REPLANTING THE GARDEN

I put up barriers to the garden to deter the dog, and she spent about a day in doggy-detention.

 I replanted zuccini and tomatoes (even though I know tomatoes are an April plant.) It's California's "rainy" season (February), which means I generally water every 3-4 days and let the light rain handle it once a month.  I got a mean-spirited snail that was ruining my salad by eating away at my spinach and red lettuce.  I found the sucker, and killed it.  YES, I KILLED IT!  MY lettuce, sucker.  MINE.

Once I killed the one snail, the lettuce looked much better!  I have used "decolate" snails in the past, and I'm going to the nursery this weekend to order more.  These are small carniverous snails, which means they eat the usual big snails that eat my vegetables.  Once they eat up the available big snails, they die.  They don't like vegis.  They are very interesting -- they come in a little bag in a dormant state and you sort of "water" them by soaking them in water.  They come to life and you set them out in your garden. They eat the usual big snails that eat your garden and little by little those parasites are gone!  Organic gardening! I love it!  I'll let you know how it goes in a couple of days.

I'll tell you outright that I am behind in weeding.  I use the weed stick in the foreground here.  You push the end into the root of the weed and pull.  The stick loosens the root system of the weed so you can pull the weed from the root out.  It's the best way to keep your weeds down.  If you just pull the tops off the weeds, the root will just grow back in a few days.  You need to pull the entire weed out from the roots.

The verdant growth in this photo is my parsley, cilantro and red lettuce.  The dying parts are my sweet peas, which are very thick skinned and only a couple at a time which means I don't have enough to make a Chinese dish.  I need help with the sweet peas.  You'll also see the tomatoes which are out of season.  Don't let the DIY stores talk you into buying a tomato plant out of season.  The zucchini, which usually grows like wild flowers, is small and pathetic.  Either they aren't in season or I'm doing something wrong because normally they grow TOO big, TOO fast.