Stars SoCal Succulents and Cactus

David Austin "English Roses" for So Cal and a Meilland

2012-02-04T00:11:00.000-08:00

Darcy Bussell

This rose is named for the premier ballerina of the Royal Ballet. She was 20. Darcy went from strength to strength as a dancer and was awarded the OBE. Here she is in Balanchine's Rubies.

The rose named in her honor --unlike some of the Austin roses--- is especially recommended for our zone and will " will remain bushy and compact even in the warmest areas, making it ideal for the front of rose beds or the mixed border" . And it smells good. If you can't find this rose in stock now at your local nursery, hasten to the Austin website and order one there.http://www.davidaustinroses.com/american/Advanced.asp?PageId=1893.

David Austin is too well known to need any detailed biography here--and it's all on the Austin website anyway. However, he's my hero because all his roses smell like roses used to smell, and some smell absolutely heavenly. Austin roses have a character of their own. The first ones this gardener tried all grew nicely but were slow to establish themselves-- Gertrude Jekyll, Graham Thomas,Pilgrim,. However, Teasing Georgia and Abraham Darby took off running

. In recent years Austin has his roses sold in this country, grown in Tyler,Texas, and many of them are totally adapted to our climate.

Jude the Obscure

This rose , besides being spectacular has won some impressive prizes for scent which is described as " having a strong fruity fragrance with hints of guava and sweet white wine". Hmmmm.....this sensual delight is not one of Austin's more appropriately named roses . It applies to one of Thomas Hardy's more depressed character( which is saying a lot, as most of them are depressed.) Jude hangs himself. Perhaps Mr. Austin is not a great reader? Any votes out there for re-naming it Jude Law, a sensual delight to the eye even if we don't know how he smells?

Molineux

This lovely won the medal for Best Scented Rose of the Year** . What makes it a sure thing is the fact that it is named for the Wolverhampton Soccer Team.With recommendations like that ........ how can we lose?

Not to be missed is another recent rose

Lady Emma Hamilton

And what did she do? Quite a few scandalous things***. She was a country girl who made it in London, (she was Romney's favorite model) married a Lord and became the lover of British naval hero Lord Nelson. Austin named the rose to commemorate the Battle of Trafalgar. Well, okay, perhaps a bit of a stretch..... but Lady Emma is luscious has a strong "fruity scent of pear grape and citrus. It is vigorous and free flowering.

Last but far from least, is Meilland's Yves Piaget, named for the president of watchmaker/jeweler SA Piaget. ( Piaget is a famous French firm of long standing ---made watches for Napoleon). Yves It is a superb rose, tough, undemanding and disease resistant .

Yves Piaget

This rose smells spicy, and has great substance which makes it a great cut flower. It lives without complaint, on grey water from the washing machine and is a particular favorite in this garden.

Notes

** at the Royal National Rose Society Trials

*** See movie starring Vivien Leigh and Lawrence Olivier That Hamilton Woman made when Leigh and Olivier were young and in love. In black and white, not a memorable film but do they look good.

New Roses for 2012-- a selection

2012-01-16T16:48:00.000-08:00

Sunshine Daydreams

Breathes there a man with soul so dead”….that his heart doesn’t leap up at the thought of new roses for the year? This gardener already has about 50 roses that live on grey water, unsprayed for the most part, and when sprayed it's either with milk, for black spot, or pepper spray for bugs.( Having established the politically correct organic credentials for rose growing), let's see a few.

Sunshine Daydreams is a grandiflora described as “yellow to cream”. Not for a pot on the patio but give it some room and it will be a rival to Abbé de Cluny. And, best of all Sunshine Dreams managed to win AARS under no spray conditions. According to the breeder it is almost continuously in bloom. Give it room—5 “by 4’ when mature.

Koko Loko

This one caught my eye lavender and cocoa? Koko Loko. As you can see, it begins one color and ends up the lavenderr you see at the bottom left. It’s a floribunda, moderately fragrant . “Milk chocolate changing to lavenderr” according to Weeks, the grower, and a good cut flower.Sounds a little like Lavenderr Lassie, an old climber, much loved. Tempted to try it.

Pink Traviata

The next rose is a sport of Traviata (a rose this gardener has successfully grown for about five years). Very tough, floriferous and undemanding. Grown by the unrivalled rose-breeding family, the Meillands, in Provence.

This rose is one of their series of Romantica© roses that are ideally suited to the Central Coast. Almost any plant from Provence seems to thrive here whether it is artichokes (remember the baby purples grown from seed) or roses. This particular rose, Pink Traviata, is a hybrid tea, fragrant, evoking Violetta, in Verdi’s opera** La Traviata“The Woman who Goes Astray”.

Scratch a rose grower and find a Romantic….. For four generations the Meilland family has been raising memorable, much loved and admired roses. Perhaps the most famous is Peace (which flourishes here), and commemorates the end of WWII . This rose was originally named for Mme. A. Meilland.( see www.meilland.com/en )

Luscious

This rose is Luscious--magenta and amber, bewitching fragrance, long stems.Hybrid tea. Always a fool for scent, this one sounded like a winner, however, not 100% sure it will do well along the coast, as it was bred in Tyler,Texas. It'll be well suited to the Central Valley, and should like the heat.

Ebb Tide

This rose is newish (2006) but not new this year, however the color is so remarkable and the scent---"strong spicy clove scent" -- so endearing, Ebb Tide made the cut.It is a floribunda. (Next blog will discuss David Austin roses for this year, which will include DA's featured rose for the year Darcy Bussell, which is in the same color range)

If you are after this color, compare the two roses and figure out which will work best for you. Ebb Tide was bred in Australia, which indicates it'll probably flourish here. Carruthers (the breeder) patented the rose in 2006, and Weeks, a California grower, has been carrying the rose for several years so it must be better than okay.

Now, to try not to get carried away at the nursery.......

** from Dumas fils play.

Hippeastrum (a.k.a.as "amaryllis"-they aren't)

2011-12-19T21:30:00.000-08:00

Equestre

The trouble begins with this beauty. Linneaus named it Amaryllis Equestre ("Knight's or Horseman's Star") It came from Surinam--2 to 5 degrees from the Equator on the coast of S. America, next to Brazil . Surinam is very tropical , has 2 wet seasons and 2 dry*.

This tropical "amaryllis" caused the next round of botanists no end of trouble, as it turned out Equestre was not inter-fertile with the S.African bulb, already named amaryllis. Equestre was a different genus with different blooming habits.

Surinam c 1840

Hands were wrung, decisions were made as tactfully as possible by one of our heroes

Dean of Manchester, the Hon. and Rev. William Herbert the final authority on amaryllis.(see earlier blog). He decided to create a separate genus name for the S. American bulbs, which besides being tropical, had a differently shaped bloom than the A. belladonna lily from S. Africa, and quite different growing habits.

Amaryllis Belladonna

AppleBlossom, hybrid (Hippeastrum)

Why do we need to care?

Because one kind of amaryllis--- the S. African --often sold in California as "garden amaryllis" can be grown all up and down our coast with no more trouble than a Naked Lady. The most common color seems to be red, which is fine--since already have our Naked Ladies in profusion.

Naked Ladies (come from Mexico)

The tropical Hippeastrum behave rather differently. They can be grown outside in sub tropical areas-- the South Coast.They'll manage on the Central Coast at least as far north as Santa Maria outside. They tend to revert to blooming when the Horseman (Centaurus) is rising

in the spring.

However, they've been hybridized to bloom in December, if watered. (Since the 2 wet seasons they started out being used to, are the hybridizer's delight.) These are the ones that can be depended on to bloom in their individual pots at Christmas time. Happy Hippeastrum!

H. (Species) Papillo -" Butterfly" from Brazil

Once had an ambition to have enough amaryllis and hippeastrum growing to use them as cut flowers.....then realized this was probably a form of horticultural hubris that would result in every snail in So Cal descending on the garden and eating the leaves of both Amaryllis and Hippeastrum as they emerged from the ground.

****************** *************************

Macedonian coin showing the horseman's star Centaurus

c. 320 B.C.

*See p 138 of Herbert (1837) Amaryllidaceae . Linneus named his bulb Equestre. Lat. gen.-- refers to The Horseman constellation.That's why politic Herbert kept the idea going in Hippeastrum. (Horseman's Star).

When the Horseman rises the spring rains are coming, and this observation goes back to the Sumerians. That's when the Hippeastrum bloom along the Coast here, if planted in the garden..

Lycoris- more denizens of the cloud forest

2011-11-29T21:49:00.000-08:00

Lycoris aurea

Lycoris originate in Asia-Japan, Korea, China and mountainous area in other Asian countries. Most of the lycoris we received in the West had long been hybridized before we received them in the 19th c.. Lycoris radiata is a native species in Japan (or maybe it's China--experts disagree). Anyhow we got ours in the U.S when Perry opened up Japan in the mid-19th c.

Since Japan and our Central Coast are close in latitude (between 45 and 34 N ) lycoris are a natural for us to grow here. The lycoris are also called Spider lilies--not very poetic, but reasonably descriptive.

Lycoris radiata in a grove-Japan

To the Japanese, lycoris are the stuff of legend-- of passionate but doomed lovers. The fall flowering of the flower after the leaves have disappeared gave the lilies the an association with death, the dying of the summer, an elegiac ambiance.

William Herbert

Synchronicity appears to be at work in the naming of Lycoris. Another of those absolutely amazing and accomplished botanists appears. He did a magnum opus on the whole family of Amaryllidaceae,* The Rev. and Hon. William Herbert was a lawyer,M.P.,poet,classics scholar and formidable botanist.**

Lycoris alba.

