The Free-Range Turtle

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, 15 December 2010

2010-12-15T14:20:00.000-08:00

Here it is, the last month of the year, almost-but-not-quite winter. Even though we live in the heart of Silicon Valley, we've already had several nights of freezing temperatures. Many were cold enough to freeze the water in the bird baths, the dripper for the bath (creating quite the inverted icicle), the garden hose, and so on.

But still, some things in my yard continue to bloom... even some very confused summer-bloomers! Here's the list.

White-flowered Vining Solanum (tends to bloom year-round)

Chrysanthemum (supposed to bloom in fall)
Vining Plumbago (supposed to bloom in summer and fall)
Hebe (supposed to bloom in summer)
Rosy Buckwheat (supposed to bloom in summer)
Nasturtiums (starts blooming in spring till it gets too hot then dies)
Penstemon (supposed to bloom spring and summer)

Tomatoes (supposed to be tropical!)

Impatiens (supposed to be tropical!)

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, 15 November 2010

2010-11-15T10:47:00.000-08:00

OK, OK. So I skipped last month. But now it's November and I have another opportunity to survey what's blooming in my yard. Given that it is November and we've had several days here and a week there of very crisp overnight temps and not-very-warm daytime highs, I'm a little surprised at some of the things that are still blooming. Here's November's list:

Rose
Penstemon (hybrid)
Canna Lily
Nasturtium
Lobelia, trailing blue
Impatiens
Jade Plant
Geranium (barely)
White solanum vine
Chrysanthemum (barely)
Strawberry
Tomato
Purple Potato Plant
Plumbago, vining
Rosy Buckwheat

One that surprises me is the hybrid penstemon, but the one that really surprises me is the California Native Rosy Buckwheat. The Rosy Buckwheat usually turns brown a month or two after the Sulfur Buckwheat, but the Sulfur has been brown for months and months. And months. Since before July 15.

Of course, being fall, we also have other bright colors available, even if it's not blossoms.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, 15 September 2010

2010-09-15T13:36:00.000-07:00

Another month has gone by. Even though the summer didn't feel very summer-y this year, it's really starting to feel like fall. The orioles are all gone. The morning chill is lasting a little longer. The sun is setting a bit earlier. And the sun is *definitely* coming up quite a bit later. The bean production has all but stopped. The cucumber production has slowed quite remarkably. The zucchini production -- that is, the setting of fruits -- has not only NOT slowed, it has increased. The good news for me is that mostly they aren't turning into actual zucchinis for the table... or bread... or cake. And the ones that do turn into produce are doing so quite slowly.

But we're here to talk about what's blooming today. The zucchini continue to put on some amazing squash blossoms, but the rest of the veggie garden has mostly stopped blooming. Nothing in the way of California natives are blooming, but that doesn't keep them from creating a little garden "interest" such as the Western Virgin's Bower seed heads.

So, here's what's blooming in my yard today:

Nasturtiums
Canna Lilies
Coral Bells (huh? They're usually done by summer!)
Western Columbine (just a few blossoms)
Hybrid Penstemon
Roses
California Poppies (a few small ones here and there)
Ivy Geraniums
Impatiens
Trailing Lobelia
Chrysanthemums
Some garlic relative (weed)
Solanum rattonii (white-flowered vine)
Basil
Purple Potato Plant
Plumbago (both vining and creeping)
Sunflowers (there are a few left)
Sticky Monkeyflower (just a few blossoms)

Tomato Tip

2010-09-05T17:59:00.000-07:00

The other day Mom picked a tomato off one of her several plants. It was smiling brightly red at her, so she assumed it was ready to go. Well, the back quarter of the tomato that she couldn't see while the tomato was still on the vine was fairly green. What to do?

Put the partially-ripe tomato in a bag with an apple or two and set it out at room temperature for a day or several (you'll want to check on it) and it will ripen for you. Basically, this is the same trick that the big growers and supermarkets do with a fair amount of their produce, only they don't use the apple directly.

Apples put out a gas called ethylene gas that causes many fruits (e.g., peaches, pears, bananas, apples) to ripen. The growers pick the produce green (so that it will ship with less damage because the green fruit is very solid) and the markets (or middle-man) then gas the fruit with ethylene gas for a while before putting it out on the shelves.

You can use this tip at the end of the growing season when your tomato vines are still covered with partially ripe or unripe tomatoes and extend your tomato-eating season. (Of course, there's always fried green tomatoes, if you can handle the oil.)

The bad news is that the tomato doesn't really continue to develop its sugar content much once the fruit is picked, so tomatoes (and most other fruits) ripened this way tend to taste a little more flat than those picked when fully ripe. (This is one of the reasons that supermarket fruits don't taste as sparkly as the home-grown versions.)

Oh, and that saying about one rotten apple spoiling the barrel? Well, it's true. An overripe/rotten tomato REALLY puts out a LOT of ethylene gas and sends the rest of the barrel into an over-ripening frenzy.

Experiment in Hanging Tomato Planters

2010-08-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

I've been seeing these hanging tomato planters for a number of years now, but have always pooh-poohed them as non-viable solutions for growing tomatoes. Last year I noted that a gardening neighbor had a few of them and they seemed to be producing, so I finally succumbed this year and bought a couple to try.

Actually, Mom and I together bought two each of two different manufacturer's styles. The ones we purchased at Orchard Supply Hardware were made of a woven plastic fabric attached to a wire frame at the top that hung from wires.

The planters we bought online from Gardener's Supply (gardeners.com) had a heavy wire cage structure with a heavy fabric lining that zips open and closed with a heavy zipper. The heavy wire cage hangs from chains.

Both types have an opening at the base where you plant your tomato so that, when the planter is hung, the tomato plant will grow downward... then try to reach up.

The two different planter types present their own particular advantages and issues in terms of assembly, but we haven't developed a preference of one over the other.

One really big difference between the two planters is that the one from Gardener's comes with a reservoir and a few capillary strips. When you've assembled your fully-planted planter, you lay one of the strips on top of the soil, set the reservoir in on top of the strip, then fold the other end of the strip into the reservoir. The idea is that the combination of reservoir and capillary strip will provide constant moisture to the rootball. But the thing is that it provides such a constant level of moisture that it drips out the bottom continuously, albeit slowly. Side note: you can't put fertilizer in the reservoir or the capillary strip will develop algae and it will quit working.

Both planters instruct you to water daily. This turns out not to be strictly necessary, but you really need to keep an eye on the heat and wind if you don't plan to water daily. Otherwise you get up the next morning and find your plant hanging all limp.

Our Results
As I mentioned above, if you're not very careful about your watering schedule, you're going to end up with a limp plant. The problem I encountered there is that I had a few green Brandywine tomatoes coming on that were a little larger than golfballs. The next thing I know, they've got blossom end rot. The book says that this is caused by low calcium (not bloody likely given the amount of calcium in our soil and city water) or by "uneven watering." I think going dry counts as "uneven." So, while I had tomatoes that looked like this:

The other side looked like this:

Happily, after this catastrophe, I watered daily and have plenty of new green Brandywine tomatoes coming on and the Super Sweet 100 (cherry-type) tomatoes never suffered from drought (reservoir and capillary strips) and, therefore, didn't suffer from blossom end rot.

On the other hand, both plants seem a little anemic -- especially the Super Sweet 100 in the OSH planter with the constantly-dripping reservoir. And the fruits of the SS100 are uneven in that some of them act like they are trying to dehydrate on the vine even tho they're not yet ripe and there's plenty of water dripping from the base.

The Issues
For those who haven't raised tomatoes, here are a few rules of thumb about growing them in the ground:

Water them minimally once they are established. This forces them to put down deep roots where they can find mineral nutrients they need for blossoming and fruiting.
Fertilize them minimally or at least NOT with nitrogen. Nitrogen encourages lots of leaf growth and not roots, blossoms, and fruit.
Keep them up, off the ground, or soil microbes will take over and rot your fruit quickly.

One of the problems of planting in pots and watering daily till water comes out the bottom is that you're flushing out the very nutrients the plant needs. So, you should probably plan on fertilizing these things with a mild, non-nitrogen containing fertilizer.

So, these hanging planters need you to water daily, offer no root room, and need to be carefully fertilized for optimum growth. The one bonus is that, because they are hanging, you don't have to worry about staking or tomato cages. It's also a lot easier to harvest what's there right at shoulder height.

Final Recommendation
Overall, I suppose they're nice for the novelty or if you really don't have any other place to grow tomatoes, but they're awfully fussy and the results aren't all that spectacular. For example, Mom has also planted tomatoes in 5-gallon and 15-gallon pots this year and those are doing better than her hanging tomatoes.

Orioles Leaving Early

2010-08-19T08:02:00.000-07:00

Every year a small flock of Hooded Orioles arrive in the spring and stay for the summer before heading back south for the winter. The first birds to arrive in the spring are the breeding males who start arriving sometime between early March and mid-May. The females and juveniles arrive a few weeks later.

Hooded Oriole, Adult Male

After spending the summer jockeying for position at the oriole feeder and sucking down nectar the males start leaving, usually starting between mid-September and early October, with all birds gone by late October.

Hooded Oriole, Adult Female

Well, this year they split early. I haven't seen a breeding male in almost a week, since 13 August. And the female population also seems to be getting pretty thin. As of the middle of last week I was still seeing up to two adult males at a time in the yard and up to four adult females at a time. As of yesterday, no males and only one female at a time.

Granted, it sure feels like fall. Of course, it's felt like fall most of the summer. My garden is located in San Jose, CA. It's August. We're supposed to have most days in the 80s and many days in the 90s, sometimes climbing into the 100s. We haven't seen a day over 80 since mid-July. More and more mornings the cloud cover doesn't burn off till after 10 AM. Usually it's gone by 9.

So, the orioles have declared it to be the end of summer.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day 15 August 2010

2010-08-15T18:32:00.000-07:00

Another month has flown past and it's again Bloom Day. Here's what's blooming in my yard in San Jose today:

Western Virgin's Bower
Penstemon
Love-in-a-Mist
Canna Lilly
Western Columbine
Chrysanthemum
Zucchini
Cucumber
Basil
Nasturtium
Ivy Geranium
Impatiens
Solanum rattonii
Trailing Blue Lobelia
Tomato
Wax Beans
Hebe
Vining Plumbago
Creeping Plumbago
Rosy Buckwheat
Sunflowers
Purple Potato Plant
Sticky Monkeyflower
California Poppies
Roses

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, 15 July 2010

2010-07-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

How the time does fly! It's already the 15th and Garden Bloggers Bloom Day is again upon me.

The berzerk Clarkia are finally fading -- and fast -- but the poppies are trying to make a comeback. The veggies are now blooming -- and producing! Here's what's going on:

Nasturtiums -- not many left and they're kind of small and ratty looking
Columbine -- both the natives and the hybrids are just about done
Penstemon -- the hybrid penstemon is still plugging along
Nandina
Canna Lilies
Love-in-a-Mist
Roses
Western Virgin's Bower
Chrysanthemum (?!?!?)
Impatiens
Lobelia
Iron Cross Oxalis
Hoya Carnosa (aka Wax Plant)
Solanum rattonii
Parsley
Geraniums
Sambucus mexicana (aka Blue Elderberry)
Sticky Monkeyflower
Clarkia -- but they're fading fast
California Poppies -- trying to make a comeback
Hebe -- down to one last inflorescence
Plumbago (vining) -- going insane!
Plumbago (creeping)
Purple Potato Plant
Rosy Buckwheat -- past its prime
Sunflowers
Zucchini
Cucumber
Tomato
Wax Bean

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, 15 June 2010

2010-06-15T12:41:00.000-07:00

Wow! Another month has passed and it's GBBD all over again. Here's what's blooming in my yard:

Clarkia continue to go nuts!
California Poppies are barely hanging on
Penstemon 'Margarita BOP'
Sticky Monkeyflower
Blue Elderberry
Sulfur Buckwheat
Rosy Buckwheat
Hebe (thanks to ELF for ID-ing the purple flowering shrub)
Purple Potato Plant
Solanum rattonii
Geranium, trailing and upright
Impatiens
Nasturtium
Amaryllis
Oxalis 'Iron Cross'
Roses, upright and climbing
Chrysanthemum (?!?!?)
Western Columbine
Penstemon hybrid
Lobelia
Love-in-a-Mist
Seep Monkeyflower (almost done)
Calendula

Summer Veggie Gardening

2010-05-31T11:32:00.000-07:00

I haven't been very active in my garden of late, mostly just maintenance -- lawn-mowing because we got so much rain, weed-pulling because we got so much rain, vine- and hedge-hacking because we got so much rain -- but I have started getting some of my summer veggie garden planted.

So far, I have planted:

Zucchini -- I planted dark green and yellow, two of each, which are already putting on abundant growth. I planted 4 seeds from last year's seeds and all 4 came up.
Tomato -- I have seeded (a little late) some Super Sweet 100 (cherry-type), plus I have a donated Brandywine. The Brandywine is already transplanted into one of those upside-down hanging planters. The SS100 will be transplanted into another style of upside-down hanging planter as soon as it's ready for transplant.
Beans -- This year I found a source for pole-type wax beans. These are just like the Kentucky Wonder (green) pole beans except that the pods are yellow (and much easier to find on the stem).
Cucumber -- The seeds are a little old (from 2008), so I've sown them rather thickly. But I'll have to be diligent in thinning them out. Last year's harvest of two 6-packs planted in root-knot nematode soil was WAY more than any three people could handle.

Maybe today I'll get out there and plant some Tall Top Beets for the beet greens this summer.

Spring At Last!

2010-05-30T15:15:00.000-07:00

Today it finally feels like Spring outside. Yesterday was pretty good, too, but today you can sit in the shade and not feel like the breeze was just verging on chilly. Perfect weather. Not too hot to do a little work in the sun, not too cool to sit in the shade.

Mom came by today to hack on some overgrown vines with me while we chat. She mentioned that there was a California Poppy trying to climb up through the Western Redbud and Blue Elderberry out front.

When I went out to snap this photo, I noticed that the Clarkia were also going berzerk.

How berzerk are they? This is how tall they are (next to a 5' 6" Mom).

On the way back into the house I noticed that the Sulfur Buckwheat is also quite happy.

Finally! A wonderful Spring day!

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, 15 May 2010

2010-05-15T10:27:00.000-07:00

Here it is again, another Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. Here's what's blooming in my yard today.

Seep Monkeyflower & Penstemon Hybrid

California Poppies of all sorts!
Clarkia
Penstemon 'Margarita BOP'
Sticky Monkeyflower
Blue Elderberry
White-Flowering Potato Vine
Geraniums, regular and vining
Nasturtium
Columbine, hybrids
Roses
Impatiens
Coral Bells
Seep Monkeyflower
Penstemon, unknown hybrid
Lobelia, unknown hybrid
Prunus ilicifolia (Holly-Leafed Cherry)
Calendula
Western Columbine
Hummingbird Sage
Purple Potato Plant
Sulfur Buckwheat
Some purple-flowered shrub that came with the house

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, 15 April 2010

2010-04-15T17:19:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's also Tax Day, but at least Bloom Day gives me the chance to look at the happy, natural things around me that come free (or close to it). And there's SO much to see today that I couldn't NOT take a mess of photos to bore you. :-)

Here's what's blooming today:

Nasturtiums
Coral Bells
Geraniums
Calendula
Impatiens
Columbine (non-native varieties)
Roses
White Solanum Vine
Purple Potato Plant
Salvia Spathacea
Some Purple-Flowering Shrub (If you know what it is, I'd like to know, too!)
Sulfur Buckwheat
Ceanothus
Sticky Monkeyflower
Blue Elderberry Tree
Poppies!
... and weeds...

I'm particularly excited that my ~5-year-old Prunus ilicifolia (Holly-Leafed Cherry) has actual buds! This is the first year for that, so I'm stoked.

Yaqui Well Camp Site

2010-04-07T10:35:00.000-07:00

Sunrise is a great way to start the day.

After four nights at Fish Creek Primitive Campground (and since Tamarisk Grove is closed except for weekends due to budget cuts and would cost $20 a night if you could get a spot during wildflower season), we moved to Yaqui Well Primitive Campground (where "Primitive" means "be happy there's a vault toilet here"). We wanted to be much farther west and somewhat farther north of where we were at Fish Creek and this is it.

Yes, we (as everyone) camped right along the side of the sand road, but there's not that much traffic. Yes, it's not that far from the major highway through the park, but there's almost no traffic from shortly after sunset till shortly after sunrise.

And there are interesting things to see around camp. First, there's the Desert Mistletoe in the Acacia Tree. The Phainopeplas and other birds totally dig on the berries, so we were well visited by birds, too.

Then there's the Bladderpod bush, covered in little yellow flowers that the hummingbirds like and the funky pods that are filled with air.

There are things to do, too, if you are inclined to be a good citizen. There's trash that fatheads have left behind that could be picked up and added to your trash bag. But we also noted that the big post to keep folks from driving past a certain point was rotted at the base and pitched over. "We" (OK, my brother) removed the post, re-dug the hole, and reset the post. He did a great job.

The photo above is where we had righted the fallen post, before re-digging and re-planting.

Drive up Coyote Canyon

2010-04-05T13:33:00.000-07:00

On the first Wednesday of our Adventure, we decided that, while Fish Creek Primitive Campground was nice and peaceful, it was mostly on the opposite side of the park from where the next parts of our search for flowers and other adventures would take us. So, we broke camp, loaded up both truck and Jeep, and headed for town. We ran a couple of errands, then left the truck in The Mall parking lot. We took the Jeep up toward Coyote Canyon in search of wildflowers.

The various reports indicated that there were maximal numbers of species up that way. But the reports came with admonitions that the best flowers were between "First Crossing" and "Second Crossing" and that you couldn't pass "Third Crossing" because it was "still too deep." Whoa! We smelled Adventure! No, no. We had no intention of attempting the Third Crossing. But "Crossing" took on the meaning of crossing a stream of running water, so it could be interesting.

I had seen a few Desert Lilies by this time, but the first section of the route up Coyote Canyon was quite cluttered with them!

You may have noticed that the place also had a fair number of Arizona Lupine blooming around the feet of the lilies.

And you can see that there are other, yellow flowers blooming around the lupine. Those are Desert Dandelion.

The Desert Dandelion is a bit unusual in that it's a type of flower called a "composite," but it's a little different from other composites. A daisy is a composite flower like most composite flowers. What this means is that one "flower" is actually made up of a BUNCH of flowers. Each of the daisy's petals is actually a single petal of a single flower called a "ray flower." All the other petals on the ray flower are teeny to non-existent. Then there's the "disk" in the center of the daisy. Actually, the disk is also made up of a BUNCH of flowers called, oddly, "disk flowers." They all have teeny petals like the non-ray petals of the ray flowers. (Go look at a daisy or a sunflower with a magnifying glass sometime.)

Anyway, back to the Desert Dandelion. It's a composite in that it's made up of a BUNCH of ray flowers, but it has no disk flowers.

On the other side of the road there's a Fremont's Pincushion. It's also a composite, but it has all disk flowers and no ray flowers!

Farther along the road we came across a trail marker that I just couldn't resist.

I don't know the story behind the name, but...

Everywhere we went the Ocotillo were blooming or getting ready to bloom.

And the stems and trunks of the Ocotillos were simply covered in green leaves.

As soon as it rains, the ocotillos put out all these rich green leaves and start photosynthesizing up a storm. But as soon as it gets hot and dry, the ocotillo drops all those green leaves and relies on the little bit of green in the stems and trunks to make the food they need to get by. Since it had just rained on Sunday, we were still treated to the bright green of the leafy version of the ocotillo forests.

Another interesting plant is the Agave. It's a succulent (stores its moisture and food in its fleshy "leaves") that will grow as a low, spiky plant for years. Then one year, when the time is right, it will send up a giant stalk and bloom!

This one and most of those we saw that were sending up stalks were almost, but not quite, ready to bloom.

Anyone who tells you that a desert is nothing but sand and devoid of life just doesn't know what they're talking about.

Elephant Tree Trail Hike

2010-03-28T15:53:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in an earlier post that, after the full day of rain on Sunday, Monday was both windy and sunny. By mid-afternoon Monday the wind had started to mellow out a bit, so we decided to go for a hike on the Elephant Tree Trail. The trailhead was not far from the Fish Creek Primitive Campground.

From the turnout off the Split Mountain Road, you drive about a mile down a "Jeep road" (NOT at all sedan-worthy!) before finding the parking area and the start of the 1.5-mile self-guided tour. (However, due to budget constraints, no interpretive pamphlets are available for the self-guiding numbered posts.) The trail is your basic "follow-the-wash" trail with the occasional rock blockade to keep you on the correct wash along with the occasional numbered post.

Of course, as you hike up and around this desert wash, you get to see all the other desert plants growing and blooming along the trail, such as this Gander's Cholla...

and this Beavertail Cactus...

and the dainty Spanish Needles...

and, of course, the ubiquitous Brittle Bush...

and the useful Indigo Bush...

and the Chuparosa that the Hummingbirds love so much...

or the rare double-circle of Barrel Cactus blossoms...

till you finally get to the Elephant Tree.

The funky looking Elephant Tree is native to northern Mexico, southern Arizona, and southern-most California. Apparently, there used to be a number of Elephant Trees in the area, but the rest have died, leaving just this one.

"Wreckage of Time: The Fish Creek Badlands"

2010-03-27T13:31:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in the first in this series of posts, one of the things that drove the start time of our trip was the subject field trip on March 7th put on by the Anza-Borrego Foundation. I had been planning on camping a couple of nights and exploring around Fish Creek on this trip to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, so this field trip clinched it all, given that 9 AM Sunday at the campground was the scheduled start time and location.

As I mentioned in the last post, it started raining Saturday evening and continued to rain (a fairly cold rain with a little wind) all day Sunday during the trip, so I didn't take very many photos. But the rain didn't ruin the field trip so much as it turned it into more of an adventure as the day went on.

One of the requirements of the class was that you had to be in a 4WD vehicle, so we got one. The class consisted of about a dozen 4WD vehicles following one another up the Fish Creek Wash, stopping occasionally to get a little piece of the talk (while getting a little more wet) or to take a short hike to see something neat (in the form of an anti-cline or fossil footprints or fault offsets or layers of rock and soil).

