By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Summer crops are slowing down -- even in sunny SoCal.  So here are two ways to make the most of your remaining harvest.

You could make a tomato tart with the ripe tomatoes.  Yvonne Roman Davis has a great sounding recipe on her blog, Beyond the Lawn.

Then, if you have a few green tomatoes still left on your plants, but you're eager to put in your fall crops, go ahead and yank out the plants and hang them from the rafters in your garage.  The green tomatoes will continue to ripen, and you get to enjoy a few more home-grown tomatoes before the season's over.

This tip from Cindy McNatt's blog, Dirt Dujour.

Basil isn't going to be along much longer either.  Fern describes and critiques three different methods for preserving the leaves on her blog, From the Balcony.  The salt technique is new to me and perhaps you, too.

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

Photos © Log House Plants, 2009

Ornamental kale can make as much impact with leaves as other plants do with flowers. Taking advantage of that, Log House Plants has released a remarkable Dutch series of Kale that can be lightly pruned to take the illusion still further.

You plant these about 6 inches apart, and after they reach about 6 inches tall, you start pruning off the lower leaves so that each plant gets that long-stemmed, flower-at-the-top look. (The flowers, of course, are really just colored leaves.) Once plants reach a foot tall, support each with a small stake. Pretty amazing, isn't it?

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

The connection is not accidental, since endorphins produced by your brain are responsible for both. (Endorphins are hormones that activate your body’s opiate receptors, reduce pain, and generally make you feel good. So when people mention hot-pepper addiction, they are not far wrong.)

Here’s how researchers proved the connection. First they fed their happy volunteers potent hot peppers, noting the burning lips and mouths that immediately followed. Then, after a little time passed and the pepper eaters’ lips didn’t burn any more, the guys in white coats administered endorphin blockers. Soon the volunteers were in an agony of unrelieved burning from capsaicin, which is the peppers’ active principle, and science was served.

So have some hot chile peppers—but stay away from those endorphin blockers.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

I know it feels too hot to plant, Southern Californians.  It is.  But there are some great plant sales coming up.  So summon up enough energy to at least shop.  You can--and I would--store the plants in the shade until the temperature starts to drop.  

Sept. 26, Shipley Nature Center , Huntington Beach -- Native Plant Sale, 9-4.  Also bee lecture.  Find out why you shouldn't wear black if you're afraid of bees.  (No, I'm not telling.)

Oct. 10-11, Fullerton Arboretum, Fullerton  -- California native and fall plant sale. 10-4.

Oct. 10-11, The Huntington, San Marino -- Fall Plant Sale, 10:30-4:30 Ground covers you can substitute for turf will be one of the focuses this year.

Or head to Vernon this weekend (Sept. 26-27) to take advantage of the Windowbox going-out-of-business sale.  See Cindy McNatt's blog Dirt Dujour for details.  As she points out, great opportunity to buy cool pots, etc. for your plant-loving friends.

If you just can't budge out of that hammock, here are a few more sales that occur later, when hopefully it will be a little cooler:

Oct. 17-18 University of California Riverside Botanical Garden, Riverside -- Annual Fall PlantSale.

Oct. 17-18, Quail Botanical Gardens, Encinitas -- Fall Plant Sale

Oct. 24, Tree of Life Nursery -- Fall Plant Sale of the O.C. chapter of the California Native Plant Society

Just plant it in gritty, fast-draining soil and it should survive a winter that would take out all other agaves. The principle (which is the same for many plants) is that it can handle the cold as long as its roots don't have to contend with constantly soggy soil. 

Expect it to grow about a foot tall, and to produce offsets that extend its width to 15 or 20 inches in the ground. This is also a great pot plant.

Starting December 1st, you can mail-order Agave 'Sunspot' from High Country Gardens in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Or preorder now by mail or phone (800/925-9387).

