New Shrubs In My Shady Spot

We have planted two Mahonia lamarifolia or Chinese Holly-Grape. Prickly, prehistoric looking.  Tall and wide full grown.  The 'grapes' make good jam, I've read. Looks like one of them will have to be moved!

Weekend plantings

This weekend I put in favas, shallots and garlic in a 4X8 bed. All three are the first saved seeds/bulbs from my Santa Barbara Road garden.  The favas were from plants grown in Benicia.  There is a Portuguese fellow there who grows favas and saves seeds for his next year's planting. My plants last year were from his harvest.  I am fascinated with the idea of watching these seeds becoming Santa Barbara Road favas over the years.  Will they drift genetically from Benicia favas? 

The garlic is mostly white skinned with some pale purple.  It was store bought last year and I grew this year's crop from them.  They grew small/medium sized heads with good sized cloves.  I was  pleasantly surprised at the size of the heads. Garlic from my Berkeley garden did not get very big, small heads and small cloves.  These taste so sharp and garlicy. Very tasty! I have sacrificed two heads for this planting and they are now in snug in the garden.

The shallots were purchased for growing in the garden last year. I harvested them too soon and ended up woth bulb-lets rather than bulbs.  I only had a couple of good sized shallots (those I missed when harvesting early).  These too early bulb-lets are what I have planted for next summers crop.  There is one bonus from last year's shallots left in the ground.  They set seed.  So I have planted both the bulb-lets and the seed.  The seed has gone directly in the ground.  We shall see if I have shallots that want to grow in my garden.  I sure hope so.