January 21, 2013 by Born To Organize

Sweet Alyssum: Growing a Namesake

Alys Milner (Lancaster)

Sweet alyssum is easy to grow. True to its name, it has a light honey-scent, with tiny white flowers that grow close to the ground.It’s intoxicating.

Alyssum is an annual, starting small, then spreading a foot in diameter by late summer. When I want it to grow in a certain spot, I’ll buy a six-cell pack. It easily self-seeds, so I often scatter the spent flowers around the garden in the fall, then enjoy what comes up and where the following year.

As I was plucking weeds in the side yard this week, I noticed at least two dozen alyssum seedlings. I’m sure I pulled out one or two in my zeal to rid the dirt of pesky weeds before I realized what they were. I made a hasty retreat.

My garden is not complete without Sweet alyssum and here’s why:

I’m named after my father’s sister, Alys, a fashion mannequin in the 1920s.
My father was an English horticulturist.
My former boss called me ‘Sweet Alys’

What better flower to honor my father and aunt than ‘Sweet alyssum.’

Sweet Alyssum

What’s in a name:

The spelling of Alys dates back to the 1600s. In Welsh the name means ‘of the nobility.’
Sweet Alyssum (Lobularia maritima) originated in Greece.

January 20, 2013 by Born To Organize

Only Eight Weeks Left!

Can you believe it? The first day of spring is just eight weeks from today.¹ Are you ready?

Of course spring arrives whether we’re ready or not, but if you’re planning a garden it’s nice to be prepared. If you’ve been gardening for a while, you’ll have learned plenty of lessons from past seasons. I sure have. In my experience, no two years are alike. Once you’ve sorted out soil, amendments and irrigation, you can start planning the fun stuff.

Cosmos

A garden can encompass an acre plot or a few pots in a sunny corner of a patio or deck. I’ve figured out ways to garden most of my life, regardless of circumstance. I once planted corn in a skinny strip of dirt next to an otherwise barren lot in a rented house. I’ve grown herbs in a sheltered porch. Many years ago, single and renting a small space, my mom gave me a hundred dollars for my birthday. I used it to buy several bags of soil and some seeds and created a flower garden outside my front door. My neighbors enjoyed it too. The best gardens are shared.

Sunflower

A sunny kitchen window or a humid bathroom counter are great indoor garden spots. You needn’t have a lot of money to start your own. Ask friends for seeds and cuttings. Many plants need dividing every few years. Ask your friends if you can help them divide plants, then take home some of the splits. It’s another opportunity to bring plants into your domain. Check out Freecyle in your community, and post wanted ads for old tools, pots, and the like. My neighbor planted tomatoes in an old cat litter container. Let your imagination be your guide.

Are you planning a garden this year? What will you grow?

Tomato and Basil

¹I’m writing from the Northern Hemisphere. If you live south of the equator, of course, fall days are just around the corner.

January 19, 2013 by Born To Organize

Garden Guffaw: Plotting Tomatoes

Heirloom Tomato Seeds

I walked the garden with my husband this morning as we made summer plans. We’re enjoying a warm, sunny day with highs climbing into the seventies. I wish you could be here along with me, especially those of you snowed in.

In order to maximize the planting boxes, we’ve agreed on a place to relocate the raspberry vines. I’m always angling for more planting space out back, so I’m pretty excited.

This year I’m planting all of my tomatoes in the City Pickers. They worked great last year. The ability to move them around as other garden plants grow larger is a boon. It feels great putting a plan in place.

My sister sent me the following funny story a few years ago, about planting tomatoes. It always makes me smile. I don’t know the origins, so I’ll extend thanks to the universe and the anonymous writer of this tongue in cheek tale. Enjoy!

Plotting Tomatoes:

An older gentleman living alone in New Jersey looked forward to planting his annual tomato garden, but it was very difficult work. The ground was simply too hard. His only son Vincent would usually help him but he was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son describing his predicament.

Dear Vincent,

It looks like I won’t be able to plant my tomato garden this year. I’m just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. I know if you were here my troubles would be over. I know you would be happy to dig it for me, like in the old days. I’m feeling a little sad. I hope you are well.

Love, Papa

A few days later he received a letter from his son.

Dear Papa,

Don’t dig up that garden. That’s where the bodies are buried.

