Bat guano? What the heck?

The Friedman’s ad in the Sun inspired me to “shuffle on down to the lumber yard” (à la “Ma Perkins” of ‘50s radio fame) to check out what they had currently in their garden department, and Jerry needed some white paint that would actually stick to our outdoor plastic tables anyway.
I was astonished to find several choices of organic “hand-crafted” soils, potting and otherwise, at reasonable prices. Especially attractive was the one made from worm castings and bat guano, which brought to mind the slightly insane General Bat Guano, played by the late Sausalito resident Sterling Hayden, in the 1964 movie “Dr. Strangelove.”
While familiar with a few local bats, I was not overly familiar with their guano, or even what it is. Jolly Green Goddess research revealed that bat guano is this highly sought-after, aged bat feces, carefully scraped from caves in Cuba, Jamaica, Peru and Mexico.
In fact, each country’s bat guano marketers claim theirs is more odorless, more organic, more pure and more effective than another’s. Bat-guano.com claims “Cuba’s caves contain one of the largest reserves of this unique fertilizer, enabling us to supply unlimited quantities of our product.” Or rather, the bats’ product.
Less specifically, excrement from birds, seals or bats can be referred to as guano. Peruvians created the word “guano” to distinguish between “useless bird droppings” and the “nutrient-rich” feces of “cormorants, pelicans, and other sea birds.” South American farmers have been harvesting white piles of guano from shorelines to use as crop fertilizer for hundreds of years.
Apparently the reason the stuff is so good is that deep in the caves where bats leave their droppings, the sun can’t get to it and break down its organic composition. Scientists on wisegeek.com say that bat guano also has “beneficial fungi and bacteria, which act as a natural fungicide to protect plants from disease,” ideal for organic farming.
Gosh, maybe there’s a big side industry for our local wine caves! Pigeons, unite!
Aside from that tangent, I also found Whitney Farms’ Uncle Malcolm’s Weed Whompin’ Mulch, which “controls weed seeds naturally with corn gluten meal and a traditional organic mulch,” whatever that is.
It was great to encounter a scientist doing his regular test of the pH level downstream from Sebastiani Vineyards & Winery when I was trimming Mary Powers’ roses last Friday. Sebastiani now tests to make sure there are no leaks that could harm local flora and fauna.
Many Nathanson Creek neighbors are concerned about the spirited growth of fauna in the creek bed, which seems not to have been cleaned out in a few years, I think since Pam Gibson was city manager.
With our irregular weather patterns, or non-patterns, we could well have torrential rains this winter, which surely will overflow our creeks if they are not cleaned soon. Responsibility is ever-elusive.
Now that the hot sun has singed the edges of our roses and invisible bugs and budworms have made midnight snacks of our geranium flowers, we deal with realities of a possibly hot summer and definitely not enough water.
What we do in our gardens or balcony pots is totally connected with what we need to do to preserve our local and world communities, in the small sense that we should think of what is best for all of us, instead of what we want selfishly.
I want a beautiful lush garden, and I want everyone in the world to have plenty to eat. Sometimes those two are not compatible.
While we have a few national leaders still not sure global warming exists, the rest of us know it’s here but don’t know what it may mean and what to do about it.
It’s sometimes hard to understand or explain when we hear of more rain than ever on the west coast of Canada and deep, devastating floods in Texas, while Los Angeles only had three inches of rain this past winter.
Listening to CBS radio last week, I was astonished to hear a Los Angeles official say that no water restrictions (even voluntary) had been imposed there, and probably wouldn’t be considered until August or September, while we are subject to fines for not cutting back our water usage.
Of course we are saving water because our county sources are under-supplied, not because we are sending it to southern California.
While I still see people washing their super-sized SUVs in the street, and people planting lawns and saying “I’m not going to ruin mine,” you can still go to Sonoma City Hall and pick up a kit that includes a low-flow shower head and a garden hose attachment that allows you to water more efficiently.
In the garden, if you have vegetables growing, stick your finger in the dirt to see if it is powder dry and, if it is, water the plants daily when it is 95 degrees or more, as water is the dominant ingredient in lots of veggies and melons.
Lightly spray camellias and rhododendrons in the early morning to hit their refresh button and cool them down, but don’t consider this watering. That has to be done slowly at the plant’s base.
Other not-very-sexy things to do in your garden in the high heat include “deadheading” (cutting or pinching back the bud from which each flower popped) those rhodies if you haven’t already done it, trim spent geraniums to the bottom of the dried flower’s stem, and continue to cut off waning roses or marguerites just above the next bud pointing out from the plant’s center.
Mow any wild grasses and trees surrounding your house, primarily to protect you from fire, which can travel fast with the right wind. Cut dead undergrowth from around shrubs and trees, and get all the loose and dead leaves off your roof, because they, too, can catch on fire.
To chase those munching guys away from geraniums and petunias, you can 1) wait until they move on and the flowers get a second life, or 2) spray them lightly with water and wash their droppings off your plants.
Remember, the City of Sonoma still offers its “Cash for Turf” program, for which staff has a whole flier with all the details. Brief version: They will pay 50 cents a square foot for lawn removal, with a cap of $400 for single family dwellings, $150 for condos or townhouses, and $100 for apartment. City hall actually has an abundance of information on water conservation and sustainable gardening. Bravo.
Jolly Green Goddess Brown Thumb Award:
McDonald’s fast food joint barely escaped winning the Brown Thumber this week by removing invasive dead weeds and mowing their dead grass, both of which appeared to be fire hazzards. It is not clear whether they are conserving water or were just inattentive, but now it looks like a well-planned conservation “garden.”
Jolly Green Goddess Green Thumb Award:
Sonoma Valley Bank wins the prize this week. Landscapers Craig and Bill Martin make it beautiful.
Get down. Get dirty.