Lycoris was the name of a cycle of elegiac poems written by Gaius Cornelius Gallus to his mistress (less fortunately named Volumnia). Herbert had just been whipping out translations of Greek and Roman poetry.

He had to know Gallus was considered the first elegiac love poet in Roman literature. ( The Gallus/ Lycoris story had a suitably doomed lovers ending as Gallus committed suicide.) Herbert named this fall blooming bulb to echo it's mythology in the Orient. Elegant!

Herbert's home in West Riding.

Have a look at Lycoris alba.This beauty was planted around houses to keep rodents out. The bulbs of all lycoris are very poisonous and ideal for decorative pest control . (The Amaryllidaceae family, which includes narcissus, tends to be lethal if eaten.) Lysine is the poison derived from Lycoris. It's a protein inhibitor which is presently being investigated in the treatment of some cancers.

Border of lycoris

But the best reason for growing lycoris along our So Cal and Central Coast is it's beauty and ease of culture (for us).

Like all the bulbs in this family it deeply resents being disturbed at the wrong time, and may sulk for a couple of years if displeased. The bulbs can be planted now and several nurseries have them (http://chenyinursery.com/i/t-214.jpg; http://www.willowcreekgardens.com/c-58-lycoris.aspx. Lycoris, in our climate can be planted until Dec. 31.

So---what are you waiting for?

* available as a download free from Google.

** Herbert was a direct descendant of Mary Herbert Sydney, Countess of Pembroke,

the literary ornament and patron of the Elizabethan period.

Mary Herbert Sydney

by Nicholas Hilliard

Denizens of the Cloud Forest for So Cal -Nerines

2011-11-21T14:51:00.000-08:00

Nerine bowdeni

If you have only seen a nerine in a vase, or a couple of bulbs in a border, the notion you could grow them in drifts (budget permitting) is an epiphany. Futhermore it turns out that nerines have a very glamorous history. The first ones that got to Europe from their native S. Africa came on an East Indiaman that was wrecked on the shore of the Island of Guernsey in the English Channel. It was called the Guernsey lily, or the Jewel Lily.

N. sarniensis

"Originally found on Table Mountain overlooking Cape Town in South Africa, the jewel lilies flower in a spectrum of colours from their original oranges, scarlet and white through new purples, pinks, mauves, reds, scarlets, copper and bronzes where they scintillate in the sunshine with gold or silver crystalline flecks that make their petals sparkle." (Exbury Gardens.com)

Nerine bowdeni also came from S Africa ,the Drakensberg mountains, and was sent in seed form by Athelstan Cornish-Bowden to his mother c 1904. This good lady raised the nerines then sent the seed off the Kew, asking the plant be named for her son.**

Exbury hybrids

Somehow, the nerine sarneiensis came to the attention of one of England's most accomplished and passionate botanists--- Lionel de Rothchild. Rothchild was of family necessity aa banker, and a successful politician, but he described himself as a gardener by vocation.

Lionel de Rothchild

Rothchild was another of those extradinary men who turn up in love with botany. He bought the Mitford estate --yes, those Mitfords ("Love in a cold Climate") and proceded to build a beautiful Georgian house with acres of greenhouses in which he hybridized nerines in the 1920's and 30's. (Obviously he was very, very rich. well as being remarkable.)

Exbury House

Rothchild sold the unsurpassed nerine collection to another maddened nerine lover. The nerines went to Switzerland with Sir Peter Smithers where they thrived and became more various and beautiful until Sir Peter felt he could no longer care for them properly . He sold the collection back to the Rothchild's in 1995. Nicholas Rothchild who is Lionel's grandson and president of the Nerine Society, has taken charge of the collection. Quelle histoire. These are lucky, lucky bulbs!

Naked Lady (she's a Mexican native)

What is even nicer is that with their Table Mountain, South African DNA we can grow them along our Central Coast with no trouble at all. Just like our ubiquitous Naked Ladies they flower in late summer, and early fall ---however, keep their strap like foliage.

** This hot off the press from The Telegraph (British paper) 11/26/11

Next: "Amaryllis" Hippeatrum and Lycoris. More bulbs to plant now from cloud forests.

Blue bamboo, Damarapa and the cloud forest at SFBG

2011-10-31T17:32:00.000-07:00

Damarapa bamboo

Blue bamboo

This is a real/surreal color. The new growth is blue, it then turns green, then pale gold. It's proper botanical name is Himalayacalamus hookerianus, its a native to China. It is non-invasive, clumping and grows to a height of 20 feet. It flourishes in the SFBG as do many denizens of the Cloud Forest.Where has blue bamboo been all my life?

The Cloud Forest is going to be something So Cal coastal residents may become more and more interested in, as our annual summer temperatures continue to drop. We get more like a cloud forest everyday. So what is it? A cloud forest is also called a fog forest, and exists both in the tropics and in more temperate zones. "It is characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low cloud cover..." W .

May Gray, June Gloom, July Why, August Less ...our 10 degrees colder summer is certainly characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low cloud cover..." That's the bad news. The good news is Cloud Forests are home for some of the most exciting plants on the planet. The San Francisco Botanic Garden in Golden Gate Park (larger than Central Park in NYC) devotes big swatches to the Himalayan Cloud Forest plants, and even more territory to the Meso American Cloud Forest which covers over 7,000 miles of the Americas, as well as the Canary Islands, parts of South Africa and

Australia, New Zealand and our own Redwood Coast. So even if our favorite Big Boys are not ripening properly, there can still be joy in Mudville...We could do this.

Nerines in drifts at SFBG- Nerine bowdenii from S Africa

We could grow a giant salvia the hummingbirds were clustered around

Hummingbird Heaven

This salvia can easily grow to 6 feet if you let it. If you have a shady spot under a big pine, a place few plants really like you could grow a patch of crinum lilies:

Crinum moorea

This have enormous, hard to dislodge bulbs, so be sure about where you are planting them. Tried digging some up once. You'd need a jack hammer. Like the nerines and our Central Coast "Naked Ladies" the crinums are members of the amaryllis family. Some are S. African natives as is this one. "Port St Johns (Eastern Cape) form: pink flowers produced in September to October" From the Natal Botanical Garden http://www.plantzafrica.com/plantcd/crinummoor.htm.

Crinum moorea growing at SFBG

Keep crinums (which you could grow from seed from the Natal Botanic Garden) in the shade. NBG says any sun spoils the leaves and flowers.

There are more, stay tuned, for the native plants of the Meso American forest.

Aeoniums and Echeveria setosa -- tough guys

2011-10-19T19:22:00.000-07:00

Aeoniums- and the name tells you a lot, as it means immortal -- flourish madly on the Central Coast Their point of origin is the Canary Islands off the NW coast of Africa at around 15 degrees of longitude.

Aeonium arboreum is a resourceful plant when it comes to drought. Not frost proof (though probably would come back from the root, if the frost were brief) . The plant strategy is to grow big and flat, with lots of thin shiny leaves.It easily attains a size of 3 feet across, growing pups under its rosettes at a brisk rate for a succulent. It's motto is "size matters".

'Schwarzkopf'

It's smaller but also prolific, shiny and dramatic, very chic these days as "black" flowers are the "in" thing is Aeonium arboreum var atropurpureum 'Schwarzkopf', or Black also known as Tree aeonium . This one looks great with chartreuse colored succulents. It's all over the place in the Getty Gardens in giant pots, looking very fashionable.

The next plant strategy is a little different. Here is A. tablaforme (like a table.)

from Scientific web. com

Not only is it big, many leaved and flat, but furry. The small hairs all over the leaves are great moisture catchers. (So much so that A. tablaforme rots in captivity rather easily. Water it no more than you would a resting orchid if its inside. Outside in SoCal, along the coast, don't water it. It's perfectly adapted to a maritime climate.) It's reproduction strategy is a little different . It colonizes:

The next one is in here because it's s-oooo pretty. But also furry, colonizing and doing what all these aeoniums do when its going to rain--forming cups of their leaves.

A. glandulosum from Madeira

If you have an appetite for more aeoniums go to the site of a passionate collector, now unfortunately décèdé , at http://www.aeonium.info/ A memorial to Jacques Gaurnalt.It's wonderful for pictures, and can be easily translated by using Bing's sometimes loopy translator.

The last man standing in the drought stakes is not an aeonium at all, but Echeveria setosa from Puebla, Mexico. As you can see it has adapted the furry leaf, and colonizing habit, but its small compared to the aeoniums. Usually not more than 3 or 4 inches across. In this case, size seems to matter less than fatter leaves.(See great botanical drawing at http://www.botanicus.org/title/b11793533 --plate 6 in Addisonia from 1916 published by the NY Botanical )

In fact, many succulents are perfectly capable of subsisting inside with no soil at all, if you put them in the bathroom were they collect water as though it were fog, from the shower.

Angel sculpture by Margaret Dunlap

* * * * *

Incidental intelligence: the most successful new hummingbird plant in the garden is Pineapple sage. Brilliant red. They love it.

Pineapple sage blooms

Next: the Haphazard Gardener visits dahlias and the SF Botanical Garden in Golden Gate park.

Begonia II From the Antilles to the Andes-More adventures

2011-09-30T20:53:00.000-07:00

Hybrid tuberous begonia by Paul Carlisle

Spectacular hybrids like this beauty would not have been possible without the efforts of the next wave of plant explorers and collectors in the 19th c. Most of the best were British. One of the most intrepid--and he surely was-- Richard Pearce, collected for the plant merchants Veitch and Co. Pearce took enormous risks, climbing to 10-12 thousand feet in the Bolivian Andes where he found:

Begonia boliviensis

"Begonia pearcei, discovered in Bolivia in 1864, is also important in the hybridising of the Begonia × tuberhybrida begonias, the first of which appeared in 1867.^[10"] W.

