Category Archives: my garden

My tree is stressed and so am I.

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The fig tree towering over my garden is loaded with fruit — but wait, what is wrong here? The figs are turning purple while they are still very small; they stay hard, they stay small, and they fall on the ground. You can see in the photo below how they don’t have enough water content to droop at all, and the sign of a ripening fig is that it droops more and more on its stem until it is hanging quite limp and juicy and sweet. I am distressed about the situation, but from what I’m reading the tree has been stressed. And I think I know why.

My wonderful new landscaper who turned out to be not so wonderful, adjusted my irrigation settings several weeks ago, and since then I’ve been concerned about a few plants that don’t look happy. When I checked the control box it appeared that everything was horribly mixed up, but I didn’t trust myself to understand it, so I had my neighbor down to look at the setup, and between us we got it straightened out.

In the meantime the poor tree was very thirsty. Evidently when this happens the tree itself doesn’t show signs of stress, but it neglects the fruit ripening process. I have followed advice online to remove the smallest fruits at the ends of the branches, farthest from the tree; many of these were only 1-2 centimeters in diameter and probably would not have ripened before the frost anyway. Removing them lets the tree pour more energy into the larger fruit, and I hope at least some of them will ripen. I gave the tree a deep watering with the hose, too.

My newest orchid.

We’ve been having nice warm weather for a week or so, but at this moment it is raining. This afternoon the sun was shining and I had a young family for lunch. The children played in the garden and the playhouse, arranging salads on the little plastic plates. They’d collected snippets of parsley, mints, cherry tomatoes, rosemary, lavender, and even kale, and to top it off, asked me to cut up a lemon for them to squeeze over. They liked their salads better before the addition of lemon.

I showed them this bird’s nest that I found in the fig tree. It doesn’t look as though any baby birds hatched in it. It is very clean, and a unique building project. I see familiar materials from close by: cast-off garden twine (two types), needles from the Canary Island Pine, long Bermuda grass stems, and even dried nigella flowers. The strangest element, and not something I’ve seen outside here, is steel wool, forming the center of the bottom.

At least half the garden is in transition and upheaval right now; I will soon have all of the irises out and will amend the soil in several places before I put those back, or install the many new plants I have, or transplant old ones to an environment with more suitable amounts of sun.

milkweed

The tarragon has flowers! That was a surprise; it’s evidently a bigger plant than I can make use of anymore. It will go dormant soon…

Tarragon flowers

I finally took the time to cut zinnias and bring bouquets into the house, for the sake of my lunch guests. They are like much of my backyard garden now, not getting as much sun as they used to, and they are leggy — but plenty productive. Yesterday I was able to spend quite a while, in the 90-degree heat, tidying up all over the place, so I feel better about the stuff that remains undone. And there are still twelve days left of September ❤

September is in my blood.

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Blooms on arbutus unedo, the Strawberry Tree.

The American Labor Day holiday is on the very first day of September this year. This prompts me to pay closer attention at the outset, because that’s also the first day of the liturgical year for Orthodox Christians. I’ve been supremely blessed by various aspects and events of the day…

First, it’s quite warm, which is too hot for some people, but I guess it’s in my blood, to want to be enveloped by air that is not much colder than my body temperature. (Of course I don’t feel the same way about it when the humidity is approaching that of my blood.) No marine breeze has come against me for a couple of days; even at night, when the temperature eventually drops to the usual mid-50’s, evidently it lingers in those lower registers more briefly. It is sweet, to feel fully relaxed, without sweaters or quilts. This kind of day is why I love September so much.

My sometimes helper Alejandro wanted to come and work this morning, so he could do family things later on. He probably would have come at sunrise if I’d let him, but he was willing to come a little later, and he cleaned up and trimmed the most parched and spent things around the place. That lifted my already floating spirits a few feet higher.

I pruned the lemon tree a bit, and removed numerous pine needles and spider webs from it, then texted with my brother about what might be causing some fruit to be deformed. He helped me figure out that it is citrus bud mites. I don’t know, if anything, what I will do about this. Maybe some insecticidal soap…

I admired the tallest sunflower I have ever grown.
I dusted one bench, and sat on another
to admire my favorite echinacea flowers.

I watched the skippers on the zinnias,
and tidied up the apple mint and the lemon verbena.
I made tea with the trimmings of the verbena.

Bent-lined Carpet on the other side of the glass one morning.

From time to time I consider tossing out the orchids that have come to me over the years, all but one of which has never bloomed again. But a friend told me that I should give them the kind of nourishment they like, food that is designed specifically for orchids. She said there are different orchid fertilizers depending on the species of orchid, and whether it is in the bloom period or not. I bought just one type so far; that is a start! My plants have been outdoors for the summer, in the shade, where I remember to water them more often, and they seem to be generally very happy, even if only the one is blooming. Today I will start being a less lazy orchid farmer.

Orchid, with lemon tree in background.

I really would like to grow amaranth in my garden, but I keep forgetting to try again. The one time I planted seeds, they did come up, but I think they were shaded by zinnias or other vegetables and never thrived. Maybe next year. In the meantime, I discovered that a type of amaranth has self-sown in the cracks of my driveway.

Amaranthus blitoides, Prostrate Amaranth

Is gardening labor, or is it work? Many people have weighed in on the difference in meaning between the two words, and after a brief perusal of their ideas it seems to me the discussion gets too complex for a day like today, when I am relaxing while working. I know working is the word I much prefer, unless I am talking about the births of my children.

Creeping thyme waiting to be planted.

I find a short quote about the words labor and work is not too taxing to think about on this non-laborious day:

“[Hannah] Arendt points to how language itself has always put a consistent break between them: “ponein and ergazesthai” in Greek, “laborare and facere” in Latin, “travailler and ouvrer” in French, “arbeiten and werken” in German, labor and work in English.” -Front Porch Republic 

In any case, I’m sure I will continue to do both, through September and onward, and I will try, I will even work, to be thankful for all of it, whatever God gives me strength to do.

