Dancing in the Rain

Pale pink camellia in the rain

It’s raining in Santa Barbara, the first real rain of the season.

This is a semi-arid region, and we seldom have rain between May and October, and even when we aren’t in a drought year, we go for many months with no rain at all. Even succulents and sages can look haggard until the first rain comes.

It always amazes me how different the rain from the sky is compared to water from our sprinklers.

Rain reaches all the spots I missed and the plants like it better than the municipal water. In just a few hours the outdoors is transformed.

Rain smells wonderful and is full of chemical magic.

In the 30-some years I’ve lived in Santa Barbara, I’ve seen a few years of serious drought, and I know that water conservation can make a huge difference. Except for the veggie patch, I favor drought tolerant plants and use lots of mulch to slow evaporation.

I am very miserly in regard to every precious drop. But now that it’s raining, the moisture seems unlimited, and I feel rich.

Our pooches are not happy about it. Our 12-year-old dog is a veteran of many downpours, but it’s still a shock to his system to brave the elements. Our 7-month-old pups have never seen rain and are convinced that if they go out in it they will surely melt.

I lead the way, encouraging them to get wet with me. I feel like dancing in the rain. If I am out there getting drenched, it must be the right thing to do. So they follow. 

Nell encounters her first rain puddle

This storm signals the end to big water bills for the next few months, just in time for holiday shopping.

The plants and I are very grateful for this gift of rain. The dogs will get used to it soon enough.

The Iron Mermaid Comes to the Rescue

Many years ago dear friends bought me a charming birdbath for my birthday. I loved it, but unfortunately it had design flaws. The bowl was shallow and didn’t hold enough water for birds to bathe.

I tried it as a bird feeder, but the top wasn’t stable, and somehow it kept tipping and chunks chipped off with every fall. My husband suggested throwing the thing out and starting over, but it isn’t easy to throw away a concrete birdbath, especially not one that was a gift from friends.

So I put the thing in the shed and hoped for inspiration. It took another twenty years and an iron mermaid to give me the idea of how to bring that broken birdbath out of storage.

I spotted the mermaid at a gardening store. Maybe the nursery put some kind of pheromones on it, because my decision to buy was instantaneous and irrevocable. I seldom buy garden knickknacks, but this lady insisted on coming home with me. She was rusty and highlighted with such an appealing shade of green that for a time I considered painting our rusticated house in those exact colors.

For a while she perched in a nook of our arbutus tree. It was an odd placement for a mermaid, but she seemed fine there. Over the months I moved her here and there in the garden and brought her inside a few times to see if she might like to live on the living room mantel.

Then one Sunday afternoon I took a nap, and when I awoke I had a vision of using the birdbath for a planter. It seemed so obvious, I couldn’t fathom why I hadn’t thought of it before.

But first I had to repair the broken top. I found a leftover container of sticky filler glop I’d bought for a home repair job. It might as well have been labeled “birdbath repair compound,” because it worked perfectly to glue all the bits together.

I found a place in the garden, leveled the base, and then for stability I put a big dollop of the sticky compound on the joint between the base and the bowl. When it was firm, I mounded gravel, added soil, and planted donkey tail sedum to drape all around.

So far so good, but the arrangement needed a finishing touch, something for the top and center. Hmmm…what about the iron mermaid? She would look lovely sitting atop her sea of sedum. 

And so it came to pass.

Making Soil

Nell and Natasha help prepare soil for the winter garden

I grew up on a farm in Nebraska where my great grandfather had busted sod. I planted my first flower patch at age seven in soil that had been used for only three human generations, and it was still rich with things needed to make my zinnias zing.

Fast forward a few decades and I’m in Santa Barbara, planting in soil I’ve engineered myself. I can’t do the same magnificent job nature did over eons, but I try.

I compost all my garden trimmings. A woman at the company charged with the job of picking up “green barrels” in the neighborhood calls me now and then and asks why I have nothing in my green barrel again.

“I compost,” I proudly say.

But this does not make her happy.  The refuse company cares because recyclable waste is supposed to balance the material that goes to landfill. I don’t fit the model. Some days I fear they’ll confiscate my organic debris.

So far I have been allowed to keep all the leaves, pruned branches and weeds my garden offers and return it to the soil once the material is well decomposed.  After 22 years of adding compost, this soil now has a plenty of humus.

I used to think adding organic material was enough, and for some plants it is, but it turns out that in my veggie garden, the soil needs other things as well, and I have experimented with various kinds of organic fertilizers. I get advice from gardening neighbors and friends, and I read a lot about this.
 
I’m still not sure of the perfect solution. Most organic gardeners swear by this or that fertilizer. Unfortunately they don’t all swear by the same thing, so even after decades of gardening, I’m still experimenting.

This November, as I prepare soil for winter vegetables I’m trying a bag of fertilizer with bat guano and earthworm castings plus a long list of environmentally friendly goodies, supposedly everything the soil needs.

I am still confused about whether I should till or not. In Nebraska the first step in planting veggies was to turn the soil. My dad did this with the same plow he used for the cornfields. We then chopped up the big clods with shovels and rakes. The soil didn’t seem to mind that it was repeatedly stirred up this way, but now experts say tilling is not such a good thing.

Nature doesn’t build soil by turning it. She lets soil settle into its place and all the microorganisms that live in the soil and make it work are left relatively undisturbed. I try to disturb my veggie garden soil as little as possible, but if I am to incorporate this bag of magnificently trendy organic fertilizer, I must do some digging.

And I have two terriers helping.