Spring is always here in Southern California!  Last year, our urban agriculture garden yielded 220 pounds of fresh picked tomatoes, varieties like romas, big beef, super big and the starter this year to get us early spring tomatoes: early girls.  Oh, and some heirlooms. Plus eggplant and zucchini.   Grow what you can eat and share, swap or use.

Now, as a real estate guy who loves his clients and focuses on their needs, (and a single dad of 11), I needed a way to defeat everyone’s common enemy: weeds and excess water, and minimize time doing same.  Plus, I believe in efficiently using your home (the right to life, liberty and property is in the declaration of indy) beyond living in it.

As to water, in fact, last year my beloved Anaheim told us to STOP watering our lawn, then when it went brown, to START again.  Yes, last year, before Noah’s anniversary required an ark as God laughed at us for believing we puny humans can control His weather by not producing CO2.

PVC DIRECT WATERING.  We water two minutes in the morning and two minutes at night, direct to the roots of the zucchini and tomatoes.  This year, 20 tomatoes and 10 zucc’s (that’s urb ag cool talk for long green fruit) so far.  If I can do this, dads, you can too.

(And yes, my beloved homeschooling moms, your sunflower and tomato ‘starters’ are coming soon. I scraped frost off the windshield yesterday at 5am)

First, Rototill the ground a couple days after a rain.  The ground is ready; get out the weeds and make it soft.Rent one if you can or borrow mine (part of Millennium 3 Real Estate concierge service)

Next, make your poly vinyl chloride maze before digging the plant holes.  We reuse our PVC every year, cutting them into storable pieces and toss them on the roof or in the fallow garden.  It takes 3 seconds to connect each joint and then uses PVC joiners to reconnect your maze the next year.

In this pic, the disconnected sections are laid out.  Water is delivered to each plant via bubblers, efficiently.  Cuts way down on weeds and you don’t create more by sprinkler watering.  Your kids can be a part of this.  We feed ours a couple days a week and so everyone works on the Beckman “ranch”.

Space the bubblers on PVC “T”s apart from each other enough for growth depending on the plant.  PVC is easily cut for storage or moving.  My ‘system’ has three secondary inline valves (urb ag cool talk for being able to use different areas but being a lazy city Dw., only create it one time and good for years.)

In this pic, we hired armless domicilic worm inspectors to give us the USDHP (US Dept of Henpeckers, NOOOOOOO relation to any wife in America ever, please).

These ladies also yield fresh eggs when their henpecker union allows them to (outside winter)  Hens stop laying when natural light is shorter; one of those God things He designed in like the most complex created being in the known universe, woman.

When you reglue, the bubblers go upright or at a slight angle to fill each plant circle/hole. Next, the easiest (recall I am a lazy city dwelling urb agger) water sourcing is a PVC hose coupler seen in this pic and the female end of the hose on your faucet.

I recommend one of those faucet splitters so you can have more on one hose bib/faucet, maybe add a Miracle Grow in line for organic Miracle Grow fertilizer for your organics.  Plus, you don’t have to remove and move hoses or the garden supply line.  In this pic, #1 has a “Y” splitter, with one on the fertilizer canister that you can screw on and off, filling with miracle grow or other nutrients easily (Lazy city dw, recall). #2 and #4 go to hoses and #3 to a short hose with multi-head sprinkler for the princess garden.  This real estate guy shoulda been tarred and feathered when he talked his beautiful wife who art in heaven to move to 2/3’s of an acre with our multi-munchkin brood of offspring.

It was an older 3 bedrooms and 6 girls had the largest bedroom to themselves.  We always believed selflessness is a taught concept better served live; all 6 (knock on wood) have not turned into Hannah Montana morphed into tongue wagging Miley Cyri (plural of Cyrus) after sleeping in the same room.  Great boys into men, too!  Back to urb ag:

Every home with land can do this, the Lazy City Dweller way; concrete requires pots filled with dirt. But, once you lay out the maze, and the seasons end (you can do two, maybe three plantings), you cut up the PVC and save for next year.

Use inexpensive green wire or painted picket to keep the USDHP worm inspecting egg layers out, as well as kidlings.  We have a lift out 8 foot section and a gate for easy access.  Questions, ask.  Pictured here is this  2017’s first planting, with cages in place.  Now it takes 240 seconds of water and therapeutic weeding. we will add the weed cloth in certain areas.

Chickens.  Easy to feed (half laying mash and half ‘scratch’, and table scraps) and water (no dribblers needed).  Larissa, my domicilic pedagogy (urb ag cool talk for home schooled) survived CalPoly Pomona with an animal health science degree, just ordered 26 more chicks; they are express mailed as one day olds just in time for Easter.  But 3 or 4 will do.  chicken coops are optional since there’s this thing about getting free ranges (oven’s not included) and eggs together.

Heeeeeeey!  Urb Ag is simple and repeatable.  The hay is for our 30 year old (no, not Josh, he’s married to the beautiful Maryann, working at Servite and pop of this beauty) tortoise who weighs in at 90 pounds.  A rabbit or two, and hen boxes.

Come on by...we aren’t as big as Riley’s Farm, a great day trip for a family in Yucaipa, but perfect place to have a run in with worm inspectors and tortoises.

Anyways, have a great day!  This guy has work to do for clients, kids to prep for the future and life to be lived.  As you do.  Questions, query back at Lenbeckman@M3Real.com about whatever you have ????s about.  If you have a real estate need or question, it’s how he feeds his family (714 267 1413)

Len is a real estate broker/realtor for 27 years who still makes house calls.  Yes, blessed not burdened with 11. The Beckman ranch actually has 7 of 11 left living the American dream (well, working toward it).  As managing director of the Donna Beckman Memorial Environmental Research Labs, he posts occasionally about the carbon dioxide/tax fraud and other environmental issues; scientific, political, youth, respect life and Catholic viewpoints.  Always willing to admit life IS a great thing (scream LifeOutLoudest) and when asked “What’s today?”,please respond “It’s a great day to be alive)