Plant now in Sonoma County for a spring explosion of wildflowers

Fifty years ago, being an organic gardener meant subscribing to a revolutionary change in thinking: replacing agricultural chemicals with a set of techniques like composting, companion planting and spraying tobacco and hot pepper tea on plants to repel bugs.

Nowadays, organic gardening and farming are mainstream, and many of its practitioners no longer feel that they are on the ramparts of social change. Now their understanding is that the role of the gardener or farmer is to build the health of the garden or farm.

They understand that a healthy garden or farm unleashes all sorts of natural systems that optimize quality in crops, suppress diseases and control insects.

For example, providing an area of the garden or landscape where wildflowers can grow sets out a buffet of pollen and nectar that will attract beneficial insects. Some are beneficial because the larvae of these insects eat insect pests and their eggs, while the adults feed on nectar and pollen and lay the eggs that will flood the garden with voracious pest-eaters in the future. Others are beneficial because as they fly from flower to flower, they pollinate the flowers, which then produce seed for California’s unique annual wildflower displays or vegetables for our organic meals.

The key to creating a healthy garden is to maximize its biodiversity; that is, the more diversity of creatures operating in the garden, the healthier it is. This health is built from the ground up. The soil is, by far, the most populated system in the garden. Bacteria, actinomycetes, fungi and a host of other microscopic soil dwellers are joined by earthworms, spiders, algae, and - of course - gophers, among many other critters.

So the gardener simply feeds the soil actively decaying organic matter (compost), which causes a population explosion of soil dwellers, and these in turn support healthy plants which support the health of the insects and animals that eat them.

Along with this, the gardener can promote biodiversity by supplying the beneficial insects with food found in California’s wildflowers, while at the same time spreading beauty throughout his or her landscape.

The wildflower garden soil should be prepared by digging it at least a shovel deep, turning it over, busting up any clods, and raking it out fairly smoothly.

The natural time to plant the seeds of the annuals and perennials that make up the fantastic beauty of the spring wildflower display is in the early fall, just before the rains return. Wildflower seed mixes are usually sold by the quarter pound, and that’s enough to thickly sow an area 10 by 25 square feet up to a more thinly sowed 750 square feet, or anything in between. This wildflower patch is best if it is contiguous with your vegetable garden, so the beneficial creatures can feed and then do their work in your food garden.

It’s best to mix the seed with dry compost or dry topsoil, or even dry sand. This will prevent you from sowing some areas too thickly and have the plants crowd each other out. It also makes it easier to sow by hand. Sow the seed by hand by using a sweeping motion, like you’re shooing away flies. The reason you use dry compost, soil or sand is to prevent the seeds from sprouting and then dying if the rains are delayed.

Once the area is sowed, rake the soil lightly. Most wildflower seeds don’t need to be buried very deeply, as they naturally fall to the ground and are lightly covered by the dead stalks of their parent plants over winter.

Your seeds will sprout when the rains return, get themselves started over the winter, and produce their flower show the next spring. Make sure that your patch doesn’t dry out. You don’t want to keep the soil wet, just moist so the tender seedlings don’t die.

When the patch looks well established, you can wean it from water slowly, with just an occasional deep watering in late winter or early spring.

During the next spring and summer, allow the plants to set seed, which you can either harvest or simply let fall to the ground naturally. Many species will self-sow. Perennials may not bloom the first year or even two. The old saying with perennials is “first year sleeper, second year creeper, third year boom goes the dynamite!”

Jeff Cox is a Kenwood-based garden and food writer who can be reached at jeffcox@sonic.net.