October travels and what's next (10/24/2022)

While I have been (or will be) teaching three different weeks this month, I only had one overnight trip. One trip was to Hampton, approximately 20 minutes from my home, and I am going to Richmond this week. Richmond is my home office, and although it is an hour and twenty minutes’ drive, I am not allowed to stay overnight, at least not on the boss. However last week I spent some time in Portsmouth, which is technically closer to home, but further away from the office.  Moreover, the traffic here in the Hampton Roads could make the commute 2 hours although it ordinarily may take only 35 or 40 minutes.  Hence, the need to stay overnight at that side of the tunnel. 

The Portsmouth class was not scheduled. We had some turnover at work, and I needed to pinch hit as you might call it. So, I spent 3 days helping to teach Erosion and Sediment Control Plan Review, a course I used to teach a lot, seven or more years ago. Naturally at the end of the day I need to come down and try some of the microbreweries on the path to my hotel, the Hilton in Suffolk. Both breweries were new to me.

On the first day I tried the MoMac brewing company. The beer is decent and the guy behind the bar was talkative which was great. I really enjoyed their Schwartz Beer. Their IPAs tastes good. All fine. It was here that I received the word that the assistant brewer from MoMac will becoming the brew master at one of my favorite microbreweries in my area: Capstan.

The second day was at Harbor Trail Brewing Company, not far from MoMac. Harbor Trail seems to be a very young establishment (3 months old), but boy, I love their black IPA and their regular IPA was good too. The girlfriend of the soon to-be new Capstan brew master was behind the bar, and he popped in as well, so I had a great time. Having to drive to the motel after teaching a full day, I don’t dare to drink much more than one beer and a small taster of the other.

This post serves a quick update on two breweries and my travels this month, so no literary masterpiece again. I have three more trips planned for November and December. Next month it will be Winchester and in December I will be going to Virginia Beach and back to Lynchburg. That will do it for the year. I am looking forward to Winchester. I have not been there since before COVID and I love strolling downtown and eating at some of the restaurants. Pre-COVID (four or so years ago) there wasn’t really a nice microbrewery with a good atmosphere in town (or at least I don't remember them). I remember two pizza joints with their own beer, but hopefully they have gone up in the world. I will report out.  Weather permitting, I tend to stop for a walk/hike either at Sky Meadows State Park or the State Arboretum, on the way out there.  I really love those two places.

At least there will be plenty to report about the other two towns. So, stay tuned my friends, the quest for the perfect microbrew, restaurants and just travel will continue.

The Schwarz Beer at MoMac was really tasty.  The had two IPAs that they would like you to compare.  Skeeter Juice and one for the Aussie name of mosquitos (Mozzie Juice).  Interestingly for me, I could only taste the Mozzie Juice which is made with Australian Hops on the tip of my tongue and no where else in my mouth.  I never had that with any other food or beverage.  A strange experience.

A view from the bar at Harbor Trail Brewing.  I really like this place.  Google maps had a difficult time putting me here since it is on a corner of an intersection.  Again some good beer here!

Greenhouse Construction (10/21/2022)

As promised, time to report on my greenhouse construction effort. Sorry, this is not going to be my best prose, but more a chronology of my construction effort. I ordered the 6x8 feet kit about a month and a half ago through Amazon from Veikous. I finally decided that most of the hurricane season was over and that we had a good chance that we might get spared this year. It really felt like it should be our time, after 19 years. As they say, there is still hope. Please not.

I had ordered a greenhouse kit before; it was a closeout deal from Walmart they said on an add on Facebook; sixty dollars. I paid using PayPal in June, and it never arrived. I still need to see how I can get my money back (update I just did get my $59.99 back).

A few weeks ago, I started putting the bottom frame together in order to figure out what the footprint of the contraption was, and where we wanted it. The next point was leveling it and making sure it was somewhat anchored. Previous videos and reports recommended not placing it on pressure treated beams (something about galvanic action); moreover, the aluminum beams are completely closed and there is no way of attaching them to the beams. I eventually decided on Camo blocks. While this might look strange; however, I think in hindsight it was a good decision; I was able to feed an extension cord through these footers for the heater.

Once located and leveled, I killed all the weeds growing in the footprint with my flamethrower. I lined the inside with weed blocker and filled it with approximately 2 inches of crush and run, basically waste material from the granite gravel industry. Then it rained. This is probably the reason why the humidity in the greenhouse at night is 99%.

Finally, two and a half weeks ago, my friend Mustafa (aka Kadri) and I got together to put the greenhouse together. The day before I had put all the parts out and sorted them. On the day I started at 9:30, my bud arrived around 11 and we were done around 5 that evening. The only thing that remained were the gutters and the anchoring cables. Once that was done, I could put in a table and move the plants in.

