Due to my great-great-grandfather's success at planting citrus groves in the 1870s, I was told at an early age that orange juice flowed through my veins.
During the dark and cold days of January, is there any reason to work in the garden? Add wet soil that should not be disturbed, and you have a trifecta of obstacles for planting. However, this month does present one great opportunity for home gardeners: onions.
More than twenty thousand years ago, a major ice age spread across the northern latitudes of North America, Europe, and Asia and all the earthworms died. For millennia, these regions had no earthworms.
If you're a gardener in Napa Valley, you know that winter is not the off season it is elsewhere. In our climate, we can always plant something. When I walk into a nursery at this time of year, I feel like the proverbial kid in the candy store.
A few weeks ago, some friends were over for dinner, and I was throwing food scraps into my miniature compost bin that fits under my kitchen sink (free from the City of Napa). One gentleman told me he didn't compost. It's easy, I said. The UC Master Gardeners have workshops on it all the time.
