The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

Spoiler Alert and Sweet Peas

I took my sons to see Interstellar for Veteran’s Day. If you have seen the preview, then you know the premise: the earth is dying, along with the humans that inhabit it. Mathew Lincoln McConaughey and Anne Fantine Hathaway team up and jump into a space ship to go search for a suitable new planet. You wouldn’t guess it from the preview, but a lot of crazy manipulation of time and dimension goes down during this movie.  The audience experiences black holes, worm holes, plot holes, and – of course --   ghosts. 

During all this banter with the space-time continuum, I started to think about…well…time.  And right as an interstellar tsunami is about to pound Anne and Matt’s space shuttle during a 23 year time-squandering sequence, I blurted out “Geez, sweet peas!” 

Luckily the film was very loud, so my Tourettes moment went unnoticed. But my thought process was roughly as follows: 

Careful What You Wish For

There I was staring up through a forest, sunlight barely squeezing through thick branches, leaves closing in on me. I closed my eyes and thought back, back to a time when life was simpler, before the forest, before I learned the secret of growing Brugmansia. 

Audrey lll making her way up to the second story of my house.

That’s right, I did it, I successfully grew Brugmansia.  We have been successful to the point of scary, perhaps.  She – yes, she -- has grown so big she has taken over a small portion of my yard, making it difficult to climb the back stairs over my garage. I have named her Audrey III. 

Audrey lll just after I first planted her.

Gone are the days of watching a spindly, anemic Brugmansia die miserably at the end of the season.  Now I have Audrey III, who blocks out the sun, and who I also believe is planning to ingest me.

What is the secret? What did I do different? I read that Brugmansia like to be sheltered from the wind, so I planted Audrey III in the quiet walkway between my house and my garage.  Lo and behold, she is now a heck of a lot bigger than I am, and still growing.

I water her regularly, but I haven’t really fed her yet, although I have a feeling she will ask me to any day now. 

She also has yet to bloom, but this may also be a good thing.

Get Off My Vine

Birdhouse gourds are gourds that are shaped like enormous pears. After they are dried, you can cut a hole in the lower portion, stick a perch under it, and hang it in a tree. 

Some birds, if they squint their eyes and lower their expectations a little, find that they make good homes.

I plant these gourds every year.  Some years are successful; other years, the gourds all succumb to mildew and die.

One thing I consistently notice, even though I have read gardening articles that try to say otherwise, is that if several gourds set on a vine, the one that starts to develop first goes on to be a big strong gourd, while all the other gourds on the vine wither and die.

It’s kind of like the baby spiders that eat each other until there is only one left.  I think that happens, doesn’t it? 

So I have learned that if I want more than one gourd, I have to grow more than one vine. 

As for the baby spiders, they’re on their own.  

Determinate vs. Indeterminate

The beginning of this summer hasn’t been great.  I tore my MCL, I came down with an evil flu which, three weeks later, still inhabits my body in the form of a sore throat and an unrelenting cough.

I threw my back out coughing, so now I limp around, coughing, with my head turned at unnatural angle. I am...pathetic.

My husband purchased most of the tomato plants in my veggie garden, and most of them are growing quite nicely.  Except for eleven of them.  Most of which are Early Girls. 

They look weird. They are short, stunted and hunched.  Sort of  like me, come to think of it. They are loaded with fruit. The loaded part is great, but they appear to have stopped growing. What is going on with these plants?  

I leaned painfully down, head cocked to the side, and read the tag. I saw one little word that bummed what little stone I had left:  “Determinate.”

So, what we have are tomato plants that will stay small and die shortly after the majority of their fruit ripens.  Instead of the INDETERMINATE TOMATOES that I normally plant, also known as vining tomatoes.

(Indeterminate) vining tomatoes grow and fruit happily and bountifully until the first frost kills ‘em. They regularly outgrow their containers and get so big that they appear to be reaching out to devour one of my dogs.

Who would ever buy one of those stunted, hunchy, gimpy tomato plants?

