When the gardeners pruned the lemon tree, I ended up with about eight gallons of lemons. This is a serious number of lemons. Last night I made seven pints of preserved lemons and now I only have about two gallons of lemons left.
It's really easy to make preserved lemons, which are from Morocco and are traditionally used in chicken tangines, or stews. You slice a lemon almost into quarters, leaving the four pieces attached at the stem end. Then you stuff kosher salt into the cuts, about a quarter-inch thick. Drop the lemon into the canning jar and cover it with lemon juice. It took four or five small lemons to make enough juice to cover two salted lemons, using one-pint wide mouth jars.
Then you let the jars sit in a cool place for a month and the preserved lemons are ready to use. You take the lemon out of the salty juice, rinse it off, and chop it fairly finely. Drop the rest of the lemon back into the jar for later. Use this anywhere you need a bright lemon taste. I put it in tuna salad, for example.
Showing posts with label Gardening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gardening. Show all posts
01 March 2011
10 February 2009
Something New & Yard Work
I did something I never thought I'd do. I ordered the DVD of the entire first season of a TV show, The Big Bang Theory. I really don't watch much TV, but I like this show. My goddaughter, who was then majoring in physics at Penn State, recommended it to me at about the second show, but we didn't get around to watching it until late last year. Now that we've discovered it, I had to have the first season. It's really a funny show.
Hard-science guys with little or no idea about social interactions; where I have seen that before? Why, could it be at UCLA, where I was an engineering student? Or at NASA Dryden, where I was an engineer for most of my career? Or both?
We're having the trees trimmed today and tomorrow. We have three big forty-year-plus fruitless mulberries and they have to be "laced" every couple of years to reduce the sail loading when the wind blows. We also have a Chinese pistache that's nearly as big and a beautiful liquidamber beside the driveway that needed a little trimming, nothing as drastic as the mulberries.
My pomegranate bush needed to be cut back severely, though, since it sets fruit on newer growth. It's down to about four trunks now, instead of a dozen. I only had about a dozen fruit on it last year, if that many. It may not produce much this year, but I should get a bumper crop the next year. If the school kids leave me enough, I'll juice them and make jelly. Messy, but gratifying. Making this jelly is a family tradition dating back almost fifty years. I cheat and use bottled pomegranate juice from the supermarket when I don't have fresh fruit available. I posted the recipe here earlier.
The junipers on the other side of the driveway had encroached quite fiercely and we cut them back about three feet, maybe more. They really look ugly now, but they'll grow back. We've created some nice humus under there, I noticed. I asked the trimmers to cut the ivy and Virginia creeper in the back yard back to the ground. Both had really gotten out of hand and were taking over. They're going to move my Madame Galen scarlet trumpet creeper around to the back yard so I can see it from the windows (which are almost all on the back of the house). I'm not really razing all the plant life at the house, although it may sound like it. I'm just tidying up stuff that has needed attention for a while. I'd kind of coasted on some of this but I suddenly got tired of the overgrown vines and the narrowed driveway and the clutter.
This is the same team that's going to transplant my big Mediterranean clumping fan palm from here in Lancaster to the front yard of our house in Palm Desert. We left a big space for it when we landscaped down there. It's outgrown the place I have it in here and needs to be moved somewhere. It was a gift from a very dear friend, a guy who went to college with my husband and worked at Dryden for many years. He has since died, so the palm is very dear to me.
Here's the Mediterranean clumping fan palm from the south. To give you an idea of its size, the block front of the raised bed is about 26". You can see some of the Virginia creeper on the left side of the photo, growing into the palm. These three photos were taken in September, which is why the creeper still has its leaves. Right now it's just a bundle of light brown stems and really ugly.
Here's a photo from the southeast, with the trunk of the Chinese pistache on the right side. You can see Virginia creeper on both sides. The stuff really spreads.
And this photo is from the north. The grass-like plant that you can see arching on the right is a volunteer clump of pampas grass. The neighbors on the other side of the wall had pampas grass against their side of the wall and it seeded freely. Pampas grass is nasty to deal with. It's very hard to kill and the leaves are exceeding sharp. It'll cut bare hands readily. This little clump is going away tomorrow, along with all that Virginia creeper you can see.
