5 things to do in the garden this week:
Exotic fruit. If you are looking for a fruit that will grab the attention of kids and adults alike, consider adding a finger grapevine to your garden. Finger grapes are two inches long and have the oblong shape of certain chili peppers, growing in dense clusters on the vine. Wherever ordinary grapes will grow, finger grapes will grow as well. Both green and black finger varieties are occasionally seen at farmer’s markets. They are remarkable for their sweetness and the black finger grapes are even promoted with the variety name of Cotton Candy. You can find finger grape seeds, unrooted cuttings and bareroot plants on Ebay and Etsy.
Vegetables. Potatoes are perhaps the easiest vegetables to grow in Southern California and may be planted at any time. However, they favor cool soil so this month and next are the best months for planting them. You can successfully grow potatoes from those you find at the grocery store. Cut up the potatoes into sections that contain at least two eyes and, after waiting a few days for the cut surfaces to dry, space them one foot apart in the garden. You can plant them as shallow as two inches beneath the soil surface. As the foliage grows, you may want to mound some soil where ground meets green growth in order to protect potatoes — they turn green when sun-exposed — that may protrude above the soil surface. You can, of course, plant potatoes deeper in the ground but this will just mean more time spent in digging them up. You do not have to order special “seed potatoes” to grow a crop and you do not have to chit or pre-sprout your potato pieces; as long as potato pieces have at least two eyes, they will give you more potatoes. If you wish to harvest potatoes before the plants flower, they will be small but tasty and are sometimes referred to as new potatoes. At this time of year, you can plant lettuce above potato tubers since lettuce will be ready for harvest before potato foliage starts to grow.
Herbs. Licorice plant is suitable as a garden selection throughout Southern California. As long as winter temperatures do not dip below 15 degrees Fahrenheit, you can grow this vigorous leguminous perennial that develops into a five-foot-tall shrub with highly ornamental flowers. No, you will not see black and red Twizzlers hanging from its stems, but you will be able to enjoy chewing on its sweet rhizomes, which provide flavoring to commercial licorice. Licorice is somewhat water-needy, especially when young, but will produce a strong root system with rhizomes. You can detach rhizomes for culinary, confectionary, or medicinal use without disturbing the roots. It is recommended that you leave the rhizomes in the ground at least three years in order to appreciate their beneficial properties. Make a tea from dried rhizome pieces for treating digestive and respiratory ailments. Note: Wherever you see “licorice root” referenced for its many qualities, it’s actually the rhizomes that are involved since they grow out from a long tap root that is typically left intact as the rhizomes are harvested.
Flowers. The Bidens will soon be leaving the White House, even as they continue to flower in the winter garden. I am referring to Bidens aurea, the botanical name for a plant in the daisy family with deep golden yellow flowers; it is familiarly known as Arizona beggarticks. Bidens is a combination of bis, meaning two, and dens, meaning teeth, in recognition of two tooth-like barbs on its seeds. The seeds’ form resembles that of a tick and its barbs hitch a ride on whoever brushes against them, explaining the plant’s common name. Native to Arizona and Mexico, the strain available in nurseries is a low-growing, almost mat-like plant, although the wild version of this species may reach over eight feet tall in its habitat.
Plant your poinsettia in the garden now. It has a better chance of survival there than in a pot indoors, the latter environment requiring constant attention to the soil, making sure it stays on the dry side but not allowing it to dry out completely. In planting your poinsettia outdoors, the only caveat is that you will need to provide it with cold protection at night. This can easily be achieved by inverting a bucket over it before the sun goes down. I have seen poinsettias growing outdoors as far north as Granada Hills but they were always planted against a wall. It would appear that the heat absorbed by the wall during the day radiated outwards at night, providing a measure of protection from the cold.