Design Your Salad

The most important part of designing a vegetable garden is deciding what you want to eat for the summer! I love fresh tomatoes and anything that can be made into a salad. And I like a combination of warm season crops (tomatoes, beans, and lettuce), and cool season crops  (broccoli, cabbage, and carrots) to extend the season.

Size is another factor. My vegetable garden is pretty small—just an 8 feet by 4 feet raised garden bed. But I can expand my planting area by planting outside the garden box, either directly in the soil, or in a series of containers. Another thing I’ve been learning is that vegetables do not need to be planted is rows. You can plant smaller plants around larger plants, and continue planting in cycles as space opens up.

Another factor is what was planted the previous year. Some plants, like those in the nightshade family (tomatoes and peppers), deplete the soil. Other plants, like those in the legume family (peas and beans), augment the soil. Crop rotation helps ensure healthy soil and good harvest.

Salad 2010 - Here's a rough sketch of my vegetable
garden for 2010. The large rectangle represents my
raised garden box; herbs are planted outside the box.

Salad 2011. Notice the rotation of the tomato
plants and legumes inside the box. I also plan to increase
the quantity of herbs planted outside the box.

Many gardening books provide information about vegetable gardening. One of my favorite resources is the California Master Gardener Handbook; edited by Dennis R. Pittenger; and published by the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (publication 3382).

Adding Drip Irrigation to the Raised Bed

I learned almost everything I know about drip irrigation from the Rain Bird® web site: https://www.rainbird.com/. Resources include product information, videos, manuals, catalogs, and a reasonably priced design service. I also visited Home Depot to study the Rain Bird components they carry. Finally, I bought the Rain Bird Gardener’s Drip System Starter Kit, and experimented to see how everything works.

For the raised garden bed, the basic design includes two levels of irrigation – one outside the box to water herbs and shrubs, and one inside the box to water vegetables. The water source is a hose with a special faucet connection kit to prevent back flow.

Two levels of drip irrigation - one inside and
one outside the raised garden box.

The water source is a simple hose arrangement.
On the left, a faucet connection regulates
water flow and provides a filter.

The 1/2 inch brown emitter tubing includes emitters
built in at regular intervals.

Smaller 1/4 inch tubing takes water right to specific plants.
Special emitter connections and manifolds enable
you to vary water flow (1, 2, or 3 gallons per hour). 

By the end of last season, I determined I had too many emitters, and not enough water pressure. This season I plan to separate the two lines, so I can water outside and inside the garden box independently. One of these seasons I’ll add a rain harvesting system to complete the system.

San Francisco Garden Show – Edible Gardens

Yesterday my Aunt Char, cousin Jenny, and I attended the San Francisco Garden Show at the San Mateo Event Center. We sat in on several lectures, spent time in the Market Place (bought some amazing Rescue tape), marveled over the Bonsai exhibit, and drooled over the exhibition gardens.

Our first lecture was Edible Landscaping by Rosalind Creasy (www.rosalindcreasy.com). She showed slides of her front yard vegetable garden (she claims if you add flowers and box hedges, the neighbors barely notice you are growing vegetables in the front yard, instead of the back)! From the slides we saw, I believe it. To follow up, we visited the Edible Garden pavilion, which was full of creative ideas for growing vegetable gardens that are pretty, and work in small places.

We also learned how to transplant our Cymbidium and Phalaenopsis orchids from Debra Atwood of Napa Valley Orchids; and about soil composition from Jeff Lowenfels, author of Teaming with Microbes. We enjoyed the cooking demonstration (and samples) provided by Jeffrey Stoat, chef at Alexander’s Steakhouse in San Francisco (http://www.alexanderssteakhouse.com/san_francisco.html). He and his team prepared Oshitashi Salad (Dungeness crab, radish, and pickled carrots), and skirt steak rolls with cilantro salad. Delicious.

Replacing flower beds with vegetable beds.

Mixing herbs and flowers in a single bed. Notice the
wooden utensils used to label the plants.

Enjoying the garden show.

A small lettuce bed growing on top of a hay bale. Hay bale
gardening is an innovative way to garden. The tubes
in the background are potato towers, described on the
Sunset web site.

We had a great time together, and left feeling enriched with new ideas and possibilities. I loved the emphasis on growing edible gardens that are beautiful, economical, and tasty!

Pier 39 Raised Beds

Friends from out-of-town visited on the weekend, so we made an excursion to Pier 39 in San Francisco. It was a rainy, windy, chilly day, but we enjoyed being together, seeing the sights, and eating hot clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls at Boudin’s Bakery on Pier 39:  https://www.boudinbakery.com/boudin-at-the-wharf.

I love the raised beds along Embarcadero. The flowers and plants are vibrant and healthy, and the raised beds offer seats for tired tourists (or would on a sunny day). Apparently we stumbled upon the last days of Tulipmania, celebrated yearly at Pier 39. The tulips were still beautiful and plentiful (according to an article in SFGate.com, about 39,000 tulips were planted for the display: Tulipmania: Pier 39 begins celebration of blooms). Breathtaking!

