Gardening in the depths of a Southern Californian winter....

Today was one of those wonderful early January days in Southern California.  Cool with just a hint of sun peeking through.  Ideal real gardening day.  By "real" I mean the kind of day you can break a sweat and not get dehydrated and in my case end up with a blinder of a headache that lasts 12 hours.

I planted a "Wonderful" Pomegranate tree today to honour the memory of John O' Donoghue who died one year ago today (See poem from Jan 1st).  Arugula, red cabbage, and Quinault strawberries (an everbearing variety) were tucked into lovely friable earth.  The soil in my yard is really superb right now.  This took 2 years of endless applications of organic material.

The day ended with the construction of a huge new compost pile.  Yards of horse manure mixed with about 20 huge bags of leaves I got for free from the local Park.  When this pile heats up it will be a real doosey of a pile.  Temp should easily reach 140 degrees.

Now..a hot bath to relax from 47 year old bones.