Handful of redwood tree needles I collected in front of my house 

and placed on a green metal bistro table on my deck. Note the
caked-on yellowish redwood tree pollen on the table.

I like using redwood tree needles in making compost, but when you have literally hundreds of thousands, maybe even miilions of them here in Guerneville alone, available to all of us who live here, we cannot compost them all even if we wanted to. They can drop off the trees year round since redwood trees are evergreen and not deciduous. There is a very brief period of time in the spring, I believe, when they seem to be absent or we have caught up with the immense amount of debris that has fallen during the winter, but as the summer drags on, you can literally see them collecting in the boughs of the redwoods and you know we are going to eventually have a brown snowfall. Yep, that is what I call it - brown snow. The first heavy Fall rainstorm and gusty winds will bring down zillions of them. River Road, here in Guerneville, is covered, roofs are covered, and you can barely see your steps or deck. This process continues throughout the fall and winter until the trees are almost cleared. During the heavy brown snow season I have literaly swept up so many of the leaves from my roof, gutters, decks, steps, etc. and all around my house, that I usually fill at least four, 32 gallon plastic trash cans. When I first moved into my house and had no compost pile, all of these needles went to the dump.

Now, I regard the needles as garden manna from heaven. Also, as noted in an article (Garden Doctors, by Lozano and Kilchherr, February 16, 2013) in the Press Democrat out of Santa Rosa, CA, redwood needles can be used around very acid-loving blueberries and presumably, other acid-loving plants. But I do not worry too much about the acid issue. Most plants love a slightly acidic soil to grow if there is a full complement of compost and nutrients that keep the acidity within a decent level. Also, when you compost the needles like I do, and compensate for their innate acidity by adding in various types of manures and using "green" manures from scraps and leftover food in my kitchen that is going bad, the acidity is lessened, in my opinion. By the way, I agree with the mantra of one of my fellow gardeners which is if a human being can eat it, it is okay to put in the compost pile. I compost everything I can get my hands on that comes from my kitchen. (Here's a little secret: I even put water into an empty salsa jar, for example, put the top on and swish it around to get the bits left in the jar. Then the liquid is poured into a kitchen waste collector and that is later taken to be composted when it is full.)

Now, the brown snow decomposes vey slowly if you just spread it around on the ground as a mulch, so it is best to compost it (http://www.hort.net/lists/medit-plants/dec99/msg00249.html). This is the first year that I am not do any composting in a pile with my redwood needles. I am doing sheet composting or layered composting. That is, I am spreading the needles in a layer, then adding on top of that, animal manures, sifted garden soil (to get the rocks out), composted kitchen waste (that I do separately in large trash cans with air holes), organic fertilizer such as blood meal to speed up the process, and compost I purchase by the cubic yard from out landfill operation. As I collect additional needles (almost on a daily basis), I put them down in a new layer and continue adding layers of the other items. I want to do everything I can to not disturb the soil by doing too much tilling or digging.

What I learned from the "Growing Home Wine" Workshop

The Guerneville Library

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On Saturday, February 9, 2013, I attended a Sonoma County Master Gardener workshop at the Guerneville Library entitled, "Growing Home Wine." The presenter was Master Gardener Dennis Przybycien. He did an excellent job and he even sent out via e-mail a copy of his presentation outline to all attendees who wanted it. Very nice idea to do that.

Now, I do not plan on putting in a home vineyard at my house here in the Russian River Valley anytime soon, and I do not plan on making my own wine. But, since all of our Library branches present these work shops for free, usually on a Saturday morning, I think that attending as many workshops as you can is a great way to hone your gardening skills and increase gardening knowledge. And, did I mention they are all free?

One important tidbit of information I got from this workshop is that Dennis feels that getting a soil test before you plant is not really necessary. He feels that these tests are expensive and while they do return a lot of data analysis for you, it is hard to interpret and the information does not really help. He feels that the main goal for soil is to get minerals and micronutrients in your soil that will help plants to grow. Adding compost is the main and least expensive way to boost up the productivity of your soil. He likes Happy Frog fertilizer because it slowly leaches into the soil and is a great mixture of other types of fertilizer and beneficial microbes. He is not a big fan of water soluble fertilizers since they leach straight through the soil.

The most important point he made in my opinion was that there are no hard and fast rules with regard to fertilizing and increasing the productivity of your soil and your plants. He stated that we should observe and take note of what is happening to our plants, then respond to what they are telling us. His message went on to indicate that we should not plunge ahead and pour in everything we can get our hands on and then wind up over-fertilizing our plants and the soil. I felt that this was more than an adequate response to those who make a drumbeat on the web and in garden books, and magazine articles of getting a soil test and then follow exactly what the soil test tells you to do. Can you believe that I have read on the web that there are those who do a soil test at the beginning of the planting season and at the end of the planting season?

I have never done a soil test at my house. And by the way, those personal home testing kits sold at garden centers and nurseries are totally useless. In working in my garden over the years, I have noticed that I have had extremely rocky soil in one location and then 15 feet away or less, I have discovered a heavy vein of clay soil that is several inches deep, if not more than a foot deep. How is a soil test supposed to help me to deal with that? The main solution is to add tons of compost and judicious amounts of natural fertilizers and minerals that will increase the microbe and fungi population and those other helpful critters also known as worms.

Sonoma County Master Gardeners have a great web site and I hope you have a chance to visit it. The gardening information there is extensive and the site is easy to navigate. You can also find out information about upcoming workshops at a library branch near you.

The only frost protection I do in Guerneville, CA

Here are some photos I took of the only frost protection I do at my house. The jade plants are very sensitive and I decided this year, after learning a hard lesson last year, that they should be covered in some way. So, I got some old towels and tossed them on at night and removed them in the morning. Voila, no frost damage.

I am particularly lazy about protecting plants from frost. I do not believe in expensive coverings from the nursery or using those spray-on products. Too much money and too much trouble. My philosophy  has been to designate any plants I want to protect because I am very attached to them and then use the least amount of effort I have to use to protect them. In the past, when I have bought perrennials, many of them have gotten "frosted" and did not survive. I decided that I was tired of spending so much money in replacing those plants and if a plant does not make it, then I say, "Goodbye to you and I will go and get something else to replace you." Yes, I do talk to my plants and I am getting ruthless with them in my old age. It's my garden after all.

My lemon tree, which is finally producing lemons for me - there are seven on it now, is somewhat sensitive to frost burn on the tips of new growth. In the past, I have put Christmas lights on it and that seemed to work. I did not do that this year. I told you I was lazy and I just did not feel like stringing up any lights this time. I also did not cover it with an old bedsheet. Well, it does not seem to have suffered any damage at all! Go figure.

The front door of my house with covered jade plants

The uncovered jade plants