Coastal CA Gardening

Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems

2011-10-24T08:48:00.000-07:00

I spent my Sunday harvesting some of the worm bins. Fun work especially when you have multiple 5-gallon buckets to add to the garden. But not very picturesque. Garden is a little bedraggled - I'm just getting ready for the winter rains, poking in seeds that I know will thrive in the wet and cold.

So even though I don't have pictures, I'd like to share an amazing video from my favorite local resource.

Farm and Garden 2011 from Weston on Vimeo.

I love the Central Coast.

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day

2011-05-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a happy little ritual I've noticed! Here are the flowers now blooming in my garden.
I'll start with the weeds:

Sorrel (Oxalis) which in some ways is a pretty weed.

I've been attending a Herbal Medicines seminar and I now have a greater appreciation for thistles (although I'm still likely to take the string trimmer to them).

Common Thistle

Blueberry flowers

Mint Geranium

Calla Lilies

And these were a surprise:

My friend Ann gave them to me and this is the first time they've bloomed. Her garden is filled with irises at this time of year. She has better luck with them.

Reworking the garden

2011-05-06T19:20:00.000-07:00

It's not the prettiest picture. But I've been spending time re-working the bed next to the south side of the house. The reason for the change? Gophers. They finally found a way through the wire somewhere and devoured nearly everything in the bed. (Here's the first post where I made the bed originally and the second post where it's completed.) Now I'm happy to say that it lasted a long time, and perhaps if I didn't have school occupying much of my time, I could have stopped the invasion. But that wasn't happening. So I'm putting gopher baskets in on top of the wire and making it a permanent planting.

Which is rather odd for me in a way. I was trying to think "when have I ever planted a rose bush?". I don't think I have, except for the occasional transplant of a miniature rose that I received as a gift. I have always kept my roses in containers. Now, they're getting a permanent home, interspersed with a variety of herbs and flowering plants. Wonder what that will be like?
Here's a picture from the last of the side garden's "hayday" in 2008:

When this is done, I'd like to finish "the orchard".

Disappointment

2011-04-26T18:51:00.000-07:00

Potted up pepper and zinnia sprouts.

Last Sunday it finally warmed up enough to go outside and pot up all my little sprouts from my desk. I was so pleased with my work. I had dreams that my next photo would be of healthy little plants all ready to be set out in the garden.

Sadly, when I went out to the greenhouse to check up on them this morning, something had gone in and nipped of the heads of nearly every sprout. Looks like a mouse made a salad of my new plants. sigh..... Back to the sprouting pods.

24 April

2011-04-24T13:12:00.000-07:00

Paddy is glad that spring brought the catnip back.

Ever notice how spring starts slowly? After the long quiet of winter, there are these little bursts followed by slow downs. Similar to my usual Sunday, I jump up from my slumbers to feed the cat. After that, I will often amble back to bed for a 15 minute snooze with the excuse that I'm waiting for the kettle to boil. Then I'm up a second time looking for tea and a little breakfast. My favorite has been stinging nettles chopped and stirred into my buckwheat cereal. A meal necessitates a short lie about on the couch, snuggled with my crocheted afghan. Then I have to finally get things going.

Spring has been like that here. First damp, cold winter weather - then burst of sunshine and 70-80 degree temperatures. Next rain and hail, then another week of delightful spring sunshine. And now this weekend, it's rain and gloom after quick tease of sunshine late in the week.

Time to have another cup of tea and maybe poke in some more seeds into peat pots.

Finally, the drizzle ended and the sun became warm around 2pm. Time to garden.

UCSC Farm and Garden Plant Sale is April 30th and May 1st.

Seeds

2011-04-14T19:05:00.000-07:00

Do seeds experience fear? I think not, but it's a thought that has recently crossed my mind. I've been struggling with my own fears - fears of beginning, fear of making mistakes because you're a newbie. It's caused some writer's block in a school project. If you have experience in something it's much easier to write about. For me, it's gardening and plants. But when I'm new to a subject, I'm afraid of making mistakes. There it is. Fear of making mistakes. And as I stared at some of the inactive peat pots, the thought that they're afraid to sprout crossed my mind. A close friend of mine reminded me that

"the first time is always the hardest - in science we call it the energy of activation. It's a known fact that changing movement takes more energy than sustaining it"

Yang burst - that change in movement that drives the seed to spout or the flower to break bud and flower. But it is the burst in spring that takes us into summer.

One more plug for the Smart Gardening Fair. Renee Shepherd will be speaking at the Smart Gardening Fair this Saturday. Find out the real dirt on how the seed business works and which seeds are the best choices for avid gardeners. For more info go to http://www.smartgardening.org/

(Brazenly lifted from the Master Gardener's Facebook page -
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Monterey-Bay-Master-Gardeners/120763298657)

Sprout Update

2011-04-05T19:16:00.000-07:00

First seeds to sprout: 1 sunflower, 2 kale and a scabiosa.

Although I haven't been in the garden much over these last few years, I still have a tendency to save seed. Waste not want not I guess. And I always figure that I will get a chance to plant such-and-such so why not grab that discounted seed packet? Or I'll pocket a few seeds from a plant I see that I'd love to have someday. Problem is that I have too much seed now. I was half tempted in the fall to just scatter it all into the yard and see what came up. But I resisted.

When I bought the peat pots, I had a vision of all the little plants I wanted. But sure enough, my filing system is not as good as my dreamy memory. In other words, I have no idea where my Swiss chard seeds are or the mizuna or even a summer squash or two. So, I planted the peat pots with whatever was in the seed files that appealed to me. And I left 3 rows for "surprises". I have a "bring back the butterflies" mix that I purchased at discount. Many of the seeds I recognized by sight - scabiosa, borago, cosmos, calendula, tithonia, lupinus, echinacea. But I was intrigued by a few that I didn't recognize and I popped them into the peat pots anyway. Everyone needs a good surprise.

Mr. Sunflower is going home with me.

If you're in the Monterey/Santa Cruz area, mark your calendar for the Smart Gardening Fair presented by the Monterey Bay Master Gardeners. It will be held in Carmel on Saturday, April 16th ~ 10 AM to 4 PM adjacent to the Crossroads Shopping Village.For more details see: http://smartgardening.org/ I'm sure the weather will be stunning.

Sprouting, burgeoning and spreading

2011-03-29T18:30:00.000-07:00

The period of three months in spring is a period of sprouting (burgeoning). Everything in heaven and earth comes to life and flourishes. Sleep late and wake up early. Stroll in large steps in the courtyard, letting loose the hair and relaxing, so that the desire to live arises. Let live and do not kill anything. Give out but do not take anything by force. Reward generously and punish parsimoniously. This conforms to the spirit of spring; it is the right way to pursue the Dao. If one acts against this spirit, the liver will suffer. Then in summer, one will feel cold due to an insufficiency in the vigour of growth. Traditionally the Chinese year is divided into 24 time periods, the jieqi (solar terms). Beginning with lichun (spring commences), sometime in February of the Gregorian calendar, every fifteen days will see a new time period. Agricultural and social activities follow this time schedule closely and observe its special current features (jieling). Spring covers the three months beginning with lichun, the first time period, with the spring equinox (chunfen, March 20 - 22) as the fourth of these periods. The most salient feature of this period is characterized by the term fachen, "burgeoning or sprouting and spreading". Huangdi Neijing: A Synopsis with Commentaries By Y. C. Kong

Strolling in large steps in the garden of late would require waders. Saturday morning we were being doused by torrential rain. I was sad that I didn't have my camera as I headed out to a meeting because I wanted to capture the muddy river that was pouring down our neighbor's private driveway from the strawberry fields. In the fields were there are plants, you could see the berries being washed away with the soil, sprinkled along the muddy sand bars left when the waters receded.

The garden is a sopping wet catastrophe.

And yet, I'm eager to see the sunshine and I'm thinking about what I can do in the minute amount of time I have available. Funds are tight too, but I'm really missing the garden and I got the crazy idea to start my vegetables on my desk at work. After all, I'm there so much of the time and I can baby the starts for the first few weeks before transplanting them. And it would be so nice to share my south facing window with a cute flat of sprouts.

Time to get out and about

2011-03-16T22:49:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of mulberry flower (Morus nigra) from my weeping mulberry tree. I'm so looking forward to Spring. I'm watching the leaves unfurl from dormant branches and trying to figure out what to plant and what to clear.

If you're in the Santa Cruz area, I can recommend some classes that a friend and instructor teaches. Darren Huckle, L.Ac. is offering a wide variety of herb classes, from herb walks to herbal preparation classes. Get more information from his website http://www.rootsofwellness.net/classes.html

I blogged about his Herbal Medicine in the Garden class at CASFS in 2006. Here's a link to my post "Today I ate an Echinacea purpurea"

Lost in my studies

2010-03-23T15:31:00.000-07:00

So instead of being in the garden, I've been lost amongst tomes of books. The study of herbs has most of my attention. They're harder to learn than just the vegetables in my garden. And the garden suffers from my inattention. But I find I can only really pay attention to work and my graduate studies.

I miss blogging. And I miss gardening.

Spring has me looking more closely at the herbs, and lately, what catches my attention are seeds.

One of my beds was finally raided and cleared by the gophers. The dahlia in my profile picture is gone. I was out last Sunday trying to decide what to do. I think I'll see which of these herb seeds sprout. Jing jie (Schizonepeta tenuifolia) seems like a possible candidate. Then I'll make the bed a permanent planting, with individual gopher cages.

The gopher invasion had me a bit glum on Vernal Equinox, so I tramped around the edges of the garden looking at my weeds. I have a large amount of chickweed (Stellaria media) and plantain (Plantago lancelolata) growing everywhere. I decided to try and make salve. Added some Salvia apiana and Salvia mellifera leaves which gave the coconut oil a pungent smell. It's not to bad for a first try. But next time, I'll try and remember to have small containers to put it in, ready to go. I spent part of the afternoon madly looking for sampler honey jars to put the finished salve into, so I can share it with some friends and family.

The only other accomplishment was planting catnip on the deck for my cat. He was particularly happy that Spring is finally here. (I think he's getting bored with the dried stuff.)

Anyone missing a Kitty Cat?

2009-10-26T10:07:00.000-07:00

She's been hanging around my garden for the past few days. Very thin, but very affectionate. Think she might be lost or abandoned.

Dinnerplate Dahlia

2009-09-19T08:38:00.001-07:00

I can't say my garden is well tended this year. I haven't been taking pictures or doing much out there at all. But a dahlia that I purchased at the San Francisco Flower Show just bloomed, and it's as big as my head! I'm amazed.

Dear Park Seeds

2009-07-15T15:57:00.000-07:00

Why would I want pay you $9.95 for 6 leek plants? Unless of course, they're guaranteed to grow 10 feet tall.

le poireau n'est pas l'asperge du pauvre

Weeding Season Again

2009-01-04T00:16:00.000-08:00

Nothing like a relaxing afternoon pulling up weeds. Didn't get very far, but it's coming along. The rest of the garden full of oxallis, but I'll start with this patch. I'm hoping to transplant a couple of trees and move the blueberry barrels up here. I'm hoping that this nice weather holds, especially next weekend when there will be a pruning workshop. Ah, winter.

Interesting Article

2008-12-08T10:26:00.000-08:00

Scientist Says Ancient Technique Cuts Greenhouse Gas

Sounds intriguing. But what makes me wonder is how you heat up the crop biomass to make biochar? Is this some fancy smancy way of saying "gee, composting works"? (Somehow I don't think so.) Ancient technique, eh? So what is it? This article leaves more questions than answers. At first read it seems to say they burn the crop and plow it under. Sounds like a way to put lots of soot in the air. But the article says "under airtight conditions". Okay, so how does it heat up to "charcoal"? Guess it's something to hunt down more information on.

But I say, grow your own organically and compost. Easiest way to reduce your personal carbon footprint.

Later
Note:
I should do a little research before I post. A google search on biochar rendered plenty of results.
http://www.biochar.org
I'm still more in favor of composting. Still looks like too much soot.

Home is where you hang your heart

2008-11-22T14:01:00.000-08:00

Tomato: Anna Maria's Heart

Summer didn't wait for me. I have been busy with my studies and rarely spent time in the garden. But it grew quite happily. I was able to steal away with a few tomatoes, handfuls of green beans for dinner, Swiss chard and arugula into my stir frys. However, the zucchini rebelled against the automated drip sprinklers. For some reason they didn't produce much this year, except for flowers.

One of the best parts of my summer garden was the flower bouquets I would bring in for my desk. The dahlias, sunflowers and cosmos seemed to be endless.

So last weekend I decided to remove the last of the tomato vines. I was excited to find these large ripe Anna Maria's Hearts towards the back of the bed. I hadn't noticed them until the vines had died back from the cold air. I gathered all the green tomatoes and pondered if I could let them ripen. Most of the time, I just leave the vines in the garden and pull the fruit off as they color. But I thought it's November, what's the point of tomato vines? I decided to clean up, amend the soil and add in my winter crops.

So many green tomatoes, what to do? The picture is only one-third of the green tomatoes I picked from the garden. I mentioned my dilemma to a friend and she suggested Green Tomato Mincemeat. I love mincemeat. She even stopped by last Saturday to show me how to make it, and to help process all the tomatoes. Not a huge crop, but I'm glad to have the quarts of tomato sauce and mincemeat ready for winter. And my greens are happily transplanted, ready to grow during the winter rain.

Tomatoes for fog

2008-08-26T06:34:00.000-07:00

I overheard a conversation at the Farmer's market last Saturday.

"No, I don't grow tomatoes anymore. Just not worth waiting all summer for a few lousy tomatoes."

Too bad, I thought. But everyone makes those sorts of choices when they garden. And I can honestly say it's not easy growing tomatoes here on the coast; too much cold fog for those jungle weeds. But I like the challenge.

This year, in the spring, I was trying to figure out what to do about growing tomatoes myself. February was quickly disappearing and I knew that I didn't have the time to sprout the varieties that I have learned to love and that do well here. I had resigned myself to looking for something at the garden center or maybe going to Love Apple farms and getting a few plants. I was pretty resolved not to buy an Early Girl. I don't think they have much flavor.

It always amazes me the synchronicity of the universe. Just as I was reviewing my options I received an email from this blog. A neighbor had sprouted more tomatoes than they knew what to do with and would I like some? A neighbor I had never met before. Ah, the power of the internet. Can you believe my luck? I was so excited to pick up those plants, Azoychka, Anna Maria's Heart, Yellow Zebra, Silvery Fir Tree, Nygomous, Berkeley Tie Die, Bloody Butcher, Black Cherry, Lemon Boy, Moscovich, Cosmonaut Volkov, just to name . Then another friend of mine, a true tomato fanatic emailed me to say he also had extras. Double luck!

