I’m one of those people who’s always on the lookout for gifts for friends and family, no matter what time of year.  Knowing their individual preferences and passions, I constantly have the excuse to keep my “alert” brain button on whenever I’m out and about.  Of course, the obvious resource is every nursery and garden center and online source you can think of.  You never know where you’ll find a treat that matches a friend’s gardening persona.  This makes any trip to the grocery store or hardware store or even big-box store a broad realm of possibilities and great fun to boot. This also is a treat for you, since this enables you to appreciate every gardening-related item you see, considering who would love to have it.
 
Here are some of the items that I wish someone would have purchased for me when I first began gardening some 60 years ago, so I wouldn’t have had to go through so many inferior-grade tools before figuring out that the quality ones were expensive for a reason – they’d last through my lifetime and perhaps beyond!
 
Hand Gloves with Elasticized Wrists
Over the years, many styles of gloves have become available.  The ones I have come to prefer are of lightweight but sturdy fabric and with elasticized wrists to keep out dirt.  An additional technique in keeping hands clean and not drying out while working is to lavish on hand lotion before inserting your hands into the gloves.  Especially during hot weather, the lotion will combine with your perspiration, providing soothing lubrication and washing up nicely afterwards.
 
Hand Pruners
I prefer Corona’s pruners, and absolutely love my “small hand” type.  Over the years, I’ve tried other brands, but Corona’s fit my hand the best.  Make sure you choose the right size by grasping the open pruners between your thumb and fingers, as if you’re about to clip a twig.  If you can easily close the pruners to make that cut, they’re the correct size.  If your fingers can barely control the other handle, the pruners are too large for your hand.
 
Watering Wand
A great watering aid is the watering wand, which provides full-strength water quantity delivered with delicate force through many tiny holes, and the various lengths and slight bend enable many uses.  
 
Long-Handled Digging Fork
Garden forks are more useful than shovels in accomplishing a lot of work lifting soil with less strain on your back because the soil is loosened and turned in smaller clumps.  The forks are often available in a short 4-heavy-tine version with a 31” handle and a “D” or “split YD” or “T” handle grip.  A better version, I’ve found, is the long-handled 4-heavy-tine style with a 48” handle because the long handle provides much more leverage when digging and lifting, and it requires much less bending.  Do choose the 4-heavy-tine digging/spading fork rather than the 4-thin-tine manure fork or 5-thin-tine hay fork.
 
Decorative Pots
Onto the fun and pretty stuff!  Pots are wonderfully attractive additions to your garden, whether unadorned clay or glazed beauties.  Choose containers that are deeper than wider, to enable plants to fully develop their root systems and consistently supply irrigation water as gravity pulls it down to the bottom of the pot.  You can adapt pots without drainage holes by placing another smaller pot with the plant inside the larger holeless pot.  Fill the space between pots with potting mix for insulation, and tip out the accumulated water frequently. 
 
Reference Books

• The Sunset Western Garden Book: The Ultimate Gardening Guide, Flexibound – 2012 is still the latest and most comprehensive edition
• University of California Master Gardener Handbook -https://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/Details.aspx?itemNo=3382

 
Your Favorite Local Nursery
Full-service nurseries like Armstrong's and Green Thumb and many independently-owned nurseries are excellent in both their knowledgeable staff and the breadth of the plant choices they provide, mostly of varieties that are appropriate for their locales.  They also carry a variety of seeds, cards, pots and fun “garden toys”.
 

​     In ancient Rome, circular wreaths were symbols of victory and celebration.  In 16th century Germany, fir or spruce wreaths were laid flat on a table with a candle lit on the first Sunday of Advent.  Today, the wreath symbolizes continuity and tradition.
     Evergreen boughs brought indoors by Druids were honored as sacred plants that didn't die, and hence that the house would also survive the winter.  Primitive tribes in Europe hung evergreens above their doors during the winter solstice to offer woodland spirits shelter and, they hoped, bring good fortune and health.  Today's garlands continue to brighten our doors and window sills, mantels and tables.
     Creating decorations that include treasures from your garden carry special personal meaning, whether for your own home or as gifts to friends.  Your creation can be as simple as a bunch of favorite herb branches tied with a ribbon, or as complex as a large and intricate wreath embellished with many sentimental items from a person's lifetime.
     Materials can encompass anything you can get your hands on -- from grapevine trimmings off the back fence and herb sprigs from the kitchen garden, to pine cones from an excursion to the foothills, to posies you dried or chili peppers you strung last summer. 
     Looking at "regular" items in a new way can also reveal many opportunities.  Green and red bell peppers add holiday colors to a wreath on the front door.  An oddly-curled overmature Armenian cucumber or long-necked gourd becomes the focus in a table arrangement. A tree ornament becomes special when it's the only one on a wreath hung on a child's door, signifying his or her special place.
     Anything and everything becomes fair game when it comes to decorating.  The essence of creativity is bringing materials together in a new and exciting way -- it's all up to you and your innate cleverness and sense of humor, and “seeing” possibilities in your garden.