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Okay, I lied.  When I posted about Susan Van Atta's new book, The Southern California Native Flower Garden recently, I said I had decided on a replacement planting plan.  I had the one on the left in mind.  But, as I said in the post, this is a hard book to put down, and now I like the combo on the right just as well.

So, what do you think experienced native growers? 

Shall I go with Plan A, on the left:  Oceanspray (Holodiscus discolor), Heuchera maxima, and five-fingered fern (Adiantu aleuticum)?

Or Plan B, on the right:  Spicebush (Calycanthus occidentalis), Acalypha californica (California copperleaf), and Roger's Red grape?

I live in Sunset zone 24 and the area in question gets good morning sun and is in light shade in the afternoon.  I have silty loam soil.

Please advise.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

  I always thought tri-cut gardening books--the kind where you flip pages back and forth to see different plant combos together--were just gimmicks.  So when The Southern California Native Flower Garden, which uses that format, appeared in the mail, I was fairly skeptical, even though I know and trust the author.  But there's no harm in road testing it, I decided.  And I used the book as a planning tool to come up with some alternative vignettes for a section of my native garden I'm not pleased with.

I'm still road testing.  Not that the book hasn't been useful--it's great, in fact.  It's just that it makes research so much fun, I'm having a hard time putting it down even though I'm pretty sure I've already decided on my replacement vignette.

The book is set up with plant illustrations on the right.  Tall on the top, medium in the middle, and low on the bottom.  The illustrations also show exposure, water needs, peak interest period, habitat value, and--we like this--Sunset climate zones.  And, on the left, there's a plant profile.  Most of them include companion plantings.  Using these suggestions to create vignettes is a great way to begin getting acquainted with the book's format.

The more you use the book, the better you get at making the most of it, I'm finding.  For instance, at first I was just paying attention to make sure the plants I was combining needed the same amount of sun and water.  But, then, after awhile, without really setting out to, I began combining plants that had the same origin--woodland, coastal sage, etc.--and the combinations, not surprisingly, looked like they belonged together.

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised this would be a great book.  I've seen and loved many a Susan Van Atta garden--several of which have appeared in Sunset's pages.  And I know Van Atta dearly loves native plants and that the 164 species she's chosen for this book have been thoroughly vetted.  It's just the format I was dubious about.  And, surprise, surprise, it's what I like best.

If you can't find the book at your usual sources, you can order it on-line directly from Gibbs Smith, the publisher.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

  Why pretend you live in Tuscany, when you reside in coastal California?  That's something Costa Mesa garden designer Molly Wood can't understand.

"You live close to the beach, where most of the world would like to be," she says.  "Why not celebrate that?"

Wood certainly does.  Everything about her design style is "beachy." 

Take her fountains. Nearly every fountain she does, I noticed browsing Wood's website, incorporates sea shells. 

Not all of the fountains are as detailed as this one, which is on display at Wood's shop in Costa Mesa, but there is some use of shells and/or connection to the ocean in all of them.

The idea came from watching her son play with an abalone shell, says Wood.  "Seeing the water trickle through the holes gave me the idea to incorporate that same movement in a fountain," she says. 

After visiting her store and and spending a morning seeing some of her projects, though, I see how the beach connection permeates everything Wood does.  Her firepits, for instance, look like more formal versions of the ones you huddle around when you're at a beach party right on the sand.  And, if you look closely, you'll notice there are often tiny sea shells in the grouting between her paving stones.

Back at the shop, I notice how the beach motif infuses everything Wood touches, from the casual styling of the furniture she prefers -- honed concrete table tops that look beach-polished; to her succulent plant combinations -- they look like coral formations; to her choice of pots -- lots of shell shapes and shell textures, like the beauty shown below. (More about this line of pots tomorrow.)

My visit with Wood has me rethinking my backyard.  I'm not exactly channeling Tuscany back there, but I'm not embracing my proximity to the beach as much as I could either.  At a minimum, I'd love to incorporate her sea-shell encrusting grouting idea.