provide space for the mandarin roots to grow. The sun did wonders for the mandarin, and I increased the water ritual, now I do a deep watering once every 2 months on a low trickle, ensuring that the slow trickle gets to the deep root system instead of running off.

I also identified this tree as a mandarin and have been going back and forth regarding the tangerine/mandarin naming convention – find out more about this lovely citrus tree by clicking here and reading this pdf from the yuma county coop extension.

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Loofah Sponges and Waste Reduction

I visited my friend, Farmer Rishi at his farm to pick up a mango tree and came across the most beautiful hanging squash. It’s great to go to someone’s home and see their kitchen, their garden, but seeing someone’s farm just gives me next level envy. I asked him what these plants were and he said Loofah gourds. I remembered living in Mexico and this was the standard for exfoliating, for scrubbing counters and for cleaning dishes. And I’m really looking forward to trying it out.

There is so much talk about microfiber cloths and plastic components either ending up in our waterways or ending up in our landfill without the ability to breakdown. I was going to wait to grow it this upcoming year, and hope for the best – still planning on that but I came across some loofah sponges at El Mercadito in East Los. I bought a nice size sponge for $4.00. Yes, it was a trek and a half to get there, and it’s ridiculously crowded at the moment, pre-Christmas,  but I really do think I got more than a bargain, since I can probably make upwards of 1 dozen sponges from this baby. 

Loofah
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Mandarins and Getting Citrus Going

We bought a house in Burbank last year, a small suburb outside of Los Angeles. The house itself needs so much work but the backyard had established trees, which is a dream. 

We had a lot of oranges that came, and they were juicy and wonderful and we had a handful of mandarins. These were so delicious but we didn’t get a lot. Part of the problem was the critter to harvest ratio – too many animals feeding on too few fruit. So I tried a little harder the following season, more water, more fertilizer and the leaves seemed to be doing well however, I didn’t see substantial growth. 

What I noticed was that the mandarin was planted along the East facing wall, and the south facing hedges had grown too tall, blocking out substantial sun. I trimmed these back, the bamboo and whatever other trees are planted next to them. This helped get some light and I started seeing change after 3 or so months. I’m going to keep attempting to see this process through and go from there.