Monday, February 24, 2020

Liz Writes Life 2-26-2020


Feb. 26, 2020

Liz Writes Life

Ray Haupt, Siskiyou Co. Supervisor for Dist. 5, and Erin Ryan, representative for CA. Dist. 1 Congressman Doug LaMalfa, will be the speakers for the Scott Valley Protect Our Water meeting this Thursday, Feb. 26, 2019 at the Fort Jones Community Center. Time is 7 p.m.

Ray continues to attend meetings on the forestry dilemma and will share progress being made at agency levels. Erin will report on the congressman’s activities, including events from Washington D.C. She should have some fun stories!

Last week, LaMalfa praised President Trump and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt after they visited California and signed a Record of Decision formalizing biological opinions that will reduce the wasted water flushed to San Francisco Bay. This support for the protection of Northern California Water Rights will also provide more water for wildlife refuges and California famers’ irrigation systems.

LaMalfa said: “For too long California water has been utterly wasted by sending vast quantities of it out to the ocean for no environmental benefit or for human use.” He explained that the previous policy has been a failure and harmed families, farms, workers and California’s economy.

Garden

Earlier this month, I was talking with a friend from Medford about gardening and she told me that she did straw bale gardening, last summer. I had never heard of it and asked her to explain it and then I went and looked it up on the internet. A man, Joel Karsten, wrote a book on straw bale gardening and it has blossomed.  Simply put, this is a different type of container gardening with the bale being the container. You can also think of it as easy-raised-bed gardening. Folks with poor soil or little room praise this system.

Like most gardening, you need to plan how, why and where you will put your bales. I think my friend and her husband put them end to end. Some people put them in a square. Set the bale on its side with the cut-ends sticking up and the strings around the outside. Because straw has very little nitrogen, the next step is to “condition” the bale at least two weeks before you will plant. This means watering it thoroughly and adding quite a bit of granulated fertilizer every day or so to start to breakdown the interior part of the bale into a compost mulch. Apparently, this creates an “extraordinary” root environment.

It takes quite a bit of nitrogen-type of fertilizer – about three cups every other day with the watering for a week – and then a reduced amount for several days. Look it up on the internet for an exact amount. Within a few days of watering, the inside of the bale should start to warm from the de-composting process. Put your hand into the bale to check. Roots also like warmth.

After two weeks, seeds or small plants can be planted in holes that you make with your trowel. One discussion that I read said to put an inch-layer of mulch on top of the bale before planting and water it well. Then, add another inch or two of a planting soil and water it well again.

Using straw bales is much preferred to hay bales, since hay can have so many other seeds in it. Funny-looking mushrooms may grow, but this just shows that the de-composting is occurring. Pull them out and only eat them if you know your mushrooms!

One thing the internet discussions mentioned is that the straw bales will continue to need daily irrigating and suggested using a drip system or soaker hose. It was also said to be sure to put up wire or some kind of trellises before the plants get very tall so they don’t fall over. Once again, pre-planning is the key.  

I was intrigued by this method. What innovative minds won’t come up with next!

But, a word of caution: With the warm temps we have had, it is easy to get excited about starting the garden. We have had frosts and temps down into the 20s this past week. Just remember that no matter how high the daytime temps reach, this spring, we will continue to get frosts through May. And, hopefully, we will have a good bout of rain and or snow in March or April. We need the moisture!

Election

I haven’t said much about the Primary General Election that will be held next Tuesday, March 3, 2020. Yep, this is three months earlier than our used-to-be June Primary. Many of you have likely voted, but for you leave-to-it-to-the-last-minute voters (like me) I wanted to mention that Prop 13 will likely raise our property taxes. I voted against it.

I know that our school facilities need help and I am not against our school districts receiving more funds. Unfortunately, like many propositions, this one will chip away at the previous property tax law, Prop 13, that protects our property taxes from increases.

This 2020 Prop. 13 is a $15 billion school facilities bond that has language buried deep within the measure allowing school districts to borrow more money from the state – almost double what they can currently borrow. One point I learned, from my research on Prop 13, is that the state already has a $7.8 billion in unsold, unused school facilities bond monies that have already been allocated for the construction, upgrades and retrofitting of California schools.

That is $7.8 billion! Just seems like that money should be utilized before chipping away at our property tax protections.

Liz Bowen began writing ranch and farm news, published in newspapers, in 1976. She is a native of Siskiyou County and lives near Callahan. Columns from the past year can be found at: lizwriteslife.blogspot.com. Call her at 530-467-3515.

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