New Years Day status report

It's sunny today, but there's a storm system moving in on Thursday. It carries enough rain to bring us up to "normal" for this time of year. I think San Francisco is currently at 70% of normal.

In the meantime, I have a list of garden tasks, large and small.

I thinned the bamboo a bit. I can use these mostly straight poles to build a teepee for sugar snap pees this spring.



Do you see how this goes cobble-grass-cobble?



Well, until yesterday it used to go cobble-cobble-grass, which made it hard to do this.



I'm not sure how I managed to do that in the first place, because this is one of my favorite places to sit and observe the garden.



This is one view I have when I sit in that chair. The camera has a way of making everything seem in yo face, so please try to imagine a less cramped feeling.



This patch of plantless dirt is the site of my future grassy transect, an idea I stole directly from the garden of my guru in Menlo Park.



Once upon a time, California had thousands of acres of native prairie grassland, but 99% of it has been lost to agriculture and development. I have in mind a scrim of native perennial bunchgrasses and wildflowers. I'm growing it all from seed right now, and my scrim will start here.

And when I buy my swing chair in a few weeks, I can put it here, in view of my grassy transect.



I have Miner's Lettuce currently growing under site of future swing. I want it to spread. It's fairly weedy hopefully it will do that. If not, I have more seed.



I've decided that I don't like to grow greens in my garden as an actual crop. I'd rather dedicate space for more interesting vegetables and let the greens grow like weeds. I have purslane too, but it seems to like a sunnier location. Miners lettuce likes shade.

I found a gift certificate to a local nursery in my Christmas stocking, and I used it to buy a rose named 'Honey Bouquet'.



It's honey-colored, and has a powerful fragrance. I suppose it's possible that I might come to appreciate a rose with a light or mild fragrance at some point in my life, but I'm not there yet. Why have something mild when you can have something powerful? The honey colored roses will look nice near the yellow-striped bamboo and I like to see roses growing near vegetables. Also, Guy calls me "honey bunny" so I like the name "honey bouquet".

Speaking of the brugmansia, some animal's been climbing it. It's all scratched up and I've found some broken branches.



Likely culprits (in order of likeliness): a cat, raccoon, or possum. My fence serves as a sort of corridor for wildlife. When I can't sleep, sometimes I visit the garden at night and I will occasionally see animals utilizing the fence in their nocturnal travels.



I bought this pitcher plant yesterday too. Isn't it cute?



This is some species from the genus Darlingtonia, commonly called Cobra Lily. You can see why.



California has a native Darlingtonia, but I'm not sure about this plant. So I'm on the carnivorous plant bandwagon. Now I have to find some sundews...

I had to buy peat for the pitcher so I added some to the dwarf blueberry ('Top Hat') to get it ready for spring.



I re-caulked my rain barrels and they seem to be water tight now.



And I'm keeping up with the diurnal temperature fluctuation on my seeds. It's 12 hours outside, and then 12 hours on the heating pad, covered with row cover. I execute the shift change every day around 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. It's a lot of work, and I hope I will be pleased with the results.



It's just January, but spring is springing...in my back 40 (feet)!