Gordo the Wonder Puppy has greatly enjoyed having the tree trimmers over. They are very obliging with pats and attention and have flapping pants cuffs to chase. He had to come into the house because I decided he was a bit of a tripping menace, chasing cuffs and boot laces. I think the crew was relieved to see him go. I would have been. It was really funny to see him take in the changes in the back yard after the team knocked off for the day. The ivy is down off the little metal shed in heaps and some of the privets have vanished.
Gordo went to the vet to have his blood levels of his epilepsy meds checked. He's up to 68 pounds, at 9.5 months. He's supposed to weigh about 75 pounds when he's fully grown, but I'm beginning to think he may be a little heavier. He'll still fit on my lap, as long as I have the hassock under my legs to extend my lap enough. He napped briefly on my lap this afternoon, having been worn out by all the excitement and getting up early. He's definitely still a puppy.
Hard-science guys with little or no idea about social interactions; where I have seen that before? Why, could it be at UCLA, where I was an engineering student? Or at NASA Dryden, where I was an engineer for most of my career? Or both?
We're having the trees trimmed today and tomorrow. We have three big forty-year-plus fruitless mulberries and they have to be "laced" every couple of years to reduce the sail loading when the wind blows. We also have a Chinese pistache that's nearly as big and a beautiful liquidamber beside the driveway that needed a little trimming, nothing as drastic as the mulberries.
My pomegranate bush needed to be cut back severely, though, since it sets fruit on newer growth. It's down to about four trunks now, instead of a dozen. I only had about a dozen fruit on it last year, if that many. It may not produce much this year, but I should get a bumper crop the next year. If the school kids leave me enough, I'll juice them and make jelly. Messy, but gratifying. Making this jelly is a family tradition dating back almost fifty years. I cheat and use bottled pomegranate juice from the supermarket when I don't have fresh fruit available. I posted the recipe here earlier.
The junipers on the other side of the driveway had encroached quite fiercely and we cut them back about three feet, maybe more. They really look ugly now, but they'll grow back. We've created some nice humus under there, I noticed. I asked the trimmers to cut the ivy and Virginia creeper in the back yard back to the ground. Both had really gotten out of hand and were taking over. They're going to move my Madame Galen scarlet trumpet creeper around to the back yard so I can see it from the windows (which are almost all on the back of the house). I'm not really razing all the plant life at the house, although it may sound like it. I'm just tidying up stuff that has needed attention for a while. I'd kind of coasted on some of this but I suddenly got tired of the overgrown vines and the narrowed driveway and the clutter.
This is the same team that's going to transplant my big Mediterranean clumping fan palm from here in Lancaster to the front yard of our house in Palm Desert. We left a big space for it when we landscaped down there. It's outgrown the place I have it in here and needs to be moved somewhere. It was a gift from a very dear friend, a guy who went to college with my husband and worked at Dryden for many years. He has since died, so the palm is very dear to me.
Here's the Mediterranean clumping fan palm from the south. To give you an idea of its size, the block front of the raised bed is about 26". You can see some of the Virginia creeper on the left side of the photo, growing into the palm. These three photos were taken in September, which is why the creeper still has its leaves. Right now it's just a bundle of light brown stems and really ugly.
Here's a photo from the southeast, with the trunk of the Chinese pistache on the right side. You can see Virginia creeper on both sides. The stuff really spreads.
And this photo is from the north. The grass-like plant that you can see arching on the right is a volunteer clump of pampas grass. The neighbors on the other side of the wall had pampas grass against their side of the wall and it seeded freely. Pampas grass is nasty to deal with. It's very hard to kill and the leaves are exceeding sharp. It'll cut bare hands readily. This little clump is going away tomorrow, along with all that Virginia creeper you can see.
Gordo the Wonder Puppy has greatly enjoyed having the tree trimmers over. They are very obliging with pats and attention and have flapping pants cuffs to chase. He had to come into the house because I decided he was a bit of a tripping menace, chasing cuffs and boot laces. I think the crew was relieved to see him go. I would have been. It was really funny to see him take in the changes in the back yard after the team knocked off for the day. The ivy is down off the little metal shed in heaps and some of the privets have vanished.
