In the chilly (32 degrees) dark of 5 am this morning, as I gave my dogs their morning biscuits, I admired the form of the ‘Big Dipper’ almost directly overhead. I stood, bundled up, in the center of my starlit back garden - just admiring. Five am at the height of summer, I can be getting my coffee and heading out to begin playing in the garden, but in mid-December, as we near the richly-storied winter solstice - the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere - crisp early mornings make for a great star-gazing; the entire garden is a virtual planetarium. Photo: The Moon and Jupiter in close proximity in the winter night sky. In the Northern Hemisphere, several well-known constellations are associated with winter. While many people of think of the ‘Big Dipper’ as a constellation, it is in fact more accurately an asterism - or part of a constellation or larger group of stars. The ‘Big Dipper’ is a commonly recognizable asterism of the larger constellation known as Ursa Major.

As gardeners, perhaps, we are even more aware than many of the shifts in light and its relative availability throughout the seasons and the year. Cultures across the globe have long celebrated the winter solstice and held it dear as the day on which the dark has reached its peak. As of the winter solstice, with every subsequent day, we are headed back toward the life-renewing light - the full intensity of the Sun’s energy.

Many gardeners time their planting and harvest - both the time at which they plant and harvest as well as what they are planting and harvesting - based on the phases of the moon. They do this in order to take full advantage of the powerful influence of the Moon’s on Earth as seen through tidal shifts, etc. In particular, the gardening/agricultural philosophy known as Biodynamics uses the phases of the moon as one of the critical markers for gardening tasks. According to Biodynamics.com, biodynamics, based on the teachings of Rudolph Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy, is “a type of organic farming that incorporates an understanding of “dynamic” forces in nature not yet fully understood by science. By working creatively with these subtle energies, farmers are able to significantly enhance the health of their farms and the quality and flavor of food. It is ….. A recognition that the whole earth is a single, self-regulating, multi-dimensional ecosystem. Biodynamic farmers seek to fashion their farms likewise as self-regulating, bio-diverse ecosystems in order to bring health to the land and to their local communities.”

In thinking about the solstice and winter night sky in relation to my garden, I wondered about what the solstice actually was. To find out, I turned to friend and colleague Dave Schlom. Dave is a full-time science educator, and longtime host of Northstate Public Radio’s weekly program on planetary (including Earth) science, The Blue Dot Report. This week on In a North State Garden, Dave talks about what a solstice is and how it impacts us.

Let’s start with planet Earth and how it is positioned in space. The equator is what we call the great imaginary line (line of latitude) around Earth’s circumference. The equator lies half-way between the North Pole and the South Pole. Earth’s rotational axis is tilted 23.5° relative to the Sun. The Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn are lines of latitude 23.5° north and south, respectively, of the equator (Figure 3). The Sun is always directly above a point between these latitudes. In our winter, the Sun is south of the equator and in our summer it is north. What we in the Northern Hemisphere call the winter solstice, is the day that the Sun is 23.5° south of the equator, or directly above the Tropic of Capricorn. During the summer solstice, the sun is directly above the Tropic of Cancer, or 23.5° north of the equator. “That is why what we call the winter and summer solstices are perhaps more accurately referred to as the southern and northern solstices respectively,” explains Dave. Photo: NASA’s diagram of Earth’s position relative to the Sun at the time of a Northern Hemisphere Winter Solstice.

“In Latin,” he goes on, the word “’solstice” means ’sun stop’ because as ancient Roman people were tracking the arc of the Sun each day, it was at each ’solstice’ that the Sun seemed to stop in its tracks and begin to move back in the other direction - causing daylight hours to either get longer as after the winter solstice, or shorter, as after the summer solstice. The vernal and autumnal equinoxes occur at those moments twice a year when the Sun is directly over the equator, making for equal hours of daylight and dark. http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/imagee.htm

Why is it cold in winter and warm in summer in our part of the world? The seasons change due to Earth’s rotational axis being tilted 23.5° relative to the Sun. So, for half of the year (our winter), the Northern Hemisphere is pointed slightly away from the Sun. This angle makes sunlight hit the ground in the North State at a lower angle in winter than in summer. So energy coming from the Sun is spread out - and thereby made less intense - over a larger area on the ground.

Interestingly, notes Dave, while the winter solstice might mark an official beginning of winter, it is only rarely the coldest day of the year. Because the Northern Hemisphere is moving only slowly more tilted away from the Sun’s rays from the summer solstice to the winter solstice, the mass of the Earth receives warmth from the sun each day and only slowly does it begin to lose more each night than it gains each day. Therefore, it takes a while after the winter solstice for the Earth to cool down as far as it is going to in any given winter.