So although I'm not out in the garden much (thanks to graduate school), it always makes me happy to know that plants grow whether you watch them or not. And the tomatoes are looking great.

I'm happy to wait for them.

Silvery Fir Tree - growing outside the greenhouse. It produced my first tomato of the year on August 20th.

Blueberries

2008-08-21T06:52:00.000-07:00

Sunshine Blue

I have been having a boon year for blueberries. Last winter, while the plants were dormant, I dug them out of the half barrels I had them in and changed the potting soil. It was Ed Laivo from Dave Wilson Nursery that drove this change.

I was at a fruit tree talk and the subject of blueberries came up. He commented that they are really easy to grow, not like what some garden magazines would have you believe. I have to concur. My plants are in partial sun, just on the edge of the oak shade that predominates my yard. I grow southern highbush varieties that don't need such long chill hours. I grow Duke and Blue Ray. They do alright, but the ones that really seem to flourish are Reveille, O'Neal, Sharpblue, Misty, Sunshine Blue, and Jubilee.

He also said that they're easier to grow in containers because you can control the soil more easily. He mentioned his "magic mix" to make a fantastically acidic soil for them. That's what caught my attention. So the moment they went dormant, I went to work and changed out most of the potting soil in the half barrels. And in the spring, the change was noticeable. Many more clusters of flowers and lots of vigorous new growth. I have had the luxury of going down every Sunday morning and harvesting a basketful or more. I've had over 5 weeks of harvest. Blueberry pancakes, blueberry corn muffins, and blueberry tarts have been some of this summer's joy.

Warning: Worm Bin Pictures Ahead

2008-08-13T20:30:00.000-07:00

This isn't a post to be reading at lunch, especially if you have a weak stomach. But a co-worker of mine asked about worm bins and if there was "undigested" food in my bins, to which I would say absolutely yes. And since I fed the bins some nice corn cobs recently, the worms have been coming up through the layers just to get first dibs on the corn cobs. So you've been warned.

I put just about anything vegetarian in my bins, except dairy and anything particularly greasy. I've decided that egg shells need to be dried and then ground as they take a long time to decompose and lately there has been lots of eggshell bits in my garden beds, which I find unattractive. I also have put cotton into the bins, one, just to see what happened and two because I couldn't seem to just toss away an old cotton wash cloth that I'd had for years. I felt better knowing it wasn't going into the landfill.

Close up shot of the worms working on the corn cobs. There's even one on the side of the rubbermaid container. I have no idea why they like to hang out on the sides, in the space between the edge and the lid, and on the lid itself. But I can find loads of them there sometimes. Other times, they just mosey back into the pile. Maybe it's their idea of a little day trip.Other than grinding eggshells, I freeze banana peels just so they break down. This was upon the advice of the Master Composter who helped me start my worm bins. I now have 6 bins going and they take kitchen scraps and garden waste that isn't full of weedy seeds. Worm bins are really easy to keep and I like to give starts to friends and coworkers who decide to try vermicomposting.

I remembered when I first got started, and I called my Mother with great excitement. "Hi Mom! Guess what? I have worms!!"
After a long pause, she replied "Well, it's not exactly something I can brag about to the neighbors."

I don't know. I would.

Of all the things I've lost.....

2008-08-07T10:17:00.000-07:00

Gardener, oh gardener
Where have you gone?
You're not weeding 'maters
or lost in the corn.

The cosmos are waving
their lazy soft heads
Spaghetti squash vines
o'er running their beds
Dahlias (planted late)
are beginning to pop
And where are you; where are you?
There are fresh beans to crop!
Walkways to mulch
and pots all awry
the sunflowers endlessly
reach for the sky.
All of this beauty and
you're not around.

(Maybe your mind
is simply not sound)

Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most.

Red sky in the morning, Shepherd take warning.

2008-06-21T07:40:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of the skies at dawn this morning. I'd say it's lovely but the Trabing fire is a terrible tragedy and the reason why there is a bright pink sunrise.

It was heart-rending to see. I didn't mind the hold up on the freeway. But as usual I was annoyed that other drivers weren't letting emergency vehicles pass. Since my trek home is southbound on Highway 1, I could see the fires in the groves. And I was actually watching a house burn down. My husband and I know people who live in that area, and we still haven't heard if they are okay yet. I'm sure they have other worries. I hope to hear from them soon.

We were on the road and out of town when the fire in Bonnie Doon occurred. We came home to a garden covered in ash. And of course the Summit fire in May was troubling. Again, one friend was watching his pasture burn - but the house and buildings survived. And they were able to move their pets and horses off the property.

With this heat, we're sure to have a bad fire season. I was reading a local blogger's entry recently about how lovely the sunsets were with the smoke in the air. I felt it was insensitive. Just like the people who don't get out of the way of Emergency services. Shameful......

A story continued - after by far too much delay.

2008-04-19T23:35:00.000-07:00

I didn't tell the end of the story of the amaryllis. Well, they didn't go to the wedding. Not a single one was in bloom on the 22nd of December. They waited until mid-January to open. I took these pictures on 1/16/08. One frustrating thing is that the colors were supposed to be "Apple Blossom" Pink and "Dazzler" white. One of the white ones bloomed pink. Most of the others were white. But if the bloom below is "Apple Blossom" - I will eat my gardening hat! (They were more salmon colored - not white with pink stripes in the trumpet).

Very disappointing. I will think twice about buying amaryllis, I would expect this sort of result from buying out of a general nursery bin. In that situation, I can understand when the colors get mixed.

I gave most of the white ones away to the Bride. She said they bloomed beautifully in early February. The rest I gave to friends as Valentine gifts. I kept a white one for myself. I ended up having about eight plants that didn't do anything. They are about to hit the compost pile tomorrow as I'm getting the greenhouse ready for tomatoes.

Yay! Tomatoes!!

They're growing, but.....

2007-12-02T22:52:00.000-08:00

But probably not fast enough. Day 14 with 20 to go and there's no way these will be in bloom. Drat.

The ones that had sprouted in the box have some promise, but I'm not sure if the flowers aren't damaged.

I've considered moving a few to the garage space where I have a heat mat going and the light of a south-west facing window.

Well the Cabrillo Winter Plant sale is on Wednesday the 5th. Maybe she would like some nice poinsettias.

Amaryllis Update - Day 7

2007-11-25T23:13:00.001-08:00

Changes seem rather insignifigant except the bulbs have gotten a little color. More red than green, but I'm not too worried that they won't be green. The stems are beginning to straighten. Although I might have to shift them to the other side of the greenhouse if they become too tall and start to hit the ceiling of my very small greenhouse.

(grow! grow! grow! - only 27 days to go)

Taking any bets

2007-11-19T22:22:00.000-08:00

So does it take 8 weeks for an amaryllis to bloom or 30 days? Yesterday, I spent the day potting up 22 amaryllis plants with the hopes that they will be ready for a wedding on December 22nd. I always thought 30 days to bloom. But the box said 8 weeks.

Escape from the package and a few are sprouting already.

Yikes. I'm already thinking of contingency plans. I was thinking how they'd make great arrangements for the tables at the reception, but now I'm not so sure. I also have too many, with the hopes that some will be 100% ready to go. Funny thing was I wanted white, but couldn't find anything other than apple blossom. And I didn't really have enough apple blossom to feel sure that there'd be enough for the 7 tables. When I finally found a store that had more apple blossom, they also had white. And they were less expensive than the first batch I purchased, so I went a bit overboard. Now I have whites and apple blossom. Maybe if they aren't in bloom, I can combine 2 bulbs with white pansies or some such at the base and dress them up that way. I don't know. You believe that you can do something less pricey than the florist, but I'm beginning to wonder.

Coconut coir that came with the packets, soaking in water.
Much easier to work with than dessicated potting soil.

Reconstituted coconut coir going into the pots.

All the "Dazzler" whites potted up

And to think the bride is nervous......

First picture in the greenhouse - Day 1

Weekend Chores

2007-11-05T21:20:00.000-08:00

So here was my list of things to get done on the weekend:

transplant the vegetables I purchased
clear beds 1 and 2
put in chicken manure and regular compost
seed in fava beans and winter grain cover crops
dig up the dahlias and label them for storage
turn the soil in the dahlia beds ready to be amended
clear out any rose cuttings that obviously aren't cooperating with being propagated
try to keep up with the weeds.

Here's what I didn't plan on doing:

Bury the dead mole that I found floating in the cat's watering bowl.

I noticed that the water pan that we leave out for the feral cat was looking horribly murky. And when I started to dump out the water I noticed something lurking in the depths of the murk. I have no idea how he got in, perhaps he fell in as he tried to get a drink. I hate to think that's the case. Or maybe he'd been dropped in by the cat or other animal. Regardless, he was very bloated and smelly.

Ugh, I thought. Have to get rid of that. I wandered off to find my spade. And I find in my wandering that I'll make a couple of diversions here and there (like oh, I really meant to dig that up, and here I am spade in hand - you get the picture) After I did the little diversions, I found a spot to bury the mole and dug the hole so I'd spend the very least amount of time with dead stinky mole on the spade.

And I trudged back to the water bowl, only to find the mole was missing. I have no idea how he left, but I suppose that there's a neighbor nearby who's probably saying "Holey Toledo, what on earth did the dog roll in?" Let me tell you, he probably stinks of dead mole.

Doesn't feel like November

2007-11-04T08:50:00.000-08:00

Apple from the Chadwick Garden at the Center for Agroecology (UCSC)

The weather is unseasonably warm. Of course this means that with the little bit of early October rains we had, every weed seed is now happily sprouting. I'm not complaining, at least I can do a little weeding in the warm weather and get a head start on the winter rains. Not to mention, I'm putting in my winter crops. I picked up some "Purple Sprouting" broccoli, Walla Walla onions, hollyhocks, and a green globe artichoke. Not to mention scads of chicken manure (which my husband complained all afternoon about the smell.)

Not to mention, I'm concentrating on lots of fava beans for cover crops. I've got to fortify the soil this winter. My summer growing season really stank this year, and I believe it was depleted soil that was the culprit.

Garden Chaos Theory

2007-09-16T09:08:00.000-07:00

Strangely, it works for me.

(Seen on a bulletin board in the Alan Chadwick Garden, U.C. Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems)
http://casfs.ucsc.edu/

Losing Battles

2007-07-13T21:56:00.000-07:00

I've been reflecting on my last post. Frankly, I guess I'm resigned to the fact that the web is the web and hypertext will always be what it is. I've decided just to leave things be and "get over it" or "snap out of it" or whatever else it is that I'm concerned about.

There are far worse things that happen at sea.

For example, sawflies. I've had an annual problem with them on my pear tree. But this year, it's been too much. There was enough of an infestation that the tree dropped all of its leaves last week. And the pears are going to have to be stripped off, with the hopes that it won't kill the tree. If I had applied myself to the problem sooner, perhaps I wouldn't have lost the crop.

I tried to find Spinosad which was recommended by Pam Pierce who was "Battling a Swiss Chard Pest". I couldn't find Spinosad, but found "Patrol" at a local hydroponics shop. So far, it's killed the nasty critters. They look like a mix between a caterpillar and a slug. And they eat the leaf down to the veins. It would have been a great year.

Young pear before the sawflies devastated the tree.

Theft of Intellectual Property

2007-05-15T10:45:00.000-07:00

vitiate \VISH-ee-ayt\, transitive verb:
1. To make faulty or imperfect; to render defective; to impair; as, "exaggeration vitiates a style of writing."
2. To corrupt morally; to debase.
3. To render ineffective; as, "fraud vitiates a contract."

Would disabling RSS (Real Simple Syndication) vitiate a public blog?

I'm stuck in a quandary. I have found out that my public blog Coastal CA Gardening is being fed into a blog that sole purpose is having click through ads. The blogger provides no content of their own. They have simply culled a number of gardening blogs and use them as content. Then all around the edges are click through ads which I assume the owner gets a few cents for.

This is like writing articles for a commercial magazine for free. And I was never asked if I wished to participate (which I might have even said yes).

So should I disable RSS so this doesn't facilitate their content? Sadly, this would also disable feeds to honest people who read my blog through an aggregator like Google Reader Labs or Bloglines.

I would appreciate feedback. I am notifying the "offending" blogger and politely asking them to remove my blog. But I might also have to disable RSS. Please leave a comment or send me an email.

Best Regards,
C.C.

Potato Experiment

2007-04-18T22:20:00.000-07:00

I have been looking lustfully at English potato barrels. They look so nice and I like the idea of slipping up the sides and sneaking a few new potatoes. And I have relatives in England who might be persuaded to buy such pots and ship them to me. But not for the hefty cost of £35 each! (about $70 and I'm not including what it would cost to ship)

My greatest success with potatoes was when I put them in the raised beds. But they were difficult to dig up at harvest time and I've been chasing potatoes in that bed ever since. I'll admit that it's fun to find them when turning the bed in Spring and Fall. But I tend to find them with the fork stuck straight through the center of the spud and then the ones I miss pop up in odd places, like where the garlic is growing now. Strangely enough, I've even found potatoes in the planters on the deck 12 feet above the garden! My only guess is a bird re-planted a spud it had dug up.

So container planting is my preferred method, but I haven't found a pot that reliably produces a big crop. So far all my other "potato tower" and container potatoes have been of limited success. The "potato tower" barely yielded the same weight as the starter potatoes that I put in. Once I had a sizable crop from a container (where the potato sprung up magically). I keep planting that same pot, but it's never produced the same yield.

I've been hoping that an American vendor would show some interest in buying potato pots, and then I would purchase from there - but it hasn't caught on. I did notice Gardeners.com now sell potato grow sacks, but I'm afraid the gophers would make short work of those. But why not look for a pot the same size as the grow bags? I have some "tree size" pots that I now have some potatoes growing in. I believe it is classed as a #15 tree size pot and it measures 15" in diameter and 18" tall. The picture here shows them next to a pile of classic "1 gallon pots".

It's smaller than a wine barrel half, therefore easier to harvest. So I think this might work. I placed 3 starter spuds in each on top of 8-inches of soil. I covered the starts with 3 more inches of soil. And as they grow, I've been adding in more potting soil. And they are growing like gangbusters. I have high hopes for these new "potato pots".

By the way, these were planted near St. Patrick's day - the time when my Granddad used to plant his annual spud crop. However, with the temperate climate here, I'm lucky to be able to plant potatoes 3 different times a year (from my own starts) and if these pots work out, I might try a go at a 4th crop kept in the greenhouse over winter.

Where does the money go exactly?

2007-04-17T06:55:00.000-07:00

"The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has."

- Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)
Illiterate Digest (1924), "Helping the Girls with their Income Taxes"

Well, another year, another tax bill. And no, I do not wish to know how much your refund is; sour grapes on my part. I should be used to it by now. A refund coming my way has been such a rare occurrence that I can scarce remember that I did get one. Once, from the feds, many years ago and I think it was for about $15. I should have hung the check on the wall, marking the day permanently in my personal history, but I think that same year the state charged me $50 so it was a borrow from Peter to pay Paul year. But what does this have to do with gardening? Well, as the electronic packets were flying forth and back from my computer to the tax slurping server, all I could think about was this little corner of the garden. This is where I want to put in some retaining walls and fruit trees. And I was thinking for the amount of money I just sent to the government, I could have afforded the stones and materials to build this part of the garden and I would have been able to hire some help to build said walls.

But then they'd have to pay taxes, poor sod.

Well, I guess I'll just have to pull out my $7 hoe (taxes paid on it too) and keep the weeds down for a while longer.

Rain

2007-04-12T22:25:00.000-07:00

What a dry year it's been. Especially when last year we Californians were all moaning about whether or not the rainy season would ever end. I've heard that Santa Cruz is talking about water restrictions.

February we saw about 3 inches of rain, March only 5/8-inch. And yesterday we only saw 3/8-inch. There's more in the forecast for Saturday, but I'm already watering the garden. It has felt odd, seeing that many times, I don't start watering until April.

So, I guess I'll be glad to see more rain Saturday, except I've made all these plans, like checking out the Dahlia Club sale. Oh well.

The Universe in a Grain of Sand

2007-04-10T06:34:00.000-07:00

It's really not a garden blog if you don't have pictures to share. At least I see it that way. I'd thought I'd "check in". All's well, I just don't have many pictures. The daffodils have faded, the ceanothus is also fading. Most of my spring flowers have moved on. The arugula is bolting as is the Giant Red Japanese Mustard. Right now I'm concentrating on cleaning up what hasn't survived, turning beds for summer vegetables, and putting in more hardscape. And frankly, some of the pictures are a bit gruesome, not something I'm quite ready to publish. And really, how many tomato start pictures can anyone stomach? I'm only half through potting up this year's batch and my regular "adoption families" are waiting with anticipation. Lots of sprouts, but just as I went out with my camera, I'd discovered a snail had found them first. So, no sprout pictures (and back to the potting bench to re-do my work).

But Mr C. seems to notice the beautiful in even the very tiniest of things. I had sort of ignored the orchid pictured above. It's a Dendrobium kingianum. They are quite easy to grow here and like the same environment that Cymbidiums enjoy. And it's in bloom, I just hadn't thought to take a picture. But my husband did, and looking at it this way, I can see just how beautiful it is, even if it is the size of the tip of my pinky.

Touring the UCSC Arboretum

2007-03-28T20:08:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, I spent the morning touring the UCSC Arboretum with one of the garden clubs I belong to. I really enjoy this arboretum, especially at this time of year because many of the collections are in bloom. There is an emphasis on Mediterranean garden plants from South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and California. Although the garden isn't formal, I've always had a fun time tramping about and taking pictures. The hummingbirds are particularly fun to watch, with their mating displays and other antics. First the club was given a short history of the Arboretum by Ron Arruda, the curator of the South African Collection. Then, a few of the volunteers spoke about volunteer opportunities available. I love Proteas and Leucadendrons so I'll share a few of my pictures:

Protea Nerifolia 'Bishop Desmond Tutu'

Leucadendron argentatum
This plant is a 30 foot tree

In addition to the gardens, there is a gift and plant shop called Norrie's. It is completely run by volunteers and you can purchase plants that have been propagated by the volunteers from plants found in the gardens.

Close up of the yellow Leucadendron

Here are some cuttings from the gardens. You can see how just a few of these plants make fantastic arrangements:

Leucospermum (Pincushion flowers)

A variety of Leucadendron

History of the Arboretum:

http://www.library.ucscarboretum.org/history/index.php

Arboretum main web page

http://www2.ucsc.edu/arboretum/index.html

Expectantly thinking of summer

2007-03-24T20:42:00.000-07:00

Please spot the nut job. She's standing under the apricot tree, up on her toes, straining to see if there are apricots. The flower petals just recently dropped. The pollen has barely had time to travel down the style to the ovary. Or has it?

Yes, I'm thrilled to say that there are lots of these tiny fuzzy knobs all over the tree. I might actually have to thin this year (fingers crossed). The five I had last year were just enough to wet my palate. I'm terribly excited to see these fruits, so small they haven't burst the flower collar yet.

Now in the other corner of the garden, this is what you don't want the cabbages to do:

You can tell that a cabbage is about to bolt when the leaves start to feel loose and "fluffy" versus tight and compact in a ball. A cabbage that is about to bolt can be slowed down by grabbing the head and twisting it so the root rotates in the ground and breaks some of the roots. But, if a cabbage seems like it's about to bolt, it's better to harvest it. My problem is that they look so enchanting in the garden. They are lovely, gigantic rosettes and sometimes I'm too enamored with them to harvest them.

I guess I kept hoping it might get bigger. Oh well. But it does make an interesting pattern.

The tomato seedlings are up and I'm now brushing them everyday. Brushing them involves lightly running your fingers over the seedlings, almost like tickling them. Outdoors, of course, this slight motion back and forth would be caused by breezes, and the stress strengthens the stems so the plant is stronger and stockier. I was taught this technique by another gardener who loved my seed starts, but felt they could be a little stronger if I had added more light and brushed them regularly. My first ones would fall over at the slightest hint of a breeze. A few have their first true leaves, so I think next week I'll start to pot some of them up.

Picture taken on 21 March just after I arrived home from work. They're leaning towards the last rays of sunset.

Listening to Amy Stewart, author of Flower Confidential

2007-03-24T17:37:00.000-07:00

Again, I was kicking myself for not bringing my camera. I went to Amy Stewart's talk at Capitola Books, promoting her new book Flower Confidential. I've been following Amy's writing over on her blog, and then at Garden Rant where she is a contributer. But as her new book is out she hasn't had much to contribute to Garden Rant. But I always enjoy reading her work.

And I sat in the audience wondering why I don't go to more of these author talks. As I am taking this writing class, I found I was learning a lot about the writer and the process of writing. I think the only thing that I find to deter me is that I'd spend a whole lot more money on books if I went to the talks more regularly. And that is a dangerous temptation for me.

Amy Stewart's book is very enlightening, if you've ever wondered about the flower industry at all. I find that the subject is parallel to where our food comes from (before the grocery store). She does touch on many current topics like sustainable production techniques, organic growers, fair trade, and carbon footprint. Even in the first few chapters, I know the names of people she is writing about; Luther Burbank, Leslie Woodriff, Ted Kirsch, etc. First of all, I have a passion for plants and when all you can think about is plants, you start to learn the names of hybridizers, growers, resellers, garden authors, and the lot. I was similarly amused when I read The Orchid Thief, as I recognized many names there too, since I had been a suscriber to American Orchid Society for years. I didn't think I'd like the book as I had judged it by its cover. First of all, it's not a ghost orchid, which is what the plot revolves around. Secondly, and perhaps the most disturbing aspect is that the cover is a picture of a Phalaenopsis and it is upside down! But I digress.

And secondly, much of the writing in Flower Confidential is about places that are local to where I live. On my way home, I pass greenhouse after greenhouse. Nurseries here grow everything from exotic succulents and orchids, to poinsettias and carnations. Colorspot - the company that grows many of the annuals in Home Depot, has it's main growing facilities only a few miles from my home. So maybe the plant disease is an airborne contagion, but I think the problem simply caused me to gravitate to where the plants are. I must be near them. [grin] She also writes about Bonny Doon Garden Company, which is a florist located on Pacific Avenue in Santa Cruz. I love her bouquets and would pass up a delicious meal in a fine restaurant in trade for one of her creations. She brought 2 arrangements to the book talk that were to die for. And I love the fact that many of the arrangements come from local gardens & nurseries. As much as I appreciate the lovely roses from South America, I would rather have locally grown flowers.

By the way, I should note that I ended up loving The Orchid Thief, despite the cover. And so far, I am really enjoying Flower Confidential.

Here's a little description of the book in the author's own words:

Cutting Day

2007-03-15T21:41:00.000-07:00

My favorite day at my garden club is cutting day. It's the day when we get together and bring branches from our gardens and we all make some cuttings. The idea is that we will propagate plants that are successful in each others gardens. And as we all have similar soil and climate conditions, this can be a real boon. Here are some of this year's cuttings:

The picture below is from a Leonotis leonurus that I grew from a cutting last year (just before it was going to bloom - not currently blooming now, though). It's one of my favorite plants, and I've never seen one at the nursery.

I've gotten some great plants this way, although I'm not 100% successful. But even a few plants are greatly appreciated.

Oops.....

2007-03-12T00:04:00.000-07:00

This morning I was musing to myself "I wonder when the poison oak is going to spring back to life so I can try to eliminate it." That being said, I should also mention that I'm hugely allergic to it.

Then I looked down and noticed a vine. I grabbed it and thought "what's this?" Of course, I was standing dead in the center of a huge patch of poison oak with one of it's newly sprouting tendrils in my hand.

You can imagine the next few choice words......

Oh no. Not again.

2007-03-11T08:01:00.000-07:00

I've started this year's tomatoes. I'm only planting those seeds that succeeded last year. So many didn't make it. The ones that did, I preserved the seeds, even if I didn't like the variety or it didn't produce many tomatoes. Tomatoes that made the list:

1884 (raised in the greenhouse)
Anais Noir (also raised in the greenhouse)
Azoychka
Basinga
Beauty Lottringa
Black Plum
Cherokee Purple
Cream Sausage
Florida Pink (raised in the greenhouse)
German Strawberry (greenhouse)
Great White
Heart of Compassion
Jaffe's Cherry
Japanese Oxheart
Jersey Devil
Kentucky Beefsteak
Marmande
Northern Lights
Roma Pompeii
Peche Jaune
Silvery Fir Tree
Sunset Red
Ukranian Heart
Ukranian Pink Pear
Orange Russian

(If you've reached this page by google search and wonder why I'm only listing these varieties, please read my post "Garden Mistake Confessions". Then you can try to find specific varieties if you wish.)

But on the other side of the greenhouse I was surprised to see this:

The German Strawberry, the Anais Noir, and the Ukranian Pink Pear have all sprouted from what I thought was a dead stump. And the German Strawberry has been busy this winter. I found a couple of rotten tomatoes from the freeze. If I had noticed them sooner, they would have been eaten. Too bad.

Thoughts in the garden today.....

2007-03-10T17:22:00.000-08:00

How many wonders are in the corners of a garden?

Seeing the bright colors of the flowers

Tasting sour sorrel leaves

Hearing a carrot go pop when you pull it from the soil

Watching a lizard as it finds a warm spot in the sun

Discovering that an onion flower smells like onions

Enjoying how the birds feed their young and finally teach them to fly

Nibbling sweet sugar snap peas straight from the vine

Surprised by a frog leaping out of the watering can

Having a butterfly land on your arm

The wonders of a garden are as infinite as the world

And all within reach of home.

A bee working an onion flower in the garden.

spring

2007-03-08T23:50:00.000-08:00

bright green leaf buds swell
white blossoms drift in the breeze
weeds even look good

Strolling in the garlic forest?

2007-03-02T22:53:00.000-08:00

The picture is this year's crop of elephant garlic or Allium ampeloprasum. They won't be ready to harvest until July or August. But I was amused by this point of view. I've raised this batch over the years I've lived here. I got them from a gardener, years ago. I didn't have a yard, so I put a few of the bulbs in my father's yard. They've been growing and flowering there for 6 years while I lived in Aptos. Then, when Mr. C. and I moved to Elkhorn, I went by Dad's to see if I could find any bulbs. There were only 2 left. For the last 3 years I've been increasing their numbers. This year there are 15 plants, and I will finally get to have some elephant garlic this summer.

Elephant garlic has larger bulbs than regular garlic and a milder flavor. In fact the plant is more closely related to leeks. Don't make my mistake of growing both together as I couldn't tell one from the other until harvest. Also, a benefit to growing your own garlic year after year is that the plants become more adapted to your specific growing conditions, making stronger and bigger bulbs. Save a few of the biggest for planting next season.

Elephant garlic makes a lovely flower, but it's best to cut them out to get bigger bulbs. You can sauté the scapes (unopened flowers) in butter or olive oil.

Although, with the sniffles that have been going on here, I was wishing I had more now. Garlic is a good expectorant and helps with chronic bronchitis. Although I think if I grated it into honey (as is the recommended procedure for coughs), Mr. C. would run out of the house as if I was trying to poison him. I guess I'll just have to slip some garlic chives into his eggs for breakfast.

Dune Restoration - Planting out

2007-02-25T13:35:00.000-08:00

I spent Saturday with the Beach Garden Project, in Marina (Monterey County, CA). I finally took my plants that I had sprouted out to the beach to be planted out. Here's a shot of the Artemesia from January 27th:

I may have mentioned that my beach aster (Lessingia filaginifolia) hadn't sprouted much. I thought perhaps I hadn't collected the seed properly or perhaps some other blunder. But Joey (the project coordinator) said the soil mix was too mossy and many of them had failed. So it wasn't just me. (phew!) On the other hand, my Sagewort (Artemisia pycnocephala) was very healthy and nearly every cell had a plant. (And by February it was lush and shaggy) She was delighted to see such a healthy tray. Here's a long distance shot of my tray as the plants are being positioned onto the dune:

After spending the morning transplanting into sand dunes, I will never complain about my garden soil again. You have to dig a little to get beyond the dry drifting sand, and then make sure that the wet sand is all around the transplant. Then you make a water well around the plant, and I'll admit, there were some dry spots that made that pretty challenging. Also, each of the plants have to be oriented the correct direction behind the straw wind break. Basically the straw plugs are placed into the dune to help stabilize the sand sheet. By observing which way the wind predominately blows from, the transplant is placed behind the break to give it some protection. Add to this the steep and crumbly hill you are working on, it makes for a difficult task. Here's a planted transplant:

And here's a picture of the straw plugs that are placed in the fall to stabilize the sand sheet. Some of the plants have already been planted in this photo:

There were about 15 volunteers who showed up and we were able to transplant about 1,000 plants. The project volunteers sprouted about 10,000 plants and had transplanted 9,000 on weekends during January and February. What is unique about this dune restoration project is the variety of native species that are started and transplanted. There are up to 20 different plant species that are used. This is more species than other projects attempt to propagate. Here is a sample:

So we finished transplanting, cleaned up our trays and cell plugs, and hoped that the clouds would bring a little rain for the transplants (which it did lightly sprinkle). Despite the sore muscles, I felt good knowing that I'd done a small good deed in the larger garden of the world.

Extreme Gardening

2007-02-17T09:30:00.000-08:00

Ah the blog has been neglected. It seems when I'm up to my eyeballs at work with technical documentation, I run out of words by the time I get home. Well, I don't think I'm in any danger of publishing a novel.