Tale end of Tulipmania!

Raised garden beds are not just for vegetables. They can provide planting areas for trees, shrubs, and flowers. They are appropriate in the home garden, and in an urban setting.

Raised garden beds near Pier 39.

Adding Soil to the Raised Garden Bed

After building the raised garden bed frame, and attaching the gopher proofing, Jason and I wrestled the box to its new location – in full sun and away from the root structure of existing trees.

For soil, I chose the Local Hero Veggie Mix from American Soil in Richmond, CA. This sandy loam blend ensures good drainage, and is fertilized and ready for planting. You can read about the Local Hero blend, and other specialty blends available for the San Francisco Bay Area: https://www.americansoil.com/soils.html.

American soil offers several options – you can buy soil in bags, or in bulk; you can use your own truck to pick up the soil from their site, or have the soil delivered to your site. After doing some calculations and weighing the pros and cons, I decided to pay American Soil to deliver the soil in bulk on our driveway, and to provide the woman-power to move all that soil into the raised garden bed.

It took two of us to excavate dirt for the posts,
and move the garden box to its new location.
We used a level to determine its final positioning.

Future proofing - we planned to irrigate using a hose system,
and drip irrigation. But wanted to build in the
potential to tap in to the existing sprinkler system.

American Soil delivered the soil to our driveway in bulk.

We added the soil to the raised garden bed,
and filled in the post holes.

The raised bed is almost ready for planting. Next time - adding irrigation to the raised garden bed.

Give Peas a Chance

March 17 (Saint Patrick’s Day) is the traditional day for planting peas, but I typically plant them in late May in the San Francisco Bay Area. We usually enjoy peas well into September, when we are experiencing our hot, dry season.

Why are peas so great to grow? Not only are they easy to cultivate and eat, but they can be planted in very poor soil. Peas are in the legume family, which includes nitrogen-fixing plants. These plants “capture" nitrogen out of the air, and “fix” it into the ground. Peas provide their own fertilizer! The plants require rhizobia bacteria in the soil. The nitrogen cycle is one of those beautiful mysteries of the garden.

Last year I planted Super Sugar Snap Peas
from Renees Garden (reneesgarden.com).

We enjoyed peas for several months.

Big Decisions

OK, I purchased my ticket to the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show online – and even managed to get the early-purchase discount. Now I’m drooling over the seminar offerings to try to determine which day of the week to attend. The easiest day would be Saturday, but then I would miss “Wicked Plants” by blogger Amy Stewart, or “City Slickers Farm” by Barbara Finnan, or the film premiere of “Symphony of Soil’ by Deborah Garcia. What is a gardener to do!

Another consideration is when to visit the Market Place. With so many great seminars, it would be easy to miss the chance to purchase garden-related products at a discount, or see the latest gadgets.

Some cool garden show videos are posted on the San Francisco Flower Show site. In one, you can see a speeded up version of what it takes to set up the garden show ("The Making of a Flower Show”); and you can see historic interviews from a past garden show (“San Francisco Garden Show 1950”). You can also see the archives of the beautiful garden displays of years past.

Orchid purchased at the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show
in 2009 - it still blooms!

Can you tell I’m excited to attend the 2011 show? The best part is attending with my Aunt Char; and, this year, there is a chance that some of my cousins from out-of-town may attend. Doesn’t get much better – gardening and family and friends.

Gopher Proofing the Raised Garden Bed

I gardened for years in Montclair with no gopher problem; then, about four or five years ago, gophers suddenly appeared. Every spring, when the soil was still soft from the winter rains, I would spot above-ground evidence of their underground tunnels. Later in the season, I would find that the gophers had harvested my vegetables from underground!

So, our son, Jason, and I decided to gopher-proof the raised bed. The Sunset instructions recommend lining the garden box with hardware cloth to keep out gophers and moles: http://www.sunset.com/garden/backyard-projects/ultimate-raised-bed-how-to-00400000011938/page5.html.

Additional research indicated that you should not use chicken wire because the mesh is too large; the hardware cloth mesh is small enough to keep burrowing intruders out, but still give safe passage to worms. We had to sew together several strips of hardware cloth to create a large enough piece to cover the bottom of the frame. 

Lining the garden box frame with hardware cloth.
You can see the seams where we "sewed" together
several strips of mesh.

Attaching the hardware cloth to the garden box frame.
Our heavy-duty stapler was not strong enough; Jason decided
to use nails to secure the mesh to the frame.

We still have gophers, but they are thwarted from burrowing up to harvest vegetables. And we have other garden critters, like deer, mice, and birds, but that is another story! Next time - adding soil to the raised garden bed.

Finding the Essence of a Tree

I recently attended a pruning class called Finding the Essence of a Tree, taught by Michael Alliger. The class is part of the Aesthetic Pruning series that is held on the Merritt College campus. Aesthetic pruning has two goals:

• Enhance the natural form of the tree.
• Enhance the function of the tree in the garden design.

