So, here are a few things I learned about gardening in the San Fernando Valley, where it's HOT and DRY and where water doesn't come at all -- for years -- or comes all at once and floods everything or created mud-slides and general mayhem. Here, water is expensive. We have to choose between filling our tanks with gas or flushing the toilet (or almost). So, we removed our lawn (the city gave us a whole lot of money to do that), and we stopped watering, save for a small area where we grow vegetables. A whole lot of vegetables, as it turns out; each one on a calibrated drip system. The whole story of how we got started is here.
So here are a few tips I thought I should share.
1- Don't be like me: Always install your drip system BEFORE you plant. All I do now is play catch up. Trying to install a drip system among full-grown plants is very hard. You don't know where you're going and you either smother plants or they smother you.
2- Don't plant more than two cucumber plants for a family of four unless you're from the Middle East and know delicious dishes to use them. Just trust me on that one.
3- Unless you have tons of bees and/or wind, you must hand pollinate your corn. The tassel at the top of each ear is comprised of filaments called silk. Each one of those delicate thingies that look like the stuff that comes out of Avatar characters's tails is attached to a single kernel. That means that each tendril must receive a grain of pollen from the flower above, BUT it must not be pollen from its own flower. I understood the idea of hand pollinating corn but it took me another season to understand the concept of cross-pollination. The pollen must come from DIFFERENT flowers. Isn't that complete bs? After two years of getting very promising corn plants but no actual corn, I had to figure things out for myself. So, when it's the season, I harvest the pollen and every morning I go out there with a paint brush and I delicately pollinate the silk strands. Of course I wear a bee costume the entire time or else it won't work.
4- There is no such thing as too many tomatoes. Or as Forrest Gump might say: Canned tomatoes, braised tomatoes, fried green tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, frozen tomatoes, tomatoes farcies, tomatoes à la Provençale, tomato soup, tomato puree, tomato salad, tomatoes for all your friends, neighbors, children. If you live near me, chances are you are lycopene rich by now.
1- Don't be like me: Always install your drip system BEFORE you plant. All I do now is play catch up. Trying to install a drip system among full-grown plants is very hard. You don't know where you're going and you either smother plants or they smother you.
2- Don't plant more than two cucumber plants for a family of four unless you're from the Middle East and know delicious dishes to use them. Just trust me on that one.
3- Unless you have tons of bees and/or wind, you must hand pollinate your corn. The tassel at the top of each ear is comprised of filaments called silk. Each one of those delicate thingies that look like the stuff that comes out of Avatar characters's tails is attached to a single kernel. That means that each tendril must receive a grain of pollen from the flower above, BUT it must not be pollen from its own flower. I understood the idea of hand pollinating corn but it took me another season to understand the concept of cross-pollination. The pollen must come from DIFFERENT flowers. Isn't that complete bs? After two years of getting very promising corn plants but no actual corn, I had to figure things out for myself. So, when it's the season, I harvest the pollen and every morning I go out there with a paint brush and I delicately pollinate the silk strands. Of course I wear a bee costume the entire time or else it won't work.
4- There is no such thing as too many tomatoes. Or as Forrest Gump might say: Canned tomatoes, braised tomatoes, fried green tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, frozen tomatoes, tomatoes farcies, tomatoes à la Provençale, tomato soup, tomato puree, tomato salad, tomatoes for all your friends, neighbors, children. If you live near me, chances are you are lycopene rich by now.
5- Earth worms are not gross. In fact is it us, humans, that are gross because cannot step anywhere without destroying and abusing resources. Earth worms are in fact unsung geniuses.
6- Eggplants don't produce eggs. Eggs do not come out of eggplants: they come out of chicken. Very confusing, I know.
6- Eggplants don't produce eggs. Eggs do not come out of eggplants: they come out of chicken. Very confusing, I know.
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