Five things to do in the garden this week:
Fruit. Dragon fruit or pitahaya is produced on a night-blooming, vining cactus, and may be grown as far north as Granada Hills and anywhere east, west, or south of there. Dragon fruit is divided into Hylocereus or Selenicereus species. The former have overlapping flaps of smooth skin that are red, pink, magenta, or white and pulp that may occur in any of these colors, while the latter have a yellow, thorny skin and white pulp only. Selenicereus fruit is sweeter, and the white flowers that precede them are enormous and fragrant. To increase the sweetness of Hylocereus types, refrigerate them before consumption. Dragon fruit cacti are available at Papaya Tree Nursery (papayatreenursery.com) and through many online vendors.
Vegetables. Just the other day, my wife brought home a package of ”seedless, mini sweet peppers.” I had never seen seedless peppers before and wondered about their origin. I learned that they have been around for 20 years and were developed through conventional cross-breeding techniques, especially since some peppers are parthenocarpic, meaning they produce a crop without pollination. However, even some peppers advertised as seedless may contain a few soft seeds. Minimizing or eliminating pollination and thus promoting seedlessness is easily achieved in greenhouse growing, where seedless mini peppers are widely planted. Although seeds of plants that produce seedless peppers are not available except to commercial growers, mini pepper varieties such as Yum Yum and Lunchbox, whose seeds are available, produce peppers with only a small cluster of seeds near the stem.
Herbs. St. John’s wort is a plant whose yellow flowers and leaves contain chemicals that, in reputable clinical trials, have reduced depression in thousands of individuals. In many parts of Europe, St. John’s wort is prescribed for depression more often than any other drug. There are 300 species of St. John’s wort, which is the common name for all plants of the genus Hypericum. The one that is used to combat depression is Hypericum perforatum, a species native to Europe, which may be found growing wild from the central California Coast north to British Columbia. The most commonly seen St. John’s wort in our area is Hypericum calycinum, a ground cover which grows easily enough in partial shade with regular water.
Flowers. My Mystery gardenia is more than 20 years old, six feet tall, and gets no more water than the rest of my front yard garden, which, through July, has been drenched with a hose once every two weeks. This gardenia is exposed to afternoon sun but is growing cheek by jowl with other plants, and so the soil is significantly shaded, offering little opportunity for moisture to escape through evaporation. It seems that woody plants of every description, once firmly established in a densely planted garden, are rather drought-tolerant.
Surveillance. If you wish to take the mystery out of the identity of critters that roam your garden at night, invest in a surveillance video camera. You will learn what goes on in your garden after dark. You can acquire such a camera for $40-$100. Mount it easily on a fence, a tall stake, or on the exterior wall of your house, garage, or other structure. There is also an infrared trail camera for $40-$60 that you can strap onto the branch of a tree for close-up viewing of your fruit poachers.