Winter Berry Care

Ah, the delights of blackberries in the summer almost make up for the fact that it is a plant that does not take care of itself. My husband pruned it way back last week, but soon enough the canes will overtake the fence on the neighbors' side, and on our side, form a bower that is admittedly a bit charming to look at but annoying to walk under if you are grownup size. We don't give it any additional water although maybe we should rethink that during the Great Drought.

Barenaked berries

Sowing Winter Crops

Mid-harvest

"Winter" is more of a state of mind than a weather shift around here. It was 70 yesterday, and we wore shorts for our garden work. (By the way, 70 is higher than the summertime average in our town. We get fog cover in the summertime.)  I finally pulled out two more cherry tomato plants, with some assistance, although the SuperSweet100 still has ripening fruit on it so I left it. When I tried those cherries, I realized their flavor profile is now more like a supermarket tomato (!), but still I guess it's better than nothing.

Clearing out his very productive SunGold

We turned over some dirt and got ready for our winter crops. My son got very excited about clearing his area and planting new seeds, so we did that even though rain is lurking in the forecast. Hopefully our seeds have enough protection from their straw mulch topping to not get washed away. We planted lettuce, cilantro, beets, and carrot seeds. Yeeeaahhh four season planting!

He wouldn't let anyone else touch his area!

My daughter got overly invested in harvesting some carrots - when I pull out one to gauge the crop's progress, she takes it as an invitation to pull as many as she can hold in one hand. Now the menu plan will need to incorporate carrots... lots of carrots. My cilantro is also looking healthy and happy so I need to cook some curries that will use it up. Admittedly some of my cilantro crop always goes to seed before I get to it, but I'm less bugged by that then when I used to buy a bunch of it at the store, use a quarter of it, and then the rest of it would rot in the crisper for a week.

Rainy Days

Happy, damp vegetable garden

While the drought proclamations and rationing threats rage on, we're in the middle of an excellent soaking. Last week on the first or second day of a light rain, my kindergartener - a good Californian - asked, "Is the drought over?" Not yet, honey.

But in the meantime, the plants are sooo happy, and so am I because I can put off watering! Except, that is, for my indoor seeds, one of which is chugging along delightfully. I think this is cilantro. I don't know for sure because I didn't think to label them. (This is one reason why my promotion to Upper Gardener keeps getting delayed.) But I am thrilled since I've never grown anything indoor from seed before unless you count the toothpicks-in-a-tuber thing in elementary school. Which actually only ever creeped me out because of the weird alien experiment look to it.

Winter Gardening

Positioning the marker just so in the pot

After my last post, I fully expected to stay indoors for a couple months. Then my gaze fell on my in-box, and on the radish seeds someone gave my daughter for her November birthday. "Come on kids!" I shouted. "Let's go plant these radishes real quick!"

"Okay!" responded my 5 year old son enthusastically. "And carrots too! They're a winter crop!"

Well. Can't argue with his garden savvy or his gusto, so the three of us spent an hour in the vegetable garden this afternoon. It was in the low 60s, I'd say, a welcome respite from the recent "bitter" (by Bay Area standards) cold. We planted radishes in a pot, and in the ground cilantro, mesclun, beets, and carrots, all from seed. I pulled out my sad, sad plants formerly known as tomatoes, clicked my tongue over my peas, and weeded. Grr. Also tried to redirect some sneaky bamboo, grr x 1000.

Any excuse to practice those kindergarten writing skills

The kids spent their time messing around with the seed packets and decorating plant markers (craft sticks). That was actually a good use of their time, as opposed to having them sow the actual seeds with me, which is a great way to have your lettuce row sprout a big ol' cilantro in the middle. It will be handy to have a visual marker of what went where, since my memory is obviously deteriorating rapidly.

I think the Vitamin D did us all good. Whether we'll reap anything more tangible, time will tell.

Of COURSE you need to bring out about 50 craft sticks to choose from. All the markers too. You never know what you'll need.

Frosty Christmas

We are hopefully nearing the end of a cold snap that's been raging for more than a week. I am trying to avoid looking out back at my poor garden. Needless to say, as the mere undergardener, I did not think of protecting my crops until I walked the kids to school on the first morning after the first frost, and saw many houses with improvised frost covers in their gardens.  "Oops," read my thought bubble. I later went out and picked a couple of the ripe golden cherries just to check. WOW - I have never eaten such a nasty, bitter tomato before. Now I know and will do better next year! As soon as it warms up a little, I'll get out there and pull the tomatoes, peas, and whatever other sorry specimens are still in the ground.

Meanwhile, there's plenty to occupy us with Christmas preparations. My kindergartener is singlehandedly designing ornaments out of construction paper, felt, and sparkly pipe cleaners. My toddler is busy coloring with markers and leaving their caps off. We've got stuff to do, people! See you in January!

Christmas Chraziness Underway

Thanksgiving's a distant memory now; we are full speed ahead to Christmas in my house now. So nice with kids - they are excited by the slightest sprig of holly and the shortest strand of lights on the neighbor's window. Meanwhile, yesterday we harvested another handful of golden cherry tomatoes AND one cute little boysenberry. Dude, you are really going to be sorry you decided to fruit when the cold snap hits tonight.

Winter Ahoy

Finally, some rain predicted for today! A bit fell this morning, just at the wrong time to get me all excited about rainboots and rainjackets for the walk to school, by which time it had stopped. We had to pause midway so my son could switch his boots for his shoes (in his backpack). More is in the forecast, which is awesome because as usual I am sick of watering. However, the tomatoes still have not gotten the memo that winter is almost here - my bush Roma, in particular, rocks on, albeit more slowly than in its prime. The cilantro is also looking good still - got to plan a meal around that! I see a few green tantalizers where we planted a variety of seeds a couple weeks ago so they will love the rain too.