Sow There

By Heather Hacking, Chico Enterprise-Record

Last summer I planted a six-pack of Vinca rosea in a big, thin metal bucket near the front door.

Vinca rosea is one of my go-to summer flowers and thrives despite the heat.

By now, I know this plant pretty well. When the cold nips at the doorstep, these summer stand-outs turns black and die.

Yet, these particular plants did not die. There were times I could have tossed the plants on the compost pile, but they seemed just barely alive.

In early spring I watched them struggle back to life, and now they have a prominent spot on the picnic table.

Other plants have died just as mysteriously as the Vinca rosea have lived.

THE YEAR IN POTS

Most of my plants are in pots this year and I’m trying to grab some knowledge quickly so I don’t kill them.

Drought-tolerant plants tend to have certain features, including fuzzy leaves, silver foliage, succulents, waxy leaves and long taproots, a website called Enjoy Container Gardening explains, http://goo.gl/9yZxdT

Dusty miller, for example, has silvery, fuzzy leaves. Now I know why it has survived in my garden.

Other fuzzy plants include lamb’s ear and that wild plant in Paradise with hot pink flowers that looks a lot like lamb’s ear.

It makes sense that silvery plants are drought-tolerant, as this category includes sage, salvia, lavender.

Some other specifics in the article are sunflowers, sedum, zinnia and geraniums.

Note, most of the plants in my pots do not have these drought-tolerant attributes.

What goes in the pot

I’m no expert on planting in pots. However, I have read numerous times not to use dirt from the yard.

You would think that buying potting soil would do the trick. However, the texture just seems wrong to me.

During my time off from work I chatted with Bob Scoville, one of the valiant crew with the Glenn County Master Gardener Program (865-1110).

He said he has heard to add perlite to pots as a soil amendment, to help with water retention.

Perlite is white and is actually a volcanic glass. It holds water and water-soluble nutrients. Bob said it is known to improve the “tilth” of soil.

Tilth? What the heck does that mean?

Bob chuckled.

Tilth is a word that appears on the first page of Bob’s Master Gardener’ handbook.

He said its hard to define, but easier to see and feel.

“Good tilth – you’re able to grasp it in your hand,” and it will be firm, but not soggy, workable but not solid.

“When you have really good soil you know what it feels like in your hand,” Bob said with a flair for soil romanticism.

“Tilth is the word that describes that feeling you have as you feel it in your hand,” he said, confusing me all the more.

However, I knew I wanted tilth. I wanted tilth badly.

He started to describe the 12 major USDA soil classifications. I noted I had surgery recently and did not have the mental stamina for an extended soil lecture.

Instead, we focused on the merits of coffee grounds as a soil amendment.

Bob read an article recently in Sunset Magazine (http://goo.gl/rEJHBS) that raved about coffee grounds.

The Sunset folks say coffee grounds contain phosphorous, potassium, magnesium and copper.

In addition to improving tilth, coffee grounds provide a small amount of slow-release nitrogen, Bob continued, which is good for his citrus plants.

It would seem natural that if coffee grounds are good, ground coffee would be event better. Bob fielded this questions from a gardener, and explained to her it doesn’t work that way. Running water through the grounds leaches out salts that are bad for plants.

One can only imagine how those salts react in our human bodies.

Bob said when he makes a pot of coffee at home, he scoops out the grounds and adds the dark stuff just a few inches under the soil near his plants.

I’m doing the same with my potted plants. We’ll see how much tilth happiness this brings.

By Heather Hacking, Chico Enterprise-Record
POSTED: 03/05/15, 6:14 PM PST | UPDATED: ON 03/06/2015 0 COMMENTS
In relationships, people have differences the other person may never understand.

I’m not talking about the “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” blather. (Although some of that blather is quite helpful).

I’m talking about the inevitable, potentially annoying traits that require acceptance.

I will never understand how my boyfriend can play guitar for three hours straight. Nor can I understand how playing the same song over and over is more important than preparing the house for a visit from my mother.

He will also never understand why I need to have plants on every countertop, on the floor, hanging from the ceiling and along each step of the front porch.

NEW CLUTTER

This overzealous indoor plant propagation is entirely new, which is why it is so much fun, which is why it has gotten out of hand.