I did want to share a funny thing that went around a mailing list I'm on. One of our members wanted to show off her new gardening duds:

"This year I have some new duds. The netting suit from Cabelas which fits over even winter jackets has given me great peace of mind after being bitten twice this year by ticks. The suit also covers the head.

The Harley helmet (my husband's) is to soften the blows of the red shouldered hawks - once they finish their nest and until the chicks fledge the parents will attack if we are within 200 feet of their tree. I was whacked twice last year - just think of where those talons have been."

The things we do just to get out in the garden! :-))

Cabbage

2007-02-06T21:20:00.000-08:00

Not bad for a cabbage that was full of holes in November. This was the cabbage the caterpillars were bent on devouring (see my previous post "what's bugging me".) Now it is ready to pick. It's not as solid as I could have wished for, and it only measures 7-inches across, but I'm glad to have a cabbage. Four more are about to follow - that is if the sow bugs don't eat them before they are big enough. I was out hunting snails and slugs tonight and noticed dozens of sow bugs eating one of the lower leaves. I looked for the "salad bar" sign but found none.

I wish I could find the tag in order to remember the cabbage variety.

Working between the showers

2007-01-29T22:22:00.000-08:00

Protea 'Pink Ice'

Thank goodness it's raining a bit and the weather is warmer. It was great to be out in the garden this weekend, even if all I was doing was clearing brush and getting ready to remove the old propane tank. I've finally had a moment to take the pictures off the cameras and upload them. Life's been busy with little time left to mill about in the garden (or the web).

Saturday Precipitation: 1/2-inch
Sunday Precipitation: 1/4-inch

What a lovely weekend.

2007-01-22T19:36:00.000-08:00

After the freezing temperatures we've been having, I was glad to see it had warmed up over the weekend. In fact Sunday was warmer outside than it was inside the house.

I actually had to water the garden, which is strange for January. We've only had 1/4 inch of rain this month and since I think we'll be having a warming trend this week, I thought I better water the beds. Fortunately, the swiss chard, red mustard, cabbages, carrots and beets sailed through the cold temperatures just fine. A couple of things froze out, like some volunteer cosmos, a nasturtium, and some of the calendula that had just sprouted. But nothing of note. My fuschia arborescens took a hard hit. But it should be back just fine. It's had quite a struggle of late, first there was the rain which caused a growth spurt. Then the wind storms came through which snapped off all the new growth. (I took the opportunity to daub them in root tone and attempt some propagation.) Now the poor thing is 3/4 frost damaged. I was planning on pruning it to be a bit bushier but I'm a bit stumped at the moment as how I should prune it now. I think it will be best to wait for a bit longer. I'll see if there's some buds next weekend.

I was able to prune the apricot and the pear. Neither were pruned very hard as the pear is nearly perfect in shape and size. I guess I should remove some of the spurs so that it will renew them. One major branch was taken out of the apricot. It's shading the center and although that branch had lots of growth from last year, I decided it is better for the overall tree to open it up. This summer I need to do a little height adjustment. I prefer to pick fruit while standing on the ground instead of on a ladder.

I also pruned out old canes from the blueberries, and cleaned up any rose bushes that I could see. I know there are 3 or 4 more to clean up. I can't wait to settle them into the perennial bed.

I'm moving the temporary beds that the tomatoes were in last year to the back of the yard. I noticed that Bambi has made a visit and nibbled some of the penstemon and sheared back one Alstromeria. I think this might be the year I add the water scare crow. I'm also trying to decide what to plant in those beds. I'm considering strawberries if I can get some quail protection. I only got one or two strawberries last year because the quail snatched them as soon as they were ripe enough. At least they ate those and left the blueberries alone. Although I think the flash tape was the only reason I was able to have a crop.

My garden is only growing ice.

2007-01-16T21:05:00.000-08:00

Rain water frozen in my weeding bucket.

Brr. Big Brrrrr. It's an understatement. Will someone turn the heat back on in California? I spent the weekend at Mom's (which wasn't any warmer!). Although it was a 3 day weekend, I had no real motivation to get out into the garden, it's just been too darn cold. Just to prove it, here's a picture of some of the growing ice that was in my weed bucket. That was Saturday. I was stunned to see ice had formed in so many places in the yard. We haven't ever seen this sort of weather, even last March when we had that weird ice storm that dumped snow in Santa Cruz through Rio del Mar.

You know it's cold when the Oxalis has frost damage. Too bad it doesn't kill the blasted stuff. But I'm pleased that last summer's work of mulching around the greenhouse and beds 1 and 2 has kept the weeds down. Except for the occasional rogue Oxalis, there's been nothing poking through the four pages of newspaper & 3 inches of bark on top. I'm noticing a need to add more bark here and there, but yippee, no weeds to pull so far. I hope the trend continues when the soil warms up.

Saturday I barely went out to look and see what was frost damaged. I forgot about a dendrobium in the green house and it looks terrible. What a shame. But I see no reason why it shouldn't recover. Stupid of me to forget it in there. I plucked some ripened parsley seed heads. I really want more of those plants here and there as the beneficial insects love them. Even now (when it's a tad warmer, however) they buzz all over the blossoms. The rhubarb that was looking full and perky last week is drooped over the sides of the pot now. I was wondering when it was planning on becoming dormant.

Once I got to Mom's on Sunday, there was similar damage here and there, but most things are looking okay for her. I do worry about the kaffir lily which was looking a bit sad. But I wasn't even sure it would survive in Lincoln. Time will tell. I found time to prune the cherry tree, the espalier pear and espalier apple. I still have the peach, apricots and second apple tree to prune. And I really need to treat the peach with horticultural oil. Well, I'll be back in a couple of weeks. I'll try to finish then.

Happy Solstice

2006-12-21T22:45:00.000-08:00

Northern Flicker

Gods rest ye merry garden folk,
Let nothing you dismay.
Remember that the Sun returns
Upon this Solstice day!

The growing dark is ended now,
And Spring is on it's way.
O, tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy!
O, tidings of comfort and joy.

The Winter's worst still lies ahead,
Fierce tempest, snow and rain!
Beneath the blanket on the ground,
The spark of life remains.

The Sun's warm rays caress the seeds,
To raise life's songs again!
O, tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy!
O, tidings of comfort and joy.

(Looking forward to sunnier days, aren't we all?)

Poinsettia Care

2006-12-08T07:28:00.000-08:00

Winter Rose Pink: Breeder - Ecke

I still have a few pictures from the Cabrillo College Holiday Plant Sale and Open House, so I'm going to post them with a reprint of the poinsettia care sheet that they handed out with the plants. Enjoy.

Cinnamon Candy: Breeder - Selecta

The poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima), one of the most popular winter holiday plants, is a native to the area around Taxco, Mexico. Joel R. Poinsett, the first United States ambassador to Mexico, introduced it into the United States. In Mexico, poinsettias grow to be large woody shrubs, often reaching heights above 10 feet.

Poinsettia is a member of the spurge family and is characterized by small, inconspicuous flowers called cyathia and large, brightly colored, leaf-like bracts. Poinsettia bracts may be red, pink, white, yellow, speckled or marbled; the most popular color is red.

Poinsettias are often thought of as poisonous, but research indicates that poinsettias contain no chemicals commonly considered toxic; however, eating the plants is not recommended. (The SPCA still lists Poinsettias as poisonous to pets and pet owners should keep the plants away from their animals.) While most people are not sensitive to the milky sap, it can cause a mild skin irritation.

Christmas Time Crazy Marble: Breeder - Fischer

Care:

Place the plant where it will receive a maximum amount of indoor sunlight.
Premature leaf drop is one of the main problems in poinsettia care. The plant needs to be kept out of drafts, as rapid temperature fluctuations will cause premature leaf drop. Even to be touching a cold windowpane can cause injury to the bracts. Night temperatures should be no cooler than 60 to 65 degrees F. Day temperatures should not exceed 80 degrees F.
Another cause of leaf drop is wilting. The soil must be kept slightly moist but not soggy. Water thoroughly and make sure the pot has good drainage. Empty out any water that may be left in the pot saucer after watering.
Fertilization is typically not needed for the first month because the potting mix includes a slow release fertilizer. After the first month, fertilize once every two weeks until the plant loses its brightly colored bracts.
Many of the new poinsettia cultivars will keep their leaves and remain attractive even in summer. If the plant retains its leaves, treat it like any houseplant. Place it in a sunny location and apply a complete fertilizer containing trace elements once every two weeks. As soon as night temperatures reach a minimum of 60 degrees F, the plant can be set outside.

Reflowering:

It is possible to reflower your poinsettia but we would like your continued support, plant it outside and buy new ones next year! (But of course!!)

Sonora White Glitter: Breeder - Fischer

The Annual Christmas Sacrifice

2006-12-06T21:55:00.000-08:00

Top Left to Right: Cinnamon Star, Sonora Marble
Bottom Left to Right: Silver Star Red, Carousel Pink
Breeder - Fischer (all)

I've oftentimes thought of posting a Thursday 13 meme with thirteen of the plants that I kill regularly. I have a few friends who are amazed that I even have plants that die. They think that every plant I grow thrives because I have this supposed "green thumb". I am often given plants that are dry, leggy and dwindling with the belief that I can resurrect them to their previously green and luscious glory. Let me be the first to admit that I seriously doubt my "green thumb" abilities. I regularly have seeds that don't sprout, transplants that don't take, trees that unexpectedly die, and "fail proof" plants that drop over dead within the first week. This is the way of a gardener.

Plum Pudding: Breeder - Ecke

I have simply applied a few rules to growing plants, and I think this is the reason why people think I'm "great with plants". And I'm willing to share these rules. Rule one; compost your failures quickly and quietly. Only you will remember that you have once again killed that plant that looked so easy to grow. Fortunately, the worms will never tell your secret. Rule two; learn which plants you kill with ease and never ever bring them back into the house or garden, no matter how attractive they appear in the nursery. You know they will only be a waste of your hard earned cash. It would be better spent on a new and untried plant because that one might just be the fabulous find that is easy to grow and perpetuates the "green thumb" illusion. Rule three; stick with the plants that are winners for you. Use these as the centerpieces and if you must have a "failure prone" plant, use it as a complementary planting or filler that won't be noticed if it "disappears" to the compost pile.

Puebla: Breeder - Fischer

And I have found that every gardener has a different style of gardening. Some people love to water and therefore water loving plants thrive for them. However, their same method causes cactus and other dry loving plants to keel over dead. My advice: don't grow the cactus. Keep with plants that are jungle plants and forest dwellers. Find plants that are their relatives and love the same conditions. You can always try to grow the cactus, but realize that you are going to have to move outside of your comfort zone and do things that are optimal for the cactus and not necessarily for the gardener. Me, I'm just the opposite to someone who loves to water. I like and keep plants that can go through a dry spell and not be too phazed by the problem. I like orchids and have quickly learned which ones are content with the once a week watering schedule. I do not bother with the ones that want a constant moisture or demanding temperatures. The fun thing about plants is that there's bound to be hundreds maybe thousands that fit in with how you want to grow things. Therefore, go with your strengths and admire the other gardeners who can make the plants you kill, thrive.

Sonora White : Breeder - Fischer

One plant that I always kill is Euphorbia pulcherrima or Poinsettia. I adore the pictures of them in the magazines at this time of year. I fantasize about how I can beautify my house with some luscious pink or green hybrid, which is this year's rage. But when I go to purchase the "new fashion", the price makes me balk. Do I really want to spend $20 for a plant that will be dead by February? And I know all the ways you can make them continue to grow, but it's never worked for me. My dad, who really doesn't bother with plants and gardening, seems to keep poinsettias growing and blooming for years. I'm always flabbergasted by this, but have learned simply to admire his little collection with calm subjectivity. Moreover, I buy my poinsettias with the stark realization that they will be dead by February. The nursery industry doesn't seem to mind, in fact, they're banking on it.

So, this evening, I went to the Cabrillo College Poinsettia Sale and Open House, with a certain amount of resolve (I'm here just to look). They had an extraordinary display of many different varieties, propagated by the horticultural students. I was also impressed by the price, so, you guessed it; I have a new set of poinsettias for the season. And despite their helpful culture guide, I believe they'll last until February, perhaps March.

They've got my number

2006-11-29T21:19:00.000-08:00

Here come the catalogs. I had to drag this one into work and show it to a co-worker. I think she's been amazed at the different colors, shapes and tastes of the different tomatoes I brought in to work. I don't know if I will buy anything, however. I have plenty of seeds saved.

The Thanksgiving holiday was busy. I was hoping to have more from the garden on the table. But I guess it was alright to have onions, some remaining fresh tomatoes and butternut squash. I had wished that I had some turnips, but perhaps I'm the only person who really likes them.

Once everyone had left, I had a small amount of time to work. I transplanted some of the Artemisia so that each one of the plugs have a plant. I also am trying to sprout more of the Beach Aster. But of course Sunday brought rain showers. I was so focused that I just kept planting in the rain. Mr. C finally brought me an umbrella. But I was glad to get that done. Now I have my fingers crossed that more of the Beach Aster will sprout.

Monday the gauge read 3/4-inch rain. However, a high pressure system has brought in a cold front and now it's really freezing. We're on frost warning from 2 am until 9 am and I've already dragged my kumquat into the green house. Ugh.

Quick look in at the garden this morning

2006-11-17T22:56:00.000-08:00

I believe this is Castilleja affinis which was growing on a beach in Seaside.

I'm a little worried about my dune sprouts. There aren't many beach aster sprouting.and I think I should see if my seed envelope have any more in them and try to sprout the rest.

On the other hand, the giant red mustard has shown an amazing amount of growth for just one week. The transplanted onions look like they'll take. I have so many more to plant. The swiss chard and cabbages are hanging in there.

So much to do before next week, and I'm hoping to put some flowers in to pots to make them look nicer.

A rainy night brought a sunny day

2006-11-14T22:08:00.000-08:00

A photo of the terrace from August. Now, it''s looking rather bare.

The rain yesterday was light but persistent until evening. Then it really came down. After months without rain, you sort of forget what it sounds like when it comes down. I was glad that I'd gotten most all of the transplants in on the weekend. I put in some more cabbages (Red Jewel), some Giant Red Mustard, and Bright Lights Swiss Chard. I transplanted some of the Walla Walla onions, but not all of them. Most of the transplants went into the terrace but I also was able to clear and plant bed 2. Now all I need are some flowers that will survive the cold and wet; probably some pansies, icelandic poppies and calendula. I put in some poppy seeds, but I'm not sure if they'll sprout as they are a little old.

Precipitation 1 1/2-inch

What's bugging me

2006-11-11T22:04:00.000-08:00

Okay, for a gardener the following pictures may be disturbing.

Here are the blasted caterpillars that have devastated what used to be nice cabbages; these two and about 3 dozen of their cousins.

