City Compost Awesomeness

Reason to love San Francisco number 14,397.

This is picked up and taken away from the curb outside my apartment building.

Then twice a year I take a big bucket to the Great Compost Giveaway.

And take it home to use it in my little city garden.

How wonderful is that!?

Microclimates in Fogtown

Today in microclimate blather, we bring to you a video  from the Exploratorium's Science in the City. Most of what he is saying applies to Marin as well. Go over the other side of a hill from the coast, and you can usually get out of the fog. This spring and summer so far it's been mostly about wind.  Looks like warm and breezy for awhile, so make hay while the sun shines! For visual of the more or less real time wind situation, go to San Francisco Bay Wind Patterns. (This is a snapshot of June 27th I've inserted after realizing that since this image changes, linking to it on the site does not work.)

Pam Peirce sums it up pretty well too, and her book is really helpful to gardeners here. If you are in the real estate search, and you have dreams of growing food here, you may want to take a look. If you are set on tomatoes, I'd avoid purchasing property in most areas of 1,2,3 and 4, or else plan on a green house. Peas and chard and lettuce and kale grow great though. Same story in Marin. Forget tomatoes (maybe, in the most sheltered spots you'll have good luck with cherry tomatoes) in Bolinas, but on the east side of Tam have at it. Plenty of heat on the east side, especially in inland locations that lack direct gaps where wind and fog come through, like San Rafael and Novato.

Pam Peirce. Golden Gate Gardening: Year-Round Food Gardening in the San Francisco Bay Area and Coastal California. Sasquatch Books. 2002 

Happy Friday, whatever microclimate you find yourself in.

City Farmer News

Spring Winds

GGNPC

Please forgive my blogging sloth, I've gotten just a little bit involved (bless all the busy bees who are doing the real work) in the run up to the big celebration for the Golden Gate Bridge's 75th birthday, and real estate has been very interesting and time consuming of late. Also my grand plan to summarize micro-climate by real estate zone has been a little more complex then I first realized. It is pretty easy to do for places one has lived, but is harder to summarize accurately based on visits, as it changes with the seasons and the level of intensity in the fog cycle. Of course now we are firmly in the spring wind upwelling cycle which can be a little exhausting, though it is the reason we have such abundant sea life all around us.

My new plan for the area's I have not lived to is take walks with local experts to confirm my theories. While I am obviously obsessed with microclimates, and hope to provide helpful guidance, it is always a good idea to chat up the neighbors when you are looking at property. If you are a gardener, look at what plants are flourishing in the immediate surroundings. Even if plants are not your thing - befriend that long time resident with the well established garden, they will know the climate better then almost anyone.

Kate Campbell

Today's brief microclimate summary: Using my cool Weather Underground app and clicking on the weather station icon (online works also)   I see that it is 57 degrees with 33 mph NW winds blowing (gusting to 45 I would wager) at the Outer Richmond weather station. It is 69 degrees with minimal wind in the Financial District. I can also hear the roar of the wind and creaking of the building I am in near the beach. You can bet it is howling at the bridge. Forecasts predict the wind will mellow before the party, but bring your layers if you're coming.

Anne+MathiasMywedding.com

Spring Flora!

All this rain has sure greened things up at last. Birds singing, flowers blooming, time to garden! I was so sad to learn recently that the Far Out Flora bloggers are moving back to Wisconsin. Their enthusiasm and skill with plants adapted to Bay Area microclimates  is so inspiring. Their garden is/was in the Outer Sunset in  San Francisco. Meghan worked in Richmond at Annies Annuals and Matti worked at Flora Grubb Gardens  on the sunnier east side of SF in the Bayview.  Two of my favorite nursery's, so creative both Flora and Annie.  Their exposure to what really works in these seriously differing microclimates, plus their artistic backgrounds, make them a wonderful resource, and they will be seriously missed.

SF Botanical Garden

As a plant ecologist for years, I kept my passion for flashy horticultural joys a little under wraps, in favor of our magnificent native flora. These days, I can freely appreciate the beauty and function of "cultivars" ("a race or variety of a plant that has been created or selected intentionally and maintained through cultivation") as well as our lovely California wildflowers.

Alan Grinberg Mori Point

Speaking of cultivation, mark your calendars for the largest plant sale in California,  at the San Francisco Botanic Garden (Strybing). Also, the Larner Seeds awesome native wildflower demonstration garden in Bolinas is going off, if you feel like a field trip. Here are more resources for growing native plants, and here, here and here are resources for field viewing of the spring bloom.

BAWSCA

For you many food growers, Golden Gate Gardening is so helpful for our microclimates. As is the latest version of the Sunset classic Western Garden Book, which now has a plastic cover, the better for using with muddy hands. Their climate zones are more useful here than those of the USDA, being finer grained and including humidity, latitude and elevation, which give you a clearer idea of what you can really grow. They also have a fun on-line plant finder.

Happy Spring!

DavesGarden Cottage Garden Xeriscape