After the Rain

| March 3, 2014 | 2 Replies

After the rain, the Late Bloomer Garden comes alive! You may have heard about the drought in California. Well, we got a proper hosing the past few days. It coincided with cool season crops mature and lush. My new rainwater barrel is full along with several overflow trash cans, and the soil got a deep soaking. Here’s how the garden looked the morning after.

After the rain-garden

Late Bloomer Garden after the rain with freshly dug pea patch

After the rain-potted plants

Potted plants

The red voile really saved my brassicas from cabbage moths laying eggs. This idea came to me from Sumi, an amazing food grower!

After the rain-Back 40

Back 40 with beets, chard, Savoy cabbage and quinoa

AFter the rain-lettuce box

Lettuce box with Tatsoi and arugula bolting

After the rain-broccoli

Covered purple broccoli

After the rain-broccoli head

Purple Sprouting Broccoli head

After the rain-cabbage

Red Acre cabbage head

A few new things are blooming!

After the rain-cactus bloom

Holiday Cactus bloom

After the rain-marigold

Sparky Mix Marigold covered in rain

After the rain-cilantro

Cilantro blooms

AFter the rain-quinoa

Quinoa seed heads

After the rain-agapanthus

Agapanthus bloom

After the rain-chive

Chive bloom head opening

After the rain-camomile

German Camomile blooms

Other things were pushing out of the ground.

After the rain-asparagus

3rd year asparagus spear sprouting

After the rain-asparagus

Asparagus stalk

A patch of this fungus keeps popping up in my California native bed. It was identified as a Stinkhorn. Sometimes the shoots have a white cap on top, which is the egg sac it bursts from. The underside of these five fingers is black. You can see a photo here on Late Bloomer Show Facebook page. Please “Like” our page, and share your garden photos!

After the rain-fungus

Lysurus mokusin Stinkhorn fungus

I pulled out a handful of carrots to see how they are doing. The tops of the heads were large, but they were short, probably due to my not thinning enough.

After the rain-carrots

Stubby mixed carrots

After the rain-cyclamen

Cyclamen blooms

Nothing is more regenerative than a good rain, especially when you are in a parched area. One of the many rewards of gardening and growing food is observing the garden come alive after a good rain (especially at sunrise). I hope there are a few more before the long, dry summer.

Are you buried in snow? Is your garden coming alive? Do you have to worry about the lack of rain, and have to depend on city water to grow food? Are you filtering your water? I’d love to know.

Do you have a rain barrel? If you are in L.A., did you know you can qualify for a $75 rebate on your rain barrel? Read about conserving water in Los Angeles here.

After the rain-rain barrel

Ivy Rain Barrel with overflow

Thanks for reading, and I hope you will comment and share. It’s possible to grow a lot in a small space. Happy gardening! – Kaye

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Category: Cool Season, Flowers, Fungi, Rain, Urban Gardening

Comments (2)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. Lynn says:

    Yes we have snow. I actually scoop snow into a bucket to let it melt in the garage to use on my seedlings. I use it to stat seeds but once they are growing, I use city water unless my rain barrel is full. We can’t use a rain barrel between nov and April because the freezing would crack them. So, six more weeks until I can collect rain water again. Sowing potatoes this weekend as well as kale and cabbage

Leave a Reply