Gardening Q&A

As a California Bountiful reader, you have the opportunity to get your seasonal gardening questions answered by gardening expert Pat Rubin. Here are a few questions from other readers.

Sometimes we go long spells without rain. Should I water the garden?
Yes, if the garden goes more than a week or 10 days without water, give it a drink. Potted plants need to be watered more often since the water drains away so quickly, and the only protection the soil and roots have is the thickness of the pot. Don't forget pots under eaves or against the sides of the house probably don't get any water from the rains, so it's up to you to keep them alive.

My ornamental grasses are a gorgeous golden color and I love looking at them, but I already see bits of new green growth coming up. Should I cut them back?
Ornamental grasses really come into their own in fall and winter when their foliage turns a beautiful golden color, and they look amazing against the rain and snow. But when you see green growth, that means it's time to cut away the old growth and let the new take over. If you don't cut it now, you'll be cutting away the tops of the new growth when you prune. Some winter tasks can wait, but this cannot.

I want to get a head start on the vegetable garden and was told to plant tomato seeds now. Isn't it too cold outside for that?
Yes and no. If you've grown tomatoes for any length of time, you know you'll get volunteer seedlings in the garden quite early in the season. I always figure Mother Nature knows what she's doing when that happens. Of course, you don't know if these seeds will be what you had last year; they may have crossed with another tomato, or if they were hybrids, they will revert back to one of the parents used in the cross.

The best way to plant tomato seeds now is indoors. If you don't have lights to put them under, put them on a sunny windowsill once the seeds have germinated. Not enough light causes them to get leggy and spindly. Growers who routinely start tomato seeds in February use heat mats and grow lights to get them off to a good start. It's not imperative you do this, but it makes the job easier.

About Pat Rubin, California Bountiful's gardening expert


Pat Rubin

For Pat Rubin, gardening is more than just dirt and plants. "It's about history, romance, adventure and people," she says. "And it should be fun."

California Bountiful's gardening columnist has lived and chronicled this fun, hands-in-the-dirt approach for years—and for additional publications including Fine Gardening, Pacific Horticulture, Christian Science Monitor, Family Circle and The Sacramento Bee. Pat has also volunteered as a Master Gardener, speaks to garden clubs and appears regularly on gardening radio shows.

Need gardening advice? Ask the expert!

Send your questions to gardening@californiabountiful.com

As a California Bountiful reader, you have the opportunity to get your seasonal gardening questions answered by gardening expert Pat Rubin. What do you want to know, now that fall is in full swing?

Dear Pat,

Would you please tell me when the best time to prune persimmons and cherimoyas is? Thank you very much for your help.

Heddy

Dear Heddy,

Your timing is great: Now is the time to prune both the persimmon and the cherimoya. I don't know whether your trees are young or mature, but the winter dormant season is the best time for pruning.

Persimmons don't need much pruning other than shaping the tree. They are pretty polite growers and make graceful-looking trees for the landscape. I love the yellow leaves in the fall and the way the fruit hangs on the trees in the winter—very decorative!

The main thing to remember about cherimoyas is to cut away the suckers that tend to grow from the base and mature branches of the tree. The suckers grow straight up, a sure hint this is not a typical branch.

For even more information, check online. Just search "pruning cherimoya trees" or "pruning persimmons" and you'll get a wealth of information.

If you have several different fruit and nut trees, I always found it helpful to buy a book on growing and pruning fruit and nut trees. I'd take the book out into the orchard with me and turn to the section for each type of tree and follow the instructions. They all have slightly different requirements. The only common thread among them all is to prune away dead or crossing branches and suckers first, then take a look and decide what to do from there.

Best of luck!

Pat

We just built a raised garden. What vegetables can be planted in December?

In most regions, there's still time to plant bok choy, broccoli and cauliflower. Check your local nursery for starter plants, because you are a bit late to start them from seed. You can plant radishes and lettuce from seed. Now is the time to plant garlic. Just plant the cloves and let them grow until June. Don't forget cool-weather crops like peas, too. I like flowers among the vegetables: Calendulas, pansies and snapdragons are good bets.

