Finally had to go water and winterizing

The weather is cleared but now another Santa Ana is here which means little wind, dry and warm for winter. Sigh. So the last couple of days there hasn't been much opportunity to get out anywhere with plants. The landscaping around the buildings rarely changes so nothing new there so I finally went back out after walking Rocky to water what I have and discovered... snails had eaten both cilantro seedlings.

Can't see the slime trails but they were there. That brown pile in the middle was where the larger of the seedlings used to be. Oh well. The tomato is doing fine, still putting out flowers and losing a few leaves on the bottom. Again I was tempted to take a lemon and put some of the juice around it but I didn't bring my clippers or knife.

For the past few days the leaves from the trees have been piled up on the lawns waiting for being dealt with. Well they finally got the 'Billy Goat' machine out and dealt with them. This is what happens when you leave a pile of anything on grass for more than a day or two:

It will recover but not quickly and it could damage it beyond repair, will see what happens. In someplaces around the country it's okay to leave your leaves on the grass because it acts as a protective layer for the coming snow. That isn't the case here and it should have been dealt with a few days ago but that's in an ideal situation. Not my circus. I am only presenting this as an informational post not something I am moaning about that I need to fix. Even though that's what I want to do.

'Winterizing' is a thing and is different in every part of the country down to locations in the same city. It can mean anything from just leaving your garden soil to go fallow to planting winter 'green manure' (clover or other legume types) to add nitrogen to the soil. I'm doing the lazy way and leaving one bed alone and the other just barely hanging on. As I said, the tomato will likely not fruit over winter due to temperatures but if it survives to spring, might have some spectacular spring tomatoes. IF I get some fertilizer in there. Where it snows and gets regular frost, there's pruning to be done, digging up leftover veggies, roughing up the soil and all manner of things. Now we're talking a reasonable yard garden not my piddly two small bed area that I don't even own.

I would have a proper compost corner where I could dump veggie scraps and paper and such, might have some chickens or ducks if there is room for fertilizer and eggs. Dedicated beds for flowers and ornamental plants, a kitchen herb garden... so many things. All a dream right now.

We are due some heavy rains over Christmas weekend so now would be the time to add fertilizer and amendments if I had them. Going to do the compost pile good I'm sure. Might ask the next time they mow the lawn to take one bagful to the garden end dump it on the pile. Might also look into making a containment or perimeter of some sort for it. How hard to I want to work to make this? Not very much. If I owned a house I would be doing a lot more to make a better garden for sure.

Making sure the weeds don't get the upper hand in our area is a winterizing thing to do. As soon as it rains and cools down the grasses come back and start growing...which reminds me, I just bought a small jar of white vinegar which is good weed killer and acidifies the soil. Might mix some with water and put it in a spray bottle for the pesky grass stuff coming up in the bed.

That's basically all for now. The sky is a pale blue with patchy clouds moving inland as soon as we hear reports of rain in L.A. I know it's only a matter of a few hours before it hits us. Yay and boo at the same time, makes for interesting gathering on Christmas.

Happy Solstice as well, days start getting longer and nights shorter from here out, yay! I look forward to the return of the sun later in the day and longer hours to do more gardening.