And this is just too aggravating for words. The picture is of the blasted ants, which I have been fighting with borax and diacomatous earth and ant bait traps. I wouldn't be so aggressive if they didn't import or "farm" the aphids and the scale which coat entire plants. I have blasted them off time and time again, and the ants quickly bring the aphids back, repopulating every tender dahlia bud, rhubarb leaf, or lettuce. It's enough to drive me to .... well, I don't know what. The ants are everywhere. I know this is a very active time for them, but I sure can't wait for the rains to drown some of their population. Unfortunately, they have set up home in the greenhouse, which they love in the winter, incubating their young. I bait them again and again, but it's a losing battle.

On to other things. Woke up to a rainy morning (3/8-inch precipitation). Took a few pictures, two of a confused squash that came up from the compost. Now if I thought for one moment I could get a squash, I'd hand pollinate it. But I give the plant about 2 weeks before mildew has its way. The picture below is a female flower:

And this one is male:
Notice at the base, there isn't any fruit/squash forming. The most common reason why zuchini don't grow (and just drop the fruit) is because there weren't any male flowers open and ready when the female flowers are. I've observed that the plant will put a number of male flowers out before the females, but they usually fade before the female flowers are ready. I'm assuming that this is so the plant will cross with other plants nearby instead of self pollinating. I don't do seed saving for squash because they cross so easily (and the results can be disappointing) so I leave it to the experts and just buy a few seeds to sprout. But if I'm really anxious to get a few squash, I'll borrow a male blossom from another squash plant (even a compost sprout) to get the job done. Thank goodness they are so productive. What I might do is fry a few of these blossoms for lunch tomorrow. It would be a nice "off season" treat.

The rustling of leaves

2006-11-03T22:45:00.000-08:00

October slipped by. This blog has become a cobwebsite. I thought that I could talk endlessly about plants and gardening. But of late, I've been pre-occupied with other thoughts and tasks. None of which have been about the garden. Well, mostly.

A few of the things I have been doing:

1. Working on a dune restoration project. Sunset magazine featured an article in September (which I haven't been able to find - I need to stop by the library) about the Monterey Dune restoration project. Currently, I have 2 trays of California dune natives that are sprouting (ever so slowly). One tray is beach aster (Lessingia filaginifolia) and the other is Sagewort (Artemisia pycnocephala). Once they get their true leaves, I'll be able to thin the seedlings down to one plant per cone. They are planted out in January and February. Sounds like cold, wet, windy work. And I'll probably be there.

2. Going to evening lectures at Cabrillo Horticultural Center about Sustainable Landscaping. I missed the first two classes, but have attended the last two and the final one is in a couple of weeks. I have some interesting notes; maybe I'll share them. (I hate promising that I'll write an entry and then never do it, so I'm hoping that I really will write up what I learned at the lectures.)

3. Trying to put away the harvest and take down the tomato vines. Rather dull work, but it needs doing. Don't feel like blogging every time I go out on a pruning or weeding expedition, because what more can you say about it?

4. I put some cabbages into bed 3 a couple of months ago. The sulfur butterfly caterpillars have devastated the poor things. They look more like lace than cabbages. I don't seem to have the heart to pull them up. But I just might have to.

The garden is pretty dismal. As the evenings are darker and time is shorter after work, I never get around to watering. I don't have things set up on timers. Maybe next year. I've lost a few plants, but so far, nothing that I'm upset over. I was even thinking of a Thursday 13 meme of what plants I've killed this year.

I had a short visit by Bambi one week. He took every single autumn rose bloom off, and de-nuded a couple of plants. But again, not much of a hit so I am thankful. I need to spray the back part of the yard again with the nasty anti-deer spray. So far, there's nothing they are interesting in. Or the neighbor's dog is keeping them spooked. (Good dog!)

I have been haunting the garden center on occasion, hoping to spot a 6 pack of walla walla onions. I really loved the crop I produced this year, and I was hoping to get another run on them. I finally found a set at a natural food store, and I purchased them with a 6 pack of Japanese red mustard and ruby cabbages.

Rain started on Thursday, but I barely received an 1/8th inch. But apparently Aptos/Cabrillo college (their weather station site) had only seen 0.26. But driving through La Selva/Freedom on Highway one in the morning, you would think that there would be more in the rain gauge. And although I was enjoying the small warm spell, I am looking forward to the rains and the greening of the landscape.

Adventures in Canning

2006-10-04T22:52:00.000-07:00

The tomatoes are finally ripening up in large enough numbers that I finally can do some canning. I have 3 quarts already in the freezer (one with the spices ready for a moussaka). I finally got a test run of the pressure cooker. Now I remember my Mom using the pressure cooker, and I think I should have been on the phone more often with her as a consultant. And I also remember the time where her pressure cooker “blew up”. The vent pipe had become blocked with probably some bean skin or other bean by-product. I was at school when the pot blew, and when Mom rushed into the kitchen to turn the heat off from under the pot, to rush back out again. When a pressure cooker blows its pressure regulator, there’s little else you can do but kill the heat and let it cool down. Of course it will continue to blow the contents of the pain out through the vent pipe. So when I came home from school, there was Mom in the middle of the kitchen on her hands and knees cleaning up vaporized bean goop from every corner of the kitchen. The goop hung like stalagmites from the ceiling, dripping into a deep gelatinous pool in the floor. Mom was not amused by my uproarious laughter at her plight. It was a pretty funny picture at the time, but it has always made me wary of pressure cookers.

So this weekend, I had made some spaghetti sauce and some apple butter. I hot packed the jars and settled them into the pot. I only canned one quart of the tomato sauce as I really didn’t know how it would turn out and I only wanted to lose one quart if that’s what happened. I remember how the pressure regulator sounded on Mom’s old pot, but this thing sounded like a steam train coming through the kitchen. And the pot is huge. It dwarfs the stove.

The whole time while I’m watching the steam expel the air within the pot, and then the pressure building and being kept for the length of the processing time, I thought how much I didn’t know what was going on in there. And when it had cooled down and I got to open the pot, I found out my fears were justified. I didn’t leave enough head room in the jar for pressurized canning. So some sauce had bubbled out under the lid and into the water. So, I don’t trust that the jar is properly sealed, as there may be food in between the jar lip and the seal. Well here’s the end result, not a fair winner but I’m looking forward to seeing how it turned out. The other part of the sauce (that I didn’t can) was delicious. So I’m interested to see how the extra heat affected the end product.

And it's raining!

2006-10-04T22:30:00.000-07:00

Haven't seen the wet stuff since May 22nd. Looking forward to looking at the rain gauge in the morning. I'll admit I haven't looked at it in a while and I'm hoping there isn't a dead bug or some other bit of flotsam waiting for me in the morning.

Tomato Sauce from Anais Noir

2006-10-03T23:10:00.000-07:00

So, I thought I would post a couple of pictures of what sort of sauce an Anais Noir makes. The tomato is classed as a bi-color and the only way to tell that it's ripe is to turn it over and see if the bottom is starting to turn red. And from my previous post, it makes a great sliced tomato. But I've always mixed the bi-colors with red tomatoes and I've always come up with red sauce. So here's what they look like after going through the tomato press.

Now, they do turn a bit redder under heat, but the sauce stays mostly green, which wouldn't matter in a sauce that has lots of spice, like curry, or my favorite chili mac. Or there are other recipes that the color wouldn't matter because Then you wouldn't see the green at all.

A time of balance

2006-09-22T18:46:00.000-07:00

Autumnal Equinox hearlds the first day of Fall and sunlight diminishes each day until the Winter Solstice. Now is the time to gather in our harvests and count our blessings. Although, I feel I am bending the rules some, as it is also the time to plant parsnips, cabbages, fava beans, and other cool season crops. Frankly, once again, I am looking forward to the rains.

I am amused to notice that it is also a new moon; so many conjunctions at once. Anyway, I wrote a couple of Haikus for a friend a few days ago and I'm going to "reprint" them here.

Cool fog winds blow by
Warm fruit vines wither. Somewhere
a tomato falls.

Cabbages grow large
As bright days edge towards autumn
Summer ends too soon.

Jersey Devil

The Pressure Cooker is here, but.....

2006-09-19T22:42:00.000-07:00

I am developing a virtual appreciation for determinate tomatoes. The benefits of indeterminate tomatoes is that they produce tomatoes over a long period of time. The problem with indeterminate tomatoes is that they produce tomatoes over a long period of time. This weekend, I probably pulled about 30 tomatoes off the vines (weighing about 6 and a half pounds). So there's enough all over the counter tops to justify making some sauce or canning the fruits whole. Problem is, it's about a quart at a time, maybe two. Canning is an involved process, and I wonder how sane I am to fire the whole system up just to preserve a quart. I do have plenty of apples to preserve. So, I'm going to stop whining and start working. Freezers do make the whole thing easier, but I like the idea of having the veggies not needing electricity for "life support". We haven't had a major power outage (knock on wood) but living on the fault lines always leaves that possibility open.

I am thinking of going over to Cynthia's Farm and picking up a large supply of tomatoes. Then I could have a bumper supply in my cupboards. I'm also thinking of next year. What if I choose a few indeterminate vines for a long season of fresh eating, and a bed full of determinates for canning and processing? Might be a possiblity.

Autumn's Wild Ride

2006-09-15T18:49:00.000-07:00

The picture above is an Anais Noir tomato.

Is it just me, or is there a flurry of activity everywhere? Maybe it's just the vibe here in California. But it seems that everything is stacking up and needing attention right now, please!

Fall is the best time for Californians to put in perrenials. Then there's "crush" and the other harvests that happen now. Time to build compost piles, clean up gardens, put mulch down. Add the local and state fairs, garden center sales, plant sales, weddings, birthdays, etc. etc..... Just seems like it all piles up at once.

Every day this week there's been something planned for after work. Fortunately, the cold fog has kept the plants from wanting too much water. I'm getting tomatoes and they are piling up on the kitchen counters. I've processed a few quarts, one quart frozen, one quart used for moussaka, one in the fridge. It looks like I could get another two or three quarts this weekend. But I don't want to repeat my last mistake. I cleaned up the counter tomatoes, par-boiled them, put them through the Tomato Press, and then cooked the sauce. I was pleased with the end product & the counters were clear of tomatoes. I went down into the garden to pick some flowers and whatever veggies were available. Wouldn't you know it that I picked almost the same number of tomatoes that I had just processed? So I had to do it again! Pick first, process second (make mental note!).

And I don't have much room in the freezer. I finally purchased the pressure cooker to can the tomatoes (and large pile of apples Mr. C brought home). But I'm just waiting for it to arrive. Oh UPS, where are you? So my frenzied mind tries to calm itself by thinking in rhyme:

Lack of produce? I now will recant,
As tomatoes drop off of my plants.
Till my pressurized pot
Arrives to my spot
I'd sure like to can, but I can't.

Joke, dear.

2006-09-14T23:46:00.000-07:00

The following letter from the family's solicitor is addressed to a member of the British aristocracy who has been spending much of the summer in his residence in the south of France leaving his wife in the United Kingdom to look after the ancestral home.

Dear Sir Royston,

I hope you are having a good time on your holiday. I say this with sincerity because I am afraid that I have some bad news for you, although there is good news too.

First the bad news. I am sorry to tell you that your favorite dog, Honey, is dead. The vet says that she died instantly and could have felt no pain. She was kicked in the head by your horse, Sherbert, though I'm sure that no blame can be attached to Sherbert, frightened as he was by the fire in the barn.

I'm afraid that Sherbert was in the barn along with your other horses when it burnt to the ground. The fire brigade had been called within a short time of the barn catching fire and would normally have been able to put the fire out. Had it had not been for the fact that the tender crashed into your Bentley in the lane. Your wife had taken it out for a spin with your brother. As it was, both the tender and your Bently were written off. No blame can be attached to your wife for the accident I'm sure.

The Bentley was stationary at the time and your wife was in the back seat of the car. She managed to escape death only due to the fact that your brother was lying on top of her at the time of the collision. The doctors say that given time she will regain her sight but that she will never walk again. She has also lost her memory and cannot even remember you. Your brother, unfortunately, was killed.

I should explain how the barn came to be on fire in the first place. You see a spark from the house blew over and set the roof alight. The fire started in the main hall of the house where, as you know, your Mattisse and your Picasso once hung. I say 'once' because they are not there now. Fortunately neither of these paintings were damaged in the conflagration as they were stolen beforehand by the burglar who started the fire.

Although all of this may seem to you very serious it is not in fact the bad news that I wrote of. Your wife and brother had been visiting your Insurance agent in prison where he is serving a three year sentence for fraud. I'm afraid that none of your insurance policies are valid.

As I said, there is some good news. The heat from the fire warmed your greenhouse and brought your tomatoes on.

From my dear husband, who knows what makes me laugh.

Garden or Garden Blog?

2006-09-05T23:18:00.000-07:00

Well, over the Labor Day weekend, gardening won out over blogging. I'm still putting mulch down in an attempt to get ahead of the winter weeds. It's a long process, but everything is looking tidy and kept. I may even take a LS (long shot) of the garden. I will confess, my pictures are always CU (close up) because I would no more take an LS of the garden than I would open my sock drawer and take a picture to be posted on the web. But I may change that soon (shot of the garden, not the sock drawer).

The picture is the tomato monster on the 1st of September. It's looking a bit bedraggled now. But tomatoes are holding and growing, so I can't complain. The yield is under normal par. Sorry Angela, I can't put the calculator down.....

I'm also looking forward to when I can tear out the tomato plants. I had hoped to make this area a permanent perennial bed. I'm sketching out where the plants are going to go and I'm taking inventory of all the plants that are in containers waiting to be set "free". Just having dahlias growing and blooming for bouquets in the house has been really satisfying. I can't wait to have more flowers to choose from. And there are plenty of hummingbird plants that will go in too.

Ever have that little voice say "didn't I tell you so"?

2006-08-31T22:40:00.000-07:00

Saturday I was working on one of the gardens in the Master's Tour and it was pretty cold and damp. I was thinking to myself, "I'm not dressed properly for this, I'm going to catch my death of cold." and thereby fulfilled my own prophecy.

Summer colds are the worst, I think. At least when you are smacked with one in the winter, you can feel assured that hiding under the covers and sipping hot lemon tea will not seem contrary. It's cold outside; it's likely I'd be in bed with tea anyway. However, a summer cold you think, why would I willingly miss a day out in the garden?

I did don a sweater and go out for a quick look around once or twice.

One, I ask myself, how many times must I lose a set of freshly planted out seedlings before I remember to use shadecloth? I mean how many times can you chalk it up to a "learning experience"? Well, I'll be sprouting more "yuppie chow" salad mix to replace the sad, wilted & dead seedlings I left to roast in the sun.

