Here's some quick pictures from the last few weekends:

This is a Sierra Juniper that I brought to a recent BIB workshop. This tree was originally collected by and purchased from Ned of Deadwood Bonsai.

One of the more challenging aspects for this tree is the fact that the majority of the foliage is too far from the base of the tree and the design I envision.  I think it would look best as a short and powerful tree which leaves me with two option-either big heavy bends or grafting new foliage.  Much of the large branch on the left hand side will be removed.

I've heard varying opinions on whether you should graft foliage onto native Junipers or keep the foliage natural.  Currently I believe I stand somewhere in the middle of this debate.

Here are the Itowigawa 2-3 year old cuttings which we used for grafting.

I think it would be really cool to find examples of our natives juniper varieties with foliage that has good characteristics like being naturally smaller and tighter.  It would be great If we could find these trees which grew as chance seedlings and propagate them for grafting.  If my tree had coarse, large or weeping Sierra Juniper foliage, i'd love to replace it with smaller tighter Sierra Juniper foliage.  Hopefully this is something we will see as time goes on.

In total, Boon helped me place 8 grafts on the tree.  The Itowigawa foliage and roots are kept, until the two plants fuse then the roots will be removed.

I made a big batch of fertilizer cakes with the ingredients below. I used about 70% Whitney Farms and 30% cotton seed meal for the dry mixture.  Then 50/50 water and fish emulsion with a small amount of Cal Mag and sea kelp.

I still form the cakes with my hands, but would like to try using a melon ball scooper with  a ratchet arm. This time around I stopped making the holes in the top of the cakes.  I found that this was more time consuming and I did not see much difference in the cakes without a indentation at the top.

Next time, I might try covering the mixture with plastic wrap for a few days to allow the bacteria to grow, which strengthens the fertilizer and the smell.  Here's a picture of some of the first cakes I ever made after being covered for a couple weeks.  You can see them starting to turn white from stuff growing on them.  I let them dry in my garage, which I will not do again.  It smelled absolutely amazing;)

Lastly, a pic from a short trip collecting California Junipers on private land.  While in a lot of situations it would not work, we rode in style in this off road vehicle called a Rhino.  It was my first time taking something like this and felt much different than usual.  I think it felt like cheating, because my legs weren't even sore the next day.

For many, the benefits of watering with reverse osmosis or rain water may not be worth the time, energy or money it costs to set up.  However for others with really poor quality water like me, it could also be a very good idea for the health of your trees.

In a few months I will be returning my old Reverse Osmosis system to the original owner.  This person was very kind in letting me borrow his for the past year or so, but it's time to get my own.  Because of this I bought a new one and updated my watering set up.  I've posted the results below with a little write up about what I did in hopes that it may give you some ideas if you have poor water quality like me.   I'm now using a combo of collected rain water and reverse osmosis water for my trees.

Here's what my new overall set up looks like:

My new RO system is housed inside this small rubber made shed.  I drilled holes in the side of the container to put the lines through, so I can completely shut the door and keep the RO fully covered.  Both the RO system and the rain barrels empty into the trash can on the right.

The water is pumped out of the trash can using this electric submersible pump, through my hose and finally out of my watering wand.

After doing some research online and reading some good reviews, I decided to go with this Stealth RO 200 made by Hydro Logic.  The system costs about $220 on Amazon and is made by the same company who produced the old RO I was using called The Merlin.  This new system costs only a fraction of the price compared with the Merlin, but also only produces good water at the rate of about  20% compared with the Merlin. The Stealth also produces slightly better quality water, by filtering a greater amount of particles compared with The Merlin.   

Here's a picture which shows a comparison of the good(blue line) and bad water(black water) being produced from the new Stealth.  I have the black line connected to a much larger line running to my lawn in the front yard.

The Merlin RO produced about 1000 gallons per day and was considered a "Tankless" system.  The Merlin produced water fast enought so I could just turn the RO system on until the trash can was full.  This would usually take anywhere from 10 minutes to about 1.5 hours depending.  Because the Stealth is 80% slower, this time around I drilled a hole in the can so I could install this float pump.

Here's a pic of the RO water filling the can with the float pump installed.

Once the water level forces the white plastic piece to a set level, both the water from the blue and black lines shut off.  This makes things much more convenient, because now I don't have to worry about forgetting to turn the RO off or guessing when the can is full.   I'd highly recommend using a float pump if your going to use an RO system.  

