California Plants

African Daisies are now one of our favorite perennials to grow. A year ago we tested a couple of small potted African Daisies from Target and they have quadrupled in size without stopping blooming. Although African Daisies can be deadheaded to promote more flowering, we didn’t need to and they have continued flowering like crazy. We applied some Lilly Miller organic fertilizer and had included some compost when planting.

Growing African Daisies

A few months ago we purchased a Stover Seed bag of African Daisies at a local Home Depot. We cleared an area about 2 feet by 8 feet. We removed the top half inch of soil and placed that soil in buckets. We took four cups of potting soil and mixed it in with the seeds. We sprinkled that soil/seed mix over the whole area, covered with the soil from buckets, and watered daily until seeds sprouted. After sprouting we went to water every other day and now a few months later when the plants are full grown we water weekly.

African Daisy Collection from Seed

Southern Giant Curled Long Standing Mustard

Southern Giant Curled Long Standing Mustard is a vegetable we’ve test grown in recent months with great success in San Francisco, CA. If it can grow here, with our intermittent fog, it can probably grow for you. As with most vegetables, Southern Giant Curled Long Standing Mustard likes a lot of sun. It can tolerate up to a half day of shade. It is fairly pest and disease resistant. We believe this is due to the rough texture of the leaves, and of course the breeding. This vegetable can have leaves cut consistently and keep producing. Because this is a leafy vegetable, it can be grown for quite a bit of the year in most climates. As with most vegetables, it likes rich aerated soil, not to dry out for too long before next watering, and good air movement. When cooking this vegetable a few ideas are steaming it, cooking it in olive oil until it turns dark green, or including it in a dish. It seems to us to be most similar to Kale due to the texture and flavor of the leaves.

Here is our review of the Hardy Daylily Garden in Connecticut. Our garden reviews are posted when we’ve gone to a garden we feel really stands out. The Hardy Daylily Garden in Connecticut stood out to us as an outstanding local garden.

This family run business totally surprised us. In our opinion, we thought it would be small, but it wasn’t. It was a nice size garden for the person who wants to buy enough plants to fill their car or truck. The plants we bought were from both the front and back gardens.

The way it works is that they’re only open select days during the summer, their garden being a part time open business. We walked around and Mr. Hardy was friendly and helpful. He showed us very interesting seedlings he was working on breeding. He let us know which were his named varieties, some named after local towns. The person digging our plants showed us quite a number of interesting plants to consider.

Most importantly the Hardys were so generous for a northern garden. As everyone knows, gardens in the north don’t get the same increase as those further south. With a winter and short growing season, gardens in the north are lucky to get plants to double in size each year. Gardens in the south can have plants triple or quadruple in a year due to the long growing season.

The plants we purchased were dug out of the ground in front of us. They took off a bit of soil and left most soil on the roots. The plants were each bagged and labeled. They were sturdy, healthy plants. My Hardy mentioned various organic soil treatments he uses to get long lasting healthy plants. There was even one plant he sold us that was the last they had. They divided the plant in front of us and gave us the best half, only keeping one fan for their garden.

We are located in California, so we actually had to remove the soil from the roots and ship them to our show garden.  We chose all evergreen varieties since our growing season is year round. All plants are growing beautifully, some even reblooming in the same year.

We spent hours in their garden. Luckily we had brought lunch with us so the Hardys let us know where we could go nearby to eat, which was the great falls. It was only less than mile drive away. It was very cool, kind of like a falls about 1/5 the size of Niagara Falls. We also took a short walk up the Appalachian Trail which was very close to their house.

That area of Connecticut was so very scenic. We did make a day of this trip, visiting antique stores and parks on our way home. An amazing day. Here is their Website.

When we began testing growing super sugar snap peas, we thought we may have the same results we had with some various beans. Most beans we have tried in San Francisco, CA, have not done well. One is doing well, and we will write about that one when it matures.

Super Sugar Snap Peas, on the other hand, are a delight. These peas grow fast, and are strong. We planted them with a well drained potting compost mix in a big container. We took a couple of tomato cages and put them in as we planted seeds so there would be something to cling to. As they sprouted, they grew about a foot and finally reached out and started to cling to the cage. It gets pretty windy here at times, and luckily these peas are very tough. From other peas we tried that didn’t do well, the keys to growing good peas is:

1. Putting them in their final location when planting so there is no chance of breaking stems.
2. Planting them from seed so they acclimate to your weather.
3. Covering the soil with a fine wire mesh until seeds sprout so that birds and animals don’t dig out the seeds and eat them.

We have found that growing any vegetable from seed, if you have the patience, can save effort in the long run. Not only does this save money, but the seeds acclimate to weather best. High yield gardening is a great way to grow lots of good vegetables in a small space.

Super Sugar Snap Peas just under two months old from seed in a garden container

After extensive research how to keep gophers and moles out of our garden, we have a favorite technique to keep them out of our vegetables. Normally, these techniques can be used to get rid of gophers and moles:

- One can use a mole trap or gopher trap
- A solar device with a high pitched noise can be used
- A gopher trap or mole trap can be used
- A gopher probe can be used
- Control for gophers can be used without poisons
- Gopher bait or mole bait can be used
- A wire mesh / chicken wire can be used

In your garden, you may find one of the above techniques suits you better than another. For our plants in the regular garden, we choose from the items above. For our vegetables, we choose to ensure a whole area is gopher and mole proof. To do this, we build a box that they cannot get in and plant the vegetables with high density gardening. The box below cost less than $50 to build and fill with excellent soil.

