Difficult Fruits and Vegetables to Grow
California’s drought affects the dinner tables of households across the country. The vegetables that form the basis for the salads we eat in abundance are particularly susceptible to lack of sufficient water. Lettuce and carrots are shallow-rooted and medium-rooted plants that need water. Deep-rooted plants like tomatoes can survive droughts because their extensive root systems seek out damp areas far below the surface and feed on that moisture. Shallow and medium-rooted vegetables require lots of water, particularly during long periods of hot, sunny days. Other vegetables that can be difficult to grow in California include major American food staples like onions, broccoli and cabbage. Green onions and leeks, popular in sautéed dishes, have shallow roots. Cucumbers, peas and summer squash have medium roots and may fare a little better in California but will still need frequent watering.
Some root vegetables have shallow and medium roots. Turnips, radishes and beets aren’t hot weather crops and require a balance of heat and moisture that can be difficult to achieve in the coastal California climate. These root vegetables require soaking rains or watering. Watering these crops lightly can actually be counterproductive.
Fruits also have varying depths of root systems. Berry crops like strawberries are sparse during droughts. Strawberries like to spread their roots out, not down. Popular jam and jelly berries like blackberries, raspberries and boysenberries have shallow roots and are typically found growing in shady arbors or wooded areas. Blueberries are also among the berries that grow best in areas that get regular rain. If it’s referred to as a “cane fruit” or a “bramble fruit,” it probably won’t grow well in the California coast area.
When we think of California, we think of fruit trees. Americans will always look to California for oranges and lemons, but other tree fruits like pears do well in wet soil. Peaches are not drought-resistant. They require regular water in moderate zones. Pears aren’t suitable for sandy soil and constant sun, making them a poor choice for your California yard or orchard.
A complete garden features herbs. Some, like basil and lavender, need sun but also need regular watering. Other herbs grow best in shade. Chives are popular chopped fresh for dips and dressings or sprinkled over cooked dishes. They grow best in shady, moist areas. Herbs in the mint family and ginger need similar conditions.
How do you decide what vegetables, fruits and herbs to plant in your home garden? If you want a small kitchen garden, consider planting basics like cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, lettuce and herbs in containers on your patio. Small container gardens don’t require much water, and the containers can be moved during the day so that the plants receive just enough sun.
For help in selecting fruits and vegetables that will thrive in the California climate, contact us. We will evaluate your yard, assist you in choosing high-yield plants that grow best in sunny areas with sandy soil and maintain your trees and garden throughout the year.
What is Food Forest Gardening?
Food forest gardening is a popular new form of landscaping that allows you to create your own little woodland paradise, complete with fruit, nuts and other tasty treats. Everything you plant, from trees on down to shrubs and ground covers, bears some kind of food. You can even mix in some of your favorite mushrooms, herbs or medicinal plants for extra variety.
How to Make Your Own Food Forest
Creating a food forest is a mixture of art and science. You can start by selecting the trees that will form your canopy. Anything from nut trees to fruits will work. If you want to get truly creative, you can layer your trees so that smaller trees are under or in front of the larger trees. The next layer should be medium sized edibles. Shrubs like blackberries and raspberries are perfect for this. After that, you can put in any number of smaller plants like native wildflowers, herbs, or anything else that covers the ground.
What are the Best Plants for a Food Forest?
Trees are the hardest choice to make. These are the foundation of your food forest, and there are many kinds to choose from. If you like fruits, try dwarf apples or pears, plums, peaches or even more exotic fruits like persimmons. For the underbrush layer, elderberries, blackberries, blueberries and raspberries all work well. The under-story of your food forest is where you can really get creative. You can plant all sorts of wild flavors like ginger, horse radish or Jerusalem artichokes. Plants from the cabbage family, including kale and collards,work well too. You can also try medicinal plants like echinacea or comfrey.
Oregano and thyme are must-have cooking herbs, are drought-resistant and can go straight from the garden to your kitchen. They can also be dried easily for later use. Sage is well-known to California residents, but sage used in cooking is very different from wild sage.
Great care must be taken when you use medicinal plants and mushrooms in your food forest garden. You should consult botanical experts before attempting to grow mushrooms for cooking use. Never attempt to harvest wild mushrooms without professional help. Mushrooms grow on the floor of the forest in decomposing leaves and on fallen trees. Fruit trees and herbs need sun, so your food forest garden will be made up of different areas of your yard. Landscapers and gardeners experienced in using mushrooms in a food forest garden can plant safe common and exotic edible mushrooms in the proper environment.
