Search: How Does My Garden

How Does My Garden Grow? Farewell to Summer… Welcome Autumn

September 24, 2018 by Source

By Kathy Blavatt

The end of summer has left me with an unwieldy forest that needs tending as autumn sets in. But with all the work it entails, my garden that was once primarily grass in 2004, has now grown into life force that only nature can create. Much like a watercolor painting, where as an artist throws ideas and paint onto a canvas, it metamorphoses into its own creation. The unexpected can and does happen.

Fourteen years of mulching, weeding, planting, and trimming, have brought beauty and death in the harmonic way nature works. September has brought multiple dragon fruit blooms!

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Point Loma’s Remarkable Rosecroft Gardens

April 24, 2024 by Source

By Eric Duvall / Pt Loma-OB Monthly / April 16, 2024

“See that big old tree,” Scotty Hunter would say as he regaled his cronies. “Teddy Roosevelt planted that tree.”

Quite a claim, you’ll agree. The fact that the great Afrocarpus gracilior, or African fern pine, stood in a shady section of Point Loma’s Wooded Area made that pronouncement even more remarkable.

Tall tale? The big tree certainly was tall. True story? Not really, no. But at least one of those former cronies is willing to cut the grandson of midcentury nursery proprietors Don and Kathryn Hunter some slack on that exuberant claim. Sure, it’s a great story, and probably the way he had heard it most of his life, but for the enchanted aisles of Rosecroft Gardens, hyperbole was never necessary.

Current evidence that a world-renowned exotic and tropical nursery once thrived in the wilds of a very quiet and out-of-the-way neighborhood is scarce. Street signs for Rosecroft and Garden lanes might help you triangulate the grounds where acres of begonias, bromeliads, azaleas, fuchsias and ferns once bloomed spectacularly in the dappled sunshine under their lath and later shade cloth canopies.

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‘As I look out my window…’

August 3, 2022 by Source

By Kathy Blavatt

All photos by Kathy

Darn, in a report, the news media figured out, “San Diego has the best weather in the country.” Then another article in the NY Times says San Diego has the fastest rising home prices in the country.

Looking at the country’s roasting weather reports, our constant coastal weather in the seventies stands out. Then on the last night of July, we had our first summer rain. Does this mean we are in for a muggy August with tropical-like flash floods like we have had in recent years?

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Getting to Know Your Ocean Beach Weeds — No, Not That Kind — The Kind in Your Garden

June 14, 2022 by Source

This article was originally posted on the OB Rag on October 3, 2012

by Jill Richardson

With my big front yard swale project out of the way, I’m getting started on the backyard. The backyard intimidates me. It’s huge, full of bermudagrass, and parts of it are covered in chips of paint from the construction that’s gone on here over the past year or so. I’ve been having conversations in bad Spanglish with Jorge the painter about why we don’t want paint in our soil.

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The Widder Curry: More Water Cut-Backs Will Kill My Fruit Trees While New Housing Developments Are Allowed to Grow

October 21, 2021 by Judi Curry

California’s Drought Emergency Extended to San Diego County

By Judi Curry

Here we go again. Another drought. Another curtailment of the use of water. The Governor is asking people to cutback on water usage 15% over last year.

My question is what about those of us that cut back 15% last year and are still cutting back? How much are we supposed to cut back

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‘GIMBY’ – Garden In My Back Yard

May 12, 2021 by Source

By Kathy Blavatt

“G” is a “Great” letter. So many “Good” words start with “G”. One of my favorites is “Green”.

The world is on the path to understanding that without GREENING, we will not be walking down a garden path to any livable future, which leads to my starring “G” word “Garden.”

Ocean Beach once again is getting its green on! The San Diego Floral Association is featuring the “Vistas and Verandahs: The Gardens of Ocean Beach Garden Tour,” The tour is Saturday, June 26, 2021, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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The Beloved Wisteria Garden of Ocean Beach

March 26, 2021 by Source

Wisteria Garden Goes Online!

By Kathy Blavatt

One of the best things about living in Southern California is that you can have a usable yard. Many locals in Ocean Beach and Point Loma are very proud of their yards. They use it as outdoor living space, edible gardens, socializing, working-out, sunbathing or relaxing in the shade, planting, playing with pets, and hundreds of other uses.

In addition, as COVID has proven, a garden can improve your health and mental state. Many gardeners these days are looking to personalize their gardens to their specific needs and wants.

Ocean Beach’s best-know garden is the historic Wisteria Garden on Niagara Avenue just up the block from Sunset Cliffs Blvd. on the southside.

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The Best Christmas Gift of My life

December 28, 2020 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Someone on Facebook posted “What’s the best Christmas gift of your life?”

My answer was swift: a bike.

I’ll always remember the Christmas it became mine. It was in 1947 when I was nine.

