Ulla Bisgaard

We finally got rain. We have prayed for rain this last months. We are in Southern California southeast of San Diego. These last weeks has been hard. We were constantly on fire watch, and the air quality has been very bad. Today we finally got rain, and we should get more over the next 2-3 days.
Rain for me also means, that it’s time to direct seed annual herbs, vegetables and flowers in the forest garden. Eventually I won’t have to do this, but the forest garden isn’t mature enough to self seed all of it, plus I had some flowers from last year, I didn’t like.
I planted nasturtium on the small hill, where we also grow roses, sunflowers, bulb flowers and annual vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower. It’s still too early to seed my sunflowers, but the rest went in. I like being able to forage in the forest garden, so I mix up a lot of seeds to spread out. To name a few, that I planted, there are calendula, 4 types of mint including mountain mint and wild mint, the veggie mix is a mix of rutabaga, radishes, early broccoli and turnips. Plus I spread out a lot of amaranth seeds, because they are pretty and the birds love them.
I also planted and/or seeded rams aka wild leeks/onions, regular onions, welsh onions, cherry & small grape tomatoes and skirrets, which is a type of carrot. This garden also gifted me with 3 strawberries and 4 raspberries.
If the raised bed garden, we are drowning in collards and other greens, so this week I am going to juice a lot of them, together with turmeric and ginger. This will then be the base of my daily vitamin drink. Our Chinese cabbages are ready for harvest, and our peppers are still producing, so it’s the perfect time to make kimchi, except the diacon still isn’t large enough to harvest. Our lettuce, kale, green and red cabbages are doing great too. My root vegetables are coming along nicely, and it’s time to thin out my diacon radishes, and my regular radishes.
My yoga and meditation deck are finally done, but I will have to wait until the rain lets up, before I can start using it again. Indoors, the basil are taking over so we are going to make a mega batch of pesto, to clear up more room. I need the space, so I can start our warm season (April to June). If I start them too late, my plants will have trouble as the hot season (July to October).
Lots of new things are happening. We have an arborist coming in March to remove the trees we lost this year, plus two that’s just not working out. New additions are artichokes, pineapple, cashew, exotic cherry, coffee, peppercorns, cardamom, and a few other things. I am still considering tea plants, so we will see how things goes.
I am building 2 tipis, to act as frost protection during the cold season, and hot dry weather protection during the hot season. I am using adjustable tent poles, and will then use black landscape fabric for frost protection and shade cloths for that.
I hope it works, since I am very frustrated about not getting any bananas, because the flower is sensitive to even light frost. It should also help my coffee trees, since they like a higher humidity than we have right now. If it works for the coffee, I am going to try planting tea again.
Unfortunately we also lost our two passion fruits, so once we have a trellis up, I am getting new ones. I also want a coconut tree, but my husband has vetoed it, and he is right that we probably don’t have the room. Last thing, is that I got a wishing well for Christmas. I am looking forward to planting alpine strawberries in the large part and succulents in the bucket.
Now on to planning the warm and hot season raised bed crops, for the year.

We finally got rain. We have prayed for rain this last months. We are in Southern California southeast of San Diego. These last weeks has been hard. We were constantly on fire watch, and the air quality has been very bad. Today we finally got rain, and we should get more over the next 2-3 days.
Rain for me also means, that it’s time to direct seed annual herbs, vegetables and flowers in the forest garden. Eventually I won’t have to do this, but the forest garden isn’t mature enough to self seed all of it, plus I had some flowers from last year, I didn’t like.
I planted nasturtium on the small hill, where we also grow roses, sunflowers, bulb flowers and annual vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower. It’s still too early to seed my sunflowers, but the rest went in. I like being able to forage in the forest garden, so I mix up a lot of seeds to spread out. To name a few, that I planted, there are calendula, 4 types of mint including mountain mint and wild mint, the veggie mix is a mix of rutabaga, radishes, early broccoli and turnips. Plus I spread out a lot of amaranth seeds, because they are pretty and the birds love them.
I also planted and/or seeded rams aka wild leeks/onions, regular onions, welsh onions, cherry & small grape tomatoes and skirrets, which is a type of carrot. This garden also gifted me with 3 strawberries and 4 raspberries.
If the raised bed garden, we are drowning in collards and other greens, so this week I am going to juice a lot of them, together with turmeric and ginger. This will then be the base of my daily vitamin drink. Our Chinese cabbages are ready for harvest, and our peppers are still producing, so it’s the perfect time to make kimchi, except the diacon still isn’t large enough to harvest. Our lettuce, kale, green and red cabbages are doing great too. My root vegetables are coming along nicely, and it’s time to thin out my diacon radishes, and my regular radishes.
My yoga and meditation deck are finally done, but I will have to wait until the rain lets up, before I can start using it again. Indoors, the basil are taking over so we are going to make a mega batch of pesto, to clear up more room. I need the space, so I can start our warm season (April to June). If I start them too late, my plants will have trouble as the hot season (July to October).
Lots of new things are happening. We have an arborist coming in March to remove the trees we lost this year, plus two that’s just not working out. New additions are artichokes, pineapple, cashew, exotic cherry, coffee, peppercorns, cardamom, and a few other things. I am still considering tea plants, so we will see how things goes.
I am building 2 tipis, to act as frost protection during the cold season, and hot dry weather protection during the hot season. I am using adjustable tent poles, and will then use black landscape fabric for frost protection and shade cloths for that.
I hope it works, since I am very frustrated about not getting any bananas, because the flower is sensitive to even light frost. It should also help my coffee trees, since they like a higher humidity than we have right now. If it works for the coffee, I am going to try planting tea again.
Unfortunately we also lost our two passion fruits, so once we have a trellis up, I am getting new ones. I also want a coconut tree, but my husband has vetoed it, and he is right that we probably don’t have the room. Last thing, is that I got a wishing well for Christmas. I am looking forward to planting alpine strawberries in the large part and succulents in the bucket.

