May 9, 2012
Our spring perennials are beginning to burst into bloom: While we’re certainly enjoying the flowers in our front yard, I’ve made a radical decision regarding our vegetable garden this summer: we’re not going to plant one. I feel as though … Continue reading
May 3, 2012
I’ve been reading all sorts of wonderful gardening books from the library recently: Free-Range Chicken Gardens: How to Create a Beautiful, Chicken-Friendly Yard; Urban Homesteading: Heirloom Skills for Sustainable Living and The Essential Urban Farmer (never-mind that we live way … Continue reading
March 19, 2012
One morning on our trip to Southern California we needed to kill time before lunch and decided to go for a family walk. We found ourselves in a quirky, well-kept neighborhood in Venice, California. Navigating up and down the streets, … Continue reading
March 5, 2012
Did you know that pollen grains come in different colors?! I think of pollen as shades of yellow, but that isn’t always the case, as we found out with our Valentine’s Day tulips last month. The white tulips contained yellow … Continue reading
October 21, 2011
As this year’s garden season comes to a close, I find there are several things I hope we do differently next year. Here are our goals for next summer. Check for ripe produce more regularly. This year so many strawberries … Continue reading
September 22, 2011
Not everything has been peachy-keen in our garden this year. There was the Alium Disaster. Remember last fall (above) when we planted dozens of alium and tulip bulbs? Yeah, well none of them sprouted. (Thank you to our neighborhood gophers … Continue reading
September 13, 2011
We’re had all sorts of animals pop up in our garden over the past three years: turkeys, gophers, frogs, snakes — evidently gopher and garter snakes love our garage, lucky us, and now this snail that we caught helping itself … Continue reading
July 14, 2011
Poppies grow rampant here in Northern California. We see the orange, California-native poppies bloom throughout the spring and summer, along roadsides and in fields. Reseeding themselves, they come up year after year. Recently we’ve also spotted the larger, more spectacular, … Continue reading
July 1, 2011
We’re transforming our front flower garden into a drought-tolerant oasis. My actions may sound eco-groovy (and, in part, they are), but I’m not going to lie and say it’s completely altruistic. Watering the garden several times a week takes a … Continue reading