It started with a rather generous philodendron purchased at the grocery store. This hanging plant had so many long, green tendrils, it was begging to be replicated.

Philodendron is at the top of the list of easiest plants to cultivate in water. Simply take a long, healthy stem, strip off the bottom leaves and dunk into an old glass jar filled with water.

Now I have four philodendron plants.

My sister and mother visited and admired my wandering Jew plant. Would I make cuttings for them, they requested politely.

I could and I did.

Wandering Jew, aka Tradescantia albiflora, also roots easily in water. So easily, in fact, I kept two for myself.

Meanwhile, my boyfriend has long arms and apparently the plants get in his way when he’s playing guitar.

MORE PLANT ACCESSORIES

Food containers and miscellaneous plastic packaging make great mini-greenhouses. These are stored easily if your boyfriend will just stay out of the cupboards.

Costco is a blessing and a curse for plastic. When apples are unnecessarily sold in a plastic sheath, you can re-use the containers for sprouting tomatoes. The same goes for containers filled with baby kale and spinach.

The tomato greenhouses are moved to the front porch during the day and returned to the living room rug at night.

Did I mention that the house is less than 500 square-feet?

JUST A FEW MORE

The breaking point was when I brought home the plants from my desk at work.

I’m scheduled to have surgery soon and don’t want to burden my coworkers with plant babysitting.

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Plus, the schefflera at my desk is about four years too big for its small pot.

Naturally, I separated the large plant into two, and the only place to put them is in on the rug next to the tomatoes.

Boyfriend: “I think we have enough indoor plants.”

Heather: We need a larger house.

MORE PLANT MULTIPLIERS

A helpful website for teachers includes a list of plants easily propagated by children: http://goo.gl/ut0bGe. These include geranium, coleus, mint, basil, oregano, sweet potato vine, tomato suckers, snapdragon, African violet and sedum.

The advice includes placing pebbles at the bottom of jars filled with water. When the new roots reach the pebbles, they grow hair-like roots. This expands the plant’s ability to take in oxygen once planted in the ground.

Better Homes and Garden also has a great article about ways to propagate houseplants, http://goo.gl/LM5aRh.

This includes taking a strappy leaf from a snake plant, cutting the bottom at an angle, dipping in rooting powder, then sticking the leaf into loose rooting soil. You can also check out easy ways to grow more begonias.

Luckily, the weather is getting warmer and I can focus my obsession outdoors.

By Heather Hacking, Chico Enterprise-Record
POSTED: 03/12/15, 6:53 PM PDT | 0 COMMENTS

New kitty took some time to sniff just about everything within a small radius of the back door. Heather Hacking — Enterprise-Record
A few of you might recall that there is a new feline unit in my life.

If my life had no outside influences, I would have written about the kitty each week since Valentine’s Day.

There would have been vivid reports from the first day she used the cat door, hid in the bookshelf and had a face-off with the cat I did not adopt. She has leapt from loquat tree to rooftop and learned about the mean mongrel next door.

Until now, I have kept news of her meandering to a minimum.

“You’re not going to write about the cat again,” my boyfriend asked as I was typing for what seemed (to him) like hours about her cat cuteness. “You’ve already written two columns about the cat,” he opined.

“But people want to know everything about her,” I said, genuinely shocked.

“No they don’t.”

Last week my friend Perrin asked if something had happened to my cat. Was she hit by a car? Something bad must have happened because most people would have written every week about a new cat, she said.

“People don’t want to know every cute thing she does,” I said, parroting a certain curmudgeon.

“Yes they do,” Perrin said. “I want to know all those details.”

A CAT WITHOUT A NAME

“For example,” Perrin querried, what did you name her?”

I was hoping some kitty character trait would emerge that would provide the perfect name for the cat.

“Does her breathe smell nasty tonight?” I might ask as she purrs and nuzzles my ear.

“Maybe we should name her Dragon Lady?”

Her whiskers are astounding in their perfection — long and white and slightly curved.

Yet, Whiskers sounds like a cat name from a turn of the Century British children’s story.

She’s also among the softest creatures I have ever touched.”Furball,” is another name considered and rejected.