It turns out there is a place for determinate tomatoes. They are fine for containers.  They require very little staking, stay small, and produce a high yield. Then they croak, and tomato season ends two months earlier than necessary.  

If you want to piss off your garden-obsessive wife, then by all means, buy these whimpy little determinate tomatoes for her monster vegetable garden. Then, wait to read the tag until it’s too late to buy more tomatoes….

 

No Cash For New Plants

 

Well, once again our family is in the midst of a cash flow crisis. Am I worried we may not have a roof over our heads? Food to eat? Gas for our cars so I can drive my kids to school? Maybe a little.

But the worst thing, the thing that eats away at me every morning when I hear the symphony of birds, smell the fresh spring air, and know that everything is sprouting and blooming …? This is my favorite time of year for planting and gardening. What bothers me most about our financial crisis?

Not having any money for plants! Wahhhhh!!!

What cheers me up? Perusing my garden, searching for annuals that made it thought the winter and seeing the plants that are already in my garden and already blooming. What a glorious time of year.

My Neighbor the Tree Hater vs. Me, the Tree Hugger

My neighbor left a note on my car and asked me to call him regarding a tree on my property. It turns out he wants me to cut it down. When I asked him why, his response was similar to the reason he asked me to cut down a tree about three years ago: it is messy, and the leaves will eventually fill up his gutters and litter his yard.

Suddenly memories of my days as president of my college Greenpeace chapter came careening back. Yes, I am that old.

The young Doug Fir that I have to cut down.

Fighting the urge to run downtown and chain myself to the young Douglas Fir in question, I sadly agreed to cut it down. Not because it will litter his yard with those ever-so-annoying fir needles, but because the tree is very close to the property line, and will eventually grow into his yard.

This is what the baby tree would have looked like some day.

Here I am laying on the ground staring up at the big Oak tree that I didn't cut down. so glad I didn't

The last tree he wanted me to cut down is an extremely healthy oak which is probably well into its second century of life. The tree does rain leaves down into his yard relentlessly, but it hangs over the area of his yard that features nothing more than a dilapidated shed and a pile of junk. What I’m saying is: the oak leaves actually make this part of his yard look better.

And I’m not cutting it down.

Here is a list of reasons why some people should worry more about trees, and less about their gutters:

Waiting for Santa and the Next Flash Flood Warning

That puddle on my patio is my septic system overflowing...yay.

Here I sit with nine dogs, three boys and a septic system that is slowly backing up into my house. We are waiting for the electrical system to fail, or a tree to fall, or both.  I have approximately 30% of my Christmas shopping done. Thunderstorms are expected throughout the day, and my husband is in the garage building an ark. 

Actually, my husband is building cabinets for one of the two rental remodels we have underway. I did try to steer him towards the ark idea, but he told me that if the world was going to end, it would have done so on Friday. 

I am expected to go out to the garage soon and start painting a door.

 Rusty helping me write after playing in the rain.

So here I sit watching my garden float away. What was once the lawn is now a muddy bog.  I have one dog on my lap, and eight at my feet. 

I just read the weather report: it says we might get a full inch of rain.  Judging by our rain gauges, the reality is more like 7 times that, and the rain shows no sign of letting up.

This is not doggie pee-pee. It is just rainwater seeping into my living room. 

My boys want me to drive them somewhere in this deluge.  I told them they would have to wait for the ark. 

Today I am wondering:

“How is Santa going to find us in this torrent? 

and 

“Why did we decide to do TWO remodels during Christmas?”

Flash Flood Fashion

 

Flash Flood Fashion When my phone’s text alert woke me early in the morning last week, the first thing I noticed was the roar of driving rain battering my roof. Oh, I sleep so well when it rains. There is something so soothing and cozy about the sound of the rain….and then there was that little tinkling alert from my phone.

I rolled over and groped though a pile of reading glasses on my nightstand for a pair with appropriate magnification, and examined my phone. There was a large scary red triangle staring back at me with the words “FLASH FLOOD ALERT IN YOUR AREA.” I had never received a message like this before. This was a warning for ME, on MY phone, flash flood alert in MY HOUSE. This seemed like a bad thing.