I had ripped up the three dying tomato plants and turned the bed. I added an entire box of vermicompost, 2 cups of blood meal, 2 cups all-purpose organic fertilizer and another bag of compost from the nursery. I wanted to increase the organic matter in the soil and boost the macronutrients that seemed to have "bottomed out". This is where I thought I was going to have some cabbages and leaf lettuce. The cabbages might just make it with the "now in place" shade cloth.

Two, what the devil is going on with the tomato monster? It's dying off in places, but it's also flowering like mad. And much to my surprise, some of the flowers are keeping fruit. Maybe it's true that you have to stress the plants a bit to get them to fruit.

"No more lounging in the garden boys, time to make tomatoes or become extinct!!"

I'm still not holding my breath for an overwhelming bounty, because botrytis can settle on any of the young green fruits and rot them out completely. But I've ordered the pressure cooker just in case the monster proves me wrong (again). I have been surprised by the Northern Lights tomato, which now has two fruits forming. I was resigned to not get any this year. Maybe I will, fingers crossed.

In addition, the lack of sunshine here has affected the pollinators. When it's foggy, the garden is oddly quiet. Moment the sun shines through, the place is a-buzz. During the weekend, I was so concerned the butternut squash not being fertilized; I ended up hand pollinating it (once I picked the correct male flower - couldn't believe I mistook the first one for a male, please tell me it's the Sudaphed working on my poor brain!)

I noticed one google search land here with the question "how to pollinate pumpkin". I'll try to post my method later, minus using a female flower as the pollinator. D'oh!

Masters Garden Tour 2006

2006-08-26T22:58:00.000-07:00

If you are in the Monterey area on the weekend of September 9th, consider going to the Masters Garden Tour. It is a self guided tour of 5 gardens around the Monterey Penninsula to be open from 10 am to 4 pm. There is also a Raffle, art galleries and a Plant Sale (see "gardeners and their gardeners for locations). There is also a vermicomposting exhibit and of course Master Gardeners to ask all sorts of gardening questions. For more information, please see their website www.smartgardening.org.

Oh, snap out of it!!

2006-08-23T18:02:00.000-07:00

Tomato Monster July:

Tomato Monster August:

I'll have to admit, I've been in a bit of a funk of late. Who can say when it started? Last weekend was frankly, cold. I needed a sweater while I was putting down mulch. The tomatoes are definitely getting the signal that summer is coming to a close. The crookneck squash is succumbing to mildew, and my strong and productive Black Beauty Zucchini also has a bad case of mildew. I'm not ready to give up on having fresh zucchini, dammit!

I've finally come to admit that the Cossack is dead. It didn't even flower properly. How come after such a tremendous beginning? The Ukranian Pink Pearl is declining fast and so is the Jaffe's cherry. I think I could get a cutting from the Ukranian Pink Pearl, but I wonder, is it worth the effort? At least the last two actually bore fruit. The Jaffe's cherry has terrific taste, but doesn't have any branches that would make a decent cutting. All of these tomato plants were in Bed 3. Perhaps they didn't have enough compost and fertilizer worked into the soil. But I'm leaning more and more towards the constant exposure to the sea breeze as an explanation.

I am enjoying tomatoes. I've gotten more this year than ever before from my garden. But I'm certainly not putting up 11 quarts! I'd really be grinning! No, I think I will barely get enough to freeze for the months up until the next tomato season. And of course my friend from Scotts Valley sent me this picture:

Beautiful, but I can't help but see it with envious green eyes. I have to look at the wonderful harvests of other bloggers with the unattached fortitude of a Buddhist monk. But after a while in my garden, picking handfuls of fresh green beans, I gain enough strength to say "this isn't a contest, I'm not entering the county fair". What I have is enough, and I should be grateful. I am grateful. I just have to remind myself.

Off Topic Post

2006-08-21T19:38:00.000-07:00

A post for Sweet's wilder cousins.

Okay, so this doesn't qualify as gardening as such. But I was reading Susan's blog "Farmgirl Fare" and I have to admit, this story made me think "I'll post this and perhaps it will help". The basic gist is there is a wildlife preserve in Colorado and its affiliates, and they need help. They are having to close due to lack of funds and maybe, just maybe, we, the blogsphere, can make a difference.

So what am I asking? If you can, send some money. Or if nothing else, write a post about The Wild Life Sanctuary. Spread the word. I know from my own life, we all have "connections". Some bloggers are writers, some are in the entertainment fields, some know people connected with foundations and or other money sources. I don't have a large "readership". But some other people do, and perhaps we can get the word out enough and find a way to keep the Sanctuary running.

Here's an article by the Denver Post regarding the refuges: Animal Sanctuaries may be on last legs.

The three sanctuaries are:
The Wild Animal Sanctuary, Keenesburg, CO
Big Cats of Serenity Springs, Ellicott, CO
Prairie Wind Animal Refuge, Agate, CO (no website).

Susan wrote a beautiful appeal, and I'm hoping that somehow these preserves can survive. Thanks for your time.

What to do with an apple bounty

2006-08-19T10:42:00.000-07:00

So a co-worker of mine heard about my apple "disappearance" and low and behold a "package" shows up on my desk on Friday. He has too many apples and he doesn't have any interest in "dealing" with them. Well, I don't mind at all. First I got them sized, and determined which had so much moth damage or bruising that they wouldn't make a decent pie apple.

And I had plenty for a nice batch of applesauce. The nice thing about applesauce is that you don't have to peel the apples, especially if you have one of these:

I think this is called a food mill, but I actually think it has a different name as it is used to make jam and fruit juice. It makes the job really much easier because it clears fruit of the skins and you have a quick batch of applessauce.

Now usually I can the finished product, if I'm feeling industrious, I'll make apple butter, but instead I was inspired to make Applesauce Cake. Someday I'll post a really old family recipe for applesauce cake, but it is pretty involved and I'd like to publish it with pictures of the 6 layers of cake. But today, I must get more mulch put down in the garden, although it's looking foggy and cold.

(I apologize if your blog aggregator shows this a million times, but I've been having problems with this post. So much for point and click publishing)

Robbed

2006-08-14T06:05:00.000-07:00

I think I should get a hint when it comes to things like this.

I went to extra effort (asked a friend to bring a flowering apple branch cutting) to pollenize the Pink Pearl apple tree. It took on a single apple, which was growing quite well. I was excited to find out what this apple would be like. I checked on it and watered the tree and fussed and worried.

I looked out my bedroom window this morning, and I couldn't see the lone apple. In disbelief, I went outside to see if it had ripened and dropped off. But to no avail. It's gone. Just like the first tomato in my garden from years before.

I didn't even get a picture. Sigh.....

Seeing more red in the garden

2006-08-02T23:01:00.000-07:00

Beauty Lottringa

Cynthia described this tomato as so beautiful that you will bring visitors down into the garden just to look at it. It's so true. Her tomato stand is open now, if you want a really tasty heirloom tomato! She will be open Saturdays, Mondays and Thursdays from 9 to 6. And there's more than just tomatoes to enjoy. It looks as if she'll have a variety of vegetables and dahlias for purchase.

The "pumpkin" is finally ripening. Again, I can't believe I have a tomato that is this big. I wonder what it will weigh? Can you see that it has grown?

I wish I knew what this plant was

2006-08-01T06:09:00.000-07:00

Anyone who gardens regularly gets asked "what's this plant?" I like to try and identify them, if I can, but sometimes it's impossible from a simple description (usually "well it was about a foot tall and had these cute purple flowers) or a photo (mostly because the concentration is on the flower and not the leaf or growth habit). Here is a plant I saw at a winery in Amador County. It was a shrub about 5-6 foot high, and was in the protected area of the winery. I'd say it was a hibiscus but the flowers don't look like a hibiscus. Leave a comment if you know what it is. Thanks.

The first ripe tomatoes

2006-07-25T22:23:00.000-07:00

I picked the Ukranian Heart and a Jaffe's cherry on Monday. Snapped a few pictures. Now I really need to update the tomato page. Had guests over on Sunday and it was a real challenge to get everything ready in the record breaking heat. It was unusually hot here on the coast. We hadn't seen fog since Wednesday night and the air was unusually still. Last night was the first time the fog even made it to shore. Tonight we've had a nice cool wind off the ocean so it's certainly nicer to sleep at night.

It's funny the things you don't own when you don't need them. I hardly remember to whom I gave my oscillating fan. But I was regretting letting it go as the house was really stifling and I thought how unfortunate to have the house full of people and no fan! But the breeze thankfully picked up and it was more pleasant. I had thought about serving a hot black bean side dish, but that morning I changed my mind and made a black bean salad instead. It was really convenient to walk down to the garden and pick up the "extra" ingredients. The yellow tomatoes (Azoychka) came from a friend who has some of the original plantlings. She sees more heat in Scotts Valley and is already enjoying the tomato crop. Now I'm looking forward to tucking into mine.

See me jumping up and down

2006-07-19T22:35:00.000-07:00

like a kid at Christmas.

The first sign of a blush has shown up on three different plants. The one pictured here, which is the Ukranian Heart, the Jaffe's Cherry and the Japanese Oxheart(#2). I didn't know if the Jaffe's Cherry was red or some other color. I guess I will find out soon. It's looking like a red.

The Florida Pink, remains green and continues to swell. Mr. C thinks that I've mistakenly planted a pumpkin. It has set a number more fruit, but I'm trimming it back heavily so I can at least get into the greenhouse.

I keep telling the greenhouse tomatoes that it's no good growing to their grand and luxurious greatness if the gardener cannot come in and give them refreshing drinks of water and nutritious supplements of compost tea, fish emulsion and liquid seaweed. I sometimes think I should write them a little book, Lessons of the Wild Tomato; a Cautionary Tale.

All of this exhuberance is due to a heat wave they have been enjoying. For me, it's a little uncomfortable, but livable. Flowers seem to be staying and fruiting instead of the usual drop off. When the temperatures regularly see 55°F (or lower) blossom drop is to be expected. But we have been staying at 60°F or higher in the evenings. A high pressure system is parked over the coast and the predicted temperatures are expected to rise and stay through the weekend. The weak onshore flow is creating humidity so there's a stickyness to the air that is really unusual. So I feel that the "experiment" has been blown. But if predictions are what they claim to be saying (as there is no snow on Kilimanjaro and there might be trees growing in Antartica soon), this might be the upcoming "norm".

ooh. I've scared myself......

But there's a blush on the tomatoes! :D (attention span of a kid, I know)

This is the fog I'm talking about

2006-07-16T20:27:00.000-07:00

This was taken at about 1 p.m. 16 july '06
Fortunately for me, it stayed in Moss Landing for the day, and didn't roll in until about 6 p.m. And it kept everything nice a cool for a pleasant day in the garden (even if I didn't get much done.)

I did start a new worm bin and realized I need to harvest another. Potted up a couple of plants. Watered and made notes and picked a few things. Really just relaxed today.

Ferals are our Friends

2006-07-16T20:03:00.000-07:00

I call the cat in the picture, Sweet. She's not "my" cat. She's feral. Three years ago, my freshly planted Nepeta disappeared. And the usual suspect (Mr. Gopher) was not to blame. I couldn't blame snails either as there weren't any slime trails and the leaves and stems looked "eaten". The culprit was a momma cat and she had left her small litter of 3 kittens under the juniper. It was then that I realized how many feral cats live in our area.

The kittens were quite mature, and frankly, I couldn't adopt them myself or convince others to adopt. I ended up turning to Project Purr. They have a low-cost spay and neuter program. So there was this period of time where I was humanely trapping and escorting these fellows to a participating veternarian. Quite the chore, and somewhat harrowing in some regards. But, as far as I can tell, they live perfectly happy lives. Sweet is the only one that regularly comes around my garden. I used to feed the others when they came around, but they have since moved on (or have passed on). She's no lap cat, but will come to watch me (at what she sees as a reasonable distance) putter in the (ahem, her) garden. In fact, this morning, I came around the corner and she looked quite surprised with a "what are YOU doing here? don't you work elsewhere?" look. She'll even get surprisingly close when I'm harvesting beans. With all the leaves rustling, I think she believes I've caught something interesting for her. She looks a little disappointed by the long green things in the bowl.

She does her job at keeping the field mice in check. I've never seen her catch a gopher, but she does hang out in the "active areas". I assume when she doesn't show up for her usual "supper time", she's found fresher fare (and yes, I hope it's a gopher).

The only thing Project Purr asks in return for their services is to send a letter to the editor of the local paper, talking about how they helped me, and their overall mission. I sent the letter, but I never saw it published. So after I had snapped the picture, I thought maybe I'd blog about Sweet. She's a very nice companion and I thank Project Purr for helping us out.

Today I ate an Echinacea purpurea

2006-07-15T23:13:00.000-07:00

Pretty interesting class on Herbal Medicines in the Garden. There are so many people using herbal supplements and remedies and so many can be found growing nearby. No need for a trip to Longs, the "medicine cabinet" is right there in the garden. But this was just an overview, I can see where a person could spend a lot of time studying not only the uses of the herb or plant, but how to derive the best tincture, infusuion or decoction. The presenter was Darren Huckle, L.Ac., a clinical herbalist and acupuncturist in Santa Cruz. He is also an instructor and co-director of the American School of Herbalism (his website is Roots of Wellness) and he was personable and engaging. He certainly had lots to offer and it was fun wandering around the herb gardens at CASFS and listening to him talk about the many uses of the plants there. And yes, I ate an Echinacea. He had cut it up in segments like an orange and passed it around. It made my mouth go all tingley and was certainly a rush. Now I have another long list of books to yearn for. It seems that if I'm not wishing for one plant or another, then it's a book on a plant. The cycle is never ending.

How do you photograph fog?

2006-07-14T11:55:00.000-07:00

I had hoped that this would show how foggy it gets here. But all it seems to show is the greenhouse, my unfinished mulching project and my usual disorganized nature. This shot is facing west, and at 6:30 in the evening in the summer you'd think that you'd see a bit of sun in this direction. What I can't seem to effectively capture is the billows of soft, cold fog lazily drifting by. I don't think Elkhorn saw much sun today. The garden beds didn't look like they needed any water. I held my hand to the concrete stones on the walled terrace, and they didn't have any perceivable residual heat. The greenhouse thermometer was showing 60°F and the soil temperatures on the outside beds were only about 72°F and the greenhouse planters were only 76°F.

I'll have more mulch down tomorrow, after the herb class up at UCSC Center for Agroecology. I know that I don't show many wide "establishing shots" Close ups are nice as I'm still composing the garden "picture". But I'll post a few soon. So much of the yard is in flux and remains unplanted, that there's not a lot to see. Have a fun weekend gardening, I hope to post a few more pictures on Monday at least.

Will one of you just ripen already?

2006-07-12T20:57:00.000-07:00

I was reminded of my college years this evening. I had a roomate while I was at UCLA who used to warm up her dinner in the microwave while softly chanting "hurry up already, hurry up already".

