Black-Thumb Gardening on National Public Lands Day
Black-Thumb Gardening on National Public Lands Day
by Kelly Fuller
photos by Larry Klaasen
A few weeks ago, I learned how to garden with a black thumb.
I had gone with 11 other volunteers to McCain Valley for National Public Lands Day, September 18, 2004, an annual project where ordinary citizens work with Federal employees to improve an area. This year, the Bureau of Land Management asked for volunteers to restore land that had been damaged by motorcycles. Our task was to remove all sign that vehicles had traveled there in the past, so that people wouldn't see tracks and mistakenly think it was OK to ride there.
The hope was that both off-roaders and conservationists would work together on this project. However, no one from the ORV community showed up, despite repeated invitations. In contrast, conservationists showed their dedication to not only talking about protecting the environment, but actually doing something about it. Sierra Club members came from as far away as Los Angeles and Kingman, Arizona.
We rehabilitated two areas off McCain Valley road, one near the Carrizo Overlook and the other near Lost Valley. Dallas Meeks (El Centro BLM) and Larry Klaasen (Sierra Club) taught a brief workshop in land restoration that basically went like this: "Dig up the ground with shovels, rake it,and then plant dead stuff. Make it look like what's next to it. Don't touch the chollas."
We looked like Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts as we fanned out to collect fallen wood and dead bushes. The trick was to avoid stripping the surrounding landscape of all its plant debris. In the meantime, those of us with strong backs dug up the ground. By making an uneven surface, we created pockets for water and seeds to collect in, increasing the chances of plants growing there in the spring. Then we practiced our black-thumb gardening skills, planting what we'd gathered.
The crew near Lost Valley were so industrious that they were able to get the red carsonite "route closed" signs out of the ground even though they didn't have a sign puller. Those signs had to go. They were ugly and a dead give away that people had illegally ridden there in the past. See pictures below for before and after the rehabilitation work.
With so many volunteers, the rehab work only took a few hours. The weather was perfect: sunny with light breezes that kept it from being hot. Next we were off to Cottonwood Campground, where we picked up trash. I laughed when I saw the contents of one of the campfire rings: oysters and two different kinds of mussels. Judging from the bottle caps, the gourmet meal had been washed down with Sierra Nevada ale. There were even a few wine corks thrown in for good measure. Someone had been having a very good time.
The BLM was highly appreciative of our efforts and rewarded us with an embarrassing amount of swag. We received t-shirts, posters, coupons good for free admittance to public lands or National Park, and even an invitation to join a Federal employee credit union.
We camped at Cottonwood that night. The next morning we headed for the Pepperwood Trail. We hiked to a spring that is between McCain Valley and the Canebrake area of Anza-Borrego State Park. Originating in a cave, the spring was dry but still worth seeing. Nearby were bay laurel trees, which smelled wonderful.
The hike went so quickly that we decided to visit Sombrero Peak too. This required more challenging route finding. We wound around rocky hillocks and avoided as many of the gullies as we could. Almost the entire party made it to the summit, despite the large boulders that made the last pitch a challenge. Even a peak of only 4,229 feet seems pretty high up when the wind is doing its best to blow you off the mountain and into the Badlands.
Postscript: Six weeks later, I went back to check on our handiwork. I didn't find the site near Lost Valley, so that's a good sign. Things were not so happy by the Carrizo Overlook. New tracks that could tempt motorcyclists to ride there had appeared. Much of our dead garden was gone, either blown away or washed out by the recent rains. Moral of the story: brush needs to be anchored securely into the ground, not just strewn on top. And McCain Valley needs open route signs, not just a rule that anything is open unless it is signed closed. Otherwise, the small washes that get eroded by rain can be easily interpreted as routes. The fresh vehicle tracks I saw throughout the valley made this point abundantly clear. Keeping McCain Valley in good shape will require ongoing effort.
Before work, the route starts at the berm on McCain Valley Rd., marked by the red carsonite signs.
After the crew got done, signs removed, new bushes added to break up the view.
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