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I plan to turn over a new leaf next year. I'm talking about gardening. The rest of my New Year's resolutions are too numerous to list here! I wish I could tell you that I'll never put in another plant that might freeze during the winter. I wish I could tell you that I'll really start that compost pile this year and duke it out with the raccoons. I wish I could tell you I'll make more garden journal entries and not rely on sketchy memories. But the reality is gardening shouldn't be so much about regrets. It's about the delight we get from coaxing plants from the earth. A garden reflects our lives; there’s always room for growth as well as reflection.

CalFire announced on Wednesday that the City of Scotts Valley and unincorporated areas nearby, including Pasatiempo, Rolling Woods, Paradise Park and Cave Gulch, can repopulate immediately. CalFire has expressed confidence in fire lines protecting communities south of the San Lorenzo Valley to the east of Highway 9. Be sure to check out the current evacuation map to ensure your zone, as identified in the CalFire release, matches up with areas allowed to repopulate. We hope to learn more in coming days about other areas that will be allowed to repopulate, though we expect it will be some time for the hardest hit areas of Ben Lomond, Boulder Creek and Boony Doon. On Wednesday, CZU CalFire reported the Lightning Complex fires was 81,333 acres. While containment has increased to 21%, 23,000 structures are still threatened. On Wednesday, we learned that the staggering number of structures burned is at least 646, with all but 11 in Santa Cruz County. The damage assessment is just 55% complete. While we don't know the exact extent of the damage or the location of every damaged home, the County has released a Damage Assessment Map that contains up-to-date parcel-specific information about the fire's impact. Please visit the County's Fire Resources page for updates on sheltering and other services.

I drove through the Groveland area near Yosemite a couple of days before the Rim Fire started on August 17. The local talk over Tioga Pass was then about the recent Aspen Fire in the Sierra National Forest. The Rim fire has now burned 400 square miles of forest and cost $122 million to fight to date. What started as a 40 acre fire when discovered exploded to over 100,000 acres within two days. It is now the third largest in California history.

Nationwide, suicide is the third leading cause of death in teens, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Locally, teen suicide has hit all too close to home in recent weeks and years. While the subject of suicide is hard to think...

Every year, something amazing happens in the vineyard around the end of July and the beginning of August. The grapes start to change from adolescent green to their more mature red.

Each day my windshield is coated with yellow pollen grains from Douglas fir trees. Roadsides are crowded with blooming acacia trees. If you’re an allergy sufferer some plants are worse than others for you. What’s a gardener to do to mitigate scratchy eyes and congestion nearly year round where we live?