Tables or table was the question, and then what material? I decided to construct them from cinder blocks. For one it was cheaper (I found them on Facebook Marketplace for $1), and I was hoping they would absorb and retain heat. It took me two trips with my car and trailer to get the blocks and I spend the next day putting it together. I decided on only one table on one side and leave the other side open for taller plants. Once I had the table set up, I covered the ground with pea gravel to make it look more presentable. I did this after I covered the central area with tiles to make access easier. I bought a remote recording min-max thermometer, so I could see what the temperature was in the greenhouse. This was important to me because I want to house my tropical bonsai in it. The greenhouse without plants, with the bench was consistently 3 degrees warmer at night, although it got up to 90 degrees during the day. But please note that the facility gets approximately 3 hours full sun, that is it. Now with plants the temperature differential is approximately 4 to 6 degrees by sunrise (a full night of cooling down). This is good, since the temperatures have already dropped to 36 degrees Fahrenheit or 2.2 degrees C.

I spent the next two days moving plants in and taking the gutters off to be able to caulk the seams under the gutters with silicone caulk. Herein comes one complaint about the greenhouse kit. The groves to slide the panels in as very shallow and could pop out fairly easy with a strong wind. Silicone caulk does a great job; however, nowhere in the instructions do they call for it or recommend it. Except online they mention on the order form that anchors and silicone caulk are not included (hint, hint?). You get the idea; I had figured out the anchors already and read about the silicone as well. It rained after the construction was completed and rainwater got in the honeycomb structure of the panels. This could have been avoided if I had sealed it with silicone if I had known about it. I really hope this will not become an issue when we get frost. One final minor issue was that the instructions for the window installation were incorrect, but that was easily detected and solved.

Overall, I am happy with the greenhouse. It looks good and hopefully it will serve its purpose. Now I need to redesign what we are calling our “Bonsai Zone.” I know, this is not very original. One of my favorite bonsai YouTube gurus Nigel Saunders calls his garden and show “the Bonsai Zone” and since I watch his show almost daily and my wife listens to it, she coined my small area the Bonsai Zone as well, and it stuck. Oh well, the Virginia Bonsai Zone.

Below are some pictures of the construction process and the result. I will keep you updated on the progress of the greenhouse, my plants and the redesign of the “Zone.”

P.S. I want to thank Nigel and Connor for some advise prior to the construction of my greenhouse.  Thanks guys for the encouragement and advise.

Fall is in the air (10/9/2022)

Fall is in the air here in Yorktown. The weather has been unseasonably cold. The past two days we have recorded the coldest high temperatures ever (54 degrees Fahrenheit or 12 degrees Celsius). We first had the affect from hurricane Ian and then it seems Ian may have combined with a cold front and turned into a Nor’easter to give us two days of cold drizzly weather.

This has me somewhat worried about my tropical plants on the benches outside. So much so that I pulled my Fukien Tea inside for the past few days. It is my understanding at least that they do not do well in temperatures below 60 degrees. I really need to finish constructing the greenhouse. I completed that this weekend, except for benches and some finishing touches. More about that in my next post.

In the meantime, what else is there to do but somehow enjoy this cold weather and spend time outside in the woods behind our home. It is cold enough to really knock down the tick, mosquito and in particular the chigger population. If you are not from the southeastern and the lower mid-western U.S.A., you might be unfamiliar with chigger, but they are almost microscopic mites (spiders) that crawls up your legs and loves to lay eggs in your skin in areas where the skin is restricted by clothing. This includes the elastic bands of underwear, socks and alike. Bites where the eggs are deposited itch for days if not weeks. Chiggers seem to go dormant when the night-time temperatures go under 55 or even 60. This is usually by mid to late October in our area, so we go to go out in the woods and forest bathe at least two weeks earlier than other years. I expect they will be gone till next summer. Of course, we could spray ourselves with all kinds of insect repellents, but honestly, I try to stay away from that stuff if I can help it.

I find it nice to reacquaint myself with the woods I have avoided since spring. I have missed it. The ephemeral ponds are dry now; we had an extremely dry year, and they are waiting for a good rain to raise the groundwater level and fill up. At least I had a chance to walk into the middle of a dry pond to admire a resurrection fern which would be unreachable when the pond is full. Tree leaves haven’t started turning yet so everything looks green. We had a little rain, and a few mushrooms are raising their heads and so are a few Indian pipes. Indian pipes are parasitic, like mistletoes but on the roots of trees. So much fun exploring again. For the rest little has changed. It is just good to be out there to pick up the sounds and smells of the woods.

Fall is in the air, and it is nice to be able to enjoy it again.

Resurrection fern growing on an oak tree (most likely an overcup oak) in one of the ponds behind our home.  This fern is known to be an epiphyte or a plant that grows on another plant. 

Another epiphyte, Indian pipe or better a parasite.  This one has no chlorophyl and lives on the roots of trees.