To build this we went to the local hardware store and got wood, screws, nails, and wire mesh. The idea here is to have a rectangular box that has mesh attached securely to the bottom. The box in the photos below is 4 x 8 feet. This is done with two 2 x 4’s that are not cut, and one cut in half. Three long screws are used to hold each corner together. Short nails or staples (we used nails) can be used to attach the wire mesh to the bottom of the wood rectangle structure. As the mesh we used was 2 feet wide, we wired two rolls of mesh together and unrolled them while attaching together.

To attach the mesh to the wood, we used a small nail, hammered it in 2/3 of the way to hold a section of the mesh to the wood, and then hammer and bend the nail to secure that piece of mesh from moving. Then five inches over would be the next nail. This particular mesh is coated with vinyl so will hopefully not rust for a long time. Because the metal mesh coated with vinyl has very small squares, a mole or gopher cannot chew or crawl through the mesh. At worst, a gopher or mole may chew roots of vegetables that are below the wire mesh.

Vegetable box built not to let gophers or moles in

In the below photo you can see the two sets of wire mesh are stitched together. We used small pieces of wire every two inches, twist tied, to attach the two rolls of wire mesh to each other.

A closeup of the corner of the box built not to let in gophers or moles

In the below photo it can be seen that we have three screws holding the 2×4’s together. Before we put in the screws, we drilled holes most of the way so that the wood would not split when we put in the screws. The soil we used to fill this up was 3/4 compost and 1/4 manure. If seeds are being planted in the soil, then the top half of the soil should not have manure mixed. This is what we did, mixing the bottom half with the manure and the top half being just bagged compost. Since this compost is from a store like Home Depot or Lowes, it is composted of quite a bit of ground wood which will take time to break down. The wood will take some nitrogen from the vegetables as they grow, so we will use an organic fertilizer and top dress with a bit of composted manure when plants are all sprouted and doing well. Here is better compost. This resource tells all about composting.

The box has been placed cage side down and filled with soil

Once this box is growing vegetables, we will post updates.

Or, one can just give up on getting rid of gophers and celebrate them. Here is one item that can be used to dance with them and celebrate them. I suppose this could be given as a joke to a friend with a gopher problem.

Of course our number one use for vegetables can often be food, raw or cooked. In our testing with vegetables, many have beautiful flowers. If they can bloom, they can also go to seed. Watching some vegetables bloom does usually mean the vegetable will stop producing sooner. But the seeds one can gather can be very used to ones climate. It also feels good gathering seed, saving money, and having fun with it. In the photo below, this dwarf kale plant has been flowering for about a week so far. Many flowers are still yet to open. it will try to attract insects to pollinate it from other Kale plants. Once seeds have been set in coming weeks, seed pods will develop, and eventually those seeds can be collected. Here is an excellent curled kale to grow from seed.

Dwarf Kale Flowering

Angel’s Trumpet is quite the rewarding plant to grow. This vigorous plant (also can be trained to grow as a shrub or tree)  loves full sun, has fragrant flowers, and grows six to eight feet in height when mature. This plant can grow well in a pot or the ground. It does not like to dry out between waterings, and cannot get colder than 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Here is a beautiful white potted variety that can be transplanted into the ground, a pink one just like the one in our garden photo below you can grow from seed, an orange one that can be grown from seed, and a beautiful potted peach variety.

Pink Angels Trumpet Plant in Our Garden

Growing Violas, also known as Johnny Jump Ups, is a real pleasure. This annual blooms from spring to early summer, about 5-8 inches in height. Although it can be bought in a pot, we would recommend starting it from seed, as we did in this photo. This hardy plant is great as a ground cover, and can grow in sun or partial shade. The flowers of this one in the photo are edible. Here is a yellow and purple variety, a blue variety, a unique yellow and black variety, and an orange and purple variety.

Violas also known as Johnny Jump Ups

Sunflowers are quite an amazing annual. They can grow in sunny, somewhat foggy, and partial shade areas. They can be anywhere between 2-14 feet in height, with one to ten flowers on a plant. They grow fast, and many tolerate substandard soils. They are also fairly drought tolerant. Many are so tough, wind does not bother them. They can be used for a privacy screen between your house and that of a neighbor. To do this, we recommend not just one row, but 2-3.

We recommend planting sunflowers in pots or a clearly defined area first. That way, when they sprout, they can be replanted to exactly their final location.

After a sunflower is done blooming, we recommend cutting the head and drying it to keep the seeds. Another way to keep the seeds for later growing is to put a thin cloth around the head and twist tie it. Or, of course if you like you can let birds eat the seeds when it is done flowering.

Below is a photo taken today in our San Francisco California garden. These sunflowers are 3-7 feet in height. They would have grown taller, but we experimented here with letting them all grow in small pots until they were 1-2 feet tall, and then planted them out. This meant they were used to being confined so now will not grow as tall. That is a good way if you like to control the size of your sunflower plants. Click here to see our favorite sunflowers.

One of Many Sunflowers Blooming Right Now in our SF, CA Garden

Sunflowers in our San Francisco California garden

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