Our class guide, instructor, and author, Paul Remeika, talked (under an umbrella to protect the props) about the fault system in Southern California, how the San Andreas slides along a curve, and how land forms at Whitewater Canyon (on one side of the fault) match up with land forms near Yuma (on the other side of the fault).

He also explained that, in part because of the curving fault, the land opened into a gap where the Salton Sea currently sits.

And, of course, we got to look at the layers that have been laid down and washed away over the eons.

And we got to see the tilted layers that have been jacked up by tectonic movements.

But the real adventure started on the return trip. After all, we had spent over half a day driving up a "wash" in the rain. And what happens to a "wash" when it rains? Well, it fills up with water. Happily, we were being led by a guy who had spent the last 30 years of his life working as a ranger in this area. So, we followed his lead back down the wash that was running with water -- or, more accurately, mud -- till we got back to the Fish Creek Primitive Campground.

Happily, the campground was a good 30 feet above the bottom of the wash, so the camp wasn't going to wash away. The rain finally stopped late in the evening and had mostly soaked into the sand by the next morning. Things were still a little muddy and there were still a few areas of standing water, but there was no more flowing water... in Fish Creek Wash.

There was still plenty of running water in other areas of the park. And all that running water exposed a LOT of really big rocks on a lot of the "Jeep roads" all over the park, making passage by vehicles with anything less than maximal clearance 4WD vehicles rather adventurous. (We only had the rental 4WD for a week.)

Camping at Fish Creek Primitive Campground

2010-03-26T08:23:00.000-07:00

My brother and I have returned from a two-and-a-half week mostly-camping trip to Southern California, mostly in search of spring wildflowers. You can't imagine my excitement when I read in the Moon camp book where it described the Fish Creek Primitive Campground as having free WiFi! I knew the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park (and most all California State Parks) had free WiFi, but spelling out that this primitive site had it made me so happy! That would mean that I could upload and blog on photos almost in real-time. But it was not to be. *sigh*

The campground is fairly primitive.

No tables, but they do have fire rings.

And they do have fairly clean and sturdy "facilities," but without paper.

No, not flush toilets as there is no running water.

You may have noticed the blackened pot above. That comes from cooking over a wood fire. "But, steph! I thought you had a propane stove," you say. Well, yes, I do have a propane stove. It was left sitting by the truck where we were loading all the gear. You do what you've gotta do. I can build a fire and cook over one, too.

Lest you think that this is the most boring campground ever, there are some nice views, too.

These are the rocks behind/south of the camp.

And the sunrises were lovely. As long as the camp wasn't overrun with yahoos (like it was the first Saturday night), the place was quite serene.

Except when the wind was howling like a banshee.

But the wind was actually welcome that Monday. The rains had started Saturday night and continued all through Sunday and, between the wind and rain, the tent leaked and got some things wet. When the sun came out on Monday (with a high in the 70s), the wind also kicked up. The combination really helped to dry everything out quite quickly. So, it all worked out!

However, all that wind made starting a fire a tad challenging... I highly recommend butane cigar lighters.

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

2010-03-20T20:41:00.000-07:00

Our trip has been in quest of Spring Wildflowers. Our expectations haven't really been met. This is not to say that there are no wildflowers. No, no! They abound! But they do not "abound" as in "field after field of abundant blooms." There are plenty of specimens. And, if you pick through the abundant greenery out in the fields where the abundant wildflowers used to be, there are mostly-hidden fields of wildflowers.

So, what's up? Well, two things.

The first thing is the weather. Anza-Borrego Desert State Park got another inch or two of rain on March 7th, followed by a day of cool wind, followed by a day of cold, and so on. Finally, around the 15th, the weather started to warm so the flowers have the energy they need to bloom.

The second thing is the Saharan Mustard. This plant is an invasive alien species that is taking over the fields and any other hot, sandy place they can find. The seeds are still viable after 300 years of lying dormant in the dry sand, waiting for the tiniest amount of rain. Then it grows quickly and grows taller than most species of California native desert wildflowers, thus shading out the native species.

To try to combat the Saharan Mustard (and keep the wildflower-seeking public coming to the park), they have formed classes in training volunteers in identifying this damaging species (as opposed to the native mustard species), when and how to pull them up, and how to adequately dispose of them (once they bloom, you have to remove them from the site and cook them or they'll go to seed anyway). Once trained, the volunteers can join teams focused on eradicating them from selected focus areas or you can go out pulling (and cooking) on your own.

You can see the difference in the areas that have been untouched and the areas that have been "weeded" in this photo.

All the green between the man and the mountain is Saharan Mustard. The tan and flowers in the foreground are remaining wildflowers and sand. For a closer view of the fight for living space...

The Saharan Mustard is in the upper right. The Desert Sunflower, Dune Evening Primrose, and the Sand Verbena (and sand) fill the rest of the area. The sunflower is the only species that can grow taller than the mustard.

We Be Campin'!

2010-03-16T10:14:00.000-07:00

We thought we were all packed up and good to go on Friday morning (March 5th), but we soon discovered that we had managed not to load one or two rather important components. The most important was the propane stove. I have a lovely 2-burner model that I've used for eons. It's back home in the garage, right next to where the truck was parked. *sigh*

So, while we *could* (and actually did a couple of times) eat cold food, hot food is better -- especially given how cold and windy it has been. So, we found a bag of wood to buy and I built fires a few times to cook on. We set the pot of water directly on the logs and it boiled up quite quickly.

When we eventually got back to El Centro, we went to Big 5 and bought an inexpensive, one-burner, propane stove. We haven't yet used it, but it looks like it will be quite adequate.

Having an Adventure!

2010-03-15T16:51:00.000-07:00

Thanks! to Magie for subbing for me for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. I'm missing out on wildflowers in my own yard!

This post is the first in a series of posts about how I spent my Spring Vacation -- on a Wildflowers Trip! (I'm actually on the trip right now.) This time I'm camping for 2.5 weeks with my brother who hasn't actually camped since he was barely pubescent (not even for reals in the Army).

The plan started out such that we were going to be doing a week or maybe two, starting around March 9th. We were going to follow a particular route down 101, then east (to see some wildflowers) on the way to the Carrizo Plain National Monument (to see some wildflowers) then farther east and south to the Antelope Valley California Poppy Preserve (to see wildflowers) then south through Joshua Tree National Forest to the visitor center (to see wildflowers) then south and west to the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park (to see LOTS of wildflowers).

That plan changed somewhat when I saw a geology field trip available at ABDSP on the 7th. So, leave earlier than planned, bypass the initial wildflowers, do geology, do flowers in the park, then back-track through the wildflowers on the way back north.

The geology trip was good, but the flowers are hunkered down, looking for several warm days in a row so they can actually bloom! So, plan changed again in mid-trip. (Hey! We have 2.5 weeks!) After almost a week in the park, we'll be visiting our step-sister (who has a place in the mountains that looks out over the park and the Salton Sea) for a couple of days, then head back into the park in hopes that the bloom will be getting better as the weather warms. Of course, we'll follow the wildflower trail heading back north, too.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, 15 March 2010

2010-03-15T11:25:00.000-07:00

Here it is, another Bloom Day. I'll be guest-blogging for Steph since she's on the road ...

It is a lovely cool day today, just a few stray clouds. Quite a few plants are blooming today.

Ribes Sanguineum (Pink flowering current, CA native - Feb. photo)
Strawberries
Freesias (yellow)
Calendulas
CA poppies - orange
Nasturtiums
Impatiens
White flowering Solanum
Pink geranium
Bok choy
Purple potato plant
Ceanothus
Mimulus arantiscus (Sticky Moneyflower, CA native - Feb. photo)
Cercis occidentalis (Redbud) (see photo below)
CA poppies - peach (see photo below)
Dandelions
Milk weed

I should have taken more photos of the redbud because this one is not focused very well.

Fortunately I did take more than one photo of this lovely poppy because the other one was not good.

Winter Veggies: Papa Cabbage

2010-03-01T20:44:00.000-08:00

The other day I decided that Papa Cabbage was ready for harvest. He was looking quite capable of making vast quantities of coleslaw or other cabbage-y treats.

This is what he looked like after harvest...

And the final remains...

I can see snails and aphids (and their damage), but can you also see that all the branches are variously aligned in crosses? That's why cabbages and all their kin are called "cruciferous," because everything about them is in Maltese Cross shapes. Even their blossoms have this shape.

Including this bok choi that has bolted and set flowers has the look.

The Harbingers of Spring

2010-02-24T19:22:00.000-08:00

In the eastern U.S., the bright yellow blossoming stems of Forsythia are the sign that Spring is on its way. Here in the Mediterranean climes of the western U.S. we have other signs.

To be technical, this is one of the currants native to California, Ribes sanguineum, Pink-Flowering Currant.

I planted this one for a few reasons. I wanted the lovely pink flowers. The hummingbirds wanted the lovely pink flowers. The other birds wanted the lovely blue-black currants at the end of the season... or so I was told. Nope. But I don't blame them. The berries -- at least in my yard -- are quite bland and not at all sweet.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day 15 February 2010

2010-02-15T18:16:00.000-08:00

Here it is, Bloom Day, all over again. Most of the things in my yard that are trying to bloom are weeds, but I have a few things actually blooming (or very nearly so!) today.

Ribes sanguineum (Pink-Flowering Currant, above, a CA Native)
Mimulus aurantiacus (Sticky Monkeyflower, above, a CA Native)
Pink Geranium
White-flowering Solanum
Purple-flowering Solanum
Impatiens
Rose
Jade Plant
Daffodil
Calendula
Paper White Narcissus
Snap Peas (I've been harvesting these off and on through the winter, yum!)
Bok Choy

Wait! Bok choy isn't supposed to bloom! Oh, yeah. It does if you haven't harvested it all before it gets that far.

I ate quite a bit of bok choy this winter, but I had sowed the seed SO thickly that I just couldn't keep up on three tubs full of rampantly growing bok choy. Important note for next year: One tub, thinly-sown, should be enough for one person. Use the other two tubs for succession crops of something else like carrots, beets, or spinach.

Oh, and I need to harvest my first cabbage real soon!

Is It Spring Yet?

2010-02-05T19:25:00.000-08:00

Imagine my surprise when I looked out my bedroom window this morning and noticed these *blooming* under/behind the dead tomato vines from the summer.

Personally, I think they got all jealous when they looked over on the deck and noticed these.

After all, out in the front yard, the daffodils have barely started budding up.

If you look carefully, you can just make out the largest bud on the right.

I was also a trifle surprised when I went out to take daffodil photos and saw this.

Not ripe yet, but looks like I've got a nice strawberry coming on!

And, out in the front yard, when I was taking photos of non-blooming daffodils, I discovered all of these on the vines.

So, while was out there, I decided to get pictures of Baby Cabbage...

Mama Cabbage...

and Papa Cabbage...

I also have WAY too many bok choy to harvest. Some of them are even starting to make flower buds. And the lettuce is going berzerk in all this rain.

Lots of Rain!

2010-01-21T12:02:00.000-08:00

We're still far from recovering from three years of drought, but it's a great start! It started storming here in the San Francisco Bay Area on Sunday. Lots and lots of wind, rain, thunder, lightning, downed trees, flooded streets, hydroplaning down the freeways, ...

That first day of storming blew over my rain gauge to almost horizontal, but it still collected about a half-inch of water by noon Monday. I emptied the gauge, righted it into a sturdier location, and left it to collect.

As of mid morning today, Thursday, it has collected about 3.25". YAY!

And, of course, when it rains, "things" grow.

I usually let the mushrooms grow. They're doing a job. They're breaking down dead things and turning them into food for the live things.

As for the rain, it's supposed to continue through today and probably tomorrow. We're supposed to be getting a bit of a break over the weekend (so I can go out and RE-clean out my gutters), but it's supposed to start raining again on Monday. Yay!

Paper Whites Catch Up

2010-01-19T11:47:00.000-08:00

Last week on Garden Bloggers Bloom Day I wrote that the Paper White Narcissus that I had been forcing in pots outdoors were only at the bud stage, but that soon they'd be blooming. Well, now they're blooming quite nicely.

The poor pot on the right end took a blow last night when the wind flipped a board onto it in the storm.

Lettuce for Everyone

2010-01-16T09:15:00.000-08:00

If you've been reading this blog, you know that I planted lettuce as part of my winter vegetable garden. The other evening a friend asked, "Ooh! What kind?!?" I started to explain and, having barely started explaining one kind, I decided that a picture was worth a thousand words.

I was trying to explain that I planted from two different packets. One packet was an heirloom "bibb" type lettuce called "Merveille De Quatre Saisons", that was all burgundy around the edges. It was like the red-leaf lettuce you buy at the supermarket, but it made a small head in the middle like butter lettuce, but it was more savoyed (crinkly, puckered) than either. And on and on.

The other packet contained a mix of "loose leaf" lettuce called "Heirloom Cutting Mix" that contained several varieties. First there's a lime-green variety called "Sucrine." Apparently, Sucrine is becoming popular in the higher-end, foofi restaurants.

The mix also contains a very narrow-leafed Romain-type lettuce called "Blush Butter Cos."

But the most interesting variety in the mix is called (really) "Speckled Trout Back" lettuce. It turns out to be an Austrian heirloom and it's very pretty!

As you might guess, I'm eating plenty of salads and they are quite colorful... even without adding tomatoes or other veggies for color.

January GBBD, part 2

2010-01-15T15:53:00.000-08:00

As promised in this morning's GBBD post, here are a few photos of January in California. To start, these are the flowers outside my dining room window.

These are related, but they're in the front yard.

Flowers are not what most people think of when they hear "Jade Plant."

Calendulas offer the nice warm touches of yellow and orange to often-gray days.

While the rest of the country has pruned their roses a-way back, wrapped them in burlap, and covered them in leaves or straw, this one is blooming in a back corner of the yard.

Usually, winter gardens get their bright reds from berries.

And, around most of the country, snow-bound gardeners get their winter blooms indoors by forcing bulbs like Paper White Narcissus. Mine were started indoors, but moved outdoors once they were well-sprouted, so they are only now starting to bloom.

But then, out in the yard, their "naturalized" counterparts -- the daffodils I planted almost a dozen years ago -- are already sprouting nicely. (But it looks like "someone" needs to get out there and pull some grassy weeds!)

Nearby, the grapefruit tree is laden with vast quantities of (truly nasty, wretched, bitter) fruits.

And out back, the flat bowl of strawberries I planted last fall have gone nuts blooming and putting on fruit (that may or may not ripen fully before desiccating).

And, since we quit having so many freezing nights, the Super Sugarsnap Peas have started growing and blooming again. (Yay! Snow peas for salads and stir-frys and snap peas for stir-frys.)

So, that's what it's like in January in Silicon Valley.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - 15 January 2010

2010-01-15T11:01:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's that time again! And not much blooming out there, but what's there makes my life cheery. For example, outside my dining room window that white-flowering solanum is blooming nicely and vining wildly. (Sadly, I have a hard time seeing it because all of my "houseplants" that normally live out on the deck are all clustered around the dining room window getting that northern exposure light. It's a jungle out there!)

So, here's the list of what's blooming in my yard today, in the middle of January, in the middle (ish) of California (some photos to follow in a post later today):

white-flowering solanum
impatiens (quite a few, but not exploding like in summer)
jade plant (simply covered!)
calendula (many small flowers)
rose (several smallish flowers)
purple potato plant (just a few flowers)
sticky monkeyflower (just a few flowers)
super sugarsnap peas (quite a few now that the freezing temps have left)
strawberries (quite a few berries coming on along with several new blooms)

I'm not going to include it on the official list, but the paperwhite narcissus that I'm forcing in pots are fully budded-up and about to open... maybe even later today! But, like I said, not much is blooming. The creeping plumbago was frozen almost to the ground and the vining plumbago has given up on blooming for now.

Photos to come...

Harvest on New Year's Day

2010-01-01T16:36:00.000-08:00

Despite some plenty-chilly weather and several overnight freezes, the vegetable garden continues to produce. Currently in abundance are bok choi and a wide variety of lettuces. But, because they are in such abundance, I'm tiring of them and went for some alternatives. Today I harvested a half-dozen carrots, several beets (with greens), some young scallions, some spinach, and because the cherry tomato has met its doooooom, I stripped most of the remaining tomatoes.

I'll be roasting the roots and sauteing the greens (with the scallions). The ripe tomatoes will go into a salad made with lettuce harvested earlier. (The green tomatoes will sit in a basket on the counter with a ripe apple while they learn how to be red.)

You know, it's been a long time since I've done serious vegetable gardening. Sure, most years I've planted a vegetable -- a tomato or two or a row of beans or peas or cucumbers -- but not multiple vegetables nor over multiple seasons. Not in at least a decade, closer to two.

One of the things I used to do back when I was vegetable gardening on a regular basis was order up all the seed catalogs I could find. I haven't ordered a seed catalog in eons. It turns out that they have been multiplying while my back was turned! This came as a big surprise to me, but I suppose it shouldn't.

You see, I've been working "in tech" for a couple of decades, so most of the folks I associate with don't "do garden." But, outside of those folks, I've also been becoming aware of a movement toward simplifying, going more organic, and "eating local." "Eating local" means buying your produce, eggs, and even meats that were grown within a short distance from where you live. You can do this by buying at your local farmers' market, a grocer that specifically buys local produce, subscribing to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), or growing your own and/or sharing with friends and neighbors.

Anyway, since I started raising veggies again, I decided to go scouting online for a couple of vegetables that I always liked, but wasn't finding in my local seed racks. I found one source that had both of these veggies, so I decided to order their catalog and see what else they might have to interest me.

Wow. The flashbacks of reading the seed catalogs through the cold of winter, dreaming of planting in the spring, and of harvesting all summer! It was amazing. Especially since I actually found seed for the two cover crops that I can grow to get those Root Knot Nematodes (that I wrote about in October) in check! Wow! So, I ordered seeds for the two veggies and for the two cover crops.

But this time I ordered via The Web, not by mail-order! That's different. I also ordered the catalog via The Web. I used to order by mail using ads, inserts, and interest cards in Organic Gardening magazine. But today, even that venerable publication is available online.

I guess "tech" and gardening are quite compatible, no matter what my coworkers say. :-)

One Summer Long Ago...

2009-12-27T19:12:00.000-08:00

Things that transport us back to our youth sometimes pop up in the strangest places.

One of my Facebook Friends is in Minnesota with the blizzards this week. Other friends have suggested that he bring back some snow seeing as how we have none here in Silicon Valley. He packed a jar full of snow and is planning to bring it back in his checked luggage. It should be "amusing" getting it through security what with not one, but two flight security "issues" happening on two consecutive days this week in Detroit.

And that's what triggered the memory of the summer I spent in and around Springfield, MO, with my Grandma and her new husband when I was thirteen.

Grandma had moved to Missouri some years earlier to care for her elderly and failing parents, then stayed on to live there. One day her sister and brother-in-law who also lived in Springfield took Grandma with them out to a farm to pick up some bales of hay (I think) for the brother-in-law's small farm. And that's where Grandma met her new beau. It was his parent's farm.

Some time later, they married. It was early January and bitter-cold in the heartlands. And I went to my Grandma's wedding! That summer, Grandma and her new hubby invited me and my younger brother to come and visit them for most of the summer.

That was one amazing summer!

I learned how to milk a cow. I drew up water, pulling a rope hand-over-hand, because the well at the farm had no pump. I counted and fed sheep daily. I helped mow, turn, bail, stack, and store alfalfa. I picked wild raspberries, blackberries, and gooseberries. I got chiggers and ticks (and learned to spray the chiggers with AquaNet and how to carefully remove the ticks). I caught and rode the paint pony (much to my new Grandpa's chagrin) that had been running wild on the place since before I was born. I cooked on an old iron wood-fired stove. I saw the inside of a dairy where we sold the milk. And I learned how to drive on a 1946 Ford tractor.

When it came time to head for home, Grandma sprang a couple of extra boxes on us. These were boxes of the size one packs books in for moving. It turns out that Grandma and new Grandpa packed quart after quart of those berries we all picked into freezer boxes and put them into her deep freeze. Grandpa went out the day before we left and got a bunch of dry ice and put boxes of frozen berries and dry ice into these book boxes.

You know what dry ice does? It "sublimes" into cold, gaseous carbon dioxide. It gives off a fog. So, off to the airport we go with two "smoking" book boxes! In those days, nobody thought anything of it. These days? Well, Homeland Security would have been all over us.

Bloom Day Again! GBBD 15 December 2009

2009-12-15T08:57:00.000-08:00

Here it is, Garden Blogger Bloom Day, all over again! Well, there's not much blooming in my yard today.

Calendula (just a couple)
Strawberries (just a few)
Nasturtium (just a couple under the eaves, the rest are toast from the freeze)
Jade Plant
Impatiens
White Potato Vine
Plumbago (the vining variety; the creeping variety is toast from the freeze)
Sticky Monkey Flower! (Yay! One of my California natives!)

What Do I Do About Freezing Temperatures?

2009-12-11T18:30:00.000-08:00

As I pointed out in my last post, we've been getting below-freezing overnight temperatures. In my microclimate, I got three straight nights of below freezing temperatures. So, what do I do about my plants?

Some plants are definitely warm-loving, cold-hating plants. Those are mostly the veggies of summer like squash, corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, ... Wait! Tomatoes!

Yeah, tomatoes like it hot. They are native to the sub-tropics. After several nights of near-freezing and a couple of nights of freezing temperatures, my beefsteak tomato is looking quite sad.

(Since he wasn't producing, I left him uncovered as a "control.") On the other side of that bed, I threw a couple of sheets over the cherry tomato plant. It wasn't pretty...

but it seems to have done some good.

The outer leaves were they were touching the sheet were a little sad, but the rest is still doing fine. And, yes, I have had cherry tomato plants continue producing into February in a stupendously cold winter here in the valley. Of course, the plant was up against the house, under an eave, on a west-facing wall that got sun from noon. But no other protection was offered.

I was a little worried about the lettuce, so I threw a sheet over them, too. Again, not at all pretty.

But after the freeze they were quite giggly and festive.

