Quick Botany Lesson in the Field in Early Spring

Every year after the rains, the weeds become lush and everybody but me around here starts thinking about chemical weed abatement. That's   why I intend to give the men a quick botany lesson in the field so they can identify the real weeds. 

I prefer to pull the weeds by hand as I have time, since it provides good exercise and lots of material for the compost heap (except for poisonous plants). When the men around here see weeds, they automatically think about Round-up and mechanical sprayers. I make one concession -- the path to the garden -- since I do have to get out there and be able to get the gate open. Other than that, it's a race to see who gets to the fields first -- me or my weed abatement man or husband.


John, our weed abatement man, bless his heart, doesn't seem to know what a wildflower is -- or for that matter, an herb or flower not yet in bloom. They are all weeds to him. He has two ways to deal with what he perceives are weeds -- the sprayer and the tractor. A couple of years ago I made rock borders around my garden areas and told him to leave them alone, since he sprayed my sage that year and I made him wash it off before it was too late. He sprays first and I notice him when he's about half through. It may be a race again this year, since the tall grasses have overgrown and covered up the rock borders. When we pruned and cut branches from the fruit trees last month, I dragged the large branches to border the area where I seeded the poppies so that John would not be able to easily get the tractor through before I could notice him.

Weeds Be Wildflowers by gardening
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So that left Hubby to instruct. He, at least, did appreciate the beauty of the poppy field last year, so he's willing to be dragged out to learn to tell the difference between flowers and weeds. I took him to the herb garden, almost completely overgrown, to show him what a California poppy looks like. He confessed to having sprayed some along the garden path. I showed him that Poison Hemlock, which I want him to spray, is different. I also tried to teach him the difference between wild mustard and Flanders Poppies, and what lupine looks like before it blooms.

California Poppy Plants Not Yet in Bloom, © B. Radisavljevic

Just above are California poppy plants which will bloom soon. Below is poison hemlock, which smells sickeningly sweet if you pull it, and which will get to be six feet tall if you don't.

Poison Hemlock Seedlings,  © B. Radisavljevic

Below is a Flanders Poppy, beside the black pot. It will have lovely red flowers. There is a photo of a Flanders poppy in bloom in my Memorial Day post. Below it is wild mustard, which will grow to six feet in good soil and will send its roots deep.

Flanders Poppy Seedling beside the Black Pot, © B. Radisavljevic

Young Wild Mustard,  © B. Radisavljevic

Young Lupine before Blooming, © B. Radisavljevic

To the left is lupine, growing up and getting ready to bloom. I collect seed from the poppies and lupine each year, but I also let a number of them reseed.

Herb Garden in Early Spring, © B. Radisavljevic

I am looking forward to another field of poppies this year. It should appear in the herb garden (above), in front of the two tall shrubs (butterfly bush and sage), where you can already see their green tops, and for a long way behind them. The poppies are also growing all around the patch of ground above, so it ought to be a great view from my kitchen window later on. Meanwhile, I need to work on all those weeds that are trying to swallow the herbs, irises, and daffodils. Today I also planted some Lilies of the Nile in this bed this morning, but they are too small to see. How I love spring! 

For more on important weeds you need to pull in early spring, see my more recent post on California Weeds You Need to Pull Now. 

This year's progress

This year has been somewhat discouraging in the garden. First it was too cold to plant much. And then suddenly it was very hot and dry. This is the hottest spring I can remember. It seemed whenever I'd plant radish and lettuce seeds, the weather would turn too hot for them to germinate. Only one lettuce seed did, and it was in a pot in the shade of a parsley plant. I planted many new heirloom tomato varieties this year, and they began to finally get some little tomatoes last week, and most have them now. The lemon cucumbers are almost a foot tall and still no blossoms. The eggplant has lots of attractive blossoms and no fruit yet. But the plant is bigger and more beautiful than any eggplant I've ever grown. And I think I'm finally seeing the beginning of little bell peppers.

As usual, I'm probably the only person in the world that can't produce a zucchini plant that produces much fruit. So far my almost miniature plants produce about one blossom at a time. But at least I have some beautiful herbs in bloom. Besides basil, I have Texas tarragon, cat mint, catnip, cat thyme, lemon thyme, sweet woodruff, borage, two kinds of parsley, lovage, and bee balm among the veggies. And I expect to have some ripe tomatoes in a few weeks. The marigolds, geraniums, coreopsis and sea lavender add color, and, I hope, attract bees.

So much planting and transplanting!

My first artichoke is developing nicely and I could probably pick it and eat it any time now. Another smaller one is also on the way.

On May 6 I transplanted two Cal Wonder and one of the varieties in the sweet pepper mix into pots. I planted French breakfast radishes in circles near rim of pots where I will plant squashes tomorrow. I also planted a few green onions next to the Roma by the fence.

On May 8 I transplanted the best of my Gourmet Eggplants into a pot. I also planted a few cilantro and Gold Rush Asylum near the irises, which aren't too far from the black walnut tree. I planted a couple more borage in the garden -- one by the fence tomatoes and one by the Roma.

When I got to the other house I moved the pellet seedlings of basil, carnations, and Gold Rush Asylum into cups, since they were getting too big to stand much longer in only the pellets. I brought most of them home to start hardening them off in the cold frame, since it's still in the mid-forties at night.