What are the Benefits of a Food Forest?
First and foremost, a thriving food forest will put fresh, healthy food on your dinner plate. Since most plants in a food forest are perennials, these garden plots tend to be very low maintenance. Food forests also make a wonderful shady area to escape from the cares of the world, and they provide valuable habitat to a variety of birds, amphibians and small mammals. A good food forest will add a lot of value to your life and the environment.
Looking for more food forest gardening suggestions? Call 805-773-5395
Three Ways to Keep a Weed-Free Lawn
Keeping a weed-free lawn requires some planning. Before you get started, evaluate the weed problem. A few weeds here and there will require a different strategy than a lawn that has more weeds than grass. Use the following guide to determine the right way to get your lawn in shape.
Guide for a Weed-Free Lawn
Minor Weed Problems
Even the most, well-maintained yards will have a few new weeds each year. When you spot emerging weeds, take care of them quickly to prevent larger problems. The easiest way to do this is to use a spot-killer. Choose an all-purpose herbicide and a good sprayer to get the job done. Target each weed, taking care to spray only the weeds so you don’t end up killing larger areas than necessary. Weeds like dandelions will put all of their energy into blooming and spreading seeds once you have applied the killer, so make sure to remove any flowers and buds.
Larger Weed Problems
When using a spot-killer that will result in dozens of ugly dead patches all over the yard, you will want to take a different approach. The first thing to do is mow the yard at the proper height to promote healthy, strong growth that crowds out existing weeds. Bent grass likes to be cut to 3/4-inch or shorter, while tall fescue or Kentucky bluegrass are best if clipped between 1 ½ to 3 inches.
You should also take care to make sure that your weed-free lawn has the right amount of water, and consider adding regular fertilizing to your lawn care regimen. There are many great weed-and-feed systems that you can use in the spring and fall of the year. These products will give your grass the nutrition it needs, while applying a pre-emergent pesticide to prevent new weeds from sprouting.
Turf Wars: What to Do When Nothing Else Works
When it comes to major weed infestations, there are two ways to deal with it. The first is to kill the entire yard and start over with either new seed or new sod. If you don’t want to go through the hassle and expense, you can opt for the second approach. This strategy involves using a broad-leaf herbicide to kill all weeds. You can find these products at most home improvement stores. Many even offer crabgrass control. Alternatively, you can hire a landscaping service to treat your lawn. Continue using a weed-and-feed system along with regular watering to promote new growth, and your lawn will be the envy of the neighborhood in a season or two.
To learn more on how to have a weed-free lawn, call 805-773-5395 or
Lawn: Monitor Moisture Levels in Your Lawn
Gardening can be very useful, rewarding and fun. Whether you choose to grow flowers, vegetables or ornamental plants, many find that nurturing and tending to a garden brings such a rewarding feeling and sense of accomplishment. The ideas here can provide some gardening guidance, and give you a little hand as you get started growing your own special garden.
You don’t require specialized tools or years of expert knowledge to keep your lawn well watered throughout the year. By learning how to spot the signs of an unhappy lawn, as well as a couple of tricks to help keep the moisture levels just right, you can enjoy a lush green lawn throughout the season.
Monitor Moisture Levels in Your Lawn
Know Your Soil Type
There are three different components that make up soil: silt, sand and clay. If you have soil that is mostly clay, it will hold moisture for a very long time. Sandy soil drains water from your yard or garden very quickly. The best soil is loam, which is an even blend of all three components. To determine your soil type, pick up a handful of soil, squeeze it into a ball, and let it dry for a day. Soil that dries into a hard lump is mostly clay. If the ball doesn’t hold its shape at all, you have sandy soil. Loam will make a ball that crumbles slightly, but stays mostly intact when you pick it up.
Learning the Signs of a Dry Lawn
The first sign of a dry lawn is a change in color. Depending on the variety of your grass, it can take on a bluish, purple or gray cast. As the moisture problem gets worse, you will start to notice that your footprints are still visible hours after walking on the lawn – dried grass doesn’t have the resilience of properly hydrated grass. When dehydration is severe, blades of grass will start to curl up lengthwise.
Monitoring Your Sprinkler System
Does it sometimes seem like parts of your lawn aren’t getting enough water while other areas get too much? It could be a problem with the way your sprinkler system delivers water. An easy way to test this is to place plastic cups at evenly spaced intervals within the range of your sprinkler. Turn your sprinkler on and let it run for 30 minutes. After that, compare the water levels in each cup. You might be surprised to find that areas near to the sprayer head are getting very little water, while areas along the edge of your sprinkler’s range are getting too much. Now that you know where most of the water is going, you will be able to adjust your watering system accordingly.