Gordo went to the vet to have his blood levels of his epilepsy meds checked. He's up to 68 pounds, at 9.5 months. He's supposed to weigh about 75 pounds when he's fully grown, but I'm beginning to think he may be a little heavier. He'll still fit on my lap, as long as I have the hassock under my legs to extend my lap enough. He napped briefly on my lap this afternoon, having been worn out by all the excitement and getting up early. He's definitely still a puppy.
14 April 2008
Late Spring Is Here
It's late spring, maybe early summer, here in the Coachella Valley. The jasmine (which is think is Carolina jessamine; it's not star jasmine) is covered with fragrant blooms and the white gardenias are blooming robustly. We have a jasmine vine out by the outer door (that opens into the courtyard) and another by the front door, so visitors are greeted with sweetness.
It's been fairly cool here, in the 80's, until yesterday. Today the high is predicted to be 102° and we've had the a/c on since lunch. I just hope it'll cool down enough to open the windows at bedtime. I'd rather sleep with open windows than with the a/c.
The struggle with the halogen reading lamp is finally over. The first bulbs I bought were the right shape and voltage, but the base pins were too wide. I don't like bayonet mount bulbs anyway and this didn't make me like them any better. I put my husband to work combing the Web to find the right bulb. First, though, we measured the pins carefully. He not only came up with them but found them for $2 each. Great deal, except the site had a minimum $10 S&H fee. So he ordered two of them. That brought the price down to about what the supermarket charges.
I stole the replacement halogen reading lamp he'd bought as a stop gap. It wasn't a great substitute, because the arm is shorter than the original one and it only has an on-off switch, not a dimmer. These made it not very good as a bed-side lamp. However, they're not a problem for a chair-side lamp, so it's now perched right beside the chair in my office. I expect it to be a great knitting lamp.
It's been fairly cool here, in the 80's, until yesterday. Today the high is predicted to be 102° and we've had the a/c on since lunch. I just hope it'll cool down enough to open the windows at bedtime. I'd rather sleep with open windows than with the a/c.
The struggle with the halogen reading lamp is finally over. The first bulbs I bought were the right shape and voltage, but the base pins were too wide. I don't like bayonet mount bulbs anyway and this didn't make me like them any better. I put my husband to work combing the Web to find the right bulb. First, though, we measured the pins carefully. He not only came up with them but found them for $2 each. Great deal, except the site had a minimum $10 S&H fee. So he ordered two of them. That brought the price down to about what the supermarket charges.
I stole the replacement halogen reading lamp he'd bought as a stop gap. It wasn't a great substitute, because the arm is shorter than the original one and it only has an on-off switch, not a dimmer. These made it not very good as a bed-side lamp. However, they're not a problem for a chair-side lamp, so it's now perched right beside the chair in my office. I expect it to be a great knitting lamp.
11 March 2008
Down In The Low Desert
We got back to Palm Desert a week ago and it's been unseasonably warm here. It was 85° today. The lemon and the clementine are absolutely covered with buds and blossoms and that whole corner of the back yard smells heavenly. The clementine is also covered with orange fruit, but they've been on the tree too long and they're kind of dry. The lemon, which did poorly after the hard freeze, has exactly two lemons on it. I expect a lot more this year.
I've got three shawls and a scarf to block and about a dozen boxes of books to put away and I've been buying lace yarn and fingering weight yarn and Aran weight yarn. I don't know quite how it happened, but I bought four skeins of five different Elann Baby Lace colors. That's at least ten shawls. That wouldn't be so bad, except that the twenty new skeins are sitting on a twelve-gallon bin full of lace yarn and there's six skeins of Zephyr Wool-Silk (three shawls) on the way. I also bought three shawl patterns to go with the Zephyr. All I have to do is hold off from starting another shawl before I get the blocking and unpacking undone. That may be very difficult as knitting shawls is sort of addictive.
I got a copy holder from Office Depot to hold the lace charts. I've been fiddling around with markers and correction tape and magnets. Right now I think I like the copy holder best for knitting here, particularly on long repeats. I think I prefer highlighter pens and multiple copies (a lace book, to use the proper name) for shorter repeats.
