- Author: Betty Homer
Are you an apartment dweller or an otherwise landless gardener who has been dreaming about having a little piece of earth to call your own? Or maybe you are just someone who has a small yard and is looking for additional space to garden? If so, consider checking out the Suisun Community Garden located on Lotz Way by the Marina Shopping Center off of Highway 12 in Suisun City. For approximately $30 a year which is intended to cover the cost of water usage, you can lease a 10' x 10' plot at the Community Garden.
Almost all of the Community Garden's current members have built raised beds to grow vegetables which they are doing so successfully, as the site receives full sun daily, even in the winter. At last check, the author of this post observed corn, tomatoes, squash, tomatillos, eggplants, strawberries, artichokes, beans, carrots, radishes, beets, sunflowers, cosmos, dahlias, nasturtiums, and more, growing at the Community Garden.
As an added benefit, most members of the Community Garden are generally friendly, and will happily exchange gardening war stories and tips with you while you are there weeding, watering, etc. Although vandalism and theft can be an issue at the Community Garden from time to time (this is a common occurrence at ANY community garden), there is usually more than enough bounty for you in your plot to harvest and enjoy. It is also not unusual for other Community Garden members to share their harvest with you.
At last count, there were only a dozen or so plots left, so don't delay. For further information, please contact the Joseph Nelson Community Center at (707) 421-7200 or check out the Community Garden's Facebook page.
- Author: Esther E Blanco
As I start to ponder the complexities of all my thoughts related to gardening, I find myself thinking about vivid memories of childhood gardens long ago, and the need to draw silly analogies from the simplest of tasks in the garden, which seemed to so eloquently parallel lessons taught by everyday life - epiphanies, irony and humility.
It seems to me, that I always want what I can’t have. I desperately pull weeds when they so tenaciously grow without any need for pampering, irrigation, or fertilizer. They even come back when I chop them off and pulled them up -- roots and all. Even, when I am fully convinced that I’ve removed that final pesky weed, I discover the following spring, that it had already carefully spread about 10,000 of its offspring – all now happily sprouting in my yard.
It seems so ironic, my quest to create a perfect garden. I’m convinced that gardens are Mother Nature’s way to humble human beings. To make us realize that we can’t control our lives, we cannot always have things go the way we plan. And in the end, we must learn plan, hope, pray and finally have faith that the sun will shine and garden, like life, will sprout, grow and renew itself again -- weeds and all.
- Author: Jennifer Baumbach
I just wanted to report to you about our Public Plant Exchange we had this past weekend. It was widely publicized, but if you missed attending, here is what you missed.
We have been doing the Public Plant Exchange for a few years now. At first, we just exchanged plants internally amongst the Master Gardeners (MGs). It became so popular with them, they wanted to share with the public.
The MGs love to propagate plants at home. Many are experts at growing plants and love to share. So, they bring in to the exchange any plant, seed, cutting or bulb (including rhizomes, tubers and the like). Knowing there are home gardeners out there who also like to do home propagation, we invite them to share their wares with the MGs. We bring everyone together on one date to share their knowledge and exchange plants. It is a free event we hold in the fall and sometimes the spring.
At our event we also have other items related to home gardening. The MGs bring in their books, gardening tools, pots, and magazines. This year we had a huge assortment!
We hope to plan another plant exchange for the spring, but if you're interested in attending one before then, I know of one happening in Oakland called the Lakeshore Avenue Free Neighborhood Plant Exchange. Here is the information: Saturday, October 15, 2011. 3811 Lakeshor Avenue (easy parking). From 12:00 noon until 4 p.m. For more information visit this site www.plantexchange.wordpress.com.
- Author: Georgia Luiz
In my small collection of hot house treasures resides a shelf of carnivorous beauties. Some generally treat them as novel annuals, but with research I have learned the seasonal rhythms of my little collection. I see that with high day and low night temperatures the Nepenthe have put out their tubby red lipped pitchers, waiting for any nosy bug to come on by and drop in, forever. The various Drosera 'sundews' reach their spatula or tentacled red leaves up towards the summer sun where their tiny hairs glisten with sweet dew drops in the morning and wrap around nomadic gnats in the evening. Standing tall and spotted, Sarrecenia, pitcher plants open their long throats, offering up a trumpet full of digestive juices that smells like honey. In their midst, strange red flowers sprout up, facing downward with the parachuted centers. And, of course, the ubiquitous Dionaea muscipula 'Venus flytrap sits in it's boggy pot with its pointy rows of teeth in a wide open smile waiting to snap shut and lock away a little winged something for noshing on later. The tiny bladderworts masquerading as fiber optic flowers stand as tall as their thready stems will allow.
This has been my spring, summer, and fall show. I know in the winter months the pitchers will dry up as their leaves go dormant, and the fly traps will wither and die down to the ground where they will snooze until the days get longer again. After all, everything in nature needs it's beauty sleep.
- Author: Susan Christiansen
That would be ‘Sungold’ tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) in the Solano Foothills. (What an appropriate choice for our Under the Solano Sun Master Gardener blog.) Nothing tastes better than tomatoes fresh from your garden; however, some tomatoes are better than others. ‘Sungold’ tomatoes are among the most sweet, prolific, and tolerant tomatoes available.
How sweet are they? They have been compared to liquid sun, sugar candy, and gems of golden flavor. Their big fruity flavor makes them great straight from the vine, in salads, and pasta sauces (see recipe below).
The vines get huge, so allow for lots of room and extra tall tomato cages. They are the first to mature and the last to harvest, and although small, the plants produce so many that it is hard to keep up with them.
Requiring full sun, this little orange indeterminate American hybrid is disease-resistant to Fusarum wilt, Verticillum wilt, root knot nematodes, and tobacco mosaic virus. They are so hearty that volunteers easily pop up in your garden. They flourish in the ground, in raised beds, or in containers. Even with late rains, cold, and frost like we have had the last two seasons, ‘sungolds’ keep on producing when other tomatoes get “touchy”.
‘Sungolds” won Great First to Ripon Race of 2011 and third place out of more than one hundred tomatoes at the Morningsun Herb Farm 2010 Tomato Day. Next time you are looking for a tomato to plant, seriously consider this golden nugget.
Sungold Pasta Sauce
1 cup (or more)‘Sungold’ tomatoes cut in half
sea salt and white pepper to taste
1-2 Tbs fresh minced basil
3-4 ears of white corn with kernels removed
2-3 cloves of minced garlic (varies with your taste)
2-3 Tbs. butter
2-3 Tbs. virgin olive oil
1 cp white wine
1 lb sea scallops seared in butter
1 pound fresh pasta cooked no longer than 3 minutes
Parmesan cheese shavings
Sauté garlic in butter and olive oil. Add ‘sungolds’, corn kernels, salt, pepper, basil, and wine. Cook about two minutes. Pour on top of pasta, sea scallops, and cheese. Enjoy.
