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

My post to the Garden Rant Blog

I love the Garden Rant blog (http://www.gardenrant.com/) and here is a comment I posted to a rant (http://gardenrant.com/2012/05/dear-pennington.html) posted by one of the site's bloggers:

"This rant is OK up to a point. The microbes in the soil and the plants themselves need some nitrogen to do well and it has been my experience that most garden soils need some added nitrogen to keep things going. Why do you think it is highly recommended that we plant nitrogen fixing cover crops in our gardens during the fall and winter? And for those who recommend using tons of compost to get a garden up to par as far as nitrogen is concerned apparently are not aware that finished compost has very little nitrogen in it. Those wonderful microbes we all love have used up all of the nitrogen in the compost pile to get to the finished compost stage. Compost is a great soil amendment and adds needed nutrients. But I would not rely upon it as a complete fertilizer for all gardening situations. Check out this link (http://www.caes.uga.edu/publications/pubDetail.cfm?pk_id=6406 ) and the section titled “Suggested Uses for Compost.” The bottom line for me is to use blood meal and fish emulsion (truly organic fertilizers) in my garden to help things out. I doubt that by using these products in a controlled way I am contributing to ocean dead zones."

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.