The repeat on the Dramatic Shawl is 80 rows, for example, and the copy holder really works well. I've just finished the half-way row in the third repeat. Photos will follow as soon as I find my camera. I know it's here someplace and I think it's in a knitting bag. I'll also take photos of all the lace weight yarn on hand.
I've got three shawls and a scarf to block and about a dozen boxes of books to put away and I've been buying lace yarn and fingering weight yarn and Aran weight yarn. I don't know quite how it happened, but I bought four skeins of five different Elann Baby Lace colors. That's at least ten shawls. That wouldn't be so bad, except that the twenty new skeins are sitting on a twelve-gallon bin full of lace yarn and there's six skeins of Zephyr Wool-Silk (three shawls) on the way. I also bought three shawl patterns to go with the Zephyr. All I have to do is hold off from starting another shawl before I get the blocking and unpacking undone. That may be very difficult as knitting shawls is sort of addictive.
I got a copy holder from Office Depot to hold the lace charts. I've been fiddling around with markers and correction tape and magnets. Right now I think I like the copy holder best for knitting here, particularly on long repeats. I think I prefer highlighter pens and multiple copies (a lace book, to use the proper name) for shorter repeats.
The repeat on the Dramatic Shawl is 80 rows, for example, and the copy holder really works well. I've just finished the half-way row in the third repeat. Photos will follow as soon as I find my camera. I know it's here someplace and I think it's in a knitting bag. I'll also take photos of all the lace weight yarn on hand.
09 April 2007
Scarves Go To College
This is the big, relatively warm scarf I knitted for my goddaughter. The yarn is a combination of cotton, rayon and cotton, and rayon strands, with a fuzzy acrylic strand to soften it. I bought it from Spin City Yarns (spincityyarns) on eBay. I buy a lot there, as they have wonderful yarns at excellent prices. You can't really tell it in the photo, but the fabric has a beautiful drape to it.
The pattern is just a five-one ribbing that shifts to the left one stitch every other row. It's enough to keep the scarf from curling, while offering just a little textural interest. The scarf is eight or nine inches wide and about six feet long.
This is a Moebius scarf made from Berocco (I think) Cotton Twist. The pattern was just (k3,p3) on 287 stitches. As a result, the pattern shifted one stitch per round, giving me a chevron stitch. This pattern was based on some of Cat Bordhi's comments. I was mostly trying to keep the scarf from rolling. It has an I-cord bind-off which looks really nice. You can just see it in the photo. The yarn is a very delicate pale apricot.
Four Fun Fur garter-stitch scarves for spring.
The yarn on the left, below, looked more spring-like in the ball.
I really like the way the colors on this scarf worked out. I think this is called flashing but I'm not entirely sure.
Washcloths here. The one on the right is the Ball Band Washcloth from Mason Dixon Knitting and the band around Peaches 'n' Cream cotton yard. (It's not my ball band pattern, which is for the one that is a diamond, with yarn overs on all for sides.) The left one, in doubled white cotton is a pattern I picked up somewhere that I can't remember. It has a very nice textured pattern that's pretty much invisible in this photo.
The last thing that went into the package was a bag of four tangerines, right off the tree in my back yard. This is a little beauty of a tree, with glossy dark leaves. The orange fruit really stand out from the foliage and look very festive. I think it's actually a clementine, not a tangerine, but the difference is minor.
The pattern is just a five-one ribbing that shifts to the left one stitch every other row. It's enough to keep the scarf from curling, while offering just a little textural interest. The scarf is eight or nine inches wide and about six feet long.
This is a Moebius scarf made from Berocco (I think) Cotton Twist. The pattern was just (k3,p3) on 287 stitches. As a result, the pattern shifted one stitch per round, giving me a chevron stitch. This pattern was based on some of Cat Bordhi's comments. I was mostly trying to keep the scarf from rolling. It has an I-cord bind-off which looks really nice. You can just see it in the photo. The yarn is a very delicate pale apricot.
Four Fun Fur garter-stitch scarves for spring.
The yarn on the left, below, looked more spring-like in the ball.
I really like the way the colors on this scarf worked out. I think this is called flashing but I'm not entirely sure.