In the interim, we could call her “Cat.” This was the default name Holly Golightly chose for her cat. Yet, Holly chose the name because she had no plans for feline attachment.

We called her “pretty kitty,” for a brief moment until we realized P.K. sounded cute. However, Jenny’s son is called P.K.

To be honest, the name we use the most is “Feline Unit,” but there’s no real way to shorten that with initials.

The latest name in consideration is Catness. Unfortunately, people might think we named her after Jennifer Lawrence’s character in the “Hunger Games,” and that just seems … well … dumb.

Yet, “Catness” pretty much sums up her personality.

When she drinks the water in the plants, my boyfriend will say “that’s her being a cat.”

The bedroom is off limits. This means any time the door is open a single inch, the cat makes a mad dash toward the forbidden room. The result is a less than glamorous cat/human tussle under the bed.

She spends at least a third of her day licking herself, and perhaps the same amount of time begging to be petted.

If these aren’t all displays of “cat-ness,” I don’t really know what “cat-ness” is.

Then there is the light laser. For two bucks we have gained hours of ridiculous fun, watching the cat stalk and pounce on that tiny red beam of light. By the end she’s usually so exhausted she’ll curl up in a ball, the epitome of cat cute-ness.

GARDEN TIME WITH PROS

The Butte County Master Gardeners are some of my favorite people. To prove it, I pester them all the time with garden questions. You can call Wednesdays 9 a.m. to noon and Thursdays 1-4 p.m., 538-7201.

To ask them questions in person, several workshops are planned. They’re free, but you need to call and make a reservation. All will be held at the Master Gardener demo garden at the Patrick Ranch Museum, 1038 the Midway, 10-11:30 a.m.

Saturday the talk is on planting tomatoes by seed.

March 18, learn about raised bed gardening and how to make a box that will keep gophers out.

March 21, catch up on the basics of keeping chickens in your back yard.

March 28, all about drip irrigation.

April 11 is the only workshop with a fee, $30 for materials. At the end you’ll have built a compost bin and gathered know-how for your composting future.

By Heather Hacking, Chico Enterprise-Record
POSTED: 05/14/15, 11:10 AM PDT | UPDATED: 5 DAYS AGO 0 COMMENTS
The morning of Mom’s Day was a flurry of last-minute housekeeping. We had reservations at a restaurant, but there seems to be something instinctive that causes moms to check their children’s homes for health and safety hazards.

It starts with checking behind our ears when we are infants. In the teen years, moms might smell their children’s breath after a date, checking for booze. Once children live on their own, Mom might check in the broom closet to see if a deadbeat boyfriend is hiding his guitar and knapsack. She might also check under the couch for toxic lint.

NEW LIVING ROOM

Before Mom and my sister arrived last week, we pushed the wheelbarrows out of the way, cleaned up a few piles of garbage, cleared off the table and wiped down the chairs.

This was all in our new outdoor sitting area, which has become the largest “living room” of the house.

When the weather is this beautiful, I can spend almost all of Sunday working “around the house.” It’s time to lift the daffodils from the 25-gallon containers and use the soil to plant tomatoes. There are always weeds to be yanked and I’m still trying to propagate star jasmine from cuttings.

Before I know it, the mosquitoes are ready to bite and I haven’t done a thing indoors.

Last weekend when Mom asked to use the bathroom I was embarrassed.

The patio looked great, but I couldn’t ask her to pee outside, at least not on Mother’s Day.

I’ll start “spring cleaning” the inside of the house when the temperatures are unbearable outside. This way I can clean behind the couch with the air conditioner at full force.

WHAT’S OUTSIDE

After the septic workers came and went, a truckload of new gravel was spread in the driveway outside the side door.

We found a long-forgotten shade structure in the shed and placed it over the picnic table. This is the kind you might set up if you are camping for a week.

Another ratty-looking picnic table was completely covered with sun-loving potted plants and pushed near the front of the driveway. This creates a secluded outdoor area. Potted shade plants have been tucked under the table.

At Costco we bought a “shade sail,” which created another covered area for plants that would otherwise burn when summer arrives.

Just to be safe, another 13-foot shade triangle is in the box and sitting on the dining table.

Right now we spend an hour or more each evening outside, petting the cat, listening to the birds and fussing with the many potted plants all around.

