In Like a Lion . . .

Mother of Pearl Rose

Time to end this blog hiatus! April has been so very busy with Passover and Easter celebrations, huge deadlines at work, and a bout with a nasty strain of head cold. To top it off, the early spring-time weather has truly followed the old adage, "in like a lion." We usually end our rainy season in March and have increasingly warmer days April into May. Not so this year! We've had late season rain and thunderstorms from mid March through late April. 

The late season showers delayed my anticipated tomato seedling planting time, pushing planting until the first weekend in April. The tomatoes are none the worse for wear; I babied them by placing them outside for the day and in for the night for a week, then hardened them up by leaving them outside the following week. We planted April 1st, no joking!

Step 1: Place the tomatoes. I placed 6 plants in 2 rows of 3 in a large bed. I opted to increase density this year, but I left plenty of space for basil and marigolds to be interspersed between the tomatoes.

Step 2: Dig a hole with a spade 1-2 inches deeper than the seedling container. Add 1 crushed, clean egg shell to hole for added calcium for tomato. Tomatoes love their calcium!

Step 3: Gently remove the seedling from the container. First, squeeze the pot to loosen the soil, then gently grasp the stem and pull. Do no force! If the seedling does not budge, continue to loosen soil around the pot and try again.

Stem 4: Place seedling in hole about 1 -2 inches deeper than it was in its pot. Maintain the integrity of the root ball if possible. Remove bottom leaves from plant if they are dragging in the dirt. Press the soil firmly around the plant for support.

Step 5: Cage the seedling. Don't wait until later - do it now! Center the cage around the plant and press down hard. Be careful not to snag the stem or leaves. Water the seedling with a watering can on a hose on low. Label the seedling using the plant tag; I use string to tie it to the top of the cage for easy reference.

My roses are coming into full bloom and I am able to cut roses for bouquets every week. I am able to enjoy the gentle scent of my Double Delights when I walk into my family room. I have been fighting orange rust on my roses. I had an angry moment and removed every last leaf from one of my Mother of Pearls. A word of warning: Don't prune angry, it can have bad results. I kept cursing my sixteen going on thirty neighbor for reinfecting my plants. I did not have the stones to ask if I could prune his roses back in February and now I am reaping the reward of his overgrown monstrosities spewing their diseases downwind to mine. Perhaps the San Diego Rose Society can help me with a solution to get me through this season.

Left to right: My Mother of Pearl and Double Delight roses before my pruning spree.

Yay! My California Poppies are in bloom - Love!

The New Farmer School

The New Farmer School is a local educational resource for non-industrial farming.

Cultivating Sweet Peas

I first discovered the lovely and fragrant sweet pea in 2009 while visiting gardens on the Clairemont Garden Tour. At that time, it was early May and far too late to start these vining flowers from seeds or seedlings. If you would like to enjoy these blooms by spring, now is the time to get to work!

I recommend purchasing your first batch of sweet peas as seedlings from your local nursery, however, if none are available, try your hand at starting from seed. I started my first batch from seedlings in late autumn of 2009 and had beautiful blooms by February. Make sure to read your labels, some varieties are for early bloom in December, while later flowering varieties will bloom in early spring and continue blooming through June.

Firstly, plant seeds or seedlings in full sun in rich soil amended with compost and low-nitrogen fertilizer. If you are in a colder climate, plant after the last frost. (In coastal Southern California, the frosts are not severe enough to damage the sweet peas.) If planting from seed, place each seed one inch deep in the ground and space them six inches apart. Plan to water seeds and seedlings 2 – 3 times a week depending on rainfall. The vines will need strong support, so make sure to place a trellis near your seeds. I like to re-purpose, so I use old tomato cages. Other gardeners use bamboo trellises or wire screens. Sweet peas will climb ugly chain-link fences, giving a romantic feel to an unattractive barrier.

The 2011 crop begins to climb its trellis.

Multiple vines will eventually emerge from the point of origin. I like to thin out the vines and train them up their trellises using natural (non-synthetic) string. Thinning helps keep the sweet peas from becoming overgrown and allows air flow in between the vines, helping to prevent mildew growth. Pinch the tips of the vine to encourage branching; this will produce more branching vines and more blooms. Pick flowers frequently as this will encourage the plant to produce more blooms.

