h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*looks out at snow-covered ground*

*thinks about her small balcony two stories up*

*sighs*

Oh well - at least I'll get myself a big pot full of 'wild' again this year - but this time I'll make sure to get a 'babysitter' for it while on vacation...

Last year my hardy indoor pot plants made it while I was away for 10 days (after I had almost drowned them first - they're used to being roughly handled) but the wild strawberries didn't - poor delicate little things...

You can buy seeds for alpine strawberries. They will grow well in pots and live for several years. And the berries are yummy.

I'm sure it is more fun to gather then hiking, however.

Good column as always Hypatia.
Not sure I totally agree with the exported fresh produce not being as good though. I remember when we lived in SA the local produce was never as good as the stuff we had when we were in the UK because all the first grade crops went to the export market. Similarly daffodils over here, the best go to Holland...now that is weird!
take care
boots

Now I know why we're getting all this lousy fruit. They're sending the good stuff to the UK.

I'm spoiled by having vine ripened fruit. I stand on my soapbox....or in this case orange crate. And I think everyone who can should grow their own.

H

I agree with Hypatia. Grow your own. Or go and pick them from the hedgerow. I'm never too sure why people grow blackberry canes as they're all over near where I live and a good crop can be just picked from the sides of the paths come late summer. So can billberies (a relative of the blueberry) but then we liked them so much we got a blueberry bush and it looks like it's doing nicely and I hope we can get to the crop as it ripens before the birds do.

I'm from California, and you don't get any better fruit in the supermarkets than Hypatia has described. It used to be you'd get edible treefruit in the winter, because it came from Chile, but they have started to grow the pretty and insipid stuff, too.

Time for a pomodrusic revolution!

I hope I didn't offend any Californians with the article. But I just don't understand how anything so beautiful can be so tasteless.

Some of my fruit trees are setting fruit. Yea!!!!!!!!!! I need to get the peach and nectarine sprayed post haste. Each one has about a million tiny little fruits. And the cherries and plums are setting on as are the almonds.

About blackberries, Phil. I grow them because all of the places where we used to be able to pick wild ones are now housing developments. And they are outrageously expensive to buy at the farmer's market.

Thankfully where I am there isn't that problem with new housing developments. OK so where I picked them as a kid with my mother and sisters probably has been built on but there are still plenty of places.
Had the first pickings from the rhubarb plant in a crumble yesterday, lovely and fresh

You can do grapes in containers? Hm...

Our yard would need a lot of work before the soil's any good, and since it's a shared yard (we live in a house that's been converted into 3 apartments, which means we get our utilities for free, 'cause there's still just the one meter) I'm not sure we'd be allowed, anyhow... Though autumn before last I was going to anyway. Why didn't I? Well, the reason is currently in her crib refusing to take a nap

You can grow blueberries in containers, too, Amy. And strawberries. And bananas. Yum! You have a fruit salad right there. Actually, if you chose the proper size container, you can grow about anything in one.

choose the proper container....

Actually, considering relative prices, I should probably go for the berries... Of course, like last year, when I swore up and down that I was going to get a basket (as that was the closest thing to a craving I got) I may never get around to it Of course, *this* year I realize that the nursery *is* in walking distance...

Every year I plant something new. This year I set out some blueberries. This is the 3rd time I've planted them. Before I put them where my husband wanted them, and they died. For some reason he thinks that blueberries like heavy shade. Anyway, this time I put them at the edge of the vegetable plot in the sun. I expect them to do much better. But he's already complaining that they'll die in the sun. Like they didn't in the shade.

My tomato seeds are sprouting!

I saw some big plastic tomatoes in a supermarket, got intrigued, and bought one on an impulse

It contained seeds and peat-tablets - and instructions in 11 different languages, which differed from each other (in the three languages that I bothered to check anyway)

So I've been waiting, and waiting, and thinking I was stupid to buy seeds at a supermarket - neither the package nor the instructions mention what *kind* of tomato plant it is...

But then, yesterday - wow! Three of the six peat-tablets have green stems and small leaves - this was after I covered them with plastic (with air holes)

Some tomato varieties are perfect for patio pots. I would imagine that's the kind you have. It would be rather odd for them to sell great hugh ones and then not tell you that they need lots of room to grow.

*re-reads instructions*


If you wish to grow the plants in pots, use one plant per pot of at least 30 cm. diameter

There you go! One thing about the smaller tomatoes is that they often have a better flavor than the hugh ones.

Finally got around to looking up what zone I'm in... Going by the big maps, I'm in 9, and now that I think about it, I think the 'Inside East Sacramento' magazine, the last one, said that parts of downtown were actually zone 10.

All the fruit online (except citrus, which doesn't surprise me, as there's so many citrus tress around here that sidewalks can be obstacle courses, and the squirrels don't even put a dent in the supply) is zone 8 and below Of course, I only looked for a couple minutes I'll just have to wander over to that nursery--I think it's close enough to be in the same microclimate...

Amy, you should be able to do tropicals then. Bananas, mangos, pineapples, papayas. Yum.

And technically, almost everything is in walking distance. Some walks are just a lot longer than others.

I'm in Zone 6, which is almost perfect.

Amy, you should invest in a Sunset Western Garden Book (some versions call themselves the Sunset NEW Western Garden Book). It has some names of varieties of most pomes, druses, & berries that do well in warmer California. There aren't very many, and there are definitely more that will survive in the Central Valley where you are, but you should be very careful when ordering from a nursery anywhere else but here.

I myself tried blueberries in San Jose, and it was just too hot there for them. Sunset mentions 'Berkeley', 'Bluecrop', 'Dixi' (tried and died), 'Earliblue', and 'Jersey' (tried and died) named varieties for California in general. Specifically, they recommend some near-blueberries. 'Sharpblue' is the only self-fertile, then 'Bluebelle', 'Southland' & 'Tifblue' who need to cross pollinate.

Strawberries grow just fine, they love it under roses. The rivers there are rife with blackberries, but here in LA all rivers are concreted in, so there's none to be found here.



Sunset (as of 1995-ack! time to get an updated one!) doesn't know of any mangoes, papayas, pineapples, or bananas that will grow in Sacramento. Hypatia knows a lot more than I do about gardening though, so I won't gainsay her.