Stormwater, soil and bonsai, Part 2 of 2 (9/22/2022)

As I mentioned in the previous post, soil is one of the most important factors in plant establishment. I tell my students that crappy soil means a crappy vegetation or plant establishment. I even quote President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who famously said: “A nation that destroys its soil, destroys itself.”

Roosevelt said this during a meeting of the governors association in 1937 when he announced the establishment of the Soil Conservation Service. It was a reaction to the dustbowl and catastrophic flooding that had occurred in the past few years. Roosevelt and his scientists instinctively knew that if we lost all our topsoil, we would lose all our fertile land in the prairie states, our bread basket, and the great depression would return and continue forever. Moreover, it is something we encounter in some of the lesser developed countries when we try to explain the famine they experience. Their soils are screwed up by years of mismanagement. That mismanagement is often caused by the lack of knowledge.

Enough! This lack of knowledge is also the blame for what happens on construction sites and what beginners do with the first bonsais they buy from the big box stores. Yes, me saying this, makes me think I desperately need to re-pot that Fukien Tea that I saved from the sales rack at Lowes last year. I never re-potted it, but it has survived one year and it seems to like what I did to it. Note to self, Fukien Teas or Carmona are notoriously finicky.

Back to construction sites for one more paragraph. All that equipment and material on the site causes the compaction of the soil. And growing roots need to penetrate, push through that compacted soil. There is a point where they give up, they can simply not do it! Neither can water infiltrate that soil. This becomes a problem especially in areas that are designated as infiltration areas. We can bring in all the topsoil or specialized soil mixes, but if the subsoil is so compacted plant establishment is in trouble. Some soil preparation such as ripping or plowing may help. However, that costs money and if you are a builder and in it for profit, you could just cover it with a thin layer of top soil, hide the problem and walk away from the project. The new owners will find out a few years from now when the plants start failing.

Mass commercial bonsai growers in China do the same thing. They have pots with small drainage holes that don’t drain vary fast, they use crappy soil that don’t drain very well and they just plop a plant in those pots. They produce thousands at a time. The problem is folk buy them and do not know how to take care of them. Take my Fukien Tea for one. It was dying on the sales rack when I bought it. These plants do not like night time temps under 60 degrees. They do not like the soil wet. The soil in my pot was terrible.

The first thing many folk will do, is prune. They would want to make it look like a classical bonsai. Problem 1, the plant loses more leave, less evaporation, needs even less water. Some will want to transplant it. This puts more stress on the plant and it dies. Others don’t do anything to the plant but think they need to water it often (Problem 2). The soil stays wet all the time and in the heat of the summer wet soil with little air means rot, no oxygen in the root zone, mold growth and there goes the plant! But I watered it every day! Exactly! Problem 3 is that the weak tree weakens even more. You get the picture?

I water a lot of my trees every day too. But I have a very course free draining soil. When I do not have free draining soil I do something else. The first thing I did with my Fukien Tea was cover the soil with a layer of diatomaceous grit that I use in the soil mix that I make. It turns dark grey when the soil is wet and white when it is dry and it is therefore a great indicator when that lousy soil that the Chinese gave me needs water. I covered the soil of another little tree that I bought for $14 at Ikea with akadama which turns pale yellow when dry and is dark yellow when wet. Giving me the same principle. Akadama is a specialty clay from Japan that does not break down.

So what should you do when you are an aspiring bonsai grower? Here I am not talking to the experts, we all have our own favorite mix. My YouTube friend Nigel Saunders has a mix of 50% floor dry and 50% perlite with some fine pine bark mixed in it. He has been using it with success for the past 7+ years, I think (go look at his YouTube channel The Bonsai Zone). I mix 40% diatomaceous grit (that I get at NAPA auto parts), 40% perlite and 20% commercial Cactus mix. I use the cactus mix because I travel a lot for work and need to depend on others to water. The cactus mix adds enough organic matter to hold water for a longer time. When I grow conifers, I add some akadama to the mix (20% or so). Akadama makes the soil acid and the story is that it helps with the development of finer roots. Others use pumice in their mix or lava rock. As you can see these are mostly what are called soilless mixes. The objective is that they drain quickly. You can make them yourself, but you can also buy ready-made mixes from commercial bonsai stores online or maybe even in your community.

Hope this was fun and informative. Shoot me a message/email if you have any questions or comments. I love to write more about soil and bonsai, thus staying away from politics and all that other stuff. On another note, I bought a greenhouse kit, so stay tuned. Maybe soon a post on the construction and use.

The Fukien Tea to the right and my ginseng fichus to to the left, with an edelweiss stuck in the middle.  Both trees need to be worked.  I am still surprised that the edelweiss survived it so far.  It was a gift from a friend who grew it for her kids.  I need to pot it down and try to grow it as an accent plant.  In the big planter to the right I am growing some red maples seed from a tree that is at least 100 years old, some crabapples, bald cypresses and a few zelkova seedlings.  They all have to be transplanted next spring.