Love, Vinnie

At 4 a.m. the next morning, FBI agents and local police arrived and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies. They apologized to the old man and left. That same day the old man received another letter from his son.

Dear Papa,

Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That’s the best I could do under the circumstances.

Love you, Vinnie

I hope you’re smiling, too.

Growing Tomatoes

Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown

January 13, 2013 by Born To Organize

The Lone Radish

Look, Ma! I grew a radish!

No thanks to the kitties of the house, my first attempt at a winter crop failed miserably. I didn’t cover the box in time, so they all assumed it was a nice, big, fresh litter box. They were mistaken.

By the time I realized what was going on, I had to start over. Feline waste and vegetables are not a good mix. Rabbits, cows or any other herbivorous animal, yes. Carnivores, no.

So, back to the garden center for me. Since time marched on, I went with cell packs instead of seeds the second time and limited the crop to cauliflower and broccoli. Once planted, I surrounded the boxes with heavy-duty wire to discourage cats and squirrels alike. It worked!

Imagine my surprise this week when a vibrant red radish appeared at the soil line. One seed survived (two if you count its tiny neighbor). We have a crisp and peppery addition to our next salad.

Survival of the Fittest

January 9, 2013 by Born To Organize

Garden Calendar Lives Another Day

Have you hung up your 2013 wall calendar? Do you love a new calendar as much as I do?

My sister gave me The Old Farmer’s Almanac Gardening Calendar this year. It’s always been one of my favorites. The pages are beautifully illustrated with helpful notations and interesting quotes. Here’s one:

Benjamin Franklin introduced kohlrabi to colonial America.The vegetable’s German name originated from the Italian words cavolo rapa, meaning “cabbage turnip.”

You learn something new every day! ;-)

It’s fun turning over a new page to a new month and a fresh beginning. Conversely, I removed my 2012 gardening calendar with great anticipation. In the past few years I’ve been re-purposing the beautifully designed pages into envelopes and stickers, tags and the odd bookmark.

This year I’ve challenged myself to use all of last year’s garden calendar in new and different ways. Here’s what I’ve been up to:

Gift Card Holder

This design simply evolved based on the pattern of the flower. The gift card holder folds into thirds and is held in place by a sleeve. When the sleeve is in place, the butterfly keeps the top flap from opening.

Gift Card Holder (cutaway with sleeve)

Gift Card Holder (closed)

Desk Top Organizer

I’ve always loved little boxes, and this one is no exception. It arrived with some unexpected treasures from a dear friend. Rather than pack it away with the Christmas gear, I covered the box with four different calendar pages. I used the stiffer cardstock from the front of the calendar to make a pair of dividers. Now I can easily get my hands on what I need.

Christmas gift box from a dear friend

Desk Top Organizer

Dividers

Box Lining

Napkin Rings

Once folded in half and glued together, the pages are quite sturdy. I cut them into strips, formed a ring, and stitched them together with a scrap of raffia. Now I’m all set for Thanksgiving.

Napkin Rings (8 for next fall)

Envelopes, gift tags and stickers

Assorted gift tags and stickers

Envelope

Wine Tag

Postcards from the Edge

I used the only bit of white from the calendar to create a writing space. The reverse side of the postcard has a quote.

Two-sided postcard (back side has quotation)

Bunting

For the Fairy Garden…of course. :-)

Drawer Liners and a Poster

Drawer Liners (My husband swears we need all these remotes)

Poster (back of guest bath door)

Check this out:

Katherine at Pillows a-la-Mode likes to re-fashion or re-purpose clothing in a similar fashion. She held a contest a few months back. The lucky winner mailed her a beautiful embroidered jacket (that not longer fit), and Katherine turned it into a tote bag, a tissue holder, a pillow and more. You can check out the contest winner and lots of other fun ideas at Pillows a-la-Mode.

January 6, 2013 by Born To Organize

Mercury News Garden Calendar: An Annual Tradition

Our local paper publishes a garden calendar every January. The 2013 version arrived with Saturday’s paper. The calendar is a single page, always beautifully illustrated, with general gardening guidelines arranged by month.

I hang the calendar on the back of the garage door and refer to it throughout the year. It doesn’t hold any special advice or information that I couldn’t easily find online, but I hang it up anyway and check in to be sure I’m on track.

I used to be a haphazard gardener. My intentions were good, but also easily derailed when my boys were young. Months would pass before I checked in with the calendar again, but I hung it up just the same.