According to Alliger, pruning is more than removing what is bad; it is also about revealing what is good. This includes revealing the tree as a representative of its genera, species, or cultivar, and revealing its individual characteristics. The goal is to make each aspect of the tree or bush readable. Readable elements include the root crown, trunk, branches, foliage, and the flowers and fruit. Alliger advocates studying trees in books and in their natural setting, to see how they grow without interference; and to study Bonsai forms, which emulate the natural form of a tree in miniature. Then prune to liberate the tree's essence.

A Madrone in nature, with its beautiful
bark, leaves, and distinctive berries.

To find out about the series of classes see: http://www.aestheticpruning.org/AP/Classes.aspx. The series lasts for a year, but you can attend classes in any order, over a period of several years.

Count Down to the San Francisco Garden Show

One of my favorite annual events is the San Francisco Garden Show. The event was held at the Cow Palace for years, but moved to the San Mateo Event Center several years ago. This show is a gardening paradise of lavish model gardens by professional designers, seminars and lectures by experts in the local, regional and national garden field, and a market place of the latest gardening products. My Aunt Char and I try to attend every year.

This year’s theme is Life in the California Garden, which is very appropriate for the San Francisco Bay Area. The lineup of lectures and guest speakers includes chefs from the Bay Area! With today's focus on organic gardening and cooking with local produce, this should be very interesting and informative.

The Garden Show runs from March 23 – 27 this year. You can purchase tickets online, or at a participating nursery, typically at a discount if you are early enough. If you are new to the Bay Area (or a veteran), you’re in for a treat! See the website for information about current shows: https://sfgardenshow.com/. 

Life in the California garden

Building a Raised Garden Bed

Winter is coming to an end here in the San Francisco Bay Area; we can typically count on another month of the rainy season before the dry season begins. This is the time when I start thinking about my vegetable garden. It’s a tiny plot – an 8 feet by 4 feet raised garden bed. It doesn’t take much work, but enables me to enjoy the pleasure of planning what to grow, then planting, harvesting, and eating our “crops.”

A few years ago I commissioned our son, Jason, to build the garden box when he was home from the University of Alaska on summer break. After some research, we decided to use the classic Sunset plan for a raised garden bed. We built the box using redwood planks and coated deck screws, for about $175, plus labor. The result is a sturdy and beautiful garden box that should last for years. The raised bed ensures good drainage, something our clay soil cannot provide.

Assembling the garden box.

Drilling detail.

You can obtain the raised garden bed plan, and see pictures, on the Sunset website: http://www.sunset.com/garden/perfect-raised-bed-00400000039550/. Next week – gopher proofing!

Oleo europa Spotted

Saw this olive tree in a small grove up by First Covenant Church in Oakland. They are not native to the area, but grow in Mediterranean climates.

The Art of Structural Pruning

I have been attending a series of aesthetic pruning classes, held on the Merritt College campus in Oakland. Aesthetic pruning refers to the art and science of pruning small trees and shrubs in the garden, using design principles that honor the essence of the plant. The first aesthetic pruning class was developed in 1986 by Dennis Makishima, from the Merritt College Landscape Horticulture Department. Michael Alliger and others developed additional classes to form the series. Alliger teaches many of the classes, and has a wonderful way of conveying principles, demonstrating artful cuts, and providing practical information.

Through this series, I have learned that many of the pruning rules you read in gardening books do not apply in the San Francisco Bay Area. For example, in many instances, you can prune year round. You just need to understand a tree or shrub’s growth pattern, and what you are trying to achieve with your pruning.

In The Art of Pruning Deciduous Trees and Shrubs, I learned the concept of structural pruning for deciduous (leaf dropping) trees. In the winter, without the leaves, you can see the base structure of a tree. This enables you to make structural cuts that enhance the tree’s form for its winter silhouette, and its long term development. There is beauty in bare tree limbs against the winter sky.

The Bay Area has many gardening resources; the Aesthetic Pruning Series is one of its treasures. To learn more about aesthetic pruning, visit http://www.aestheticpruning.org/AP/Default.aspx. To find out about the classes, visit: http://www.aestheticpruning.org/AP/Classes.aspx. The series lasts for a year; you can attend classes in any order, over a period of several years.

Without leaves, a tree's basic form is revealed.

Aliens From Down Under

This is a great time of year to visit the University of Santa Cruz Arboretum. They have a wonderful collection of Mediterranean plants from Australia, New Zealand, and Africa. Many of them bloom between January and April, because of the winter rains. I say “alien plants” because many of them are so exotic, fun, startling, and completely different from plants we are used to in the Bay Area. Australians may call our plants “alien” as well!

Here are a few of my favorites from my last visit:

Eucalyptus caesia ssp. magna Silver Princess
Australian collection

Protea neriifolia Pink Mink
African collection

Banksia ericifolia Heath Banksia
Australian collection

To find out how to visit the Arboretum: http://arboretum.ucsc.edu/. You can help support the Arboretum through donations, membership, and volunteer work. You can also purchase items from Norrie's, the gift store, and from plant sales. The plants have been tested for growing in the Bay Area.