I'm feeling just as impatient.

Tomatoes are still green, all of them. The Florida Pink in the greenhouse is frankly the very largest tomato I've ever grown here. Ever. Probably the largest I've ever grown in my life. Everyday it seems to swell just a bit larger. I'm half expecting it to burst like a balloon that has been blown up too far. I'll come home, trot down to the greenhouse to find little green tomato bits blown everywhere. But not yet. It too is completely green and shows no sign of changing color. My prediction for having ripe tomatoes in two weeks may be off the mark. Sigh.....

But what really reminds me of my roomate and the microwave is the black beauty zucchini. The 2 female flowers opened on Sunday and the male flowers were not open. I looked in another bed where I popped in a mystery squash. I have sworn time and time again not to grow mystery squash that arise from the compost pile. You never know what hybrid genetic catastrophe you'll get. Last year I had these pumpkin looking squash but the shells were so tough you had to use a hatchet and then the insides were like a spaghetti squash only more tasteless. I felt it was a waste of growing space. But Mr. C convinced me that his little volunteer was worth saving and that was lucky because it had male flowers in bloom. I "borrowed" one to hand pollinate the black beauty. Now the 2 zukes are swelling, and even though they are growing amazingly fast, I can see myself standing in the garden with a knife softly chanting "hurry up already, hurry up already".

Updates and Link to the Tomato Monster

2006-07-10T22:12:00.000-07:00

I've finally put together a web page listing all the varieties of tomatoes in the monster. I've also decided to copy/steal the idea of putting what's growing in the sidebar here. The link to the monster can be found there. I may make the other veggies listed into links to pictures, but I'll have to see how detailed I want to make this. I apologize sending you off-site to look, fortunately the "back" button is becoming my favorite feature of a browser (it's either that or "open link in new tab" which is my next favorite feature - but enough of the computer ramblings). I'm only an html novice, so I'm afraid the pages are really basic.

Weather has been really foggy. Our usual summer pattern. The fog was so thick this morning I was running my wiper blades all the way to work. Everything was damp. I was wondering if I should have opened the greenhouse at all. But it usually burns off at about noon. But this last weekend, the fog was back in by 6pm on the dot. No matter if we had a couple of hours more daylight, gardening was to be wrapped up and the greenhouse closed. As I am at work on Monday thru Friday, I end up wondering when it burned off, if it did. This evening the ground was still damp from watering yesterday, so I chose to delay for a day. Blossoms are dropping off the tomatoes and I'm assuming this is why. Just not as warm as they would like. But there are a few troopers. I'd really like to have a ripe one soon. Now it's just the waiting game.

Bed 1 is in decline. I am having a hard time deciding what to plant. Maybe just clean it up and make it the first fall bed. I'd like to grow corn, but can't seem to gather the enthusiasm. Decisions, decisions.

Also, when I was out this evening, I noticed a skunk ambling along in the neighbor's garden. He might be the reason one of my half barrels looked as if something was digging in it. I had thought maybe it was a squirrel. I mentioned it to my neighbor with the dogs, as I know it wouldn't be nice to have one of them sprayed. He said it had been rooting through his compost earlier. Hmm...

Name that bug

2006-07-06T21:05:00.000-07:00

So this evening I'm down in the garden, picking peas, watering, dead-heading, poking in some beet and carrot seeds, when I noticed this odd bug fly by. It flew upright, had black, clear wings similar to a wasp. It also had something that was reddish in color that hung down looking like tuxedo tails. I was thinking it could have even been a clear wing moth. Needless to say, it got my attention. So I'm following it as it's cruising through the garden, hoping it will settle so I can get a good look at it. We veer to the right, we veer to the left. I'm just about to catch up to it when over my shoulder flies a towhee and swoop! He nabs it out of the air and makes a quick dinner of the bug.

What was the bug? Obviously he was a dinner bug (dressed for it too).

Rêver est plus facile (Dreaming is easier)

2006-07-05T22:06:00.000-07:00

I will admit,in the evening I am more prone to dreaming than writing. So much easier to read what others are doing or perhaps to fantasize about going back to France for a while and dawdling in the gardens there. I found this interesting site, L'Atelier Vert, this evening and it nearly kept me from getting some documentation in.

This very nice 4 day weekend saw plenty of work in the garden. I started by harvesting 3 pounds of sugar snap peas. And looking this evening, it seems that I have at least another 2 pounds to pick (right away please!). And I picked all of the apricots (after one startled me by falling off!) There were only 6 this year, but that's 6 more than I've ever gotten before. So, I'm pleased.

I cleaned up the Rubine Brussel Sprouts (victim to the grey plague of aphids) and harvested the Elephant garlic and some of the Walla Walla onions. I collected seeds from the dying calendula and did plenty of clean up, dead heading, potting up, weeding and watering. The prunings that I took from the German Strawberry tomato (which Mr. C put in a bucket of water) are sending out roots. I suppose they will reach up to the shelf in the green house soon and add some fish emulsion when I'm not looking. I just have to be careful where they crawl out of the bucket and plant themselves.

Two new beds went in and I planted them with a bunch of bulbs and such that were needing planting out. I've been behind with planting dahlias, but they were about to join the tomatoes and plant themselves as well, since I wasn't working fast enough.

I keep trying to think how to present all the tomato varieties I'm growing and I think I will have to supply a link to an outside site where I can build a table in HTML. I've fiddled with this blog and the HTML long enough, and still don't like how it builds a table. But until then here are some green tomato shots:

Florida Pink (greenhouse)

German Strawberry (greenhouse)

(The Doomed) Kentucky Beefsteak (just before I plucked it off)

Roma Pompeii

Ukranian Pink Pear

Camalay

Cherokee Purple

Ukranian Heart (biggest tomato at the moment)

I think the only vexing thing is that I've lost a few tomatoes. Another one this evening, I noticed it on the ground. I think it came from the Japanese Oxheart. There is a little mold on the top, just like the Kentucky beefsteak. I pulled the beefsteak off (broke my heart too as it was one of the largest tomatoes I had) but the mold had gone too far. In fact, there was no saving it or frying it green as it had rotted out to the very center of the tomato. The third was off the Cream Sausage plant, but there are so many little fruits on those plants, it could have been a "bump" accident. The weekend was nice and warm and clear. I could see the fireworks in Monterey on Tuesday from my deck, it was that clear (pretty unusual for July). I can't figure out what is causing the continued blossom drop on some of the tomatoes, as the temperatures have been plenty warm. Maybe just not warm enough. There are about 45% without fruit: Sweet Horizon (removed only fruit as there was blossom rot), Mom's Paste, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Cosmonaut Volkov (why, why?) Julia Child, Northern Lights, Hawaiian Pineapple, Great White, Purple Russian (again, why?), Heart of Compassion, Black Zebra, Sunset Red Horizon, Ruffled Yellow, Orange Russian, Peche Jaune, Hungarian Heart, Great White, Anais Noir (I'm assuming the German Strawberry is overpowering it or I can't see the tomatoes through the jungle), and 1884.

If I haven't thanked Cynthia before (or often enough) I'd like to do that now. Cynthia is the owner of Love Apple Farms in Ben Lomond. It was her class that supplied 95% of the varieties I'm growing, and she will be selling tomatoes to anyone who ventures her way this summer starting in August. She also has a blog, which hasn't been updated in a while. She's probably busy working in the tomato fields. Please support her efforts, and buy some tomatoes. They really are wonderful.

Hope everyone had a happy July 4th. And now, a little fireworks ("Cactus" Dahlia Nuit d'été)

Why Mr. C doesn't do the pruning around here

2006-07-03T09:16:00.000-07:00

So, I get up this morning and over my cup of tea, Mr. C says he's seen some ideas for the garden, and he'd like me to incorporate them if I would. He says he's sent them to me in an email. And this is what I see:

Oookaaay, but the real kicker was the second one. Now the question remains, which way would I point it?

Hello Garden Club

2006-06-29T06:46:00.000-07:00

I mentioned at the June garden club meeting that I blog. Well, if you followed the link in my ~~email~~ "newsletter column" (thanks, S! what a nice thing to do & and I'm honored.),

Welcome. :-)

As you can see, I'm going by my initials, so if you like to comment (and please feel free to) just call me C.C., names, are usually not kept in the fore on blogs.

So why do I blog and what do I blog?

I pretty much write here exactly what I would have written in my 98 cent spiral bound notebook. However, in this case, it's open for anyone to read. Really it's just me thinking about plants, what I'm growing, why, how they are doing, what I'm thinking might improve what's growing. Nothing is particularly scintillating or brilliant. In fact I try to be honest in where I am making mistakes, and perhaps learning by them. I write my observations. Sometimes I write bad poetry or reflect on something I've read or heard, but it usually is just about the plants. And I'm afraid I'm prone to poor grammar and bad spelling, so bear with me. I wasn't an English major (or a Botany major either).

Another blogger said it very eloquently, it's an invitation to look over your neighbor's fence(See Angela's post "Why I Love Garden Blogs" that I'm referring to by clicking here). Albeit, you might think it's your "crazy" neighbor's fence. Hey, I was the one that asked if oxalis would be considered for plant of the month & have been known to look and see if a cutting has roots yet by shaking off the potting material. So if you're interested, stop by once in a while and see what nutty thing I'm doing of late. If nothing else, you can give me a hard time about it at the next meeting.

Run for your lives!

2006-06-27T22:30:00.000-07:00

This year's first tomato plant has broken its cage! I came home this evening and went down to the greenhouse, contemplating what I was going to do about the jungle in there and just as I came to the door I realized the German Strawberry was toppled over. A gnarled and twisted cage was lying underneath. I always let the tomato plants take over during the summer, but this is just a bit much. It has taken more space than the Golden Currant Cherry tomato did last summer. So tonight, I've got to figure out if I go in with a machete or just a chair and a whip.

Next year's experiment: tomato pruning; does it affect yield? I am of two minds when it comes to "suckering" tomatoes. I understand "suckering" is pinching out the branch growths that appear at the top of a leaf along the main stem. I recently changed methods and instead of taking the entire sucker, I wait until it has 2 leaves and then pinch. Granted, keeping up with 40 tomatoes is daunting and I haven't done the best job. But according to the gardening books I read, suckering is done to improve the vigor of the plant. Does anyone really need to improve a tomato plant's vigor? From what I can tell, it's hard to keep them in check. Suckers are supposed to divert energy from tomato production. Now with dahlias, when you pinch the 2 side heads while it is growing a bloom, the main bloom does become larger as all of the energy goes to the remaining flower. Fruit trees are similar. I have already thinned the pear tree so there is only one fruit per spur. This increases the size of the fruit. But tomatoes?? The sucker produces flowers, and then fruit. So where is the problem? I sometimes think the garden writers are talking about determinate tomatoes, but not making the distinction. I grow indeterminate tomatoes almost exclusively. They are supposed to be aggressive vines. So next year, I'll plant 2 of the same tomato in the greenhouse and pinch suckers on one while letting the other go wild. Then I'll know for sure.

Now it looks like summer

2006-06-23T12:02:00.000-07:00

All those lovely sunny evenings, with no fog made me wonder if we'd get into our usual summer pattern.

Last night, I nearly had to turn on the navigation gps (fondly referred to as Laurie) in order to find my way home. The bands of fog were rolling in thick dark swirls. Which is interesting to watch from the driveway as they power over the hill to cool the sweltering silicon valleyites, but not much fun to drive through. I've only observed fogs like this in San Francisco and Pacifica (keeper of the fog). I was always amused that it could be sunny everywhere, but Pacifica remained socked in. Although I also noticed when the rest of the Bay Area was fogged in and dreary, Pacifica was bright and sunny. This sometimes is the case with Elkhorn, especially on our hillside; we are sunny while others are fogged in. When the high pressure system is over us and the Valley is baking, you can see Moss Landing and the ocean quite clearly. When we have the usual summer pattern, and the fog burns off, it's hit and miss whether or not you can see the ocean. Sometimes, it's amusing to look out and not be able to see Moss Landing for the thick fog that settles over it. Then you turn and you can't see the little neighborhood shop at the bottom of the road. Depending on the time of day and wind patterns, it might recede once more and give you a glimpse of the ocean, or it can swirl right over and sock you into it's cold wet layers.

So, if you grow tomatoes or any other warm season plant, you can imagine the difficulty of the situation. I was talking to a friend who mentioned how Pam Pierce, author of Golden Gate Gardening, seemed to have such a despairing outlook on warm season vegetables. I agree, it can be frustrating to the point of despair, but I feel sure that there is a tomato plant that can muster through such difficulties. They grow palm trees in Virginia Beach, VA - so why not tomatoes in Sunset zone 17?

Not that I'm complaining.....

2006-06-20T21:32:00.000-07:00

But I think the weather is messing with my tomato experiment. As I look at the ever growing tomato monster this year, I'm realizing that this is the warmest year we've had since we moved here. The first year I was busy painting the house all summer. But I didn't mind so much as every time I went outside for a break, it was foggy. We had some lovely summer days on the occasion where we would take dinner out to the deck and eat in the glow of the sunset. But these stand out in my mind as they were the occasion and not the rule. Year two was about the same for the summer. I know that I was feeling a bit despondent that the sun would be shining in Scotts Valley or Mountain View during work hours, but as I approached home, I could see the fog looming dark and cold. It makes for a nice cool evening, and I wouldn't trade it for a hot sleepless night in the Bay Area. But I've been keeping these facts in my mind in regards to tomatoes. What can I grow in a fog belt? Year three saw the addition of the greenhouse and a very happy harvest of tomatoes, but not a huge harvest. I wanted big plants grown "in the ground" so they had a more aggressive root system and hopefully a larger harvest.

And of course I'm completely going overboard with the numbers this year (it wasn't my plan, but I'm coping). I think somewhere in my mind, I kept thinking that many of these plants wouldn't fruit. They are proving me wrong (again). I'm still seeing lots of blossom drop, and I need to make some notes as to why I think that is happening and on which plants. I also want to make a complete chart of the varieties.

Like I need more tasks in the garden. ;-)

Oh, before I forget, I picked the first apricot on Monday. Nice if a bit tart. I pulled it because some blinking bird beat me to it. Only 3 more, and it looks like they might be ripe soon. But I keep thinking how cool it is to actually get fruit. Mr. C. suggested planting a second apricot. I just might. I also put "bird scare tape" around the blueberries which are beginning to ripen. I'm hoping to see some for me this year.

Weekend work update

2006-06-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

Was I the one hoping for cool weather? Gads, it was certainly that! It oftentimes felt as if we were standing on the beach with the ocean cooled air coming directly off the water. I swear I could smell salt spray.

But the wall progressed easily enough. We placed the other rows of blocks on Saturday. We made a lazy day of it, fetching blocks, stacking a layer, grabbing a cup of tea, repeat. So unforunately, on Sunday, I ran out of time running to Tri-County for the soil mix.

