Green Wednesday: Clean up Now for a Great Garden Later and the Importance of Water Infrastructure
By Yvonne Rasmussen, UC Master Gardener of Napa County / Joy Eldredge is Napa's Deputy Utilities Director, and Pat Costello is Napa's Water Resources Analyst
Every Wednesday, Napa Valley Features includes posts from local environmentally focused voices alongside the ongoing series by the U.C. Master Gardeners of Napa County, who share research-based horticultural advice. Together, these organizations provide valuable insights into sustainable gardening practices and climate-related topics relevant to our region.
In "Clean up Now for a Great Garden Later" by Yvonne Rasmussen, the author offers practical tips on cleaning up vegetable beds, mulching, planting cover crops, and fall pruning to ensure a healthy and productive garden next season.
In "What Would Happen If You Had No Water?" Joy Eldredge and Pat Costello emphasize the critical role of water infrastructure, the potential challenges Napa could face without it and the need for reinvestment to secure a sustainable water future.
Clean up Now for a Great Garden Later
By Yvonne Rasmussen
NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — As nighttime temperatures cool and we pick the last of our summer crops, it’s time to prepare the garden for winter and next spring. Many activities done now can make your late winter and spring gardening easier and your garden more beautiful and productive.
Cleaning up and mulching: These are important steps for vegetable beds. Remove tired summer vegetable plants and clean up debris and weeds to reduce insect, pest and weed issues in the spring. Insects can hide in plant parts and debris, and disease-causing fungi and bacteria can survive in the soil over the winter. Come spring, they emerge or become active and attack new plants or tender spring growth.
Once you’ve cleaned up, add a layer of clean mulch to beds and around perennial plants. Mulching can help prevent diseases and will feed your soil. It also retains soil warmth and moisture and protects soil from compacting during heavy rain. Mulching with organic materials, such as compost or wood chips, will feed soil microbes and fungi, improving soil structure and health.
If you use tree leaves for mulch, move them to an area with unrelated plants. For example, use oak leaves around fruit trees, shrubs or flowers. This practice will help disrupt some disease and insect life cycles. For information on the pros and cons of various organic mulches, see “Improving Soil With Organic Mulches,” one of many Healthy Garden Tips available from UC Master Gardeners of Napa County.
Plant a cover crop: Now is a good time to sow a cover crop to improve and retain your soil. To add nutrients, use legumes such as clovers or beans. To improve soil structure, use deep-rooted plants such as mustards or radishes. To minimize erosion, use a combination of cover crops, including some grasses. Seed mixes can be found at local nurseries.
If planted now, your cover crop will grow through the winter. Cut it down a few weeks before your planned planting time in spring. If possible, leave the debris on the soil surface to break down, further benefitting the soil as a green manure and mulch.
Keeping soil covered with plants or mulch over the winter helps prevent erosion and improves water penetration. Living roots feed all the microbes, fungi, worms and insects that live in our soil, keeping it healthy. Here’s a good summary of California cover crops from Audubon California.
Fall pruning: Deadheading (removing dead blossoms) can encourage some plants to keep blooming into the fall and will make the garden look neater. You may want to leave some seedheads for visual interest, color and as a food source for birds. I usually leave cosmos seedheads and enjoy watching tiny birds sway on them while eating the seeds. Cosmos self-seed readily, but if they come up where I don’t want them, I can always transplant them.
Fall is a good time to prune many winter-dormant plants and those that bloom in late spring through summer. Start by removing dead and diseased wood, stems, branches and leaves. Put diseased trimmings in the municipal compost bins, not your home compost. The municipal composting process gets hot enough to kill diseases; your own compost pile likely does not.
Not all plants should be pruned in the fall. Some prefer pruning in spring or summer or not at all, so check references before doing major pruning. Last winter I failed to cut back my pineapple sage and shrubby perennials. They stayed green all winter but looked ugly by spring, and it was then too late to prune. Lesson learned.
Warm-season grasses grow and flower in warm weather and turn brown in winter. They can be trimmed back to 2 inches in fall or spring, although you may want to leave them alone if they have colorful seedheads that provide winter interest or attract birds. Cool-season grasses grow mainly in the spring and fall, when temperatures are below 75 F. They stay green all summer but don’t grow much in hot weather. Prune these grasses in early spring, but do not remove more than two-thirds.
For guidance on pruning ornamental shrubs and trees, one of my favorite references is “American Horticulture Society Pruning & Training” by Christopher Brickell and David Joyce. This book includes details about when and how to prune, along with clear diagrams and general information on techniques. For a guide to pruning California native plants, including native grasses, visit the Theodore Payne Foundation website. Look under “Fall Garden Guide” for details on maintenance and care.
For any pruning or gardening activities, be sure to wear good gloves, gauntlets or sleeves to protect your hands and arms. Wear eye protection and make sure your tools are sharp. Clean all your tools after you use them to keep them sharp and ready for their next chore.
To learn more, attend the Napa County Master Gardeners “Fall Garden Clean-up” workshop on Saturday, Oct. 26 (details below).
Workshop: Join UC Master Gardeners of Napa County for a workshop on “Fall Garden Clean-up” on Saturday, Oct. 26, at Las Flores Learning Garden, 4300 Linda Vista Ave., Napa. Learn how we put the various garden plots to bed for the winter. There will be hands-on activities so you can learn how to implement these techniques in your own garden. Register here.