Keep in mind that sweet peas are unruly and prolific; they are more at home in romantic and wild gardens than in strictly regimented ones. I trim them back to keep them out of the roses, but otherwise I let them go crazy with color and fragrance. They can get up to 6 feet tall, sometimes higher. I top them off at a little over 5 feet (my own height). When the vines begin to look crispy and the blooms spent (late May to early June), I collect the seed pods, shell the seeds, and save them for the following year. I find my saved seeds to be hardier than the store-bought ones. After all, the parents survived my garden in such a beautiful fashion that their decedents deserve a chance to grow.

The 2010 crop looked like a Monet canvas!

Detail of the 2010 crop - the white, pink and purple flowers came first. These red blooms were an end of season burst!

The 2011 crop was more pinks and purples - it is a roll of the dice when collecting seeds because the blooms are gone.

The 2012 crop - I purchased these as seedlings. Notice the string securing the vines to the trellis.

2012 crop again - these were started from seed I collected in 2010.

Pruning Roses in the Inez Grant Parker Rose Garden

The gorgeous roses in the Inez Grant Parker Rose Garden in Balboa Park got some expert and novice TLC this weekend during its annual pruning. The San Diego Rose Society generously donated their time and expertise to teach beginners to successfully prune roses. I had previously pruned my roses back in November, a time frame that I later discovered was way too early for Southern California roses. November is the appropriate prune back time for much colder climates (say East Coast). When I did the pruning I did so without much confidence in my cuts - was I doing this right? What if I kill my precious roses?

Turns out, you really have to work hard to kill roses. At the bare minimum, if you don't damage the root ball/ bud union as the base of the plant, the rose will come back and bloom in the spring. The tools of the trade are hand pruners, longer handled pruners, a small saw for cutting back thick, dead wood, and a heavy duty pair of garden gloves rated for use with roses. There are differing techniques among rose enthusiasts, but the San Diego Rose Society taught the following process for Southern California gardens:

1. Remove the access height, trimming the plant down to about 2 feet tall.
2. Remove the dead branches and branches that are smaller that a pencil in diameter.
3. Remove canes that branch over the middle of the plant, creating a bowl-like shape.
4. Remove canes that cross one another; choose the more dominant cane to keep.
5. Most plants will have 4 -5 dominant canes remaining per root ball.
6. On the dominant canes, you will see small buds, you want to cut right above this small bump, at a 45 degree angle. Please ensure the bud bump faces outward. New growth will move outward from this point.
7. Remove all leaves. At this time in the year, many leaves are diseased. Complete removal ensures new growth will be clean and healthy.
8. If pruning in January, your first blooms should arrive in March.

I begin trimming the canes down to 2 feet tall. Notice my heavy duty gloves - I went home with no injuries!

A San Diego Rose Society member removes dead wood at the root ball.

Hubby removes crossing canes and begins to create a bowl shape in the remaining canes.

This is a good example of a pruned rose bush. 4 - 5 canes remain with no canes in the middle of the plant.

A San Diego Rose Society member demonstrates where to cut the canes, right above the new bud growth.

The finished product - we made it through a whole rose bed! The leaves will need to be raked up and removed to prevent orange rust, black spot, and other rose diseases.

I completed pruning the year old plants. I had to be careful not to over prune these delicate roses!

Hubby and I worked for 3 hours pruning roses - Hubby estimates he completed pruning of 60 plants! We will have to return in late March to see if our handiwork was helpful to the plants. If you visit this rose garden any time soon, please remember that this is dormant time. The pruned plants make looks stark and dreary, but they will return in full glory in a few short months. 

Lastly, this entry is my milestone 100th post and I am so excited to continue building on my gardening knowledge and sharing it on this blog. I encourage you to show your support and sign up to follow my blog using Google Connect - all you need is a gmail account!  Thank you again for all you support!

