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Volatile Stalks
It’s funny how people think of gardening as something to do in their golden years. Take the back-breaking labor of double-digging, combine that with the nerve-wracking unpredictability of bloom times,...
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Week One Done!
Today marks one week from the day I started this blog! Not much cause for celebration you might think, except for the fact that I am a chronic non-finisher, so marking mini-milestones cheers me up...
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Annual Report
I am a recent convert to annuals. My (laughably naive) idea was to plant a bunch of perennials and sit back and watch the garden put on a grand show. Things did not turn out quite that way, of course....
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A Lot of Rot
With Thanksgiving sales offered by nearly every one of the online gardening retailers I shop from, it was simply too hard not to give in to the siren song of “Discount”. Of course, I know now (having...
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Week Three: Frost and the Guava Tree
Weather.com predicts frost tonight for all of the San Francisco Bay Area. When I checked on the garden this morning, some of my less hardy plants were showing signs of distress already from the cold:...
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Welcome 2014!
The first weekend of 2014 has been a productive one. I pruned half of my more than forty rose bushes, and got badly scratched up and bloody in the process, prepared and planted one of my four 4 ft X 4...
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In God’s Own Country
Last winter, I visited ‘God’s Own Country’, as the state of Kerala in India proudly and rightfully proclaims itself. A chili-shaped state on the west coast of peninsular India, it is blessed with...
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What does the gardener do in January – Part 1
Even with the unseasonably warm and sunny days we have been having here in the San Francisco Bay Area, while the rest of the country is experiencing another Ice Age, January is an idle month for...
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New Fruit Trees
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! I had the day off today and spent a good part of it puttering about in the garden. The garden is just coming to life again – shoots from bulbs are poking their conical...
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A Fruitful Year
Visitors to my garden from other places are most enamored with the sight of perfectly ripe fruit hanging delectably within reach, a common sight in Bay Area backyards in the older neighborhoods. We...
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Under Attack
It NEVER ends – snails, slugs, earwigs, aphids, mites, spittle bugs, leafminers, powdery mildew, sooty mildew … I’ve fought against all of these and then some this year alone. Some battles were lost,...
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A Seedy Story
I grew up reading about strawberries and cream, a delectable treat reserved for super special occasions. Enid Blyton, of course, could make boiled eggs sound grand, but the tantalizing descriptions of...
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Ripe – An Inspiration
The book recommendation algorithm at our library is surprisingly good; recognizing my interest in edible gardening, in particular fruit, it suggested “Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard” by Nigel Slater. If I...
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Chilling
I am into modeling. I would show you pictures of my work, but there are likely legal ramifications that I do not care to risk. Oh, not this kind of modeling Image Source: The Fashion Spot but the...
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What the fig?!
This past weekend, we had a friend visiting from overseas, a regular high-tech guy with heretofore no noticeable quirks. And then he revealed his desire to buy a farm! He was serious; he even went and...
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It’s all Greek to me!
A colleague asked me recently, “Does your garden look like that?” This was like being asked, “Does your body look like Gisele Bundchen’s?” “Uh… no!” Not by a long shot. Where I work, landscaping...
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Sir Poopalot and Other Animal Tales
This morning as I headed off to work, I saw the cutest sight – a family of squirrels cavorting in a roadside plumbago bush. Until they saw me approach, they seemed quite carefree, the babies playing...
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Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness
The title of this post is from John Keats’ “To Autumn”. I grew up on a wholesome diet of romantic English poetry. While mostly forgotten, a line or two often float up unbidden, and so aptly describe my...
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Winter Quietude
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. – Robert Frost Don’t quite know what brought this poem, one of my favorites, to mind...
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