January 8th, 2008

Happy New Year!

Would you believe that the Osteospermum ‘Asti White’ that we tested last summer started blooming in my San Diego area garden on New Year’s day?  Everyone else reported blooms through late summer and fall, but mine just didn’t get there.  Granted, most osteos are short-day bloomers, which means that they bloom in the spring/winter/fall rather than in the long days of summer. ‘Asti White,’ though, is supposedly day neutral, so they should bloom regardless of day length.  In fact, the literature says they bloom 21 to 28 days from seed.  I started mine in June!

That’s the thing about gardening in California.  Plants just behave differently! Its something that takes new gardeners and gardeners new to the area some time to understand.  Fall is our best planting season, plants go dormant in late summer to escape the heat, and summer veggies such as tomatoes and peppers take weeks longer to ripen. 

Most of Southern California and the majority of coastal gardeners have year-round growing climates.  That’s the up side.  The down side is, we never get a break.  There’s never a time to rest and contemplate, let alone plan and re-think the garden. 

As I write this, it’s raining outside – a rare occurrence and the only time Californians stay out of the garden.  Bill Nunes is a fellow seed tester who farms and gardens about 400 miles north of me in California’s Central Valley, where it is also raining. “I'm actually enjoying some time off,” Bill wrote me in an email, “but I do need to get the greenhouse up and running while the ground is wet so I can get back at it when the ground dries a bit.”  See what I mean?  It’s raining and Bill doesn’t feel he can even take time for a snooze!

A few days ago, I asked the other seed testers what their gardening resolutions were for the New Year.  My four big resolutions are 1) write blog entries more often, so we can keep you all up on what is happening in the seed tester gardens; 2) to stop feeling bad about not planting a winter vegetable garden.  I vow to accept the fact that fall and winter are when I focus on the ornamentals, since that is our best planting time; 3) to finish the new patio and meadow I started two summers ago to replace a big lawn.  And 4) to finish covering my more cold-sensitive plants with floating row cover - just in case this month’s temperatures dip down into the high teens like they did last January.  I was born and raised in Southern California and I’d never seen winter temperatures that low.  It set the garden back several years and I hate to see it happen again.

What were everyone else’s plans?  Here is a sampling:

Carla Jeanne Gilmore (Cabool, MO. Zone 6/7):
To have the pruning and weeding and mulching done before we start planting garden the 2nd week of March. We are starting our transplants of cole crops, celery, and peppers about January 12.

Don Boekelheide (Charlotte, NC, Zone 7b):
•    Devote more time to my homescape, as opposed to spending most of my time and creative energy on my community/food gardens.

•    Try ‘Mahon’ sweet potatoes.

•    Do more crazy garden art (bottle trees, etc) everywhere I can get away with it.

•    Be mindful and open as I garden, strive less and breathe more. Garden the way Thich Nhat Hahn walks.

•    Take more pics of “real life/true grit” stuff as well as “pretty” stuff.

•    Really listen to the homeless folks at the Center [where Don runs a community garden] and try to help make gardening accessible for them.
•   
•    Do more with garden seating and benches, even right in the midst of the food.

•    Keep trying to entice my kids to join me in gardening.

•    Laugh a lot in the garden. Rejoice in the bounty, and learn from the setbacks, bugs, weeds and mistakes with more wry humor and less angst. Try to be as open to other people's ways of gardening as I strive to be to their religious beliefs and traditions. Garden with joy.
•    Oh, and pray for rain.

Pamela Ruch (Emmaus, PA.  Zone 6)
I bought one of those BIG calendars, with BIG spaces, which I will hang on my porch wall. The plan is: every time I come in from the garden I will pass it and write a few words about what I did. Having tried computer journaling, in-the-garden notes, passing on the record-keeping to interns -- all with incomplete success -- I'm hoping this system will work for me.
Another plan is the mulching bed: I'm going to devote one bed (6x20) to alfalfa for cutting to use as mulch--just to see how it works.
As for varieties, I want to grow more heirloom onions. They're so much better in salads than store-bought onions -- even the sweet Vidalias and Walla Wallas.”

I’ll share more of the group’s resolutions in my next installment.

Comments

[Nic]

Hi there,

My name is Nic and I've just launched a brand new free gardening tracking site called MyFolia.com (http://www.myfolia.com) that you might find quite handy for tracking your tests - it's designed to be incredibly easy and fast to use and to update.

Basically, the idea is that you can enter in all the plants you are growing along with their planting dates - you'll get a nice little day counter for each one to see how long it's been in the ground. It's quite easy from there to enter quick little journal entries about each one when and if something noteworthy happens (you can even include weather observations if you like as well!)

It's got a bit of a social side too - you can follow and comment on fellow gardeners progress along the way, and you are automatically linked with gardeners from all over the world growing the same varieties that you are. There are many other nice little features like to-do lists, seed cataloging and much more that you can see in detail on our tour page: http://www.myfolia.com/tour

We would be absolutely tickled pink if you joined us in your tracking adventures!

Nic
www.myfolia.com

[Don Boekelheide]

Now, that sounds like a useful idea, I'll come visit your site. One of the great advantages of being part of a testing network is sharing information with other gardeners, sometimes in very different places.

Hi, Nan!

Many daffies popping in the Carolina Piedmont right now, and the nights smell of Daphne.

[Jeff]

I'm a little jealous of the idea of year round gardening like you can do in CA. Here in Michigan we have a shorter season, but we have some great soil thanks to the glaciers.

We have been busy getting our beds ready and germanating our seeds. Looking forward to getting them in the dirt.

[Jessie]

Wonderful gardening mini-projects! :) If you grow bushes with berries, try putting benches next to the bushes. Being able to grab fresh berries to snack when you have a nice chat with someone in the garden is awesome! :)