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.

 
For more monthly tasks, see at January and February.

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     As a Pasadena Girl, the Pasadena Rose Parade has always had a special place in my end-of-the-year festivities, joyfully leading us into the new year.  As a little girl, the scale of the floats amazed me.  As a mid-teen, I was fascinated with the Clydesdales and all of the equine groups.  In high school, a group of us seniors partied as we pasted billions of flower heads and seed bits onto floats in the freezing cold, finally finishing at 4am and blearily traipsed to a nearby home to crash on the floor for a 2-hour nap before returning to the parade route to cheer “our” float as it glided by in all its glory. Years of slumber-partyishly “sleeping” on the sidewalks later evolved into 7:30am alarm clocks in our own beds and watching the show on TV with a cup of tea – then visiting the floats the next day parked in East Pasadena to marvel at the tremendous variety of plant matter utilized to cover every surface.  Then, as a gardener, I’ve never thought of oranges and artichokes and seeds the same since they were used to portray dinosaur skin on one year’s float. 
     This year’s floats had their own botanical delights – snails starred, bees buzzed, and monarch butterflies flitted down Colorado Boulevard.

First-of-the-year 
     One first-of-the-year activity that I love is checking out and fantasizing about the seed catalogs – in years past, they were the color picture books retrieved from the mailbox; now they’re online in all their glory.  Of course, there are items that I don’t even think about, my usual choices.  But I always make a point of choosing several items I’ve never grown before, just for the adventure of it all.  Sometimes these newbies do end up on my Must Grow list.  See Yvonne's Favorite Seed Catalogs - scoll down to below "Yvonne's Web Appearances."

     Another first-of-the-year activity that I love doing is reviewing what plants I’d sowed or transplanted when and how they did, what plants I’d lost and surmised why and whether to repeat the effort, and generally some activities I’d like to pursue for the upcoming seasons.  This time around, I have two areas I’d like to expand upon:
 
Plant More Flower Bulbs
For the last several years, I’ve been exploring the world of bulbs, mostly because I can depend on them to come up repeatedly each year despite increased heat and lessened water, but also because I don’t have to do anything more with them – they multiply in place and then several years down the road I dig up the clumps and spread them throughout my garden and give them to gardening friends.  I’ve even had success (at least for a couple of years) with bulbs that are categorized as being not quite suitable for my Zone 9b (Sunset 19) garden.
 
Plant More Salvias
Years ago, I’d planted about a dozen different Salvias. Some died immediately (understandingly, the ones that preferred moist soil and shade, which aren't plentiful in my garden), and others kind of slowly diminished in strength, but the majority thrived.  Ever since, I’ve made a point of planting more varieties and been thoroughly impressed with their growth filling in areas of the garden with their attractive foliage and colors. And they're great resources for pollinators!
 
For more monthly tips, see January
 
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