     We almost got all the way through August without a heat spell, and then it landed with a vengeance, although nowhere near as bad as we’ve had in the past (remember 113 degrees on July 10, 2018 or 115 degrees on September 6, 2020?).  In the meantime, we had some nice veggies and flowers to delight our tastebuds and flower vases.  I always consider September to be the transition month from summer’s heat to fall and winter’s chill, but since we never know what weather patterns will prevail over the next two months, I prefer to sow and transplant for both seasons. 
     If the weather continues to be summerish, I’ll plant more beans, cucumbers, and squash – although I’ll make a point of choosing varieties that’ll mature fruit in a minimum of days to catch whatever warmth still remains. 
     On the other hand, since I know the weather will ultimately turn chilly, I’ll plant all of my overwintering cool-season crops like beets, bok choy, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, chard, chives, collards, endive, garlic, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, lettuce, green onions, short-day bulb onions (like Grano, Granex, and Walla Walla), parsley (the flat-leaf type is more winter-hardy than the curly one), parsnips, peas, radishes, spinach, and turnips.
     With this technique, regardless of which way the weather actually goes, I’ll have some yummies to harvest from the garden.
     And, in another month, I’ll resow or transplant more of the cool-season veggies with perhaps greater success in their germinating and surviving than now in this hot-hot-hot weather.
      

Our continuing cool July weather provides more opportunities for gardening than is usual for mid-July.  Whereas the “normal” hot summer gardening activities usually concentrate on watering and harvesting, this year we can continue seeding and transplanting more heat-loving vegetables and flowers and vines, as long as the air temperature falls within the range of 65 to 95. 
 
Here are some tips when seeding in soil or a container:

• Best to use for vegetables like beans, cucumbers, and squash.  They will germinate quickly and grow strongly, whereas vegetable transplants will struggle reacclimating after being pampered in a greenhouse.  The exception is tomatoes, which will do fine.
• Incorporate compost into soil to a depth of about six inches and one foot in diameter to aid in absorbing and draining irrigation water.  This benefits all kinds of soils, from sandy (it helps absorption) to clay (it helps drainage).
• Create a planting hole about four inches deep and wide.
• Fill basin with water several times to thoroughly wet soil.
• Tuck seeds about an inch deep around the edges of the hole.
• Water in three times to assure that the entire area of loosened soil is saturated.
• Water every other day for a week, and then once a week while air temperatures are above 80 degrees.
• Place cage or trellis to enable vines to climb and keep their fruit off of the soil.

 
Here are some tips when transplanting into soil or container:

• Best to use for flowers, not vegetables (see above).
• Incorporate compost into soil to a depth of about six inches and one foot in diameter to aid in absorbing and draining irrigation water.  This benefits all kinds of soils, from sandy (it helps absorption) to clay (it helps drainage).
• Create a planting hole about four inches deep and wide.
• Massage the plant’s rootball, loosening established roots so they can easily spread out into the new soil mix.  Cut off any circling roots.  If this is not done, the existing roots may continue circling and ultimately girdle the plant, killing it.
• Place plant into the bottom of the hole and press soil gently around rootball.
• Water in three times to assure that the entire area of loosened soil is saturated.
• Water every other day for a week, and then once a week while air temperatures are above 80 degrees.
• Place cage or trellis to enable vines to climb and keep their fruit off of the soil.

 

​I remember that last Spring’s weather was coolish for a long time, but it seems that this year’s coolness has lasted longer, now that it’s already June. Daytime temperatures are up into the mid 80s, but with night-time temperatures still down in the low 60s, summer veggies like tomatoes and squash have thrived. 