Washcloths here. The one on the right is the Ball Band Washcloth from Mason Dixon Knitting and the band around Peaches 'n' Cream cotton yard. (It's not my ball band pattern, which is for the one that is a diamond, with yarn overs on all for sides.) The left one, in doubled white cotton is a pattern I picked up somewhere that I can't remember. It has a very nice textured pattern that's pretty much invisible in this photo.
The last thing that went into the package was a bag of four tangerines, right off the tree in my back yard. This is a little beauty of a tree, with glossy dark leaves. The orange fruit really stand out from the foliage and look very festive. I think it's actually a clementine, not a tangerine, but the difference is minor.
24 March 2007
Sky Full Of Jets
The bizjets are really streaming in. It's an LPGA (Ladies' Professional Golfing Association) tournament at one of the 100+ golf courses in the area. We have some very fine golf courses, at which many tournaments are played, and we have some average golf course and we, probably, have some poor golf courses, but the local golfers seems to love them all and play as much as they can.
However, our golf courses are more than just manicured venues for cow-pasture pool. They're part of the Coachella Valley flood control system. There's at least one municipal course that's mostly in a usually-dry riverbed; the planted course reduces erosion when the Whitewater River is in full spate.
Most of the courses, however, are flood control systems for their surrounding housing developments. They're carefully laid out much lower than the houses, which has advantages in limiting the flight paths of balls, making pretty views, and being run-off channels. The planted channels slow the flow and greatly reduce damage. It's not perfect, of course, since desert storms, although infrequent, can drop a lot of water. The tract we live in had several holes damaged badly a couple of years ago, when we had several rainstorms that dropped over an inch of rain each. We've got one low-lying stretch of road (a ford, actually) that's still being repaired from damage that happened last year.
The other thing that makes golf courses in the desert more sensible than you'd think is that they're watered with recycled water. It's been through the treatment process and is quite safe, but it isn't the final, sparkling pure potable water that recycling can produce. Since it's going to be used for agriculture it doesn't have to be potable. Watering the golf courses has the advantage of refilling the shallow aquifers, which helps native plants. Of course, taking out the tamarisk all over the valley would help them even more but no one has come up with an equally good wind screen, so some of them will have to stay. The rest are going. It's really good firewood, too.
However, our golf courses are more than just manicured venues for cow-pasture pool. They're part of the Coachella Valley flood control system. There's at least one municipal course that's mostly in a usually-dry riverbed; the planted course reduces erosion when the Whitewater River is in full spate.
Most of the courses, however, are flood control systems for their surrounding housing developments. They're carefully laid out much lower than the houses, which has advantages in limiting the flight paths of balls, making pretty views, and being run-off channels. The planted channels slow the flow and greatly reduce damage. It's not perfect, of course, since desert storms, although infrequent, can drop a lot of water. The tract we live in had several holes damaged badly a couple of years ago, when we had several rainstorms that dropped over an inch of rain each. We've got one low-lying stretch of road (a ford, actually) that's still being repaired from damage that happened last year.
The other thing that makes golf courses in the desert more sensible than you'd think is that they're watered with recycled water. It's been through the treatment process and is quite safe, but it isn't the final, sparkling pure potable water that recycling can produce. Since it's going to be used for agriculture it doesn't have to be potable. Watering the golf courses has the advantage of refilling the shallow aquifers, which helps native plants. Of course, taking out the tamarisk all over the valley would help them even more but no one has come up with an equally good wind screen, so some of them will have to stay. The rest are going. It's really good firewood, too.
05 March 2007
After The Freeze
Well, I've gone around and inspected the landscaping here in Palm Desert. We had at least one night of freezing weather, maybe two.
Pretty much all the bougainvillea froze pretty severely, it looks like. Our gardeners cut them back to live wood and they've coming back very robustly. The root systems weren't damaged by the freeze, so that's what I'd expect. The rest of the shrubs look OK, with a little damage here and there, but not enough to worry about.
