Under the Solano Sun

For a number of summers, I've been fighting a battle with harlequin bugs (Murgantia histrionica) in my garden. Harlequin bugs are nasty stink bugs that suck the juice off the leaves of my precious tree collards, leaving them with yellow blotches.

Got your pumpkins grown?

Two springs ago while shopping at a big box store in Vallejo in the pre-Covid era, I purchased a Gala apple tree sapling with its roots wrapped up in a bag. In my mind, I was already crunching into a crisp juicy apple. I was eager to take it home and transfer it to a 7-gallon bucket.

Are you a tuber grouper? Or maybe a tuber cougar? Or maybe a tuber goober? Whatever the case. It's fall and it's time to start planting. Tubers and rhizomes both grow from swollen portions of underground plant stems. Tubers can grow in any direction.

While walking and driving around Borrego Springs, I kept noticing these really beautiful flowering shrubs. The bees and hummingbirds were noticing them too. I couldn't stand it and got out my phone and found them pretty quickly online.