WATER WATCH

Last week some of us were on a girl’s night out, chatting about gardening and saving water.

In particular, how did we save water when washing our faces at night?

One friend said she used the hot water in the kitchen because it is closer to the hot water heater. While the water is warming, it fills a tub she uses to water some outdoor plants.

Another friend said she places a wet wash rag in the microwave. She adds a tab of soap, lathers, then rinses with cold water.

For my part, I keep a tall plastic water cup in the bathroom. It takes about 20 ounces for the water to warm, and this water is dumped into a five-gallon silver bucket in the shower.

The bucket also catches water when we shower. After a few gallons, the water can be used to dump directly into the toilet bowl for a flush.

The fact that we were all talking about this while scarfing asparagus at a swank restaurant bodes well for surviving the drought.

Saving water — it’s not just a lifestyle, it’s something to brag about.

By Heather Hacking, Chico Enterprise-Record
POSTED: 05/07/15, 6:45 PM PDT | 0 COMMENTS

I love the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens the way I love Disneyland. Both are magical places where I could return again and again. When I visit places like this I fantasize about accidentally being locked in overnight.

For some reason, when I visit out-of-the-way tourist attractions with a bazillion people, I see people I know. At Disneyland last winter I spotted a state legislator’s aide.

I did not flag him down. He looked happy with his family and I didn’t feel like talking politics.

At the State Fair last summer I bumped into Sheri, my coeditor from college newspaper days. I also had a brief chat with John Garamendi who hanging with the gang at the Colusa County booth.

When stomping around the Mendocino Botanical Garden, http://www.gardenbythesea.org, last week, we ran into Erin, my friend who sells beeswax candles a the Chico farmer’s market.

I’m glad she was there because she pointed out a snail on the chard and encouraged me to squish it with my garden clogs.

The visit to Fort Bragg was a gift from my father and step-mom, to celebrate both my birthday and the removal of cancer from my body.

I’m on this very “high-on-life” kick, which I’ve heard is a normal part of the healing process. Either that or the world really is more beautiful than it was before I had surgery.

One thing to love about botanical gardens in general is that each plant has a name plate.

This is important if you are one of those geniuses who is able to memorize every plant name you see.

My boyfriend and I made a point to memorize the names of two new plants. We did this by taking photos of the name plate and the plant, and reviewing the images several times during the weekend.

We already knew the names of rhododendron and heather (two of the most numerous of the plants in the garden collection).

With this many plants to see we spent the entire day at the gardens. By planning ahead, we had a lunch in the car.

While the gardens look wild and unkept, you can tell there is a lot of “keeping” going on. On this particular Thursday, crews of young and old were carting stinky piles of manure and compost to various locations. We also walked down a side road and found the piles of general soil amendment.

With the evidence of thousands of hours of work, I was surprised to see a familiar weed — the Velcro plant — hidden among the greenery. This was comforting in a way, because even the best gardeners can’t keep all the weeds out.

Velcro weed.

The garden also sells plants. I mostly ignored this section because the climate on the coast is dramatically different than Chico, which is exactly why people from Chico love visiting the coast in July and August.

However, rhododendrons can be babied if kept in the shade in the Sacramento Valley.

The grand finale of the garden adventure was reaching the bluffs at the edge of the property. Visitors exit the manicured section through a magical gate made of long twigs. A short distance farther is the ocean.

This admission-only seaside meadow was sprinkled with wild California iris and tall grass. The blooms of the ice plant were so bright I would wager the staff drags fertilizer out to the bluffs.

It had been a long day and we had photographed, touched and smelled thousands of living things.

This particular sliver of coastline was the most beautiful I had ever seen. Although, I had already said that about other slivers of coast over the past several days.

If I had to distill the trip down to a single best moment, this was it. Blooming ice plant at our feet, the distant roar of the blue sea, a slight breeze and a much-needed nap — you can’t help but be thankful for all of that.

By Heather Hacking, Chico Enterprise-Record
POSTED: 03/26/15, 5:45 PM PDT | 0 COMMENTS
My job right now is to pretty much to do nothing. A week ago I had surgery and Wednesday I received good news from the UC Davis surgeon.

All is well.

The biopsy results were something to celebrate and the good doc says I will not need to have radiation treatment.