The sansevierias and euphorbias are kind of a mixed bag. Some of them look just fine and are growing very well. Others have a fair amount of damage to the ends of the leaves. Did you know that if you damage the tip of a sansevieria leaf it will stop growing, even though the growth takes place and the bottom, not the top? One of my sansevierias, a hedgehog type, has sent up a flower spike that will bloom in a week or two. The crowns of thorns are both blooming very abundantly and one of the cactus-type euphorbs has flower buds amid the spines.
As for the trees, the only one that seems to have had much damage, based on how much they pruned off it, is the lemon. There are still a dozen lemons left on it, even after the pruning. I don't know how good they are, but if they're OK I may make a lemon meringue pie.
Other than having most of the plants look as if they got a buzz cut, not a pruning, everything is find. I see some damage around the neighborhood, all about the same. It may well be worse further south, where it's lower and the cold air drains and pools. You'll be able to tell by watching the price of lemons.
Pretty much all the bougainvillea froze pretty severely, it looks like. Our gardeners cut them back to live wood and they've coming back very robustly. The root systems weren't damaged by the freeze, so that's what I'd expect. The rest of the shrubs look OK, with a little damage here and there, but not enough to worry about.
The sansevierias and euphorbias are kind of a mixed bag. Some of them look just fine and are growing very well. Others have a fair amount of damage to the ends of the leaves. Did you know that if you damage the tip of a sansevieria leaf it will stop growing, even though the growth takes place and the bottom, not the top? One of my sansevierias, a hedgehog type, has sent up a flower spike that will bloom in a week or two. The crowns of thorns are both blooming very abundantly and one of the cactus-type euphorbs has flower buds amid the spines.
As for the trees, the only one that seems to have had much damage, based on how much they pruned off it, is the lemon. There are still a dozen lemons left on it, even after the pruning. I don't know how good they are, but if they're OK I may make a lemon meringue pie.
Other than having most of the plants look as if they got a buzz cut, not a pruning, everything is find. I see some damage around the neighborhood, all about the same. It may well be worse further south, where it's lower and the cold air drains and pools. You'll be able to tell by watching the price of lemons.
13 January 2007
Update On The Inside Slider
I finally decided to cover my plants in place last night. Good thing, too, because it got down to 7 deg F (-13 deg C). It got all the way up to 37 deg F (2 deg C) this afternoon, with a light breeze. I'm not going to transcribe any more numbers, but if you're interested go to Weather Underground and enter WJF for the airport.
I'm going to go fetch my sansevierias in for tonight. I don't think a cardboard box is enough protection, somehow. I think I got lucky last night.
A friend and former cow orker has twenty acres of lemons down in the Coachella Valley. He gave us a call as he drove down there and told me he was about to lose a lot of money from the freeze. His workers were there picking as many lemons as they possibly could, because it was going to be so cold tonight that he was going to lose the remaining lemons and some of the trees. It takes seven years to replace a frost-killed lemon tree. He isn't alone, of course. He suggested that I buy some lemons now, as the price was going to soar, perhaps to the point of dollar lemons being a bargain.
We have a lemon tree in the back yard of our Low Desert house, across the Coachella Valley from his grove. I probably won't lose a single lemon because it's not going to get as cold there. The NWS has a freeze warning for a hard freeze over all of SoCal tonight but historically our area is warmer than the other side. Of course, all the agriculture is on the other side.
What no one much mentions is that this is going to be very expensive for a lot of ordinary people. A lot of plants that commonly grow in SoCal can't stand a hard freeze, so a lot of landscaping is going to be damaged or even killed. That's expensive and it's not covered by insurance.
Incidentally, given the right conditions (mostly a clear sky and no wind) the air doesn't have to be freezing for fruit and other things to freeze. This is because of black body radiation, with the heat of the object being radiated, some of it to space. Years ago I took Heat Transfer and this was one of the examples the professor worked out. As I recall, citrus can freeze when the air temperature is as high as 37 or 38 deg F (3 deg C). That's why citrus groves in some areas have those great big fans, because moving air disrupts the radiation. Ditto smudge pots back before air quality was an issue. Another method for saving citrus is overhead watering to make "freezing rain". Covering the trees with ice keeps them from getting any colder than 32 deg F (0 deg C).
I'm going to go fetch my sansevierias in for tonight. I don't think a cardboard box is enough protection, somehow. I think I got lucky last night.