​Dare I suggest that another planting of tomato and pepper transplants and bean, cucumber and squash seeds might be a good idea, betting on the possibility of this coolness extending another couple of weeks or even a month so they can get established before the “real” heat of summer arrives?
 
I’ve enjoyed my first crookneck squash and am waiting for my first ripe Sungold cherry tomato. Been through the peas and continuing to enjoy the lettuce.  Two purple chard plants in day-long sunny spaces sent up their seed stalks to 10 feet before I saved some mature seed and moved the bushes to the compost pile in one-foot chunks.  The other chard, green and white, in a somewhat shady area, is still producing huge but tender leaves.
 
What Tomatoes Need Now

• Tomato plant blossoms are pollinated by breeze, so jostle the foliage every day or so to enable the pollen to transfer thoroughly.  It’s easy to do when you’re tucking new growth back into their cages – you’re doing the moving just like the breeze.
• When blossoming starts, provide plants with another batch of soluble fertilizer.  The amount you provided when first transplanting enabled the plant to establish extensive root systems and upper-plant foliage.  Now that the next stage of production has begun with the blossoms, give plants another feeding that will enable fruit to form and enlarge and ripen.
• Continue watering deeply to enable roots to continue “chasing” the water downward to keep the plant well-supplied even through the very hot weather to come.  Watering shallowly (to only about 4 inches) may have seemed sufficient until this point, but once the heat comes, those shallow roots will bake and be unable to support the plant and its fruit.
• Don’t prune or remove tomato plant foliage.  Our area has dry air and breezes that provide good air circulation to keep diseases from settling on the plants, and our bright sun requires the foliage to protect tomato fruits from sunburn. 

​     After the mildest winter I can remember, and with considerably less rain than we’d like or are used to, we and our gardens are enjoying the lengthening amount of mild spring weather and looking very lush from that last big rain months ago.  Of course, the weeds are thriving as well, but mostly only in the pathways. 
 
Mulching My Pathways
     Last fall, I had had the advantage of helpful neighbors transferring their trees’ leaves to my pathways, so weeds came up earlier this spring only in the places where no leaves had settled.  Now that I’d pulled up those few weeds, I also pulled some too-vigorous one-foot-tall nasturtiums also in the pathways and placed them into the remaining open spaces in the pathways.  This mulching of my pathways will deter further germination of more weeds in coming seasons.  
 
Sowing Old Seeds
     I decided to grow cucumbers again this year, which I hadn’t done for several years because I had another source.  Consequently, my seed packets of some 10 varieties were 5 and more years old.  Because it was mid-March, I figured I’d get some minimal germination so it’d be worth the effort if I sowed seeds very thickly – about 12 seeds in each cage.  Now, a month later, I observed only 2 shoots, so tossed the remaining packets, purchased new seed and sowed about 6 seeds per cage.  With this 80-degree warmth, I expect more success!
     Same situation with my crookneck squash – tried the old seed but switched to new seed with several resulting plants.  I’ll sow more seeds in a month to have continuous harvests of a few squashes every week.  Don’t be disappointed if your first squash blooms shrivel and drop off – they’re probably the male flowers, which appear first.  The female flowers will appear a bit later and get pollinated then, forming their delicious fruits.  Be sure to pick them when they’re immature for best flavor.
 
Sowing Lettuce and Carrots
     With temperatures in the mid-70s to 80s, I’ve sowed what may be my last lettuce seeds and carrot seeds for this spring.  Unless the weather heats up suddenly, I should get a couple of months of salads and carrots before the plants bolt – go to seed.
 
Tomatoes Are Thriving
     Tomatoes are happily putting out foliage and blossoms.  But I’m removing every blossom until the plants reach the second rung of their cages, about 2 feet.  This is to force the plants to continue establishing their strong root systems instead of diverting their energy into making fruits. 
     I’m also making sure to water plants only once a week, both filling the planting holes and the buckets between each plant.  This forces the developing roots to reach down into the soil to follow the cool water, resulting in a deep root system that’ll support the plant when the hot weather comes.  If you water more frequently and shallowly now, the root systems will remain in the upper area of the soil which will get hot when the hot weather comes, and you’ll have to water every other day or so just to keep them alive.
 

      The University of California Master Gardener Program in Los Angeles County provides these resources following the horrendous fires.

I've also posted it under News.

