UPBEAT TIMES • March 2014 • 21


Home The Garden • Consider The Garden


Santa Rosa, CA. ~ Windy wind chime March is start- ing out hinting of more sun and clear blue skies, we’ll see. Seems like this season, February showers may be persuading March and April flowers. Watch out for those unexpected ‘cold snaps’ since green tips that were just pok- ing through the dark earth are starting to take form and beginning to reveal ‘who they are’, forgotten bulbs, unexpected tubers and native grasses planted here and there. Speaking of native grasses I have divided and planted Yampa and Eyebrow grass (Bouteloua gracilis) and final- ly buried the concrete pavers out front, some straight, some diagonal. The swaths of native Blue Eyed grass are as charm- ing as I hoped they would be wandering near paths soon to explode into a delicate blue. Still leafing through a tall stack of organic seed cata- logues, so enjoyable just for the vivid, inspiring pic- tures. Reading one of Anna Pavord’s older, classic books, Plant Partners (2001), a divine English style collec- tion of ideas for combinations of color, bloom time with plants you might not have put together in your own garden. And I always love those big stunning photographs. It’s indeed time to begin preparation for the spring garden, potager and dividing those summer perennials for those ‘wow’ masse plantings. I’m shoveling in my own


(hooray!) well-rotted com- post and chicken manure, cotton seed hulls and a lit- tle Eureka organic planting mix. I’m starting seeds of salad greens like Oriental Tatsoi, Upland cress, Lovelock lettuces, trying to select heat tolerant vari- eties this year. I love to plant rows of quintessen- tial green onions, eaten as young onions or allowed to grow to maturity. Don’t forget colorful edible flow- er additions like ‘Variegated Queen’ or scarlet heirloom ‘Empress of India’ nastur- tiums, ‘Etain’ violet, soft yel- low blossoms with lavender edges and happy faced pansy flowers of all colors.


Those


extras are so lovely and entic- ing in the salad bowl. As far as tomatoes you’ll just have to decide, tiny sweet cherry tomatoes like ‘Chadwick’ or bigger ‘Crimson Sprinter’ a vigorous and disease resis- tant heirloom. How about seeds of ‘Gold Medal’ one of “the finest bi-colored yel- low and red tomato avail- able,” according to the o-so- enticing Select Seeds cata- log. Renee’s garden catalog will temp you with heirloom tomatoes, mouthwatering varieties of seeds and plants saved and savored for gen- erations. Plant their specialty cosmos, Dancing Petticoats to add plenty of ruffles and frill to the flower garden, and to scatter in the vegetable garden as well. Cosmos is a won- derful cut flower and Renee promises “easy care lovelies bloom nonstop with armfuls of romantic bouquets”.


So


many interesting seeds to plant and explore. How about brilliant red ‘Will Rogers’ zinnia, Purple Hyacinth bean, red gold and Candy-striped jewel toned beets, pear shaped Ukraine purple and Cherokee purple tomatoes, ‘Schweitzer Riesen’ snow peas, extra-large and full of flavor and there’s more. . . ‘Brilliant Rainbow’


JOKES & Humor # 9 by Kimberly Childers • kimberlychilders@att.net


Quinoa (keen-wa), my favor- ite lettuce-‘Merveilles Quatre Saisons’, and ‘Nero de Toscana kale, ‘Pink Passion’ chard, melons, broccolis and the many essential fragrant herbs. Don’t forget to get some Scarlet Runner Beans growing up a trellis and what about carrots?


There are


orange Scarlet Nantes, White Satin and Dragon, a magical looking purple skinned variety with a brilliant orange center & yellow core. Google some or all of these catalogs and see what you find. Spend an entire morning, an afternoon, an evening to get organized and get it on paper. Do it! Flip through the McClure & Zimmerman flower bulb cata- log and planting guide, florif- erous Wayside Gardens with their stout, well rooted plants to order or amazing Seeds of Change with outrageous sunflowers/seeds, red and yel- low Iceland Poppies, herbs and a myriad of even more mouthwatering vegetables including Armenian Heirloom Cucumber that thrives in very hot weather.


Don’t forget


about the great seed bank in Petaluma and other organic, local seed companies


and


nurseries here in Sonoma County.


Help the kids grow


Easter Egg or Rainbow rad- ishes. Tom Thumb is a petite lettuce that kids love to grow too. Look through Annie’s Spring Catalog and be daz- zled with the combinations, she ‘puts together’ throughout with lots of new plants to grow in your drought tolerant gardens.


It’s an outrageous


assortment of elegance on every single page.


Finish all pruning of trees


and bushes and be sure and clean up all debris so dis- eases and viruses can’t get a start, compost or ‘green can’ them. Feed acid loving plants like azaleas, rhododendrons and berries. Build a lattice or pergola for climbing fruits and fragrant vines. String up some


A good catchword can obscure analysis for fifty years. ~Wendell L. Willkie


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UPBEAT TIMES • March 2014 • 21


wire mesh for sweet peas. Everything green is pushing up through dampened earth, scatterings of rowdy Stellar Jays and robins, cerise-throat- ed house finches and


talk-


ative mockingbirds investigate under awakening trees, feast- ing on earthworms, insects and seeds. Anxious budding branches explode with pink and white blizzards of pet- als adrift in March breezes, covering the thick, concrete sidewalks down town.


Let


the cool, moist earth ooze between your naked toes and fingers. Seek out the unusual, the uncommon and anything else that ignites your passion- ate garden spirit, inspiring you to do more than you thought


possible. Don’t let yourself get too caught up in the day to day humdrum. Breathe deeper, eat more dark chocolate, learn to do yoga, drink more organic green tea, realize how incred- ibly alive you are and oh, did I mention...drum roll please... IT’S SPRING!


14th Annual Spring Guide April & May 2014


I Love this Paper!


Cat: Technical Support This is an actual account by a worker at a technical support and service center. One partic- ular customer had an old con- sole-type machine with a print head that would ride back and forth on a spiral shaft. They also had a big bushy cat who liked to sit on the edge of the printer next to the operator.


Well, one day we got a service call that said, "Cat caught in machine, come quick!"


When I arrived I saw everyone sitting around mending their various wounds, scratches and contusions. No sight of the cat. It appears that while they were running the machine the cat was twirling his tail in his usual fashion and stuck it down into the printer at the most inoppor- tune time and got sucked in! Apparently, the cat absolutely freaked out and clawed at everyone who came close. They finally freed the cat, and to this day, the cat goes nowhere near the machine.


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