Archive for October, 2009

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License to Sell Nursery Stock

Friday, October 30th, 2009

Last year I ordered some fruit trees (2 -Asian Pears, an Almond, and another Nectarine) from Bay Laurel Nursery:

www.baylaurelnursery.com

the products were superior to anything I have ever ordered and I order at least a few things every year for at least 30 years.  I noticed on their packing slip, they have a USDA license and California Nursery Stock Certificate, etc.   I was amazed at how many people seemed to be involved in the shipping of my order.  I thought I was just going to sell my seedlings but I discovered “opps” there might be a few hoops to jump through first….

I did a little research up on the Internet and found there was a License with an exemption for small time home growers.  Then, I found out that you do need to fill out an Application for License to Sell Nursery Stock.  I missed this on the first time through but a very helpful person at the Riverside County Building got us back on the right track.  Currently the form is NIPM Item #2.1.  NIPM means Nursery Inspection Procedures Manual.  I couldn’t find my original Internet version but found one posted by Orange County: NIPM Item #2.1

Then you need a Fee Exempt License to Sell Nursery Stock NIPM Item 2.4
Here is one from Sonoma Country: NIPM Item 2.4 which exempts small growers from the application fee.

There are numerous restrictions but the biggest is that you cannot ship your plants and they can only be sold in the county in which they are grown.  There are some others but those are the key restrictions.

I am lucky in that I already have a number of small businesses so I have the business licenses, Resale Licenses, Sales Tax, etc. so I did not have deal with those issues.

Basically, you need a business license, a sales certificate, and an agricultural license, as well as all the business “stuff”. I am not going to tell how to do it, but I can tell you my style never really changes when dealing with these issues.  I go direct.  So, I walked into the City Hall and asked for who handles Business Licenses (a very helpful lady decades ago got me through that one painlessly), and then walked down the street to the California State Building and asked where you get your sales license went to the 10th floor and they walked me through the application (a little more complex but got the job done), and then I sent one of my grown sons down to the County Agricultural Office to understand and submit the applications for License to Sell Nursery Stock and the Fee Exempt License.  We had it wrong, and a very helpful man helped us with the forms.

All in all, it would take me a half a day to do it now with what I know, but if I were young and starting over and knew nothing, I would figure a day spread out over several days with some of the items taking more than one visit. Not nearly as difficult as many of government processes and similar in pain to renewing a driver’s license or registering a new car title or getting a smog check, etc.

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Moreton Bay Fig Seedlings

Monday, October 26th, 2009

In the 23 years we have been here, I never recall seeing seedlings from the Moreton Bay Fig tree.  Even though, it always seems like it dumps hundreds of bushels of figs every fall (the kids use to call them peanuts, and they seem to rain endlessly in the fall and can hurt just a bit if the catch you square in the head).

I assumed we didn’t the have the correct wasp type to pollenize the fruit correctly.  But, then to my surprise this year, first in a batch of Hibiscus we were rooting and then in a number of other containers, these waxy leafed “weeds” kept appearing.  I pulled a bunch of them as weeds and then left a group of dead Hibiscus slips in the beds to see if there were any late rootings.  This group was allowed to sprout weeds and suddenly there were these very fast growing waxy leafed weeds.  Then I realized they were Moreton Bay Fig seedlings.

Very interesting.  Someone who really knows propagation which I do not…might be able to explain why.  In the past, even though, the figs were allowed to fall into beds with mulch, they never produced seedlings.

This year because I use mulch from the Moreton Bay Fig as the primary potting soil we are obviously hitting a correct combination.  I am guessing more shade and more water.  Could be wrong.

Just the oppose is true for the Passion Fruit seeds, they don’t seem to sprout in the shade with moisture, but as soon as you move the flat into the sun with water, off they sprout even after months in the containers.

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Shopping List

Sunday, October 25th, 2009

A little long for a blog post, but one of the objectives of Recycled Plants was to also to produce vegetables, fruits and nuts to reduce our food bill as well as to produce vegetables and fruits for sales to contribute to our revenue fund to produce renewable energy.

As part of the Recycled Plants Challenge was to increase our production without increasing water usage.  This is being accomplished through a conversion to drip irrigation, mulching, and next will be rain water capture and reuse.

The list below is our shopping list of the vegetables, fruits, and nuts which we use regularly and which we thought we could produce in sufficient quantities to serve our needs.

Probably, the biggest lesson one relearns in this process is that we eat what is in season, or preserve the surplus.  Ann loves to dry the excess Apples, Bananas and Plums which she puts in plastic sandwich bags in the refrigerator and gets the dry fruit as snacks over the months until the next fruit comes into season.

And, switching to similar items, so for example, we changed from frozen Orange Juice to fresh Grapefruit juice in the morning.  Generic Brand Orange Juice for us is $1.88 per can and we used to buy 4 cans a week.  Just shifting to home grown on this item saves us about $7.52 a week or $391.04 per year.

The reason why we don’t squeeze our Oranges is that are they are superior Seedless Navels which ripen at Christmas.  Though we have 5 Seedless Navels and 1 lesser Juice Oranges, they seem to always get eaten and disappear so there is nothing left to juice.

We have to fight with the Raccoons, Opossums, and Foxes for the Avocados and Grapes.

Right now we only get excess Grapefruit and Avocados.