On other fronts, cabbage is a known cold-season crop. Cabbage can survive under a blanket of snow.

The white on the leaves is frost, like the kind you had to scrape off your windshield. In this close-up, that droplet of water is actually a droplet of ice.

So, despite freezing temperatures and some less-than-lovely sheets hastily thrown over some plants, I still have plenty to harvest here in mid-December.

The basket has four or five kinds of lettuce, some beet greens, and baby bok choi. Tastes like summer! Yummy!

Looks Like a Cold Winter

2009-12-08T09:36:00.000-08:00

This morning the thermometer on the deck greeted me with a shiver.

While the rest of the northern hemisphere may not think this is very cold, we in the Silicon Valley see this as quite frigid. Today the news reports are filled with today's predicted highs along with record-low highs. The record-low highs for this date go back to 1972. For San Jose, I think the number is 43F, but we're predicted to get to 46F, so no record there... but close.

I remember the December of 1972 quite well. I was a college freshman and had moved to an apartment of my own on December 1st. Within a week, the water-filled potholes behind my apartment had frozen over. And they STAYED that way for three weeks!

Here in the Silicon Valley we are blessed with a lovely Mediterranean climate. Since I have a nice covered deck, I usually have a lot of plants out on the deck. Many of these plants are considered "houseplants" because they are from sub-tropical areas, but they are quite happy out on my deck... unless the weather gets below freezing!

So, I spent the day yesterday bringing all the "houseplants" back indoors. Let's just say that Christmas dinner is going to be a little crowded this year.

I also spent the day covering the more tender of my vegetables -- specifically, the cherry tomato and the lettuce are covered with old bed sheets (that have been used as paint drop cloths). Hopefully I'll continue to have fresh veggies coming out of the garden.

And, yes, it got cold enough for long enough that the bird bath also froze. I had to go out with some hot water to melt a hole in the ice so the birdies can drink.

(Yes, that's a rock on the ice. I set it there so I could focus. The camera was disinclined to focus on the ice or the leaves frozen in the ice and it was too dark for my eyes to resolve the image through the lens.)

Thanksgiving Memories

2009-11-25T15:06:00.000-08:00

That day is upon us when Americans hold an historical observance buy eating themselves into a coma. Yes, tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. In preparation for the opportunities for overindulgence, tonight I'll be having a nice salad for dinner.

But that's not why I'm here today. Today I wanted to share a Thanksgiving memory with you.

Years ago, around the time of Thanksgiving, we were planning to entertain some German nationals at our home. Rather than have a large, fancy spread one week and a large, homey spread the next (or was it the other way 'round?), we decided to have one large, homey, semi-fancy spread. We had a traditional Thanksgiving feast for the Germans.

Originally, I had planned on roasting a small (~8 pound) turkey, so I upgraded to a larger (~14 pound) turkey, baked two pies (instead of one), and added a couple of side dishes. (Turkey, sausage & wild rice dressing, gravy, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls, tossed salad, baked potatoes, candied yams, peas, corn, I think I made green bean casserole, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and I don't remember what else, but I'm sure there was more.)

When our visitors arrived, their eyes got really big. After much chattering amongst themselves (most of which I understood, but wasn't ready to interrupt), they turned to us and their representative told us that the other three were convinced that the bird in question was a goose. The rep had tried to explain that it was a turkey, but they weren't buying it.

I turned to the rest and explained, "Nein, das is nicht eine Gans. Es it ein Truthan." (No, that's not a goose. It's a turkey.) Since I was using the right words, they were starting to lean toward believing it, but it took a little more time to explain that Americans (mostly) don't hunt wild turkeys like they do in Germany. We have bred turkeys to be HUGE.

Then they turned their attention to all the other food. They were astounded. We started trying to explain Thanksgiving to them. They mostly understood English (if you spoke slowly using simple language and sentence structure), but when they heard something that didn't fit into their reality, they would turn to the rep to ask for a translation. Then there would be disagreement, the rep must also have misunderstood. Eventually, when needed, I would reiterate in german. Eventually, they would acquiesce, but it didn't mean they "got it." It meant they heard and understood the words.

Then I started pulling more prepared dishes from the fridge and from the ovens. More confusion. We explained: "Man isst, bis man Schmerz hat." (You eat till you are in pain.)

Well, we had a lovely dinner. Lots of chit-chat. Bouncing back and forth between English and German. Eating till we had pain. We all were greatly entertained when we offered tea to our guests. One of the offerings was a tea I had bought in Nevada City: Whale Tea* ("*contains no whale"). Americans have problems with German humor and, apparently, it cuts both ways. (Yes, they tried the Walfisch Tee and enjoyed it.)

After dinner we repaired to the living room (well, I was mostly clearing the table and tidying the kitchen) where we entertained our guests with an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. It happened to be an episode with a long sketch with Germans mocking the French. And sheep. Our guests had variously loosened their belts, completely unfastened their belts, and unfastened the top button of their pants. They were definitely making themselves at home and it was great!

Then I appeared to ask whether they each wanted pumpkin pie, apple pie, or both. Ice cream, whipped cream, or both. I have to say, they were definitely rolling with the whole thing by then. (Did I mention they had undone their pants?) They went with both and both. :-)

I'm sure those four went back home with enough stories to tell to last for years.

What to do with Garden Thinnings

2009-11-24T17:35:00.000-08:00

Almost three weeks ago I posted that I needed to thin the bok choi. Today I finally got around to it.

In the same post I mentioned that I wasn't sure how I'd use the thinnings, but I think I did a good job of putting them to use.

I cooked a couple of slices of fresh ginger and a clove of crushed garlic in some oil. I added some sliced shitake mushrooms, followed by a few shrimp. I threw in the bok choi and covered the pan to steam a while.

Finally, I added a mix of arrowroot in soy sauce and chicken broth to make a loo, then tossed in some noodles.

It was utterly yummy, if I do say so myself.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day -- 15 November 2009

2009-11-15T13:01:00.000-08:00

It's that time again! Here's What's blooming in my yard today:

Tomato (Yes! They are still blooming, so I can continue to have tomatoes till they freeze!)
Nasturtiums
Canna lilies (tho' barely)
Impatiens
White "potato" vine
Geranium (tho' barely)
Rose (tho' barely)
Purple Potato Plant
Vining Plumbago
plus a variety of weeds :-(

So, the list is quite short this month.

The other news on the gardening front is that the turnip seeds I planted a little over a week ago are sprouting great-guns. The poor cabbage plant that was being devoured by aphids is growing quite nicely now that I've scrubbed it free of aphids. The cabbage plant that only had a few aphids (which I also scrubbed) is looking very lovely, almost decorative, as it fills its planter. The other two cabbages that I transplanted the same day that I sowed the turnip seeds are also progressing well. The four cabbage plants are of nicely graduated sized, so I should have a nicely graduated harvest. :-)

This Morning's Harvest, Tonight's Dinner

2009-11-13T12:13:00.000-08:00

For almost a week I've been noticing that the lettuce has been growing cheek-by-jowl and should be harvested in the name of thinning so the remaining plants can have more room to grow.

I've also been noticing that the beet greens are growing nice and thick again.

So this morning I went out with my harvest baskets and had a grand time filling them, first with beet greens to steam...

and, while I was in the neighborhood, I thinned the scallions to use as chives or green onions.

Then I moved over to the lettuce and pulled several very young heading-type lettuce plants, a couple of loose-leaf lettuce plants, and plucked a few loose-leaf leaves.

Then I popped over to the row of carrots and thinned out a few more. Lastly, I stopped by the cherry tomato bush to pluck a half-dozen tomatoes for my salad.

All-in-all, quite a nice harvest!

Pretty soon I'll be harvesting spinach, too!

Shoreline Sunday Bird Hike

2009-11-11T19:00:00.000-08:00

It's been a long-dang time since I've hiked out at Shoreline (Mountain View) and Palo Alto Baylands. To be specific, I haven't been out there with my camera since March 7th earlier this year.

It's getting to be awfully late into the fall and I was afraid I had missed the migration of the American White Pelicans. As it turns out, I seem to have missed the bulk of the migration, but not the whole thing. These are the guys I went to see.

The rest of their friends were out in the slough or gliding in on approach.

The American Avocets were out doing a little Synchronized Swimming.

This Brown Pelican decided that what was good enough for the white pelicans was good enough for him!

On the other side of the levee, the Black-Crowned Night Herons were staring at me with the possessed, evil, red eye.

This solitary avocet apparently had something to say.

As did this Black-Necked Stilt.

These guys didn't want to get involved.

All-in-all, it was a lovely morning. I leave you with the following sentiment:
Bottoms Up!

Fall Lettuce

2009-11-07T17:11:00.000-08:00

In my last post I mentioned that I really needed to thin the heirloom heading-type lettuce. The two reasons for this are that more seeds sprouted with the transplants from the 6-packs and I, like an addle-pated dolt, actually planted even more seeds in the planter at the same time. *sigh*

Well, I thinned the lettuce.

I thinned the green planter on the left. It's hard to tell unless you flip back and forth between the two photos (this and the one from the last post), but this should give you an idea of how much lettuce I removed.

There's plenty there for a good-sized salad, tossed with a few cherry tomatoes from the garden and a few goodies from the store. But I used a bunch of it (and some of my cherry tomatoes) in tacos that night. Yummy!

Winter Vegetable Garden Progress

2009-11-04T12:26:00.000-08:00

If you're still needing some inspiration to plant a winter vegetable garden, today's your day. I'm so excited by the progress I'm seeing in the seeds I started and seedlings I transplanted that I took some pictures this morning.

Back on September 17, I sowed two kinds of lettuce seeds in 6-packs and had some interesting germination issues. On October 10th I transplanted the lettuce into planting tubs and thoroughly thinned the seedlings. I have done a little more thinning since then, but I need to do some more. Here's what they look like today.

The lettuce on the left is the heirloom "heading" type lettuce. When I sat down to transplant these, I also (quite mistakenly) added more seed to the planter. Oy! I really-really need to thin a lot of these seedlings so the remaining ones can get more nutrients and really get going. While the goal with heading-type lettuce is the formation of the head to harvest, that doesn't keep us from harvesting and dining on the seedlings that we thin out.

The lettuce on the right is the heirloom loose-leaf lettuce. I did not go insane and plant more seeds. I actually thinned the existing seedlings even more. As you can see, they are quite happy. Like the head lettuce, we can harvest and dine on the seedlings we thin out. But, unlike the heading lettuce, we can start harvesting the outer leaves of the loose leaf lettuce as we go. I'll be having home-grown salads very soon, between the quickly growing loose-leaf lettuce and the over abundance of heading seedlings.

Back on October 12, I directed-seeded some Jewel-Toned Beets (Red, Gold & Candystripe). They don't look all that exciting right now, but the tub was rife with weeds that I pulled the other day. Still, they're growing pretty well.

These beets are supposed to be grown for their roots, unlike the beets I've been growing all summer primarily for the greens. (Those roots are OK, but nothing to write home about.) Still, I may end up harvesting some greens from these beets as they get bigger and more lush, but not too much 'cause I don't want to rob the roots of their nutrient source.

Also on October 12, I planted one pot each of two different kinds of spinach. One of the two is merely doing OK. This one is doing quite nicely.

Like the beets and lettuce, this pot was chock-full of weeds that I pulled the other day. Despite the weeds, they seem to be putting on a burst of growth, especially since I pulled the weeds.

On October 11, I direct-seeded both Super Sugar-Snap Peas and Bok Choi in a recycled recycle bin. The bok choi veritably leapt from the soil while the peas took their sweet time to get around to sprouting. I have thinned the bok choi two or three times and have thinned the peas once.

As you may have already guessed, the bok choi needs to be thinned yet again. Maybe a couple more times. I've never tried it, but I suspect that I can use the thinnings in salad or in a stir-fry or in soup or any number of other things. Anyone with suggestions is free to share!

Also on October 12, I transplanted a couple of cabbage seedlings. The cabbage has not been suffering from weeds, but it has been suffering from aphids. I've gone out a few times with a spray bottle of soapy water and a hose to try to kill/control the little buggers, but they keep coming back. The plants are growing great guns, but the aphids are a problem.

As you can see, some of the outer leaves are becoming peppered with holes. But this damage shouldn't hold the plant back much at all. I just need to stay on top of the problem and hope the aphid season passes soon.

So, those of you in Silicon Valley and other places that still have a little bit of a growing season left, now is the time to start planting those winter veggies!

Random Thoughts for a Windy Day

2009-10-28T13:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning our area was hit with a cold, blustery wind that is continuing today (and maybe tomorrow). There's not much that must be done in the yard immediately, so I thought I'd share a few random thoughts.

A friend posted on Facebook that he'd heard that one fertilized chicken egg leads to one flu vaccination, but he was looking for confirmation of this surprising detail. I did a couple of lookups and it comes down to between one and two fertilized eggs are used to come up with one injection. (However, the same amount of eggs results in hundreds of the inhaled version. The injected version is a killed virus. The inhaled version is a dilute, weakened-but-live virus.) That led to a discussion of how very many roosters and hens have been doing what they do in the name of flu vaccinations.

Having kept chickens (and ducks and geese), I can tell you that it doesn't take that many roosters! Opinions vary, but somewhere between 1-to-8 and 1-to-30 are the numbers quoted for how many roosters you need for how many hens. If you're going for maximal fertility, 1:8. If you're just keeping chickens for the eggs, you really don't need a rooster at all. But a neighbor had a dozen hens and only the one rooster and all her hens were bald from the rooster... um.. holding on to.. um... When she increased the flock (hens only), they got a lot less bald.

Chickens are great to have around to keep the bigger bugs in check. Mine did a great job on eating the Gypsy Moth larvae before they finished eating my oak trees. They were quite the hysterical sight, watching them try to chase down crickets and grasshoppers. They'd dash up to one and, about the time they'd go to peck it, the thing would jump four feet. The chicken would dash the four feet and stop. The cricket would jump. Chicken dash. Cricket jump. It's amazing that they ever got anything to eat. But they were quite willing to eat almost anything I threw out into their pen. They simply adored watermelon rinds! (And, yes, I fed them chicken feed and cracked corn, too.)

At the same time that I had the chickens, I also had ducks. There were only the three of them. Ducks are also good at eating the bigger bugs. They're also good for eating slugs and snails. Sadly, they're also really good at eating every freshly sprouted sprout and every freshly-transplanted vegetable start in the garden if you don't keep them out! The chickens can do the plants some damage, too, but not as much as the ducks.

Along with the chickens and ducks, I also had three geese. The big male tended to be mean and aggressive, but could be intimidated. The smallest one was like a little puppy. She would follow me around. She would walk with me down the drive and across the road to my mailbox. But, after I would retrieve my mail, she would sit down and insist on being carried back to the house. But she sat quietly, tucked under my arm, helping me open and read my mail till we got to the porch where I would set her down next to me while I finished with the mail.

She would continue to check on the mail, but then would gaze around the yard. Occasionally she would talk to me in whispering tones. If I whispered back, she would whisper some more. But if I spoke to her, she would honk. That would set the other geese to honking. When they would start honking, she would stand up and honk LOUDLY. So her friends would start honking LOUDLY. That's the bonus of geese. They are terrific guard animals. They raise a louder alarm than dogs!

Oh, and ducks do NOT make great pets. At least the ones I had didn't. When I would try to pick one of them up, it would do its darndest to slash me open with those talons flailing wildly. The chickens and geese were much more mellow about the whole thing. They'd eat from my hand and generally gather around whenever I was out in the yard.

Of course, I built them a house. It was known as Chez Poullet.

Summer Wind-Down Continues

2009-10-23T11:07:00.000-07:00

It's been over a week since I posted about the big rain -- the start of The Wet Season! Since then, we've had a mix of vaguely-warm, cool, damp, and humid weather. It's turning out to be The Year of the Mushroom.

This is only one example of the (at least) five different kinds of mushrooms that have been popping up around my yard. Mind you, I've seen many of these mushrooms before, just not all at the same time, or even in the same year! I continue to hold to my philosophical approach that they are merely doing the job in the garden of breaking down complex (plant) materials, making them more readily available for the living, growing plants to consume.

Mushrooms are, of course, fungi. So is the powdery mildew that is consuming the scalloped and zucchini squash plants.

The zucchini plants continue to try real hard, but they are definitely falling behind. The scalloped squash, on the other hand, are just plain losing the battle.

And, if you'll notice on the lawn below...

these little baby squash have committed suicide.

So, I bit the bullet last night and started taking out the plants that needed to be taken out. I started with the poor scalloped squash plants above, then turned my attention to the zucchinis. I started by looking them over to see if there were any new squashes coming on and there were, so I went for a more conservative approach. I started pruning out the leaves that were most heavily infested with powdery mildew and continued till I had mostly healthy leaves, some lightly-infested leaves, some stalks, and very-dang-few zucchini. *sigh* At that point it was easy to see that the two plants that were trying to produce (light-green) zucchini could stay a while longer, but the other two plants were just done-for.

But, in an attempt to try to make life a little less miserable for the remaining zucchini, I decided to whack back some of the non-producing arms of the non-producing beefsteak tomato. (I discussed the fact that excessively rich soil probably doomed me to lots of green vegetation and very few -- if any -- tomatoes in an earlier post.) Well, I was whacking and hacking and hewing and creating quite the pile of green vegetation when I noticed this:

Holy crap! And there was SO much vegetation that I couldn't even find where it had actually done any damage. Tomato hornworms start out small (small fraction of an inch) and go through several "instars" (shed their skin and pop out bigger and bigger and bigger...). This is about as big as they get. At this size they can actually eat full-sized tomatoes! Gah!

But, I have a friend in my garden who likes these bad boys... *without* butter and garlic!

If you look closely, you'll see the green stem that the hornworm was attached to in the previous photo. I had pitched it in front of Shelley's new hide-y-hole last night so she could discover it for breakfast (or a midnight snack). An hour later it was in exactly the same position. This morning there is of sign of the bugger and the tomato stem is actually closer to Shelley's hideout than it was last night.

Yay, Shelley! (I also tossed out some baby squashes that didn't make it in case she wanted a side dish.) About an hour after I took this photo, Shelley had burrowed back into the depths of her cave, presumably to digest. She's usually out on patrol for tasty tidbits or water at that hour.

Oh, yeah. Here's Shelley's other idea of "hiding."

In the meanwhile, the California Native Grape is finally deciding that it's time to ripen its berries.

By this time last year, this plant had put on large numbers of massive, tight bunches of grapes, had ripened them, had dropped them, and had started turning its leaves to bright Fall colors. Definitely a "different" year than last year.

Root Knot Nematodes

2009-10-19T12:22:00.000-07:00

Several days ago I wrote that the cucumbers had become bitter and that I had pulled them out. In a later post I mentioned that I discovered that I had Root Knot Nematodes. Arrrrrgh!

How did I know I had Root Knot Nematodes?
Viz:

A quick lookup told me that I had Root Knot Nematodes.

How do you get them?
How did I get them? I don't know. At least nothing for sure. I know that I didn't have them (or didn't have them bad enough to cause a problem) for the first several years here and in that location. For the first several years I grew tomatoes -- big tomatoes, little tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, lemon tomatoes, pear tomatoes -- all along that space. Mind you, I planted these tomatoes in a different location along this walkway every year. First at one end, then the other, then in the middle.

Then, suddenly one year, the tomato crop was minimal. And the next year the plants wouldn't even grow. And the year after, they grew a while, but then acted like they had a really bad case of the wilts. In retrospect, it was probably all nematodes.

But the thing is that there were two things I did between when the tomatoes were awesome and when they were crap. The first was that I tried product that contained (among other things) mychorrizal fungi. These fungi are supposed to help build a soil-building web of organisms to make plants grow more efficiently. (For a while I was suspecting that this product -- full of living organisms -- was the culprit.) The other thing was that I accepted some home-grown transplants for that bed.

And that's how it usually happens: infected soil is added to "clean" soil. OK. So that's kind of the "good" news. My infected planting zone is pretty much bounded on all sides by concrete. It's a planting bed between a garage wall and a walkway and a driveway and a porch. And the builders were a little sloppy when they dug the footings and built the concrete frames, so most of the space is also bounded on the bottom by concrete.

How do you get rid of them?
The bad news? You can't. Like, you just CAN'T.

Well, if you excavate ALL the infected soil and replaced it with "clean" soil, they'd be gone. But, if you don't get every last stinking nematode, they'll reproduce and eventually return. And, there *might* be a chemical you could apply and have it actually work, but pretty much all but a couple of chemicals have been banned as being WAY too toxic for everything else. And the ones that are still legal aren't completely effective. Honestly, if you don't apply them when the soil has the right level of moisture and the right temperature to the right depth with the right equipment, they're apparently almost completely INeffective. (Some of these chemicals are called "fumigants" because they are gaseous.)

The "good" news is that most of the "organic" solutions are relatively effective at keeping the nematodes under control. The idea is, make the soil healthy and the healthy-soil organisms will help kick nematode butt. Specifically:

Add lots and lots of compost and other organic matter.
Use a non-host (more on this in a bit) cover crop then turn it under as a "green manure."
Use plenty of organic fertilizers such as bone meal to increase phosphorous and potassium.
Rotate your crops so you're not growing related plants in the same place each time (e.g., tomatoes, eggplant, and pepper are all related, so don't plant peppers where you planted tomatoes or eggplant last year).
Let the area go fallow periodically as part of the crop rotation plan.
When you let the area go fallow, use a non-host plant to hold the space.

Host vs. Non-Host, Cover Crops, Green Manures
Simply, a "host" plant is one that the root knot nematodes really enjoy. A non-host plant is completely inhospitable to the root knot nematodes. Except that it's not that simple. There's a continuum of host/non-host plants. From what I have been able to gather, grasses (like sorghum, barley and other grains) lean toward the non-host end. Hosts are all the yummy things like cucumbers (and melons, squash), tomatoes (and eggplant, peppers, potatoes), carrots, lettuce, and so on.