Library Talk: Join UC Master Gardeners of Napa County for a talk on “How to Improve Water Retention in Our Landscapes,” on Thursday, Nov. 7, at 7 p.m. via Zoom. Learn some water catchment/retention approaches that you can use in your own yard to “Slow It, Spread It and Sink It.” Register to receive the Zoom link.
Help Desk: The Master Gardener Help Desk is available to answer your garden questions on Mondays and Fridays from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. at the University of California Cooperative Extension Office, 1710 Soscol Ave., Suite 4, Napa. Or send your questions to mastergardeners@countyofnapa.org. Include your name, address, phone number and a brief description. For best results, attach a photo.
If today's story captured your interest, explore these related articles:
Transform Your Garden — Embrace Low-Maintenance Native Plants
Weekender Encore: Nature’s Sweet Treasure — The Blackberries of Napa Valley
Yvonne Rasmussen is a UC Master Gardener of Napa County.
What Would Happen If You Had No Water?
By Joy Eldredge and Pat Costello
NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — Imagine waking up, turning on the faucet to brush your teeth and nothing comes out. No water in the shower. No coffee.
Safe, clean drinking water plays a critical, life-sustaining role in our lives, yet the infrastructure needed to maintain its delivery to homes and businesses is often out of sight — and out of mind. You shower, make coffee, feed your family, flush the toilet, do the laundry, water the garden. But do you know where your water comes from?
Millions of Americans take water service for granted. With reliable systems, most don’t think twice about the infrastructure behind it. But everyone should be concerned about the future of these systems.
Thursday, Oct. 17, marks the 10th annual Imagine a Day Without Water. This national day of action, organized by the U.S. Water Alliance, encourages people to reflect on how water systems impact our lives and communities and to commit to ensuring a sustainable water future. What would your day look like if you couldn’t turn on the tap? How would it affect restaurants, hospitals, firefighters, farms, wineries, and the many businesses and industries that depend on water?
Water infrastructure is the lifeline of our valley. The city of Napa’s municipal water system began in 1922, when mayor Charles Trower and the city council purchased the private Napa City Water Co. The following year, Milliken Dam was completed. From these beginnings, the city now maintains an extensive network spanning more than 60 square miles throughout Napa County, including 5,000 acres of watershed land, two dams, two reservoirs, three treatment plants, nine pump stations, 14 storage tanks and 360 miles of pipe. A team of 68 city employees operates and manages this infrastructure 24/7, ensuring high-quality, reliable water service for 85,000 people in the city and unincorporated areas. The city also maintains key pipeline connections with American Canyon, St. Helena, Calistoga, Yountville and the California Veterans Home, allowing them to receive water in emergencies or supplement their local sources.
The Edward I. Barwick Jamieson Canyon Water Treatment Plant processes State Water Project water imported from the Sacramento River Delta. A $40 million improvement project in 2011 increased plant production capacity and added ozone treatment to improve water quality. State Water allotments for Calistoga and American Canyon are also treated at this facility.
Like many communities across the country, Napa’s water systems are showing their age. Nationwide, nearly $2 trillion is needed to improve water infrastructure. A water main breaks every two minutes somewhere in the United States, and over 2 million Americans still lack access to water and wastewater services. Despite these challenges, there is good news: Americans care about water. The 2024 Value of Water Index found that 88% of voters believe access to safe, reliable water is a top priority, a belief that crosses geographic and political boundaries. There is broad bipartisan support for more federal investment in water infrastructure.
Napa is not immune to these concerns. About 140 miles of the city’s water mains are more than 60 years old, and last year, crews repaired 88 main and service line leaks. Critical 36-inch and 42-inch transmission mains are at risk of catastrophic failure. The Hennessey Treatment Plant, now 43 years old, requires major upgrades, including ozone treatment to improve water taste and odor. These issues will require a significant investment of capital funds. The ongoing Redwood Road water main rehabilitation between Solano Avenue and Highway 29 is an example of a critical project to improve system reliability, reestablishing the last of many freeway crossings damaged in the 2014 South Napa Earthquake. Thanks to support from elected officials and ratepayers, the city will increase annual capital improvement program investments from $1 million in 2010 to $8 million by 2028 while continuing to provide some of the lowest water rates in the Bay Area.
Visit cityofnapa.org/water for information on the city’s capital projects and water-management planning.
Water challenges vary by community and will require local solutions, but reinvestment in water systems must be a local, state and national priority. Strong leadership on water issues is key to securing America’s future. Without reliable water, families and communities cannot thrive, and public health, safety and economic prosperity are compromised.
Imagine a Day Without Water is an opportunity for everyone to learn about local water systems and challenges. We need leadership at every level to ensure a reliable water future for generations to come. Investing in water is investing in a future where no American — no resident in Napa Valley — will have to experience a day without water — or a morning without coffee.
If today's story captured your interest, explore these related articles:
Green Wednesday: Fall Gardening Fun and Youth Climate Advocacy
Under the Hood: Climate Change's Growing Impact on Napa Valley
Pruning and Climate Adaptation Tips for Home Vineyards in Napa Valley
Dan Berger's Wine Chronicles: The Evolution of Wine in a Warming World
Black Sears Family Donates Land to Help Create Wildlife Corridor
Joy Eldredge is Napa's Deputy Utilities Director, and Pat Costello is Napa's Water Resources Analyst.
I live at 4.500 feet elevation in bear country. I mulch forest debris but do not compost. I will rake in some native plant seeds just before the snow and then use my mulch and biochar to cover the seeds to allow a robust germination in the spring.
Guess i had better get to work!!!!!