So while the winter solstice does not mark the end of cold, but is closer to the beginning of the cold stretch for our North State gardens, this cold can be beneficial - killing unwanted fungi, pathogens and others pests. (Protect and cover your citrus and other tender plants so that the cold does not kill them.) The winter solstice does however mark the shortest day of the year - and while the cold temperatures and short daylight hours might slow your garden and you down some - things are only getting brighter from here.

Happy Winter in your North State Garden!

For more information on the solstice and stars in the winter night sky, Gateway Science Museum in Chico will be hosting related Education Station activities on Saturday and Sunday, December 17th and 18th, and on the Winter Solstice, December 21st from 1 - 3 pm each day. Docents will model the concept of a solstice, show you projections of constellations in the winter night sky, and give you pin-hole constellations cards to make and take home. Additionally, on the 21st, stories behind the winter constellations will be read in the Newberry Gallery from 1 - 3 pm.

Also, fellow gardener and star watcher, Karen McGrath wrote in to me with the interesting fact that although the winter solstice is the shortest day of the year, the earliest sunsets do not occur on this day! There is an interesting discussion about why at http://earthsky.org/tonight/earliest-sunset-today-but-not-shortest-day, which is a nice additional resource on these types of discussions.

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To submit plant/gardening related events/classes to the Jewellgarden.com on-line Calendar of Regional Gardening Events, send the pertinent information to me at: Jennifer@jewellgarden.com

Did you know I send out a weekly email with information about upcoming topics and gardening related events? If you would like to be added to the mailing list, send an email to Jennifer@jewellgarden.com.

In a North State Garden is a weekly Northstate Public Radio and web-based program celebrating the art, craft and science of home gardening in Northern California and made possible in part by the Gateway Science Museum - Exploring the Natural History of the North State and on the campus of CSU, Chico. In a North State Garden is conceived, written, photographed and hosted by Jennifer Jewell - all rights reserved jewellgarden.com. In a North State Garden airs on Northstate Public Radio Saturday mornings at 7:34 AM Pacific time and Sunday morning at 8:34 AM Pacific time. Podcasts of past shows are available here. Weekly essays are also posted on anewscafe.com a regional news source that is simultaneously universal and positively North State.

I was lucky in having been born the daughter of a dedicated gardener mother (aided always by my father) and the grand daughter of two avid gardening grandfathers. Growing up at 8,000 feet on the front range of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, my sisters and I were in and out of the garden all day - a good part of the year. My mother’s quarter acre log-rail-fenced vegetable garden, under towering ponderosa pines, featured all the bounty I could have imagined: sharp spring radishes and tender spring peas, sweet summer carrots, lettuces, chard, spinach and even some tomatoes. Leeks, potatoes, onions. Apples, gooseberries, raspberries, strawberries. Herbs year-round and seasonal sweeps of ornamental flowers: peonies, oriental poppies, shasta daisies - accenting each row and section of the garden. As a child I learned the garden through being shown and being asked to do things my mother needed done - as they needed doing. Photo: The Shasta College Community Teaching Garden, Redding. All photos in this week’s essay are by Susanna Sibilsky and Melita Bena. (more…)

On November 5th in Gerber, Pacific Sun Gourmet Olive Orchards and Mill will host their Annual Love at First Crush olive oil crush event for the community from 11 am - 3 pm. Anyone and everyone, from gleaners to home gardeners, are invited to join the fun of a crush day, to bring their own olives for this public milling, and help produce fresh olive oil. Much of this interview with Brendon Flynn was first published on In a North State Garden in the fall of 2010. For more information: Pacific Sun Olive Oil.

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Autumn’s arrival for me is accompanied by a renewed sense of community. Perhaps it is the return of regular school schedules, and the return of regular monthly meetings for garden clubs and organizations. Perhaps it is the primal sense of oncoming winter and a need to come together and prepare. Perhaps it’s the anticipation and energy of the harvest – from the vast chartreuse rice fields and the statuesque almond, olive and walnut orchards running through our region, to the end-of-summer tomatoes, peppers, beans, and squash finishing up in our home gardens and now filling our kitchen counters, freezers and shelves. Cool, even cold, nights and days with a prospect of rain are returning. We are gathering, and we are planning and planting for the seasons to come. Photo: Rice fields, Central Valley in October. (more…)

“Eat your weeds,” is a comment you might hear in conversation with regional author Alicia Funk. This struck me as humorously ironic given that last week’s interview taught us more about ways to effectively eradicate troublesome weeds, but never did we consider eating them. This week, Alicia Funk suggests just that: we should eat our weeds. (In most cases the plants to which she is referring are not truly weeds, rather edible and medicinal native plants that thrive in our region.) Photo: Bright red ripe toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia) berries ripe in winter. “Living Wild” includes cultivation information for toyon as well as a recipe for a tasty toyon cider.