Why are there so many acorns some years and so few other years? If we have a lot of acorns, does that mean we are going to have a wet winter? Or is it a dry winter?

There are all sorts of beliefs as to what a bountiful acorn year means, but there is a scientific explanation as to why some years the ground is littered with acorns and other years you can hardly find any at all. When acorns are really plentiful, it's called a mast year.

Getting a mast year is a two-year process. If you look at a year when acorns were really plentiful, you'll see the previous spring was very dry, but the spring the year before was very wet. All the catkins—the male flowers that look like tassels—produced after the wet spring were pollinated. If it had rained as much that previous spring, a lot of the pollen would have been washed off and we'd have fewer acorns. 

My callas are top-heavy with seedpods. I can see yellow seeds inside the green covering. Can I harvest them and grow new plants?

Yes, but wait until the pod splits open. The longer you leave the stem on the plant, the better. Eventually it will start to dry up, and the soft coating on the seeds, which looks like kernels of corn, will get soft and squishy. There's a seed inside each kernel. Some people pop the seeds out, but I simply plant the whole kernel. The big, old-fashioned white callas can produce 25 or 30 seeds per stalk. The dwarf callas produce a dozen or so.

I plant them in 4-inch pots rather than directly in the ground, because it's easier to care for them. Poke the kernels about an inch deep, and 2 to 3 inches apart. Keep the pots watered, but not soggy. Some seeds will germinate right away, while others can take several weeks. Be patient. The seedlings are tough and require little care, but certainly can't be ignored. Once two or three leaves have formed, pot them into a larger pot or into the ground. Again, keep an eye on them. They should bloom the second year. Callas are deer-proof, and for me, that makes them a very desirable plant.

See how Pat answered your questions earlier this year.

About Pat Rubin, California Bountiful's gardening expert


Pat Rubin

For Pat Rubin, gardening is more than just dirt and plants. "It's about history, romance, adventure and people," she says. "And it should be fun."

California Bountiful's gardening columnist has lived and chronicled this fun, hands-in-the-dirt approach for years—and for additional publications including Fine Gardening, Pacific Horticulture, Christian Science Monitor, Family Circle and The Sacramento Bee. Pat has also volunteered as a Master Gardener, speaks to garden clubs and appears regularly on gardening radio shows.

Need gardening advice? Ask the expert!

Send your questions to gardening@californiabountiful.com


Pistacia chinensis

I live in Northern California along Interstate 80, and I see a lot of brilliant red trees along the freeway. What are they?

Anyone who has driven along Interstate 80 between Sacramento and Auburn in autumn can't miss the scarlet foliage planted along many of the on and off ramps. The color is screaming red. On a cloudy day, it's positively luminous. It's the Chinese pistache (Pistacia chinensis), and while it is related to the pistachio, it doesn't produce nuts. The tree grows to 25 or 30 feet tall.

It's very adaptable and settles just as happily in a yard with regular water and decent soil as it does in places where it gets no care at all. The female Chinese pistache trees bear small green and red berries. They can reseed, but I've never found them to be invasive. Choose pistache trees in the fall so you can see their beautiful colors.

I want to save tomato seeds this year. How do I do it?

The heirloom tomatoes in my garden are perfect for saving seed. Tomatoes are self-pollinating, so I don't have to worry about them being pollinated from the neighbor's tomatoes.

There are two schools of thought for saving tomato seeds:  

  • Traditionally, you wait until the tomato is really ripe, past its prime for eating—soft, squishy and splitting. Scoop out the seeds and put them in a container for a few days to ferment. They'll get a frothy, scummy covering on the top. Next step is to rinse that off, getting the seeds clean, and spread them on a paper towel to dry. Once dry, package them, label them and store them in a cool, dark place until next year.
  • Then there are the tomato-seed savers who simply scoop out the ripe seeds, clean them, spread them on a paper towel and write down the variety, let it dry, put it in a plastic bag and that's it.

Both sides say their method works well, allowing you to grow your own starts next year. If you try it, please let me know how it goes!

See how Pat answered your questions earlier this year.