I used a program called garden planner 2, to plan my two gardens. I am a visual learner and planner. It’s just how my brain works. I am also very bad at spatial awareness. I can literally get lost in my bedroom, without light.
By using the program after measuring out the dimensions of my two gardens, it was so much easier to figure out what and how much I have room for. The program also lets me see it in 3d and I can print a list of plants and of course the garden plan. All trees and shrubs has pre programmed sizes, which prevents me from long term over crowding the forest garden.
I can add plants to the beds in my raised bed garden, which helps me determine how many plants I have room for in each bed.
So, I think it depends on how your brain works. My son would not need it, since he has an exceptional, spatial awareness, but I do.
It’s also a memory tool for me. I often forget what I plant and or where I have planted it. This leads to confusion and frustration, but the problem is solved with the program.
So, all in all it’s a good tool for those who needs it.

I would stick to syrups. For most things, it’s easy to substitute a dry sugar for a syrup. That’s my plan for my sugar beets and sorghum. I will filter it first and then cook it down to a syrup.
If I want a dry sugar, I think making rock sugar will be the easiest method to use. It takes time, but it’s not hard to do. In my experience it’s actually harder to avoid LOL. The syrups I end up with, when I candy fruits, almost always ends up growing rock sugar.
Boiled sugar works are hard to do, since you have to keep a close eye on the temperature constantly. If too high, the sugar will burn, too low and you get goob. I don’t have the patience for that.
Making rock sugar is easy, you boil the liquid down to a syrup, sprinkle in a few sugar crystals, and then let it sit and grow. It takes time, but since it’s just sitting there, it’s not a problem. Then, the rock sugar can be broken up with a hammer. It’s also beautiful. There is something aesthetically beautiful looking at the crystals growing.
Here is a video about processing sugar canes, that I really like, since it shows several different ways to do it.

Kevin Olson wrote:

Ulla Bisgaard wrote:I guess I will have to ask my husband for help with figuring out what size to make, I am horrible at math.

Lonnie, from the "Far North Bushcraft and Survival" YT channel has several tipi or pyramid style tent construction videos.  These are actually hot tents (i.e. tents with a sheet metal stove inside), but the geometry might still work for your purposes.  You could use 6mil poly drop cloths, or the heavier weight Dura-Skrim or Visqueen with fiber reinforcement, or woven, bonded green house cover plastic.  Something UV-stabilized would probably be best, given your strong sunlight.!

Thank you for the input and videos, I will watch them.
I was thinking about using landscape fabric for the winter tent. It’s black, so it will absorb heat easily and it was send to me by mistake so also free. The plan is also to use a heavy layer of mulch to protect the roots. We don’t get very many chill hours in our area. So far this year, we have gotten less than 100 chill hours. Most years, we get between 200 and 250 chill hours, but for some reason we have 500 in 2023. I was very frustrated in 2023, since my banana trees had finally set a flower and started on bananas. Then we had really bad weather and the flower got frost damaged, and the tree died as they do once they have produced. I am hoping to prevent this from happening again.
For shade, the plan is to use white row cover fabric, since white will reflect the sunlight away. Both will also be able to raise the moisture in the air, which plants like coffee really like. If this is successful, I am going to give tea another go. So far I have only been successful with plants for herbal tea, since real tea aka Camellia Sinensis sensitive plants, that need a lot of pampering until stablished.

What I perfect “for me now” thread to find. One of my experiments this year, is sweeteners. I am not saying sugar, since I don’t think it’s necessary, for my needs, to cook it down that much.
I am growing sugar beets and yes skirrets, right now, and I am growing sugar cane sorghum this warm and hot season. My plan is to use my juicer to get the sugar out.
It will be fun seeing how this turns out for everyone

Clay McGowen wrote:I’m going to go with - yes!

This year we had one cold night with a string of warmer days predicted after. I wanted to give my garden another week so I tossed some blankets, towels, and tarps over my more frost sensitive plants.
As you can see below, this wasn’t perfect as the squash leaves which were touching the blanket died, but the main body of the plant was saved!