Alicia, who lives and gardens in Nevada City, off the grid with her husband and their three children, is the co-author most recently of “Living Wild: Gardening, Cooking and Healing with the Native Plants of the Sierra Nevada,” (2011, Flicker Press. Available locally at Lyon Books in Chico). She believes passionately that if we as families, as gardeners, as foodies, indeed, as a culture, are going to move sustainability to the next level, we need to learn to engage with our local landscapes more intimately and more knowledgeably. “With our children watching some sort of screen for an average of five hours a day or more, this need to re-acquaint ourselves with the outdoors is ever more urgent,” she insists. She founded the LivingWild.org project as way to open and encourage conversation and sharing of knowledge and experience about engaging with the great outdoors around us.

Sustainability is not just about eating food labeled organic, or about eating locally grown food, even, Alicia expressed to me by phone recently. Indigenous people have lived - and thrived - in these very environments of the North State for thousands of years, they have learned how to responsibly and thoughtfully use the many native plants around us for food, for shelter, for medicine, for art. If we want to take sustainability and healthy living to a higher level, we can learn how to as well. And Northern California is just the place to take this step, Alicia pointed out, as we are blessed with more edible and healthful native plants than almost anywhere on the planet: “When I first moved to the North State in 2004, I realized that many of the native plants I was seeing were the sources of the nutritional and medicinal supplements I had studied.” Photo: The un-ripe, green berries of manzanita. According to studies conducted by Alicia, when ripe, manzanita berries, which are naturally sweet, also contain three times the antioxidants of blueberries.

Alicia Goldberg Funk first learned plant-based medicine in 1990 from an indigenous grandmother in Ecuador’s rainforest. Upon returning the US, she lived and worked in the Santa Cruz area where she studied with leaders in the field, Christopher Hobbs and Michael McGuffin, at the American School of Herbalism. Her subsequent research has focused on the science behind plants and their medicinal or nutritional uses. Safety is a primary focus to her research as is opening a conversation between the herbal world and the medical world. She is the editor of six books, including “The Botanical Safety Handbook,” “Herbal Medicine-The Expanded Commission E Monographs” and “The ABC Clinical Guide to Herbs.” Her passion is creating everyday wellness for individuals and the planet. Photo: A selection of acorns, which Alicia likes to call oak nuts, emphasizing their edibility. In her workshops, she teaches how to make oak nut flour.

Alicia Funk in Chico - October 1st, 2011

Alicia will be teaching a class entitled “Native Plants for Food and Health” on Saturday October 1st from 9 am - 12 noon for the Friends of the Chico State Herbarium’s workshop series. The fee for the class is $45; to register please contact the CSU, Chico Biology office at (530) 898-5356 or jbraden@csuchico.edu.

Class Description:

Connect with our local landscape by learning how native plants provided a sustainable source of food and medicine for local inhabitants for thousands of years.
Learn how to prepare and enjoy backyard fall and winter edibles such as Oak Nut (acorn) Bliss Bars, Beyond Cranberry Wild Berry Sauce, and Toyon Cider.
Discover how native plants such as Yerba Santa and California Bay can help address common winter colds.
Take a walk outdoors to identify the uses of plants in the field.
Workshop Outline Food: Backyard Edibles for Fall
• Prepare and taste Oak Nuts (acorns), Madrone berries, and Toyon berries.
Health: Natives for the Common Cold • Integrate Yerba Santa and California Bay into the natural medicine cabinet for common winter colds and flu.
Field Walk: Exploring Nature with Ethnobotanical Eyes (indoor slideshow if raining)
• Identify plants in nature and learn common uses.

Please register in advance; class size is limited to 20 participants (class cancelled with- out a minimum of 8 participants). For more information about workshop content please contact Alicia Funk at alicia@livingwild.org.

Following the morning class at the Chico State Herbarium, Alicia will be at the Gateway Science Museum for a hands-on activity for school-aged children and a book signing:

Plant Adventures: 1-3 pm
Gateway Science Museum on the Esplanade in Chico
Cost: free with admission

Have you tasted manzanita sugar or an oak nut (acorn) bliss bar? Our local landscape offers many plants that are useful for food and health and these plants sustained indigenous people without grocery stores for thousands of years. Come explore native plants through a treasure hunt, create a native plant journal and learn to turn acorns into delicious desserts.

Join visiting instructor and author, Alicia Funk, in an interactive program for all ages:

• Go on a treasure hunt to identify native plants.

