December Wreath

My last wreath of the year! This one is made from Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia), a California native shrub/small tree. Toyon is a great addition to the garden. Once established, it needs no supplemental irrigation; is evergreen, even in those hot summer months; has lovely tiny white flowers which bees love; and either red or orange berries to celebrate December holidays (and keep the birds happy in cold weather). What’s not to love? I took cuttings from several bushes at a local open space park for this wreath. Because it’s such a hardy plant, this wreath will look as good at the end of the month as it does now.

This monthly wreath project was super fun for me and I am working on something for 2019 that will follow the same spirit. Stay tuned! Meanwhile, if you want to see all the wreaths from this past year, I’ve made a little photo display below.

Several things have been keeping me from writing here lately. One is simply that it is the end of the school term, and all my writing skills and brain power have been used to finish term papers. (Ok, I’m still not finished, but will be by the end of the weekend.) We did visit that local dairy I mentioned last post - they make primarily cheese and it was fun to visit and taste, but I was overwhelmed by what it takes to keep a large operation like this one running (450 dairy cows). I wasn’t entirely on board with some of their practices, but recognize that some things need to be ditched in the name of efficiency. I guess, more than anything, it made me want to have a small dairy herd for my own use; for milk, butter, cream, and cheese. That isn’t possible here of course, and so some compromises have to be made. I’m still wrestling with that one so haven’t felt compelled to write about it just yet.

I’m also feeling completely knocked down by the scary news in the recent climate reports, but they do present a LOT of new opportunities and challenges for those of us that want to make a difference. I am trying to figure out my place in all that. I find myself wanting to write more and more about these issues, but this space began as a place to share gardening ideas on smaller urban/suburban plots, and I recognize that many of my readers are here for that, and that only. So I am struggling with where to take this space in the future. Your comments appreciated.

Meanwhile, we’re enjoying frequent, steady rains which make the winter garden pop with good things to eat. I’ve picked our olives and have started the leaching process, and in a couple of weeks will begin the brining process. I’ve started the annual leaf-haul to both the chicken coop and the walkways. As our trees lose leaves I can start to better calculate what needs pruning and shaping, which is a major winter project. We pick greens daily for salads and sautés, and I eat fresh peas every time I walk through the garden. Winter citrus is starting to come in from the neighbors, and Adam made the first batch of lemon bars yesterday. We crave hearty meals, which I’m happy to cook this time of year. I’m re-reading ‘My Antonia’ by Willa Cather and am struck by how much those Nebraska pioneers had to eat in order to stay warm (descriptions of daily pie baking, yum!), and though we don’t work nearly as hard, something in our DNA tells us to fill up the bellies!

I’d love to hear what’s happening in your own gardens, and what you’re cooking and eating. I’m off to work on those term papers some more, at least until the sun shines - and then it’ll be back to work outdoors.

Below is the slideshow - just click to work your way through it.

January - Cotoneaster, Pyracantha, Toyon

February - Acacia

March - Rosemary

April - Western Redbud

May - Love-in-a-Mist

June - Fennel

July - Wild Cherry Plum

August - California Pepper, Salvia clevlandii

September - Germander, Monarda

October - California Bay Laurel

November - Olive

December - Toyon

November Wreath

This month’s wreath is a little wild and crazy. I went to a local trail and found the same olive tree that we harvested olives from years ago, and cut several branches for this project. It was interesting because the tree had only a few olives, whereas back in early 2016 the thing was covered in ripe fruit. Olives do have heavy and light fruiting years, so I guess 2017 was light, then 2018 was heavy, and this crop will be ready in 2019 and it will be light.

Our own olive trees are full of fruit and looking beautiful, even though I really pruned them last year, trying to get them to develop a better form. It’s a little difficult because they are in containers, but they certainly don’t seem to mind that. And they are only a few years old.

Tom built me the raised asparagus bed today, and I’ve filled it with compost to finish over the winter. I also got all the last transplants and seeds into the ground, including the last of the sweet peas, and built three teepees for them to grow on. High hopes for a beautiful spring bloom. With daylight savings arriving, I am thinking about projects I can do indoors in the dark long evenings. I have the whittling that I started last year (I’ll have to develop calluses all over again), and I’m also thinking about an embroidery or cross-stitch fireplace screen. We never use our fireplace and right now it’s filled with XBox and Wii games that are out of favor. If any of you have ideas, I’m open to suggestions. Maybe even a painting or mosaic?

Pavonia missionum

Now, Tom and I are going to spend the hot part of the afternoon working on our ballots, sharing some opinions and ideas. We both feel strongly that this is an important election. Hope you’re all having a wonderful weekend!

Passionflower Vine/October Wreath

Oh my goodness, I could not be happier about the South Pollinator Garden right now. I know I’ve written about this garden, and the pollinators, and specifically the Gulf Frittilaries before. But I have to write about it again, because I’m having such a good time visiting the Passion Vine! And I’m not the only one…. day after day I go out there to see what’s happening, and since it’s right next to the sidewalk, there is always someone else there checking it out too. It’s so fun to stand there and watch and chat with someone else about the ecosystem in the Passion Vine! They’ll see something I didn’t see, and I’ll see something they didn’t see, and it’s like this big treasure hunt. Sometimes I wish I still had little kids, because wouldn’t this be a great opportunity for them to learn about a particular life cycle?