Interestingly, the brassicas (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, radish, turnip, etc) lean toward the non-host end of things. Also in the brassicas are field mustard and rape. Here, in what's now known as Silicon Valley, the orchards that once filled the valley used to use field mustard as a cover crop/green manure under the fruit trees. Late every winter, the valley was covered in yellow blossoms with dormant fruit trees poking out above the sea of yellow. Come spring, the orchardists would disc all the mustard into the soil. A few weeks later, the orchardists would come back and plow in the irrigation furrows.

One of the things I learned when researching what I could do about my infestation was that, during the breakdown of the field mustard, certain gasses (fumigants) are released that kill the root knot nematodes! And, as we already saw, the organic material helps feed the other organisms that kick nematode butt. Awesome!

What am I going to do about them?
Well, for now, I'm growing this winter's crops in recycled recycling bins above the infested soil.

In the meanwhile, I'll be adding massive quantities of compost to the soil along with sulfur (to help correct the pH), rock dust (to add in elemental micronutrients), and bone meal (to boost the phosphorus level). I'm going to try to track down a local source of field mustard or rapeseed to grow a non-host cover crop/green manure.

I plan to leave the bed basically fallow for at least a year, so next spring I'll be planting summer veggies in the tubs again. But before I do that, I'll let the tubs dry out (so they won't be quite so heavy to lift), move them out of the way, and turn under the cover crop.

Another suggestion for helping rid the soil of nematodes is "solarization." So, I was thinking about covering that strip with plastic before moving the tubs back into place. In that way, the space can have the whole summer to try to build up enough heat to bake the little buggers. (And, maybe it will help trap the gasses produced by the breakdown of the green manure.)

Wish me luck!

California's Seasons, Part 2

2009-10-16T10:37:00.000-07:00

In my post Wednesday, I talked about how California basically has two seasons: Dry and Wet. The rest of the world commonly refers to these as Summer and Winter (in that order). For documentary evidence of California's seasons, I refer you to the lyrics of the old Albert Hammond song "It Never Rains in Southern California" where he sings "It never rains in California, but girl don't they warn ya. It pours, man it pours."

I also talked about the winding down of my Summer garden and promised that I'd talk about my Winter garden in my next post. As promised...

Ready for Winter

As I mentioned in a couple of earlier posts, I decided to work at putting in a winter veggie garden. I have pretty much finished starting seeds in 6-packs, transplanting seedlings, and direct-seeding my winter veggies just in time for our Wet season.

I bought a 6-pack of cabbage seedlings a few weeks ago. I gave some away, transplanted two into a pair of really big plastic pots (one per pot so they'll have plenty of room to grow).

The poor thing is caged because the neighborhood cats like nothing better than to use these pots as their litter box and the squirrels tend to cause damage to my plants in favor of planting their nuts. I have potted up the other two seedlings I kept to 1-gallon pots to give me a little time to find two more roomy places to plant them. (In the ground they need 18 inches between centers.)

About a month ago I seeded two varieties of heirloom lettuce (head and leaf) in 6-packs. This weekend I transplanted them into rectangular plastic planting tubs that I reclaimed from lackluster "traditional" plantings (gladiolus in the one and bearded iris in the other). Already they have settled in and are growing stronger by the day.

As you can see, the plugs from the 6-packs are chock-full of loose-leaf lettuce seedlings. Oddly enough, I had thinned each and every cell down to a couple of seedlings each several days before transplanting. All of those little seedlings have sprouted since they were transplanted! Yes, I need to re-thin all those seedlings.

Over a month ago I seeded Super Sugar Snap peas in 6-packs. Their germination rate was disheartening, only about 25%. Still, that gave me a half-dozen seedlings to transplant. When I removed the cucumbers I discovered that the soil in that bed is heavily infested with root knot nematodes. (I'll be doing a separate post about this a little later.) So, the planting bed where I had planned to plant the peas is basically unusable for now. I had to come up with an alternative.

My alternative is a little... ummm... creative. In my neighborhood, we now recycle using a ginormous, wheeled toter into which *all* recyclables are placed. We used to use three bins, one each for glass, cans, and newspaper. We had a choice of turning in the bins to be recycled or keep them for reuse. Well, I had kept mine. Specifically, I had kept mine to use as planting tubs... someday. Well, this is now "someday."

I spray painted the bright-yellow bins (with black illustrations on how to recycle in three languages) "Hunt Club Green" and filled them with a mixture of "Planting Mix" and "Garden Compost." I put the painted, filled bins on top of cinder blocks on top of the infested soil. I transplanted the pea seedlings into the first bin and direct-seeded more peas into the second bin. I will direct-seed another set of peas into the third bin this weekend.

Also in the recycled recycle bins, I planted two rows of bok choi in each bin. Amazingly enough, the rows of bok choi are jumping up out of the soil at an alarming rate. That's another set of seedlings that I need to thin very soon.

Meanwhile, I have direct-seeded some Bloomsdale Longstanding spinach into a pot, some Baby Leaf Catalina spinach into another pot, and Jewel-Toned Beets (Red, Gold, & Candystripe) into yet another pot. (These beets are intended to be grown for their roots, but I'll probably also harvest some greens.) The beets have already started sprouting and I have already started thinning them. The spinach are still in stealth mode.

In addition to the above, I'm also growing some herbs. I transplanted some dill and chives into a pot a few weeks ago. The chives seemed to be thriving, but the dill was not. It was looking a little more sad each week. Well, I got in there with my reading glasses today and discovered that it was infested with two kinds of aphids. I have now sprayed them with some soapy water. That should do it, but I'll have to keep an eye on them AND the rest of the veggies in the area to make sure they didn't travel.

I also transplanted some Sweet Basil that I had started in a 6-pack into a window box-like planter. Hopefully I can get some harvested before they are nipped by cold.

So, there you have the starts of my winter garden. There's still plenty of summer garden left giving me fresh vegetables. The winter garden is off to a grand start. There's still more to do (like planting the third recycle bin and thinning seedlings), but I like how it's going so far.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, 15 October 2009

2009-10-15T07:39:00.000-07:00

Here it is again: Garden Bloggers Bloom Day!

Before I launch into the list of what's blooming, I'll note that here in Silicon Valley we had our first storm of the Wet season and it was a record-breaker for some areas. In San Jose we officially got 2.33 inches, but the record for that date was 3.22 inches in 1962. Records notwithstanding, this storm makes this the wettest October in recent memory. The drought's not yet broken, but this is a much needed step in the right direction.

On to the list of what's blooming in my garden:

Roses
Tuberous begonia
Nasturtium
Nandina
Chrysanthemum
Canna lilies
Squash
Tomatoes
Pole beans
Calendula
Impatiens
Strawberry
Geranium
Solanum rattonii (this thing blooms almost constantly!)
Purple Potato Plant (likewise)
Plumbago (creeping and vining)
Rosy Buckwheat (this is a surprise)

California's Seasons

2009-10-14T19:53:00.000-07:00

For those who live outside California, you know that the seasons are Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. In California, the seasons are Dry (and usually warm-to-hot) and Wet (and usually cool-to-cold-ish). Dry can start as early as February or as late as June. Wet can start as early as October or as late as January. Sadly, the Wet season isn't always as wet as we'd like it.

Well, the Wet season has started. It started yesterday with a bang: an October-record breaking storm! So, I think now is a good time to talk about the winding down of what everyone else calls Summer and the start of what everyone else calls Winter.

Summer Winding Down
A couple of weeks ago I removed the cucumber vines. They were getting bitter, which is a big red flag to just yank them out. They won't get better, only worse.

Also a couple of weeks ago I also started hacking out squash leaves that had mildewed badly. I wanted to see which plants had given up and which plants were worth keeping. I removed about half the total number of squash plants. The remaining ones have decided to put in a little extra effort and are producing more and faster than all the plants together had been producing. (LESSONS LEARNED: If you plant twice as many seeds as you think you need in case one doesn't sprout and they ALL sprout, thin them out straight away.) I harvested four small zucchini this afternoon for tonight's dinner. There are a number of baby-sized scalloped squash waiting for harvest later this week.

About a week ago I finally thinned the beets. (see also note above, but...) The thing about "beet seeds" is that the "seeds" in the package are actually seed clusters. So, when you plant a single "beet seed," you are really planting about five beet seeds. You really need to start thinning the sprouts right away if you plan on growing large, tender roots. In my case, I was growing them for the greens, with the roots of this variety being inconsequential. Still, each cluster that came up had now produced a small beet (regular- to shooter-sized marble sizes), so I harvested a dozen beets while I was harvesting a bunch of beet greens. The beets, including the greens, will continue to grow well into the California version of winter.

The green and purple bean vines are starting to look a little tired and it's no surprise. They are a warm-season crop. However, despite looking tired, they continue to be quite productive and are putting on new flowers daily. I picked a small basket half-full this afternoon.

The tomatoes continue to ripen and will do so pretty much up until the first hard freeze (unless I build a coldframe/greenhouse over them). Sadly, it looks like whoever is stealing my cherry tomatoes has made off with the green beefsteak tomatoes in the last two days. *sigh* I picked half a "strawberry basked" (you know, those green plastic things you get at the store) of cherry tomatoes this afternoon. There are plenty more that are green or starting to ripen.

I need to thin the carrots. It will be a pain-in-the-butt, which is why I've been putting it off. I should also thin the scallions (interplanted with both of the squashes, but only seem to be growing with the scalloped squash). I can use the thinnings as chives.

Oh, yeah. I went nuts about three weeks ago and bough a leftover 6-pack of strawberry plants. Think: Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree. These poor things were put out for sale last spring and left to sulk in their 6-pack packaging. Well, I had one of those wide-but-shallow pots (the kind they sell with too many annuals planted as "Color Spots"), so I filled it with fresh soil, cleaned the dead leaves from the berry plants, and planted them. I had to trim off a couple of runners so the plant would focus on growing new roots into all that new legroom. A week later, one of them was trying to bloom! Wow! Well, I still want it to focus on roots, so I plucked the blossom. A week later, another plant was trying to bloom! Same deal. Looks like I'll have strawberries next spring!

So, I will still have some "Summer" vegetables for quite a while and some of the vegetables I planted in summer are intended to grow well into or through winter. But I also have started my Winter vegetables, which I'll talk about in my next post.

Wisteria Weaponry

2009-10-07T19:51:00.000-07:00

About twelve years ago, I planted a wisteria vine at the northeast corner of my deck and trained it up the support post to the deck roof and across the lanai along the back. Last spring, the wisteria was blooming quite maniacally and putting forth a cloying scent.

Now, in October, the same vines are covered with fat, green, fuzzy pods that are starting to turn brown.

Some plants rely on birds to eat their seeds, carrying them away in their digestive tract to some distant location to deposit along with a healthy dose of "fertilizer." Other plants rely on birds and squirrels to cart their seeds off and stash them in the ground for future reference. The bird or squirrel that planted the seed may return to eat it later, or it might forget the seed, leaving it to sprout into a new oak or walnut tree. Other plants make little airfoils, parachutes, or balloons for their seeds so they may be carried away on the wind. Still others put burs, hooks, or gummy substances on their seeds so that passing animals will pick up the seeds on their coats to be dropped off farther down the trail.

Then there are the plants with spring-loaded, hair-trigger seed pods. Our native winter cress has long, thin seed pods that, when ripe, will explode seeds at the barest touch, flinging the little seeds up to a foot away from the little plant. The California Poppy is the same way.

Then there's the wisteria. When those seed pods are fully ripe, brown, and dry, they pop with a *CRACK* that sounds like small arms fire. And they fire their nickel-sized slugs... er... uh... seeds with such force that it sounds like a BB hitting the patio door. They can fire those suckers to the far end of the yard! My wisteria is growing in the northeast corner of the yard and I found these seeds sprouting on the west side of the house while I was pulling weeds this spring. The sprouts were still line-of-sight to the old pods, but just barely.

The brown, fuzzy, spiral, ribbon-y things are the remnants of a pod that split and fired its rounds at me.

Really, when these things really start firing at my, it's like being at the range. I had told my brother (former Army expert, marksman, sharpshooter) about this a few years ago. But the following fall, he had forgotten about it when he was visiting me. *CRACK* - *PINK!* With a panicked look on his face, he cringed and started to dive for cover... till he saw me calmly staring back at him. He stood fully erect again and said, "That was that plant, wasn't it."

Yep.

This half-pod escaped the vine with one of its seeds still attached. Sometimes the squirrels taste-test the pods, but they always end up leaving the remnants on the ground, unconsumed.

As for this year, the shooting has just started. How rapid they fire depends on the heat and the humidity. Hotter and dryer means they ripen and dry faster and start erupting faster. I also learned that, if the winter is not terribly wet, any unexploded rounds will decide to start exploding during warm spells in the winter and early spring.

So, I'm just starting my season on the firing line.

(To my military friends and family- no they're not nearly as loud as the .22 calibre semi-auto the drug dealer was firing out in the street a couple of years ago. But still... )

Purple Beans?

2009-09-25T18:44:00.000-07:00

Yes, purple beans.

A while back I bought a packet of Tri-Color Beans. Really, it was a packet that promised pole beans that were not just green, but also yellow and purple. I was really hoping to find yellow pole beans (a.k.a. "wax beans" -- that don't taste like wax, mostly just like green beans), but they only had green or this. So, I went with this.

I've now harvested a bunch of the beans and can give a review of them.

You'll notice that there are NO yellow beans. I have yet to see a-one. I've seen cream-colored bean flowers, yellow bean flowers, and purple bean flowers. But I've only seen purple and green beans.

Normal ol' green pole beans look like this.

But the intertwined purple and green (and yellow) vines are actually pretty cool looking.

You can see which vine is going to produce purple and which is going to make green (or yellow). And this brings up a point about why I like yellow/wax beans. You can actually see the beans! Same deal with the purple beans. You can actually see the beans! With the green beans, they are the same color as the vine and the leaves and they frequently look just like the stems. This is not the case with the yellow and purple beans.

But here's my disappointment. The purple of the beans is only skin deep. No, really. Only about a single layer of cells are purple. When you snap and string them, the part that is snapped is green in cross-section and the part where the string was is also green. How disappointing.

But even more disappointing is that, upon steaming, the purple disappears and becomes a slightly duller green than the steamed green beans.

The two don't really taste any different from each other. However, you really need to stay on top of harvesting the purple ones even more than the green ones. The purple beans get much stringier and they get much, much woodier much faster. If you compare a green bean and a purple bean that have just gone past their prime, the green pod is a little tough, but the purple pod is woody. This is not a selling point for the purple beans unless you can stay on top of harvesting them daily.

IMHO, there are two reasons to opt for the purple beans:
The coolness factor -- purple beans look really cool... on the vine.
They're easier to find on the vine to harvest.

I think I'll spend some time this winter seeing what I can find in the way of yellow pole beans. They (and the green ones) are much more forgiving if you skip a day.

Germinating My Winter Veggies

2009-09-24T15:45:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I did a post where I mentioned that I had planted a couple of 6-packs of lettuce and one of basil. They were planted a week ago today and left to germinate (watered daily in this heat) in this setup.

Some things to note in the picture include:

The bottoms of the mini-flats are almost exactly 6-pack height.
The bottoms of the mini-flats are topped by a screened box to keep out the pesky squirrels and birds. (The squirrels dig things up and the birds snip off the sprouts.)
The screened tops are also 6-pack height.
From this view, you can make out fairly even germination in the 6-pack on the top-right, but less so in the one on the left. (You can't see much of the one in the lower-right.)

In this next photo we again get to see the 6-pack on the left. But wait! There's a whole bunch of sprouts in the two cells at the bottom. What the...?

If we take a look at the hidden 6-pack from the lower-right, we get a clue as to what's going on.

Ah! The parts that are in the shade are the parts that are sprouting quite vigorously! (Oh, the 6-pack in the top-right that has evenly germinated in the blazing sun? That's the basil. It likes the heat. One usually plants it in the spring to go with the tomatoes.)

So, what's the solution? How do I get the lettuce to sprout? Give it some shade! So, I've improvised a shade cloth, though I really should go get some real shade cloth or burlap.

So, what do you think of my elephant pot-feet?

When Your Day Starts with "What the...?"

2009-09-23T14:59:00.000-07:00

Did you ever have one of those days when you went to do something fairly ordinary and suddenly have to stop and say, "What the... ?" Today is one of those days for me.

This morning I went out to start the soaker on the cucumbers, but I stopped on the porch when I noticed that there was a quite large (for my vines) cucumber staring at me from under a leaf. "Dang!" says I. I mean, it was only a couple of days ago that I harvested a half-dozen cucumbers that were anywhere near picking size.

So, I started the soaker and went back into the house to get my clippers and the harvest basket. I came back out, clipped the one cucumber, put it into the basket, and went looking for more. I found another and another and "What the...?" (See? There it is.)

Yes, indeed, the cucumber plant had put out a little vine that found its way into less than 1/4" of space behind the trim on the side of the garage and decided that this was an excellent place to grow a cuke.

I had to put down the clippers and the basket to pull the trim out just a little farther because the thing was swelling on both sides of the trim. It came out all right. But there was blue trim paint imbedded in the skin and the trim was not interested in going back into place.

... until I cleared the vegetation from the base of the trim and gave it a sound kick. (You can see where the trim paint came off along the back edge between the trellis strings.)

In case you're interested in what a mutant cucumber looks like...

You can even see a fleck of blue paint on the left edge at the notch. I had already flicked off a few other flecks.

Never a dull day...

Summer Harvest and Winter Planting

2009-09-21T10:16:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks back I did a post in which I mentioned that I had added SuperPhosphate to my veggie garden because I was getting lots of vegetation and very little in the way of blossoms and "fruit." I also mentioned that a week later I had my first bean blossoms.

Since that post, I've gotten a lot more bean blossoms and, yesterday afternoon, I harvested my first beans -- along with three zucchini and two scalloped squash.

This morning I leaned my 10' ladder against the fence so I could reach over the top to harvest the beans that were mocking me from the other side of the lattice-work at the top of my 7' fence. The beans in the photo are about half the quantity I harvested this morning.

When I planned to put the ladder up to deal with the beans, I had planned to tease them back over to this side of the fence, but no-o-o-o-o-o! They had mostly intertwined through the lattice-work then with each other, so there was pretty much no going back. (Add this to Lessons Learned pages.) But, while I was up there, I harvested a bunch of beans and took note that there aren't many baby beans or flowers left on that side of the fence. I'll only have to lean the ladder back up there once or twice more.

In the meanwhile, the various squash plants are slowly producing squash at a rate that is comfortable for a human to consume. The tomato plants (especially the cherry tomato) have suddenly put on prodigious quantities of tomatoes. But they're mostly green. Only a couple have started to turn a little yellow or orange. I can hardly wait till they all suddenly turn red at once.

The cucumbers continue to maniacally produce semi-mutant cucumbers far faster than I can consume... even while giving massive quantities away. (I'm getting really tired of cucumbers. Another item to add to Lessons Learned: one 6-pack of cucumbers is plenty; two 6-packs are wa-a-ay too many.) By "semi-mutant" I mean that the half of the cucumber closest to the stem is very much ripe cucumber-esque. The blossom end, on the other hand, continues to look like a baby, not-ready-to-pick cucumber. If I let it go till the blossom end enlarges, the stem end gets way over-ripe even before the blossom end has ripened. Go figure. Probably has something to do with pollination or insufficient soil minerals or insufficient sun.

About a week ago, on a whim, I bought a 6-pack of cabbage plants. These things need 18" between plants, so they really need a lot of space. So far, I've planted two in 19" pots -- one in each pot -- so I really don't have room to plant anything else (maybe a ring of green onions). I think I can plant another in another pot I have out back. Yes, the first two are planted in the front yard.

Along the way, I have also planted a bunch of 6-packs of seeds for my winter garden. I have two 6-packs of Super Sugar Snap Peas (that are already sprouting) that will be replacing the cucumbers in another week. I also planted a 6-pack of Bloomsdale Longstanding Spinach (no signs of sprouting yet) that will go in front of the peas. I planted one 6-pack each of two different kinds of heirloom lettuce -- one leaf-type and one heading-type -- and a 6-pack of Sweet Basil. I will have to figure out exactly where I can tuck lettuce plants here and there into pots and other spots in the garden.

So! My winter veggie garden has started on its way!

Changing the Balance

2009-09-17T08:58:00.000-07:00

In the hills above Cupertino, the McClellan Ranch Park is tucked in along side Stevens Creek (the creek, not the street), between Deep Cliff Golf Course and Blackberry Farm. The park used to be a working ranch back in the 30s and 40s and it still retains some of that flavor. The city of Cupertino has carved out an area for the Rolling Hills 4-H club and its animals (ponies, chickens, ducks, goats, etc.), as well as space for a community garden. The park is also a bit of a birding hot spot. The Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society is housed in the old farm house. Bluebird houses are mounted and hung all over the park. The riparian corridor of Stevens Creek that bordering the park is an invitation to all sorts of birds.

As part of an inter-jurisdictional plan to have linking trails for hiking and biking throughout the bay area, Cupertino's first segment of the Stevens Creek Trail is being built starting at McClellan Road, heading south along the eastern edge of McClellan Ranch Park and continuing through Blackberry Farm. Being one who actually uses these sorts of trails, I applaud Cupertino for being involved in moving forward (ahead of some other cities - ahem!) to help build out this trail.

As the various entities made plans for the build out of the trail, they tried to take into account all sorts of environmental impact, but some things just weren't foreseen.

To make room for the trail along McClellan Road, they had to take down all the 4-H barns. These barns had been in place for years. They built new barns. To make room for the new barns, they had to move over into the community garden plots where residents had worked for years to improve the soil. To make space for the same number of community garden plots, they expanded the space out onto land that hadn't been put to the plow in decades. So, there was a lot of disruption and a fair amount of upset among the folks being jostled about to accommodate the changes for trail construction. Most folks just breathed a heavy *sigh* and adjusted.

As it happened, another event coincided with all this change and upheaval. The Audubon folks, birders, naturalists, and gardeners all noticed that the local population of California Quail had all but disappeared. Everyone missed them, so they came up with some thoughts on what was happening to the quail. A lot of feral cats were on the prowl in the park, so they decided to trap the feral cats and take them elsewhere. (No, I don't know where. I assume the humane society or other such entity.)

Well, it worked! The quail are back!

But so is every rodent species ever known to the area, simply because a couple of changes were made.