We hope this is adequate consolation to Pearce for dying in Central America of yellow fever, leaving a young widow..

An entirely different kind of begonia is a favorite along the Central Coast. It was developed in Santa Barbara.

" This is Begonia 'Freddie' - A giant leafed rhizomatous begonia with entire rounded leaves that are glossy green on top and red underneath...Begonia 'Freddie' was hybridized by legendary Begonia hybridizer Rudolph Ziesenhenne (1911-2005) at his Santa Barbara nursery by crossing Begonia manicata aureo-maculata with Begonia barkeri.He named this outstanding Begonia for his son... " (Quote from San Marcos Growers catalogue)

Begonia Freddie

Rudy is remembered in a begonia named for him Rudy Tootie hybridized by Mike Flahertyy of Montecito, owner of The Gazebo. Mike has hybridized another interspecies begonia in the dandy Yankee Doodle:

Yankee Doodle

For a complete historical take on begonias see once more : www botanicus.org. For an up to date look a present day begonia hybrizers see :http://www.begonias.org/registered/registeredAF.htm with many other images to be found on the American begonia Society site.

To learn how to grow them----well I'd buy them if I were you---but if you're dedicated, find the friendly directioins at : http://www.bradsbegoniaworld.com/ Brad is another well-known hybrizer, and the site is bulging with information and pictures.

tuberous begonia

Another of Rudy's hybrids

Rex Begonia @. JesBell

There's even a scented begonia--peach colored, smell is faintly citrus-y, looks great in a hanging basket.

************

Incidental notes about what's thriving in this strange cool summer: Lots of volunteer grape tomatoes sprang up from the compost. Bore heavily, ripenened easily, still bearing. Small is better?

Dahlias are good, especially the ones that live in a raised bed, and don't have to be lifted. On the other hand the water bill is astronomical......

It seems to take about 3 years for a plant to adjust itself completely to a local climate. Noticed it around here and so did Beverly Nichols in England (see Merry Hall by Beverly Nichols publ. by Timber Press. Nichols is the only garden writer who can challenge P.G. Wodehouse. He's been re-published in a facsimile edition with the original illustrations.) A guilty pleasure.

Begonias- Part One : From the Louvre to the Antilles -

2011-09-18T21:25:00.000-07:00

Charles Plumier

It's begonia season in SoCal.

The somewhat unlikely discoverer of this glamor queen of the botanical world was an extraordinary genius, a monk, a Frenchman who found the first rather unassuming begonia on Hispaniola (my gentle readers will remember Columbus found the island in 1492. However by the 17th c. the French held the island--- which was an enormously valuable source of sugar.)

Market in the Antilles

Sugar was the tech stock, the highflyer. Plumier found a patron with a sugar plantation on Hispaniola--- the flamboyant and successful courtier Michel Bégon of the court of Louis IV the Sun King himself.

Michel Bégon was a passionate collector of many things, including plants. He went to the West Indies as Intendant of the Isles du Vent (Windward Islands) were he met and fostered Plumier. Bégon introduced Plumier to Louis XIV, who appointed the monk a royal botanist (which meant a "pension" from the king-- effectively a salary that allowed Plumier to continue his plant explorations. )

Michel Bégon by Hyacinth Rigaud

With such a spectacular patron we'd expect the first begonia to look perhaps like this:

Modern Picote Begonia

Nope. It was an unassuming flower, and the original plant seemed to not exist in a drawing anywhere, including the French Begonia Society in Rochfort, France located at 1 Charles Plumier, Rochfort. But surely it looked rather like this ?

Begonia domingensis photo from the French Begonia Society
begonia from Dominica catalogued 19c.

Now, thanks to Botanicus and the U of Missouri we can see a digital reproduction of Plants of the Americas.Plumier left an incredible cache of drawing (6000) and 31 manuscript pages which the early botanists were able to see and plagarize, rather freely. See:

http://botanicus.org/page/775194

The page can't be reproduced but the original begonia is right there in Tab XLV in Plumier's magisterial book in French and Latin.***Plumier discovered the fuchsia, Arum lily, plumeria....and in his 58 years appears to have worked about 24/7. Louis got his money's worth.

Then, the plot thickens because the next begonia discoveries pass to the English, beginning with Joseph Banks .

Kew Gardens becomes the place to see the newest begonias.Plumier falls into undeserved obscurity, as the English begin writing up his discoveries, and apparently not giving Plumier much credit. (Hooker?) History belongs to the victors, and in this case the victors appear to have been the English botanists. However, there were some heroic English plant explorers in the 19thc. Stay tuned. Part Two is the story of the tuberous begonia.

*** After a 2 week search to find this drawing--felt like finding the Holy Grail. In the process of reading about Michel Bégon re-discovered Dumas historical novels of the period and the court of the Sun King. The Man In the Iron Mask deals rather crisply with the great Louis... Dumas, like Plumier, deserves your attention.

Dragon Fruit aka Pitahaya or Hylocereus

2011-08-22T19:48:00.000-07:00

Locavores, "Here be dragons......."

Hylocereus in bloom

This is the season for eating your dragons if you are lucky enough to have one of eating age (2 years from the nursery plants available in local Central and SoCal nurseries).

Hylocereus polyrhizus

This is one of the magenta (or red) fruited ones. It came from Whole Foods @ 7.99 a lb this month. On the left the outside of the fruit is visible--red with green tips, about the size of a large artichoke. The taste is somewhere between a strawberry and a kiwi, or a watermelon and a pear. (Think it varies from white fleshed-hylocereus undulata -to red and pink-undulata and yellow--not to mention the terroir. )

Why grow it? It's delicious, subtle and interesting. Found it best a bit chilled with a squeeze of Meyer lemon. Lime or lemon overpowers it. Pitahaya is spectacular in a salad with slices of kiwi and pineapple. (Recipes can also be found at ww.penangfaces.chanlilian.net.)

It's a cactus, it's low water, it grows easily around here, and is another native of the New World like chayote, red runner beans you can grow in the backyard almost anywhere in SoCal. (Consider: what if there are no grocery stores open after The Big One?) Anyway--pitahaya is local, ecological and at $7.99 a lb--worth growing.

That's not all you can do with it.

Young Dragons

The peelings of dragon fruit can be made into wine (hence, terroir)

• 6 lbs ripe dragonfruit fruit

• 2 lb sugar

• 6 pts water

• 1 crushed Campden tablet

• 1-1/2 tsp acid blend

• 1 tsp pectic enzyme

• 1 tsp yeast nutrient

• 1 pkt wine yeast

Single flower

Put water on to boil. Meanwhile, carefully trim the greenery from the fruit, wash the fruit well, and chop it coarsely. Put chopped fruit, acid blend, sugar and yeast nutrient into primary. When water boils, pour into primary and stir until sugar dissolves. Cover with a sanitized cloth and set aside to cool. When at room temperature, add crushed Campden tablet and stir. Recover primary and set aside for 6-8 hours. Add pectic enzyme, stir, recover primary, and set aside another 6-8 hours. Add activated yeast. Stir daily for 7 days. Strain through nylon straining bag and squeeze juice out of fruit pulp. Transfer liquid to secondary, top up if required and fit airlock. Rack, top up and refit airlock every 30 days until wine clears and no new sediments form during a 30-day period. Stabilize, sweeten to taste, wait 3 weeks, and, if no renewed fermentation, rack into bottles. Like most wines, it should improve with age. [Keller's own recipe]Jack Keller @ wine( http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/request212.asp)

Pectin –what’s that? Pectic Enzyme is recommended for all fresh fruit wines. Add it to the juice prior to fermentation to enhance the clarification process. See http://www.eckraus.com/ENZ110.html).

Santa Rosa plum (W)

Campden tablet is used to destroy molds and bacteria. Amazingly enough (joys of the internet) there are winemaker kits for backyard fruit. (see eckraus above). Used to make a sort of May wine from excess Santa Rosa plums.

This particular plum tree was very slow to bear. So slow that it was threatened with being replaced. Trees hear better than you might think.... in any case, the following year, and years after it bore tremendous crops of plums which were turned into a fizzy, pink, rather brut wine with a very short shelf life. (No campden tablets available.) Goes to show this oldest of human activities--fermenting excess fruit--is not too challenging . If the Haphazard Gardener can do it, anyone can.

So tame your dragons into a barrier fence, or grow them it big pots, eat them in a creme brulee', or make them into wine.

Vermiculture Revisited with a side trip on Procyon lotor

2011-08-15T13:46:00.000-07:00

Gardener’s adventures with red wriggler worms last year….they ate about 520 lbs. of garbage before rain and cold did them in. .

eisenia foetida

They’d have doubtless survived in a proper worm house. Sooo…. This year we created a worm palace--- a conventional worm house with a spigot at the bottom http://www.homecompostingsolutions.com/wormbincomposters?gclid) enclosed in a , locked , screened raccoon proof enclosure.

Raccoons (procyon lotor) hunt in part by their acute hearing---they can hear the worms crunching away at the compost, and it drives them mad mad mad with worm lust.

image W
Let’s stop for a word from our sponsor here about raccoons. Never underestimate the intelligence, tenacity or daring of an urban raccoon. Once found a mother and 6 kits inside my room eating my cat’s food.

image W

Clapped my hands to shoo them out. Mother R calmly abandoned the kits, 5 of whom escaped out an open window. One kit couldn’t make the leap up to the window sill---too fat. Nothing phased, he shinnied up the wall and out. Not scared of me at all---they just don’t like loud noises---- no doubt due to ears so keen they can hear a worm burrowing underground.

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They plan to take over the planet if we continue to mess up. “Raccoons are noted for their intelligence, with studies showing that they are able to remember the solution to tasks up to three years later. (W) In other words these guys have “culture” and teach their off spring where the goodies are to be found.

