Valentine's Day in the garden

 "A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted...."

Valentine's Day marks the beginning of the spring gardening season here since normally "all danger of frost" has passed. We're finally allowed to prune frost damaged plants such as hibiscus, bougainvillea, lantana, and tecoma. We can plant transplants of tomatoes, peppers, and other warm weather crops. (If you don't get a head start on tomatoes here by planting as early as possible, you won't get any this summer. They won't set fruit once the temperatures are in the 100s.) It is also time to fertilize fruit trees. So we'll be busy over the next few days!

Today we worked on clearing out the raised bed in which we grew kale, cauliflower, and snow peas this winter. I harvested these Veronica romanesco cauliflower heads today, which look like whorled seashells in shades of yellow and green. Once we removed the cauliflower, we dug a trench in the rear of the bed to plant more asparagus. According to Greg Peterson of Root Phoenix, the best way to plant asparagus is to dig a trench, half fill it with compost, lay the asparagus roots down in the trench, and cover with more compost, so that's the method we're trying this year. We have two producing asparagus plants in a different location, but would enjoy more. I love fresh asparagus, especially roasted with olive oil and drizzled with basalmic vinegar, but it is so expensive. As a bonus, we think the lacy foliage will provide a nice backdrop to the raised bed.

I started pruning the frost damaged wood from one of the hibiscus plants lining the fence behind the area where we planted the asparagus, and it looks likely that it has been killed off to the ground. I haven't cut into green wood yet. It's likely that they will eventually come back from the roots, but I'm considering giving up on them and digging them up. In the area where we lived before moving here, we had beautiful hibiscus that were rarely touched by frost, but this area is apparently in a colder pocket of the Valley because it happens at least every other year here.