Remember the 4-H barns that were torn down? Well, for all those years, those barns housed some animals, but also all the feed, hay bales, and gear needed in the care and feeding of the animals. Feed gets spilled. Bales leak hay. Old gear gets piled in the corners. And the rats and mice turn the barns into palatial habitats. The rodent population explodes. The feral cats have plenty of prey, so their numbers explode. The cats prey on the mice and the rats. But the cats don't know that they're supposed to limit their diets to the mice and rats. They also feed on the "cute" rodents like the squirrels and the bunnies and they feed on the quail and other birds -- just whatever presents itself that seems like food.

The net result was that the cats were keeping the rodents in check (though nobody noticed that part of the equation), but they were also shrinking the population of quail. Now the net result is that the rodent population has exploded, and the quail population is making a comeback.

Now lets jump over to the community gardens. These gardens have been in place for many, many years. Some of the gardeners have held the same plot since the beginning. Each gardener gets a plot around which is a wire fence. Many gardeners opt to put in stronger fences. Some add iron gates they have found at salvage sites. For most, the fences are strictly to demark their plot, to stop other gardeners, children, pets, etc from wandering through their plots. For many, the grade of the fence shows a pride of "ownership" (if temporary) and the pride also shows in the tidiness and productivity within. Over the years, the only garden pests have been the gophers and, occasionally, squirrels.

Now we jump forward to last summer. The barns have been torn down and the rats and mice have been evicted, their homes are gone and their easy food sources have been swept away. The feral cats have been trapped and taken away. Every rodent in the area is now free to roam, looking for new food sources. The community gardens are suddenly invaded by squirrels, bunnies, and rats! And, of course, they still have to contend with the gophers. The gardeners are frantic in their efforts to actually be able to grow a crop. They bury fencing wire all around their plots. They bring in reclaimed bricks and boards. But every visit to the garden finds another spot where someone has dug under or climbed over and dined on their crops.

Many of the gardeners, in addition to reinforcing the perimeter fencing, are building all sorts of cages to go around and over the individual beds. These broccoli plants got a poultry wire cage framed with PVC piping.

These stacked cages, framed in wood and covered with hardware cloth, await the next planting cycle.

As you walk through the gardens, you start noticing the plots where the gardener has given up the fight in mid-season and where plots have been entirely abandoned.

Last year, the Master Gardeners attempted to do a trial of Edame (fresh edible soybeans), but the crop failure was complete. Despite all their efforts to add buried fencing material, add well-anchored row-covers, pile rocks and boards along the base of the perimeter fence, and all the other preventative measures, they harvested NO edame. It all went to bunnies, squirrels, rats, and birds. (You could see the beak-bites in what was left of the leaves.) This year the crop is winter squash. It's doing much better, but they had a couple of work days that were seriously focused on reinforcing the perimeter fence.

To be completely fair, I must also mention another animal that is stealing the crops from these intrepid gardeners. It is a two-legged animal. A number of the gardeners have strengthened the gates onto their plots and have installed shiny new hasps and padlocks. Walking along the paths, it is these plots that still have an abundance of produce along with a lovely garden habitat in the form of a chair or two and some sort of "garden decor."

And who can resist spending a day in the garden when you get a chance to bring home fresh, tasty produce grown with your own hands and to catch a view of these little guys dashing through the garden?

Nature, as it is wont to do, is in the process of re-balancing itself. The gardeners are starting to report seeing snakes around the community garden. So far, the snakes are small (pencil- to finger-thick), but even the small snakes can dine on baby rats, mice, and squirrels. And other birds are growing in numbers. I heard a hawk calling from up in a tree, so the hawks know there's plenty on the table below. Hopefully, the gardeners who gave up in frustration will come back and try again as things get back into a new balance.

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day, 15 September 2009

2009-09-15T07:54:00.000-07:00

Another month has gone by and it is, again, GBBD. Here's what's blooming in my yard:

Squash, zucchini and scalloped (as promised last month)
Tomatoes, cherry and beefsteak
Pole beans, green, yellow, and purple
Roses
Lobelia (a volunteer trailing blue variety)
California poppies
Canna lilies
Tuberous begonia
Impatiens
Nasturtiums
Chrysanthemums
Allium (that some random, semi-invasive, onion/garlic species)
White "potato" vine (Solanum rattonii?)
"Purple potato plant" (Multi-trunk standard landscape Solanum )
Geraniums
Plumbago, creeping and vining
Cucumbers
Sunflowers
Rosy buckwheat

As you can see, the list is much shorter this month than it has been. The only CA natives still thinking about blooming at this point are the poppies (and very-danged-few of those) and Rosy buckwheat (which gets supplemental water and is in high shade all day).

Soil Fertility - A Complex Subject

2009-09-10T18:28:00.000-07:00

I planted my lovely veggie garden in July. In each of the "raised beds," I added 1-2 cubic feet of home-grown compost, albeit buried under 3-4 inches of native soil (to smother any weed seeds). In the center back area, I added a touch (about 1/2 inch) of "top dressing" in the form of commercial (i.e., weed-free) compost. Other than these treatments, I added no "fertilizer" -- inorganic or "organic." (Technically, adding the compost -- both types -- is adding fertilizer, but "organic" fertilizer.)

Additionally, when I moved in -- and periodically thereafter -- I mulched the whole area with at least 6 inches of commercial Redwood Compost. Over time, the mulch breaks down, is transported underground by various organisms (including earthworms), and just seems to melt into the ground. This actually feeds the soil (and the organisms that live in the soil) over time.

As it turns out, when I planted the seeds and transplanted the seedlings, I pretty much had to jump back because everything came charging out of the ground like gangbusters. Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy!

However, this is not necessarily a good thing. It means that everything has plenty of nitrogen. Nitrogen is needed for strong stem and foliage growth. It's the N of the NPK ratio that's printed on every box or bag of fertilizer (organic or inorganic).

Plenty of nitrogen is good, but it's not enough. What about making actual fruits, like tomatoes, zucchini, squash, and beans? What about making the flowers that lead to the actual fruits? And what about the roots of the carrots and beets?

Well, that's where phosphorus comes in. P (the second number on the box or bag of fertilizer) is responsible for healthy root growth and flower and seed production. No P, no flowers, no fruits, no seeds. Bummer!

I knew I had a problem (not enough or unavailable phosphorus) because the tomatoes were rampantly growing into wildly gigantic green vine-y shrubs and hardly putting on any blossoms. I knew I had a problem because the bean vines had reached over the top of the 7-foot fence and had put on no blossoms. I knew I had a problem because the very few zucchini and summer squash fruits could sit on the vines for a few days without growing into serial killers.

OK. So, I need to add a source of phosphorus. As you might have guessed, I prefer to garden "organically." I prefer to use compost and even make my own. When I resort to commercial additives, I prefer to go with an "organic" alternative. For example, if I needed to boost the nitrogen levels in the soil, I could use blood meal (yes, made from blood), fish meal, or fish emulsion fertilizer. (The bonus for this last one is that, while the numbers are low -- 5-1-1 -- you can actually mix it with water and spray it right on the plant for instant absorption and jump-back growth. But I digress.)

The "organic" alternatives for phosphorus are bone meal, bat guano, and rock phosphate. But this is a problem. All of these alternatives are very high in calcium and miscellaneous salts. The reason this is a problem is that the soil in this area is already quite high in calcium and other salts quite naturally because this used to be a seabed before the Pacific plate jacked us up. And this is exacerbated by irrigation because our water is so hard (very high in dissolved calcium salts). And, besides, these "organic" solutions take months to work.

Did I mention that this is a complex subject? Well, here's another complexity. It's quite possible that there is plenty of phosphorus in the soil, but it's just not available to the plants because the soil pH in the dry regions of the west (and this is one) is naturally well above 7.0. Why? Because our hot, dry weather concentrates the naturally-occurring salts in the top soil through evaporation and the salts cause a too-high pH. Phosphorus needs a pH of 6.0 - 6.8 to be "available" to the plants.

So, gotta repair the pH. "Organically." The "organic" solution is to mulch the area with pine needles or redwood compost. (Oh, wait. We've been doing that.) The other "organic" solution is to add ground sulfur to the soil. I added it, but it takes time (months) for that to work.

So, I went nuts. I went officially non-organic. I added a wee touch of a product called SuperPhosphate. It's a form of phosphate that doesn't suffer from extra calcium, just a bit of extra sulfur. Oh, baby! A week later...

Rich yellow bean flower and two embryonic green beans in the lower left corner. The rest of the vines are showing similar progress. There are yellow, cream, and purple bean flowers all over the top third of the vines along with a bunch of baby bean pods.

At the same time as I gave a touch of SuperPhosphate and sulfur to the beans, I gave the same mix to all of the veggies except the beets. They all are responding either with more blossoms, more fruits, faster fruit growth (indicating faster seed growth), or faster fruit ripening.

What a difference a week makes!

Am I worried? Non-organic fertilizers are supposed to be death to the soil and the organisms therein. But, given that I have spent years feeding the soil with compost, I don't think one light application of SuperPhosphate is going to undo all the work that all that organic matter has done. For one thing, compost is The Great Soil Corrector. (Huh?) Soil too basic? Compost will acidify it. Soil too acid? Compost will buffer it. Soil too sandy so your water drains away too fast? Compost will hold the water. Clay soil? Compost will make air gaps so water drains and your roots can breathe. Compost invites earthworms to dine and the worms make tunnels for the roots to grow through and their castings (worm poop) is a highly-concentrated, readily-available fertilizer. Compost has carbon and nitrogen, the building blocks your plants need to grow -- and they are slowly released into the soil at a rate your plants can use.

I will continue to top-dress with compost to give the soil all of those benefits and help mitigate any damage I might have done with the SuperPhosphate.

And that's just about correcting an apparent phosphorus deficiency. I told you it was a complex subject.

Eating Fresh from the Garden

2009-09-09T13:48:00.000-07:00

This morning I went out to water the beets that I'm growing for the greens because I was thinking about harvesting some greens later in the day. While I was there, I noticed that the cherry tomato is finally ripening a number of tomatoes. Yay! While I was picking tomatoes, I noticed that a yellow summer squash had hidden itself over the edge of the planter under some tomato leaves. Thus, we have today's harvest.

This is a dozen cherry tomatoes, a good serving of greens (once they are stemmed and steamed), and a good serving of squash. Throw in a main dish and maybe a small potato and you've got a wonderfully healthy meal for one.

However, I've been falling behind!

Yes, this is the basket of three cucumbers, three zucchini, and two small summer squash that was already sitting on the counter awaiting my attention. Good lord! Well, I have a recipe for curried cucumber, so I think that's going to be my main dish (after I add some red lentils).

In case you've lost track, that means that, other than some red lentils, plain yogurt, and some seasonings, dinner will be from my own garden. Yummy!

Veggie Garden in Winter?!?!

2009-09-08T19:12:00.000-07:00

Last week I made a post on Facebook indicating that I was pondering whether to start a winter veggie garden. While I knew that many of my FB Friends were gardeners (or, at least, very familiar with gardening concepts), I was surprised to learn that a number of them were utterly unfamiliar with the idea that one could actually grow vegetables in winter. (Yes, you can. Especially in California!)

My ponder was more about whether I felt up to reclaiming another chunk of my Traditional Landscaping for turning into veggies. (Recall that I had reclaimed an 8' x 4' area of Traditional Landscaping earlier in the summer. While the post was done in mid-August, some of the seeds were started in June and the garden was planted in July.)

To answer the question of my friend who was surprised by the idea of winter vegetable gardening, yes! you can plant in September and October. Appropriate vegetables include beets, carrots, garlic, green onions, lettuce, radish, turnips, peas, spinach, and just about every vegetable in the cabbage family (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, arugula, kale, collards, mustard greens, rutabaga, kohlrabi, broccoli rabe, bok choy, Chinese cabbage, and more). (Actually, those radishes and turnips are in the cabbage family, too.)

Most of the veggies listed really hate hot weather and will either turn to a crisp or bolt to seed and become bitter, tough, or otherwise inedible. Yet, at some point, the weather is likely to turn too cold to support growth or even so cold as to freeze your crops to the ground. But many of these veggies either don't care that their tops got frost bitten (carrots, beets, turnips, radishes, ...) or actually taste better after a good frost (kale).

Lettuce is "tender" in a couple of ways. It will freeze and turn to mush if it gets too cold. But it will also "sunburn" (turn dry, crisp, and brittle) if left in the hot summer sun. You can prevent the "sunburn" by using shade cloth, but it will still be inclined to rush into seed production in the hot weather. This makes it a good crop to start in the early spring -- for harvest before the heat of summer -- or in the fall -- for harvest before it freezes to mush.

Spinach (and some of the other greens) are also likely to bolt to seed in the heat, but they are more resilient when it comes to the cooler weather of the fall and early winter.

As for me, I still haven't decided whether to reclaim more Traditional Landscaping, but I have decided that I can and will start at least a small winter garden. The row of cucumbers that is growing up the side of the garage is definitely starting to age and I'm starting to tire of dealing with vast quantities of cucumbers. Later this month I'll pull out the cucumbers and put in a row of Sugar Snap Peas to climb the trellis and a row spinach in front of them at their feet.

In the meanwhile, I'll keep looking around the yard for a likely location for more veggies (without actually tearing out the whole back lawn because that would be WAY too much work).

Shelley, the Intrepid Beetle Hunter

2009-08-31T13:18:00.001-07:00

At last! I have an actual post about Shelley, the Free-Range Turtle! A-way back in December of last year, I did my first post of the FRT. I explained that Shelley came to live in my back yard. I rely on Shelley to be part of my Integrated Pest Management (IPM) system. Shelley hunts down and savages garden snails (and slugs) with great relish. My back yard is now nearly slug- and snail-free! (Front yard still tends to be overrun.)

Shelley also eats the not-quite-ripe bits of fruit that the squirrels nab from the neighbors' fruit trees, steal away to nosh on my fence tops, then drop the leftovers into my yard. Similarly, if I have some bit of fruit or vegetable that sat just a bit too long in the crisper (or, as I call it, the refrigerated compost bin), I'll cut it into smaller chunks (as needed) and toss it out into the areas that Shelley frequents most often. I know that Shelley also likes earthworms and I'm sure she goes for grubs, too.

What I didn't know is that Shelley also seems to have a penchant for shiny objects!

When I was out yesterday afternoon taking the photo of my harvest basket, I heard crunching leaves and investigated. It was Shelley! And she was so engrossed in getting at that bright green object right there under her chin that she didn't even notice me till I snapped the photo.

That bright green bit under her chin turns out to be a Japanese Beetle. So, Shelley is continuing her efforts as a member of my IPM team. Go Shelley!

First Squash Harvest

2009-08-31T08:07:00.000-07:00

I harvested the first real squashes yesterday. Yay! (And I ate most of them last night. Double-yay!)

In this harvest basket are a variety of squashes and three cucumbers. First, the squashes. For the friend who had never heard of a "Scalloped Squash," that's the funky-shaped, dark green blob (with dead blossom on top) at the left side of the basket, resting on the bright yellow zucchini. They are also known simply as "summer squash" or, when bright yellow (instead of dark green), as "Sunburst Squash" or, when pale green, as "Pattypan Squash" among other things. They taste generally like zucchini or crookneck squash. They're all yummy.

As I mentioned, there's a yellow zucchini in there and two light green zucchini. OK, now you're confused. You're looking at the two small squashes on the right and asking, "Why didn't you count those?" I didn't count those because they started dying on the vine. As I mentioned in my last post, those two were the only blossoms on the plant when they formed. No male blossoms means no fertilization. No fertilization means the fruits won't form to accommodate the seeds within. You can really see where the embryonic dark green zuke has started turning yellow from the blossom end followed by turning brown. The process has started on the light green zuke, but pale-green-turning-yellow doesn't show up so much.

"But your squashes are so small!" you cry. Well, there's a reason. I picked that way on purpose. When they're small, they are more tender. When they're small, there's less food to have to process and eat. "What?!? Don't you want to share with your non-gardening friends?" Well, yes, I'd LOVE to share with my non-gardening friends! But there's a problem.

The problem is the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM). This invasive, crop-damaging, threat to California agriculture was found in the state in 2007 in Alameda County and a quarantine was slapped on the area. It has been spreading ever since despite an ever-expanding quarantine area. A year ago, my yard was not in the quarantine area, but now it is. I was stunned at how all-encompassing the zone has become in the last year. What this means is that I can't share my harvest with my next door neighbors, let alone with friends outside the quarantine area.

Part of the rules of the quarantine says that commercial growers, because they are officially inspected, get to ship outside their area. Similarly, because officially-sanctioned Community Gardens are officially inspected, the produce from those gardens can be removed to the homes of the gardeners, shared with friends, donated to food banks, etc.

And that brings up the notion that, until recently, was being touted in Public Service Announcements (PSAs). The announcements were suggesting that folks could grow some of their own produce in these challenging economic times. They further suggested that, if everyone planted an extra row, they could donate the proceeds to their local food bank or other charitable organization. With the quarantine on, we can't do that.

Make sure that you and your friends and neighbors know whether they are in the current quarantine area and that they know what the rules are. Nobody's going to come after you for violating the quarantine, BUT! If the LBAM continues to spread, the State or the County are likely to do something drastic like they did back in the early eighties when we had the Medfly issue and start spraying entire communities with insecticides.

The insecticide used then was Malathion, a popular, broad-spectrum insecticide. Malathion is a chemical in a class called organophosphates. Organophosphates also go by the moniker "nerve agents." Yes, as in "nerve gas," one "weapon of mass destruction." Granted, the amount used in controlling insect pests is a lot lower that the amount used in warfare, but still! Every night that the helicopters came through to spray, I had an asthma attack.

Speaking of PSAs, there's a new PSA now. It's really-really short and relatively content-free, but it touts being aware of invasive pests. It goes by so fast that I never can quite get the URL. I'll let you know when I do.

SO! I'll be harvesting my veggies young and tender and keeping them all to myself.

Veggie Garden Progress

2009-08-23T10:38:00.000-07:00

Just over a week ago I did a post about my veggie garden that I started rather late in the season. Well, what a difference a week makes!

The tomatoes have grown a foot and the beans have grown a couple of feet. The beets, as pictured, are larger and thicker... despite having harvested a basket full of greens! And the zucchini have not only started blooming...

but have also started putting on fruits, both dark green...

and light green. (No yellow zukes yet.)

They're moving along a trifle more slowly, but the scalloped squash are also getting started.

(If you look carefully, right in the center of the photo, you can just make out a green embryonic scalloped squash with a blossom bud on top.)

Oh, yeah. That's how you can tell the male blossoms from the female blossoms. The males are perched on the ends of long, thin stalks. The females are on the ovary on short stalks. I can't guarantee that the two zucchinis pictured above will actually turn into edible zukes. The male blossoms weren't yet open when those zukes' female blossoms were open, so it's not very likely that they got fertilized. In the case that they didn't fertilize, the fruit will suddenly decide that it isn't happening and will start yellowing and shriveling from the blossom end. :-(

So, while getting a jump on planting one's veggie garden by planting as early as possible after frost is the usual mode, planting in mid-summer only delays harvest by a short bit. Because the ground has had a chance to warm, because the days are longer, and because the days and nights are warmer, the veggies veritable LEAP from the ground in a much bigger hurry to start producing.

In the meanwhile, the cucumber vines that are growing on the trellis out front continue to produce a few cucumbers every two or three days. However... Remember how I mentioned in that previous post that I had to move the tomatoes out back to get them enough sun and warmth? Well, the lack of blazing sun and warmth is also taking its toll on the cucumbers. The fruits are frequently slightly deformed (much narrower at the blossom end) and the leaves are already starting to mildew (a sign of insufficient heat, too much moisture on the leaves, not enough air movement, or old age). Given that they are watered by soaker hose, it shouldn't be damp leaves. Given that the breeze comes up every afternoon and blows through there, and that the trellis is held a couple of inches out from the wall and sags even farther from the wall from the weight of the vines, there should be plenty of air circulation. The vines really aren't all that old and they are continuing to grow rather vigorously at their growing ends. So, that leaves insufficient sun. *sigh*

Well, I'll go give the cukes a dusting of ground sulfur for the mildew now.

Street Facelift

2009-08-19T13:41:00.000-07:00

OK, so this isn't about the garden or traveling or hiking or birds or nature or... But I thought it was interesting.

I bought my house 12.5 years ago. In that time I've seen street sweeping go from once a week to every other week to once a month.

Oh! Just so you know, the sweeping is NOT about cleaning up the trash dropped by passers by or lifted by the wind from the garbage truck or even the bits of detritus left after the Scooperizer(TM) has scooped the yard clippings we leave at the curb weekly. No. It's not about that at all. It's about "brake tailings" (a.k.a. asbestos) in the gutters that might make it to the bay. So, someone thinks that running the street sweeper up and down the street once a month is gonna keep vast quantities of asbestos from sneaking into the bay.

How do I know that this is what's going on? Because our neighborhood association had a city rep at a meeting where we were complaining about how littered our streets were getting what with the change in sweep schedule and the increase of trash after changing garbage companies. And that's what this representative of my city's government told us in all sincerity. *sigh*

ANYWAY, back to the original subject, in the last 12.5 years the city has given my street a facelift two or three times. The *type* of facelift varies between the kind where they grind down the top couple of inches then lay down a new, thick layer and the kind where they spray on some oil then lay down some gravel. (I really like the first kind. The second kind, not so much. You end up with sharp, loose gravel in the house.) This time around they are doing the oil-and-gravel treatment.

When I was a wee tyke, they always did the oil-and-gravel thing in my neighborhood. It was always done in the summertime, so we kids would spend the day watching the process. I don't recall a street sweeper (at least, not the big-mechanical-brushes-vacuum-on-wheels version we have today) being involved in the process, but someone must have done some sort of pre-clean. Then the asphalt truck would come through. This was a small thing with a kind of thin tar in it that they sort of mopped onto the street. Then guys would come along and shovel gravel on and rake it even. After that came the steam roller to mash the gravel into the tar.

