Have you heard the term shoulder season? Sometimes it refers to in-between times at resorts when neither winter sports nor summer activities are available. Recently I've been thinking that it also applies to late winter and early spring in our vegetable gardens.
I enjoy wandering Napa's neighborhoods, admiring the front yards, and noting the changes in landscape gardening styles. There has been quite a metamorphosis over the decades. Many people have moved from lush English-style landscaping to water-wise gardening.
I recently saw an image on a Facebook page devoted to owls that generated a lot of discussion. Some people thought the creature in the image was a butterfly; others were sure it was a moth. I decided it was a moth based on information I had found online.
As you look out at your very soggy garden on these winter days, it is normal to dream of future projects. Perhaps you want to revive that old, raised bed with the low soil level. Or you would like to have an easier job of weeding under your rose bushes.
The harvest of last year's summer and fall crops has ended. I harvested my veggies, elderberries, pineapple guavas and pomegranates. I cleaned up the garden and put away my tools. It was time to let my garden rest.
Due to my great-great-grandfather's success at planting citrus groves in the 1870s, I was told at an early age that orange juice flowed through my veins.
During the dark and cold days of January, is there any reason to work in the garden? Add wet soil that should not be disturbed, and you have a trifecta of obstacles for planting. However, this month does present one great opportunity for home gardeners: onions.
More than twenty thousand years ago, a major ice age spread across the northern latitudes of North America, Europe, and Asia and all the earthworms died. For millennia, these regions had no earthworms.
If you're a gardener in Napa Valley, you know that winter is not the off season it is elsewhere. In our climate, we can always plant something. When I walk into a nursery at this time of year, I feel like the proverbial kid in the candy store.
A few weeks ago, some friends were over for dinner, and I was throwing food scraps into my miniature compost bin that fits under my kitchen sink (free from the City of Napa). One gentleman told me he didn't compost. It's easy, I said. The UC Master Gardeners have workshops on it all the time.
