Five things to do in the garden this week:
Fruit crops. Bramble plants (blackberry and raspberry), like deciduous fruit trees, are best planted in Southern California in the fall or winter. Bramble fruit are harvested from canes which produce a crop in their second year of growth. After they fruit, the canes die and should be removed once they turn completely brown and dry, a sign that the nutrients in the canes have returned to the plant’s perennial roots and can be recycled into new canes. Blackberry canes will vine up a chain link fence or a tree, while raspberry canes, left alone, will sprawl over the ground. Both brambles can be trained up trellises or even grown on individual stakes. Boysenberry, a blackberry variety, grows well in Southern California and a thornless boysenberry is also available. Both bramble berries, but especially raspberries, grow best in half-day sun. Greg Alder has had great success growing raspberries on the eastern edge of large trees. He also maintains that almost any variety of raspberry will grow well here given proper exposure and irrigation. The water needs of bramble berries are a constant concern so you want to make sure their soil stays somewhat moist. You can order bramble berry canes at burpee.com. Most blackberries come from species native to North America while raspberries may be found growing wild throughout the Northern Hemisphere.
Vegetables. Fava beans have a reputation for being the tastiest of all beans. Moreover, they produce prolifically and reach a height of seven feet when trellised. Their black and white flowers are aesthetically pleasing and self-pollinating although bees may pollinate them too. Before they can be eaten, fava beans need to be blanched; boil a pot of water and add salt until it’s as briny as the ocean. Drop your fava beans into the salty brew, cook for one minute, and drain. Now submerge beans in ice water and let them cool for five minutes. Remove beans from husks and eat them as is, sautéd, marinated, or turned into puree. Important note: Some individuals have an allergic reaction to fava beans, so be aware before eating or offering to guests.
Herbs. Chervil is an herb for cool-season planting. Its leaves resemble those of parsley, its botanical cousin. Chervil has an earthy, resinous fragrance that has been compared to myrrh with a delicate licorice flavor. It is commonly used in French cooking and is sometimes referred to as French parsley for this reason. It is used for seasoning soups, sauces, poultry, and seafood. Chervil is meant for planting in the sun this time of year or, in warmer weather, in the shade. In this respect, it is much like lettuce that grows best in cool weather and bolts or goes to seed when temperatures warm.
Perennials. If you are looking for a flowering perennial that blooms during fall and winter in the shade and has a clumping growth habit, consider lily turf with its violet flower spikes. There are two species seen in the nursery trade, big blue lily turf (Liriope muscari), growing up to two feet tall, and creeping lily turf (Liriope spicata). Lily turf is a snail magnet but here in the San Fernando Valley, at least, I have not seen a snail for many years so this gastropod may no longer be a concern in portions of Southern California. Natal lily (Clivia miniata) is another flowering perennial for the shade that puts out flowers during our cool season. Its orange floral trumpets and broad foliar straps provide a unique presence in the shade garden. A variety with yellow trumpets is also available. Both lily turf and Natal lily spread by underground rhizomes so their territory in the garden will expand from year to year.
If you have a sunny balcony or patio and wish to decorate it with orange fruit, consider planting a Nagami kumquat or a calamondin tree. Both of these citrus trees produce small orange fruit which first appear during the overcast days of fall and winter. While oval-shaped Nagami kumquat fruit is less than an inch in diameter and a little over an inch long, a calamondin fruit (a hybrid between a kumquat and a mandarin orange) is a 1-to-2-inch globe. Both are completely edible, including their thin peels. Nagami kumquats flower in summer and ripen their fruit from late fall until early spring while calamondins bloom year round which means that fruit are displayed nearly all the time, although mostly from fall into spring. It is easy to keep these trees small through pruning. Just make sure to change the soil in their pots once a year — a rule of thumb when it comes to growing any fruit tree or flowering plant grown in a container.
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