BOO!
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October 2009
Almost four year old Taryn has been visiting. She likes to wander around in the garden, which is exactly what a garden is for! She spotted my garden ornaments and decided that the little bunny was lonely so she quietly placed it next to the much bigger kitty so they could be friends. That’s nice.
BFF
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I was at my book club last night and a friend asked me about what she should do with her chrysanthemums now that they have finished blooming. I didn’t know the answer because I don’t think I have every grown them, so I looked it up.
Here goes: After they finish flowering, cut chrysanthemums back, leaving 6 – inch stems. They will begin to grow again next spring. Old clumps can be lifted and divided, cut roots apart and discard woody centers, then replant. It would be a good idea to toss a little compost in there, too.
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The more time I spend in my yard, the more I’m noticing the different birds that pass through. We have a pretty diverse population here. Birds are good for the garden because they are natural pest eradicators. In fact, although I sprayed for caterpillars, I attribute my lack of tomato hornworms this year to a vibrant bird population that was hanging around my garden; specifically, in the tomato plants.
At Thursday’s Crown Garden Club meeting, the guest speaker, Mel Hinton of the San Diego Audubon Society, told us that San Diego has a documented 500 species of birds. No other like-size space in the United States has that many species. Mr. Hinton also said the best seed to buy for the birds in your garden is the black sunflower seed mix. He said the birds don’t really like all the other seeds mixed in and throw them around trying to get at the sunflower seeds in the mix, causing lots of little weeds all over the yard. I’ve been wanting to put out a feeder, but the whole weed thing has held me back. Nice to know there is an alternative. Also, if you want to put out suet for the birds make sure to buy the no-melt suet. I didn’t know there was such a thing, but he says that the melting suet gets on the feathers when they preen, and if their feathers get greasy, they can’t fly. Good to know….
The Union Tribune ran an article last week about San Diego’s migratory birds.
Another great resource is the San Diego Natural History Museum’s online bird atlas that works in conjunction with Google Earth. This is a very cool application that places a grid over San Diego County on Google Earth and within each grid square, you can pull up all the birds that habitate that particular area. Their site will give you directions and details about this. You can also download an application for area plants as well. Again, very cool!
Birds are part of any ecosystem so we should invite them into our gardens. It just makes sense!
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There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling. ~Mirabel Osler
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I have tried strawberry pots in the past but never really got a decent crop which I attributed to poor design of the pots. They didn’t get enough water at the bottom and near the top, the dirt would get washed out so in the end I had a pot of dried out or washed out plants that would be stunted. An exercise in frustration to say the least. So why, I ask, did I feel compelled to buy two more pots a few months back? The price was really good and it was a weak moment, but then I had to face the error of my ways and make a plan. I harvested strawberry plants that had sprouted from my compost bin and planted the two pots. I’m experimenting with a way to get more water into the center and bottom of the pot for all over watering without washing the plants out. I put a plastic pot with drain holes at the bottom to irrigate the hard to reach spots. So far, so good. It would be nice to have an ongoing crop of strawberries.
Strawberry pots experiment
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If you haven’t heard, Smith & Hawken is on its way out. ALL stores will close down permanently at the end of the week so they are clearing out everything. I stopped by there the other day with my friend Terry and we had a field day. We got great deals on all sorts of great stuff including store fixtures. I bought a lot of little crates that the stores use for holding merchandise and I also bought a bunch of wooden shelves that I will use for a variety of things. Some of the coolest things I found were some racks made in Holland. They were used for display in the store but I can use them for sifting dirt from my compost pile, covering over empty planting beds and other uses I haven’t thought of yet. (Yes, I know, a bad justification for buying!) The best part of our shopping experience is that they were taking offers on the fixture pieces so I got to haggle. Love that! Here’s a picture of the haul!
Terry guards our haul while I get the car.
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