In this era of declining print, I wonder how long ‘the papers’ will stay in business? Though I enjoy the immediacy of the internet and the incredible access to information, I still enjoy the feel of a newspaper. It’s fun looking forward to the yearly calendar. We check the local section for “spare the air” days and my boys check the weather. Yesterday’s news is great for catching debris when you re-pot a plant. You can even add it to your compost pile.

Of course newsprint comes from lumbar, so less paper means more trees. I can certainly get behind that. Change is both good and inevitable, but as annual rituals go, I’ll be sorry if and when this one is gone.

For a closer look at the San Jose Mercury news Garden Calendar (available, of course, online) follow this link. Illustrations by Dave Johnson.

January 5, 2013 by Born To Organize

A Little of This and That

Guess what?

I was out on the deck taking pictures when a bright yellow flower caught me eye. There aren’t any yellow flowers growing this time of year, so it really took me by surprise. Then I realized little visitors stopped by the fairy garden. What a nice surprise.

If you are reading this post and you know who the fairies are, please be sure to extend my thanks. It was such a treat to find those flowers. I spotted a tiny mum tucked in as well and a few greens. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart!!!

Flower Surprise

Pumpkin Countdown

Last summer we grew several pumpkins. Four of them were over 40 pounds. My husband carved one, but they were really thick and not well-suited for ‘Jacks. We lined the wall of our garden pathway with the remaining pumpkins, and they’ve weathered the months beautifully. Twice in recent weeks, someone came to the door and asked if they could take one for cooking. We happily obliged, with a warning to please lift carefully. We now have one large pumpkin sitting on the wall, with a smaller, autographed one nearby. That one is just now starting to soften and will probably be headed to the compost bin in another week. We’ll be down to one ‘little’ pumpkin, sitting on a wall. :-)

Two ‘little’ pumpkins, sitting on a wall

Avoiding the Scale

I know what you’re thinking. It’s January and I can’t hide from the scale forever. Time to put away the treats and face the music. All true.

I’m avoiding the scale that remains on the now-dormant Magnolia. Honestly, it creeps me out. We had quite the infestation last summer. We did a bit of research and got down to business. I ordered beneficial insect larvae. While waiting for them to arrive, I heavily pruned the tree. The inner crown was far worse, so I removed as many of those branches as I could. Left unchecked, scale can kill a tree.

Magnolia infested with scale

Now that the Magnolia is dormant, it’s easy to see what remains. I need to scrape the scale into a bucket, before it takes hold again.

To think I thought putting away the chocolate was hard.

January 2, 2013 by Born To Organize

San Jose Frost: The Garden Goes Under Cover

Galileo Thermometer, Out in the Cold

The temps were mighty chilly last night, the coldest we’ve seen this season. Yesterday’s low was 37 degrees F (2.7 C), though still ten degrees warmer than our city’s record low . Though we have overnight lows hovering around freezing, it generally warms up with the rising sun. Today, we still had frost on the grass at 10 am. Parts of our deck had a thin layer of ice. Good thing I noticed the ice before slipping across the deck and landing on my keister. It made for a better day.

My husband took his Galileo Thermometer outside so he could enjoy the novelty of the visual changes, though it doesn’t measure lower than 62 F (16 C).

Icy paw prints

It’s interesting to note the micro-climates in one’s garden. Though both the front and back gardens receive morning sun, the front garden took much longer to thaw.

Crisp, frosty leaves

I’m still holding out hope that the coleus survive the season, but the more reading I do, the more it seems unlikely. Never one to give up hope, they’re bundled against the chill in a blanket of frost cloth.

There are differing opinions on the benefits of frost cloth. Some of my reading suggests heavy watering to reduce a freeze. Others recommend strings of holiday lights to increase the temps by a degree or two. Since I have the frost cloth, I figured it couldn’t hurt. I’ve been watering as well when the rain stops for a day or two. I’ll have the definitive answer come spring.

Frost cloth protects Coleus

Lindy checks the temps

In the meantime, I’m enjoying the novelty of the colder temps and the pretty pictures it affords. My boys are still hoping it will snow here one day. The last time it snowed in San Jose (and remained on the ground) was 1976. I think we’re long overdue!

