July 9, 2021 by Born To Organize

An Instrument of Grace

We’re heading into another heatwave, though nothing as brutal as the recent Pacific Northwest. Gardening takes place in the morning, then after dinner till sunset.

The gladiolas are multiplying. They’re short-lived but spectacular.

Yesterday, I enjoyed a rare, unscheduled day, and I spent a good portion of it in the garden. I made an early trip to a garden center and hauled home eight bags of garden mulch. It helps retain moisture, and with drought conditions, we need to preserve every drop. I harvested some on our compost mulch as well. I’ll share more about that endeavor in a future post.

San Jose Water Company’s directive asks us to cut back lawn watering to two days a week. We replaced our lawn with native plants several years ago during the last major drought, so we’re now able to water with an efficient drip system just one day a week. Last week we checked the level of our rainwater tanks, and they’re at about 75% capacity.

One of three rainwater tanks and the filled watering bag, zipped across the top with an opening to pour

How bad is it? Our semi-arid climate averages 15 inches per year. This past season we got just over five inches.

It’s shameful to admit that when I’m in a rush (or if I choose to use that as an excuse), I go the lazy route and fill my watering cans from the hose bib at the front of the house. However, I recently bought a nifty watering bag to make it easier to transport water from the tanks in the back, side yard, then carry through the house to the deck to water the succulents.

Succulents along the front of the deck (and a fairy teahouse made from a birdhouse gourd)

The sweetpeas don’t last past June in San Jose. It’s just too hot. So I let them go to seed and then pull them out, assuring a healthy crop next year.

The California poppies, nigella, and cornflowers went to seed as well, leaving some bare patches in their wake.

Last week I bought white verbena and five gorgeous Russian sage to fill the spot. They’re both drought tolerant. Since the in-ground drip system is in place, these plants won’t consume additional resources. I stopped buying summer annuals during the last drought, filling pots with succulents instead. Succulents get by on minimal water and prefer to dry out between watering unlike most plants.

Front garden viewed from street: Verbena, foreground and purple Russian sage

We’ve had success with two of our four tomato plants. One of the two plants in the EarthBox died almost immediately, but the second one thrived. It’s producing gorgeous cherry tomatoes daily.

The two tomatoes in the VegTrug are healthy, but the cherry tomato plant is the star. The basil is coming along nicely, so we’ll soon be enjoying that in our salads as well.

Cherry tomatoes and herbs in the VegTrug

May Sarton’s quote captures some of the essences of gardening. I’m more at peace after a day spent among the plants.

“Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.” May Sarton

February 4, 2015 by Born To Organize

Waking up to Paperwhites

Paperwhites in the morning. Better than an alarm clock

A few of the paperwhite bulbs I planted indoors are in bloom, and they are fragrant beyond belief. It was the first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes this morning. Just one of the bulbs in our bedroom has flowered so far, but the intoxicating scent fills the room. I can see a few buds on the other plants, so I’m in for a sensory treat later in the week.

paperwhite showing roots 2-4-2015 4-09-10 PM

Closeup view of Narcissus Paperwhite roots

Note: I carried the vase outside for better light

Out in the kitchen, the scent greeted me again. If I were a bird or a bee, the message would be clear: I’m irresistible! That’s why my Latin name is Narcissus.

paperwhite in pink chick 2-4-2015 4-05-55 PM

Paperwhite and chick

The single bloom in my little pink planter makes me giggle. It seems improbable that the long, lean stem could remain upright, but so far, so good.

I will definitely be planting more of these indoors in the future. It’s been a splendid treat.

How about you? Do you ever grow bulbs indoors?

July 24, 2014 by Born To Organize

Heirloom Tomatoes: My Garden Darlings

If you’ve been following along, you know that I didn’t plant a single tomato plant this year. Hard to believe, eh?

Self-seeded or Volunteer Tomatoes

Last year my friend Doug gave me several varieties of Baker Creek Heirloom tomato seeds. I planted them in my City Picker but they were slow to grow. I hedged my bets with an organic nursery plant and finished off the summer with tomatoes to spare.

This year the heirloom tomatoes self-seeded one box over. Further, a variety of tiny cherry tomatoes flourished out of the bottom of the rotating compost bin. Two additional plants showed up in the gravel walkway, a larger cherry tomato and another heirloom. What a bounty!

April 9, 2014

Tiny Cherry Tomatoes

Mini cherry tomatoes

Since a speck of a tomato seed managed to sprout through a crack in the rotating composter, I felt compelled to let it grow. I staked the plant when it showed signs of surviving the season, and eventually it produced small, bright red fruit, just like you see in the grocery store. Of course the problem with most tomatoes from the store isn’t the appearance but the taste. These tiny tomatoes are flavorless. What a disappointment.

