- Author: Lanie Keystone
It's not too early to start thinking about your spring garden in November. It's such a busy “indoor” month with all the holidays fast approaching. So, a bit of planning will keep our gardens healthy as we begin to shop, cook, decorate and celebrate and reap happy dividends in the spring.
Here are some key things to put on your “to-do” list for November gardening:
CLEAN UP
- Finish cleaning up the vegetable garden
- Store garden supplies, including pots, where they've been summering near your beds. That's where snails will want to cozy down for the winter and then be uninvited guests in the spring
- Mulch un-planted vegetable beds with leaves or straw to prevent weeds—unless you have planted a cover crop or cool-season vegetable garden earlier in the fall
- Why mulch? It helps keep your soil from eroding, crusting or compacting during winter rains…it's another “glad I did this” when spring arrives!
WATERING
- Watch your container plants perched under patio roofs or eaves—it's easy to forget to water these places where winter rains can't reach
- Water only as needed: reduce the watering frequency as the weather cools
- Turn off your sprinkler controller once winter rains have begun
FROST PROTECTION
- Keep an eye and ear out for frost forecasts
- Know the cold tolerance of your plants
- Plan ahead with stakes in the ground for frost covers
- Cover subtropical plants, succulents, and young citrus with frost cloth, old sheets or large cardboard boxes before sunset to help retain ground heat and remove during the day
- Hint: Coverings should not contact plant leaves and need to go to all the way to the ground
- Keep tender, in-ground and container plants well-watered—moist soil holds more heat than dry soil, keeps the humidity higher and helps protect against frost burn—(moisture being pulled from foliage)
BLOOMS & BORDERS
- Fall planting opportunities are just about over
- Plant newly purchased trees, perennials, shrubs, and ground covers well before you start cooking that turkey
- Finish planting bulbs
With those simple garden tasks complete, you can start planning your holiday menus, make your gift list and even have time to sit back and enjoy the beautiful fall season.
“Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.” Samuel Butler
- Author: Betsy Buxton
It's quite interesting how certain plant geneses received their names; did the person discovering said plant in the wilds gives it their own name? Was the plant family named after a colleague or a friend or, perhaps, even after a loved one?
Take the plants we call Fuchsias for example: what or who was behind the name? At the last Vallejo Garden Club, I was privileged to hear a talk from Janis and Rodney of the Vallejo Branch (!) of the American Fuchsia Society who not only told the members about how to care, propagate, and just plain enjoy our fuchsia plants at home but the history behind these plants.
Fuchsias have been in cultivation since the 1500s when found in South America and sent to England as part of the great plant explorations of the time. Adventurers were admonished to bring back plant specimens and seeds when they returned home. As a result, fuchsias were brought back as exotic beauties that grew well in Europe.
There are currently 108 species of fuchsias now with over 9000 (!) named cultivars registered with the Fuchsia Society! Originally, the plants had tubed flowers with small sepals, but now hybridizers have created short tubed flowers with 4 petals and longer sepals which usually curved back or a “duplexed” flower which simply means the flowers have many petals (doubles).
What interested me the most, though, was the name “fuchsia”. It turns out that there was a doctor Leonhart Fuchs who was considered to have written the best book on using plants and herbs with medicinal properties. Although other such books had been written earlier, his book emphasized high-quality drawings as the telling way to specify what a plant name stood for and how to identify these plants. Thus he was honored with the species Fuchsia. It was thought for quite some time that he was also honored with the color fuchsia, but the name for the color actually is derived from fuchsine, an early trade name for the dye rosaniline hydrochloride in France by its manufacturer Renard frères et Fane to capitalize on the increasing popularity of the genus fuchsia in fashionable gardens and the fact that both Renard in French and Fuchs in German both mean fox.
Dr. Fuchs created the first medicinal garden at the University of Tubingen under the bidding of Ulrich, Duke of Wurttemberg, Germany in 1533.
If you are interested in belonging to the Vallejo Branch of the American Fuchsia Society, they meet on the 2nd Tuesday, 1 pm, at the Church of the Ascension, 2420 Tuolumne St, Vallejo. If you do go, please be there at 1 promptly as the doors are locked due to a robbery when a group was meeting.
- Author: Kathy Low
Even though summer has ended, there's still a ton of tasks for gardeners this month. In October you should continue to clean up any fruit that has fallen to the ground and to remove any fruit mummies left on the tree to help minimize diseases. Clean up and discard any old vegetables left on the ground to prevent insects and diseases from overwintering in them. Once your summer vegetable plants are no longer producing, remove them and place them in your compost pile.
It's not too late to seed some winter vegetables, and to add soil amendments to your soil to prepare your beds for your winter garden. Some winter vegetables that can still be seeded this month include fava beans, Swiss chard, collards, endive, peas, and radishes.