A friend and former cow orker has twenty acres of lemons down in the Coachella Valley. He gave us a call as he drove down there and told me he was about to lose a lot of money from the freeze. His workers were there picking as many lemons as they possibly could, because it was going to be so cold tonight that he was going to lose the remaining lemons and some of the trees. It takes seven years to replace a frost-killed lemon tree. He isn't alone, of course. He suggested that I buy some lemons now, as the price was going to soar, perhaps to the point of dollar lemons being a bargain.
We have a lemon tree in the back yard of our Low Desert house, across the Coachella Valley from his grove. I probably won't lose a single lemon because it's not going to get as cold there. The NWS has a freeze warning for a hard freeze over all of SoCal tonight but historically our area is warmer than the other side. Of course, all the agriculture is on the other side.
What no one much mentions is that this is going to be very expensive for a lot of ordinary people. A lot of plants that commonly grow in SoCal can't stand a hard freeze, so a lot of landscaping is going to be damaged or even killed. That's expensive and it's not covered by insurance.
Incidentally, given the right conditions (mostly a clear sky and no wind) the air doesn't have to be freezing for fruit and other things to freeze. This is because of black body radiation, with the heat of the object being radiated, some of it to space. Years ago I took Heat Transfer and this was one of the examples the professor worked out. As I recall, citrus can freeze when the air temperature is as high as 37 or 38 deg F (3 deg C). That's why citrus groves in some areas have those great big fans, because moving air disrupts the radiation. Ditto smudge pots back before air quality was an issue. Another method for saving citrus is overhead watering to make "freezing rain". Covering the trees with ice keeps them from getting any colder than 32 deg F (0 deg C).
12 January 2007
Baby, It's Cold Outside
We've got an Inside Slider, a dip in the jet stream that comes down the front of the Sierra Nevada, bringing us cold Arctic air and it's really making SoCal miserable. It snowed in Reseda, for example. Our lows are going to be in the teens up here in the High Desert and our highs are below 40 degF.
I've got to scamper out into our entry and rescue my sansevierias. I don't know whether to leave them out there and cover them or to bring them up by the door (close to the house and away from the open) or to put them out on the west-facing patio surrounded by leaky sliders or actually bring them into the house. I've got five or six of them, ranging from $7.99 supermarket specials to a Blue Bat I spent $50 for. It's the Blue Bat I'm worried most about, because it's got a fat rigid leaf and is exceptionally slow growing. It's S. halli "Blue Bat", which you can see here, not quite halfway down the page. Interesting, isn't it? Mine has three leaves now, triple the number it had when I got it.
Sansevierias are the perfect house plant for absent-minded owners like me. They're extremely robust and can stand infrequent and irregular watering. Down at the Palm Desert house I have about a dozen planted along the side of the house. They do very well there, as they can tolerate the heat if well-watered and it almost never freezes. I hadn't wanted to plant out my favorites until I saw how the others did, so I ended up bringing them up to the High Desert for, I thought, the summer. However, when my mother's cancer was diagnosed we decided not to go south for the winter and the plants are roughing it.
I've got to scamper out into our entry and rescue my sansevierias. I don't know whether to leave them out there and cover them or to bring them up by the door (close to the house and away from the open) or to put them out on the west-facing patio surrounded by leaky sliders or actually bring them into the house. I've got five or six of them, ranging from $7.99 supermarket specials to a Blue Bat I spent $50 for. It's the Blue Bat I'm worried most about, because it's got a fat rigid leaf and is exceptionally slow growing. It's S. halli "Blue Bat", which you can see here, not quite halfway down the page. Interesting, isn't it? Mine has three leaves now, triple the number it had when I got it.
Sansevierias are the perfect house plant for absent-minded owners like me. They're extremely robust and can stand infrequent and irregular watering. Down at the Palm Desert house I have about a dozen planted along the side of the house. They do very well there, as they can tolerate the heat if well-watered and it almost never freezes. I hadn't wanted to plant out my favorites until I saw how the others did, so I ended up bringing them up to the High Desert for, I thought, the summer. However, when my mother's cancer was diagnosed we decided not to go south for the winter and the plants are roughing it.
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