A Northern Nevada Garden

Well, December is a rough month for Northern Nevada gardeners. It’s just a sad, sad time. Especially when it’s been as cold as it’s been here the last couple of weeks. We were late switching our pond pumps but we made the switch before the temps dipped. We switch from a waterfall big momma pump to a smaller submersible for the colder months. We also put in a heater. We deciede to do one instead of two this year and it seems to be fine. The fish hang out around it. I call it the fish campfire!

The good news is that the snow is much needed precipitation. When you don’t get much, you have to be thankful when it comes–even when it arrives as snow. On the bright side, the evergreens all look so pretty with a nice frosting of snow.

I have been a terrible indoor gardener, I am afraid. The dry heated indoors is not really optimal for most plants (other than the cacuus and  succulents, God bless them). I decided to just try to keep everything alive until spring. I am not going to enter these plants in any beauty contests.

Still, it was warm enough to venture outside for some yard work. Today’s mission: turn the left side of the Earth Engine compost bin and turn one of the small back bins. The small black bin was pretty dry–just the innermost core was cooking. So I emptied the whole thing out and started layering it again, watering thoroughly with each layer. Then I got the idea to add some finished compost to get things going. So I went to empty out the left side of the big bins. And I was rewarded. Easily the bottom two feet was rich, black compost. We filled up a 15 gallon pot - twice - and layered it with the materials in the black bin. I also said a prayer to the composting gods.

Then we filled up a large trash can with finished compost plus two smaller containers. I spread compost in several places in the yard–most of it when under the locust tree on the east side of the house.

I finally cleaned up the rest of the plant husks that remained in the vegetable garden. Those went into the bottom of the Earth Engine bin and I layered and watered as I filled it up to the heaping top. Now I just have to watch and wait.

Today was one of those rare days in my Nevada Garden. The ground was soaked from rain! It was windy but not too cold and the sun was battling the clouds for some personal space.

I did get some raking done yesterday but all evidence of my efforts has been obfuscated by more falling leaves. I just keep going to my happy place: thinking about the leaves as compost.

I decided it was now or never: either I was going to plant the daffodil bulbs or it wasn’t going to happen. We worked in the garden out front. It’s the one extremely dull post in the yard–just a couple of plants overpowered by a sprawling juniper whose days are numbered. I planted a couple things out there this year but it barely made a dent. Unfortunately the garden was created with a pretty big dose of landscape cloth and a whole lot of rock. We had to move about 300 to make way for the bulbs and a couple of other plants–some we distributed, others are in a pile next to the compost bin. My last house was built on former farmland with nary a rock to be had. I wished for enough rock to create lots of planting beds. Be careful what you wish for!

We moved the rock away from the fence and dug down as deep as we could go and planted about 30 daffodil bulbs. We replaced the dirt, lined the fense with rocks and covered the whole bed with mulch. We also planed a dwarf spruce tree (mature height: 6-8 feet) and an artemesia ‘powis castle’ - one of the xeric heavyweights in my gardening forays. I also plant a couple of pink irises out front. There’s still a lot more to do before the facelift is complete but it’s a start.

Inside the garden in progress known as the “former dog run area” more bulbs, more irises were planted.

I dug the Dracaena spike grass out of the big pot and brought it indoors for the winter. Supposedly this is possible. I guess we’ll find out. It’s grown A LOT. I am contemplating cutting back the purple trailing lantana and bring that indoors as well.

The blueberries look outstanding. I guess the cooler temps are better for them. Having never grown blueberries, I have no idea what to expect. The Honey Berries look like they’ve gone to sleep.

Still need to clean out and winterize the pond. Even a 3-day Nevada Day holiday weekend is no match for my to do list!

Hard to believe but today we had a full-on snow storm. Not cold enough to stick but cold enough to rush us from fall to winter in a hurry. I checked the plants tonight–they stayed under wraps all day. They looked surprisingly good all things considered but tonight’s temps might be too much. It’s supposed to warm up against next week so I’d like to keep things going. Mother Nature might have other ideas…

Supposed to be a cold one tonight. I covered up all of the plants in the garden. I am hoping to keep them warm enough that they will make it through the night and live to see another harvest day.

A couple of days ago I was surprised by an unexpected harvest: a handful of
perfectly ripe, perfectly sweet raspberries. I planted three plants
early in the season each in their own barrel–part of a larger
experiment in edible gardening. Honestly, I didn’t expect much this
year so I was pleasantly surprised.

P.S. Finally–FINALLY–the lantana is in bloom. Wacky.

First really cool day today. Time to get serious about winterizing the pond and garden.

Pond update
I pulled some of my pond plants out of the pond today and brought them inside. I bought some glazed pots without drainage holes–hopefully this will keep them happy over the winter. I brought a few parrots feather plants inside and put them in a tall vase. I have no idea if this will work or not but I decided it was worth a try. I am not going to pull out the floating plants just yet–I want to give the fish the cover as long as possible.

Veggie Garden
We brought in a colander heaping with tomatoes. There are a bunch of baby squash in the garden–if we get any warmth at all, there will be another squash harvest.

Out front
We had a pollen explosion –the sidewalk and porch are covered with yellow powder–that I don’t remember from last year. I think it’s the wall of ivy but I am not sure. I had to hose down all the plants out front and water everything thoroughly. I’ll bring them in over the next week or so.

I read that 13%+ of the material that goes to landfills is yard waste–and that doesn’t account for the carbon footprint involved in transporting all that waste. We’ve managed to keep all of ours on the premises. The compost bins continue to cook and this makes me a happy gardener.

Today was the day to turn the compost in the big bins. As a gardener I have faith that if I do what I am supposed to, things happen. But I have to admit that seeing is believing for me–and I continue to be amazed by the process of composting. I try very hard to keep all yard waste and kitchen scraps out of the garbage can. I am happy to report that compost happens. We filled this trash can about 2/3 full with black crumbly compost filled with wriggly worms! There’s easily another foot of compost in the right-hand bin.

I also decided to line the sides of of one of the bins with black plastic as an experiment. We’ve had black plastic on top of the bins and noticed that it helps keep the moisture in. I also took this opportunity to sprinkle some Super Hot Compost starter and watered the bin in layers. I want to jump start the bins before the leaves start falling so that we have room to compost them.

I spread the compost around the four small trees in the back. Yeah!