A misty moisty morning

I woke up in the night and looked at the temperature that displays on our ceiling and saw it was 40 degrees out.  Thinking about the temps being the same twenty-four hours a day in the fog made me decide might as well get out first thing and get some work done.  And it worked!   I love being out in chilly invigorating weather first thing in the morning.  Now how silly is that, that in the morning the fog is not the big deal it is at two in the afternoon?  I thought might as well get some gardening in before work, then come in and warm up.   I spent an enjoyable half hour pruning roses. Here is a little out of season geum to brighten up the day...

January chores

In January there are several critical chores in the garden.  The first is weeding.  It is said that one year not getting weeds before they set seed results in seven years of weeds.  I believe it!   The worst winter weeds are the annual grasses.  Another necessary chore is bareroot planting.  Bareroot plants are available during a very narrow window of time so it has to be done.  This year I hope to put in a new asparagus bed.  It either happens now, or waits a year, as it already has done.  Finally, pruning of fruit trees and other deciduous plants needs done during dormancy.  Along with pruning comes dormant oil spraying, which needs to be done before the buds swell.  So lots of work.  However, 40 degree fog is not conducive to any of it.  I would much rather read my new garden book and plan what I might do, if the conditions and mood were right. 

Veggies

So my new goal is to grow more veggies.  I just wish I knew the secret.  I planted chard in September and it sits in the pot, a couple inches tall, one leaf for each plant and does nothing.  At the farmer market I bought a lovely purple leaved chard and asked when they started their plants.  November!  I am doing something wrong. 

Celery

I never knew celery would grow here.  I always heard it took lots of work with a need to blanch the stalks by wrapping them up to inhibit chloropyll production, etc.  So I was delighted when I found seeds for a herb called Amsterdam Seasoning Celery.  Sprinkled in a pot, the seeds readily sprouted and are growing well in the cool weather.  We all know how hard it is to keep good celery at hand, yet I love the flavor in soups and salads.  So this seems a good answer, fresh picked celery flavor. 
Then at the farmer's market yesterday I saw huge bunches of locally grown celery.  Not blanched, but stalked and pretty much looking like celery one might see at the grocery store, except with a huge bushy head of leaves.  I bought a bunch and brought it home but it was far too large for the drawer in the fridge.  So I snipped off the stalks with my new kitchen shears and made cream of celery soup with the leafy part, includng those stems within the leaves.  Well, the soup must have been healthy.  That is the best that can be said.  It tasted something like parsley.  Maybe people who juice greens would recognize the taste, pure chlorophyll!

Freeze and fog and plant zones

Most maps show our area to be USDA Zone 9 and Sunset Zone 8.  I have often questioned the zone 9 thing since so many zone 9 plants can't take the cold.  This week while searching for a plant I saw that Monrovia nursery, which has a large commercial nursery nearby, calls this zone 8.  I plant for zone 8, whatever it is called.  I do not like plants that freeze and turn to goop in the fog.  I don't like slimey black masses of what used to be attractive plantings.  One of my pet peeves is the local nurseries selling so many tropical plants that need protection and babying through the winter.  I make exception for one plant, the common bedding impatiens.  So many people consider these to be too mundane to bother, but I like them.  They bed out in March and bloom continuously until Thanksgiving or even Christmas.  They need absolutely no care.  Of course they do not like direct sun, but for a shady area they just can't be beat for ambiance and color.  The negative of turning to slime with the first frost is I think outweighed by 9 months of charm.  And I do have one plant I baby, my fuschia Thalia. Actually I think it is a Gartenmeister Bonstedt, but Thalia is so much easier to spell, right? And they look the same.  I first saw these coral fuschias at Disneyland and loved them.  When I had a chance to pick one up for cheap at Orchard Supply I did, and have proudly kept it alive for a half dozen years.  When frosty weather comes I move it up against the house and put an open umbrella over it.  It works.  This year I did not realize the cold front meant mid 20s and did not put out the umbrella.  In spite of some withered branches it is still bravely flowering.

Soggy foggy

Once the rains start everything just stays wet.  When it is foggy even the air is soggy.  I moved a few plants and the ground is a soggy mess, especially where there is a cover of leaves.  Ew, two or three inches of gooshy partially decayed leaves!  Anyway, the way the ground holds water in winter, and never has a chance to dry out, means plants that come tagged 'need good drainage' probably are not a good bet here.  I am trying some of them in pots, hoping they might get better drainage.  I currently have a chocolate cosmos snugged up against the house to keep it from getting too cold.  It did just fine over the hot summer, in a bit of shade, but I have lost several in winter.  Hopefully the pot is the answer.  Next I think I will try bleeding heart.  The sun is shining through the fog this morning; it looks like a good day for farmer's market and working in the garden. 

lack of logical thought can be painful!

Being the farmland that it is, here in the valley we often get bird planted seedlings in the garden.  Pecan trees are one of the more annoying as they are difficult to dig out.  But sometimes the plantings are helpful, such as the nandina I found growing and transplanted where I could see the berries during the winter. 

For several years I thought how cool it would be to find some grapevines to make a wreath.  Of course I could have just bought a grapevine wreath at Michael's, but I wanted free grapevines.  So when I saw another bird planted grapevine in my garden, this one in a good sunny location, I let it grow.  In the fall I cut off the long canes, and wrapped them into a wreath.  The leaves were so pretty in their fall color I thought it might be worth propagating and moving to a better location.  However, it proved to be a big stubborn root and I left it for another year.  And the grapevine grew and grew, snaking up the drain spout, around a window and into the eaves, and enveloping a large rose bush.  So this week I spent an afternoon cutting the grapevine out of the rose bush.  It was not fun!   If one stops to think, it only makes sense that a vine with tendrils and a rose bush with thorns should not be friends!