garden

I've been gardening in Oakland since 1990, harvesting both vegetables and flowers for us and our friends. Because we have deer (yes, deer in Oakland!), we built a 7 foot deer fence around our property to protect vulnerable plants. The back is shady due to a large redwood and tulip magnolia, my rose garden is on the sunny side of the house. The front yard has been planted with deer unfriendly native water-wise plants. For vegetables I "borrow" sunny garden space on the far right of  our property from my neighbor, who has been kind enough to let me plant on his land. Someday I know he will want it back for his own use, the reason for the requirement of lots of sunny gardening space in Ft. Bragg. Until we move up there though, my major gardening efforts will be limited to Oakland. Following are some pictures of the Oakland garden.

Stay tuned for the first pictures of the Ft. Bragg garden, a work in progress.

These are my first plants for Ft. Bragg.

The little rosemary that could! In front is the rosemary plant for the new garden in Ft. Bragg. In back is a 6 year old rosemary in the Oakland garden, it started the same size and has taken over. Since it is an upright rosemary I have been able to cut long sticks of it to use as skewers. Lamb chunks are wonderful grilled on them. Just make sure you soak the branches in water for an hour first.

Newly planted sunny side garden in Ft. Bragg. Looks a little lonely so far but many of the plants will reach several feet in height once they get started. I planted lavender and lemon verbena by the front door to scent the entrance.

11/12/2011 All the new plantings are still there...and appear to be thriving! I planted the rest of the bulbs this weekend plus some wildflower seeds from our spring trip to Vancouver.

The first veggie seeds went in near the driveway, 2 kinds of arugula. The critters don't mess with it in my Oakland garden where it is starting to grow wild. I am hopeful it will be true in Ft. Bragg as well.

We saw a covey of quail this weekend, 7 of them in the back meadow. Casey had fun flushing them from around one of the big redwoods in the morning.