After Too Much of a Good Thing

Sunflowers continue to add their brilliant bloom pleasure to the garden.

Rosemary blooms provide bright blue color.

Variegated jade bush adds multicolors.

Pink nerine are the first to bloom along with paperwhites.

Tucking in another cauliflower seedling between baby bok choy.

Several varieties of carrots sprouting for later taste-testing to determine my favorites.

Yellow bulbine succulent continues blooming through November.

Tangelo tree has been producing for some 60+ years.

Orangy-yellow bulbine is distinctly different from the yellow.

Lettuce and chard seedlings along with self-sown breadseed poppies germinated thanks to the gentle-and-constant rain. Another cauliflower seedling is added between two more mature plants that haven't formed their heads yet.

Green Globe perennial artichoke sprouts several new plants from the "mother" root each year for increasing yields. I've found it much better to leave them to develop together, rather than splitting off the outer shoots for transplanting elsewhere.

Single paperwhites.

Double paperwhites.

     Well, we DID wish for more rain – and we got it!  Most of the time earlier this month, I was appreciative of the slow-and-sure, lightly-falling rain that so softly landed and was absorbed by the soil and refreshed the plant foliage.  But some of those downpours were edging on frightening, so loudly did they pound on our home’s roof and overflow the gutters and downspouts. 
     Luckily, after the first deluge melted some of the soil in my downward-slanted pathways onto pavement, I raked some sideways-angled furrows and topped them with some fallen oak tree leaves to redirect and slow the flow and encourage more absorption broadly.  This lasted all the way through the last downpour and remains in place for any more to come.   
     Yesterday, I transplanted several more 6-packs of veggies, including different colors of cauliflower to replace ones I’ve already harvested, a red-leaved celery, more perennial Green Globe artichokes to replace the annual varieties that’d died out, red-leaved tatsoi, and baby bok choy.  I also spread out some lettuce and chard and other seedlings that are finally large enough from seeds I’d sowed in early December and were fostered by the wonderful rains.
 
Some More Tasks As A Result of The Deluge

• Don’t walk too much in your pathways to avoid compacting still-saturated soil.  If you have the choice, wait a couple of days to allow the soil to drain more before working the soil.
• Remove weeds, which of course have also thrived with the rain.  Remove them now while they’re still smallish, before they get too large and even start setting some seed as the temperature warms.
• Lightly fertilize veggies, fruit trees and container plants.  The extended rains will have leached out nutrients, and you want to have more available to plants as the weather warms.  Carefully lightly cultivate the top surface of the soil to enable the fertilizers to be dissolved into the soil with (hopefully) more rains or irrigation.
• Sow more seeds and transplant seedlings, being careful to not compact the soil by pressing soil too much as you firm the plant in; just let the initial watering “melt” the soil around the plant roots.

 
If Frost Threatens

• Frost is more likely on dry, windless, clear nights. However, thanks to the extensive rains, our garden trees and plants are well-watered, which provides greater protection from frost damage. 
• Mini-greenhouses made from clear plastic milk or water jugs with their caps removed and their bottoms cut off will keep chilly winds from affecting the plants. Press the jugs about one-half inch deep into the soil to lessen the chance of the jug being blown away during windy gusts.  Remove the jugs when the foliage begins to crowd inside the jug, or when night temperatures are consistently above 50 degrees.
• If plants are damaged by frost, don't remove any of the dead foliage or branches. Plants may look messy, but these damaged portions will protect sensitive growth further inside the plants from later frosts. Wait to start trimming dead foliage until growth begins again in spring, since you may find that branches which appeared dead are alive and well after all. Plants that have frost damage should not be fertilized till spring growth begins, when more frost is unlikely.

 
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