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They are charming but — désobéissant. They’ve rid the garden of snails and keep it snail free, despite a snail- breeding border of agapanthas.

Snails used to eat the dahlias as they emerged from the ground—not any more. If you sense a love/dismay relationship here with the raccoons---that's it . Used to feed them. Ended up with about 30 showing up every night for the hand out. Nipped my ankles when I was too slow with the food. Quick ending to raccoon soup kitchen.

Raccons with their Elephant Child curiosity have been known to dig up a dahlia tuber, simply to examine it. (Dahlias are edible—according to Aztec lore--, but resinous, like eating a very strong retzina) . To keep the raccoons away from newly planted bulbs, sprinkle the ground with chili powder (very cheap at Big Boxes in wholesale size jars). Chili gets on the very sensitive raccoon * fingers, and stings— though they hate it, it is non-toxic and non-lethal..

Having raccoon proofed the worm house , and carefully installed the worms according to directions, you are good to go. Almost immediately the worms begin producing worm juice, which you can use at once on your pet plant. Meanwhile the blessed worms are eating your shredded junk mail not to mention banana peels, coffee grounds etc. If worms did nothing but eat junk mail we could love them.

Guards against ID theft. Better than flossing.

So far the new worms, stunningly housed (is Architectural Digest out there? )
are doing exactly what they should be doing---- eating 5 to 10 lbs of garbage a week.

Teenage male raccoons run in gangs—and “cover a territory of 3-20 miles” (W). Does that sound familiar?

Raccoon mothers are single parents, like bears and a lot of other ladies. Raccoon domestic life is affectionate ; the mothers purr and chirp to the young , are careful guardians. … until it’s time to make the juveniles leave home, get out there and fend for themselves This becomes a horrible, noisy process

Talk about tough love and 'failure to launch’. The young ones simply can’t believe their cosy, loving mother is throwing them out into the cold cruel world. They complain bitterly, sounding like aliens from outer Space. Mom snarls back and nips them to get them going. It’s awful for everyone. (Families of raccoons for many years lived nearby in an old tree house—got to witness the whole telenova several times.)

Would be worm raisers, raccoons are Public Enemy #1. Those ousted juveniles are ravenous until they get a new territory figured out, because Beastly Mean Momma will not let them stay where they were. Plan accordingly.

Report from Greco-plant auditions-what worked, what didn't

2011-07-29T13:42:00.000-07:00

Growing baby purple artichoke from seed.

Growing artichoke from seed is reported in garden books as a problem---Why ? Beats me. Garden myth! Not actually even very good at growing stuff from seed , but this was easy. Seed came from 3 different organic seed houses (Baker’s, http://rareseeds.com/; Territorial www.territorialseed.com and Island Seed (Goleta,CA). Soaked the seed overnight, planted the first batch in plantable pots inside.

Everything grew-Violet de Provence, Violette di Chioggi, Violetta Precoce , and Purple of Romagna. Most of them are now about 2 ½ feet tall. Violet de Provence is outgrowing all the others. Not too surprising as his native heath resembles our climate more than those of the other varieties. Used soaker hose to keep the ground moist.

Chioggi from seed in ground

Once it warmed up, planted more of the same seeds in the ground, having soaked them overnight (June). These also came up without a problem.

Fennel.

. Never grew fennel before. It turned out to be easy, long bearing, delicious raw or cooked. (http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/roasted_fennel/. It comes in 3 kinds: Florentine, Bronze and vulgare. Grow the first 2 to eat and vulgare for the swallowtails. Florentine fennel is the celery like vegetable, Bronze an herb used much like dill, (and also is reported as a host for the Anise Swallowtail).

Black swallowtail on bronze fennel

He's not a pretty baby but he won't eat your tomatoes. However, what swallowtails like best is fennel vulgare. That's the one you see blooming all over the hills of the Central Coast.

Use Florentine fennel like celery. Easier to grow than celery in this climate, though celery might be a really good winter/spring crop here on the Central Coast.

Long Island celery- easy for them!

This is normally the time to start winter cole crops from seed.

Broccoli—had good luck with Veronica ( 85 days) which seems to use a little less water than conventional broccoli. However, given the weather cycle, won’t plant cole crop seed until late August which still gives the veg 2 hot months to get started.

Ideally, plant some now and some later. Later, you can use starts which means you don’t have to be such a dedicated farmer. Best in this garden was Veronica (also known as Romano).


                                   Glamorous Veronica

Qualified success: the roof garden. Only the real desert plants were happy—barrel cactus, agaves, etc. The sedums fried.

The roof garden depended entirely on rain water. The sedums would have to be watered every 2 weeks to survive in this climate. If it’s from the Sonora Desert—it’ll do fine without water, otherwise no.

Unqualified success: new terraces planted with dwarf citrus using grey water.

Scarlet Runner Beans:

                                                    w image
Ours came from 6 seeds. We have been harvesting about a 2 lbs. a week from these plants. They get watered once a week unless we have a scorcher (100° or more)

Harvest when they are about the size of a mature French Filet bean.( http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/french_green_beans_with_butter_and_herbs/) Or let them mature a little into lima bean size, then steam them, serve with butter. Or let them dry and give every child you know Magic Beans for Christmas.


                                               w image

Coming up next: Vermiculture Revisted

Return of the Native/ East Coast Farmer's Markets & Other excitements

2011-07-08T17:11:00.000-07:00

Drought proof aloes (Chihuly -MFA,Boston)

Farmer's Market, Falmouth, Cape Cod

Been wandering in the flesh-pots of Cape Cod and Long Island, with a side trip to Boston and the MFA there. Chihuly, the extraordinary glassmaker was having a major exhibit. Check it out at http://www.mfa.org/. As you can see he has completely solved the water problem. Cape Cod is basically one big fish-hook shaped sandspit. God knows how the Pilgrim Fathers managed to grow anything at all. The Farmer's Markets on the Cape have beautiful lettuce, kale ( learned how to cook), herbs, peonies, rhubarb and lots of stuff for tourists to buy- lobster buoys,straw hats,fish prints (some very good) and lighthouses for your refridgerator.

Amagansett
The North Shore of Long Island, on the other hand, is still farm country once you move away from the coast ( wall to wall summer houses, mostly very opulent-think Malibu on steroids --- but you already knew that.) There are vineyards looking very prosperous, fields of potatoes and other edibles.

Montauk geese

Roadside stand, Long Island near Perponix

Small fishing is still viable --clams, mussels and lobster as well as lots of fish-haik, sea bass, flounder.

Potato field

Both Cape Cod and Long Island are filled with very small towns such as we only encounter on the Disney Channel. Everyone really does know everyone else, and whether X actually managed to make it home last night, and if not, where was X and with whom?

There's a deep patriotism and pride in the local people serving in Iraq and Afghanistan--- and an intense communal grief if one is lost --- the whole town turns out for the funeral, a street is named for the soldier.

The past is present in a way that it simply isn't in the West. So many of the towns are lifted straight from the English coast, Falmouth, Truro, Yarmouth, and Wellfleet. New England, indeed.

Urbane farmers and backyard gardeners along the Central Coast now dealing with climate changes---both hotter and colder--- can take heart. We can still grow almost anything here. It just may take more attention and ingenuity than we are used to expending. If the Pilgrims could learn to farm on Cape Cod, we can adjust to the climate changes. The longer colder weather gives us a chance to grow more stone fruits, berries and lilies. The cooler spring with more rain encourages us to grow more leafy vegetables for a longer season. It pays to be horticulurally adventurous.

Why plant chayote or sunchokes ? And how do you grow them anyway?

2011-06-13T00:02:00.000-07:00

Sunchoke (Jerusalem Artichoke)

Chayote growing

Think biodiversity!

Plant these now --sunchokes Helianthus tuberosus and chayote Sechium edule

The sunchoke, (Jerusalem artichoke), is a variety of perennial sunflower grown for its edible low-starch tuber which looks like a small potato but tastes like a water chestnut raw, or an artichoke heart, cooked. Not only do they taste good, they help keep blood sugar levels from gyrating around. (see sunchoke.org.)

Sunchoke tubers can be planted in the garden early . They do best planted in soil that has warmed to 50°F. Nurseries don't seem to carry them, so find the tubers at the Farmer’s Markets along the Central and South Coast, or at Whole Foods. Grow them the same way you would a sunflower (with a seed shaped like a potato!)

"In warm-winter regions sunchokes can also be planted in winter. They require 110 to 150 days to mature." (from http://www.harvestwizard.com/tags/sunchokes)

Note : use a potato ricer to turn them into mashed sunchokes. Use the Cusinart to slice them thin and make an au gratin dish of them---scalloped sunchokes. The point of both these approaches is to avoid having to peel them.
Sunchokes are a good crop for the haphazard gardener. They grow easily, and being a member of the sunflower family grow tall –six feet—and grow medium sunflowers if you don’t get around to eating all the tubers.

For a really exhaustive treatment of this veg, see http://www.gardenersgardening.com/jerusalemartichokes.html

Sunchoke has a romantic history---Champlain found the Native Americans on Cape Cod eating it, and took it home to France in 1605, where it has been loved* ever since. This is one vegetable that actually sort of fends for itself.

Chayote (Sechium edule) has a legion of charms, but the most urgent reason to try it now is that it might escape the mildew** that has been ruining our squash, zucchini and gourds along the coast. Normally, plant those 3 seeds and stand back--but not in the last 2 years.

If chayote escapes mildew, it's a winner. Certainly if grown on a trellis, it's decorative. Chayote's a well-loved staple in Central America and Mexico. One vine can make 200 chayotes---zucchini, move over. The nice thing about chayote is it can be used in almost any zucchini or squash recipe.

