Maybe I'm like the Danish prince, haunted by dead plants past so that I want my current crop to do well. For the most part, I'd say I'm pretty organic. In the back yard, I weed pretty much all by hand. The front lawn, however, can hide massive amounts of intruders that, left on their own, would pretty much take over from the grass.
Some lawn weeds...like mallow, oxalys, or this as yet unidentified weed above...can be pulled with a fork and some elbow grease.
The dandelion, on the other hand, can quickly get out of hand.
In this year of drought, many of my neighbors have completely ignored their lawns. I've let mine go, too, but still tried to keep it in a kind of 'mothballs' situation, waiting for the rain to return.
With all the lawns in our area ignored, dandelion seeds have spread like crazy and when the green came back, so did hundreds of these little lawn killers.
In years past, I could dig in with a trowel and at least keep my head above water. This year, I stopped counting a one hundred.
OK, I hate to do it, but the only way I'm going to have a chance with this lawn is a judicious application of weed killer.
Fortunately, the biology of a dandelion means I can just apply a few drops to the center of the plant, which is basically a funnel, where the poison will settle into the interior of the plant and not disturb the grass around it.
Yes, I know you can pick them and eat the leaves but I also need some control of what I grow and these are beyond that point. Hopefully, I can get a handle on this huge, new crop and go back to hand weeding for the future.
DarrylCopyright 2016 - Darryl MusickAll Rights Reserved
About a month and a half ago, we overseeded the front lawn with a new heat-tolerant strain of grass seed.
Winter rains have been coming in regularly at a rate of about 1 storm every week and a half. This provideds a great soaking and the first one came right after I seeded the lawy.
I've added my own water, via a ten minute sprinkler session, about once in between each storm.
This is how the new grass is looking now, I think it will be ready for its first mowing this weekend.
I haven't started my lawn mower since September, since the grass went completely dormant after I stopped watering due to our water rationing restrictions. I just hope it will still start.
After that, I'll need to work on de-thatching those brown spots of St. Augustine grass.
DarrylCopyright 2016 - Darryl MusickAll Rights Reserved
Branching out a bit from my little patch of paradise to about a mile away. Here, under the high voltage transmission towers of our local utility, Southern California Edison, a tree nursery has some fallow land.
Being hot and dry summer conditions here in Southern California, the brush builds up only to dry out and cause a high fire danger.
The nursery hires a local goatherd for about $3,000. He brings his flock in and dozens of hungry lawnmowers get to work.
While dry grass and brush might not be a complete, nutritional meal for the goats, they have a feeding pen (at the top of their range in the above picture) that has supplemental feed and water
It also makes quite an attraction in our neighborhood.
DarrylCopyright 2015 - Darryl MusickAll Rights Reserved
It's getting to the time where the grapes are getting too tempting to the local wildlife. We found a squirrel trying to get the the fruit just this morning.
If you follow this blog, you know that this is an ongoing problem each year. We tried netting the entire plant but this just constricted the plant too much and we didn't get any grapes. Last year, we tried using holographic tape and was able to get about half a crop, the other was devoured by critters, so I guess it worked somewhat.
It also gave my wife something to take a picture of.
There's still some tape on the plant but this year, I'm taking the extra step of netting individual bunches. We've been saving the nets that the fruits and vegetables come in from the store.
My plan is to put a net around each bunch, letting then breathe and get sunshine but providing a barrier for the animals.
I was able to net up eight bunches, about a third, before I ran out. We'll see soon how well this works.
DarrylCopyright 2015 - Darryl MusickAll Rights Reserved
I've decided to start my vegetable garden a month later this year. Instead of planting in January, as I have in years past, I'm starting at the beginning of March. You can see the crop selection up above.
Last year's garden was the most unproductive I've ever had. The main culprit was the extreme and prolonged drought California experienced. While the lack of water was one thing (a 50% surcharge was added to the water you used over your allotment), the critters were another.
We live right up against the mountains. The very, very dry mountains. With no food and little water, the animals were pushed down into the residential neighborhoods below. This meant deer would eat my roses. Rabbits and squirrels joined the mocking birds and jays, taking turns eating the fruits of our labors, or most often just chewing up the tender new growths of the plants.
They killed our zucchini, decimated our chile plants, and took all our tomatoes.
Only the tomato plant I had in a hanging basket and our grapes gave me any meaningful crops, and not much at that.
Let's hope I can come up with some strategies of pest repellance if the dry weather makes a comeback.
In the meantime, I'm starting my seeds. It's a rainy weekend, so this is a great project to do indoors, in the garage.
I got this little 7 pot seed starter kit at Lowe's. The pots are biodegradeble, so I can just stick 'em in the ground when I'm ready.
My wife has this bag of potting mix for her euphorbias and I'm going to use a little for my seeds.
Filling up each pot with the mix, I tamp down on the soil with my fingers, pushing it down to good seed depth.
I put a few seeds in each pot, cover with mix, tamp down and water in.
Finally, I'm leaving them indoors until they're strong enough to transplant and repel the invaders. They're sitting in a sunny, southern window until then.
DarrylCopyright 2015 - Darryl MusickAll Rights Reserved
