Vegetable Gardening in April in the Santa Cruz Mountains

What’s with all these false starts this spring?  Warm and sunny one week, downright cold with drenching rains the next.  As night and soil temperature warm, newly planted starts and seeds will grow quickly.

Remember that the cool season vegetables include beets, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, kale, lettuce, onions, radish and spinach.  These don’t mind cold soil and chilly weather.
Crops that prefer night temps of 55 degrees and over but will tolerated an occasional light frost are tomatoes bell peppers, corn beans, squash, cucumber, muskmelon and pumpkin.
Distinctly warm weather, long season crops that need temperatures in the 70’s are watermelon, eggplant and chilies.


You can raise the temperature of the soil by laying clear plastic (not black ) over the surface. Protect plants at night with row covers, hot caps, cardboard boxes or anything that will trap heat during the night until temps are right for your crop.

Rotate the beds when planting your vegetables to avoid a build up of diseases and insects that can survive in the soil or on plant residue.  Don’t plant the same or closely related vegetables where they grew in the last 2-3 years. 

Pay attention to the watering needs of each kind of plant, otherwise you might plant high water use vegetables beside ones that need need less water.   This can not only waste water but can actually harm plants.  A good guidelines is to group plants by how big they get and how fast they grow. The bigger and faster they grow, the more water they’ll use.  Plant heavy water users at one end of the garden, light users at the other. For instance, plant shallow rooted beets, bush beans, carrots, lettuce, spinach, radishes and other greens together as they grow at about the same rate and use similar amounts of water.  Corn, cucumbers, melons, tomatoes and squash combine well as they all grow rapidly and need lots of water.  Another tip is not to mix new (successive) plantings of carrots, lettuce and other crops with existing ones as water use changes as the plants mature. 

Vegetables at maturity that root over 48" deep are tomatoes, watermelon, pumpkin, winter squash, asparagus, sweet potatoes, and artichoke.  When watering wet your soil to this depth to keep them happy.  Moderately deep rooting veggies ( 36"-48" ) are beet, beans, carrots, chard, cucumber, eggplant, muskmelon, peas, pepper, summer squash and turnip.  Shallow rooting ( 18" – 24" ) veggies include broccoli, cabbage, celery, corn, garlic, lettuce, onion, parsley, potato, radish and spinach.  Water less if your plants aren’t full grown yet. 

Vegetables in containers are a great solution if you don’t have much space in the ground to devote to them. They warm up quicker in the spring, too. Just about anything that grows in the ground can also grow in a pot or half barrel. This includes vegetables, herbs and seven small fruit trees.

Small plants like lettuces, spinach, swiss chard and herbs grow nicely in smaller pots near the back door while large edibles like tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, cucumbers and melons need more room like a half barrel or large 7 or 5 gallon pots.

It’s important to use fresh planting mix in your containers each year.  Heavy producers  need fresh nutrients and deplete the soil by the end of the season. Also feed your containers for the best tasting fruit and vegetables and water on a steady basis. Skip a day of watering when larger plants are at their peak and you can lose your crop. There’s no such thing as dry-farmed tomatoes in a container.

Growing plants is containers is low maintenance. No weeding required and one of the easiest ways to success.

 

Plant Combinations for the Santa Cruz Mountains

Every spring while driving Hwy 280 on the way to the S.F. Flower & Garden Show, I enjoy the beautiful combination of Western redbuds blooming vivid fuchsia alongside electric blue flower clusters. It’s a sight that always excites me. In early spring there are many other plants that bloom at the same time creating  colorful vignettes. Here are some of my favorites that I’ve used.

Shady gardens come to life when Valley Valentine Lily-of-the-Valley shrub ( Pieris japonica ) is planted in the same area as Bleeding Hearts, Geranium Biokova and Red-leaf Japanese maple. If you’ve never seen this shrub covered with hundreds of rose colored, tiny urn-shaped bells you’ve missed a spectacular sight. The flower buds form in fall and are colorful all winter then open slowly over many months. This plant sails through winter weather, hardy to 0 degrees and is scorned by deer. Even the bark is beautiful on this 5-7 ft evergreen shrub. Add a Red-leaf maple underplanted with pink and white Bleeding Hearts and pale pink Biokova geraniums and your woodland scene is complete.

A beautiful combination for a sunny garden in spring is Spanish lavender Dedication blooming near a Pink Breath of Heaven. Add the strappy leaves of a apricot striped Sundowner New Zealand flax and you’ve created a beautiful addition to your garden.