Or if you are not planning on growing winter vegetables, it's also not too late to seed a cover crop. Cover crops add nitrogen and ultimately add organic matter to your soil. They increase water penetration into your soil, and improve your soil's tilth. Sample cover crops include fava and bell beans, crimson and berseem clovers. More information on cover crops can be found at www.sarep.ucdavis.edu.
If they've finished blooming, it's time to dig up, divide and replant overgrown perennials.
Since October brings Halloween, followed by Thanksgiving and Christmas in December, it's time to consider attending the annual Master Gardeners Wreath Workshop. Held the first Saturday of December, participants will be supplied with instructions and all the materials to make a wreath. And the registration fee supports the UC Master Gardener (Solano) program. Keep your eye on the Master Gardener website (solanomg.ucanr.edu) for upcoming registration details.
- Author: Karen Metz
I started growing milkweed a few years ago when I heard about declining numbers of Monarch butterflies. I planted Narrow-leaf Milkweed or Asclepias fasicularis, a California native. This plant is a perennial that dies back every winter but comes back in spring. Its flowers are small cream-colored and to be honest, pretty lackluster. On the plus side, it tolerates clay soil. Like many milkweed species, they seem to be a magnet for aphids. Interestingly the plants never seem particularly bothered by them. Over a year or two, the plants got more robust looking but I never saw a Monarch adult or caterpillar. I decided perhaps if I added another species of Asclepias nearby, that might attract the Monarchs.
So, the next thing I planted was Asclepias curassavica or Tropical Milkweed. It has broader leaves and much more attractive flowers. These are clusters of orange and red blossoms. It is not native to California but still has the aphid problem that Narrow Leaf Milkweed has. Still no Monarchs. Then this year saw a real drop in Monarchs sightings, down to zero for many sites. But a few weeks ago, Kathy Keatley Garvey wrote in her blog, Bug Squad, that there had been two different sightings in Vacaville. I vowed to start watching my plants with vigilance. They are in my side yard in my backyard, not that easy to get to. But I was also headed down that way each day to pick up the ripe pineapple guava which falls to the ground and needs to be picked up.
So, I was definitely paying more attention to my milkweed than I ever have before. I was still amazed at the number of aphids. I saw ladybug larva show up as well to feed on the aphids. Then one day I rounded the corner and saw a milkweed pod on the Narrow Leaf Milkweed. It had just split and the little seeds with their silken parachutes were spilling out ready to be taken off by the wind. Okay, it wasn't a Monarch, but it was really beautiful. And if I hadn't been on lookout duty for the Monarchs, I would never have seen it. By the next day, the pod and the seeds were gone.
Now just an addendum about Asclepias curassavica or Tropical Milkweed. This has turned out to be a controversial plant. Apparently, Monarchs can pick up a parasite called Ophryocystis elektroscirrha or OE for short. When they visit this plant, the parasite can survive on the plant. In its native location, it's not a big problem as the plant dies back. But now it's being grown in other locations where it's not dying back and large levels of the parasite are building up in some plants. Some groups say if you severely cut back the plant in late fall that will take care of the problem. Other groups suggest not growing the plant at all. As for me, since I have never seen any Monarchs near either kind of Milkweed I grow, I think I will just cut my Tropical Milkweed back in November.
- Author: Lowell Cooper
At first, I thought that I would postpone this entry until I found and fixed an irrigation leak which was actually identified by the Benicia water company. It is not visible from the surface, so I was surprised. But I have been losing enough water that I have been concerned. So, I marched around my garden turning off irrigation zones, which is not too simple since there are 7 irrigation lines divided into 3 zones. All the main lines are underground though the emitters are drip and above ground. The system is about 20 years and, as I am sure you can imagine, a lot has gone on in this garden in 20 years where I have redirected lines and installed piping to cater to my changing plant tastes.
My first challenge was reading the ‘smart' meters so I could see how my fixes were going. That took a special appointment with the city meter reader to get a quick lesson on how to read it. Early on in the process, I turned off the irrigation and voila, no leak. I guess I could breathe a sigh of relief that there was no leak in or under the house or the concrete driveway.
Then I called a leak detection company. They came over and were willing to tackle the irrigation, though if truth be told, I don't think they had much experience with this kind of thing. They did guarantee that they would stick with the project until they found the leak and the person they sent was a really decent fellow. He took his probe in hand and off he went poking around. There were signs of water everywhere and he was running around alternatively poking, turning off pieces of the system, and reading the meter. A 2-hour appointment stretched into 4 hours and I was beginning to lose faith in the wisdom of their way. At some point, I called an old landscaper. Just my luck, she had had an accident and was unavailable. I was trapped with a nice but moderately incompetent guy.
Poking continued with a second block of a couple of hours of running around, poking and reading the meter. The choreography of this event must have looked like a timed Easter-egg hunt. To date, I have fixed a bunch of what looked like leaks but the water loss is still there. As I write this, I am preparing to embark on another explore to find the crucial leak. I assume that I eventually will. Does anyone know a leak specialist who specializes in irrigation? I have a lot of patience and will persist, but will I overcome?