Well-watered your plants
A great tip to consider when gardening is to make sure that you are not over or under watering your plants. This is critical because you run the risk of either causing root rot and killing your garden, or drying your plants and soil out due to under watering. Always check the moisture of your soil, and keep it at an adequate moisture level.
You can use a mix of water and ammonia and spray them on snails. You will not damage your plants with the ammonia, and it will also produce nitrogen. To snails, though, ammonia is quite lethal. Spraying an ammonia solution around will deter them from doing any damage to your garden. This spray works best when used every day.
Protect you plants from damaging weather
As the weather turns colder, it is important to prepare your sensitive shrubs for the change. If you have them in pots, you need to guard them from cold weather that will damage or kill them. Tie together the tops. Once the canes are snugly together, put a sheet over the wigwam. When you do this you allow air to flow and circulate which can actually prevent rotting, this method is great and better than just wrapping your plant in some plastic.
As discussed at the beginning of this article, gardening has many rewards that come with it. There is just something about growing your own flowers and vegetables that is very fulfilling. By applying some of the advice you have learned, you can find a lot of joy from gardening.
If you are interested to learn more on how to take care of your lawn, call 805-773-5395
Best Mulch for your Garden
Gardening is an incredible method of relaxing. There are a variety of ways to find peace and relaxation on a personal level. Gardening is a great way to do so. You will not need to spend a lot of money to grow your garden, and it provides many benefits. The best return on your investment is the feeling of happiness and tranquility from growing your own greenery. Many people have enjoyed the hobby of gardening for many years. It can be done for sheer pleasure or it can be done to feed a family. This article brings more of the joy of gardening to your life, especially if you nurture your plants with the best mulch for your garden.
There are many different types of mulch to choose from these days, but you don’t need to narrow down the different options if you are just looking for something that will work for everything. There are some mulches made from compost, while others are made from hay, but you will usually get a combination of a few different options when you’re looking for an all-purpose solution. Let’s take a look at some of the main features that you should be looking to get the best mulch that you can use for any new project.
Best Mulch for you Garden
Organic Mulches
The first thing you should look at when it comes to mulch is whether or not the mulch comes from organic materials. Organic mulches tend to improve the soil in the surrounding area because they don’t come with all of the inorganic materials, such as stones and plastic, that are found in many of the mulches sold in stores today. By going with a natural option, you can make sure that you are improving the health of your yard rather than destroying it.
Bark
Bark is usually the materials that you will want to make up most of your mulch. It can be shredded, chipped, or put together in chunks, and you also have to make a decision between pine, hardwood, and other types of trees. The best thing about bark mulch is that it will last a long time and it looks very attractive in any setting.
Dark Mulches
One last thing to remember is that you will want to stick with dark mulches more often than not. Dark mulches tend to absorb heat much more efficiently than their lighter counterparts, and the good news is that dark mulch and bark-based mulch are usually one in the same. You may find that the plants in the surrounding area become overheated if you go with lighter mulch. The plants will have to pick up the slack for absorbing the heat during the hot summer months. You should definitely try to avoid over-decorative mulches, such as white stones.
More gardening tips
Make use of root cuttings to create many new plants. Wait until winter when the roots are dormant before cutting them. The roots that should be cut are the biggest and thickest ones, use some hedge clippers or a sharp knife. Each root should be cut into lengths of about two inches. Fill seed trays with grit and moist peat, and gently lay the cut roots on the surface. Cover up the roots with a thinner layer of the peat mixture. Place your seed tray in a cool location and new seedlings will appear in about a month’s time. Plant each seedling in its own small pot until they grow big enough for outdoor planting.
Certain houseplants need to be re-potted; while others hate it when you disturb their roots. You can easily find out which plants need to be re-potted by turning each plant upside down, then tapping the pot until the plant frees itself from the pot and drops out. If the root structure is pushing out against the edges of the soil, you should transfer the plant to a larger pot. On the other hand, if only a minuscule amount of roots are showing or none at all, then your plant will be all right in the pot it was already in.
As previously mentioned, gardening is something that has been enjoyed by many throughout the centuries. At one time, most people saw gardening as the sole means of providing food for their family. Today it could be used for profit, need or pleasure. Whatever reason pulls you in to gardening, the information you have read in this article should help you to enjoy the process just that much more. Appreciate the pleasures of your gardening habit.
Need to learn how to choose the best mulch for your garden? Call 805-773-5395