My purple is Creeping Sage

Last summer, I'd rescued a couple of sage saplings from Home Depot's trash can. I promptly placed it in one of those cemented structures, buried the roots in dirt and said my prayers.

Here's what the text book says: Creeping Sage (Salvia sonomensis) is a trailing groundcover that lives in the more mesic chaparral edges and along the edges of the yellow pine forest. Creeping Sage commonly grows in clay that is very wet in winter, but dry in summer. Occasionally a summer shower will wash the foliage off, but the ground stays dry. If you wish to grow Creeping Sage water it once every 2 weeks for the first year, then one or two waterings extra in spring, along with 2-3 summer dust wash-offs.


Here's what I did: Watered it somewhat religiously throughout last summer, completely ignored it throughout the fall and most of the spring. It caught my attention when it put out this vibrant purple a couple of weeks ago.

The yellow burst

It is amazing how a few sunflowers can dramatically enhance the "curb appeal" of patch #1. My motivations - show Chili some large flowers and in the process, welcome some butterflies home. For the fellow curious beings, here's the lowdown on these bright petals of vitality:

1) Traditionally, these plants would exceed nine feet and their flowers can span a whole foot in diameter. That would tower too many heads above my own. So, I've chosen this miniaturized hybrid that is supposed to be contained in a 30in x 18in x 18in space.

2) At the bud stage, sunflowers are heliotropic - they've motor cells in the flexible part of the stem right underneath the bud that turn east to greet the morning sun and follow him in a westwardly journey throughout the day.

3) What we call the sunflower is actually a composite flower comprised of densely packed little florets set at the golden angle (137.5 degrees) to one another. That formation then results in a series of interconnected set of left and right spirals. The number of left and right spirals are successive Fibonacci numbers.

All tops and that's a real problem

My radish shoots sport a rich, green complexion. They'd be winners in a spinach show. Except, I need them to put out some roots to be useful. Its a classic "inexperienced gardener" issue of not having thinned them aggressively. Or, perhaps I prepared the patch all too well - broke the clay and amended it with matter too rich in nitrogen.

I'm also told that the radish is a cool weather crop that I might have planted too late in San Diego. Apparently, such high temperatures may supress bulbing. Note to self: plant in Jan and feed it a bone meal.

Counting Chickens before they hatch (not!)

After spending the previous weekend riding an ATV on the Ocean Dunes up in Pismo, where I had a whale of a time, I was still very excited to return to the tomato craze back home in San Diego. Much to my delight, the white fly ridden plants from a couple of weeks ago were thriving, thanks to my sister's timely and multi-pronged intervention with all natural remedies.

The patch now is a vivid green, contrasted against the deep brown mulch from Miramar landfill. What a beauty! To make matters that much more thrilling, the semi-mature early girl we'd brought in started putting out the first of its fruit. I counted a good sized early girl, and two little siblings on the plant, a light green hard globe each. It will be very exciting to walk my neice around the yard and show her how this turns into a mildly acidic, yet sweet red tomato we'll pull off the vine and enjoy.

Patch #1: Mar 10, 2009 - Apr 10, 2009

Fed by copious amounts of sweat, a generous dose of wishful thinking, the cheerful San Diego sun, diluted worm tea and soil amendments from Miramar, here's patch #1 with tomatoes, radish, carrots and peas in the making.


PS: That was my thousand words, actually three thousand words for the 3 pictures in the collage.

Voila - another display of Mother Nature's self-healing!

Some weeks ago, I was quite sore about my peach tree being entirely consumed by leaf curl disease. I'm pleased to note that it appears to be behind us. I'd originally planned to spray it with oregano and thyme oil, but time got away from me.


What did the miracle - some hours of carefully pulling out every single affected leaf, packing it away in a plastic bag and getting rid of it. The key is to ensure that there aren't any diseased leaves littering the area when the job is done. It didn't escape me that the poor balded plant then needed to run on overdrive to put out more green. I promptly top dressed it generously with compost and coffee grounds.

Things are under control

It is amazing how a night's sleep lends moderation to panic, or any other excessive emotion. When I checked out the tomatoes the next morning, I concluded (with much relief) that this was not an epidemic of tomato fly or other such potent critters. So, I gave them a thorough bath in a home made soap and oil spray, washed that off later that night and brought home some live lady bugs.

I did want to give it a day to wash off the soap and not have my friendly ladybugs want to ingest soapy stuff. By the next morning, it seemed that I'd the minor infestation of unwanted fly under control. On the downside, it seemed that my zealous effort burned some leaves in one of the tomato plants. I'm yet to meet someone who holds me to higher standards than myself, but I also try to remember that mistakes are permissible as long as they are small and never repeated.


On to the ladybugs. My package is supposed to contain 1500 of them. They say you can't use too many ladybugs. Here's a valuable lesson from last year: remember that ladybugs do need time to work - they need to be released early enough in the pest cycle so they can do their job, and regular, repeated releases of small amounts are often for effective than one, very large release of ladybugs. For home use, 1,500 is usually enough for one application in a small greenhouse or garden. For larger areas, a quart (18,000) or gallon (72,000) of ladybugs may be desired. Many people store ladybugs in the refrigerator, and make regular repeat releases, perhaps weekly. If you're like me (and have a pressing need to know the numbers), I'll confirm that a ladybug eats ~50 aphids a day.

Barely visible, silvery wings - kiss of death

I'd all the reason to be jumping in joy today.

1) I completed mulching patch #1 - some 100+ gallons of mulch from the Miramar landfill + human grease carting it + flexing some lower back muscle spreading them evenly. The dark brown surface with neat pockets of green emerging from the ground - it has got the makings of art now.

2) The peas have put their first pods out - tiny, green and tender. I wanted to sit there and sing to them.

3) There was a healthy germination rate in the fenugreek seeds at the base of guinea pig (in companion planting) tomatoes.

Life was going really well until I noticed that someone was chewing off the leaves on my thriving tomatoes. Closer examination revealed these miniscule, yet devasting things call Tomato White Flies.

These critters are much too similar to aphids in the sense that they lay their eggs on the underside of the leaves, they reproduce rapidly and have piercing parts in their mouth that can suck the living juice out of my young tomato plants.

It turns out that these are not easy critters to control. I would choose to replace the plants rather than administer some industrial grade chemical pesticides to address this situation. Before fast forwarding to something so dramatic, here are the steps I plan on taking:

1) Buy a pack of lady bugs from the local Home Depot. By some estimates, a single lady bug would eat a thousand white fly eggs in its life time.

2) By another count, white flies can indicate phosphorous and magnesium deficiencies. So, I plan on drenching the roots in a mild epsom salt solution. It doesn't quite deliver the Vitamin-P, but is a decent first step.

3) I will stop by the friendly neighborhood store called Grangetto's with some sample in a zip loc bag and seek their expertise. The staff there are tenured, exceptionally knowledgeable, passionate gardeners themselves and courteous - everything I would want in my own employees. In return for this outstanding service and expert advice, I am only pleased to pay a premium at their store. In the past, they have always provided me a diagnosis, an organic solution (if one is available) and advice on prevention for the future. Enough said, I will be there when the clock strikes seven tomorrow morning.

4) Any critter treatment is incomplete without my magic spray that addresses it all - freshly brewed worm tea. I will stop at the local hydroponics store on Saturday to bring my two gallons of it. It is important to spray it all that afternoon and bring back more freshly brewed team mid-week for a follow-on application.