“ Choyote is an edible plant that belongs to the gourd family Cucurbitaceae along with melons, cucumbers and squash…(W)” …The leaves and fruit have diuretic, cardiovascular and anti-inflammatory properties, and a tea made from the leaves has been used in the treatment of arteriosclerosis and hypertension, and to dissolve kidney stones….”

All that and humble too. Likes about the same conditions as a dahlia. Depending on when you plant it, the fruit will ripen in the fall. Here's a recipe for chayote soup that's lovely: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/chayote-soup/Detail.aspx

And here's how to grow them:

"Planting and spacing. Set a whole chayote fruit about 4 to 6 inches deep, fat end

down and at an angle so that the stem end is just level with the soil surface. Sow seeds or fruits 10 feet apart. Chayote is a vigorous climber; set a sturdy trellis or support in place at planting. Do not allow maturing fruit to come in contact with the soil; it will spoil and germinate while still attached to the vine.

Water and feeding. Give chayote even, regular water; do not let the soil dry out. Add aged compost to the planting bed before planting. Side dress chayote with compost tea every 4 to 6 weeks during the growing season. ..."

Companion plants. Pumpkin, peppers, squash, corn. Do not grow chayote with celery, mint, or snap beans." (from The The Encyclopedia of Vegetable Gardening by Brenda Little, SilverLeaf Press, Sandyhook, Utah 2006)

Little was an Australian garden journalist and author.

Couldn't have said it better myself....but she forgot to tell you to plant two for fertilization purposes.

Having grown both these beauties---they Really are Easy!

* Sunchoke won a prize in Nice c. 2002

**Several garden books claim it is disease free. Let's hope so.

Victorian Kitchen gardens II grapes, & So Coast Table grapes

2011-05-30T17:18:00.000-07:00

The Victorians loved their glasshouses and some are still in operation like the one at Blenheim, which still produces enough grapes for the ducal family every year--- until January.

This gardening feat requires a glasshouse (warm ), and a fruit house (cool). In addition, the bunches of grapes are supported in a mesh bag as they mature, and shaped by hand to be pleasing. (You can read about Blenheim's present inhabitants in this month's Vanity Fair Magazine. A new duchess has enlivened the place and repaired the ducal fortune, and hopefully--the roof.)

Once the grapes are harvested from the glass house, each bunch is racked with a wine bottle of water in which the grape stem is placed (same idea as our florist bottles used to keep cymbidiums fresh.) This method, and the cool fruit house will keep the grapes fresh for 6 months after harvest.

You might yearn for such a set-up growing table grapes on the Central Coast. It can be done, but not as easily as you might think, given the wine producing grapes that grow so well here ---Syrah, Merlot, Chardonnay. Table grapes need a lot more heat to mature to the required sweetness.

The interior valleys are table grape heaven, and along the coast is wine grape heaven, but growing edible table grapes along the coast is a crap shoot. If you are going to try it, now is the time to plant. First find a warm, south facing wall, if possible.

Or, if you plant a grape arbor, and sit under it, the grapes are a decorative bonus, even on the sour side. (Having grown Thompson Seedless in the foothills at 1000 feet, I can attest Thompson’s are edible and pretty, but not very sweet.Crisp! ) If you are serious about growing table grapes right along the coast, a greenhouse is your best bet. Or a 15 gallon pot along a south wall.....

Thomacord growing on an arbor

You can, along the coast grow wine grapes very happily. See http://www.rhinowino.com/wine-industry-dependent-on-new-grape-varieties/2011/01/18/, and even have your grapes made into wine. Home vineyards are popular from San Francisco to San Diego. All over Europe people grow wine grapes in their backyards . We can too.

This beauty is a Chardonnay wine grape. A quarter of an acre and you've got a crop that can be made into wine. Along the coast there are wine collectives for small vineyard owners which will make your grapes into wine This looks like a good place to start: http://www.vineyardteam.org/search/index.php?q=winemakers+for+small+vineyards&x=8&y=12

But we still want a table grape for our backyard. It's going to take a hybrid of European and our native American grapes. ( Vitis viniferax= European; Vitis labrusca is a native, of which there are a couple more: Vitis bouquiniana, native to Texas** and Muscadina rotundafolia, native to SE US.) What we need has to be mildew resistant, and ripen either very early or very late to catch the autumn heat. Mid-season grapes are going to hit May Grey and June Gloom---they won't ripen until fall, and may sulk as a result. A sulky grape is a sour grape. Here's one that won't be.

Himrod

Local nurseries carry Himrod, a cross between a native grape and a Thompson Seedless. It ripens in late August or September. A man up in San Luis Obispo has a Concord x Thompson cross with a six inch trunk that has borne heavily and sweetly every year for many years .Another of the same native parentage is Niagra ( Vitis labrusca 'Niagara' ) a white seedless.

The University of Washington recommends Black Monukka Seedless Grape which requires less summer heat than Thompson Seedless. It's an EMS*** which U WA considers the best grape for home gardens.Self fruitful, good zones 6-10. This European variety has been in cultivation forever and was brought to California early. (It is also blamed for taking the dreaded Phylloxera aphid to Europe--which is probably unfair, but the French had to blame somebody!) Steamships were the most likely cause, as they travelled so much faster than the sailing ships, the Phylloxera aphids didn't die en route as they had before.

Black Manukka

Shocked, shocked to discover commercial growers treat their grape crops with gibberellic acid. It's a plant hormone used to increase the size of the grapes. Backyard grapes are not going to easily achieve the glamour of supermarket grapes.

Local nurseries carry Flame, Ca. Concord, Thompson Seedless, Perlette and Ladyfinger . Ladyfinger is good zones 6-10. My well-informed readers know ladyfingers are sweet, and elongated green grapes--- named variety is Lady Patricia. Last but not least is Black Rose.

"Black Rose is a table grape that was produced from a crossing of the vinifera Ribier with a separate crossing of Damas Rose and Black Monukka. The grape was developed in 1941." (W). It was created by the legendary Dr. Harold Olmo in 1941 at UC Davis. Black Rose a rather hard grape to find but this nursery carries it . (.http://www.fourseasonscabinrental.com/grapes.html ). Since Olmo was such a genius at hybridization think I'll have to try it. Who could resist a grape named Black Rose?

Best advice: hedge your bets with an early variety and a late variety. Chances are one of them will do well in hot years, and the other one in the cold.

** see W *** Early Midseason

Fava & Scarlet Emperor Hummus ???

2011-05-10T14:31:00.000-07:00

Fava's at Pike's

These Favas are fully developed in May even in the NW climate. If one were growing them in SoCal, it might be worth an experiment to plant them as late as January. Cold ground doesn't bother them. They've been an early spring staple in N. Europe for centuries.

Fava's were somewhat displaced in N. Europe by the potato--unfortunately-- considering the potato blight and the resulting Irish Famine. Potatoes are grown, even by the totally clueless--- (which is often how I feel in the vegetable garden.) In a rainy climate about all you have to do is stick the seed potatoes in the ground and stand back. (Until the blight strikes!) The resulting-- easy to grow-- crop kicked off a population explosion in Ireland in the 19th c. (It has been estimated an Irishman ate 12 lbs of potatoes a day. You'd have to have a lot of Fava's to match that calorie count.)

N. European settlers in Ireland (mostly German) survived the Blight because they never stopped growing Favas and were generally more canny farmers . The Irish were basically cattle herders and had not developed sophisticated farming skills to match those of many European countries. Hence the imported N. European farmers, brought in by the English landlords as an attempt to make farming more profitable in Ireland. Not for the Irish, of course, but for the English landlords.

( Ignore digression ....must be channelling Irish grandmother.)

Growing Beans takes a little more skill than growing potatoes--though not much more. (My Scarlet Runners are flourishing--supposed to be a perennial in this climate--a native of the Mexican high plateau.) So exciting to see them growing like Jack and the Beanstalk beans that I returned to Ken Albala's book , Beans: A History, to read up on them.

Then, looking for recipes for SR Bs and Favas, discovered....
Scarlet Emperor Runners

(Image from W Commons) the darker seeds are the more mature.

                                                                 Hummus

Unless they are eaten fresh, very young, SR Bs are stronger," more bean-y" than many. You might not like them. Same is true of Favas . But hummus  made with mature beans--and garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, cilantro or Italian Parsley combined  in a food processor served with pita or tortilla chips might make you a passionate convert to home made hummus. However, don't try this at home without boiling the beans --please. Raw SR Bs are not good for you.

Wing it on the recipe with the amounts you use--about a cup of boiled beans*, save some bean water to use in processing-- a whole Meyer lemon's juice, 2 or more cloves of garlic, sesame seeds if you have them around (or tahini, or peanut butter ), cilantro or flat leafed Italian parsley to taste, salt /pepper. Make a well in the top for olive oil.

Hummus originates in the Levant and traditionally uses garbanzo's .You can (be daring) use favas or Scarlet Runner beans, even though you can't find a recipe using them very easily, since neither is a traditional crop in the Middle East.)

Besides hummus----- Hummingbird's love Scarlet Runners. Who could ask for anything more?

Note for SoCal bean growers- planted 2 sets of SRunners- one started in doors in plantable pots, 4 seeds simply put into the ground after a 12 hour soak in water. All the potted seeds survived, but off to a slow start. One of the 4 planted in the ground seeds survived, but it took off at top speed and will soon outstrip the earlier ones.

* 1 c. of beans= you can combine SRB, Fava's or garbanzos (chickpeas)--any one, or the combination will work .I seem to end up with handfuls of this or that---not cups.

Vegetables for Coastal fog from SF and Seattle

2011-05-06T14:56:00.000-07:00

Cardoon

Since our climate in SoCal has decided to mimic an English spring (cold and rainy) vegetables from San Francisco and Seattle are suddenly apropos.

