January 23, 2016 - chard

First chard harvest of the year - from seeds planted in October 2015.

January 22, 2106 - pea blossoms

Even with all of the cloudy days and rain we've had for the past couple of months, we're getting our first winter pea blossoms this week. Forecasts call for a dry week ahead of the next batch of El Niño storms the first week of February. To take advantage of the break I'll be seeding and transplanting then.

January 16, 2016

I completely reworked the soil on a couple of the boxes this past week getting them ready for winter and spring plantings. As I mentioned last post, I've decided to replant an herb box as last year's plan to keep Box 4 for perennial and annual herb planting didn't pan out too well. Perhaps due to the fact that the plants were not in the ground or perhaps due to last year's continuation of the disastrous drought, the perennials mostly died back significantly. Since it is easy enough to simply purchase herb plants and restart them, it gives me a chance to rework the soil; not a bad thing.

Box 1 is going to hold another planting of broccolini but on the opposite side. I'm also setting this for seeding of greens to follow up the current autumn-planted crop in Box 2. The broccolini performed so magnificently I had to set another planting out for the Spring.

Box 2 holds the current crop of greens. The peas have been growing well, perhaps too well as they are more or less crowding out the adjacent row of chard.

Box 3 is progressing nicely with the garlic and onions.

Box 4 will continue to hold last year's herbs until the herbs in Box 5 are established.

Box 5 is the new herb box. I purchased several plants from Berkeley Horticultural yesterday which, after I reworked the soil with steer manure, I planted. From bottom: Italian flat-leaf parsley, cilantro, Cretan oregano, culinary sage, English thyme, French thyme, chervil, Greek oregano, Italian oregano. I'll probably transplant the marjoram and chives from Box 4 when I clean it out later.

January 6, 2016

We've been having a much more normal winter this year with regular rains coming since the beginning of November. The garden is also much more subdued but there's still work to do. As I learned in my horticultural experience in my few years at Weston Nurseries in Hopkinton, MA back in the 1970's, the movement of the earth towards and away from the sun between the solstices determines how vegetation grows. From the summer solstices to the winter, the sun rays move back, and from the winter to the summer, they move forward resulting in a kind of Doppler effect in terms of sunlight.
Hence once the winter solstice has passed, like it did a couple of weeks ago, the days grow longer and the decreasing angle of the sun's rays inspires the growth of plants. As it is relatively mild and (usually) wet here in the Bay Area, I consider January a prime month for getting plants started.

I usually repot all of my herb containers in the middle of the rainy season. This is one of the three mints I grow in pots getting a reboot.

Box 4, the herb box for the past year, is nearing its end. At first I was planning to keep perennial herbs going here indefinitely but in practice, I'm finding it would be better to simply replant all the herbs I'm not keeping in containers each winter. Although the herbs served me well, it's just too simple to purchase new ones and restart them fresh with renovated soil. I'll keep the herbs here until I've established new ones in Box 5 then use Box 4 for other plantings.

Box 5 is going to hold the new herbs which I plan on planting once I've renovated the soil, probably in a week or two weather permitting.