That morning, though, I was down as down could be. Because my mother had led me to believe (and she had never ever deceived me) that this Christmas there would be a bicycle under the Christmas Tree for me. But when I woke up that was not the reality.

I was crushed, to say the least, and I couldn’t hold my feelings inside and if my family had been an ass whuppin’ kind, my mother had a reason to tan my behind…

And after a little time of me giving my mother and the world a piece of my mind she says to me, giving me “the look” mothers flash when they’ve had enough of your ungrateful ass: “Shut your mouth and put your new jacket on. We’re going to Sergeant Hudson’s house to wish him a Merry Christmas.”

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More Thoughts From My COVID-19 Diary

May 28, 2020 by Source

More COVID-19 Thoughts for These Past Weeks

By Steve Zivolich

The morbidly obese, with a heart condition, in my elder at risk group, liar in chief, wants us to take hydroxychloroquine, mmmmm well, think I will wait for the science.

Pretty cool, due to working at home, I don’t have to wear pants to work.

Just saw a hog farmer say she was distraught about having to euthanize her stock that she cannot sell. Well, what does she think happens when she sells it to the slaughter house? Pass the faken bacon.

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Garden Blogging in Ocean Beach and San Diego: Learning Our Weeds

April 13, 2020 by Source
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This article was originally posted on the OB Rag on October 3, 2012

by Jill Richardson/ La Vida Locavore

With my big front yard swale project out of the way, I’m getting started on the backyard. The backyard intimidates me. It’s huge, full of bermudagrass, and parts of it are covered in chips of paint from the construction that’s gone on here over the past year or so. I’ve been having conversations in bad Spanglish with Jorge the painter about why we don’t want paint in our soil.

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Nature’s Garden Dance Under a Full Moon

January 23, 2019 by Source

By Kathy Blavatt

Baby sprouts with outstretched limbs dance under a full moon on the rain soaked earth. The heads pop-up with bent necks, slowly reaching for blue heavens. These little ballerinas do their performance. By daybreak sun reveals the nights magic.

Growing plants creates a splendid bond that feels maternal as you nurture and raise your little green sprouts.

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Reader Rant: ‘How I Stopped Worrying and Came to Love Annoying My Short Term Vacation Rental Neighbor’

April 25, 2018 by Source

Editordude: The following is a compilation of a number of suggestions readers left in comments to our articles on short term vacation rentals.

Perhaps the solution to the mini-hotels and short term vacation rentals is for all permanent residents to collectively hit the STVR owners where it hurts the most – the pocket book. If you are a permanent OB resident living next to a full time vacation rental, make life miserable for the guests – in legal ways. Make it so they won’t want to come back and will encourage others not to.

Here are a number of suggestions on how to annoy

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Stone Fruit, Roses and the Wet Winter Garden

January 18, 2016 by Source

boots rain 1_5_16 Photo: Anna Daniels

By Susan Taylor

San Diego has had so much rain that while gardeners can continue to start cool weather crops we can also give the soil a break and think about other garden projects. The ground, beds and pots are all saturated so we can leave them alone for a bit.

This is the season to prune roses and stone fruit trees (plums, peaches and so on). AND, it is also time to plant new roses and fruit trees as well. Nurseries are flooded with bare root roses and trees. Bare root means that the plant was grown to be transplanted and is packed carefully for purchase and planting into your space!

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Lazy Fare in the Garden: Just Let It Be

August 6, 2015 by Source

My Niche logoBy Jeeni Criscenzo/ San Diego Free Press

Ever since I read the book Noah’s Garden by Sara Stein, I’ve taken a more laissez-faire attitude toward gardening. While I haven’t let my garden return back to its pre-human-intervention state, I’ve stopped being so controlling about what gets to grow where.

One of the best features of the home we rent is the big flat, unshaded yard overlooking the Tecolote Canyon. While the soil needed a lot of amending, it’s otherwise a perfect place for a vegetable garden. The 5-foot cinder block wall isn’t pretty, but it’s kept the coyotes out (so far)–the other critters – not so much.

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San Diego Gardening: How to Ditch the Lawn

July 16, 2015 by Source
Thumbnail image for San Diego Gardening: How to Ditch the Lawn

By Connie Beck

You probably realize by now that the most water­-wasting thing in your landscape is your lawn. So how to get rid of the existing lawn so you can plant a beautiful new drought tolerant landscape this fall…

If it is a cool season type grass (fescue, bluegrass and ryegrass types) then your removal is easy. You can quit watering and cover it with 6” of mulch after mowing it to the ground. Or you can mow it to the ground and dump 3” of compost on it and then turn it over, using a spading fork or a rototiller. If you have ANY bermuda grass or St. Augustine this won’t work. You will have to work on those areas in one of the following ways.