Cardoon, a favorite in Victorian kitchen gardens, could be a fall planted vegetable in SoCal. It needs 5 months of cool weather--we've got 'em. Cardoon is spectacular and still highly favored in parts of France, Spain, Italy and New Orleans where ..."chef Mario Batali calls the cardoon one of his favorite vegetables and says they have a "very sexy flavor" (W)

In San Francisco, Chinatown has an array of vegetables to puzzle and inspire.

Daikon

Daikon an astonishing radish, is rich in magnesium, vitamin A, copper, --all this and pickles too. (Japan, Korea, see W) In Pakistan, the leaves are used ---"flash fried in heated oil, garlic, ginger, red chili and a variety of spices".

Bok choi, kohlrabi --- don't usually think if that one--- pale celadon with odd bumps here and there. See -http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/kohlrabi/

Kohlrabi (W)

"a stout cultivar of the cabbage that will grow almost anywhere.."(W) It's somewhere between a turnip and a cabbage.... the reader is warned. If you like turnips or cabbage------ kohlrabi is a star.

Slim Japanese eggplant are wonderful for grilling. Likes our foggy coastal summer weather just fine. Also makes superb pickles. Easy to grow.

Japanese eggplant

Bitter melon (Momordica charantia), is a staple in Chinese cooking,
It would be a summer vegetable for us. It's bitterness is prized. Bitter Melon is anti-viral, increases insulin sensitivity (good!) and is used for folk healing all over Asia.

Bitter Melon Sambal
For adventurous cooks and gardeners. The vine looks a lot like a cucumber.

If you go to Seattle, Pikes Market is a fabulous place to see vegetables you've only encountered in seed catalogs.

Fresh truffles and mushrooms beyond belief -- like fresh shitake , and decorative
romanesco and baby purple artichokes.

Romanesco-right- artichokes- middle

Can't leave Pike's market without seeing the fish market, where a whole wild salmon affordable at $7.99, filleted free.

Seattle has two gigantic nurseries, Swanson's ( see their website http://www.swansonsnursery.com/Edible/Edibles.shtml which has lots of detailed notes on growing edibles.. Swanson's has a glass house the size of the grapery at Blenheim Palace.

Rain may be falling, but who cares?

Politics, Gardening and the Founding Fathers

2011-04-23T14:47:00.000-07:00

On vacation in the Pacific Northwest until after May first. Apologies to devoted readers for only one blog this month, rather than the usual two.

Reading Founding Gardeners© by Andrea Wulf. She has also written another unusual book about American gardens and gardeners Gardening Neighbors© about the extraordinary Bartram family and how their efforts resulted in an explosion of American trees in the English landscape gardening.

Bartram House

Bartram garden

Actually recommended, is reading the Bartram book first, then the Founding Gardeners—but either way you’ll be engaged Wulf’s research. (her credentials are outstanding --- see http://www.andreawulf.com/)

Who knew that their view’s about gardens and farms so deeply influenced the politics of Washington, Adams and Jefferson? Or, that in the thinking of the first three, Alexander Hamilton, with his passion for industry, urbanization and trade, figured as clear and present danger to the infant U.S. ?

Hamilton

Or who knew that George Washington managed to run his plantation (by weekly letters to his farm manager) and bring Mount Vernon through the Revolution in exemplary shape, whereas the brilliant but erratic Jefferson let his plantation, Monticello, fall almost into ruin during the same period, simply by not paying enough attention to it . (See
American Sphinx).

An unsung hero of the ecological movement appears in the person of James Madison. During his retired years , Madison became an authority on the relationship of planting practices and sustainable agriculture. The state of Virginia had, this early (1820s) exhausted some of the world's most fertile farmland, growing tobacco. Europeans, with much less land at their disposal, had learned to rotate crops and manure their fields. Apparently everybody forgot what had been painfully learned in Europe. American let their grazing animals wander in the woods, so the manure wasn't available for the fields. Crop rotation was a forgotten art. Infertile fields were the result. Small farmers just moved on West, but plantation owners like Madison didn't fancy uprooting their establishments, so they had to re- learn sustainable farming.

Madison's Montpelier had existed since the 18th century (before 1723) and he wasn't about to abandon it and move west.

Jefferson

Monticello

Madison of Montpelier reveals himself as not only a passionate gardener, but an enormously effective and dedicated servant of the new country. His wife, the redoubtable and charming Dolly, called him “mighty little Madison.

Montpelier

John Adams reveals an interest in compost and and manuring that would make him the darling of today’s organic gardeners . Adams had a small farm he worked himself, the other three founders were then owners of enormous plantations worked by slaves. Adams emerges as fairly impossible personally, but at the same time, admirable. (the miniseries John Adams on HBO, not only well-acted but gives a sympathetic view of Adams dedicated, stubborn, prickly and egotistical character, but not his gardening experience.) Actually, his wife Abagail Adams was the one who ran the farm while Adams was kept away for many years by the demands of the new nation.

Fascinating sidelights kept turning up in Founding Gardeners--- try it, you'll like it.

Note: Jefferson, as most of my well-informed readers know, had an unacknowledged mistress, Sally Hemings, who was 1) a slave of mixed race 2) his dead wife's 1/2 sister since they had the same father. Sally Hemings bore Jefferson 6 children, two of whom he freed. The rest helped build Monticello. Sally Hemings was left a slave in Jefferson's will.

La Nina, Costa Rican coffee, street water saves, and Victorian Kitchen Gardens II

2011-03-29T18:26:00.000-07:00

We've been talking about how cold it is along our Central Coast, but just the opposite effect is occurring in Costa Rica.

Their coffee production has dropped 25% because of high temperatures for the last 6 years. Coffee farmers are having to give up growing coffee unless they can move up to the higher altitudes (lower temperatures) that the coffee prefers. (See http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-coffee-20110323,0,2770618.story. )

Leigh Adams' gutter diversions

On a more cheerful note, somebody has figured out a way to divert run-off water and save it to feed the ground water. Not sure the method used is very practical as it involves getting permission from your city to make drainage holes in the curb.This does not strike me as something cities would be enthusiastic about...

However, it's an entertaining article and it seems, strangely to have almost vanished from the LA Times archives . (The article ran March 12, but it is archived under March 4, 2011.) For you conspiracy theorists there there.....Maybe the LA Times doesn't want us to try this at home? Emily Green wrote the article which it talks about a garden in Altadena full of new fruit trees, all of which are being watered with diverted rain water from the gutters.http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/home_blog/2011/03/leigh-adams-john-lyons.html. The gardener created a swale to absorb the street water.

The latest news along our Central Coast is we are officially out of drought mode. First time in many years. Do you think the water rates will drop? Noooooo...

Forcing pots

Meanwhile, back at the vegetable garden,our Victorians had brought forcing and blanching to high art. The handsome terra cotta pots in the picture were used for forcing rhubarb, blanching celery or asparagus. The gardeners also simply wrapped the plant to be blanched in straw and tied it with a raffia ribbon. Lacking the pots, we could do that. To blanch celery the kitchen gardeners also planted celery in a trench and slowly filled it in as the plants grew. (Can't see why celery shouldn't be green, but chacun son gout.)

A modern methods the Victorians would have loved are :

row covers

Row covers-- protect the starts from cold, wind and insects. These let in 75% of the available light.

For smaller gardens and impatient gardeners the water wall will radiate heat to the plant at night. This kind of booster was not necessary in years past, but we are ready to try it on Early Girl tomatoes and Japanese eggplant eggplant, remembering if the soil hasn't reached 65 degrees----- it might not do much good. It would probably work if it stops raining.

water wall

Last is the mulch to heat the ground around the plants-- lets through water and holds the radiant heat of the sun. Several kinds are on the market:
red or black plastic, or biodegradable. Biodegradable makes the most sense.

Biodegradable mulch

Note: all these things are available at Territorial Seed Co.

Next: Victorian Kitchen Gardens III ( Grapevines at Blenheim,) Founding Gardeners and Rethinking California Lawns

La Nina and Victorian Kitchen Gardens (First Installment)

2011-03-14T20:48:00.000-07:00

2011 Here’s yet another take on why it is so cold in SoCal this year. It’s basically all from La Nina---global warming is occurring, but not along our California coasts. There's an upwelling of very cold water from the deeps of the Pacific, which means colder than usual (by 10 degrees) weather for us.

Well, fine. What can we do about it?

The people who mastered the art of gardening in a miserable cold climate might give us some ideas. The high Victorians brought kitchen gardening to incredible production. On a typical large estate, 14 people tended the gardens, the household staff numbered 20 or better, house guests up to 30 with their attendant maids and valets were expected on week-ends and the family --and they had big families with various poor relations hanging out in the garrets . 14+20+30+30+10 for the family = 104 people who had to be fed 3 meals a day---and no supermarkets.

The long awaited Victorian Kitchen Garden miniseries (Acorn) having arrived by Royal Mail (6 weeks late), having acquired its correct DVD player (Phillips), is an education in outwitting cold, grey, rainy weather.

The first weapon was the walled garden. The walls might enclose 6 acres, and be over 12 feet high at some of the great houses like the one at Dunmore in Falkirk, Scotland.

the Dunmore Pineapple

Falkirk is at the same latitude as Moscow (okay, it is warmed by the Gulf Stream, but still…these gardeners managed to grow peaches, grapes and pineapples.) Lots of them. A fruit house might contain one and 1/2 tons of fruit by the end of the harvest.

The walls were usually brick—sometimes containing fireplaces, so the wall acted as a giant radiator.

Miles of glass houses, warmed by hot water piped through them, produced tropical fruits (pineapples*), melons all year round, peaches, nectarines and grapes--- in enormous quantities for the enormous households.