Sundowner is one of the larger phormiums reaching 6 ft when happy so allow it room and make this your focal point. Lavender Dedication is a stocky 2×3 ft plant that blooms all spring into summer and often repeats if sheared. Short, fat 2" flower spikes have 4 flag-like bracts resembling rabbit ears. Pink Breath of Heaven bears tiny flowers that cover the plant winter and spring and can continue scattered bloom at any other time. The delicate slender leaves are fragrant when brushed or bruised and would be nice along a path where you can enjoy the foliage fragrance. All three of these plants are drought tolerant and deer resistant.

Another nice combo for the sun is Bush Morning Glory planted with Erysimum Orange Zwerg and Echeveria imbricata (Hens and Chicks). If you’ve been wanting to add just a touch of orange to your garden, the dainty 18" tall Orange Zwerg erysimum cooled off with the silky smooth, silvery leaves of Bush Morning Glory is just the ticket. This small mounding erysimum is actually a golden orange and contrasts nicely with the fast growing 2-4 ft Bush Morning Glory. Hens and Chicks in the foreground with their blue green succulent rosettes and loose clusters of bell-shaped orang-red flowers complete the picture. All these are also low water use plants.

When planning, re-arranging or adding to the garden it’s smart to keep plants together that have similar water requirements. That way you won’t overwater and waste water. You still have time to move any plants or shrubs that are in the wrong place. The weather is still cool and they can settle in before the hot weather arrives.  If you have just one plant that needs regular watering among low water use plants you’ll be watering everything more to keep that one alive.  Transplant it to another spot and your water bill will reflect this savings come this summer.

Caring for your Easter Lily

Every year I wait patiently for my Easter lilies to come up in the garden. The shoots are now about 6" tall but they are a long way from blooming and I’m looking forward to those huge, fragrant, white trumpet-shaped flowers. Still I pick up a few new blooming plants each year to enjoy now and celebrate Easter. It’s a tradition that marks spring along with decorating eggs, chocolate bunnies and Easter baskets.

Easter lilies that are blooming at his time of year have been forced under controlled conditions to flower in time for Easter. This is a very tricky process since Easter falls on a different day each year dependent upon celestial bodies. Falling on the first Sunday that follows the first full moon after the vernal equinox, Easter can be any day between March 22 and April 25. Crop scheduling and timing is critical. The flowers must bloom exactly when they’re suppose to with no margin for error.

Did you know that over 95% of all the bulbs grown for the Easter lily market are produced by just 10 farms in a narrow coastal region straddling the California-Oregon border? Known as the Easter Lily Capitol of the World, the area offers a climate of year-round mild temperatures, deep, rich alluvial soils and abundant rainfall which produces a consistent high quality bulb crop.

The Easter lily or Lilium longiforum, is native to the southern islands of Japan where it was grown and exported to the US until WW ll. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 the Japanese source of bulbs was abruptly cut off. As a result, the value of lily bulbs sky-rocketed and many who were growing lilies as a hobby here decided to go into business. The Easter lily bulbs at the time were called ‘White Gold’ and growers everywhere attempted to cash in on the crop. By 1945, there were about 1,200 growers producing bulbs up and down the Pacific coast from Vancouver to Long Beach. But producing quality, consistent lily bulbs proved to be quite demanding with specific climatic requirements. Over the years, the number of bulb producers dwindled to just the 10 current farms near the Oregon border. Even after the Japanese started to ship bulbs again after the war, they have never been able to come close to the quality of our US grown bulbs.

Here’s how to make your Easter lily keep on giving. For the longest possible period of enjoyment, remove the yellow anthers from the flowers before the pollen starts to shed. This gives longer flower life and prevents the pollen from staining the white flowers. Place the plants in bright indirect daylight, not direct sunlight, and water when the soil surface feels dry to the touch. Do not let the plant sit in water.

After blooming, plant your lily outside in sun or part shade after letting it acclimate to brighter conditions for a week or so before transplanting. Plant in a well-drained garden bed that has been amended with lots of organic matter like compost and mulch the surface with more compost. As the original plants begin to die back, cut the stems back to the soil surface. New growth will soon emerge but go dormant again during the winter.  Next year the will bloom naturally in the summertime.

Easter lilies are a great addition to the flower border.  Easy to grow, fragrant and hardy.

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