My winter garden is winding down. I was absolutely lazy this year and barely lifted a finger, but I feel like I had the best results ever. This came from knowing my garden space and repeating some things that worked, as well as my usual “just wing it” attitude when it comes to my plants. There’s tons of advice out there on what to do and when to do it, but nothing can touch using experience to guide me.
Discovering Annuals
I planted a ton of petunias, sweet William plants, and snapdragon transplants in mid October, and those are still going strong with color. I probably invested a couple hundred just in pretty annual flowers for a fall BBQ. I wanted to impress the neighbors with a pretty outdoor space, which admittedly is kind of silly, but honestly I would do it again in a heartbeat because of the longevity and little effort it took to enjoy the heck out of these things, not to mention how much the bees like them. I watered every 2-3 days, and deadheaded the petunias when I had nothing else to do or just wanted to escape to the garden. Some of the petunias are on a drip irrigation system but I’ve mostly been hand watering. They’re obviously very forgiving.
The deep purple petunias seemed to do the best, although they fade in the sun. I learned you can trim petunias when they get leggy – cool! I planted everything way too close together. I have one petunia patch that is taking over the space, as seen above, and another set of maybe 12 plants I put in a long planter, pictured below. I could have planted far less plants and still had beautiful coverage. I think 4-6 of them would be just right. When I realized my mistake, I transferred several of the plants all over the garden – next to the sweet William, in my tomato and pepper pots, started new petunia pots, just anyplace that needed a pollinator or color – and the remaining plants grew larger.
Note my snapdragons from seed (of which I still have thousands of seeds) never did a dang-blasted thing. I ended up just transplanting a few petunias on top of them in the pot and called it a day.
How pretty are my snapdragons now? They are on their second bloom. When I planted them in mid October, they weren’t as tall, and I see as they are reseeding themselves they’re encroaching on my dormant trees. I knew they would get pretty tall so I’m glad I placed them in the back.
Strawberry Starts
This strawberry planter was so beautiful earlier with the deep purple petunias and sweet allysum, but the allysum started to look dry and spent so as soon as I saw $30 bird food aka strawberries in the orange big box store again, I yanked out the allysum and opted to try the berries in this container. You will recall I bought strawberries and soil and a container and the whole nine yards a couple of years ago and could not keep the birds out of them – hence the $30 price tag to feed my winged visitors. Well, now that it’s 2025, strawberries are $2 more with inflation, so I hope the birds like them.
FYI the above advertisement was not chosen by me and has nothing to do with my blog. The blog hosting website gets to pick this out and make these kinds of decisions and let me tell ya, some of the ads are pretty wacky! I do not advertise or get paid for my blog. If I did, I would pick better ads that have to do with the content 😉
Anyway, I have no idea what kind of strawberries these are. I have tried types I purchased in San Diego – Seascape. Berry Basket. And none did as well as my $30 bird food, so even though I saw cheaper options, I’m going with the good stuff. Placed in northwest corner with morning sun.
Hell On Wheels Update
My hell on wheels planter is about to go to seed. A few 90 degree weeks and it will be done. Just over a week ago I gave a bunch of cilantro away because I had so much. I also made refrigerator pickles and salmon casserole to use up some dill. My dehydrator gave up the ghost last year so I’m having to use fresh herbs. Still plenty to go around before these bolt. I’m thinking about experimenting with some cilantro pesto.
Funny story, but I totally thought the dill was carrots. After scrutinizing with the old roll some leaves between my fingers and sniff trick, I discovered my error. By that time the plants had taken off! Guess I forgot what seeds I planted again.
I still have my beautiful chard plants going here, too. I learned that I can trim the outside leaves off and keep the crown, and the plant will still keep making leaves. This does not seem to affect the taste. The plants on the west side of the house, as with most vegetables, seem to be doing better than the ones I planted on the east side.
Just Call Me the Secret Garden Whisperer
In the secret garden, the Malabar spinach is winding down. I’m saving the seeds. I got curious one time because it was flowering and then throwing stem after stem of dark purple berries. It finally dawned on me that these contained its seeds, so I squished one between my fingers. Big mistake! It looked like I had been playing with a blueberry pie and it stained my skin. Come to find out the berry juice can be used as dye and the best way to get seeds is to pick the berries and just let them dry out for a month.
I’ve harvested the bok choy outer leaves and more grew in its place. What a lush, green plant! I’m going to plant more – on purpose this time.
We’ve been eating fresh green onions as we need them – they’re not getting real big but they’re fun to grow here. I planted garlic, as well, and it’s doing well.
In bed 2, my oregano is massive. See above note about the dehydrator… worst time ever to have such a beautiful plant. I did finally pull out that nasty spicy basil and have since decided it does not make me a bad person to remove something that isn’t working for me.
Other Veggies
On the other hand, my poor pumpkin plants have been beat up by the wind, the kids, the guy who mows the lawn, and God knows what else. It’s severely unhappy and the new leaves are teeny tiny. I think I need to fertilize it. It still has a lone pumpkin growing, maybe the size of a bouncy ball. I tried to pollinate another bloom and we’ll see how that goes. And here comes another female bloom. It has been pretty tricky to catch the bloom opening up to pollinate it, or sometimes there are just no male flowers to help it along. I hope this plant can hang on through summer so my kids can have some little pumpkins to paint come Halloween. Oh, and the beans I planted as a companion? They’re doing diddly-squat. Or should I say, diddly-squash.
I planted some new tomatoes (sweet 100 bush and early girl slicing tomatoes) and violas with my daughter. I wish I could fill up this whole space with a large raised bed because everything grows well here on the west side of the house.
Smokey’s Garden and Everything Else
Ah, nothing bad to say about good old Smokey. I love him, the hummingbirds love him. Everything is growing in nicely.
My patio has a brick extension that after a bit of sleuthing on Redfin I discovered used to be a dog run. The previous owner left a gap between the brick and the wood border that indicates the start of the grass. Who does that?! Anyway, the kids kept shoveling the sand and dumping it in the grass, so I asked them what they wanted to plant in this gap. They picked out turnips and beets. Facepalm. We put the root vegetables in the secret garden instead and got some sweet William as a filler for my fall BBQ. This area gets no sun, so I wasn’t expecting flowers to happen, but it’s kept up very well and mostly watered by the grass sprinklers. It looks tidy and cheery with these plants there so I’m definitely going to plant those there again when these are done.
Spring Gardening Plans
Well, with the tomato starts, strawberry starts, garlic, cucumber, and peas already in the works, the only thing left to do is replace spent plants with new ones that are adapted to summer. April is just around the corner, and with it comes that 100 plus degree heat famed in our desert. If I can get stuff in early, it might stand a chance to survive. I still have a ton of work to do and the seed packets have piled up. I’m trying melons this year, and I’m interested in seeing if the luffa will do anything (probably not). Zinnias, hollyhocks, cosmos, and sunflowers round out my list.
Let's Stay Holmes 