Mid-March planting, part 1

So at my last day of work, surveying the news reports out of Italy, I made the decision to self-isolate a little earlier then the city of San Francisco pulled the trigger to do so, due to my parent’s health issues.

Realizing I had to prepare for a while without supplies, I bought as much soil as I thought I would need and some plants.

These are not those plants.

These are the plants I bought last week, a batch that included a tomato that is part of another post.

This batch also included a celery, to replace the two that were horrifyingly killed by my local gophers.

Guess who took no chances. Yes, ok an average celery can’t live forever in a pot this size but I figure this gives me some time at least.

Also I’d like to see a gopher chew through this.

The celery was actually potted up Thursday with the mint, but the rest of this was today’s work. Despite being home this weekend, the weather did not cooperate with my planting dreams, and decided to pour rain from the heavens at a pace that can only be described as “biblical”.

Which was a fun mess to get last minute groceries in! Ah San Francisco, in these trying times at least you’re consistent.

Anyways, also in the last batch of plants was a weirdo white strawberry. A lucky coworker snagged one that actually had a variegated leaf! The fruit is described as tasty and white, even if I got one with boring green leaves.

The plant itself was fairly vigorous for having been rained on for a weekend so anticipating lots of runners I put it in the wider fancy pot so it can grow as sideways as it needs too.

Same procedure as the other strawberries- rich soil, compost, mulch.

Gorgeous.

Now that’s a strawberry! My other two bowls of berries- both alpine and quinault- are doing ok- but I thought I’d cluster them together for ease of access.

And thus- strawberry land was born.

For now. I’d like to have stands for those but I’m not leaving the house for a while so this will do.

But what about the newly vacant very large terra-cotta pot filled with excellent soil?

I have a plant for that, in my last minute buy plant pile.

But first, I’d really like to raise that up. Pot feet would be ideal- but I’d have to leave the house to go fetch those…

Or I could just break some old brick edging that hasn’t been used in almost 30 years.

Perfect. I love the mossy effect these pots get after a few years- a guy walked into work once asking how to get it off, I helped him of course (scrub with rough kitchen sponge) but I was secretly appalled. Who doesn’t like moss?

I filled the thing with a mix of compost and good potting soil and some pebbles for drainage because what I’m potting up is…

A Laurus nobilis! Bay Laurels- for all your cooking and crown needs!

That little buddy right there will be a tree someday. I won’t let it get to it’s full grown height of 35 feet tall (holy smokes) but you can prune them to fit in a pot. And think about it- no need to ever buy a bay leaf again!

And you know, if the current pandemic gets us into the thunderdome- in a few years I can fashion the winners of those contests a laurel crown.

Yeah that was a weird sentence. Expect more of that.

But hey- I have a lot to do and that’s always helpful in a trying time. Stay tuned- there’s more planting to come!