From our side

Ok, so back in late spring, my neighbor rebuilt this fence and cut down all the bushes on his side that were growing tall and keeping the deer out of our garden. I knew I needed to put something here that would add that height, so the deer wouldn’t take advantage of the gap in security. I bought a rather cheapo folding trellis from Gardener’s Supply (I can’t afford anything fancy, and building something would take too long), stuck it along the fence line, went to Annie’s Annuals and bought eight passionflower vines, which I then planted at the base of the trellis, and made sure the drip line was all along that base line. I think 4-5 of the plants survived and started climbing. They weren’t even a foot high before I noticed Gulf Frittilary butterflies had found them, which made me very happy.

From the neighbor’s side

Through the summer, the vine grew up and along the top of the trellis, fulfilling perfectly the job of deer deterrent. The pollinator garden grew up around it, the zinnias and the tithonia reaching for the sky, some higher than our redbud tree. And the butterflies just kept coming, flitting about in a mating dance, sipping nectar from the flowers, and laying eggs on the passionflower leaves.

The vine has deeply divided simple leaves, which are lovely to look at, along with the tendrils that cling to the trellis. And of course the flowers are beautiful. The butterflies lay a single egg at a time (or at least I’ve never seen them in clusters) and the eggs are gorgeous and shimmery when you get a lens that lets you actually see them clearly. The egg is there 3-5 days before it hatches. They are usually found on the topside of a leaf. They start out yellow, and then turn brownish before they hatch.

The female butterfly tests the chemical compounds in the leaf with her antennae, and knows that the plant is the correct host for her babies. The caterpillars eat the leaves, ingesting those chemical compounds, which hopefully makes them less attractive to birds. The larvae has five instars, or stages of growth, before they finally pupate on the passion vine (I can’t wait to see chrysalises!!!! Chrysali? oh who knows). The caterpillars are kinda cute in their own right, brownish reddish, and get this sort of blue-ish stripe as they get bigger.

The passionflower vine is now starting to fruit (see top picture), which is an added bonus that I didn’t really expect. I mean I know they fruit but I wasn’t sure if this was a fruiting variety. What a welcome time of year for fruit! I think they are supposed to get sort of hard and purplish brown, and then they are ripe. More on that as it happens. Passionflower jelly, here we come!

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such a complete life cycle of any insect before, other than my honeybees. I plant specific flowers for insects all the time, such as fennel for anise swallowtails (had the caterpillars and adults, but never seen eggs or chrysalises), and dutchman’s pipevine for pipevine swallowtails (never seen any activity on it or around it, but hatched a chrysalis I brought in from a nearby creek), but this is the first time I’ve seen the whole thing from start to finish. It’s thrilling to watch.

And oh yeah, here’s the October wreath, finally:

This one is made out of California Bay Laurel. My mom gave me the idea. She grows several of these trees in her yard, and about once a year I ask her for some branches to dry as I use the leaves for cooking. She brought me a whole sheaf and said they could be used as a wreath AND a food. It was such a great idea that I promptly followed through. This plant smells nice fresh or dry, and will turn a handsome dusty sage color as it starts to lose moisture, so it should look good until November.

September wreath

This month, I decided to use some branches of my Teucrium fruticans bush, a beautiful California native (also called Germander) that has leaves that are silvery grey on top and silvery white underneath. The flowers are tiny but are a lovely purple and attract native bees every spring. Those branches form the base layer of leaves, and then I layered some seed pods from Monarda fistulosa  (Bee Balm or Wild Bergamont) over the top.

This Wild Bergamont is beautiful in bloom. It lasts a couple of months, then the seed pods take over and are lovely in their own right. 

Last weekend, I sowed a bunch of crops in flats for planting October first. I realized that there were some things I was missing - like cabbage. So I ordered some interesting varieties from Seeds from Italy, and I'm hoping to have some different things to show you come Fall. 

August Wreath

I finally got around to making the August wreath. I snipped some suckers off our California Pepper tree (Schinus molle) and also some of the seed pods from the Salvia Clevlandii. The pepper is blooming with tiny white flowers, and the sage is extremely fragrant. So altogether the two make a lovely looking and smelling wreath.

Salvia clevelandii is one of the stars of our garden. It takes very little water, the native bees love the purple blooms which are arranged on a sort of wheel, there are 2-3 wheels per stem, hummingbirds love them too, and then the birds love the seeds. The shape of the plant is very architectural and gets quite tall and makes a big statement. 

This photo is from Las Pilitas nursery in southern California and there is a nice description of the plant here. 

It's not a dense plant though, especially with dry soil, so it has an airy look to it which I like (movement in the breeze too which is my favorite) and it needs cutting back each autumn. The scent is very strong, and you'll either love it or hate it. I love it. It smells wild. It smells of chaparral. It smells of Mt. Diablo in summer.

Speaking of summer, we are overrun with cucumbers. Tom has made 16 jars of pickles, all kinds, and I have another large jar in the fridge with half-sours, my own personal favorite. We've eaten cucumbers in all ways and are still awash. Perhaps you would be surprised to find out (I certainly have been) how many people do not like cucumbers. I'm having trouble giving them away! Tomatoes and peppers are steady, so is basil, and green beans are an everyday event as well. Today I shall make salsa. 

I've ordered garlic, shallots, asparagus and seed potatoes for fall planting, as well as all brassicas, greens, and root veg seeds. I won't start winter seeds in the greenhouse until September first, with a plan for all the winter veg to go in the ground October first (though asparagus will go in in January). Which reminds me, I need to order fresh row cover, Agribond 19, which I get from Peaceful Valley. So here's your reminder - order those overwintering items now - garlic and shallots sell out quickly.