24 April

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.....

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.

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.

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.....

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

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)