It filled the bed 3/4's full, but then they shut at 2pm, thwarting a final run. But it looks like nice stuff, 1/4 yard topsoil mixed with 1/4 yard organic amendment. Needless to say, even unfinished I did some planting. More tomatoes into their final spots (Kentucky beefsteak, Sweet Horizon, Azoychka, Camalay, Mom's Paste,) blue lake bush beans, parsley, crookneck squash and black beauty zuchini. I added some cosmos, cherry profusion zinnias, and marigolds for the beneficials.

I'm glad to be seeing lots of ladybird beetles (mature and larval) and syrphid wasps/flies. Of course the syrphids seem to like the dandelion blossoms best. I've yet to see a lacewing this year. Also I'm seeing lots of dragonflies.

Bed one is popping with sugar snap peas. The calendula is in decline and I am needing to take some of it down, especially around the garlic. I harvested the garlic scapes (sauted them with the other vegetables that I stuffed into cabbage leaves) a while back so the garlic is finally beginning to decline. I'm anxious to see the heads. I've let some (well, maybe lots) of the leeks flower. I enjoy the flower and I can't say they were going to get any bigger than a thick pencil. I see minor growths where the brussels sprouts should be but nothing large enough to cut. I may have to cut it down soon & count it as a no show. sigh.....

I'm still procrastinating over bed 2. Don't know what I can do to kick myself into gear on that one. Maybe find a home for the salvia.

Bed three is blooming profusely with campanula cup and saucers. I staked a couple of the tomatoes there (Jaffe's Cherry, Ukranian Pink Pear), as the Annais Noir (in the greenhouse) was standing on Saturday, and lying down Sunday morning. I didn't want to see that happen in the raised beds.

I had removed the wall-o-water from the cossack (Purple Russian). He didn't seem to be thriving. But he's looking a bit better, I'm sure the Nitrogen shot helped (alphalfa meal scratched in). I've seen fruit on the Jaffe's cherry, Ukranian Heart, Marmande, and the Kentucky Beefsteak. I removed the one from the Sweet Horizon because it had bottom rot and I think I knocked one off the Cream Sausage.

I can hardly wait for the weekend.

2006-06-09T10:00:00.000-07:00

Mr. C. has all but completed the new terrace. It has the first row of concrete blocks neatly and evenly laid. It's even level! Fantastic! Knew he was the right man for the job.

Anti-gopher grid is down and locked in by second row of blocks.

Weekend assignment: go forth and buy the remaining blocks to bring it to the final level and then fill in with nice soil from local landscape supply place. I see lots of sweating going on this weekend. But the result should be astounding. And I'm hoping the fog that is lying on the coast this morning continues into the weekend. It will certainly cool the temperatures we've been seeing of late. Not much of the usual June gloom like we normally see.

Also want to get some seeds planted (beans, salad greens) and the tomatoes (and other patiently waiting plants) transplanted into their final positions. They desparately need fish emulsion. Many have small tomatoes already formed and growing, largest one I've spotted is on the Kentucky beefsteak.

Roll on Saturday!!

Hot here, and you?

2006-06-04T19:09:00.000-07:00

Probably not the best weekend to be mucking about in the dust and blazing sun. But the new wall of concrete blocks has the first layer nearly complete. It was grueling work out by that west facing wall, and our lunch break was probably longer than was needed. I was complimenting Mr. C on his handiwork (he levels stones better than I do) and said it looked so nice that I'm looking forward to terracing the area to the left side of the steps.

He was afraid I was going to say that.

Wall in progress

2006-06-03T22:59:00.000-07:00

Before:

Small beginnings:

Shouting from the rooftop

2006-06-02T14:47:00.000-07:00

My husband is the sweetest guy ever (of course that's why I married him). A huge florist bouquet of lovely flowers show up at my office today (every woman's secret dream - please take note guys - because she instantly becomes the envy of every other woman at work - no joke).

I was going to freshen the table flowers this evening, with a new set from the garden. I am really enjoying my own flowers this year, as it's been the first year I've had enough to cut without depleting the "look" of the garden. I can't believe I have dahlias blooming in late May - early June. And I admit that I'll plant an uncuttable flower over a cutting one if it draws beneficial insects. So the flowering spurges are preferred over a rose. But they are green and they have milky sap therefore I don't find them to present much use in a vase. But syriphid flies love them. And my husband asked me, as I tossed the faded flowers into the worm pot last night, what was I trying to hint at? Really, no hint, I just wanted to wash the vase.

We're eight years married and I love him dearly, regardless of the thoughtful flowers.

Oh yeah, Ollas!

2006-05-31T21:40:00.000-07:00

I would rarely ever say that if I could, I'd swap my life with ::fill-in-the-blank::. And the operative word is rarely. I'm comforted by the fact that as I get older, I become more comfortable with me being where I am at and who I am. It doesn't mean that I don't have goals, and that I'm not endlessly trying to work towards those goals. Quite the opposite. However, if I -had- to be instantly transported into another person's situation, I would gladly take that of the Devraes family at Path to Freedom. (Although, knowing karmic mischief I'd probably be transported to an apartment dweller living near an industrial park.) If anything, they inspire me all the time with ways I can improve my life and my garden.

For example, I am very inspired by the ollas irrigation that they just installed. I realized this would be the perfect solution for my blackberries and raspberries that I have placed in a further than usual spot in the yard, mostly because I wanted the plants in the ground and I am fully expecting to develop that space more this summer. My fear was that as the maxim says, "the garden ends at the end of the hose" would prove true and the plants would die due to lack of attention. They are doing okay, as this evening's watering proved, but an olla would help allay my worries.

On another note, I am pleased to see that the gophers show no interest in the brambles or the sage. I noticed trails right through the bed and the plants are there and doing fine. I suspected as much, but I'm glad that not everything has to be put in a cage/raised bed.
List of plants my gophers are ignoring:
Rubus fructicosus (Brambles i.e.raspberry, blackberry)
Salvia (officianalis, spathacea)
Tagetes (erecta? I'm guessing)
Origanum vulgaris hirtum (Oregano - Greek)
Narcissus (Daffodils and paperwhites)

Of course, now that I've said that, they'll eat it.

Humming in the garden

2006-05-30T10:27:00.000-07:00

My friend Ukalichick recently blogged a song by Greg Brown from his album One Night and it just strikes such a chord with me that I think it bears repeating, especially as I water and fuss over the tomatoes. I am seeing flowers, I can hardly wait to see fruit.

Canned Goods

Let those December winds bellow 'n' blow
I'm as warm as a July tomato.

[chorus:]

Peaches on the shelf
Potatoes in the bin
Supper's ready, everybody come on in
Taste a little of the summer,
Taste a little of the summer,
You can taste a little of the summer my grandma's put it all in jars.

Well, there's a root cellar, fruit cellar down below
Watch you head now, and down you go

And there's [repeat chorus]

Maybe you're weary an' you don't give a damn
I bet you never tasted her blackberry jam.

[repeat chorus]

Ah, she's got magic in her - you know what I mean
She puts the sun and rain in with her green beans.

[repeat chorus]

What with the snow and the economy and ev'ry'thing,
I think I'll jus' stay down here and eat until spring.

[repeat chorus]

When I go to see my grandma I gain a lot of weight
With her dear hands she gives me plate after plate.
She cans the pickles, sweet & dill
She cans the songs of the whippoorwill
And the morning dew and the evening moon '
N' I really got to go see her pretty soon
'Cause these canned goods I buy at the store
Ain't got the summer in them anymore.

You bet, grandma, as sure as you're born
I'll take some more potatoes and a thunderstorm.

Peaches on the shelf
Potatoes in the bin
Supper's ready, everybody come on in, now
Taste a little of the summer,
Taste a little of the summer,
Taste a little of the summer,
My grandma put it all in jars.

Let those December winds bellow and blow,
I'm as warm as a July tomato.
[repeat chorus]

Gardener takes a break

2006-05-29T21:18:00.000-07:00

Did a little tourism this last week as Mr. C. and I had guests from Canada. Toured California and out to Las Vegas, Nevada. I usually like to stop at the Conservatory at the Bellagio, and this display was extraordinary! I liked the miniature railroad garden at the SF Flower show this last March, but this topped it by a mile! The small model buildings in the display were made out of plant "bits". One example is the domes on buildings were made out of decorative gourds. And the variety of bromeliads, orchids and tillandsias were stunning as many of them were in bloom.

Mother's Day

2006-05-14T23:54:00.000-07:00

Went up to see Mom. Sorry, no pictures. I was so busy trying to get all the veggies together, I forgot the digital camera. We planted in 6 tomatoes for her, probably too many, but hopefully she'll enjoy the variety. She's growing 1884, Great White, Yellow Ruffled, Jaffe's Cherry, Julia Child, and Ukranian Heart. I picked up 3 different peppers for her with the hopes she'll also like them - Admiral, Pizza my Heart, and one that I'm forgeting the name of. Sheesh. I purchased a basil variety pack and a six pack of Genovese Basil. She also planted in 3 eggplant, 2 Diamond and one Farmer's Long. The Black Beauty Zucchini that I was trying to sprout was a no show, so I said she'd have to purchase that on her own. There should be plenty of room for beans, salad greens, radishes and maybe green onions.

Looks like the cabbage I planted in the late fall was ready to harvest. I was afraid it had stunted, but it came through like a trooper. The Swiss Chard had bolted while she was away. I think she was surprised with how tall it had become.

I also purchased some flowers to attract beneficials; Zinnia 'Envy', Bachelor Buttons, Seashell cosmos, sunflowers (a burgundy and lemon yellow variety), Liatris, and Angelica stricta 'purpurea'. Looking forward to seeing how well they combine. And I need to tell her to add some marigolds for good measure.

Limerick Day

2006-05-12T09:51:00.000-07:00

Today marks the very obscure celebration of Edward Lear's birthday. He wrote the book Book of Nonsense in 1846, and today is the day to get your fill of silly limerick poetry.

Now being a gardener, and it being spring, I do have some unexplained need to burst into poetic verbage. Alas, my attempts at poetry seem to be more likened to a Vogon's than to Maya Angelou. I guess if I practiced haiku more regularly, I might actually write one that could be repeated without too much embarrassment. (I'm guessing that's why so much sake is imbibed while haiku sessions abounded in springtime gardens.) But I find limericks fit into my life very well. I get to rattle off a few rhyming lines, and try ever so hard to remain true to the metrical pattern of a limerick. And if I can twist in a punch line, so much the better. But usually the joke is on me. Here's two for this year:

I find that I do love to garden;
the trowels and the pots you must pardon.
   I keep finding tasks
   as plants grow so fast.
I'd clean if the gardening were done.

Those who know me will quickly confirm
My unending love of the worm
   They eat your tossed scraps
   and make plant growing "cast".
I know not why they make people squirm.

Weekend status

2006-05-08T11:46:00.000-07:00

I spent all of Sunday potting up the tomatoes. My yard looks like the attack of the trifids. Most every plant is a foot tall or taller. The Purple Russian (which I have nicknamed the Cossack) had to be planted into a garden bed. It was just too large to plant into a gallon can. I put a Wall-o-Water around him, but somehow, this might be overkill as the cool weather hadn't affected him much in the greenhouse. But I worry about the excess sow bug population in bed 3. I may have to resort to diacamaceous earth and more traps. They are munching on the onions and the garlic! Maybe I should add breath mints to the trap (ha!).

I started the potting up session on Saturday afternoon after a few errands and a trip to the UCSC plant sale and Sierra Azul. The plant sale was a little smaller than I imagined and there were fewer varieties than the brochure mentioned as they suffered from the cool, wet spring as much as anyone. But I was able to purchase a few eggplants for Mom and some peppers for me. I didn't get the varieties that I had hoped, and had to guess with many. I purchased a couple of "Lipstick" peppers. They are ones that I had marked ahead of time and I am quite excited about the description from the Cornell Dept. of Hort. website. I also picked up a "Tiburon" not knowing what it might be, and was pleased to find out it's a poblano chile. I love those grilled! I wonder why it is classed as "sweet"? Anyway, I have an Ancho Gigantea to compliment it. I also purchased a Sweet Apple Pimento. I still really want a yellow sweet pepper and I hope with the larger greenhouses at Cabrillo, that they fared better than UCSC. I can almost taste the red and yellow bell pepper tarts! I completely forgot to look for herbs at the sale. So I need a better shopping list for Cabrillo. Too bad none of the Hungarian pepper varieties were available. I was looking forward to trying one or two of them.

Also I changed my pruning style on Saturday. I've always thought that when you prune out the suckers on a tomato, you took the entire sucker. Pam Peirce seems to suggest that you let the sucker develop 2 leaves and then prune the growing tip. It did make the tomatoes on Sunday look bushier, so I'm going with that method. I figure the more photosynthesis, the better. And I chose to pinch any and all flowers that I saw, and there were quite a few. Basic supplies were running out, I ended up scrounging for bamboo stakes, and 1 gallon containers. I even had to plant out a couple of things to keep the repotting production line going. I'm going to see if I can dredge up the last of the cans today so I can complete the job. (That's right, still more to go!) I was amused at the repetitive nature of the task; grab empty can & clear it, fill with potting soil, empty into potting tray, select plant, unpot, prune, settle into new pot, re-tag, stick in bamboo stake, tie to stake, water, place outside, grab empty can....

I'm hoping to start a few seeds this evening. I should have started the cosmos a lot earlier, but I'll just put a few nursery grown ones in for now. I just want to make sure there are plenty of beneficial insects around. I've seen a couple of ladybugs, but not many. I think the year I grew wheat was when I saw the greatest numbers of them. I've seen syriphid flies around the sweet alyssum, so that's encouraging. And I'll transplant the sunflower volunteers.

Meanwhile, the tomatoes are lounging around my garden, soaking up the sun.

May can be almost too busy

2006-05-04T23:24:00.000-07:00

It's plant sale season again! Saturday & Sunday is the UCSC Farm & Garden Plant Sale, as well as Tour Day (monthly) at Sierra Azul. Then May 12-14th is the Cabrillo Plant Sale. And I'm sure there are others to tempt me. But I'll see how much my pocket book will allow.

I also need to pot up the tomatoes that are mine. Some will go into gallon cans, some into the self watering pots in the greenhouse, and a few will possibly make it into a garden bed or two, depending on how efficient I am. The extras have nearly all found good homes.

I recalculated the sun exposure on bed 2 on Tuesday when we had a bit more sun. The reading came back "partial sun" which is more in line with what I thought. Although, I wonder if the early fog that came in didn't affect the reading once again. So I am looking for tomatoes that bear smaller fruits to put into that bed. Basically we are in our usual summer pattern, so I guess the early fog would be a typical day.