My Bad

Down to the forties at night. Barely breaking sixty during the day. Rain. Drizzle. A spectacular sunset, then more rain. Come on, you say, this is May.  In California.  What's going on?

It's my fault. Remember the 90 degree days a week and a half ago? My fault too.

I planted tomatoes and melons - both require heat. That's why it's cold and wet. Mother Nature is messing with me. You're just an innocent bystander - this is personal. And that heat wave? Just after I planted the tomatoes and melons from little tiny plugs (I grew the seeds on a heat mat) I went away for a week. (Hawaii. Took my mom for Mother's Day and yes we did have a good time thank you so much for asking).

I was not here to water. The seedlings should have dried up and died in that heat, but I had given them a good soaking and a 4 inch layer of mulch, so they were snug and happy, and just beginning to grow...

And that's when Mother Nature decided to teach me a lesson. In patience (wait for the soil to warm up), in the true nature of gardening (nothing ever turns out as you had planned and isn't that true in life too?) and so things got cold. Very cold. Happy snails and slugs (except when they come across the Sluggo, the pet-safe snail killer - take that! Mother Nature). But the tomatoes are unhappy. Very unhappy. As are the melons.

If I have to I will replant the melons; I saved some seed (see, M.N., I have been paying attention). and I will hope there is enough summer left for them to grow and set fruit. Last cold summer I got one distorted pumpkin and only a few full size tomatoes, altho the cherry tomatoes must have felt sorry for me, for they outdid themselves and gave me baskets full of sweet tasty fruit. Another good reason to plant cherry tomatoes - they need less heat.

But for now, I'm going inside to wait for the rain to stop. It's too cold out here. I will wait to plant beans until the soil is warmer (and the air) and hope it doesn't go from drippy cold (In May! In California!) to blasting heat. And if it does? I suppose there is a lesson in that too...when does this school of hard knocks get out?

Dividing Iris

The best advice I got about iris was to divide them between the fourth of July and Labor Day. I procrastinate (as you know if you've read the chapter I Don't Want It Perfect I Want It Tuesday in my book. So I am dividing iris. Probably won't finish by Labor Day but oh well.

They start out looking like this:

the garden's version of a bad hair day. I slide a spade next to them and lever them out of the ground - 

then I pull them apart, keeping the healthy plump roots with a fan of leaves attached. Wrinkled up roots like this:

get thrown away. Only fat plump rhizomes (the brown part) with a good fan of leaves (the green part) or a fat white bud that will turn into a clump of leaves (you'll know it when you see it) get saved.

I cut the leaves back to about a foot, and because the place where you break the roots apart is moist and susceptible to all sorts of fungal and insect invasion, I leave them to dry for an hour or so. Then I plant.

 This is what they look like when they have been divided.I space them about a foot apart with the leaf fans facing out. Not too deep please - they will rot. The rhizome should be just covered with soil.

 You can see which way they will grow - don't point them at each other. Think siblings and keep them from squabbling over space.

A generous dusting of fertilizer on top, a deep soak, then leave them alone. They are tough, they do best in full sun and not too much water. I prefer all one color massed in a bed - I hate that spotty look. But it's your garden, so if you're into spots, knock yourself out.

This one is Victoria Falls and it re-blooms. I am looking for a photo. Last year I had iris to cut for the table at Thanksgiving. This year? We'll see.

More Dirty Little Secrets

The Farmer's Market got me thinking. When I started a garden I expected my produce to look like the stuff at the grocery store, only better, and better tasting. Sort of like the farmer's market. You know the look:

Everything in neat rows. Everything the same size.

The reality? Not pretty. Tomatoes are mis-shapen, different sizes. And there are never enough for what you're planning for dinner - until there are too many.

Figs too. And beans - they ripen one at a time - until you go on vacation. Then it's whoopee! and they all ripen at once. You come home to huge bean pods weighing down the plants, turning to brown, too far gone for green beans but not dry enough for shelling beans. Don't get any ideas about making the best of things and having dried beans for soup. The raccoons have other plans.

So the following year you cancel your vacation, and wait for the garden to ripen. Sorry - not this year. That will be the year the flea beetles get the beans, the corn earworm gets the corn, and the tomatoes succumb to some of the myriad of diseases they are famous for. My sister had the most beautiful tomato plants, tall and leafy and loaded with fruit. And every year, just as they were beginning to salivate over the first almost ripe tomato, anticipating that vine-ripe warm from the sun taste, the tomato plants would collapse in a wilted heap. Verticillium, fusarium, you name it, they had it.

They tried raised beds. They tried pots. They finally moved, and now they live where it is almost too cold to ripen a tomato. I am thinking of getting them a greenhouse. Or a share in a central valley tomato farm.

In my garden, when I need a pound of ripe figs I will have ten pounds. When  I want ten pounds to make pickled figs (or Fickle Pigs as we like to call them) and to share with the neighbors I will have one ripe fig and a lot of fat happy birds. And squirrels. And rats.

I have taken a major position in Critter Ridder. I have taken a more philosophical attitude toward the garden. We eat the good, compost the bad, and are not so fussy about the ugly. But as delicious and frustrating as it is, it doesn't look like the produce department, and it sure as heck doesn't look like the farmer's market.

I'm a bestseller!

I just found out my book is a bestseller on Amazon - I would say I am speechless but if you know me you know that's not possible. But I am so excited! Happy to think my stories are bringing smiles, being shared...I have not been able to stop smiling all day. Looking forward to my book signing on Friday at Rakestraw Books in Danville. Come! I promise it will be entertaining.  And thank you New Year Publishing. I know I'm not your usual author - thanks for taking a chance on me. And wow.