Since finishing the paver patio/pathway, I’ve been resting a bit. I get back pain due to a bad S-I joint. It’s been nice to rest and maybe just stroll around the garden a bit, but I’m also thinking about the next thing. The south side of my yard is small, gets some shade, and I’m planning to put in vegetables, fruit trees, and herbs. I have two raised garden beds ready to go and plan on maybe a third. The area needs some work, though. There’s a lot of soil that was removed from the front yard when we put in some additional concrete for parking. And, the retaining wall I installed needs another 15 feet to really be finished.

My idea is to bring the wall over and curve it a bit, similar to how I have it on the north side. That will give a slightly raised area. Then, I will try to level the rest of the area and plant lime, orange, and avocado trees, one each. I have some heirloom seeds on order for vegetables and herbs.

And, of course, I’ve never really done gardening like this before. I had a tomato plant in 2015 that never really made it through the summer. I’m guessing I didn’t give it enough nutrients in the soil. But, I plan to have the beds have much better soil and fertilizer. They have hardware cloth across the bottom so that should keep at least the gophers out.

Rain has been much better this year than last. I remember going all of December with no rain. This year we’ve had over 5 inches since October! Most of it came in the last week of December. That’s great for my garden. I’m very interested to see what happens with my California native plants. I have California Buckwheat, manzanita, and sage that have been in the yard over a year now. My understanding is that after the first full year, the plants are usually established in the garden and they require little to no water.

In November I attended a workshop at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden nursery, called Grow Native. They sell, as far as I know, only California native plants. Anyway, one of the workers, a young guy who is studying native plants in school and sounds like he has a lot of experience gardening/landscaping, gave a workshop on planting and watering. To summarize, you did a hole twice and wide and 1.5 times as deep as the pot the plant is in. Then, you fill the hole with water, let it drain, then fill it with water again, same. Then, install the plant with the base of the plant about an inch higher than the surrounding soil, then water it again.

After that, I didn’t water much. I had some bad luck though with plants I bought in the Fall Planting Festival at Grow Native. We got some really damaging winds in November. I always seem to lose a plant or two to the wind. Sticky monkey flowers do not seem to respond to the wind well, at all. Also, four penstemon (electric blue) died. They just turned black. I don’t know what happened there. It wasn’t lack of water. Maybe the heat got them. Or, a disease. But, anyway, they died. Then, many of the sages I bought got a powdery white mildew that hasn’t gone away. The black sages and the Cleveland sages all got them. I was careful not to get water on the leaves and that never happened with the plants I have now. I’m waiting it out to see how it goes. I lost two Bee’s Bliss plants to that mildew. Bummer

Most of my plants seem to be doing well at the moment. I’m seeing some new leaves growing on the manzanitas and sages.