The best bet for removing a bermuda grass or St. Augustine lawn is available to you right now. It is called Solarization and it works beautifully, though your neighbors may wonder what you are doing.

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San Diego Gardening in July: It’s about the Water!

July 13, 2015 by Source

By Susan Taylor / San Diego Free Press

tomato on vine

Friends—India and Pakistan had devastating heat waves in June. This makes my whine about too much heat in San Diego gardens a bit of a whine. Nonetheless, the heat in my La Mesa garden just about did my veggies and me in. I thought I was watering deeply only to discover that I was not.

San Diego County has many water districts, each of which has warned consumers about percentage of water reduction for their residential customers. Be sure you know how much water reduction is required (read mandatory) in your neighborhood.

We all waste more water inside and outside our homes than we realize and it really must stop. Here’s how to be water wise in the garden in July and probably August.

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Artificial Grass May Save Water, But Does It Endanger People?

June 11, 2015 by Source
Thumbnail image for Artificial Grass May Save Water, But Does It Endanger People?

By Lynne Peeples / Huffington Post / June 9, 2015

When Michael and Barbara Fouch first considered replacing their grassy lawn with artificial turf, they researched the growing array of options for the green plastic blades and the infill that holds them in place. They wanted a product that looked nice, but they also wanted something that wouldn’t make any people or pets sick.

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The Spring Garden Thing!

March 25, 2015 by Source

survivalsherpa.wordpress.com

By Susan Taylor

The flatlanders in San Diego had somewhere between 1-2 inches of rain recently and I hear the call of school gardens asking, “Can we plant something?” Of course we can, so let’s get going.

On a recent stroll along the boardwalk towards South Mission Beach, I dipped into the tiny streets between the boardwalk and Mission Blvd and saw so many interesting growing things.

One idea I’ve already tried is to take a hanging succulent cutting, let it harden off for a couple of days and here’s what’s next–wrap a handful of soil around the root (to be) end and then add some coir or even a paper towel. Moisten the whole wrap and nest it into the crotch of a tree branch.

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Fall Gardening in San Diego

September 5, 2014 by Source

Gardening is the new front porch in urban America- share yours!

By Susan Taylor

Fall gardening! Yes, I know that it is still over 90 degrees in all parts of the county except along the coast and these high temperatures could last many more weeks. I have been reduced to gardening before 9 a.m. when it really heats up in my La Mesa neighborhood. I’ve been harvesting massive amounts of figs every day, which I’ve eaten right off the Mission fig tree that grew to over 12 feet tall this year and nearly as wide. I’m eating dried figs, cooked up with some sugar and port and frozen. I may have to try Fig Taylors before long.

When I saw the massive number of baby green figs emerge this summer, I asked my sons to drape some bird netting over and around as many branches as they could. When the figs changed from green to soft, luscious and dark purple the netting saved the harvest from the birds and June bugs

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Summer gardens coming on strong in San Diego!

July 21, 2014 by Source

By Susan Taylor

artichoke flower

Hello fellow gardeners. How does your garden grow? Here in San Diego it is mid-summer with temperatures in the mid 90s, five miles in from the beach and further east. Watering enough? Perhaps you have over watered your tomato vines as I have, resulting in way more vine than fruit. Might be time to fertilize your beds with an organic fertilizer or fish emulsion. If you have garden veggies that are looking stressed from the heat and are not productive, do pull them out—there’s time to re-plant beans, squash, basil and other herbs.

In San Diego it is still too early for fall planting, let’s hang back a bit. If you have stone fruits they should be ripening nicely and good luck with keeping the birds from getting their fair share! This wasn’t a good year in my garden for …

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June Notes from the Garden

June 16, 2014 by Source

Gardening is the new front porch in urban America- share yours!

tomatoes

By Susan Taylor / San Diego Free Press

Here’s good news for everyone. Ninety-five percent of all the insects you find in your garden are beneficial! Before you use or purchase any chemical (read toxic) solutions, you can first check online at the UCDavis Integrated Pest Management (IPM) site. Take a photo of your suspicious little bug and check it at the IPM website to be sure what your insect is and what, if anything, to do about it. Often times you can put some water and a drop or two of dish soap into a plastic spray bottle and that will do the trick (aphids come to mind). Remember to spray UNDER the leaves as well as the tops. I find this website very reassuring because I can’t remember everything, but I can remember where to look for information.

It is early June here in San Diego and you can still plant all your summer vegetables.

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Letter From the Garden: Produce the World Around You

May 15, 2014 by Source

By Susan Taylor / San Diego Free Press

trug with toolsArtichokes are fun! They grow from a lovely, silver-green plant with fabulous long leaves. You can pick, steam and then eat them. Or you can let the choke stay on the plant till it erupts into a stunning purple flower that lasts a long time. My mother who wasn’t a native San Diegan took artichoke serving very seriously. She would prune off the sharp tips and outer leaves, cook them and serve them at dinner along with little Austrian bowls filled with warm melted butter.

