The Natives

When I wrote the last post a month ago, and never got around to posting it, I sincerely believed the worst of the southern California summer was over. Fortunately for me, I didn’t know what was coming – life is merciful that way. It’s over now, but our heat wave was really too much. Today, we are sitting outside after having our lunch in the shade, and perfectly comfortable. What a blessing.

As you might imagine after the dismal previous post, I have nothing to write about in my garden. I intend to sow some seeds soon, and hope for a better Fall. But here are some interesting and unusual things I thought you might enjoy.

I loudly called Wolfi (it was not a scream) to come to the bathroom. This handsome fellow was there and did not appreciate our efforts to relocate him to a more welcoming place. Tarantulas are nearly harmless, and Wolfi has nearly convinced me they are cute. We first saw one on the driveway a few weeks ago, and removed it to the entrance to the hills. We hope it was not he we saw a few days later, having been stung by and now being dragged across the path by a “tarantula hawk”, one of the less-appealing insects I have encountered. More recently Wolfi found a scorpion in the office. How do these creatures get in our house?

California buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum) is one of my favorite native plants. Here it is in late summer, when the flowers, pink to white in spring and early summer, have gone to seed and turned tumbleweeds (Salsola tragus) are the most frequent. I will try distributing buckwheat seeds there.

We picked up some paddles that had fallen off a huge cactus fence (Opuntia littoralis) nearby. They appeared dead, but did grow – after a few months little baby paddles sprouted! Most of them became prickly pears, first blooming as a lovely yellow flower that was gone in a day. A few formed new paddles.

One of the most surprising joys of this summer was the discovery of one very productive elderberry tree, way back in the hills. Claire, Lucy and I took a long route one morning on our walk, and discovered it just as its fruits were frosted at the peak of ripeness. We must have collected 10 or 15 pounds over the next couple of weeks. We froze some (and discovered that the fastest way to get them off the bush is to freeze the bunches whole, then knock them off gently onto a cookie sheet while still frozen) and will be able to have them on cereal through the winter. Their antioxidant and virus-

fighting capacity is legendary – evidently they work better than tamiflu! To me, the wonder of a fruitful bush/tree (this one is over 10 feet tall and the radius is probably 15-20 feet) in a canyon that saw its last rainfall 3-4 months previous is mind-boggling. My melancholy at missing our yearly weekend of visiting the Miller farm and hiking Gap Mountain for blueberries with the Weigels was at least partially eased by this discovery.

I'll finish with one last uninvited guest, who left without us being able to make their acquaintance, but left behind the evidence of their visit (toes included for scale). Maybe it was a rat snake?

August and all is not well

Not what I had in mind

The temptation is there to say nothing when things aren’t going so well. But I didn’t commit to a blog about only the positive parts of a garden in a dry place. It’s mid-August, so perhaps we’re done with the worst of our first year, heat and desiccation-wise. That’s what I’m hoping. Here are the garden happenings through the past 3 months.

Our raised beds are languishing. Since early June it’s been hard to keep anything moist enough to survive. Someone warned me of this when we were building them. I thought tomatoes would be abundant and continue into the fall here – but very early on the vines just died. We only got a few Sungolds. Aunt Rose bemoans the fact that her sprinklers water the tomatoes every day and thought mine would do so much better than hers since I water deeply every few days. Part of the problem could also be that their roots can only go about 2’ deep.

Rabbits love pepper leaves! Who knew?

The peppers that Heidi and I sowed in January had a bit of a hard time because I didn’t get them into the beds until late June, I think. It was already very hot and they never really took off, though I have always watered them every day. I’m hoping that as temps cool they might catch on, at least if they can keep some leaves on them!

Because the real blow to the peppers came in the form of uninvited herbivores, well at least one. We had been so pleased that our plentiful rabbits didn’t discover our garden – but that is no longer the case. First he ate all the leaves off several peppers. One day he developed a fondness for cilantro, and ate it all down to nubs, including the seeds that had been drying for my curry. The sweet potatoes appear to win the battle one week, then suddenly they’ll be nearly denuded.

We have had extensive discussions with our pellet gun-wielding friends about our predicament. For now, I have chosen to fend them off with fermented garlic-hot pepper spray a la Mike McGrath. But I don’t always get it sprayed after watering, so I continue to feed the rabbits.

We had our first ripe fig last week! There are 3-5 more baby ones coming. Friends brought us a bag

citrus from above

from their tree last week. We saw what I have since described as fig stealers under a neighborhood tree about 10:30 one night at the bottom of our hill, but I digress. As for our other fruit trees, the citrus have had a growth spurt in the last month. All appears well. The persimmon is apparently fine, but has a shoot from the root stock. Claire thinks I can cut it and root it for a base for another tree. The apricot continues to appear to be fine, though its upper half never seemed to recover. We’ll give it another year. The plum was fine until last week, but that requires another story.

apricot

Two weeks ago Sunday, there was rain in the forecast. I thought only the mountains would see it. There were flash flood warnings in the morning, and by early afternoon we were watching it across the valley, great white clouds completely obscuring the mountains. We heard real flash flood warnings come through on the radio – you know, the ones that almost always end in “this has been a test of the emergency broadcasting network…” We had been in Forest Falls in misty fog on Saturday, and enjoyed the sprinkles. But we had no idea what we were in for! Suddenly the first big drops arrived. We kept watching from the patio. As it started to pour, I took my broom around and cleaned the cement. Rain is such a welcome visitor! Within 10 minutes we had a raging river rushing down our driveway. It snaked around the hairpin turn at the bottom and was off

Did a gopher eat my plum roots?

down the hill. Before we knew it the runoff arrived, and soon our pond was as full as ever. We raced around clearing clogged drains, checking gutters, scooping mud, building a little rock divertor so the east side of the driveway wouldn’t erode. Suddenly there was 6” of water in the backyard – dig a little hole to release it! No, it’s e
roding a canyon into the neighbor’s hill! Quick, fill it with dirt and rocks! Our shrubs got a very good soaking, which they desperately needed!

We dashed back into the hills a few steps, marveling at the channels cut out almost instantly and the mini-landslides we could watch coming down from the steep places. It was really white water coming into the catch basin! All told we got just over 2” in about 1.5 hours. Thankfully, things worked well above the house. Since then, Wolfi has fixed the problems below, so we’ll have to wait for the next test.

Back to the plum tree. It had looked fine all along – but 3 days after the storm, it suddenly wilted!

Now whatever could have happened? I don’t know. Is something rotting? As far as I can tell it is really truly dead.

Perhaps I am going to be a 3-season gardener. Perhaps I could also figure out how to grow stuff even in summer. Lots of people do – you should see our farmer’s market. Of course that’s the main reason I am not more upset that our garden is dehydrated. But I will read up a bit. Another improvement, probably, would be the seeds. We bought a few more seeds, but most of mine were from New England, born & bred for the cold. I suppose there must also be heat-resistant varieties.

Or, I could stick to orchids.