Glasshouses on North Wall

The Victorian Stable

Unless you are a hedge fund manager, you probably aren’t going to rush out and set up a heated greenhouse. (If you do, be sure it is solar powered.) Actually the most used solution was very simple—manure.

Well housed

This was still the era of the horse and a large estate produced lots of manure ---and the Victorian gardeners used tons to great effect to create hot beds which raised the soil temperature . This makes all the difference to plants. If you live on a, cattle or llama ranch, or ostrich farm, you've got it made. Pig manure is the cream de la creme but we can't all be lucky.

Cloche from Monticello, Jefferson's garden

A hotbed or forcing bed, heated with a lot of manure can raise the soil temperature by as much as 4 degrees. Or you can use a cloche or bell.

Modern plastic cloches

There is nothing wrong with a large (2 gal. or better) plastic bottle with the top cut off (easy to do with a hot knife) although not as romantic looking, your tomato plants won’t care.

More on Victorian Kitchen Gardens in Installment Two . Coming soon.

*My well educated readers already know a pineapple is a bromeliad.

Icelandic Volcanoes and SoCal cold weather

2011-02-28T19:15:00.000-08:00

I really got myself into trouble with this topic. How can volcanoes in the Atlantic Ocean cause ash fall that affects the weather along the Pacific Coast?

Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland - April 2010. This is the one that tied Europe in knots for two weeks.

Ocean gyres

Map of the major gyres that affect the weather by their temperature, and here’s the map of earth from the N. pole

Earth from N. Pole

Here are the ocean currents . Notice the California current. The five major coastal currents are parts of the global ocean gyre system and" as such, these currents are driven by wind and deflected by landmass"(W)

Here’s a picture of the ash pattern from the volcano which brought Europe to a standstill last April. This is the smaller of two volcanoes which have a pattern of erupting about every 300 years causing very cold weather. The larger volcano is expected to erupt anytime….

“Eruptions continue at Kirishima volcano, Japan. Since the eruption began in January, an estimated 80 million tons of ash have fallen over a wide area..” (2/5/2011) .. Ash emissions reached a height of 25,000 ft…” from another Japanese volcano in January 2011. John Seach. volcanolive.com (source) Eruptions from Krakatau volcano, Indonesia forced the evacuation of tens of thousands residents on 11th January 2011. “

By now it may be beginning to occur to you, as it did to me, that our grey, cold (10 degrees officially) summer might have something to do with volcanic ash…. Since the Pacific is ringed with volcanoes, many of them in eruption in January and February of 2011.

Pacific

. (According to John Search- at least 6 have erupted in the Pacific. This isn’t even counting Mt. Etna which is erupting in Italy.

Last but perhaps the most important piece of the puzzle is Maunder minimum which is a pattern of sunspots associated with cold weather. It is a periodic phenomenon that has been tracked since 1645.

“The Maunder minimum is the name given to a period of extreme solar inactivity that occurred between 1645 and 1710. Of particular interest is that this period of inactivity corresponds closely to one of the coldest periods of the so-called "Little Ice Age" in Europe, a time of long, cold winters that caused severe hardships in the pre-industrial revolution world….”(W) ..In 1991, a pair of Danish meteorologists published a paper in which they pointed out a remarkably strong correlation between the length of the solar activity cycle and the global mean temperature in the northern hemisphere. …"

Meanwhile, back at the ranch….. its getting colder along our Central Coast helped along by something besides ash blocking the sunlight and sunspots. It is called Artic Ocsillation. “When the AO index is negative there tends to be high pressure in the polar region, weaker zonal winds, and greater movement of frigid polar air into middle latitudes." (W) Translation, all those Alaskan cold fronts that having been dumping unusual amounts of rain and low temperatures on SoCal are caused by AO . The Kurile current, a cold subarctic ocean current isn’t helping either.

The good news is all of our stone fruits will be happy campers. Just planted two cherry trees!

The lime tree lost his leaves, as usual, but has grown them back again. The ground has warmed up despite the rain and cold—planted out starts of scarlet runner beans today that were clamoring to get in the ground. The ground was much warmer in the raised beds than I would have expected. We are still getting bell peppers from last summer’s pepper plants. Go figure!

Note: I'm indebted to Tench Tilghman, president of More Competency, for research suggestions. Mistakes are my own!

Dekopon (Sumo) citrus --- huh?

2011-02-17T15:29:00.000-08:00

Dekopan growing in California

Who knew we had been breathlessly awaiting the Dekopon citrus in SoCal? Who, in fact, even knew it existed? And what is it?

It is a "new" citrus cross--an orange, of sorts-- of the “kiyomi with the ponkan, a seedy citrus originally from India” with a thick skin, and measurably more sweetness (Brix scale) than any other orange.

In 1972 when the Dekopon was created,the Japanese felt particular urgency in this project. "At the time, Japan was under significant pressure from the United States to open its market to imports of fresh oranges….. "The general feeling was that our humble mikan (Satsuma tangerine) would never be able to compete with the big, sweet oranges from California. Unless we could find something new to grow, the entire domestic citrus industry was doomed…” (from the Japan Times http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ek20090122wh.htm) Follow the link for the full story of the Dekopon’s unpromising beginnings in Japan, beginning with the theft of budwood from a government facility.

photo from the Japanese Times

20 years later the ugly duckling has turned into a ---Sumo (US name for the Dekopan) ... is the best new fruit to come to market in years," proclaimed Toshio Joutoh, …a wholesaler in the massive Ota produce market in Tokyo. "It's perfect for sharing, so it brings people together, and the membranes are so delicate that the sections just melt in your mouth."
Chapter 2- Sumo wrestles rivals to the ground (kind of). Sumo's story in the U.S. is just as dramatic as its' beginnings in Japan (Who knew citrus farming was such a clandestine operation?) You can read the blow by blow account (http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-dekopon-sourcebox-20110217,0,4901497.story) in David Karp’s article, complete with more stolen budwood, last minute saves from deadly Japanese virus which would have destroyed our citrus industry,and cloak and dagger security by the growers. Now –dah-dah – Sumo has arrived. (Whole Foods has it, for one.)

photo from LA Times

Even though doesn't look as good as Natalie Portman in a tutu, Sumo is on my list of "try this at home. "

The Victorian Kitchen Garden mini-series has made its extremely leisurely way from England (6 weeks by Royal Mail)--- so more about it as soon as the necessary PAL DVD player arrives. (And you thought all this time I'd forgotten ) Next:
Icelandic volcanoes and SoCal weather

A Gray Water Rose, Goldfinches, Seed Sprouting Sucesses

2011-01-28T22:46:00.000-08:00

Yves Piaget, measured 6 1/2 " across, nutured entirely on gray water. This is a Romantica rose, bred in Provence, of great substance, divine smell and perfectly suited to the Central Coast. (see Romantica roses. Grow Quest website-has a good selection)

Colette, Johann Strauss and Abbe de Cluny also are flourishing on the laundry water.

American Gold Finch

The gold finches are migrating the Pacific Flyway (Central Coast is on it) from Mexico to Canada and vice versa. Flocks of them come through here, coming and going, eating as much nyger seed as the budget permits--about 2 lbs a week at the peak of their migrations. The one that favors our garden is the Lesser Goldfinch, mostly.

Lesser Gold Finch

The French call this bird Chardonneret mineur which suits him better than Lesser. He's small but charming, with a sweet song. According to the info on the Net, this bird is a permanent resident ---I have news for them--he isn't. He stuffs himself, his wife and his friends and goes elsewhere to nest. Mexico, most likely. He tells his friends where the nyger seeds are, and they come back every year in increasing numbers. Birds are big food gossips --- they invented Twitter. (OMG)

Stuffing Themselves

Stunned with pleasure to report, the baby Purple artichoke seeds (Violetto di Chioggi, Violetta de Provence, Violetta Precoce ) all have sprouted. Soaked for 24 hours, the seeds spouted in four days. Broccoli seeds(Belstar) didn't even take 4 days. Usually, I have zero luck with seeds, so these sproutings are more miraculous than usual.

Haphazard Gardener Reports on Success and Failure

2011-01-14T16:35:00.000-08:00

Succulents were almost 100% successful. Highly recommended for haphazard gardeners. Forgiving, hardy and even hail proof. Aloes, like the one above, looked dreadful after a hail storm- the leaves all covered with black spots. But in three months they'd recovered. Black spots faded and the plant bloomed as usual. Here's another very impressive succulent, Canary Island aeonium. It grew to be 2 feet across in a year, from it's original 6 inch size.

Other things that really worked with minimal effort on the part of an often absent-minded or distracted gardener, were terracing the 45 degree slope that is our growing area, and planting the terraces with citrus that had been growing in large pots. Looks good, the plants love it, the terraces get all gray water and hold the water. Highly recommended landscaping, if a slope is your fate as a gardener.

Butterfly gardening: a piece of cake. Plant the plants and they will come!

Mexican Milkweed

Vermiculture. Well--good, until the worms died of cold! Who knew it was going to drop to freezing around here ? For a while there, the worms were chomping down 7 pounds of garbage a week. Moral of this story is impulsive but ditzy effort doesn't work with vermiculture. I promise to reform, read the vermiculture bible "Worms Eat My Garbage" and proceed properly. The worms did fine---the gardener goofed! Takes more consistent effort than perhaps haphazard gardeners are up for. However it's pretty exciting to go out and listen to the worms chomping up the garbage. An experience not to be missed. Evaluation: takes consistent behavior, well worth the trouble.

Vegetable gardening. O my! You gotta get religion to do this right. Consistent effort, vigilance, and incredibly rewarding. Honestly, you have never really tasted a vegetable until you taste one you grew yourself, then cooked --briefly! Alice Waters, you are my muse! Vegetable gardening requires real character--- flakes, don't try this at home!