It’s like growing potatoes in a barrel…

4 Simple Steps to Grow a Hundred Pounds of Potatoes in a Barrel.

Basic Poinsettia Care

Happy Holidays from the Victory Garden! We have been busy with preparations for Hanukkah and Christmas, buying and wrapping gifts, party planning and entertaining, mailing holiday cards, and generally attempting to keep the house in order.

For the first time, I have purchased a poinsettia with gorgeous red blooms. I tend to see all holiday plants as annuals, for one season only, one and done. Being a newbie, I started with a bit of research. Poinsettias like bright light, so place in the sunniest location possible if placing indoors (but do not place close to a heater; it will dry out the plant). My poinsettia is outside my front door welcoming guests, where it gets lots of lovely sunshine from the southern sky. Although a winter plant, poinsettias will not tolerate overly cold temperatures, so in the event of a frost warning, please bring it inside for the evening. Do not over-water, water logging will make for one unhappy and potentially dead plant. I recommend a light drink two to three times a week, more of a splash than deep watering. I purchased this lovely specimen from my local Armstrong Nursery; the white pansies surrounding the festive flower is a nice touch. Some people like to plant their poinsettias after the holidays. While the plant will thrive in the Southern California climate, I don't recommend it. The plant will turn tall and leggy, unattractive except for its winter blooms. If you don't have the heart to toss it, place it outside, but keep it in a pot!

Scraggly poinsettia - this is what happens when you plant them!

Rumor has it that poinsettias are poisonous to both Fido and Fluffy. The ASPCA has debunked the death by poinsettia myth as false, however, keep out of the reach of pets since ingestion of the plant will lead to upset tummies and consequent fall-out.

May Sandy Claws bring you treats not coal . . .

. . .  And may your Hanukkah be filled with sacred light!

Preserving the Pomegranate Harvest

Autumn is the end of one harvest (tomatoes) and the beginning of another: pomegranates! I thought they were fairly traditional autumn eats, but evidently they are harder to procure, sometimes even at a steep price. I pulled four fruits off my double tree to take as a hostess gift to Hubby's aunt as a thank you for hosting Rosh Hashanah.  Her eyes lit up in amazement and thanks, "How did you ever find them?" "Um, I grew them." 

Southern California is ideal for growing pomegranates. Once established, they tend to be hardy and prolific. Plant in full sun in soil with decent drainage. Although pomegranates are self-pollinating, many experts recommend planting two young trees together to ensure the mingling of male and female parts. I subscribe to this method, especially after such a prolific harvest! The two saplings will need to be staked together, fertilized and watered about once a week during the dry season.  I place mulch around the base of the tree to help maintain moisture and reduce the amount of watering needed to sustain the plants. I fertilize over time with a fertilizer stake - stake it and forget about it! The weight of branches and fruit tends to pull the tree down, so be prepared to remove fruit and lash branches to the support stake as needed. After the fall harvest (September - October), the leaves will turn from green to golden and will drop leaves as the air grows colder. Post-harvest is a good time to trim back and reshape the tree as desired. The tree will then remain dormant until spring. Do not trim the tree after it begins producing flowers in spring, for you will seriously reduce your autumn harvest!

Have you ever wondered why pomegranate juice is so incredibly expensive? In a word - extraction. Extracting juice from citrus and apples is so easy in comparison. But the pomegranate has a devious, permeating rind that intersects the entire fruit; it is a bitter pith that must be removed before the juice covered seeds can be pressed into tart culinary gold. After removing the pith, small fruit covered seeds need to be juiced rather than a whole piece of fruit. Consequently, making juice of the "blood stone" takes a long time, is tediously boring, and incredibly messy. Juicing this fruit is not for the faint of heart!

Cut the skin of the fruit as if you were quartering it. Do not cut through the fruit, only the skin!

Open the fruit under water in a large colander like a salad spinner.

Separate the pith from the fruit covered seeds. This is tedious and takes a very long time, hence the high price of juice.

Add the fruit covered seeds to your juicer. The juicer must have a very fine mesh filter to separate the seed from the fruit.

You can either store in a plastic container for further use or freeze in ice cube trays for later use.