With visions of the apocalypse bearing down, I leapt out of bed onto a large, unsuspecting dog, ending up in a heap on the carpet next to where he had been lying. While he licked the surprised look off my face, I listened to the rain on my roof, which now sounded like the beating of Sioux drums telling me that Custer was on his way.

I stumbled to my closet and hastily got dressed. Catastrophic circumstances have never been a good thing for my personal fashion presence, historically speaking.

I sprinted outside wearing a baseball cap under the hood of my rain jacket, which I was wearing over my robe, which partially covered my pajamas, which were tucked into my black rubber muck boots. The only thing I was missing was a black rectangle over my eyes, and a big “DON’T” stamped across my outfit.

Swami's: Yoga and gardens and surfing, Oh My!

One of the koi ponds in Swamis

I have had a bad cold, which has slowed me way down, and therefore, I have a chance to write about the beautiful garden I went to see in place of Lotusland.

As you may know, my plans for Lotusland went down like tomatoes in a hard frost, after speaking to some unhelpful vagrant who answers the phone there.

Swamis

Instead, my friend Jennifer and I made our way further south to the Swami Meditation Gardens. Swami’s was started in 1937 by Paramahansa Yogananda, a world famous guru of Kriya Yoga. Yep, yoga and meditation was as popular then as it is now with the Hollywood crowd.

Swami’s also sits right on the famous Encinitas surf break.

The surf below Swamis. Note the many surfers in the water.

Imagine my delight: this garden combines my three favorite things, yoga, surfing and gardening. What could be better?

The day I went to Swami’s it was 78 degrees. The crystal clear sky was the exact color of Jennifer’s car, and the tide was very low. I sat in one of the many corners of the garden created specifically for meditation, cradled in lush green and cool shade.

And meditated my way right into a fantasy of living in Encinitas.

I would wake up in the morning in my little beach cottage. I would hop on my beach Cruiser

My bike Gerard Butler.

(Gerard Butler) and ride downtown for an early yoga class. Afterwards, I would have coffee or breakfast at Café 101. Then I’d ride Gerry home and pick up my surfboard. I would slide my board into Gerry’s cool surf rack and cruise down to the beach for some surfing. After and hour or two of catching waves, I would pedal Gerry over to the Swami Meditation gardens for a little communing with my third eye, and finally, I’d bike home for a nap. I would wake up, shower, and get dressed up.

Me and Jen's Karmann Ghia. She doesn't have a name for it yet. I want to call it "Mine" 

Jen would pick me up in her turquoise Karmann Ghia and we would drive down to the Beach House for a Hawaiian ahi & king crab stack and a basil pepper martini while watching the sunset.

Yes, when my brain is not bouncing from subject to subject, mired in useless bits of information and endless lists of tasks, life can get prettygood in there.

Back to reality.

Swami's is a fun place to visit if you are ever in Encinitas. It lies at the south end of town and it’s not very big, so go eat at Café 101, and then walk off your breakfast at Swamis. You might even have a vision.

Second Time’s the Charm? A Doubtful Way to a Greener Lawn.

Around this time last year, I got the flu. While I was snoring and drooling on myself, heavily under the influence of a bottle of Nyquil, my gardener was busily fertilizing my lawn for the fall.  What he neglected to tell me is that he was planning on burying my then semi-beautiful lawn under two inches of “mulch.”

Like many of the best-laid schemes of mice and men, the plan went terribly awry.

My lawn looked like the La Brea Tar Pits from October through April, at which time some of the lawn started to poke through, giving the entire area a moldy brownie look.  Now it is filled with weeds and large patches of naked dirt.

My lawn will never again have that beautiful fresh sod look, but I am willing to try again.

So this year, we (that would include me), are trying again.  This time instead of burying the lawn, this is what we did:

1. Aerated the lawn

2. Seeded the lawn.

3. Fertilized the lawn.

4. LIGHTLY SPREAD mulch over the newly aerated, seeded and fertilized lawn.

Now all I can do is wait to see if the second time is the charm, and hope that I don’t get the flu.