Spring Preparations

My first sensory harbinger of spring is a scent, lifted softly on the evening wind. If I concentrate on localizing it, it dissipates like a ghost, but if I let the scent carry itself lazily across the moving landscape, I can detect its components: one part tangy sage brush, two parts early blooming jasmine, and one part citrus flower. Hubby and I drive through residential neighborhoods at night inhaling this glorious scent and knowing that spring is on the cusp, returning like an old friend too long separated. If I ever leave Southern California, I will dearly miss this glorious scent.

With this scent on the wind, I know it is time to take paper plans into the realm of garden reality. It is time to clear the vegetable beds of gone-to-seed winter vegetables and weeds, pull the tomato supports out of the garage rafters, and begin planting early vegetables and annual flowers.  I am making good use of my nitrogen fixing winter veggies. Hubby chops them up and tosses them in a nearby bed. We’re adopting a “let it rot” philosophy to re-enrich the soil and cut down on the amount of yard waste. We never have enough room in the garbage cans for the massive amounts of verdant green the garden can churn out.

I place the vegetable supports based on the now revised garden schematics, accounting for less room between plants than last year. The goal is to fill in the empty spaces with beneficial perennials in the hopes of choking out the weeds. At first glance, I have not been successful at growing perennials from seed. I am planning a more concentrated effort of starting them in small pots first, but that requires potting soil (I’m all out right now). I need to finish cleaning the old supports with a diluted bleach solution – good sanitation is the cornerstone of a disease free garden. I am excited to try out my new acquisitions in plant support from Gardener’s Supply Company, two more tomato towers, a set of large flower supports, and a cucumber trellis.

My early spring vegetable keyhole bed has radishes and nasturtiums, but I cannot yet tell if any of the other seeds have sprouted because the plants are still small. However, they look suspiciously like tomatoes instead of lettuces, carrots, leeks and broccoli. The tomatoes will have their day – specifically this weekend at Tomatomania! If you are a tomato-maniac in search of amazing heirloom plants, this is the hottest ticket in town.

Support your Neighborhood Garden Tour! (March Bloomday)

With spring just around the corner, many San Diego County neighborhoods have been preparing for their annual garden shows. These tours are great inspiration to your garden endeavors as well as help develop appreciation for unique and diverse local communities. 

I plan to attend the Encinitas Garden tour on April 30th and my near and dear favorite, the Clairemont Garden Tour on May 7th (I hosted my garden in this tour last year). For a list of all local garden tours, please go to Spring Getaways, courtesy of the San Diego Union Tribune.

The Return of Spring? (February Bloomday)

La Nina has returned, bringing with her warmer days that have tricked my sunflowers into sprouting and encouraged my lettuces into going to seed. The rain has receded, leaving the garden dry enough to need watering once or twice a week to avoid dreaded thirst. We even had a few days of “devil winds,” but these Santa Anas blew cold over the mountains, chilling and drying the landscape.

With these spring-time like conditions, I see growth and the promise of the season to come - 

My garden still surprises me: This sinfully phallic lily has never bloomed before and I have no idea what it is called. I blame it on my devious garden imp/ angel, Sam.

Building a Keyhole Garden Bed

Hubby says that each year I start my spring preparations earlier than the last. True to form, I have started amending beds with compost, leaves, egg shells (an excellent form of calcium for young tomatoes), and low impact fertilizer in February! Despite warmer weather, garden chores after work are still not feasible due to lack of light and cool evenings. So, Saturday or Sunday mornings are my garden time.

I pulled back my weed blocking plastic on my first two vegetable beds and found fewer weeds than I was anticipating. Turns out the cheap black plastic worked better that the more expensive and sturdier fibrous, gauzy, white weed blocker. Go figure. I added mulch from my composter, mixed in dead leaves from my tangerine tree, and added in the fertilizer and mixed, moving about two inches of topsoil with my shovel. I do not plan to double-dig this bed; I will let the good stuff finish composting in place. Using reclaimed bricks, I rebuilt the old pathway. With Hubby’s help pounding the bricks into the earth, I have the beginnings of my first keyhole garden. This first keyhole will be for another round of cool season vegetables. My other bed of cool season veggies is beginning to go to seed and a replant is in order. As we progress later into spring, the bed will then transition to warm season crops: TOMATOES!!

While Hubby and I toiled in the dirt, the neighborhood cat, nick-named Early Bird, lounges in the shade of our pergola. Our garden is a pretty great place to be - even in winter!

Winter in So-Cal (January Bloomday)

While so many are under ice and snow, Southern California basks in the relative warmth of a Mediterranean climate.  Many transplants from the northeast often complain about the lack of seasonality in our weather, but as a native, I know better.  Our winter is very different from the traditional American ideal; it takes more observation to see the subtlety.

Our winters vacillate between being cool and dry or cool and wet, depending on the development of La Nina or El Nino.  La Nina makes the ocean waters off the coast colder and causes Southern Cali to have a dry winter. El Nino is the opposite, causing warmer coastal waters and giving us ample to a deluge of rain. This year has been unique, despite La Nina conditions, we are over the average amount of rainfall for this time of the season thanks to the pulse of arctic storms blasting their way south.  Average rainfall is also a misnomer; for most times we either surpass or have very little rainfall. The “average” is merely the adding the sum of the extremes and dividing by a given number, practically signifying nothing.  For instance, I belong to the generation of California kids who grew up during a seven year drought. When it finally began raining again in earnest, we looked up in to the sky and asked, “What the hell is this?”

With rain, comes greenery, and winter is our green time of year. Our normally dust-colored valleys and hillsides grow lush and the native wildflowers receive the water they need to for their spring rebirth. Rain also provides for opportunists, the weeds. I finally have the upper hand in this battle, using both the spray and pull methods. Here's hoping I can keep them under control.

In the Desert Garden

Many gardens have their dormant periods during the winter, not so the occupants of the Desert Garden. On the east side of Balboa Park, follow the foot bridge from the Natural History Museum across Park Avenue and you will find a garden in winter just beginning to hit its blooming stride.

The morning of our visit was cold with a crisp azure sky. The cacti towered in the distance, indifferent to the temperature, comfortable in their own space and time. Cacti and succulent plants seldom have the soft angles of annual flowers or trees. Their harsh angles demand a sense of awe, their sharpness cutting into the scenery around them in their attempt at survival. But the desert does bloom again, thanks in part to the rain and winter sunshine. The first of the blooms were concentrated in the orange fire of ten feet tall aloe vera blooms and the sharp, blood-red crown of thorns.

Originally built for the 1935 Pan American Exposition, the garden fell into disrepair until 1976. Bulldozers moved 12,000 cubic yards of earth to create the current landscape designed to accommodate bands of variable height succulent plants around curving and gently sloping pathways. Cuttings from local nurseries have grown into the large specimens see today.

All descriptions aside, I feel it is best for me to let the images do the talking. Enjoy -

 

Down Season

Hey everyone, Just a quick hi-and-hello in the off-season for CUA. I wanted to point out a great resource for all of you urban ag minded folks: Salt Spring Seeds.

Not only can you buy your heritage and heirloom organic seeds via this Canadian company, their website also offers plenty of articles and instructions related to gardening. It may still be pretty dismal outside, but I know that I'm not the only one dreaming of warmer days ahead.