I did learn today that one has to be very careful when using newspaper to block weeds. If it isn't weighted down well, it blows away and can cover new seedlings. And in even one day of being covered by a wandering paper, the sowbugs will finish eating a very small seedling. I discovered this had happened to my only Stupice and one Brandywine today. They were very tiny. And now there is nothing left of them at all.

Finished Translanting the Tomatoes

What a job! I bought five more heirlooms at Farmers' Market this morning and decided to plant five more of my own transplants that have been languishing in the cold frame, in the ground. So I planted the five I bought into raised beds or containers to protect them from the gophers and planted the others, which are mostly duplicates of varieties I had already planted in raised beds, in the ground. Hopefully, since they are right next to the fence, they will sidetrack the raccoons before they get to the raised beds -- if the gophers let the plants live long enough. The actual transplanting isn't what wore me out. It was filling all those containers with good amended soil and amending the soil for the tomatoes I planted in the ground. It's the preparation to plant that takes the time and energy.

It looks as though some of my poor seedlings that were put in the raised beds a couple of weeks ago are showing signs of reviving. There appears to be a tad of new growth. That's good news. I hope that the fifteen tomatos I have put in their permanent homes will produce enough to keep us in tomatoes this summer. Except for the Roma, all the varieties I bought at Farmers' Market were new to me. The grower said they should do well here. So now I have Roma, Brandywine, German Queen, Pruden's Purple, Cherokee Purple, Red Pear (I think) Yellow Pear, Stupice (if it pulls through), Celebrity, Silver Fir Tree, Black Krim, Anna Russian, Peron Sprayless, and one I can't remember because I'd never heard of it before I bought it this morning.

I'm hoping to plant a few more carrots and radishes tomorrow if I have time. And I may try and plant some peppers and eggplant into their permanent homes. In a couple of weeks the basil and cucumbers and squash should be ready to plant.

It's been a very busy week in the garden.

I have made new beds on the level land at the top of the slope and planted cosmos, chamomile, green onions and Oriental greens. I doubt if any will come up, since the three days of sudden hot weather made it almost impossible to keep the seeds moist at all times. And the seeds weren't new either. The idea was to throw the seeds away somewhere and let God decide if they should grow.

I also planted some spinach and lettuce in my chard / artichoke bed, and that did sprout. You can see the small rows between the chard and lemon balm in the middle. The small rows of rocks separate the spouted spinach from the sprouted lettuce. The chard appears to be about to reseed. If you look very closely you will see a few of its children from last year. The tiny ones are between the lemon balm and the red pot. There are also a couple tucked on either side of the large artichoke. But they are hard to see.

I also transplanted a few of my baby tomatoes into their permanent homes in the raised beds and tonight I transplanted a few flowers at the other house. It remains to see how these baby plants will grow in their new homes.

A day to plant

There comes a time when one has to plant and transplant. It's rumored that the moon is right for my planting today, and although the weather was a bit windier than I would have wished, I decided to transplant my first tomato of the season, an heirloom German Queen, into its permanent home for its productive life. That home is a large pot.

 I filled it with a bit of ordinary soil and a lot of potting soil, with a few rocks at the bottom for drainage. The poor plant had already been transplanted once, and was so tall it was bumping its head on the top of my makeshift cold frame. And something was eating its leaves, which had big holes in them. I'm actually a bit worried about this plant because as I was about to pull the bottom sets of leaves off for planting, I noticed a small black bug on the stem and all around near it the stem was white. I wiped off what I could of the white stuff and ditched the bug. Then I completely buried that part of the plant so that only the top leaves were showing above the soil line. I put a clear plastic container with a few small holes in the top for venting over the plant and put in a stake next to it. I hope that plastic container is enough to keep this warm for the next two days.

 The temperatures tonight and tomorrow night will be in the thirties. But the plant has been in the cold frame for weeks now, and I think it will be OK. I think it will have better bug protection where it is now. Time will tell. I also transplanted three petunias into the herb garden and a couple of seedlings in peat pellets into bigger pots.

Then I went to the other house and filled 72 more peat pellets with seeds for perennial flowers and herbs. I planted two kinds of basil, Genovese and Dark Opal Purple, catnip, marigold, Shasta daisies, perennial alyssum (Gold Dust), Iceland Poppy, viola, carnations, petunias, and cosmos. I thought I'd start them inside because I seem to have such dismal luck starting them outside. Though when the weather warms, I'll probably start some outside, too, and I'll even throw out the older seed and let God take care of it. I won't lose anything by throwing older seed out where it might have some small opportunity to sprout instead of putting it in the trash. God has grown some of my best flowers all by himself, with no help from me whatsoever.

Expanding and Improving the Herb Garden

This past two weeks I've put a lot into weeding, transplanting, and building new paths around the herb garden. I've been laying down cardboard or newspaper around the front edges which I need to finish covering in bark. 

The paths through the garden were made accidentally as I took the rock out and put it to the side while preparing the soil. These were the old borders. Then whenever I have planted a new section, a new border was added. The borders were important to mark so that our weed abatement man wouldn't come through when I wasn't around and spray what appeared to him as weeds.