Frozen bird bath

Frosty tips

Kissed by Frost

San Jose, California: A little history and some weather statistics
Therapist’s Hour of Snow: Christine Schoenwald remembers the snow of 1976

December 30, 2012 by Born To Organize

Dusting and Polishing the House Plants

The days have been cold and dry most of this week. With our central heating running more than usual, the house plants needed some extra TLC.

Dusting and polishing are never high on my to-do list, but I made an exception for the plants. Just like nick-knacks, the broader the leaf, the greater the dust. I use a damp, micro-fiber cloth for the taller plants, wiping the leaves when possible. The Ficus don’t seem to collect much dust, so a gentle tap to the branches loosens what’s there.

The small plants in the kitchen window are the easiest to revive. I set them in the sink for a thorough soak, giving the leaves a quick, warm-water rinse while I’m at it. Even the saucers got a nice cleaning.

Kitchen windows are such a great place for houseplants. They enjoy the natural humidity of an active kitchen, and they rarely dry out with a water faucet just inches away. I generally have a small planter with kitty grass for KT and if we’re motivated, we try growing from an avocado pit.

It’s amazing how well some houseplants do living in cramped pots, with dry air and sometimes dryer soil. This coffee plant, below thrived in the kitchen for many years, sitting on top of the fridge. After remodeling, we had to relocate the plant to another room. It’s still quite healthy, producing these lovely shiny leaves.

Here’s what we have growing indoors:

Freshly “polished” leaves

Fiddle-leaf Fig

Dracaena

Kitchen Counter Collection

The current windowsill collection includes three “Christmas Cactus,” a small yellow rose and an as yet unidentified bulb. I must have picked it up from the garden and had it stored in a kitchen drawer with my seed keeper. It started sprouting, so I popped into a plastic martini glass, leftover from my Halloween costume. Crazy, eh?

Martini with a twist?

‘Sunrise Cactus’ gorgeous, even when not in bloom

Christmas Cactus Bloom

Do you have anything growing on your window sill?

December 28, 2012 by Born To Organize

Sunset Gardens: A Self-Guided Tour

As luck would have it, I worked in Menlo Park today. Menlo Park, California is home to Sunset Gardens, a test garden for Sunset Books and Sunset Magazine. After work, I headed straight there and took the (frigid) self-guided tour.

Southern Pacific Railroad Company founded Sunset Magazine in 1898 . It evolved over the years to reflect the changing times. It went from promotional tool, to literary magazine, before settling into what it is today: a lifestyle magazine for the west. For over 40 years, they’ve produced the Western Garden Book, the most comprehensive book of its kind. I’m on my second copy, and though it’s now available on the web, I still enjoy the weight of the book in my hand and the ease of use.

Sunset’s headquarters surrounds the editorial test garden in addition to an array of Climate Zone gardens ranging from the Pacific Northwest to the Southern Desert. It’s a testament to the Bay Area temps that the Menlo Park location can support so many growing zones.

I’m going to make an extra effort this year to get back there in the spring, when the rose garden and many of the flowering shrubs are in bloom.

Here are the highlights from today:

Garden Bench

The one downside to self guided tours is all the unanswered questions. I was curious to know more about this bench,tucked in a corner near the chicken coop. It’s made from a variety of recycled material, including old fence planks, scraps of metal, and the insulator caps from old high-tension wires. The birdhouse posts on the end of the bench are fully functional, though probably impractical from a predator stand point. They’re awfully cute though.

Birdhouse bench detail

Healthy Chickens = garden manure

Wine Country Chicken Coop

That is one, high-end chicken coop, conveniently located near the composting bins.

Succulent Planter

This lovely planter was part of a seating area. It’s made from driftwood and scraps of lumber.

Stylish Seating Area

Test Garden Pavers

This unique patio meandered through the entrance to the Test Garden. What looks like crushed rock, is actually tumbled recycled glass (white and green). The small round objects are actually synthetic wine “corks” from a Bay Area winery. The dark squares, upper right corner, are scraps of fencing lumber. Clever use of cast off materials.

Recycled, Tumbled Green Glass

Cactus Garden: Keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times :-)

The Old Man: Coast Live Oak

Garden Path and Plantings

To learn more about the history of Sunset, visit their website.

Self-guided tours are free and open to the public Monday through Friday from 9:00 to 4:00 pm. Call ahead for additional details at 1-650-321-3600. The gardens are universally accessible.