Stormwater, soil, and bonsai, part 1 of 2 (9/19/2022)

The past week I was traveling again to train the folks in the state of Virginia. This time my travels were to Wytheville (look in the labels section), a town I have done some extensive writing about in my blog, and I might do some more in the future. However, that is not the subject I would like to tackle today as you can probably surmise from the title of this article. Now at the beginning of writing this article, I expect that I will break it into at least two parts, so this will be part 1.

What do you do after class?  You stop at your favorite microbrewery in town.  As I mentioned in a previous post Wytheville has two, and during my previous visit this was my favorite, and it remains in the top spot!

Most of you know that I teach subjects related to stormwater management and erosion and sediment control. One important item that factors in this, of course, is soil. For one, during construction soil is laid bare and becomes very erodible. Streams and creeks downstream from a construction site receive a lot of sediment from that site. On top of this, once construction is complete, we need to grow plants, a lawn or whatever. Here again, soil plays the star role. As I tell my students, a crappy soil gives you shitty results, while a good soil will give you great plant establishment. In other words, “you are what you eat” also applies to the vegetation we are trying to establish.

The current paradigm in stormwater is that we want to infiltrate as much of the stormwater that is being generated on a site as possible. We call this runoff reduction, or also low impact development or LID. The philosophy behind this is that all the roads, roofs, parking lots, sidewalks and alike, create more runoff than a virgin site, because they do not allow water to infiltrate. This has lowered the already declining groundwater table and is drying up of springs and the hydrology of streams and rivers. Of course, this was also partially caused by all the pumping of groundwater that our increased population pressure is doing. As a result, streams are becoming flashier and more polluted. Over the years, I have written about this; just look under the “Labels” column and click on stormwater. Now, runoff reduction and LID would help recharge the groundwater. In addition, it would allow some of the pollutants or contaminants to enter the soil and be broken down and cleaned up.

Well, this past week in Wytheville, I taught two soils courses, it got me thinking, and inspired to write this post. I work daily with soil as a bonsai enthusiast, I have realized that bad soil choices are probably why probably so many of the trees of the beginners die. I plan to reserve that for part two for my discussion.

I taught three continuing education courses in Wytheville. My Soils Concepts class is a full day course that goes from 8:30 to around 3:30/3:45 with an hour lunch. The next day I taught a Soil Amendment class from 8:30 to 12 and a Photography for Inspectors class from 1 to 3:45. Now, if you are going to ask me if I am a photographer, the answer would be no. However, I do have some formal training in photography and worked as a photographer for a bit. Some 45/46 years ago I did some work as a wedding photographer and a semi-professional photographer in the Army. But that is water under the bridge.

How about my soils background? How can I sell that? Well, I have an Agricultural Engineering degree, with some emphasis on soil science. I did an internship on soil fertility, and then in Yemen we did a soil survey and a soil hydrology study. During my MS study I studied a lot about soil/plant water relationships, while during my Ph.D. studies, I renewed my studies in Soil Morphology and Soil Identification. So, while my degree does not tell me that I am a soil scientist, I can fake it with the best. It is nice to be multifarious, especially when you are teaching. Although my mother always accused me to be a master of nothing (see also <here>)!

In my soils class I give my students some of the basics of soil, from an agronomic perspective, after which I go into how to handle soil on a construction site and how that soil handling impacts the soil. The afternoon is spent on talking about soil hydrology and on how engineers look at soils. Engineers have a very different way of looking at them versus the folks that grow plants and food on them. I tell my students engineers see soil as something to:

• Build on
• Build with
• Build in
• Support our buildings

While agronomists have words such as Alfasols, Histosols, Inceptisols, and Vertisols, just to name a few the engineers use the Unified Soil Classification System. Engineers may describe a soil as an organic silts and organic silty clays of low plasticity.

While this post is not an area to rehash what I tell my folks in class, I really try to push the idea that soil is one of our most important resources when it comes to plant establishment and infiltration of stormwater after construction (or what we call land disturbance). Often what happens is the compaction of soil, which does not allow for the penetration of roots and the infiltration of water. The topsoil is often removed and not replaced, making it even more difficult for plant to become established, and bare soil means erosion and less infiltration. Taking care of the soil is one of the most important things you can do as someone who is into construction, or as a homeowner. This is even becoming more and more important in these times of climate change.

Well folks, this is usually the length of my posts. In the next post I will try to elaborate and bring this around to growing bonsai. See you soon!

Another thing that my regular readers should know is, that a trip the Wytheville is always accompanied by a walk on the New River Trail.  The fall flowers were already in full display.