My friend Billie called me last night and asked me to teach a class on gardening in April. I had to giggle at that because I hardly feel qualified to teach such a class. Now I have no qualms about getting up and talking in front of people. In fact I am usually the first person to raise my hand when given the opportunity to teach or speak in public, IF I feel I have something of value to add to the moment. But gardening? Yes I garden, I love to garden. However Billie found out that I have a huge, really big for the city, plot of land that I like to till and harvest and so she logically deduced that I must know what I'm doing. (I'm giggling again!)
It has actually been one year since I have donned my rubber gloves and boots to frolic with mother earth. I have gardened long enough that a year off is hardly any time at all, I mean I can pick it up again without any problem. But I am not really much of rule follower when it comes to the seed planting and hope it grows thing. Notice I said "hope it grows". I am most definitely not a consistent gardener, I spend almost as much time catching up with my weeds as I do reaping fresh from the earth produce.
As I searched my "green" soul this morning I decided to get out there in my little plot of land and catch up with some of my weeds. If I'm going to teach this class in April then I certainly don't want to get up in front of a bunch of mostly strangers and lie! I want to show pictures of what the imperfect but perfectly producing garden looks like, so I have to get busy! There I was yanking little green "gifts" from the recent rains outta the ground thinking, what could I say to a group of mostly strangers. And you know what I discovered? I may not be much of a rule follower, and although I'm not very consistent I have learned a thing a two over the last few years and I do have something of value to add. There are plenty of people who have no idea what planting zone they live in, or when is the best time of the year to plant peas in Southern California, and I'm pretty sure the average person knows nothing about pumpkin sex! (Yeah that got your attention and now you're just gonna have to wait until we plant pumpkins.)
After my romp through the weeds I came inside and started looking up gardening themed websites and blogs. I immediately found blogs from Cleveland, Indianapolis, Boston and a few others that started with things like "it's a blizzard out there today". That sucks! Seriously it does. Wait, don't get me wrong I like snow. I try to visit snow every year, but let's be honest I am sincerely grateful that snow never tries to visit me. But my research didn't initially uncover anything from Southern California. I realize that with such a moderate climate we don't have near as many growing challenges as our snowed in brothers and sisters across the plains, but we have our struggles. Just three weeks ago I was having a personal quandary, pull weeds or head to the beach. I know I am not alone. By the way the beach won out. Here in coastal So Cal we have this phenomenon called June Gloom, gray cloudy coastal eddies that can last all day. And that gloom can run well into July sometimes, so it is very common to have more warm days in February than we do in the first part of summer. Picking the beach was a no brainer! Since this blog is about gardening I will add that the moisture from those eddies can cause a serious mold problem in your garden if you aren't careful.
Long story short, as usual I didn't like what I found on the internet. I want something easy to read, something that addresses the problems that I have had in my garden, gets to the point and is done with it. I don't always have the time, money or, let's face it, patience to do things like some of these gardening purists. But I still want fresh produce on my dining table and gardening doesn't have to be complicated.
There you have it, a blog is born. I don't profess to be an expert but if you want to go on a gardening journey, either with a couple of pots on the patio or you are planning to dig up half the backyard then this blog just might be for you. I can tell you I'm starting over AGAIN pulling my weeds, preparing the soil, tilling the ground and purchasing seeds and starter plants. And I'm going to journal it all. I'm gonna take what I have learned, steal tips from my friends and maybe borrow a few ideas from those other websites and write it all down. I hope you'll want to join me.