Here is the Shopping List:

Vegetable Weekly Usage Yearly Demand In Production Sufficient Excess for Sales
Artichokes 0.25 13 no no
Asparagus 5 260 yes no
Bell Peppers 5 260 yes yes
Broccoli 2 104 yes no
Cantaloupe 1 52 yes no
Carrots 2 104 yes no
Cucumber 2 104 yes no
Lettuce Head 1 52 no no
Lettuce Leaf 1 52 yes no
Onions 1 52 yes no
Potatoes 5 260 yes no
Squash Summer 2 104 yes yes
Squash Winter 1 52 yes yes
String Beans 10 520 yes no
Sweet Potatoes 0.5 26 yes yes
Tomatoes 5 260 yes no
Zucchini 2 104 yes yes
Fruits
Apples 7 364 yes yes
Avocados 7 364 yes yes yes
Bananas 7 364 yes no
Grapefruit 14 728 yes yes yes
Grapes 1 52 yes yes
Lemons 1 52 yes yes
Limes 1 52 yes no
Nectarines 7 364 yes no
Oranges 7 364 yes yes
Peaches 7 364 yes no
Pears Asian 7 364 yes no
Plums 7 364 yes no
Pomegranate 1 52 yes no
Tangerines 1 52 yes yes
Nuts
Almonds 7 364 yes no
Macedamian 7 364 no no
Pecan 7 364 yes no
Pistachio 7 364 no no
Walnut 7 364 yes no
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First Purchases

Saturday, October 24th, 2009

We sold a lug or case of Avocados, very large and superior Fuertes, for $20 to a great local restaurant. Cases are usually 25lbs, but we added an extra five pounds to make sure they were happy. Also, they offered to help us with the project by saving the CRV containers for us and saving the 5 Gallon Oil containers so we could recycle them as planting containers. This is going to be a great relationship. The restaurant is also going to save the Avocado pits so we can plant them for resale in a few years. (See, www.recycledplants.com for how they look as starter seedlings)

We then took this money and went to Costco in San Bernardino (http://www.priceviewer.com/costco_locations/478-California.html) which a great promotion on with Southern California Edison for an instant rebate program on Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs. (http://www.sce.com/residential/rebates-savings/lighting/)

Basically, the deal was to buy the lights bulbs and get an instant 75% to 83% discount at check out. So, we bought two packs of 4 120W outdoor flood lights from FEIT Electric (http://www.feitelectric.com/compact_fluorescent/feit_compactfluorescent.html) They are significantly brighter than the old 100 Watt bulbs and the claim is they used 75% less energy or 23 Watts and last 5 times longer and save me $465 per year per pack? Not bad. Even better was that these CFL’s would have cost $17.29 and with Costco and Southern California Edison’s teamwork on the instant rebate the cost to us was: $17.29 – $13.00 = $4.29 plus tax per pack.

We also purchased a 16 pack or indoor 100 Watt CFL from Lights of America (http://www.lightsofamerica.com/en/Product%20Categories/CFL.aspx) and again the claim was they only used 23 watts per bulb and this would save me $77 per bulb per year? or life time? It is unclear what they are claiming….but somewhere, sometime, we are supposed to get 16 X $77 = $1232 in savings. Again, even better was that these CFL’s would have cost $30.59 and with Costco and Southern California Edison’s teamwork on the instant rebate the cost to us was: $30.59 – $25.60 = $4.99 plus tax.

The total purchase was only $13.57 after rebate, and with the claims of $2162 in savings (unsure of time frames) would still be in the 15932% return on investment (not concerned about), let alone the astounding claims of beneficial impact to the environment like “green house gases saved by using the bulbs in this pack are the equivalent to planting 165 trees” (do care about).

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Actions already taken

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

In October of 2008, we got started with the following actions:

1) We put quart or liter bottles filled with rocks and sealed in all five toilets….hoping for a one quart savings per flush.

2) Added shower timers. does not seem like much but we had some very long shower people.

3) Mowed the lawn higher and reduced the water one day a week. (this has since be raised to three days a week).  Things look fine even in a semi-desert (or dry Mediterranean) environment.

4) Where possible moved to drip irrigation from sprinklers, and for the seedlings placed them in sprinkler areas where no additional water is needed to grow them…

5) Replace light bulbs with Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs. I wish I could find the reference to give the guy credit, but I was searching for how to repair and trouble shoot outdoor Halogen Lights, and he suggested not doing the repair and replacing the Halogen fixture with a standard outdoor fixture and using Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs because they were cooler, used less energy and cost less. I have two of the three replaced so far and the third one is turned off until it can be replaced.

6) We used to get 9 – 55 Gallon trash cans to yard debris every week which was hauled to the dump (at least we did have a green prick up in Riverside). And, we often used to have to take a pick up to the dump filled with logs, and trimmings 10 to 20 times a year at $10 a load plus gas and time and labor. We started mulching like I said in October of 2008. I was worried that the entire yard (2/3 of a acre) would be covered in four feet of mulch, and what would the neighbors think. Most of the debris is several monstrous trees planted in 1907. In particular, a Coast Live Oak with about a 150 foot spread which is slowly dying from all the smog over the decades and it is about 20 to 30 miles outside of its normal range, and a Moreton Bay Fig…should never be put in a residential setting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficus_macrophylla The one in this link is small compared to mine.  The tallest in North America is in back of San Diego’s Natural History Museum and was planted in 1914. By 1996 it stood 23.7 metres (78 feet) high and 37.4 metres (123 feet) across (per the link), ours must be a very close 2nd as it was planted in 1907. Unfortunately most of the debris is dry, so I worried about how long it would take to mulch, but I under estimated worms and bugs.  They eat the debris as fast as I can put it on the beds.  Weeds and Water usage is reduced.  I do no turning or classical mulching techniques, I am too old and natures does a good enough job.

7) The logs we burn in the winter in the two or the three fireplaces in the house.

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