Well, the process is still sort of the same, but not. Now the big-mechanical-brushes-vacuum-on-wheels street sweeper shows up first thing in the morning and runs up and down the street a couple of dozen times before the other trucks show up. Eventually a really big, wide tanker with an array of spray nozzles wider than the truck and fully half the width of the street shows up. It sprays something much thinner than the tarry substance of my youth on half the road.

This is followed by a gravel truck, but it's a two-part affair. Hitched to the back of the gravel truck is a gravel spreader. It has a steering wheel, but the gravel truck seems to be doing the driving and sharing in the steering. The spreader takes the gravel feed from the truck and scatters it in an even layer over the oil in a single pass. (When the gravel truck is empty, the truck and spreader unhitch so the spreader can hook up with the next load of gravel.)

Now here's where it really gets wacky. Instead of a steamroller, a bunch of large vehicles show up, each of which are almost as big as a steamroller. But these vehicles have four large tires on the front and four large tires on the back. Yep, they have eight wheels with tires. They drive up and down the street, at various speeds, forward and reverse, almost-but-not-quite playing bumper cars. Really. These guys, after the first pass, are driving up and down the street quite maniacally. This is apparently how they mash the gravel into the oil.

The signs all along the street say no parking during the workday for three days. I don't remember what they do on the second day, but I think the come through and sweep up the excess gravel on the third day.

If anything new or different comes along, I'll post it here, but for now I'm going to assume that there are no new surprises.

Spike's First Blossom... EVER!

2009-08-18T18:01:00.000-07:00

I'm SO excited!

About 25 years ago I "inherited" a beavertail-type cactus that was left behind by the previous owners of a house we bought. We named him Spike. After all, he was covered not only with tiny fine hairs of thorns, but with great woody thorns from 1" to 3" long. Spikes, indeed!

We bought a new redwood pot for him and, with painful and painstaking effort, transplanted him to his new home. (Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!) We bought a brass plaque with his name, Spike, engraved on it and mounted it to his pot. He sat on the front porch as our guard plant with us telling folks that he wasn't aggressive, merely territorial. Get too close and he will bite.

When we moved to the east coast, Spike went to live with my mom. But, when Mom and crew got him to her place, he bit someone and got dropped in the middle of her rock and gravel front yard. And there he stayed, not just for the two years we lived on the east coast, but for some years beyond that.

When I bought my current home, Spike finally came home to live with me again. But, after all those years of living in a redwood tub, dropped from a fair height, left to the elements and ignored, he was in rather sad condition. And I didn't really have the time, energy, inclination to really pamper him and make him feel at home.

So, there's he's sat for twelve years, in far too much shade for his species (whatever it is), with a great insufficiency of soil, and probably more water than he should be getting, but since he's nearly soilless, I figure he's not drowning.

And now he's gone and rewarded me with his very first blossom in 25 years! I'm so excited!

Now to go look up *which* species of beavertail cactus he is. :-)

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day -- 15 August 2009

2009-08-15T18:21:00.000-07:00

Oh my heavens! I've gone and missed Garden Bloggers Bloom Day! I guess this month's post will be, by definition, much shorter. A list, in no particular order other than to say that the one new thing blooming is my Crepe Myrtle tree. So, let's start with that:

Crepe Myrtle tree
Purple Potato Plant
Plumbago (both creeping and vining varieties)
Rosy Buckwheat
Sunflowers
Cucumbers
California Poppies of various colors and forms
Clarkia amoena (Farewell to Spring)
Sticky Monkeyflower
Sambucus mexicana (Blue Elderberry)
White-flowered potato vine (Solanum rattonii?)
Impatiens
Geranium (both Ivy and Upright)
Tuberous Begonia
Columbine (both native Western and non-native 'Nora Barlow')
Spider Plant
Rose bushes (floribunda and climbing)
Tomatoes
Cana Lilies
Nasturtiums
Vitus californica 'Rogers Red'
Calendula
Love in a Mist
Western Virgins' Bower
Seep Monkeyflower
Some purple penstemon
Some random allium species that I can't seem to get rid of

The zucchini and summer squash are putting on buds, so next month they should actually be blooming.

Late Vegetable Garden

2009-08-14T08:50:00.000-07:00

In a couple of earlier posts I talked about my vegetable garden memories and vertical gardening. I had intended on writing a series of posts, but as you can tell from my last post, vacation got in the way. So be it. We'll just jump ahead for now and get back to the intended series in a bit.

During the couple of weeks before the "memories" post, I decided that I needed to find a better location to grow the tomatoes that I had started in 6-packs. The problem was that the places I had been growing tomatoes for years had become unsuitable. My "traditional" landscaping had become more "mature" and was now providing too much shade for the tomatoes to be happy. The first several years, I had grown groaning boards-full of tomatoes of all sorts -- cherry, beefsteak, pear, lemon -- but now I was hard put to get an Early Girl to do anything but curl up and die.

So, I had to go out to the back yard where there was an area of under-productive ground next to the back fence. It gets blazing sun from noon till almost sunset. The growing bed is a full four feet deep and I figured I could reclaim about eight feet of running length.

The "reclamation" involved pulling and digging lots of rampantly, wildly, berzerkly-growing parsley that was going to seed along with some freely-reseeding calendulas. It also involved removing five 18" x 18" square plastic planters, dumping them out, and composting their contents (mostly aging bearded iris and daffodils with weeds). The poor planters were starting to split down the sides at their corners (plastic will do that after 10 years of exposure to the elements), but were otherwise OK.

Not being one to be able to just ditch something that has *some* use left in it, it occurred to to me that I could cut the bottoms off the planters, sink them much of the way into some holes, and back-fill with compost, thus creating miniature raised planters/planting hills.

In the above photo, you can readily see two of the white and one of the green planters that have been converted into "raised planters." The arrangement before you goes like this:

On the left (north) end (next to a rose bush) is a beefsteak tomato in a green tub, interplanted with basil
In front (to the west), to the right (south) is a white tub with 2 seeds each of 3 colors (yellow, pale green, and dark green) of zucchini interplanted with scallions
To the right of the zukes is a tub of beets (a variety that is more focused on growing greens rather than roots because I like the greens, too)
To the right of the beets is a white tub with 2 seeds each of 3 colors (yellow, pale green, and dark green) of scalloped squash (aka Pattypan squash) interplanted with scallions
To the right, to the back is another green tub with a Super-Sweet 100 (cherry) tomato, interplanted with basil
Between the tomatoes, against the fence is a row of 3 colors (green, yellow, and purple) pole beans planted directly in the soil and climbing up a string trellis
In front of the beans is a row of carrots.

So, that's my 4' x 8' vegetable garden. It was planted rather late in the year, but it should continue growing and producing late into the fall. The zucchini and the squash will give up first by giving in to mildew when the days become sufficiently short, cool, and moist. But note that the both tubs are interplanted with scallions! Those will continue to grow through the winter... or until I finish harvesting and eating them. :-) The beans and the tomatoes will continue, albeit slowly, until a hard freeze and the carrots will continue till I finish harvesting them.

Here you can see the row of carrots at the feet of the beans climbing up the trellis. (Remember the post on vertical gardening?)

And here you can see the scallions interplanted with the summer squash.

You may have also noted the various screened frames stacked on the lawn or next to the tubs. Those were needed to keep from feeding my seed to the birds, feeding the sprouts to the snails, and keeping the neighborhood cats from using my veggie garden as a litter box. Now that everything is up and *well* beyond the bounds of the screens, I can store them for the next time.

Summer Vacation

2009-08-13T19:06:00.000-07:00

For those who have missed seeing new posts on The Free-Range Turtle, yes, I'm alive and well. I've just been on vacation! (And getting ready to go on vacation and getting settled back in after vacation and...)

Back in March I headed down to SoCal (Julian and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park) and blogged about it in 6 parts. I just can't seem to stay away from sunrise views like this:

Taken from the deck (where I was sleeping in the freshening breezes), you can see a light grey band in the saddle of the mountains. That grey band is the light of the sunrise reflecting off the Salton Sea.

I'm one of those people who like to spend some time in an area exploring and learning about the place. So, I spent some time this trip exploring the town of Julian and some trails in the Laguna Mountains south of Julian (specifically, the Garnet Peak Trail).

In town -- well, on the outskirts of town -- is an old hard-rock gold mine called the Eagle Mining Co. where we took a tour.

This was one of the many mines that were opened for operations in the post-Civil War era.

One morning we headed south on highway 79 then east on the Sunrise Highway to the trailhead for the Garnet Peak Trail. Along the trail we had plenty of opportunity to see the remnants of the Cedar Fire of 2003.

The area has already experienced a lot of re-growth, but everywhere you look there are burned stands of trees and burned outcrops of shrubs. While the ecology here evolved in fire, it's sad to note that this fire was caused by a hunter who, when he became lost, fired a flare into the forest.

But the renewal of life continues as evidenced by the curly, feathery seeds of the Mountain Mahogany...

... and this bee going after the flowers of this bush mallow...

... or this bee on this buckwheat blossom.

But let's not forget the views from the top, to the north...

... and to the east.

And there were views along the way, too.

But, at the end of the day, we got to sit out on a deck with views of some amazing sunsets.

Here's a view to the east -- toward Anza-Borrego and the Salton Sea -- where the dying sun catches the top of the last peak, but the sun in the clouds was amazing and ever-changing like this cloud to the north.

And the light at the horizon to the west was pretty amazing as well!

But then, what can compete with the sunrises!

However, our plan only included a few days in and around Julian, because we had a friend to visit closer to the coast. Among other things, we spent quite the pleasant afternoon in a local park with our friend (and his pal Charlie) playing Scrabble and having a picnic.

We also visited the Air & Space Museum in Balboa Park (thanks for the suggestion, Peter!) and the USS Midway in San Diego Bay, but I didn't bring my camera along for those adventures.

Organic Produce in the News

2009-07-29T12:07:00.000-07:00

Organically produced foods are in the news today, but not necessarily in a good light and in a way that's rather misleading.

Apparently, a group of British researchers just published the results of a study that say that organic foods aren't any better than their "conventionally" produced counterparts. But most news reports that I'm looking at (so far) are stating it just that way.

Farther down in most of the articles they are saying that there are only very minor nutritional differences between "organic" and "conventional" produce. And that's fine. Except. Journalists know that most folks don't get past the first paragraph. And very-damn-few of these articles point out that the study doesn't address the point that the "conventional" produce may contain pesticide residue or other chemical contaminants. And I haven't yet seen an article that mentions the level of damage to the soil, beneficial insect life, and the environment in general that is done when using "conventional" methods.

Mind you, I don't generally buy the "organic" produce at my "local" chain supermarket. I have a hard time justifying the extra cost. On the other hand, I do grow my own produce using "organic" methods -- in part because I have a hard time justifying the extra cost. In this case, I'm talking about the extra cost of buying chemical fertilizers, buying pesticides, and the cost to the environment.

I encourage folks who have the extra budget to support organic growers. I also encourage the use of Farmers' Markets (especially where they call out that the sellers are local farmers and extra especially if they are local organic farmers). And, if you live in an area where there are such things still standing, I encourage the use of local Mom 'n' Pop markets that sell the products of local producers (farmers, bakers, butchers, florists, and so on). While it might be an extra trip or two to visit these places, the quality and the price usually make it well worth the trip.

Vertical Gardening

2009-07-29T09:57:00.000-07:00

In my last post I talked about many of the different gardening topics I've learned over the years. One of those topics -- vertical gardening -- is the subject of today's veggie gardening discussion.

The whole idea of vertical [vegetable] gardening is that you grow your crops up a trellis rather than letting them sprawl all over the ground. Advantages include using less ground space, keeping the mud off your produce, and not having to bend and stoop so much to check on and harvest your crop.

But the advantages weren't readily obvious back when I was first gardening. For example, let's look at green beans. The farmers that produce green beans for canning, freezing, and selling fresh in the market grow bush beans. Rows and rows and rows of bush beans. Why? Because they put on and ripen a single crop all at once that can be easily harvested by a mechanical harvester. The home gardener that grows bush beans knows that, if hand harvested and left in place, these bush beans will continue to produce cyclic crops of ever decreasing returns, but will continue to produce some beans periodically.

However, pole beans (beans that vine and can be trained to climb a pole or trellis) tend to produce a smaller yield at any one time, but they continue to produce continuously over the course of the whole summer and frequently into the fall. And you only need one or two rows of pole beans to produce all the beans you can eat all summer where you need to "succession plant" (planting another row or two every couple of weeks) many rows of bush beans to maintain a constant supply.

Then there's tomatoes. Would you believe that home gardeners used to grow tomatoes the way the farmers grow tomatoes? No cage, just the tomato "bush" on a hill. The ripening tomatoes would get heavy and sag down to sit on the dirt, sometimes to rot. Now home gardeners grow their tomatoes in cages to keep the fruits up and accessible.

But, like their bean-y counterparts, tomatoes come in two types analogous to "bush" and "pole." The "bush" version of the tomato is called "determinate" which just means that it puts on a set amount of branches and greenery and grows basically one crop of fruits. (Again, like the bush beans, it will continue to produce fruit on what plant structure it has, but with diminishing returns.) The "pole" analog is called "indeterminate" which means that the branches just keep going and going and going... Again, the indeterminate version just slowly keeps producing fruits till it dies in the frost of winter.

But these vertical crops are fairly obvious. What about cucumbers? When I started growing cucumbers, everyone I knew (even the ones who were starting to cage their tomatoes) grew them sprawling on the ground. You had to go carefully stepping between the vines to harvest your cukes. And, if you had any gophers in the area, chances were that they would have dined on your cukes the day before you harvested.

Then I learned about vertical gardening and that you could actually train your cucumbers up a trellis! No more carefully stepping between vines. No more muddy fruits. No more mildewy foliage because a little mud splashed.

Here's a small row of cucumbers growing up a trellis on my garage wall along the front walkway. These vines are blooming wildly and are just starting to produce cucumbers. Consider how much ground these bad boys would be covering by the end of the growing season if they weren't growing up a trellis!

This is all pretty nice, but consider the possibilities for growing some of the squashes, small pumpkins, cantaloupe, or mini-watermelons up a trellis!

Even if you only have a small patio from which to grow veggies, you can combine a few large planter boxes and trellises to grow all sorts of yummy, fresh veggies. And, if you plan your space well, you can grow some lower-growing veggies at the feet of the tall veggies. You could plant some basil or carrots at the feet of your tomatoes, maybe some beets or scallions at the feet of your cucumbers. There are plenty of possibilities to explore.

Vegetable Garden Memories

2009-07-27T18:38:00.000-07:00

My early memories about gardening are mostly about learning to grow veggies.

In grade school, our class (like just about every other grade school class in America) did a spring project of watching beans and corn sprout in jars lined with paper towels. (Who knows what happened with those sprouts after about the third or fourth week?) In grade school, we were only interested in watching the seeds swell, sprout a tail (root), sprout their first leaves, then start growing. Then it got boring. Well, boring to third graders.

We didn't learn that the first leaves were called cotyledons. We didn't learn that the pairs of cotyledons of the bean gave it a categorization of "dicot" or that the single cotyledon of the corn gave it a categorization of "monocot." We were just intrigued by watching the growth process through the side of the jars in which they were sprouting.

Later, at home, I asked Mom (our resident gardener) if we could plant some corn. So, we planted a row of corn. Yep, one long row of corn. (OK, about 10 feet of corn.) The experienced gardeners out there are already chuckling mightily. They're chuckling because they know that what we got from the long summer of carefully tending those stalks was something that looked a lot more like popcorn. They know that corn has to be planted in blocks -- multiple rows planted side-by-side -- for effective pollination to occur. Hey! It was a learning experience.

As the years went by I learned to plant corn, carrots, strawberries, zucchini (good lord!), bush beans, herbs, and more. Each year I learned a little more. I learned what worked and what didn't. I learned how to effectively amend soil for veggies. I learned about compost. I learned about composting in piles, bins, and sheets. I learned about the traditional "kitchen garden" (the garden planted for food for the household as opposed to the rest of the landscaping or crops for sale) and the "Victory Garden." I learned about "square-foot gardening" (where you have ultra-rich soil and plant a succession of crops shoulder-to-shoulder and cheek-by-jowl for quick growth and harvest) and organic gardening. I learned about vertical gardening (where you grow vining crops up a trellis rather than letting them sprawl across the ground). I learned about "companion planting" (where you plant things together that actually enhance each other's growth and plant things apart that would otherwise hinder each other's growth). I learned about planting in raised beds.

Yes, I've learned a lot of things about growing vegetables (and fruits), but I continue to learn more every year. I wonder what I'll learn this year?

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day, 15 July 2009

2009-07-15T12:19:00.000-07:00

Here we are again at Bloom Day. This morning I found a link that explains how all this Bloom Day thing got started (read down a little).

Today I'm going to take a different approach, something hopefully a bit simpler and shorter than last time. Tell me what you think.

The following are flowering in my yard as of today:

Tuberous Begonia - I bought this "annual" eleven or twelve years ago and it's still going strong.

Western Columbine - A few days ago I was worried that I wouldn't have an decent-looking blossoms of this California Native to show today, but they proved me wrong!

Coral Bells - This non-native (tho' closely related to our native Heuchera species) is fading fast on me. Actually, I'm surprised they've lasted this long in the recent heat wave.

Nasturtium - Also non-native and also getting pretty ratty... um... fading fast. The hummingbirds still give them a good working over.

Canna Lilies - Again, non-native, but they make really inviting red flowers for the hummingbirds.

Lobelia - Again, non-native, this lobelia is a volunteer of unknown pedigree, but it makes for a pretty, lacy, blue-and-white contrast to the broad leaved, yellow flowered Seep Monkeyflower below.

Seep Monkeyflower - This California native has really found a happy home under the bird bath.

Western Virgin's Bower - This California native vine is working hard at completely taking over the the fences in the back corner of my lot... and the roof of the pool house behind me.

Love in a Mist - Non-native wildflower that is trying to take over the yard. At first it was cute -- mostly because it looks so alien -- but now it's getting a tad invasive. I'll be working at removing it for a while.

Hollyhocks - Another volunteer, non-native, traditional European flower.

Chrysanthemum - I planted these (non-natives) one fall ten or eleven years ago, supposedly as annual fall color. It's still hanging on. And blooming in non-fall timeframes.

Calendula - Again, I planted a few seeds one fall ten or eleven years ago. This one re-seeds itself quite freely. This is another plant that I will need to start pulling early and often to be rid of it.

Various Roses - I have a climbing red rose; an unknown, cream with pink unknown florabunda; and a single old-fashioned rose that's covered in thorns. Two weeks ago they were all covered in lush blooms. With the heat wave, they're mostly looking sad, but they are also all putting on new buds.

Fibrous Begonia - This was a bedding plant that I put in the first spring I was in this house back in 1998. Most people have to replace these every year because they mostly die off over the winter. Not this guy!

Parsley - Not native, not on the "oooh!" chart for blooms, but like all of its relatives, it attracts lots of insects that the birdies like.

Redwood Sorrel - Our native oxalis! Yes, it's related to the yellow, sour-grass, Bermuda Sorrel that covers the hills in the spring, but it's not nearly as invasive and has much more interesting foliage. Plus, the flowers are a pretty pink.

Impatiens - I planted one. I swear. And this Jamaican native is supposed to behave like a native here and is supposed to be sterile, but no......

Geraniums - I have some Ivy Geraniums hanging in pots on the deck and a pink geranium in the ground.

White-Flowered Vine (Solanum rattonii?) - This thing is almost always in bloom. Not native.

Clarkia, Farewell to Spring - Now that it's summer, this native Clarkia is, indeed, bidding a farewell to spring. These are the last of the blooms.

Sticky Monkeyflower - I'm beginning to think that this native monkeyflower is also a perpetual bloomer.

Blue Elderberry - This native elderberry tree has massive hands of ripening berries, yet it insists on continuing to put on new blossoms.

Cucumber - Not native, but tasty! I have planted cucumbers along the south-facing garage wall to climb a trellis. Given the number of blossoms, I'm going to have to be making a lot of cucumber salads, cucumber soups, cucumber...

Rosy Buckwheat - This little native is so pretty that I wish it would do better at getting big, spreading out, putting on more flowers, ...

(Sulfur Buckwheat) - Psych! It's not actually putting on new flowers. This native puts on light yellow flowers that slowly fade to browns to a very nice effect.

Plumbago (vining and creeping) - Neither are native, but they put on pretty blue flowers and they came with the house.

California Poppies (second or third flush)

Sunflowers

Miscellaneous DYCs (Damned Yellow Composites), aka "Weeds"

Elderberries

2009-07-08T17:24:00.000-07:00

I seem to be easily excitable. A few days ago I walked out front and noticed the changes to my Blue Elderberry tree. Yes, it has added yet more blossoms. Yes, the last sets of blossoms are now becoming green berries. But the truly exciting part is that the early sets of green berries are turning BLUE! Woohoo! My less-than-a-year-old Blue Elderberry has gone from a little twig in a one-gallon pot to a small tree with masses of ripe elderberries!

These berries are supposed to be the beloved of the birds, tho I haven't yet seen the birds around the tree. I've tasted a few of the berries. Some are quite flavorful and some of those are actually getting sweet. If the birdies aren't careful, I might just beat them to the punch.

The vast majority of the wildflowers under and around the elderberry are gone for the year. Some of the clarkia are still blooming, but, for the most part, they're just about finished for the year. I'll be keeping an eye on the seed pods to see about harvesting them.

In the meanwhile, the areas where I cut back the California poppies have poppies starting to grow again from the bases of the seemingly dead, whacked-off plants. One has even put on a fresh blossom... and it's pink!

I still have plenty of hacking and hewing to do out there because it's summer and the spring wildflowers are looking quite seriously sad.

Hummingbird Ablutions

2009-07-03T06:48:00.000-07:00

A while back I did a post wherein I regaled you with the sights and sounds of the early morning. Near the end of that post I mentioned that I frequently get to see hummingbirds (yes, multiple) bathing at the hanging birdbath, but that I never see them at any other time of the day, hence no photos.

Well, yesterday the hummingbirds made a liar out of me!

They decided to visit the birdie spa around 9:30 AM and have a water fight. These two were mostly unsettled about sharing the bath, but had an uneasy truce.

And they were very thorough about making sure they got a good soaking.

