What to do in betweens?

Is your garden like mine? In a very in-between state? It's no longer summer; it's not quite fall. I am not quite ready to put my garden to sleep. Unfortunately, my garden does not blush with fall-colored leaves. But I am hoping to harvest one more round of lettuces, kale, and legumes. Today was my first attempt on Twitter, to say I'm double-, triple- and quadrupling, digging the dirt in my small vegetable plot. Not so much to improve the soil but to scout out oxalis bulbs and bulblettes. As irritating as slugs and snails for me. Now that that's done, along with having a new battery in my van - which has been sitting across the street for months, serving as a storage unit for earthquake supplies and old paintings - a lot to think about.

Now that I have the dirt overturned, I'll add a soil amendment before planting six packs of lettuces - bronze leaf speckled, two types of oak leaf lettuce, and two types of kale. Oak leaf lettuce and butter lettuce are my favorites. It's still a touch early to plant shelling peas but I'm gonna try to find some more string bean plants.

Tulips

Tulips are in! Cairo tulip, pictured above, is hard to find. I found mine online. They're worth it. No other tulip has this rusty, butterscotch color that matches my Mexican rocks. Look for very specific tulip colors. A color that matches your heart's desire or a garden sculpture.

Tulips come in such an array of wonderful colors. I've already cleaned out my small extra refrigerator that I keep for chilling tulips. In California, tulips need to be refrigerated from 6-8 weeks.

I usually plant tulips just around Christmas time. I like to get them out of the refrigerator by Thanksgiving but often the weather is still too warm to safely plant tulips. It is not recommended to keep tulips in the refrigerator with apples. Recently, a gardening friend asked me if I keep the tulips in the refrigerator with vegetables. My reply: I've never had a problem. I have had a problem though if the tulips aren't refrigerated long enough. All the local nurseries have tulips. You need to plan now for your spring bloom.

This sculpture is made from an actual dress and actually tulips. It's for sale. Since it's bronze, it's expensive: $15,000. For my money, I love combining plants and sculpture. Sculptures serve as great focal features, conversation starters, meditation starters, and general all-around happiness. For example, you could take this red sculpture and match it to red tulips, red ranunculas, and red anemones de Caen. Having a monochrome sculpture can give a monochrome garden more umph!

Happy Garden in the in-between zone,

{My question to myself is to plant again this year or not to plant...my garden is going to look awful bare if I need to wait for bulb season to plant again....}

Keeyla

PS. Please visit Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore on College Avenue in Berkeley for some amazing books on gardening!