Hooray.

It’s only now that I realize I have been holding my breath for about a month and a half.

ADJUSTMENTS

Now that my life has slowed dramatically, I have time to walk (slowly) around the house – for the next five weeks.

I wouldn’t exactly call my yard a “garden.” It’s more of a collection of potted plants and some “other stuff” that happens to be growing.

If I could bend and squat right now, I would put the lavender plant in the ground.

When Holly and I visited the Plant Barn during the Local Nursery Crawl, we chatted with a local rosarian. She confirmed that you really can kill lavender with too much water. This makes it a very good choice for near my fence line.

Speaking of the fence line, we’re hoping to build a bit of privacy. The couple who previously lived in this house had privacy in the form of two mean-sounding dogs. The dogs stalked the perimeter of the yard, stomping on anything that tried to grow.

People who have dogs and gardens may understand that you really have to give priority to one or the other.

About this time last year the dogs would have been standing taut near the fence, threatening perfect strangers with bodily harm.

I learned to like these dogs over time. However, I did continue to resent feeling like I was being yelled at each time I pulled into my driveway.

The dogs were effective. People learned that if they walked by this house, they would be verbally assaulted. Two days after the dogs moved away, one of my neighbors was burglarized.

Dogs like this do get lonely. Strangers may stop to say hello to a friendly dog, or pause to pet a nose squashed into the wires of a cyclone fence.

Yet, a dog with a mean bark has no friends. That’s naturally why you tend to have two of them.

CLEAR PATH FOR PLANTS

The result of all this canine pacing is that when the neighbors moved away, they left a well-worn trail along the perimeter of the fence.

Now it’s my job to reclaim that space.

As much as I hate to admit it, I’ve been cultivating privet. The normally hated plant grows everywhere in the neighborhood. I’ve spent years yanking it from the soil.

However, as a quick-growing, poor-man’s hedge you really can’t beat it.

My beau is a big fan of English laurel, which grows quickly and makes a great privacy hedge. However, switching to better plants would actually cost money. Whereas the privet is growing for free and simply needs to be moved.

We are also considering planting some oleander, a plant so common I would have cringed if you had previously suggested it for my yards.

However, if these plants are good enough for the middle of freeways throughout California, they’re good enough for the edge of the yard. They are easy to trim, grow quickly, provide flowers and apparently can withstand pollution.

If finances get really bad, I could probably live in the oleander for months without detection.

Another particularly alluring property of the plants is that they require almost no water once established. That makes them a good choice for right now and into the foreseeable future.

I’ll do some research on whether they grow from cuttings. I’m thinking once I’m recovered from this surgery I could spend some time in a freeway center divider, dressed in black and taking plant cuttings.

By Heather Hacking, Chico Enterprise-Record
POSTED: 04/09/15, 12:16 PM PDT | 0 COMMENTS

Before the storm, clouds were brewing in Old Town Sacramento a few hours before bad weather hit the valley. Heather Hacking — Enterprise-Record
We drove straight through the storm Tuesday afternoon.

The stretch of road from Sacramento to Butte County runs through mile after mile of farmland — perfect for watching a wide, open sky.

Not far north of Sacramento, the sky started to explode. At one point we parked under an overpass, counting the number of seconds between claps of thunder and lightning bolts.

At another stop we watched the hail bounce off the black highway. We weren’t pulling over for safety, just for fun.

The reason for the trip was to check in with UC Davis Cancer Center after my surgery. The news was good.

I’m sure I’m not alone here. After a cancer scare, and then a good prognosis, suddenly the world becomes a lot more beautiful. Even dark, dangerous storms become something to celebrate.

At one point during the journey, clouds of icy debris spewed from underneath fat truck tires. We pulled over in case the hail became so large it would dent our car.

This might be a tornado storm, my Handsome Woodsman noted: The temperature had dropped quickly, the hail was pelting the earth and the wide sky was filled with gray, dense clouds.

Soon a coworker sent a text warning me I might be in the middle of a tornado alert zone. What the heck do you do at that point?

I looked out the window for funnel clouds, and my beau kept driving.

The storm was moving 15 miles per hour. “We can drive faster than that,” my guy noted.