• Learn to turn acorns into food.

• Create a native plant journal

• Taste wild food desserts and drinks.

• Signed copies of the new local guidebook: Living Wild—Gardening, Cooking and Healing with Native Plants of the Sierra Nevada, will be available for purchase.

Photo: The temptingly plump hips of California rose (Rosa californica). “Living Wild” includes cultivation information for this rose as well as recipes for Rose Hip Tea and Rose Hip Jelly.

More of my environmental writing can be found in the Chico News & Review, and Pacific Horticulture. Follow Jewellgarden.com/In a North State Garden on Facebook.

To submit plant/gardening related events/classes to the Jewellgarden.com on-line Calendar of Regional Gardening Events, send the pertinent information to me at: Jennifer@jewellgarden.com

Did you know I send out a weekly email with information about upcoming topics and gardening related events in the North State region? If you would like to be added to the mailing list, send an email to Jennifer@jewellgarden.com.

In a North State Garden is a weekly Northstate Public Radio and web-based program celebrating the art, craft and science of home gardening in Northern California. Made possible in part by the Gateway Science Museum - Exploring the Natural History of the North State and on the campus of CSU, Chico, In a North State Garden is conceived, written, photographed and hosted by Jennifer Jewell - all rights reserved jewellgarden.com. In a North State Garden airs on Northstate Public Radio Saturday mornings at 7:34 AM Pacific time and Sunday morning at 8:34 AM Pacific time. Podcasts of past shows are available here. Weekly essays are also posted on anewscafe.com a regional news source that is simultaneously universal and positively North State.

Put the growing needs of melons and the gardening conditions of much of the North State together, and what you get is an uncommonly happy marriage. This week on In a North State Garden (Northstate Public Radio 91.7 fm Chico/88.9 fm Redding at 7:34 am Saturday and 8:34 am Sunday), I talk to Kaye and Roger Diefendorf of Morning Glory Organics about growing melons. Located in Butte Valley near Oroville, Morning Glory Organics grows a selection of specialty and heirloom melons. (more…)

Gardening (and writing) in the heat of mid-August, it is sometimes difficult to pull my view up from the moment in order to plan for the future, but August is a good time to be planning and planting for the winter garden. It’s a good time to have soil prepared and to direct seed beans, beets, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, chard, lettuce, white onion, white potatoes and turnips. Photo: The summer garden may be like a small jungle and you may be harvesting tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and cucumbers like a mad person - don’t forget to plan and plant ahead for fall and winter crops.

It’s also a good time to be thinking about bulbs. If you are interested in planting more bulbs this fall, now is a good time to place orders from seed and/or bulb sources or growers in your area or at your local farmers market. Ordering now will help to ensure you get the best selections even though you won’t want to plant most bulbs out until October or November. This is true of ornamental bulbs like narcissus and alliums as well as for edible bulbs like GARLIC. (more…)

“Once neighbors and passersby see the changes happening as you begin the process of removing your default front lawn and replacing it with something more lively and interesting,” notes landscape designer Bernadette Balics of Davis, “curiosity gets the best of them, and they ask questions. I really like the social aspect of this gardening interaction, and my clients do too. If you plant something edible, the interest level really peaks. So consider replacing your lawn with some strawberries or artichokes, and meet the neighbors.” Photo: Bernadette’s gardens are frequently marked by creative pairings of common and less-common herbaceous perennials. Here a vibrant yellow yarrow and a radiant pink buckwheat (Eriogonum grande rubescens) balance opposite corners of a rich planting around a drip-fed cut-stone birdbath. In this composition, strongly textural foliage and the focal-point of the birdbath create interest year-round - for people and for visiting birds and pollinators.
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Ahhh, what the Sufi poet Rumi called “Smiling Spring” is upon us – in all her mystery. Like falling in love, spring makes us gardeners both ecstatic and yet restless/agitated. Some of the year’s sweetest and yet most ephemeral blossoms and fruits breeze in and out of our days – wintersweet and witch hazel, the early sweet violets, and winter honeysuckle, asparagus and the tenderest of greens and pea shoots…hmmm. (more…)

I first met and wrote about David Grau in the spring of 2009, at the end of his first winter of the Chico Organic Gardening Class Series, organized by David and held at the Chico Grange. Now headed into the third winter of this class series, David Grau and fellow gardening and sustainability enthusiast/advocate Adrian Johnson have formed a the Chico Organic Gardening Society and are also producing the new monthly e-publication Valley Oak Magazine, the mission of which is to gather and share information and resources pertaining to sustainability in the inland California valley bioregion. The magazine is named after the Valley Oak tree which is a unifying and constant feature of California’s inland valleys. (more…)