English Kitchen Gardens and---- tomatoes?

2010-12-28T15:00:00.000-08:00

English Kitchen Gardens

English kitchen gardens seem pretty distant from our SoCal conditions—so why bother with them? Well, the average temperature for the Central Coast in 2010 was 68 degrees—we had trouble ripening our tomatoes, the eggplant was unhappy, the zucchini got mold. Soo… dealing with this globally cooled coastal climate which doesn’t look like it is going away anytime soon---maybe we can learn something from English vegetable gardeners .

The first thing to consider is their use of masonry, brick or stone walls, and border edging if they are not using raised beds. We all know about creating micro climates, in a dim sort of way. The English method is highly specific and time-tested, and thought it has something to do with aesthetics it has a lot more to do with radiant heat. So—find a wall, south facing if possible. West facing might be too much in our climate.The English are crazy about brick and stone—its what they have to work with. For us, adobe, stucco, the side of a house is great.

I’m assuming you are frustrated by the behavior of your tomatoes in this really nasty summer.Find the side of a garage, a proper fence, whatever --- to collect solar heat. (Being aware that our temperatures even along the coast can fly up to 100 degrees on a hot day.) The chilly weather will help the tomatoes set fruit if you use Early Girl, San Francisco Fog, or any of the many Russian or Siberian heirlooms.

This one is Purple Prince. Black Prince is another Siberian that does well. (Has anyone else noticed that only tomatoes from the coldest part of the world do well in Central Coast summers? Makes you wonder....) Mark Twin remarked the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.

Well to outwit this kind of weather we will grow our tomatoes in
5 gallon black plastic pots —one plant per pot in either pure mushroom compost (getting hard to find), a prepared good potting mix, or your own you have produced from composting and /or vermiculture. The soil temperature is critical---the black plastic pot warms up the soil fast, and the starts take off. However---unless you have a drip system set up, you need either self-watering pots or a plan to stand with a hose in your hand 12 hours a day. Double potting is also a good idea (more on this later--we have time before tomato planting season)

Obviously, I favor self-watering pots. Making your own is easy. Or buy them http://www.amazon.com/Incredible-Vegetables-Self-Watering-Containers-Amazing/dp/1580175562. Expensive but effective.

Tomatoes do just fine grown in pots---just be sure your pot is big enough.Dahlias also do extremely well in big pots—grow them with the tomatoes .Mary McCarthy always said dahlias belong with the vegetables, not in a flower bed. Dahlias do have edible tubers, so they are a vegetable ? (the Aztecs considered dahlias a food plant: “The Aztecs gathered and cultivated the dahlia for food, ceremonies, as well as decorative purposes,^["3] W

Here’s the original dahlia coccinea the Aztecs used for food and ornament. It would look great with your potted tomato plants.. .

We have coming from England (where else) a whole mini series on Victorian Kitchen Gardens-- which turns out to be a a pig in a poke. European DVDS only run on a PAL system (don't ask). We don't in the US of A. Had to borrow a PAL DVD player.
Stay tuned.

Potagers, kitchen gardens and vegetable gardens

2010-11-29T19:30:00.000-08:00

What’s the difference between a potager, a kitchen garden, and a vegetable garden?

A potager is dressier in its intentions and execution than the others. It could be a very useful model for our Gardens Not Lawns people whose neighbors are tearing their hair over the virtuous “green” but disordered mélange that has replaced the lawn.

Jacques Boyceau de La Barauderie wrote in 1638( in his Traite du jardinage selon les raisons de la nature et d'art) that "the principal reason for the existence of a garden is the esthetic pleasure which it gives to the spectator." (W)
Well fine, as we all know the French are passionate about their food and practical as well. Alors! The potager:

This is a flower garden in the Potager du Roi at Versailles. If you look closely in the middle, there’s lettuce growing, sheltered and shaded by the lupines and foxgloves

which like the same growing conditions. Sooo… the potager mixes flowers and vegetables. Some aver, only edible flowers, but obviously that doesn’t apply here,unless you are planning and poison party serving digitalis (from foxglove roots).

This odd combination might been from the lovely gardens at Chateau de Chenonceau which contained ……. extensive flower and vegetable gardens along with a variety of fruit trees. Set along the banks of the river, but buttressed from flooding by stone terraces, the exquisite gardens were laid out in four triangles.(W)”

This was a famous and influential garden, originally planned by Diane de Poitiers, the king’s mistress, the queen’s rival. When the king, Henri II, died, Queen Catherine was able to wrest Chateau de Chenonceau and its lovely gardens away from Diane.

The queen, Catherine de Medici was accused of poisoning people right and left, but possibly suffered from a bad press rather than the instincts of a serial murderer. She loved gardens, including the gardens at Chateau de Chenonceau and where she planted a potager. Catherine, (like the original design of the potager) was Italian--- a Medici.

The Medici’s, being upstart (in the eyes of older French aristocrats), made a great showing as patrons of the arts, and gardens. Catherine brought the family love of display (and gardens) with her when she married theFrench King, Henri II. (See an Italian vegetable garden http://www.lifeinitaly.com/garden/italians.asp .) The traditional Italian vegetable garden is laid out along classical lines in squares rectangles and triangles, separated by gravel paths. It is at once practical and elegant. No flowers except “medicinal “ones.

Catherine di Medici was famous for her “recipes”. Here is a bit of her vegetable garden at Chenounceau:

and here's another.

Curiously enough, that’s a castor bean growing, marked very properly as ricin- Ricinus communis (Castor bean). Quite poison.

Hmmm…. Both Catherine and Louis seemed to have poisons growing in their potagers rather than “edible” plants. (You could eat the marigolds, and the herb growing which looks like sage… or possibly the gardeners are having their little joke?) Interesting! These gardens are both national treasurers--- historical sites---preserved--- my guess is the planting is historically accurate. It paid to keep a sharp eye on those royals!

So where are we with our potager? It has to be laid out geometrically, in a pleasing pattern, separated by gravel (or maybe decomposed granite) paths. We are growing vegetables, poisonous flowering plants....no, no this won't do. We have to find a harmless potager, such as the one above at Chateau Villandry.
.Jean de Breton whose chateau it was, apparently quite straight forward—at least in his gardening. (He was the Controller –General for Francis I, not an easy master. (See Shellabarger’s novel The King’s Cavalier).

Now this innocent potager is going to be a little oversize for most of us, but could easily be copied on a small scale. Normally we don’t make a salad for 200 at dinner, don’t need 6 beds of 6 x 6 lettuce at a time.

The garden contains long slim beds of artichokes, maze patterns of red cabbage, beautiful ornamental (and edible kale) lots of peppers, celery, using the blocks of color created by the vegetable foliage in a decorative pattern, as well as having the geometry of the beds as a strong design element .

Those of us who have ripped up our lawns to grow vegetables in our efforts to be green and thereby annoyed our neighbors—may do well to consider a potager along the lines of Villandry as a working model. The vegetables would thrive, the irate neighbors subside.

Potagers are still fashionable, desirable and “green”.The Huntington Museum has just been left a massive bequest (around 100 million) by Frances Brody especially favoring the gardens.

According to James Folsom, director of the gardens, high-priority projects include “improving and modernizing” ....... and creating a “potager” or kitchen garden. (La Times 11/20/10 Home section).
High style! Frances, Catherine and Diane would have understood each other.

Next: English Kitchen Gardens

Catch-Up! Hummingbirds, butterflies, vegetable gardens

2010-11-19T14:01:00.000-08:00

Here are the Monarch caterpillars stuffing themselves on the Mexican Milkweed (Asclepia incarnata). Had to make two trips to the nursery to pick up 3 more gallon cans of milkweed, bringing the amount of milkweed to about 15 plants. The caterpillars would have eaten more, given more. Not only will the Monarchs come, they'll eat you out of house and home. Every lady Monarch for miles around heard about the milkweed and hastened over. I never cease to be amazed when something works exactly as advertised.

The hummingbirds are migrating, recognizing the feeders in the same place they found them last year. The gold finches told their friends about the nyger seed in the backyard, and they ate 2 sockfuls in a week. The Gulf Fritillaries are still hatching from the Passion vines. Urban wildlife is persistent and smart!

We've been eating from our heavily composted vegetable garden for several weeks. The tomatoes ripened very late, due to the cold summer. The most successful varieties were San Diego and a September planting of San Francisco Fog which is still producing tomatoes. The Rainbow chard has been a constant delight (saute' finely chopped garlic, a bulb of fennel also finely chopped, in olive oil until translucent. Add the sliced chard just long enough to wilt it. Salt to taste.)

We grow a lot of things.It was a great year for Italian parsley--still going strong, a foot high, shaded by the tomatillo bush. The chives liked the shade of the tomatoes in the afternoon. The fennel grows abundantly and happily shaded by another tomato. Basil and peppers of course, like the full sun (good luck finding any this year!)

Vegetable gardeners, get the latest issue (Dec/Jan.) of Organic Gardening magazine, as it has a remarkable organic, layered vegetable garden growing in L.A. We've composted, but this goes farther--it's a no dig garden, layered with 14 layers of various things. The garden "recipe" was developed for the Australian Outback, which is even less hospital to vegetable gardening than our semi-desert. The Layered Garden is on p. 46.

If you go to http://wwwsuperseeds.com/ you'll find an astonishing source of just about anything you could think of in vegetable seeds--including the hard to find baby purple artichoke, Violetto. Even more impressive is their selection of books-- many hard to find old ones at amazing prices. They carry the original book on layered gardening, the carry the original book on companion planting. (This makes sense, but never tried it- next on my list of plant experiments)