I also put a big jug of water under the blanket to also help buffer the temps.

I kept this going a few days later when a similar weather pattern rolled in.
Overall, I’d say I got at least a week longer growing season out of it.

I imagine a tipi purpose built for the task would have good results. Especially if you could find some extra mass to tuck inside as well.

Yeah, I tried towels, duvets and regular store bought frost protection, but the lack of light killed the plants. We only get light frost here, but it’s enough to damage the flowers on my banana trees, so we don’t get any bananas. We are also in the situation where we are getting fewer cold days, so I am adding tropical trees, shrubs and vines to the forest garden. Some of those plants need protection from temperatures below 40F. I keep them in groups, so a tipi can cover more than one plant. I also have plants that can’t handle temperatures past 105F, and tipis are easy to move, so during the hot season I could move it to the hot sensitive plants, and use a shade cloth instead of the frost cover. I found out last fall, that my elderberries really don’t like it, when it’s 120F. It dried out all of its berries within 48 hours, even though we used more irrigation. My plan is to prune them, down to a size where I can cover them, if we get that high temperatures again.
I guess I will have to ask my husband for help with figuring out what size to make, I am horrible at math.
Thank you for your input.

Chris McClellan wrote:Ulla,
Uncle Mud here. Samantha is very kind. If you are interested, there are single burner rocket stove designs intended for anyone to be able to build mostly from mud and trash. Here's a link to one of my designs. https://permies.com/t/106214/Uncle-Mud-EZ-Cob-Rocket

A rocket oven is a much bigger beast. I've rebuilt/upgraded the round one at Paul's a few times and collaborated with Rodney on the design of the earthen rocket stove there. I'm about half way through the new rocket oven for Paul's. Given the proper tools a handy person could probably build something rough and functional for about $1000 in parts, much less if they were a great scrounger. It would take them 7-10 days, less if they have specific metal working and/or mud building skills and understood rocket stoves. Having one built for you that looked nice and performed well could easily run $3k to $6k. This is a particularly fantastic one my friend built. Two burners that can be switched out fro griddles and an oven.  If you're serious I will actually be out your way this summer. Drop me a message.

Thank you so much, that’s a generous offer. I will let my husband know. I don’t know if we will be able to. A combination of a storm, extreme heat, followed by extreme lows, has killed several trees and shrubs. We have to take care of that first. Dead wood is dangerous in our area. The storm also destroyed a large trellis and collapsed the chicken coop. I thank god that non of our chickens was hurt. Due to the wildlife risk, the coop is a priority. We live next to crest national park, so we get a bunch of different predators.
I will send you a purple message if he thinks that we can fit it in.

My family and I live in a desert climate, grow zone 10b. While I love being able to grow food all year round, It brings some very unique problems due to temperature fluctuations. Some times during the year the temperature fluctuates up to 50 degrees from day to night. We also get very little rain, but that changes year by year. This year has been especially bad, so I lost an avocado tree, an ornamental cold hardy banana tree, both of my passion fruits, and one of my orange trees. The reason was that we got Santa Anna winds with temperatures in the 80’s for a week, and then the night temperatures dropped to 32F at night.
This had me thinking that I should be able to create something that’s easy to setup for protection at night and open up during the day, so my plants will get some sunlight. I have  tried commercial frost covers, but since my plants don’t go dormant, using them means that they don’t get any or very little light, and tropical plants need light all year round.
Once a plant has matured and settled in, it’s usually not a big problem, but young plants need careful cultivation to survive here.
I have been thinking about it for a while, and tried several solutions that didn’t work.
Then it hit me, how about a tipi design? I am thinking about a thick cover for frost protection, that I can change out with a shade cloth if necessary.
I am thinking one, where I can open up part of it, during the day time, to let in air and sun, and then close it up again in the evening.
I have plenty of fabric, and I can probably find a pattern for it too, but I want to ask you all, if you think this is a good idea, and if there are things I should add to it. Any design experience would be welcome too. It needs to be portable, so I can take it down, once the warm season starts. I don’t want to spend time making it, just to have it fail.
It’s important for me to find a solution. Every few year we loose fruit and/or trees due to extreme conditions, and it costs of in both time, work and money.
I hope someone can help me with this problem. Also, this is a temporary problem. Once my tall trees has grow high and wide enough, they should give plenty of sun protection during the warm and hot season. I hope they also will give some protection during the cold season, but if not I will continue to need frost protection for my most sensitive plants.

I think this is great, but I wish there were places where you could just order one installed. My husband and I do want one. Especially the stove and an oven, but non of us are very handy fixing and building things. Hence why it has been a year since a trellis broke, and it is still not fixed, and it has take my husband 2 months to far (he is not done) to build a chicken coop.
I really want an outdoor kitchen, but do not want to depends on propane gas as a solution, but there are no where you can buy even a regular rocket mass heather.