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A Farewell to My Beloved Dog “Lil Bear”

May 28, 2013 by Jack Hamlin

Baby BearBy Jack Hamlin

The early morning sunlight filtered through the venetian blinds and fronds of the potted palm, highlighting her multi-hued earth toned fur. She lay on her cushion strategically placed by the bay window so she could keep watch, guarding our home; a task she had performed diligently for over fourteen years.

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Mike Hardin: ‘Hodad’s my livelihood, not my life.’

April 5, 2011 by Frank Gormlie
Thumbnail image for Mike Hardin: ‘Hodad’s my livelihood, not my life.’

Originally posted May 9, 2009

It’s readily apparent that at least in one little corner of Ocean Beach, the recession hasn’t really hit – the corner of Newport Ave and Bacon Street, you see the lines end of people waiting to get into Hodad’s – OB’s famous hamburger joint.

It’s 12:30 lunch time, and the crowd waits patiently to sit down and chomp into the delicious drippy, beef and bun wonder named by CNN as one of the top five burgers in the nation. …

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An Ode to My Cat (or why my Christmas was a downer).

December 26, 2010 by Dave Rice
Thumbnail image for An Ode to My Cat (or why my Christmas was a downer).

It’s 5:35 in the morning, December 26, when I finally begin to type. I’ve been sitting here for almost four hours now, operating on something like three hours’ sleep in as many days waiting for the words to start flowing, or for the bottle of rum at my side to take effect and begin to lull me off to a dreamless sleep.

Last night was Christmas Eve – even though we’re not a true Christian family as much as we are a sloppy mixture of agnosticism and Wicca with a dose of traditional Christian values thrown in …

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Have We Really Solved the Mystery Behind the Shocking Die-off of Bees?

October 23, 2010 by Source
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The New York Times essentially called it ‘case closed’ on Colony Collapse Disorder, but there is good reason to be wary about their reporting.

The New York Times made a long-awaited announcement on its front page last week: The mystery of the ongoing and agriculturally devastating bee die-off (aka Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD) has been cracked!

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OB Music Community – a golden garden tended with love and enthusiasm

October 28, 2009 by Dave Gilbert
Thumbnail image for OB Music Community – a golden garden tended with love and enthusiasm

by Dave Gilbert

Winston’s? Sounds good!

Hey man! You want to know what OB’s coolest new best kept secret is? They just started this here in October so you may not be (as they say) hep to the jive, but it’s Happy Hour at Winston’s every Thursday evening from 5 til 8 pm. I don’t know about you, but I completely dig a no cover charge to hear some of Southern California’s best musical artists and acts perform at a great live venue while Kate the bartender serves up some great libations. Hey, maybe you’ve just always wanted to perform for your friends and others at a local night spot. A place that has national acts and yet still doesn’t break the bank while you knock back $2 “Nati Lites”, $3 “PBRs” and/or $2 house shots.

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Woodstock 40: “we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden”

August 22, 2009 by Dave Gilbert
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by Dave Gilbert

Huh? I couldn’t decipher what Joni Mitchell had written because I couldn’t understand the lyrics that CSN&Y were singing, at least when I first heard the song Woodstock, but the music sure resounded in and through my heart, soul & being.
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Hopefully we can all agree that everybody wants to find their niche’ in life, to know where they fit in on this big blue marble, and hopefully leave at least a beautiful memory or 3 to those who both loved you and you loved in return

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Inspirations Bloom – Remembering Fran Conoley

October 22, 2018 by Source

How Does My Garden Grow?

By Kathy Blavatt

As I look upon my garden there are a few plants I can always count on that look good. These are strong and more beautiful as they age, stretching and branching out, providing shade for young sprouts, and blooming in full glory with a scent that attracts the pollinators who dance among her blossoms.

My friend Fran Conoley, like her plants, was the standout in the garden. The sprouts she planted over decades had been passed around to those with green thumbs and grown in many gardens. I was one of the lucky ones to benefit from her gifts of posies. On August 9, 2018, at age 99, Frances (Fran) Conley died.

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Tree Specialist- Landscape Artist Donates Expertise to Point Loma

March 7, 2024 by Source

An award-winning landscape artist with plant and tree expertise, Russell Bowman, transforms the sickly trees and gardens of Point Loma into ” Disneyesque wonderlands,” it is said.

Bowman donates his time and expertise for the trees for the Point Loma Association and gardens at the Rock Church in Point Loma, Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, the YMCA, Barnes Tennis Center,  and other sites, like Chili’s Restaurants, Stone Brewery in Escondido, and San Diego Botanic Garden. He also served with the San Diego Rose Society in Balboa Park for 12 years.

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