This winter has been different but not bad for plants here in the Sacramento region. We’ve had 6 atmospheric river storms, I believe, so we have gotten a lot of rain coming down hard at times. The nice part about this for us is that the meteorologists can see it coming. So we haven’t had a ton of flooding and the ground water is getting replenished. Fields have flooded, but nothing horrendous. I’m sure some people have been flooded out of their homes, but it doesn’t appear to be widespread around here.
The trees have started to bud out and you can see the new brilliant green growth on them. In between the storms we’ve had a lot of sunshine and even one day over 70F. The plums trees have bloomed already and the apple and citrus trees have buds just starting to show color. I was supposed to fertilize the fruit trees today but between the rain and surgery on my leg (minor but stupidly annoying) I postponed it until Saturday. It’s raining again on Sunday and Monday so it will work its way to the roots any which way.
The home garden is a bit weather beaten since big branches keep falling on my lettuces. I’m down to 6 Romaine which I might get to start harvesting next week, 6 Swiss chard which also might mature next week but still a bit small, and 5 collard greens. One of the collards might be ready next week. Large branches have fallen on the collard greens and Romaines at least 5 times so they break off and I coax them to stay alive. Those should almost be bolting by mid March but it hasn’t been very warm yet. Does not mean it won’t be 80F in two weeks however.
My snow peas have begun to grow a lot but I appear to be sharing them with a rat or squirrel (rodent prints in the soil)! The sugar peas are growing nicely and starting to flower. Every plant has just been very slow to grow. We are quite spoiled here since we can garden all winter; we rarely get a hard freeze and just occasional frosts. It just seems weird that I’ve started summer plants in the greenhouse while not yet harvesting my winter garden much at all!
The real winners of this weather are my bulbs and Gazania plants. The daffodils are up everywhere as are the freesia! These are all at least 3 years old so they are robust plants with so many flowers. We’ll have to see if they got trashed in this windy storm we are having now. The irises and amaryllis are growing beautiful thick green leaves so should have a good flower showing also.
So overall this winter has been a low food producing one but very good overall for the native plants. Now that I have my raised beds setup at Medium Brown Dog Farms, I am anxious to see if I can produce a reasonable amount to food this summer. We shall see!