For future reference, go to Web Links under "University of California Resources"


Backyard Produce

Guidance from UCCE’s North Bay Foods System Advisor: 
Is It Safe to Eat Backyard Produce in LA? 

Below are also some helpful handouts and a recording from the UC Master Gardener Program in Sonoma County that will answer questions surrounding backyard produce.  

• Produce Safety after a Fire
• Safety Tips for Local Food Growers During a Wildfire 
• Produce Safety after Urban Wildfire: Final Report

• Post Fire Food Safety Webinar
• Wildfire Impacts on Orchards

 
Soil/Soil Testing

UC Cooperative Extension in Los Angeles County does not perform soil testing, but the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has included a list of companies who perform soil testing on page 15 - 16 of their publication, Soil and Water Testing Guidelines for Home and Community Gardens.
 
Be sure to contact the soil testing company first, prior to visiting or shipping a soil sample, since you need to be sure that they test for the items you are concerned about. Also, your soil samples need to be taken according to their specifications to get the most accurate results.

• Safe Soils After Fires

• Contaminants in Soil After Fire
• Hold Your Ground: Mitigating the Effects of Fire on Your Soil

Other Topics

• Safety of Backyard Chicken Eggs Post Urban Wildfire
• Wildfires and Backyard Poultry Safety
• Sonoma County Fires Site Clearance & Testing
•  Human-Wildlife Interactions Post Fire

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     Great Winds followed by Great Fires.  What a tragic start to the new year!  Friends have lost their homes and are feeling estranged from all they'd considered to be their regular everyday life.  Even those of us who didn't have to evacuate are permanently anxious and alarmed at the merest mention of Red Flag Alert and lack of rain.  Folks in "Impacted Areas" must rely on bottled water for all uses.  Gardeners are wondering whether they can eat the produce in their gardens, washed with bottled water or not.  We used to think of ash as somewhat of a fertilizer -- as in that third number on the fertilizer packages which indicated "potash".  Now our cars, inside and outside, are sprinkled with the white-and-black flecks.  And walking outdoors anywhere stirs up clouds of the lightweight stuff.  Wear N-95 masks, and don't even think of sweeping it up!  Even picking up branches stirs it up. 

     What to do?  How to deal with the garden?

     The University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener Program in Los Angeles County has provided an article, "Produce Safety After A Fire",  that has some suggestions.  It was produced by the  Sonoma County Master Gardener Program as a result of that county's own past mega fires.  I've posted it on the "News" page of my website =                    www.gardeninginla.net/news.html .

     As more information becomes available, I'll post it on my website's "News" page.

     In the meantime, do please enjoy the blooming and colorful plant that you observe, but don't breathe too deeply through your mask!

​

Happy, successful gardening is more likely when some major tenets are followed.  Here are some for you to apply.
 
Feed the Soil, not the plant
Create a broad soil base so plant roots can access rich soil wherever they choose to grow. Amend whole areas or containers.
 
Right plant, right place
Match plant needs with your garden spaces that will enable them to thrive.  Struggling plants are susceptible to pests and diseases.
 
Keep sowing and transplanting
With attention to differing variety choices, our mild weather throughout the year affords us to repeat sowing and transplanting for consecutive harvesting of edibles and ornamentals.
 
Space plants closely
Be aware of each plant’s mature spread, and plant so individual plant’s foliage will barely touch.  This enables shading of the soil to discourage sprouting weeds.
 
Choose appropriate watering tools
Match watering devices and plants so soil areas are moistened so plant roots can be satiated wherever they grow.
 
Water deeply
Be aware of differing plants’ root depths and water as deeply as each plant roots will grow.  Water only as frequently as needed to keep soil barely moist. 
 
Visit plants frequently
Monitoring how your garden grows enables you to catch and treat problems early, and to harvest at many stages to determine which timings you like the best.
 
 

NOTE:  My newsletter of individual-subject emails highlighting new postings on my website is on hiatus.  However, I'm continuing to update postings on the website, especially on the Events, Jobs, and News pages. So please do check in perhaps weekly for the newest items on those pages.  Refer to the Monthly Tips for what tasks and opportunities to explore in the garden.  See Major-Topic Blog Articles links in the column to the right.  And see the Archives on the Blog page for all past garden musings.  



I hope you enjoy these timely photos!

                              HAPPY HOLIDAYS!



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