Cherry Tomatoes: The Sequel

More cherry tomatoes

At the back of the garden, leaning up against the house, is another volunteer. This one produced larger cherry tomatoes, also a brilliant red. They’re a bit sweeter than the tiny cherry, but again bred for appearance and not flavor.

Baker Heirloom Tomatoes

Heirloom Tomatoes

Tomato gold! These are the sweetest, juiciest and most prolific tomatoes in the garden. Honestly, there is no turning back once you’ve tasted them. What luck to have an entire crop of these delicious fruits. I sliced open several today for seed saving, but plan to do all my vegetable seed purchasing from them in the future. In case you’re interested, check out Rare Seeds Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

From there About page:

The family works extensively to supply free seeds to many of the world’s poorest countries, as well as here at home in school gardens and other educational projects. It is their goal to educate everyone about a better, safer food supply and fight gene-altered, Frankenfood and the companies that support it.

You can also follow them on Facebook.

What to do with all those tomatoes:

Vegan kabobs for the 4th of July

Made with tomatoes, onions, red peppers and vegan Field Roast ‘sausages‘.

Fresh basil and tomatoes.

Eat them straight from the bowl.

Freeze them, then turn them into salsa

Sarah the Gardener taught me that not only can you freeze tomatoes, but that the skin falls off of them when they’re thawed. Mike made several batches of tasty salsa. Here’s a similar recipe.

And of course share with anyone who’s interested.

How do you like your tomatoes?

Tomato, basil mozzarella salad

July 17, 2014 by Born To Organize

Smiling Sunflowers

Incoming bee

Okay, technically sunflowers don’t smile. The effect is pretty much the same, though. When I look out my window they’re waving in the breeze, nodding their sunny flower heads and vibrating with bees. Maybe I’m the one smiling, but either way it’s contagious.

Bees move between the sunflowers and the pumpkin vines

The tallest of the sunflowers is my height: 5’10” or 177 cm. It was the first on the scene. I planted a variety of sunflowers this year, so each one is a bit different. One of the flowers just reaches my knee.

Brothers and sisters

Knee high sunflower

Yesterday I gently untangled a few overzealous pumpkin vines, redirecting them back towards the deck. As soon as the sunflowers go to seed, they’ll be overrun by squirrels. I don’t want my furry visitors trampling the pumpkins in their quest. Sunflower stems are sturdy enough to support the heavy seeds. They are not, however meant to withstand the added weight of a squirrel running up and down at snack time.

A little history:

Sunflower (Helianthus annus) is an annual plant native to the Americas. It possesses a large inflorescence (flowering head). The sunflower is named after its huge, fiery blooms, whose shape and image is often used to depict the sun. It has a rough, hairy stem, broad, coarsely toothed, rough leaves and circular heads of flowers. The heads consist of many individual flowers which mature into seeds, often in the hundreds, on a receptacle base. From the Americas, sunflower seeds were brought to Europe in the 16th century, where, along with sunflower oil, they became a widespread cooking ingredient. Leaves of the sunflower can be used as cattle feed, while the stems contain a fibre which may be used in paper production. – Wikipedia

Sunflower bud, about a week before it bloomed

Ready to meet the world

Bronze-centered flower

Here’s a story that will leave you smiling like a sunflower:

The Fukushima Sunflower project is now following the lead of Chernobyl, and fields of sunflowers are bursting into bloom across this contaminated area of Japan. Volunteers, farmers, and officials planted the flowers so that they can absorb the radiation that leaked into the soil from the region’s damaged nuclear power plant. There are concerns that the contamination is mainly in the topsoil and that the roots of the flowers are too deep to absorb it. Time will tell whether this project will be a success.

Officials are hoping that the local economy will benefit as much from the project as the environment. They are hoping tourists will come back to the region to admire the sunflower fields. Due to this magnificent flower’s ability to assist in getting rid of nuclear waste, it has become the international symbol of nuclear disarmament.

I’m smiling. How about you?

Sunflowers along the deck

July 15, 2014 by Born To Organize

Pumpkin’s Progress: Growing Like a Weed

Pumpkins grow like weeds. That’s a good thing. Within days of planting, flat, white seeds crack under the warm soil and sprout. Cotyledons give way to true leaves and off they go. Leaves and stems shoot up so quickly that if you stood still awhile, I’m sure you could see them grow. I’m a fan of every stage.

