Today I planted some lettuce seedlings: a leaf lettuce called Simpson Elite by Burpee. Lettuce seed is hard to deal with because it is so small but I poured a few into my hand and just popped 3 to 4 seeds each into a small fiber pot and potting soil. I also put in six seeds of Fordhook Giant Chard. These seeds are much bigger and one chard seed went into its own fiber pot. If only three of them germinate and produce chard, that will be enough for me to eat this spring and early summer. The seeds were watered in and put in the shade on my deck. Ijust hope the fat bluejays do not dive bomb on the pots and tear them apart. Speaking of that, I think I will put some hardware cloth over the seed pots to protect them. With regard to planting seeds, I am with Mel Bartholomew (The Square Foot Gardener guy) on the planting of seeds: Take out what you hope will germinate and that you will use and go with that. There is no good reason to plant an entire pack of seeds into your garden. What a waste!

Slug Patrol, part 3

Boy, these slug critters are relentless. My kale seedlings are being eaten away. I just came in after checking again with my trusty flashlight, trowel, and blue bucket of death fluid. Tonight I filled the bucket half way with water, some salt, and white vinegar. At least seven slugs were dispatched to slug hell. A couple were only slightly bigger that a pin head. They seemed to know exactly where to go. Do they have some kind of seedling radar or what? I am going to keep up this process until they are under control, if not completely exterminated from my garden. I am even thinking of more deathly potions - maybe adding ammonia to my blue bucket. This is war!

Slug Patrol, part 2, and copper strip deterrents

Went out again last night between 10 and 11 p.m. to check for slugs. None were visible via flashlight and I hightailed it back into the house because it was somewhat chilly out there. I am determined to keep up the patrol but I still may wind up getting some Sluggo even though it is awfully expensive.

One thing I will never purchase are copper strips. Copper strips apparently give slugs a shock when they try to cross. I won't go into the chemistry and physics as to how this works ( I am sure I do not understand it myself), but it does work. A copper barrier does not kill them, it only stops the little buggers from moving in the direction of your tender plants for a slug steak dinner. The Weekend Gardener Monthly Web Magazine says that one problem in dealing with these guys using copper is that you need to have a wide enough strip to stop some slugs from arching over it to escape getting that cattle prod feeling. I do not believe we have the kind of slugs capable of doing that except banana slugs and are they really that intelligent to perform yoga or Kama Sutra positions to evade a copper taser jolt? I doubt it! Also, copper is awfully expensive. I checked the web and a 1 inch by 10 ft. strip was going for $22.95! And, according to the Weekend Gardener, copper strips need to be cleaned with vinegar periodically to keep them effective - tarnish build-up negates the jolting power. I will save my polishing efforts for the copper items I have in my house, thank you. Finally, hasn't anyone noticed that there are copper thieves everywhere out there? Copper has become very popular on the black market in this economy. Who needs to have their copper strips ripped off shortly after they install them? I don't.

So for me, I am continuing my nighttime slug patrols.

Last Frost Dates and Vegetable Planting Guides for Sonoma County

I promised on my show this morning that I would post information about planting veggies and a way to find out your last frost date in our Russian River Communities. Here they are:

Sonoma County Master Gardener Vegetable Planting Summary

iGrow Year Round Planting and Maintenance Guide for Sonoma County

Plant Maps' Interactive California Last Frost Map

Sun, partly cloudy, & my first butterfly of 2011

There is a lot of light in my house right now because of the partial sunshine here at 11:40 am PST and I am hopeful that I will be able to get out into my garden on a regular basis. There is still some rain around the corner and I have to admit that I was happy to read that La Nina is dying in the South Western Pacific. This means our rainy season is slowly but surely coming to an end. And we desperately need to dry out. My soil is still very moist and there is a lot of work to be done out there.

While taking a moment to look out one of my windows, I noticed a white butterfly flying around my garden. It was the only one! I gasped when I saw it and I smiled. It is a wonderful harbinger of Spring, but I had to feel a little bit sorry for the little guy or girl, as the case may be. There is nothing in my garden for it to feed on for nectar right now, and the evenings are still very cool. I am sure it was enjoying the window of sunlight opening onto my garden. Spring is almost here!!! I am feeling more and more alive!

