- Author: Lowell Cooper
My mother believed that one key to good healthy child rearing was my taking cod liver oil. It was only a teaspoon, but it was daily and it was foul tasting. Supposedly, it was the final word in good health, sustenance, and a free pass to a long life. Of course, I could never get a reason and being an obedient youth, I just took a spoonful. Well, many decades later, here I am – at least none the worse for having taken the stuff, though I suspect I will never be sure just how much of me is a product of cod liver oil.
So now I do gardening. One of the ingredients of good soil management is pH control. Really? So I began to look into it a bit. pH is a measure of how acetic or alkaline soil is. Incidentally, a good reference for this topic is Faber, Clemente, Giraud and Silva's article, chapter 3, in the California Master Gardener Handbook. Or the Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, volume 13 of the 2012 Edition. Fortunately pH is easily measured nowadays with a gadget – a probe - which can be gotten at a nursery. I seem to remember that you used to have to bring a soil sample in to have it analyzed and that was way too cumbersome. So I can now get a quick reading. What does it tell me that will make a difference in the life of my garden?
Since I am not a chemist I don't understand this at a basic-science level. What I do get is that the 17 plant essential nutrients have to be dissolved (I hope that is the right concept) so that fertilizers and soil nutrients can make their components available to the plant roots and ultimately to the plant. That's a good thing. Each nutrient will broadcast itself via a symptom of some sort or another if the plant isn't getting the amount it needs or is getting too much. I realize that we are talking about minute amounts of chemical. It is probably a good thing (for me, at least) to have a cheat-sheet by my side when gardening so I can readily see by symptom when there is a deficit or excess of one chemical or another. For me, not likely; too much like that dreaded cod-liver oil discipline. But I would say with this soil tester being so easy to use, adjustments can be made easily (and thankfully my yard is generally in the acceptable range of 7.5).
For those of us who like gardening to be relatively simple, measurement regimens can be a burden. But I do feel warned to keep track of pH deficit-excess issues and the soil correction approaches. Like cod liver oil, the benefits are not always obvious, but there is something to be said for long term attentiveness to soil chemical balance.
- Author: Mike Gunther
Restore Refresh.........Rain
New Green Hill Growth Appears
Seasonal Changes
- Author: Betty Victor
All the Christmas catalogs that came in to my house in November and December have been put into the recycling bin. Just in time because the seed catalogs have started to arrive. This way with the Christmas catalogs gone it leaves room in the magazine rack for the seed ones.
One of the seed companies has lushes large red looking tomatoes on its cover. But I know if I order those seeds my tomatoes probably will not look as perfect and red as the picture shows. I know the pictures are all doctored up, but still. One catalog has tomatoes and different vegetables growing in containers, so if you run out of room in your garden, think containers, I know I will.
On these wonderful rainy days when you don't feel like going out in the rain, it's so much fun to curl up with a warm cup of coffee or tea and browse through these catalogs and dream. Hoping that if I order seeds from one of these catalogs, what I order will look something like these picture they show.
Spring and summer will tell.
- Author: Sharon L. Rico
Sixteen years ago we restored a family bungalow built originally in 1930. The yard was overgrown, volunteer trees rising up from under foundations, a huge walnut stump in the black topped driveway, oxalis from the front yard to the back, wild Siberian irises against the fence and callas against the house foundation. It took a lot of time, labor and money to turn the yard into a garden.
We had the huge walnut stump removed and the black top broken up by tractor. We turned the driveway into a courtyard. My husband, who grew up on a fruit ranch in Vacaville, ordered two specialty bare-root cherry trees that were planted in the courtyard. The trees were beautiful and provided us with years of delicious 'Bing'- like cherries. Our cherries were the hit of the neighborhood, our friends and children.
Several years ago we lost the cherry crop to the Spotted Wing Drosophila. The fruit had been pierced by the flies, laying their eggs under the cherry skins. The eggs hatched and maggots develop inside the fruit. Seeing tiny white maggots in our cherries was very disappointing. The following year we sprayed with spinosad regularly, trying to salvage the cherry crop. Meanwhile, one of the trees began having its own struggle. Though we had painted the trunk white from the beginning, the bark had split and peeled displaying sun damage. Then we noticed borer holes in the trunk and into the branches.
Cherry trees in general are difficult to keep alive. Not liking wet feet, they are susceptible to brown rot, bacterial canker, root and crown rots and many viruses. They have a high chill requirement that is a problem with Vacaville winters getting warmer and warmer.
We decided that one of the cherry trees needed to be removed. This was a difficult decision. My husband cut the tree down and cut the wood into cords that we gave away. We had the stump dug out and removed. After much research, my husband chose to replace the cherry tree with a bare root specialty peach tree. In our garden, we have another full-grown peach tree that my husband has grafted with several different varieties of peaches over the past several years. It produces delicious peaches from July to September, providing us with fruit and jams.
Our new tree has been planted, cut to 2 feet tall and painted with white latex paint (50/50). We are waiting to see it sprout with growth and look forward to the fruit it will provide in the future.
- Author: Karen Metz
I have several gardening related items on my to-do list this week. A good friend of mine gave me two bags of 'King Alfred' daffodil bulbs for Christmas along with some mud gloves. So the first item is to get them planted. I know the optimum time for planting these for spring bloom is October and November for our area. Obviously I can't do that. I am not sure what planting them this late will do. It may not give them enough time to bloom this spring but hopefully they can bloom in other years. We have had several rainstorms so I know the ground will be muddy, good thing I got mud gloves as well. It's been 48 hours since last storm so I think I'll try and get them in the ground today. Better late than never!
The second item is dealing with my Corn Plant, Dracaena fragrans. I have had this plant since 1989 so it is dear to my heart. It lives in the family room and every so often gets so tall it approaches the ceiling. In the past I have cut it back and potted up the top piece after stripping off some of the leaves. This has worked well, but I have never tried it in the dead of winter. I had intended to do this in the fall, but life got in the way. We had some family emergencies and then I got a pesky upper respiratory infection that hung on for 4-5 weeks. Now the delay had a nice result, in December the plant bloomed for only the second time ever. I suspect if I had shocked it by cutting it back this would not have happened. However, now I am left with an extremely ungainly looking plant that I don't think I can stand looking at until spring. So I think I will tackle it this week and see what happens. It may be that the new plant will not put out roots, but I won't know 'til I try. If it does I will have something to donate to the next Master Gardener Plant Exchange. If it doesn't I haven't lost anything by trying. At least it will allow the Mother Plant to remain in the family room for many more years.