The size of the leaf is a good indicator of the size of the fruit to come.True leaves are prickly and so are the stems, which are hollow. They remind me of large, green drinking straws. Stems and leaves lead you to think you have a small shrub on your hands, but then strong, curling tendrils appear and the plant takes off down the garden path, up the trellis and around the bend.

A decade ago, before we knew a thing about growing pumpkins, a self-seeded vine grew across the path, into a garden bench, and out the other side. It eventually set fruit, a lovely, heart-shaped pumpkin that hung from the garden bench door. We left the door open the rest of the season, delighted at the rambling pattern and the speed at which it grew. My boys were 3 and 6 that year, so you can imagine the daily joy of discovery. We headed out back in those early fall days to see what those pumpkins were up to.

It’s been such a pleasure growing this year’s crop in EarthBoxes™. They’re right outside my kitchen window, so I see them several times a day. We sit on the deck in the evenings and on weekends, and now feel like we have a ‘fourth wall’ on deck. The pumpkins and sunflowers together formed a beautiful screen.

Here’s a look at their progress since early May.

May 3, 2014

My stenciled EarthBoxes™ planted with three types of seeds: an assortment of saved seeds from last year (the mystery box) along with Botanical Interests ‘Jack-o’-lanterns’ and ‘Luminas’.

May 11, 2014

Hearty seedlings in just one week.

May 30, 2014

About thirty days in, and look at them grow. You can see the start of the sunflowers near the lawn, also started from seed. I’ll write more about them later this week.

June 13, 2014

I added trellises to allow the vines to grow up as well as out. The birds land there, before diving in to the sunflower leaves. Why won’t they eat the squash bugs instead?

June 30, 2014

Golden flowers attract bees and wasps. I love spending time out there in the morning before the heat descends. It’s a challenge photographing the bees. They move in and out of the flowers with speed and efficiency. I still try though. I have about 75 blurred photos, but I refuse to give up.

July 4, 2014

The vines got a bit of window dressing for Independence Day. They’re beautiful on their own, but a little red, white and blue called attention to their magnificence. They’re wilting in the heat in this picture, but a long drink after dusk set things right.

At the risk of stating the obvious, I love growing pumpkins. Thank you for following along with my gardening obsession.

July 9, 2014 by Born To Organize

For the Love of Pumpkins

I love my pumpkins. After a good night’s rest I’ve decided that I won’t take it lying down.

Their demise that is.

In case you missed yesterday’s post, my nemesis the squash bug recently moved in. You can catch up here.

Female flower at the ready as a bee swoops in

Actually I did take one thing lying down: pictures. How else would I get a shot of the underside of the leaf and the attached eggs?

Squash bug eggs on the underside of a pumpkin leaf

Leaves, tendrils, flowers and…more eggs

In a word, yuck!

I laid flat on my back and took photos looking up. Fortunately, no one walked by at the time or they surely would have called the paramedics. Amazingly, I managed to get back up, then spent the better part of an hour looking at the underside of every leaf on the pumpkin vines.

That scrutiny lead to another discovery: eggs on some of the pumpkin plant stems. In the end I’d scooped several adult bugs into my dry bucket, along with infested leaves and stems. I removed dead or browning leaves as well as spent flowers, making it easier to detect the adult bugs They were happy to crawl on my glove and from there they went into a bucket. I dumped the infested leaves and bugs into the curb side green waste site, and within an hour the ‘green monster’ came by and scooped the entire pile into the back of the truck. This was another tip from one of the sites: rip them out and compost them.

Infested stems and leaves

The lovely Pauline at The Contented Crafter looked up companion plantings for me, something I hadn’t thought of nor come across in my reading. Ah, the web is vast indeed. There is enough room in the boxes for additional plantings so I’ll give it a try. Nasturtiums unfortunately need opposing growing conditions, but dill might work. I’m going to look for some at the garden center.

It’s unlikely that I removed all the eggs this morning. I’m pretty sure others still lurk on the vine. With daily checks, however, I hope to slow them down and possibly keep them at bay.

Stay tuned.

Trailing the deck

June 3, 2014 by Born To Organize

Mystery Solved: Love-in-a-mist

Pauline noted that ‘every garden needs a bit of mystery’ but for now I’m happy to have this one solved. I posted this photo last week, and asked for help identifying it. Extensive Google searches were no help.

Mystery flower

Three cheers for my blogging community! Cathy of Words and Herbs thought it might be ‘Nigella.’ Anne of Anne Lawson suggested ‘love-in-a-mist.’ They’re both right.

These wonderful, self seeded flowers are Nigella damascena – Love-in-a-Mist. Thank you both.

