De-thatch your lawn – spring time, January – February in SoCal

De-thatching your lawn will create a lot of thatch. This is good for the compost pile unless you have Bermuda grass and then it should be discarded.

Mow your lawn very short but don’t go so low as to burn the grass. If you like a 3” to 4” high blade cut mow is shorter one week then shorter the next.

See picture above for the de-thatching blade, $20-40.

Your lawn will look awful for a couple weeks and then it will green right up, do not de-thatch when it is hot and sunny, cool cloudy day is better as the unexposed parts of your lawn will be exposed.

Remove and inspect your lawn mower blade and take it with you to a home improvement center, 

Home Depot- http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-202251528/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053, 

Lowes, http://www.lowes.com/pd_230601-442-490-100-0076_0__?catalogId=10051&productId=3136467&UserSearch=lawn+mower+dethatching+blade&Ntt=lawn+mower+dethatching+blade&N=0&langId=-1&storeId=10151&rpp=24

so you get the correct size, smaller is OK but not larger. Follow the mfg instructions to assemble the blade and install on your mower. Slowly lower the blade height so that is starts to remove the thatch. This will produce perfect dry material for your compost pile.

When you are finished remove the blade, sharpen your existing blade, or replace with new one of the same size and style.

Water lawn and let it grow a week or two longer than you would normally do to let it recover for the de-thatching, put a light coat of weed n feed lawn fertilizer and watch you lawn turn emerald green.

Your comments or questions are encouraged

Starting Onions From Seed

 January is time to start tomato and onion seeds so they will be ready to put in the ground as soon as the ground can be worked. 

Onion seeds take 6 weeks to form starts for transplanting.

By starting from seed you can have the kind of onions you want and even try some exotic types.

I scatter them in my trays filled with clean, moist potting soil and cover them with a light coating of potting soil. I keep them covered until they germinate and then let them grow in a warm place until they are about 6″ high.  At about 6″ high I cut them back to about 2″ high which helps them grow underground.  I then harden them off a couple hours a day giving them more sunshine and within a week or two they have formed sturdy stalks and are ready to put into the garden. 

Egyptian walking onions are becoming more popular all the time. By gathering the bulbs in the fall I can put them into another place in my SFG by pressed them into the soil and watering them. The small bulbs of the walking onions are very good in pickling, canning or dishes where I want a good onion flavor without the onions falling apart.

And so it begins – a new year and a new growing season!

Urban gardening:

How do we fit in growing of our own veggies when life is so busy? My system is the raised garden using the square foot garden system as developed by Mel Bartholomew http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_foot_gardening.

This system can be customized to any requirement. After the initial purchase and set up of the garden it usually takes only a few minutes a day. It is important to try to visit you garden daily as if you only weekend garden it will take extra time. Weeding and watering a 4’ x 4’ garden will take less that 5 minutes a day. You will be surprised on how much produce can be grown in just 16 square feet. I have been using this system since th e 70’s.

Growing tomatoes

Square Foot Garden with tomatoes

Question from a follower: I've tried Tomatoes many times. Right now I am buying them from one of our local gardeners. I'm not dedicated enough to dig up all the weeds etc from my garden and the plants I want to thrive just die off. I have been thinking about the 'hanging' type of tomato plastic bags they have...have you tried them? I'm wondering if for a very busy person as myself, if their yield is worth their cost?

Answer:  I have tried all different ways of growing tomatoes and by far my best results came from using the square foot gardening method http://www.squarefootgardening.com

the picture shows a SFG with tomatoes and well as other plants. I would suggest you go to their web site and learn about this very inexpensive and productive system. I have tried many of the hanging systems available and they did not work very well here in So Cal as we have warm – windy summers and the plants just cook hanging out in the wind.

Tomato plants: start plants now in zone 8 & 9

January is the time to start your tomato plants from seed if you live in So Cal as I do. If you want to have control of what type of tomatoes you grow you want to grow from seed, or you can buy plants and get what ever the plant growers want to sell – most profitable to them. There are many seed companies on the Internet that you can buy from. In my experience the shipping cost almost as much as the product so buy your seeds for your whole year of gardening.

Tomatoes harvested 01/02/2012

Look at these tomatoes that my sister-in-law harvested out of her back yard January 2, 2012, with limited space you too can harvest tomatoes, ask me how!