WACKY SPRING WEATHER

The storm is a fairly clear reminder of how you can’t jump the gun on spring planting.

The official last day of (average) frost is around the end of April. That’s easy to remember because it’s my birthday.

Indeed, some years the temperatures warm up and stay warm. One would think that if this was going to happen it would be this year.

In fact, I would have bet you a nickel last week that spring was early this year. The temperatures were so warm I unpacked the box that contains my summer shorts and started slathering my body with fake tan lotion.

Yet, here comes the hail again.

If you’re eager, plant a bunch of things by seeds in containers. You can always bring the containers inside if the nights are cold.

I save plastic food containers with lids, which make excellent mini greenhouses for seedlings.

EARLY MARKETING

Garden stores really have no business selling warm-weather vegetables until the weather is officially warm. This wacky storm is another reminder that starting early can be a waste of money.

Sure, people might put the plants in greenhouses.

Yet, I’m betting people put the plants in the ground, they die, and they guy plants again.

By Heather Hacking, Chico Enterprise-Record
POSTED: 04/30/15, 3:00 PM PDT | 0 COMMENTS

Handfuls of kale can be turned into a smoothie. Heather Hacking — Enteprise-Record
Not too long ago I would never have thought about eating kale. In my mind, kale wasn’t a food, it was a food accessory. Kale was something you found at the side of an omelette — the same as curly parsley or a warm slice of orange.

My first job was in Benicia at the Foster’s Freeze. Part of my job was to stock the salad bar.

Kale was used to cover the ice between salad bar containers. As we closed the restaurant, we washed off the dabs of macaroni salad and spilled dressing and used the kale the next day.

The kale I knew had leaves so stiff you could use it for roofing material in a primitive village.

A few decades ago I discovered kale as a winter ornamental. The bushy, magenta and dark jade leaves looked pretty during the cold months.

Yet, I gave up on kale as a garden ornamental because it became the happy hangout for slugs. I yanked the plant when I suspected it was actually a place where slugs were breeding.

REBIRTH OF KALE

Today, kale is all the rage. Society has been educated that if you pick the leaves when they are young, the plant is actually edible.

Somehow the nutrition of kale is also part of the collective consciousness.

Perhaps there was a successful kale public relations campaign. This preceded the printing of T-shirts that read: “Eat more kale.”

I checked Web MD, http://goo.gl/GSnRdp, which states the green stuff contains protein, fiber and nutrients helpful for vision. It also contains Vitamin K, a vitamin nobody knew they needed until kale became popular.

BABY THOSE GREENS

Last year I discovered Tuscan baby kale, sold through Renee’s Garden, http://goo.gl/ZZQCJY .

Because of the drought, I’m still not sure if I’ll have a real garden this year. In the meantime, I planted dozens of daffodils in pots. There was room in these pots for kale seeds, which I planted well before the flowers bloomed. More seeds were planted several weeks later.

My thought was that by the time the daffodils had bloomed and faded, it would be too warm for more kale.

This worked really, really well. When the individual leaves were picked from the kale, these baby kale plants grew more. For weeks and weeks I’ve been harvesting handfuls for salads and smoothies.

LOOPERS LOVE KALE

Somewhere along this kale journey I noticed a few holes in the leaves. I thought earwigs were nibbling at night. I washed the leaves and figured a bit of earwig spittle wouldn’t kill me.

I found a caterpillar by chance, ; It was the exact same color as the leaves it had just eaten.

The next day I killed a small, medium and large caterpillar, and now knew the source of the holes in the leaves.

Now I was on a mission of destruction.

Soon I found the cute, yet difficult to spot eggs. These were easy to smash between the leaves. However, even with time on my hands the egg-hunt became time consuming.

A few days later and there were so many bugs I grabbed the leaves by the fistful and shoved them into a coffee can filled with soapy water.

It wasn’t too difficult to be a plant detective. The University of California Integrated Pest Management website, http://goo.gl/18eSLD, has photos of critters similar to those found in my kale patch: cabbage loopers.

Kale is related to cabbage, you see.

Now that I know, the season for kale is over. It’s all good. It’s time to let the daffodil bulbs dry, and perhaps use the pots for some summer color. I’m thinking zinnias grown from seed.