Gardening with Mrs. P

Everyone should have friends who live someplace like Minnesota or, even better, the Dakotas. Talking to my friend in Minnesota puts the season called winter into perspective...

Separating the holidays of Columbus Day (October 12) and Veteran’s Day (November 11) is Will Rogers' (one of my heroes) birthday on November 4. He once said it was fortunate for Columbus’s subsequent fame to have landed on the Atlantic side of America instead of the Pacific side. If he had landed in California, he never would've gone back home, even to tell the Queen of Spain. Yup, Christopher C. would have happily stayed in our Golden State and nobody would have ever known about him. In any event, Autumn is here and the above holidays are good benchmarks for planting.

It’s that time of year again, late summer, when Mrs. P answers your garden questions. The daylight hours may be growing shorter, but they’re not growing cooler. So, crank up the old AC, pour yourself a tall iced tea, and relax inside while I solve your outside problems...

What does this famous phrase mean? “Nam et ipsa scientia potestus est.”

A) “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.”

B) “Knowledge is power.”

C) “I drink no more than a sponge.”

What edible plant has beautiful flowers, grows super fast from seed, and has a whopping 15 pages of recipes devoted to it in Julia Child’s classic cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking? BEANS!

How many of you live with a N.G.? That’s “Non-Gardener” to those of us who till and toil alone. The late Mr. P was, to be honest, an N.G. Oh sure, he gifted me with a dozen pots of lovely white ‘Pascali’ roses early in our courtship. This was because I’d told him how much I loved white roses...

Go ahead...try to ignore this beauty!

Get growing with a bonus fall-winter season!

October and November are what some people call “Inside-Out Time.” It’s an odd sub-season in Bakersfield that may last a few weeks or longer. You start the day in a chilly house, but after going outside, you’re still close to summer warmth. Off come the sweaters and on go the sprinklers. There’s a slight chance of frost, which seems to encourage re-seeded lawns into that Oz-like emerald green color.

Like fortune cookies, the cryptic phrases on plant labels require some interpretation. For the clueless gardener, Mrs. P is here to decode the tag notes...

Would Mrs. P steer you wrong? This time, she's here to give you tips on how to put a little “pep” in your summer.