These two little guys hung out for about 15 minutes, jockeying for position, flinging water about, and having plenty of good, clean fun. Near the end of their time they were joined by a House Finch. They decided that it was time to leave when every bird in the neighborhood decided that it was time to have Spa Day.

Harvesting Seed

2009-06-29T16:28:00.000-07:00

Readers of this blog know that I have been tending a California natives garden bed. They also know that I've been harvesting the seeds of some of the wildflowers for next year and to share with friends & family. I've clipped and plucked seed pods of the blue (Arroyo?) lupine, the "standard" orange California poppies, and the "mixed" California poppies. That leaves the Yellow Lupines.

Well, the last few days have been stupendously hot, so I slacked and didn't get out there to clip the seed heads. Today is also awfully dang'd hot, but not nearly as bad, so I took my clippers and my paper bag and braved the afternoon heat.

I am horrified to report that an insane number of Yellow Lupine seeds have already ripened and exploded all over the place! I am going to have SO many Yellow Lupines next year that I'm not sure what to do about it.

Oh, well. It remains to be seen how many actual seeds I managed to harvest.

In the meanwhile, I'm finding that the "standard" orange poppy seed pods seem to continue to hold onto a percentage of their seeds after they explode. In some cases, the pods seem to still be chock-full.

Well, back to extracting seed from pods!

Pollinator Update

2009-06-28T05:56:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the pollinators in my garden and beyond. The first photo was of a Yellow Lupine and "some bee."

Well, I found out this morning that this bee is the Yellow-faced Bumblebee (Bombus vosnesenskii).

This ID came to me through an unusual-to-me source: The newspaper. Specifically, the Home & Garden section of the San Francisco Chronicle dated June 14, 2009 that my brother left in my favorite chair. He had spied an article called "Give bees a chance" and thought it might interest me. You can find the article online in their archives.

The article talks, not just about bees and wasps, but about hummingbirds, butterflies, and moths (and beetles, flies, and bats!). They mention the Anise Swallowtail as being one of our local butterflies. They and the Western Swallowtail are quite remarkable when floating through the garden!

Here's where I get on my soapbox. A couple of the commenters on the online version of the article were touting planting Sweet Fennel to support the Anise Swallowtail. Now, granted, the Anise Swallowtail will use fennel as a host plant (the plant that the caterpillar eats before becoming a butterfly), but fennel is not only not native to the area, it's considered an invasive weed. Gah!

For those of you who want to cut down on invasive weeds, help the local ecosystems, AND feed the Anise Swallowtail, try planting its NATIVE larval foods. (OK, they might be a trifle challenging to come by, but you can try.)

Southern Tauschia (Tauschia arguta) is definitely a Southern (well south of Monterey County) California plant, so not for the Bay Area.
Woolly-fruited Lomatium (Lomatium dasycarpum) is found pretty much throughout California (except the Sierras).
It's available at Bay Natives, Native Here Nursery, and Oaktown Native Plant Nursery.
Common Lomatium (Lomatium utriculatum) is found even more widely throughout California than the Woolly-fruited variety.
It's available at Annie's Annuals, Native Here Nursery, and Northwest Native Seed.
Pacific Oenanthe (Oenanthe sarmentosa) is found throughout much of California, but especially along the coast and Coast Ranges. This is also known as Water Parsley, so it's probably going to want a wet area.
For those of us looking to do drier gardening, something else might be a better choice. If you are still interested, try Native Here Nursery or Friends of Sausal Creek Nursery.

So, please don't (as a couple of the on-line commenters suggest) go out and plant fennel all over the place! Help out the Anise Swallowtails (and all the other pollinators out there) by planting a few more California Natives!

Trip to Baylands/Shoreline

2009-06-27T09:22:00.000-07:00

A little over a week ago, a couple of friends and I took an afternoon "hike" (OK, it was more of a stroll or amble) in the area where the Palo Alto Baylands meets Shoreline Park. I don't usually do photo-hikes in the afternoon (or late afternoon). I usually go out in the early morning.

As it turns out, the morning really is a better time. That afternoon, the wind was blowing and gusting and keeping us from being able to hold still long enough to get truly steady shots of birds or anything else. We even tried leaning against a signpost to steady ourselves, but the wind was causing the post to vibrate adding yet another component to the unsteadiness of photos. But I still managed to get a couple of shots.

Quite a few terns (Forster's?) were alternating between their encampment on an island in the Charleston Slough and the creek on the other side of the levy.

Also on the creek side of the levy was a small flock of American White Pelicans who were mostly bathing and preening.

Of course, there were seagulls and other shorebirds lurking amongst the pelis. And the occasional pelican wheeled through the sky.

Over on the Shoreline side of things, down in the Coast Casey Forebay, we found a few wading birds such as this Black-Necked Stilt

and these American Avocets.

You know, it's amazing how very blustery it was up on the levies and how very calm it was down in the forebay. Still, trying to take photos of the forebay from up on the levy made it quite challenging to remain standing!

On a California native plant side-note, the Blue Elderberry trees along both sides of the levy were heavy with ripe and ripening berries. I sampled several and they were tasty. Not 2-die-4 tasty, but still... Mark tasted them, but didn't think much of them. Chris wouldn't even try them. Like someone else I know, he doesn't eat "random plants." :-)

But it makes me look forward to the time when all the Elderberries on my own tree will start ripening. And I'm highly amused that the tree continues to put on fresh buds and blossoms!

A Trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium

2009-06-24T18:05:00.000-07:00

Over the last month or so, I've suggested to my brother a couple of times that we should take a weekday trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium one hour to our south. Well, yesterday morning he suggested it on his own. So, I packed up my camera and away we went.

This is where I tell you that, a-way-back-when, I joined the aquarium when it was about 1 year old. I've maintained that membership since then, even when I lived out of the area and even when I didn't go for several years in a row. (I let my membership lapse this year cuz their membership people turned into jerks.)

The aquarium is even more awesome than it was the last time I was there. They have added quite a lot of features targeting kids (which is great! I love watching kids get psyched over science stuff), but they've also added non-age-specific features.

One of the things I have mixed feelings about is that the aquarium used to be solely focused on the California coast and the deep canyons off the coast. It was a truly unique resource in that respect. They had a little bit of everything they could bring back to the confines of the aquarium without having it die on them. Granted, the colors of the life in the cooler oceans are stupendously boring (to the untrained eye, but that's who they are inviting into the aquarium) primarily having various muddied shades of brown and gray and green. But I like it, just like I can appreciate all the shades and textures of greens in my California Natives garden.

Above is a Leopard Shark in the Kelp Forest. Sharky is mostly shades of gray with a few splotches of brown here and there. The kelp is muddy shades of yellowish- or brownish-green. The water has a slight murk to it. But these are all good things! Strictly-blue water (blue because of the way light refracts through it) is "dead" water in that it has no microscopic life in it. The slightly-green murk is life! (Actually, if you were out diving in the kelp forest visible from the back deck, the water would be much greener and murkier. They filter the water slightly so you can see the exhibits better.)

So, even though the life in the local environment is quite beautiful to me, I can see where it could be considered "boring" to the family of five who would be plunking down on the order of $125 just to get in, looking for value for their dollars. Now the aquarium is bringing in exhibits from around the world so they can bring in the color factor, the oddity factor, and the cuteness factor.

Among the cuteness factor exhibits is this absolutely adorable flock of penguins from South Africa. They mostly seem to stand on the edge and stare at the humans and look like they're worried that the humans will come through the glass. But they are quite cute. Also cute are the two different kinds of freshwater otters.

For color they've added tropical fish such as this Blue Tang above and the what? Zebra-Striped Angel (got me what it's called) below.

One of the first exhibits they added for the freakiness factor was the jellies.

Most of the early jellyfish exhibits were the bland-colored, small jellies that were here on our coast and were totally cool, scientifically speaking. (See what I meant about mixed feelings?) But they have now put these guys in a tank that is optimally painted, lit, and filtered to really show off their uniqueness that folks would have completely ignored if they were in a tank that was painted, lit, and unfiltered in a very natural way.

The latest addition to the freakiness factor are the Sea Horses and their kin. The Sea Horses and Pipefish mostly moved WAY too fast for my camera to capture them without being a complete blurrrrrrr. But the Sea Dragons are a different story and they're MUCH more freakish. Viz:

What you're looking at is not a chunk of seaweed. What you are looking at is animal. In fact, it's three animals! There are three Sea Dragons clustered together here. I have photos because they don't move very quickly. As a matter of fact, they actually seem to drift through the water, looking for all the world like broken-off chunks of kelp. That's their camouflage! Looking like something that holds no interest for a predator. Here's another:

Again, three Sea Dragons adrift like chunks of seaweed. Very funky, very amazing, very "Ooooooh!"

But I also like the bright pink anemones from our coast. "Oooooh!"

And you know I like the Ruddy Ducks from previous posts, so here's a close-up of an adult male Ruddy Duck sporting his blue summer bill.

Yes, his summer bill is a chalky turquoise blue. Go figure. The aquarium had a breeding pair and two youngin's. Isn't he cute?

They have quite a few species of coastal strand birds, but most of them were hiding behind a dune where I was hard put to get a shot of them. But this one Killdeer was resting out on the sandy "beach" in the aviary.

Really, the bottom line is that the Monterey Bay Aquarium is truly awesome. There are plenty of exhibits that hold the interest of hypered-out kids, folks with a science bent, those who long to take adventures around the world, and those who just want a show. I've barely touched on what there is to see and do simply because there is SO much to see and do (and the lighting is SO low that I was hard pressed to get *any* decent photos out of the day).

You should go.

Slacking

2009-06-21T17:23:00.000-07:00

Yes, I've been slacking-off on writing a new post for the last few days. I even went on a photo-hike and have photos to use in a post, but no, I've been slacking.

Well, I was just over on Facebook where a friend was bemoaning that she was procrastinating and wondering how she could turn the power of procrastination into money or some sort of environmentally-clean energy. One of her friends posted this link. I am SO ready to sign up!

When I quit procrastinating, I'll do a post about my hike. :-)

Getting Up Before the Sun

2009-06-18T06:55:00.000-07:00

I have a long, long, l-o-n-g history of getting up before the sun. Given that I've made my living in the software industry for the last 20+ years, that makes me rather an odd duck. (Many software people stay up till long past midnight then drag their butts out of bed, pound down a highly-caffeinated soft drink or two, and get into the office in time to check e-mail and go to lunch.)

But all those folks who don't get up till 9 or 10 AM (or even later!) miss out on some of the coolest events of the day. (At least I think they're cool.) Take this morning as an example.

I sleep with my windows open whenever possible. I like the fresh air. I also like the sounds the birds make when they're waking up, bathing, fixing breakfast, ... The Black Phoebes perch on wires or fence tops and call in quiet voices: fi-BEE, fi-BEE, fi-BEE. The male Mourning Doves periodically call: COOO-coo-coo-coo. The House Sparrows chirp-chirp-chirp. The Lesser Goldfinches whistle their disappointed sighs.

And all that is very soothing and peaceful for me. But the really cool part comes when I get up as the day is starting to get just light enough out to make out the birds in the yard. That's when the hummingbirds show up at the hanging bird bath for their morning ablutions. Usually there's just the one hummer at a time. It'll sit on the rim and repeatedly duck its head and bill into the water, letting the water cascade over its tiny shoulders and body, shaking and fluffing its feathers to let the water get into all the nooks and crannies. Between dips, it'll swing its bill to the left then the right to wipe the collected crud off on the side of the bath.

Once the hummer decides that this process has gone as far as it can, the little thing will lift off from the edge and fly across the surface of the bath dragging its lower half through the water. After doing that a few times, it will go back and sit on the edge. But this time it will sit backward and swish its tail in the water.

It's all quite amazing to watch because hummingbirds are too tiny to stand in the bath, dipping and wriggling and flinging water far and wide like their larger brethren.

This morning's extra-added interest was afforded by the fact that there were, not one, but three hummers out there vying for a position at the bath. The three were all jockying for position, trying to run each other off so they could each have first dibs at enjoying the Birdie Spa alone.

One morning a few months (several months?) ago, I got up to find three hummers all enjoying the Spa at once. They each had staked out a quadrant and were going through their morning ablutions. The cherry-on-top for that day was that only two of the hummers were our ubiquitous Anna's Hummingbird. The third was one of the rusty-orange species such as Allen's or Rufous Hummingbird. Quite a sight!

I've never seen hummers use the bath at any other time of day. And, no, you're not going to see any photos of the morning ablutions. Bad light, bad angle, permanently scratched and cruddy glass to try to shoot through, etc all prohibit anything approaching a decent photo. Or even a crappy one.

What a difference a day makes

2009-06-17T11:34:00.000-07:00

On Monday I blogged about "Garden Blogger's Bloom Day" and had photos of virtually all my flowers including this sunflower.

Sadly, this morning it looks like this.

What're you gonna do? Life goes on. But you might notice a honeybee trolling around the center of the disk. And you might notice that the outer disk flowers are developing seeds quite nicely (as evidenced by the separation between the flowers).

While we're engaging in a little nostalgia vs today's reality, here's a nostalgic look at the street end of my natives bed back in late May.

And now, not quite two months later, people are using terms like "ratty."

Not that I blame them. It does look quite ratty out there, but now it's my turn to go out and trim out all the rattiness so that it can have a slight resurgence of growth. And, while I'm at it, I can harvest a bunch of seeds for next year's garden(s) and for friends' gardens.

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day - June 2009

2009-06-15T12:27:00.000-07:00

It turns out that someone has determined that people who write blogs involving gardening should write about what's blooming in their yard on the 15th of every month. They call it "Garden Blogger's Bloom Day." I Googled it and found that it seems to have started around March 15, 2007. (I didn't see any over evidence of it before that date.)

So, what the heck! The Free-Range Turtle is as much about my garden as it is about flowers in the wild, birds in the wild, sculpture in the wild, climate discussions, and so on. So, I guess I'll take a whack at the whole Garden Blogger's Bloom Day.

There are, apparently, no special rules here. One can make a list... or not. One can post photos... or not. One can use common names or botanical names (or even no names if one is using photos I'd guess). One can include fruits and vegetables and weeds... or not. I think I'll try a variety of formats and see which works best. (Tell me what you think!)

First, all the photos in this post were taken this morning. Second, I didn't include the blooms that I consider to be "weeds" in the collection (where "weeds" are defined to be plants that I didn't plant, the previous owner didn't plant, and that I'd rather were gone but am too lazy to chase after each-and-every-one... e.g., dandelions, non-native oxalis, etc).

Oh, man! Where to start?!? How about with the flowers that are fading...

Both of these are California natives. On the left is Sulfur Buckwheat. When its blooms are new, they're bright yellow (hence the name), but the fade to straw to rust to brown. It's actually a lovely effect.

On the right is one of the last of the mixed California Poppies. There are only a few stunted orange flowers left and the mixed colors & forms are starting to follow suit. (They also come on later than the orange versions.) I spent an hour or two yesterday harvesting seed pods of the orange variety (having about 10% of the pods explode in my fingers, spraying seeds everywhere as soon as I touched them) and trimming about 18 inches of floppy foliage off the driveway where it... um... flopped.

Here's a tiny surprise inflorescence on a Ceanothus (of unknown species or cultivar that came with the house) right next to a small cluster of berries from the initial wave of bloom. Birds are supposed to love the berries.

And the once-rampant Yellow Lupines are all but gone, leaving behind long, curving stalks of seed pods. (The blue lupines are long gone and I've harvested their seeds. Now I'll be starting on the Yellow pods.)

Neither of the bloom-y bits above is fading... yet. On the left is our locally native Sticky Monkeyflower which is perennial and likely to continue blooming till it gets blazingly hot and dry in late summer or early fall. On the right is Clarkia amoena, Farewell-to-Spring, which should continue to bloom for a month or two (or more, with water).

The Blue Elderberry (also native to California) is still blooming, but has also started putting on great clusters of berries. The Sticky Monkeyflower and Clarkia pictured above are growing beneath this Elderberry, as do the Poppies and Lupines also pictured above.

Even this Penstemon 'Margarita BOP' grows beneath the Blue Elderberry. The penstemon is also a perennial and should continue to bloom well into the summer and maybe into the fall, depending on weather.

This Rosy Buckwheat is native to California, but it's not native locally (which would explain its issues with not really thriving here). It's native to the Catalina Islands. But it sure is pretty! And not likely to last long. *sigh*

The scary... um, rather, botanical name of this Narrow-Leafed Milkweed is Asclepias fasicularis. It, like others of the genus Asclepias, are larval host plants for the Monarch Butterfly. I don't have enough of it to attract the buterflies, but I like the idea. It is native to California.

This shrub, referred to as Purple Potato Plant, may not be officially native to California, but it sure looks an awful like our native Deadly Nightshade to which it is related. It blooms pretty much all year and the big, solitary, bumbly bees love it.

Native? Non-native? Well, Helianthus annuus is native to most of the US -- including California -- but this guy is a cultivar intended as food for humans. I planted seed a couple of years ago and they came up, bloomed, made massive quantities of seed, and dropped most of them in the bed that I turned into my California Natives bed. Right now, it's about the only thing blooming at the west end of the bed since the poppies and lupines have pretty much given up.

This is another inherited plant, this one a vine, that seems to be another Solanum -- related to Deadly Nightshade. It grows rampantly, has to be hacked back constantly, and blooms year-round.

This Impatiens is likely native to Jamaica (I saw them growing wild and huge along the roads there), but I started with a 6-pack of them about 12 years ago. They are treated as annuals in most of the lower 48 because they're so tender, but I still have one of the originals PLUS a bunch that came up from seed dropped by birds in a planter across the walkway from the original.

This native Seep Monkeyflower, Mimulus guttatus, is relatively new in my garden and has only recently started blooming in greater abundance. It likes moist places (hence the "Seep" in the name), so I put it under the bird bath.

This red climbing rose is no native, but I have no idea what its species or cultivar is. It came with the house, has been quite unceremoniously ripped out by the fence crew, and stuck back in the ground in a corner. That was, what? six or eight years ago? And there's a native Western Virgin's Bower that has been trying to smother it for the last four or five of those years.

This red Canna Lily is really starting to pop its buds, so I thought I'd include it. Not native to California, but, when it's treated nicely, it grows to over 5' and shows its flower heads in my bedroom window where the hummingbirds come to visit.

I also have hanging pots of plants, including this ivy geranium and its relative below, the pink geranium.

A number of years ago I planted one of these native Western Columbine. Sadly, it died. But not before it managed to reseed itself in one spot. Then another. Then another. Then a few others. Yay! And these dainty little guys are hummer-bird magnets!

Not strictly native, but these Coral Bells are pretty little hummingbird attractants.

Man! but this is getting long! I'll break into list mode here:

Hollyhocks (like the Impatiens, one six-pack planted a dozen years ago that keeps volunteering)
Nandina (landscape shrub known as Heavenly Bamboo)
Lobelia (the blue bedding type)
Calendula (again, keeps reseeding from a dozen years ago)
Nasturtium (see "Calendula")
Begonia sempervirens (one remaining from a 12-year-old 6-pack)
Parsley (keeps reseeding)
and some unknown purple-flowering landscape shrub.

Wow! That was way too long! Gotta come up with something different for next month...

Weather in the San Francisco Bay Area

2009-06-13T12:44:00.000-07:00

I grew up in the south bay, but I've traveled around the world and around the US, and I've lived on the east coast (mid-Atlantic states) twice for two years each time and in the Sierras for a couple of years. I grew up camping in northern California in the summer when recognizing weather patterns meant survival. I offer up these tidbits as some of my bona fides with respect to knowing that there are places that have "weather."

The south bay pretty much does not have "weather."

"Weather" is a three-day snow storm that dumps seven feet of snow.

"Weather" is a morning of monsoon rains that fill the streets (that were designed to act as waterways during "monsoon") and the front yards almost to the house foundations (then drains away within two hours).

"Weather" is freezing rain that glazes the streets so slick that you can parallel park (or un-parallel park) by pushing on the side of your car.

"Weather" is waking up to a clear, blue sky, spending a warm summer morning hiking or water skiing, then watching the sky turn black in the span of an hour, then watching two inches of hail accumulate in a half-hour while the temperature drops 40 degrees... and stays that way overnight.

"Weather" is sitting in the house with all the windows open and all the appliances unplugged while the thunderous pounding of the rain on the roof competes with the thunder and the instant CRACK of lightning as it strikes the lightning rods of the house you're in and all the houses around you with only seconds between the blinding flashes of lightning... and smelling the ozone in the air.

Growing up in the south bay, I can tell you that we have two seasons: Dry and Wet. The Wet season used to start somewhere around late October (you might get rained on while Trick-or-Treating) to early December. Wet season would end somewhere in March or April. The rest was Dry season.

Except that you could usually count on one half-day of cool, misty weather in June, right around the time that the local cherry crops were ripening. (The south bay area used to be one big agricultural center before we started growing silicon.) I say that because it confuses me when folks who grew up here are surprised when it happens. Every time.

What is different is that we're having more and more years where the entire month of June is mostly cool and icky or warm and icky. And by icky I mean cloudy and moist. OK. We're back to weather in other locales. Our Junes are turning into the Junes I experienced at the New Jersey Shore. Do we chalk it up to Global Warming? I don't know.

Plethora of Pollinators

2009-06-10T13:04:00.000-07:00

Each day that I go out to my California Natives garden bed (sometimes a few times a day) I see at least a half a dozen different species of winged pollinators visiting the various blossoms in that bed. The biggest and most obvious is this bee -- though, not being an apiarist, I have no idea what species it is -- who is giving my Yellow Lupine a good going-over.

The yellow on his head, shoulders, and aft-end is not pollen. The orange saddlebags on his hind legs is pollen. But, as I said, he's the biggest and most obvious of the pollinators out there working over all my flowers.

Of all the visitors, there are a few different bees (including this guy and honeybees), a variety of flies (who seem to be mostly just shopping), and a LOT of different wasps. While some of the species of wasps are nearly as large as Mr. Bee (above), most of them are much smaller. One is as tiny as an ant! Some are brighter yellow and highlighted with black. Some are such a pale straw color that they seem almost transparent. Besides being all different sizes, they come in a wide variety of shapes, though many of the wasps are sort of in the generic "wasp shape" with the skinny waist.

