OUR DIVERSITY
When we first started our farm here in the Hungry Hollow in 1983 years ago, guess what was here? To put it simply, twenty acres of dirt. Level (mostly), with the remains of a fallow milo field, and two olive trees.
So we planted trees. Six hundred Causarina trees, actually (yes, we were rather ambitious...) and two and a half acres of fruit trees
And then we planted native flowering shrubs, and native grasses, and native California trees.
(We
planted a few kids, too.)
And over the years we established a farming system that includes over seventy annual and perennial crops (see our lists).
And whatta-ya-know, in the time it took to get three kids through high school and into college, we have a blooming, buzzing, flowering, fruiting, diverse community that scientists call an "agroecosystem".
So we don't just farm, we provide habitat for an enormous range of species who like to rest in, nest in, feed on, and reproduce in the several hundred different types of plants growing on our farm.
As an organically-farmed agroecosystem, Good Humus Produce
supports a wide diversity of plants, animals, reptiles, insects, and
microorganisms. Visitors to our farm include raptors, pollinators, predators,
and many, many types of herbivores!
We're just starting to list what we see on our farm...so here's a sampling:
MAMMALS:
Bats
Opossum
Jackrabbit
Desert Cottontail
Raccoon
Stripped Skunk
Mule Deer
Brown Bear
BIRDS:
Turkey vulture
White-tailed (black-shouldered) kite
Swainson's hawk
Ring-necked pheasant
Wild turkeys
Quail
Killdeer
Barn owl
Long-eared owl
Rufous hummingbird
Northern flicker
Black phoebe
Ash-throated flycatcher
Western kingbird
Cliff swallow
Scrub jay
American crow
Common raven
American robin
Northern mockingbird
Cedar waxwing
European starling
Yellow-rumped warbler
White-crowned sparrow
Golden-crowned sparrow
Savannah sparrow
Lincoln's sparrow
Red-winged blackbird
Western meadowlark
Brewer's blackbird?
Brown-headed cowbird
Northern (Bullock's) oriole
House finch
Lesser goldfinch
American goldfinch
REPTILES:
Pond Turtle
Striped Races Snake
Gopher Snake
Common King snake
Garter Snake
Western Rattlesnake
PLANTS (other than crops, which are listed here)
Cheese Weed
Crane Bill or Common Geranium
White Stem Filarre
Puncture Vine
Turkey Mullein
California Poppy
Field Mustard
Wild Radish
Sheppards Purse
Common Chickweed
Common Purslane
Red Maids
Miners Lettuce
Curley Dock
Lamb’s Quarter
Rough Pigweed
Scarlet Pimpernel
Common Broadleaf Plantain
Common Manzanita
Wild Morninglory
Fiddle neck
Common Mullein
Blue Vervain
Common Horehound
Wild Rose
Toyon
Western Redbud
Bur clover
White Sweet Clover
Wild Sweet Pea
Winter Vetch
Spring Vetch
California Fuchsia
Ceanothus
Coffeeberry
Elderberry
Common Snowberry
Coyote Bush
Common Yarrow
Pineapple Weed
Bull Thistle
Star Thistle
Chicory
Prickly Lettuce
Dandelion
Annual Ryegrass
Foxtail Barley
Wild Oats
Little Seed Canarygrass