The Coastal Gardener - April, 2006
Warm and Cold Spring days
|
The winterey weather that greeted the arrival of Spring was some of the longest sustained cold that I have experienced in Big Sur. From reading back through my garden journals I know that Nature sends of us a spring "tease" in the form of warm days and nights around Valentines Day, and then waits for the hopes of gardener's to swell before snatching it away in a gust of cold wind and the rattle of hail on the roof.
Sometimes I feel that an iceberg has been towed in and anchored just off Cooper Point to chill the winds that blow over my garden this month.
But then a warm day dawns over the ridges and the off shore breeze sends daffodils nodding in the garden and the grass whispering in the field. Suddenly all sorts of flowers are open, unexpected the day before.
A plant that I have had a love/hate relationship with is the Blue Pimpernel, Anagallis. I had been familiar with its European cousin the Scarlet Pimpernel that sports tiny scarlet blooms that open on sunny day over a loose spreading annual plant. But the native blue form was new to me when I first saw it sprout in the garden. Anagallis grows best in disturbed soils of garden beds, paths and roadsides and will make little mats of flowers and foliage up to 1 foot across in spring. But it's love for bare newly turned earth makes it a beautiful nuisance in vegetable beds where it over comes less robust seedlings. I have held a truce with it now for some years and let it thrive among stouter perennials in the borders and pull it promptly when it begins to fade. Ironically if you do not have this pleasant weed already in your garden you can buy plants at the Annie Annuals table at Valley Hills in Carmel valley or San Lorenzo Garden Center in Santa Cruz.
The warmer days also hasten the growth of my salad greens beds in my new spiral food garden. My old vegetable gardens have always been failures in my eyes. Each spring I would get an urge to plant tomatoes and squash; hastily prepare an unused area that was probably too far from the nearest hose or my daily gardening routine, then watch as it languished from my need to attend to my more precious ornamentals. Well, this year I made a real effort to plan out a new garden area that is easy to water, easy to access to both tend and harvest it's bounty. The garden is defined by a curl of fragrant dwarf boxwood and ornamented with cut flowers and useful shrubs.
The salad green beds are about 8 feet long and 2 feet wide, seeded with a selection of mustard, frissee, and baby lettuces that are ideal for European style mixed salads. The key is harvest and succession seeding. The first sowing was made in February and sheltered under a floating row cover. By the second week of March it was ready to be clipped for the table with sharp scissors. It will grow back quickly despite the cold nights and I should get 3 or 4 harvests, enough for salads every night. By the 4th week, I will have sown a new bed to be ready when the first is exhausted.
Attention to the roses will be foremost on the garden agenda for April in the form of feeding and preventative spraying. The warmer days encourage strong growth but also fungal disease like mildew. Watch also for aphids and earwigs that attack the new buds, aphids can be swiped off with a garden glove, trap earwigs at night with homemade traps baited with soy sauce.
Underappreciated plant of the month: Ceanothus
'Centennial', this low native groundcover is doted with marble like deep
blue flowers in spring. Its tiny glossy leaves keep the plant looking bright
and attractive long after the flowers fade. Grows about 12 inches tall by 6
feet wide in full sun. Available at Sierra Azul Nursery in Watsonville,
www.sierraazul.com
Enjoy your garden!
Dave Egbert