Here's another example of a pollinator. This one is working over a sunflower, though I could tell you whether it's a wasp or bee, let alone what species!

The point is that all of our plants need a wide variety of insects for effective pollination. Different plants need different pollinators. Some plants require very specific pollinators. Approximately one third of our agricultural crops in the US require sufficient pollinators to be able to produce all that... produce.

So, what do you think happens to all of those pollinators when people spray insecticide around indiscriminately? In the past, I've had neighbors with beds of prized roses who would completely freak out whenever he saw an aphid. Out would come the pump sprayer and the gas mask and he'd be out there spraying in a breeze strong enough to cause his spray to drift all the way across my yard! (What the hell! He's gassing his aphids, my pollinators, and ME while he's wearing a respirator!)

If you've been watching the news, maybe you've heard of Colony Collapse Disorder. This is a not-as-yet-understood phenomenon where the entire population of worker bees from a colony of honeybees will simply disappear. CCD has been on the rise in the US in recent years and the growers are worried that there won't be enough honeybees to pollinate all the crops.

Well, that's where the native pollinators come in! A number of vineyards in Napa (and other) counties have been striving to be more "organic." (No discussions here as to what "organic" means other than to say that one intent is to rely less on artificial/chemical means to grow healthy products.)

Anyway, one of the things they are trying is the use of interplanting the rows of grape vines with native flowers and surrounding each of the fields with hedgerows of native trees. (Frequently, these hedgerows can be planted where cannot be reasonably grown and harvested.) The introduction of the native trees and forbs invites all sorts of insects to come for a visit and to live in their natural habitat. The idea is that, of all the insects that come to live in the trees, many will be pollinators. But the extra-added bonus is that many of the insects will also be what gardeners and farmers call "beneficial insects." These are insects that eat (or otherwise parasitize) the insects that cause crop damage.

One popular example of a beneficial insect is the Lady Bug. Yes, Lady Bugs are cute as the dickens. But Lady Bugs provide the VERY cool service of sucking the life out of the aphids that suck the life out of our crops (and rose bushes)! So, that Fine Neighbor of mine, instead of gassing the aphids, pollinators, and ME out of existence, could have gone to a reputable dealer and gotten some Lady Bugs to take care of his aphid infestation. (In reality, he didn't have an infestation. He had a couple of aphids.)

Some wasps make sure their babies are going to have food by laying their eggs on (or in) crop-munching larvae (caterpillars). When the eggs hatch, the babies eat the larva. Tomato-munching larva... all gone.

By the way, the "organic" vintners are finding great success with the interplanting. Pest insects are being kept in check without spraying and the vines are being quite effectively pollinated without having to rent portable beehives.

If you note that insecticides won't kill each-and-every pest that you spray for -- while killing most of the beneficial insects and pollinators indiscriminately -- and reconcile yourself to the occasional pest and a teeny bit of crop damage, you might find yourself quite pleased with the results of using more natural methods of pest control.

Ooh! And the extra-added bonus of having all sorts of insects around, keeping each other in check? You will have written a dinner invitation to all manner of birdies who will come by to eat whatever insects they can find!

Shelley!

2009-06-03T15:05:00.001-07:00

As promised when I started this blog, should Shelley make an appearance, I'd post a photo of her. Well, here ya go!

I found Shelley rampaging around the yard several days ago. So I brought her into the house for a soak and a scrub and a quickie exam to make sure she's OK.

In general, she seems quite fine. One of the scutes on her upper carapace seems a trifle scuffed and chipped, but it doesn't look like it's infected or cracked through to the skeletal structure. No eye or ear problems, either. She's plenty active and strong and evidence would seem to indicate that she's been eating quite well.

She's once again out rampaging in the wild and I haven't seen her in several days.

Farewell-to-Spring

2009-06-02T18:28:00.000-07:00

No, no. I'm not bidding farewell to Spring just yet. That's the common name of the California annual wildflower Clarkia amoena.

Along with all the California Poppies I've been inflicting on you, I also planted these Clarkia. Now, as the poppies and lupines are fading away, the Clarkia are starting to bloom, as if to say farewell to the spring wildflowers.

Rather like the "mixed" poppies with which I've regaled you, the Clarkia come in a wide array of a variety of two-tone pink colors. The "brochure" says that, with irrigation, they can last up to 3-4 months. Since we're in a serious drought year (following on the heels of two other drought years) and are admonished to cut water consumption, these guys likely won't last that long.

The "brochure" also suggests that they make long-lasting cut flowers, but I'll most likely leave most of them in the garden to go to seed.

Spiders & Webs

2009-06-01T11:27:00.000-07:00

I have a friend who is SO terrified of spiders that she has been known to launch out a car window to escape one on the far side of the car. I usually ended up being the one to move the spider to a location less threatening.

Spiders that are indoors I usually evaluate to determine whether they should be ignored, encouraged, removed to the Great Outdoors, or killed. A small spider that has built a small web in an out-of-the-way corner is usually ignored (tho' the web is dusted away when company is due). If it's web is in a location where it's actually catching tiny gnats, I give it encouragement. You go, Spider! If it's crawling around my bedroom, it's usually escorted outside. While we do have Black Widow spiders in this area, they are usually enjoying themselves outside, not in.

As for the outdoor spiders, I encourage the heck out of them. (Except for the Black Widows, for fairly obvious reasons.) That is, unless they are foolish enough to build a web across a pathway where I have to walk. In that case, I whack away at the whole web to encourage them to move it to a place less apropos to my travel and more apropos to flying insect travel.

This large web, built by a rather large, black orb weaver of some sort, stretches between a tree and the front corner of the garage.

This web is built right over the walkway from the driveway into the fenced area of the front yard toward the front door. However, it's built sufficiently high that a human would have to be close to 7' tall to encounter the web. So it stays where it is and provides us with a point of fascination.

You may have noticed that there's a huge vacant wedge at the bottom of the web. Well, this pathway is also a favored route of a variety of birds and they tend to fly right through it! Each day I can go out and see a different chunk of web missing and mister orb weaver working diligently to rebuild that section.

I have orb weavers out back, too, but this one is tiny compared the the black one out front.

This little guy has built his web among the strands of a macrame plant hangar. On sunny mornings (like the one pictured) his webwork shines and sparkles in the morning sun. Otherwise, it's nearly invisible and helps keep the flying insect population down.

So, you see, each of these spiders is part of the web of my Integrated Pest Management plan! I don't use toxics in my garden, so I need to have ways to keep from being inundated by bugs. Letting the spiders be is one way. Encouraging beneficial insects by planting a variety of plants that can host a variety of such insects is another. Converting my plantings from imported species to species native to my area also helps to boost the population of beneficial insects.

Providing water and cover for birds is yet another way to help keep the bugs down. The Black Phoebes mentioned in an earlier post scarf medium to large insects right out of the air. Hummingbirds actually pluck tiny gnats and flies from the air! Chickadees and Bushtits glean sucking insects from the stems of plants. Woodpeckers drill into the trees to get the boring insects there. In fact, most birds eat a variety of insects, especially during the nesting season.

And the spiders, in addition to catching and eating bugs, also provide the strong, sticky building materials that many birds use to build their nests! Hummingbirds in particular glean bits of spider silk to wrap their nests into tight, strong bowls and use the sticky bits to add camouflage.

And here's where the cycle comes back 'round. If I sprayed all those possible insects back to the stone age, the birds wouldn't come to visit. And, chances are, the bugs that the birds don't eat (I'm thinking about golden aphids here) would be back and have to be sprayed again and again and again anyway.

So, I have some bugs. And I have a teeny bit of insect damage, though it's hardly noticeable. But I also have lots of birds. And I have some pretty, sparkly spider webs. And I have an enormous variety of shades, tints, and hues of green and every shape and texture of foliage. And I have a wondrous mix of colors, shapes, and scents of flowers.

It's all part of the Great Web.

Compost: A Living Thing

2009-05-26T11:07:00.000-07:00

I've been composting for a LOT of years. I *think* it all started back in the late '70s -- maybe early 80's -- that I started composting. And compost is a living thing. It's full of all sorts of organisms that return once-living plants back into the constituents for new plants. It needs to be kept moist and it needs to be given plenty of air. And, in the process of breaking down the material, the pile of compost heats up. In heating up (if it gets hot enough), it kills seeds and disease organisms. To assist in the heating up, one must occasionally water and turn the materials over (that's the moisture and air part).

But, I'm a lazy-ass composter. I set up a pile and just keep building it till I *have* to do something with it. When I just have a pile (no bin, no walls to keep it in place), the ground-feeding birds (such as the California Towhee and most sparrows) work really hard at scattering the pile while they're looking for bargains. Then I have to go out, scoop up all the out-lying bits, and throw them back on the pile. This does a fine job of aerating the pile, but it never really gets hot like a good compost pile should.

When I have compost bins, well... I'm equally lazy, but with a different outcome. I keep throwing vegetative matter on the pile -- month after month, even year after year -- till the bin is stacked to the sky and not cooking down (actually shrinking) anymore. Then I *have* to remove the bin to another location, transfer the as-yet un-composted stuff off the top to a new location, and spread the remaining compost on the bottom (usually quite a lot of compost).

The problem with this is that, again, the pile did not get very hot and is, therefore, chock-full o' weed seeds. (The good news is that, when I spread out this seedy compost and the weeds sprout, the pull up quite easily because they're in nice, fluffy compost!)

But my compost piles are living things in another way, too. Last fall I discovered that a shriveled, sprouting potato that I threw on the pile had started growing! There was a potato plant growing up out of the middle of the bin! No, I did not go digging to harvest potatoes. Somewhere along the line, someone (Mom, I think) up-ended a bin of recently-pulled weeds onto the potato plant. I haven't seen it poke back through... yet.

This weekend I noticed that something else was growing up -- quite vigorously -- from the same bin. It is the hacked-up Elephant Ears plant that I threw in the bin last summer! (History: I'm pretty sure a bird "planted" a seed several years ago and the plant grew slowly for many years. Then it exploded and started crowding out my desired plants. So, I dug it out, chopped it up, and threw it in the compost bin.) Now it again is putting out foot-long leaves from the compost bin.

Gotta do something about that!

Nest Abandoned

2009-05-23T12:17:00.000-07:00

Apparently the Mourning Dove couple that I mocked so roundly in my last post read that post and moved out in a huff. The nest looks the same this morning as it did the other evening and each morning since. And there's been no sign that they have tried to visit it at all. *sigh*

Engineers of the Animal World

2009-05-20T19:11:00.000-07:00

You know, when I think about engineering feats in the animal world (not including humans, that is :-), I think about the beaver and its dams, the honeybee and its combs, and the weaverbird and its nests. Actually, most bird nests are quite the engineering feat. A number of years ago, a pair of bushtits built a nest under a hanging plant in my backyard. I didn't get a photo, but here's an example. I've posted photos of hummingbird nests. They all manage to gather just the right building materials to meet their need and then weave and shape them into a safe place to lay eggs and hatch and rear young to fledgling stage.

What I don't think of are Mourning Dove nests. Good lord! These guys are the slackin-est engineering students ever. In my yard, they usually slack out and throw a few sticks into a hanging pot and call it a nest. I've seen Mourning Doves cross three sticks at a horizontal fork in a tree and try to lay eggs. The slightest breeze comes up and the eggs come down. It's a wonder they succeed as a species!

But this afternoon I spent an amusing couple of hours watching a pair of Mourning Doves set up housekeeping.

The back end of my deck has slats and supports a Wisteria vine. As you can see, there's a wad o' twigs bridging a pair of slats near a rafter supporting them. That is the "nest" that is in progress.

I spent a couple of hours watching as Mrs. Dove sat on the so-called nest while Mr. Dove went furniture shopping. Watching him pick out furniture was fairly amusing. He'd flap down to the ground and pick up and throw down stick after stick. Then he'd find a likely candidate that he'd pick up and throw down a number of times, picking it up at a different point along the stick each time. Then, when he had just the right stick, he'd fly up to the fence, over to the end of *a* rafter (tho' not *the* rafter), back to the fence (but to a different spot), over to a nearby tree, then *finally* to the nest with the new settee.

Remember, Mrs. Dove is sitting on the nest. SO, what does Mr. Dove do? "Oh, honey. Don't you lift a little finger. I'll take care of it." He jumps up on her back (no, not to do the do) and tucks the settee in next to her. Then leaves. (Say, what?!?!)

I'm thinking, this is pretty wacky. Maybe it's a one-time work-around. But no-o-o-o-o! He does it like ten more times. Once, while he was out shopping, she stood up, turned around, and settled back down. When he got back with the new armoire, he jumped right up on her back, placed the armoire, and left.

By the way, the furniture shopping process is fairly competitive. Mr. Dove threatened to kick another dove's ass for shopping in the same warehouse store. I mean, we're talking a good ten feet away and Mr. Dove takes offense at the intrusion and starts posturing, charging, and generally taking chase till the other guy finally left the vicinity (i.e., my yard).

If anything comes of this nest, I'll do more posts following the progress, but this is not the first nest doves have started at the back of my deck this year. They may abandon it as being too close to frequent traffic... or neighborhood cats.

Have you ever listened to a Mourning Dove taking off? They sound like the Three Stooges: whoop, whoop, whoop!

A Lupine Follow-Up

2009-05-18T11:48:00.000-07:00

Well, I dug out the packing list for the California wildflowers I ordered last fall, just to make sure for myself that I'm not insane. OK, that I'm not insane on this point. Despite the rampant blooming of yellow lupines, the only two lupines on the packing list are "Arroyo Lupine" (Lupinus succulentus) and "Sky Lupine" (L. nanus). No "Yellow Lupine" (L. densiflorus aureus).

By the way, this weekend just past brought us a mini heat wave with highs in the mid- to upper-nineties (F) here in San Jose. It apparently tickled the collective fancies of the Yellow Lupines!

The number of yellow spires doubled over the weekend.

Phoebe Families

2009-05-17T10:36:00.000-07:00

A-way back in the early months of 1998, my Little Dog (TM) Sparky and I moved into this house. Sparky proceeded to do what Little Dogs(TM) do and "mined" the lawn with Little Doggie(TM) land mines. The Little Doggie(TM) land mines proceeded to do what they do and started attracting flies.

By the time the warm months of summer rolled around, we had more flies than we know what to do with. We kept the screens closed. Windows that didn't have screens were kept closed. Sparky used her doggie door which flapped closed almost instantly. But still, we got flies in the house. I set out fly traps that you can buy at places like OSH and Home Depot. I was capturing multiple full bags of flies every week in those things! And still they kept coming. (I decided that the traps were attracting flies from the next counties, so I quit using them after a couple of months.)

Well, that fall my household budget recovered sufficiently that I splurged and bought a bird-feeding apparatus. It's one of those modular devices that comes with a socket you screw into the ground, a pole that fits into the socket, and various formations of curved arms that you clamp onto the pole. From the curved arms, you can hang a wide variety of bird feeders: thistle feeders, tube feeders, suet feeders, ...

Well, you can also hang a bird bath from a curved arm. You can also get a "dripper" device that you can attach to a hose bib and run up the pole to position above the bath so that it slowly drips and keeps the bath full. (The dripping also keeps mosquitoes from laying their eggs in the bath.)

And that's what I did. Very soon, lots and lots of little birdies were stopping by for a drink and a bath after getting their fill of seeds. But other birds were also stopping by for a drink and a bath who were NOT there for the seeds! Even better, they were stopping by for a drink and STAYING for the bugs!

The next summer we had almost NO flies. We still had plenty of Little Doggie(TM) land mines, but very few flies outdoors and NONE indoors. Yay!

The birds that helped the most in keeping the fly population down were the Black Phoebes.

They perch on anything they can find to perch on and watch. Suddenly one will sally forth in a loop-the-loop path as though in a drunken stupor. Then you hear "SNAK" and it swoops back to a perching place as it gup-gup-gups a bug down its gullet. (If you don't hear the "SNAK," it probably didn't get the bug.) The photo above is of a young fledgling. Its mom & dad quit foraging for it a week or so earlier.

I saw something the other day that heartened me. An adult phoebe was shopping around at the base of the bird bath. It was shopping, not for food, but for building materials! They use mud to bind their nests together and to the structure. For example, they build nests on a small shelf under eaves.

A pair of Phoebes built this nest under my front eaves a few years ago. You can just make out little football-shaped balls of mud against the blue. Those are about the size of the inside of a phoebe beak.

Here a new fledgling waits for mom or dad to return with a mouthful of bug. I'm happy to say that this is but one of three babies that fledged from a single clutch a few weeks ago.

I'm even happier to note that it looks like Mom & Dad are preparing a new nest for a new brood. At this rate, there won't be a flying insect to be found in these parts!

Really. It's True

2009-05-14T18:36:00.000-07:00

Some of you (OK, one of you) called into question whether that double, ruffled pink & cream flower was really a California Poppy. Well, it really was. And so is this:

Note the California Poppy Foliage and the more standard California Poppy in the upper left corner. Oh, and then there's the pink version in the background.

:-)

It's Double! It's Ruffled! It's Amazing!

2009-05-13T16:10:00.000-07:00

I was out pulling weeds this morning and I spied a new form among my "mixed" poppies. It seems that every time I look I see a new form among my "mixed" poppies, but this was really-really different. It was double! I haven't seen any "double" poppies. Ever. But wait! There's more! It wasn't just crinkled, it was ruffled! I haven't seen any truly ruffled poppies. At least, not of the California Poppy variety of poppy. You tell me: Is this amazing or what?

Right next to the double-ruffles-and-flourishes poppy was a dainty white poppy, but the backs of the petals are deep pink!

The yellow lupines continue to bloom and have quite the backlog of buds just waiting for their opportunity to display their spikes of gold!

Sadly, the blue lupines seem to have come to the end of their bloom cycle, but there is good news. They are putting on LOADS of seeds!

Each of those pods seems to be packed with at least a dozen seeds! Guess I'll be collecting lupine seeds for next year.

A Surprise!

2009-05-11T15:48:00.000-07:00

I know I've probably bored the dickens out of you with poppies -- and I will do so some more below -- but first I wanted to share a surprise I encountered the other day.

What's so surprising? Well, I didn't knowingly plant any yellow lupines, only two blue lupines.

OK. Back to the boring, ol' California Poppies.

Oh, and one, last, happy denizen found in my CA Natives Garden bed on a Blue Elderberry leaf:

Baby Birds in the Yard

2009-05-11T15:41:00.000-07:00

I'm so stoked every time this happens. This year a pair of Black Phoebes hatched out three babies in or near my yard. They arrive hit-and-miss over most of the day, but come late afternoon, the entire family arrives for dinner. Mom & Dad dart and sally around the yard, snak-ing up flying insects to feed to their three young-uns. Sadly, because it's late-late afternoon, they're usually in shade, so I'm challenged to get a good photo. But here's an OK photo of one of the fledgelings.

One evening, all five were queued up on the fence top, but I couldn't get all five in a shot.

Yet Another Poppy

2009-05-04T17:53:00.000-07:00

I forgot to go out back the other day when I was collecting photos of the many colors of California Poppies. Out back the poppies are mostly the "generic" orange-colored poppies, but a few are of the "Moonglow" variety and are nearly white.

Poppies of Many Colors

2009-05-01T13:28:00.000-07:00

As promised in an earlier post, I now have many poppy photos -- poppies of many colors and with textures!

First, a quick overview of the setting...

Poppies in the foreground, Tidy Tips in the mid-ground, and Foothill Penstemon 'Margarita BOP' in the background.

Did you ever wonder about a flower called "Tidy Tips?" Maybe this will explain it all.

Anyway, back to California Poppies. Just as a reminder, this is approximately the usual color of California Poppies (but this one is somewhat crinkle-y and less satiny).

But this one is much more yellow and has scallop-y edges.

And then there are two-tone, extra-crinkle-y poppies.

But there are also smoother two-tone poppies that look more like a sunrise.

And here's a view of one of the strongly pink poppies.

It amazes me how very blue the green foliage can be.

Just one more crinkle-y orange poppy for good measure!

Who knows? More colors may be holding out on us yet!

In the meanwhile, the Lupines, Sticky Monkeyflowers, Bluebells, and even the Goldfields are continuing to bloom. It's all very springy.

Bonus!

2009-04-29T18:47:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I was out admiring and gesticulating at my California Natives garden for my mom and made a discovery. The Blue Elderberry has actually started forming flower buds! Woohoo!

Photos will be forthcoming once they flower out.

Wildflowers in the Garden

2009-04-26T11:28:00.000-07:00

The spring wildflowers I planted in my California Natives bed continue on their way. In my last post I showed a photo of mostly-greens with some hints of the apricot of our local Sticky Monkeyflower and the purple-y blues of the Foothill Penstemon 'Margarita BOP.' But that was weeks ago and now all sorts of colors have inserted themselves into the scene!

Now, crowding in next to the penstemon, Tidy Tips are going nuts.

In among the mounds of poppy foliage, the Goldfields are smiling at the world.

A Lupine stand tall above its foliage with the Sticky Monkeyflower watching in the background.

Here and there among the Goldfields and Tidy Tips and Poppy foliage, a Bluebell pokes its face out of the crowd.

One of the things I decided to try this year was a packet of mixed colors California Poppies (as opposed to the common satiny orange). One of the colors that has popped up is a claret-colored poppy.

Would you believe that all of these flowers are packed into just the front half of this flower bed next to my driveway in San Jose?

You may or may not have noticed the odd weed here and there (I certainly notice, but can't get to them without stepping on something happy). I've also noticed the occasional sunflower sprouting among the natives. Giant, seed-making sunflowers were growing here last year. We'll see what comes of them this year.

The Western Redbud is now fully leafed-out. No blossoms this year, but it's only been in the ground for a year now. Maybe next year. The Blue Elderberry never completely lost its leaves and hasn't bloomed yet, but it's also only been in the ground for a year now and the naturally-occurring Blue Elderberries are only now bursting into bloom.

In a later post, I'll put together a collection of all the colors of poppies in my garden. So far there's cream, claret, a two-toned mahogany-and-orange, and the standard satiny orange.