On Slug Patrol and "The Kings Speech"

Well, I am beginning to see a lot of slug damage on the kale and collard seedlings I have put into my garden that should be able to produce veggies for me as we move slowly out of this very cold winter and the day's light is increasing. They are going into sunny locations but they are being eaten alive. After going to see "The King's Speech" at the Rio Theater this evening, I returned home and between 9 and 10 p.m., I went out to search for slugs. And boy did I find them! I used a large flashlight and I checked the seedlings one by one and the surrounding soil. I estimate that I harvested somewhere between 15 and 20 slugs. Some were real babies and some were about an inch long. I threw quite a few into a blackberry patch in a field next to my property, but then I decided to destroy the next batch I found by killing them. I got a blue bucket, put in some very hot water and a bit of salt. This group was drowned, cooked, and salted. I will empty the bucket into the road in the morning.

I have been using oat bran and ashes from my wood burning stove but these appear to be only slowing them down and a few of the slugs I found seemed to be really rolling in the oat bran like they had come upon a feast and were thanking the garden idiot who had added to their diet. The ashes are a bust too. No slugs appeared to be stuck or dying on that. Also, aromatic herbs do not appear to be working, I scattered small pieces of rosemary around the seedlings and I even went so far as to stick some rosemary cuttings up into the seedlings. Lo and behold I even found some slugs on the rosemary using it as a "ladder" to get higher into the seedling to dine on those top yummy leaves. Aargh!!! Finally, forget blackberry or bramble cuttings. I scattered some of those around the seedlings too - the idea being that the slugs will cut themselves to death on the them. Even the edges of the blackberry leaves have little stickers. I had covered one bramble leaf with oat bran and there was a slug on a leaf - a tablecloth - having his oat bran steak dinner! I just hope that the ones I threw into the blackberry patch do not make their way back to my seedlings. They are all going into a bucket of salt water from now on and I will be checking nightly for the next two weeks to break their breeding cycle.

Could it be that seeing "The King's Speech" spurred me on to find my gardening voice, to stop stammering around with these little critters and to stand up and be the king in my own castle, I mean, garden?

Pruning Roses

In the Sunday, December 26, 2010, Home and Garden section of the San Francisco Chronicle, there is a great article by the rosarian, Rayford Redell, entitled "Secrets to Radiant Roses."

The original article can be found on SFGate.com here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2010/12/26/HODO1GKDBA.DTL

Composting

I just came in from the garden after working with my compost pile. I added kitchen scraps to my stacked wooden bin and I put in two 5 gallon bucketfuls of still decomposing (raw) compost from of my gray trash cans. Both cans have large air holes that apparently allow rats to get to the inside of the can. I am going to empty one can completely in the next day or two and cover up the holes with left over pieces of hardware cloth that only have 1/4 inch square openings. That should slow any rats down a bit. Then I will start using it again as the first phase of my own composting system where I put in kitchen scraps and food items that can attract critters. In the wooden stacked bin, I also added newspaper torn into two inch strips and watered it all in a little bit. Steer manure has also been added to the bin to enrich things a little and to get the bacteria activated. I am thinking of buying a bag of chicken manure too. It is know to be a good activator for the compost pile.

Here is a link to the site where I found a terrific list of things that can be composted:

http://www.plantea.com/compost-materials.htm

I also have printed out the entire list and I am enjoying discussing this list on my radio program.

Changing the entire look of my garden

I got out into the garden for over an hour. It is a mess and I am completely redoing it to grow more fruits and veggies.

I also removed three more poorly performing roses. I am so sick of black spot in this garden and coddling roses. The roses also get attacked by beetles every year. Aargh!!! I am so over roses right now. But I am not tossing them all out. Some are performing OK and I do have an emotional attachment to them. But over 90% of them have to go. They need tons of water an fertilizer and still fail to perform and look healthy and beautiful. I refuse to spray an use up any more of my valuable time on them. They have to go!

This fall when I harvested my sole pumpkin that is still sitting on a kitchen windowsill, I had such a sense of joy and accomplishment. I have never grown a pumpkin before! My roses have never brought me a sense of joy and accomplishment like that in all the years I have been gardening. So, my new rule of thumb is unless something I grow brings me a sense of accomplishment and pride, out it goes.

Under this new rule, I have decided to keep my iris rhizomes. I am fascinated by irises - their colors and the many different varieties. They are not too much trouble to grow and they do not need coddling. I am always delighted to see them blooming. Some of mine even try to bloom in winter. I only lose a few every year due to rotting because of heavy rains and supersaturated soil.

One of my beds is being devoted to roses and irises - mostly climbing or very tall roses. Another bed is being devoted to perennials. The rest of the garden is going to be devoted to growing fruits and veggies. I am making plans to create a cold frame and I have decided where that is to go

Weather Note: Freezing temps are predicted tonight and it looks like Guerneville will be in the 20's. I turned on my white mini lights that I have strung in my lemon tree to help protect it frm frost.