Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Summer into Autumn in Dogpatch

Suddenly it's November and the garden has fallen into shadows. The 'Big Tree' in the neighbors tiny garden casts a very powerful darkness over my poor suffering beds this time of year, a fact that I routinely forget during the peak of summer when I'm constantly moving plants that just can't take so much sun. The other big change in the garden is the western neighbor's removal of her long-suffering cherry tree during a big storm last March. Suddenly I had more sun than I knew what to do with. Not anymore. I am counting down to the winter solstice when the days will getlonger again. Today, by the time the sun peaked around the 'big tree', it was barely high enough in the sky to make it over the rooftops.

I think figuring out the sun patterns in urban gardens is one of the keys to success. Gardening in the golden gate is odd enough with our roughly three seasons--Fog/Wind(summer), Wet (winter), and Other (hopefully sunny) in between.

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