October is here and the rainy season has begun right on schedule. As of October 20 we have had enough precipitation to wet things down nicely. 

     October is a particularly beautiful month in the Bay Area, with its warm, clear days and cool nights, and the gift of early rains brings refreshing moisture to the air and soil and lifts into the air the fresh scents of plants and fallen leaves. Early color is appearing in some trees and growth will slow down in annual garden plants.

     It's the end of the growing season for the many imported plants in our gardens, but the beginning of it for native plants, and also a good time to begin growing cool-weather vegetables such as salad greens, chard and the various crucifers.And of course it's fall bulb-planting time. 

     This is the ideal time to sow seeds and  plant bulbs of native plants.

     Before more rains make the soil too muddy to dig, it's a perfect time to pull weeds and to add soil conditioners. When the soil is lightly dampened, weeds pull or dig out more easily. The final harvests of our summer vegetables will be coming soon. Over-ripe vegetables like tomatoes and squash should be removed before they attract insects and rodents. Some faded flowers with seeds that birds like, such as sunflowers and marigolds, could be left on the plants to provide feed for the many birds that visit the garden.

     Tomatoes self-sow easily in our environment, so it's okay to let some seed from unharvested fruit remain in the soil to germinate in the spring and provide you with new young plants at virtually no effort. Of course, the resulting fruit may not be exactly like those from your original plants, but the harvest will surely be interesting and the anticipation of something different will add an element of surprise to your later harvest. Maybe you'll even come up with a variety with some unexpectedly different, even superior, qualities.

     If the rains continue fairly regularly, grass will soon be sprouting everywhere there is some vacant ground, and the hills will turn green. There have been some suggestions from meteorologists that this year may be an El Nino year, which means abundant rains.

     It's also a good time to set out imported plants that bloom during our mild winter months, such as calendulas, some primulas, snapdragons, violas and pansies, sweet peas and many others.

     The start of the rainy season is really the start of our spring. In the mild West Coast climate there is no actual winter comparable to that of most other parts of the country. One garden writer described our climate as having two seasons: early spring and late summer. This statement was an attempt to compare our wet and dry seasons to the most comparable Eastern seasons. 

     This time of year inevitably means a slowdown in garden activities, especially during inclement weather, but by no means is there an end to gardening or to the growing of interesting flowers and vegetables. As the rains sprout numerous seeds in the soil, one can keep an eye on them to identify usable "volunteers" nature is offering you.

--Ed Malmstrom.

E. Malmstrom, webmaster
October 20, 2004.
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