Nigella damascena in bloom and going to seed

Buds and Blooms

California Avocado Cupcakes

Over the weekend I sampled a delicious avocado cupcake at Sunset Celebration Weekend. I meant to share it with you yesterday. The cupcake and the frosting both contain avocados as a healthy fat alternative. You can download the recipe at the California Avocado Commission. Please let me know if you give them a try.

April 11, 2014 by Born To Organize

Screen Saver, Garden Style

If you’re looking for a screen saver for your tablet or PC, I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong post. If you’re a bit of a klutz like me, however, this post is for you.

I’ve walked into our screen door on more than one occasion, with the full force of my being. I’m always completely stunned each time, as if it’s never happened before. Last summer my son’s friend hit the screen with such force that it tore out of its frame. I felt ever so slightly vindicated. His friend wasn’t hurt of course, and they both laughed it off, but our screen has taken a real beating. We’ve had to replace it at least twice in the past several years, and didn’t even bother to repair the current one when the lower corner came loose. The cats immediately claimed it as their own.

After the most recent screen crash, my husband applied a strip of black electrical tape at eye level and called it a day. Though lacking in aesthetics, it was a brilliant idea. It worked.

I’ve tried attaching clever little pins in the past or stickers from my stash, but they never stay put. Then I found these:

Magnetic Screen Savers

They’re mirrored magnets. You place one on the inside of the screen and attach the mirrored magnet to the outside. I think they’re fun in a kitschy sort of way and they get the job done.

Problem solved: screen saver, garden style.**

**Disclaimer: they don’t work when you have a cat snoozing across the door’s threshold. =^..^=

Have you every walked through a screen door? You can tell me. I promise not to share it with anyone other than the internet.

April 10, 2014 by Born To Organize

It’s all in the Timing

Great cooks make it look easy. They pull together a variety of dishes and manage to have everything on the table at the same time. It’s all in the timing.

For three years now, I’ve tried to plant the tomatoes and basil so that they’re ready to go at the same time as well. I love caprese salad, and the novelty of growing two of the three main ingredients is fun.

Here’s one of our salads from last summer.

Caprese Salad

In prior years, the basil took off, and the tomatoes took a long time to catch up. This year all the tomatoes self seeded in late winter, sending me scrambling for basil. I purchased a small plant from the nursery, and planted it near the volunteer potato. It was about the same size as the tomatoes when it went into the ground, so I patted myself on the back and figured a job well done.

Ha!

Scene of the crime

Something devoured my plant! I’m not naming names or anything, but their initials are ‘S’ and ‘S’. Those slippery, slimy garden pests noshed my lovely plant down to the nubs. Boo!

Now here we are three weeks into spring, the tomatoes are taking off and the basil is…well…gone.

Once upon a time I was a Basil plant

I was chatting with my friend Kirra today and she mentioned planting her basil by mistake too close to the tomatoes. Then it hit me. Last year I planted the basil and the tomato side by side without any problems. Since tomato leaves are poisonous, I wonder if the proximity kept the S’s away? It’s worth a try.

Just before hitting the publish key, I searched the term ‘tomato companion planting’ and you’ll never guess what came up: basil! Last summer was a happy accident. So I’ll be headed to the nursery for another small plant, and now I know exactly where it should go.

Hearty Tomatoes

Do you have a favorite summer salad?

Simple Caprese Salad

Companion Planting Tomatoes

April 9, 2014 by Born To Organize

The Fruits of My Labor

Developing Plums

Gardens, like children, need nurturing to grow. Genetics certainly plays a role. Environment is significant too. A little TLC, however, goes a long way to ensure a happy, healthy garden. Today, I’m enjoying the fruits of my labor, literally and metaphorically.

This is the break-out year for our four-in-one fruit tree. We bought the grafted, stone-fruit tree as a gift for my son’s 10th birthday. I researched the guidelines for pruning the tree, and received additional tips from my nurseryman friend, Doug. Following that advice, I pruned the branches by 40-50% every year for the first three years. It seemed drastic to my young son who was pretty upset with me even though I was able to show him the research. One of the four grafts died, and I’ve never heard the end of it.

Where was I…oh yes, the fruits of my labor. Well guess what? This is year four and the tree is now covered in fruit. There is more fruit than we’ve had in the first three years combined.

Blushing fruit in the dappled sun

Branches laden with fruit

Last year’s small bounty disappeared overnight. This year we have so much fruit that the rats and squirrels have only made a small foraging dent. We might actually be eating peaches, plums and nectarines this summer. Oh happy days!

Do you have a favorite fruit?