In addition to the RO water filling the trash can, I set up these three 55 gallon food grade barrels to collect rain water.  I found them on Craigslist for $20/each from an olive oil farm.  If I could do it over, I'd suggest finding barrels with removable tops.  I ended up having to cut large holes in the tops to clean them out and insert the fittings. You'd be surprised at how much water comes off your roof and at how fast these guys fill up.  I got a bit more than what's shown from one short drizzle.

There are several ways you could link your barrels together.  Just Youtube rain barrel construction for other options.  Personally I used these fittings below which you should be able to find in the PVC section of any hardware store.  To help get a better seal, I used PVC cement around all the threads.  No leaks so far.

To drill the correct size holes, I used a bit like this.

I also used PVC cement on the insides of the fittings which the flexible PVC tube inserts into.

To add the facet head, I just drilled a hole using the bit shown above and threaded the head into the barrel adding PVC cement around the threads.

Here's a picture showing the pressure coming out of the first barrel.

I cut an old hose and connected the threaded side to the faucet tap and the other end through a hole in the trash can.

Here's what the inside of the can looks like when both the RO and Rain Barrels are filling my can.  The light gray hose shows the water pressure from the rain barrels.

To help filter the rain water, I used two-dollar store colanders, with two sheets of aluminum window screen in between them.  There are pre made screen filters you can buy, but this was a lot less expensive.  I also wanted something that was east to take apart and clean.

For now, i'm using trash can lids to cover the barrels. The colander filter is right below where the gutter drains into.  I also fitted another plastic pot with window screen and fitted it around the gutter opening.

I also plan to install an overflow line near the top of the last barrel and run the line to the lawn in my front yard.  But, that's about it for now-So there you have it, my new watering system.  Thanks for looking, really appriciate it!

Over the past couple months I have enjoyed my weekends consisting mostly of attending BIB workshops and working on my backyard.  Yesterday I had some extra time so I decided to make some Fertilizer Cakes.

Here's me making Fertilizer Cakes in my backyard. I have been leveling everything and just put down lots of landscaping fabric.

This is the recipe I used this year, which I got from Boon- I altered it slightly because I had this left over box of Dr. Earth(Fish Emulsion Not Pictured).

3.5x Cottonseed meal

1x Bone meal

1x Fish meal

1x Dr. Earth-made of Cottonseed meal, Fish Bone meal(which is differnt from Fish meal and Bone meal), Alfalfa meal, Feather meal and Kelp meal

50/50 water/fish emulsion.

Boon's Fertilizer Cake Mix: 4x cottonseed meal, 1x fish meal, 1x bone meal, Fish emulsion and water.

I purchased all the ingredients at a Farm Supply store which I found to be the cheapest spot.  I mixed them all together in a tub and used plastic wrap to cover the top of the tub  letting everything sit for two days.  Last year I let everything sit for two weeks and the fertilizer grew this crazy white substance all over.  This is the first year I did not add flour in the mix because if possible, I figure it's better off without the filler.  The combination of lots of fish emulsion and leaving everything mixed for two days, made the cakes stick together nicely. 

Here's a close up of the cakes I made this year.  In order to keep the cakes from drying out while sitting on the soil surface, I decided to make them in this shape.  The idea is that the water will pool in the in-dent and help keep the cakes moist.  This very well may be unneccessary, but I figured I'd give it a shot.

Here's how I made the shape.  I took some of the fertilizer in between my pointer finger and thumb, then with my other hand I support the back and compact the cake with my hands.

Then I stick my thumb in to make an indent in the cake.  Like I mentioned before, this might just be a silly idea, but with some extra time I figured hey why not try it out?    I'm curious how do you make your cakes and what ingredients do you use?

I also wanted to share this awesome little Japanese Maple, I got to re-pot at a BIB workshop(this is not my tree).

Pot is ready to go, Z clip holding the screen and aluminum wire to tie down the tree.

Here's the tree all potted up.  Thank's for checking out my blog!

In Feb 2011 Courtney and I hiked to the top of Bishops Peak in San Luis Obispo and I asked her to marry me.  She said YES!!!  A few weeks ago we took some engagement pictures at the base of Bishops Peak and I like how they turned out.  Sorry not too much to do with Bonsai, except we found some really beautiful Oaks.  Life has been good.