Ladybugs warned me.

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A picture from my garden in springtime:

It seems I never wrote last summer about how I had to prune my asparagus early. I didn’t have time, because of how that project consumed me. The same phenomenon is forcing me to do it again this year: an infestation of aphids in the thick jungle of fronds. Last week I saw a few ladybugs on the plants, and thought, Oh, no, I bet it’s happening again. I looked more closely, but the invasion wasn’t obviously imminent.

Then today, as I was trimming the irises, I noticed that some of their leaves had the sticky “honeydew” sign of aphids. That’s exactly what I was doing last year when, as today, I looked up at the asparagus fronds bouncing off my head — Why oh why hadn’t I worn a hat? — and saw the shiny mess everywhere. I had taken a lot of pictures last year (including two I’m posting now), but never got around to sharing anything of that experience; there were immensely more pleasant things to tell about.

Searching online, I did not discover any tricks to prevent this happening every year, though I did learn that much of California is so mild that aphids are a problem with many crops; there are aphids specific to many plants, a fact I didn’t know before. Maybe I have the European Asparagus Aphids.

A single adult ladybug can eat up to 50 aphids per day, and the ones that arrived in my garden this month have feasted well, but they can’t keep up. One is supposed to wait to prune asparagus after cold weather makes the fronds turn brown, so that they have as long as possible to carry on photosynthesis. But if aphids are destroying them anyway, not much is lost by doing it early.

Ladybugs in ’24 after I took away much of their food.

Jacques the Gardener in San Diego shows in his video how he had the same problem I do, in his much smaller plot, and his reasoning about having to cut down the plants months before the usual time helped me to feel better about doing the same. Last year there were so many mild-weather months remaining after I removed the decimated fronds, a whole new crop of them sprouted, which I knew would start over the process of turning the fall sunshine into food for the crowns. Eventually they had to be cut off also. My spring crop following all that was pretty good this year, but it’s possible that a continued aphid plague will weaken the plants.

August 2024, after one of two beds had been cut back.

Today, I only cut off a few of the stalks, to clear the way for me to finish cleaning up the irises. In the process aphids and aphid carcasses drifted down on my hair and clothes. In the next couple of months I’m dividing and replanting the irises and changing things around in that area, so I think after cutting all the asparagus to the ground I’ll take the mulch off the whole space as well and start with fresh everything. I hope that might reduce next year’s aphid population a little.

In the meantime, I will close with a more positive visual reminder of why I do all this work:

 

Samwise and the swallowtail.

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Ladybug on sunflower leaf.

When I woke today, a multitude of urgent tasks filled my mind and sent me off in the wrong direction. Eventually I was rescued by the Jesus Prayer, by Jesus Himself. As I calmed down I realized that a few of the tasks were not that urgent, and when I began to consolidate my lists, one task fell off altogether, being a completely unnecessary outing, and large project that would have followed. That was a drive to the apple ranch to get Gravenstein apples, a variety that I usually miss out on because they are so early. But it won’t hurt to miss out on them again — why change tradition?

Volunteer Delta Sunflower

I’d wanted to water the garden early, but it ended up being not-so-early, and what do you know, that was not a disaster. Putting the hose on thirsty plants — or were they plants that merely look dry because it is August? — gave me so much joy, I could hardly bear it. I remember when my current garden went in, ten years ago, with its extensive automatic irrigation, my daughter Pearl was concerned and said, “But Mama, you love watering the garden!” Evidently that is true. It’s a great gift to have such work.

Viburnum coming along after hard pruning.

It seems to me that the irrigation system needs some adjusting; my thought is that as the plants are more in number and greater in size than when we first programmed it, and even since the last changes, I should customize it further. That job is a mental challenge for me, as there are six different valves/lines and three programs, for each of which one has to determine how many days per week and how many minutes of run time. As I have done so often, I will have to study the diagram and how to enter the settings via the dials and buttons, because it never sticks with me. If I just give some areas a little more water by hand, that will relieve my anxiety. It will be easier to tackle the problem if I am confident that nothing is dying of thirst right now.

Path mulch reapplied after 9.5 years.
Salvia clevelandii

As I walked around with the hose, noting how many things are alive and obviously growing, happiness filled me. The thoughts of J.R.R. Tolkien that Eugene Terekhin writes about recently in “Why Gardeners Will Save the World” make me think that my garden is helping me while I am tending it:

Quoting a letter Tolkien wrote to a friend: “I think the simple ‘rustic’ love of Sam and his Rosie (nowhere elaborated) is absolutely essential to the study of his (the chief hero’s) character, and to the theme of the relation of ordinary life (breathing, eating, working, begetting) and quests, sacrifice, causes, and the ‘longing for Elves’, and sheer beauty.”

Terekhin: “Mythically speaking, Sam [the character in Lord of the Rings] was ‘down to earth.’ He was a gardener who loved all things that grow — as all hobbits do.”
….
“The most important thing one can do in wartime is to grow a garden. Because when we grow things, they grow us. It takes a long time to grow something, and as we tend our garden we grow together with it.”

I know for sure that just being out there, soaking up the scents and the colors, watching the bees and butterflies drink from the flowers I tend on their behalf, is to me that most essential, ordinary life such as Tolkien shows us. For quite a while I followed this glorious, common swallowtail in all its glory, a creature that was drinking from just about every zinnia in the planter boxes. He and I were of the same mind about Being, and being down to earth.

Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued,
is always just beyond your grasp,
but which, if you sit down quietly,
may alight upon you.

-Nathaniel Hawthorne