I inherited about five tons of red lava rock. It’s everywhere around our back yard. It works great between the raised beds, but when I tried to remove some to make the bulb garden I found a thick layer of
Year: 2011
Heaven in a wildflower
I have to admit that enjoying gardening as much as I do has surprised me. Is it an age thing? Wait! I’m not that old. But I don’t remember being as “into’ gardening in my twenties, (though I did garden
Learning from my mistakes
Sure isn’t that what life is all about – learning from your mistakes? I’m a graduate from that school of philosophy, for sure. One thing about doing the Master Gardeners program is that as I sit in lectures, learning how
Kale and hearty in the garden!
I’m going to have to send my homegrown veggies to the Master Gardener classes so that they learn what is expected of them. Most home grown vegetables are annuals. The exceptions include asparagus and artichokes, and in very hot
Happy Birthday Blog – 1 year old today!
On this day last year, I started this blog. I sent the link to all the people in my address book and hoped someone would read it. It was, and still is, such a thrill to get comments and followers.
Not quite a community garden!
From the day we moved to this house, I wanted to tile the back doorstep. It was covered in fraying green plastic that was supposed to resemble grass. It was lifting at the corners and becoming a hazard, so last
Gardening – a great lifestyle choice
It sometimes blows my mind to consider all the paths in my life that have lead me to this place – not just physically here in California – though that is an interesting ponder, but also doing what I do.
Poor gardening grammar
If the gardening season were a sentence, (like what was learned us in school) Springtime would be the capital-letter that starts the sentence, and winter is the full-stop (period to Americans) at the end. Californian gardens have bad gardening grammar.
Don’t ditch those post-Christmas Poinsettias
Once upon a time, a poor Mexican girl called Pepita walked with her cousin, Pedro, to the Christmas Eve Services. She was sad and upset that she had no gift for the Baby Jesus. “Don’t be sad,” said Pedro.
The pleasures of pruning
‘Tis a soft day – thank God. You don’t get to say that often here in sunny California, where the sun splits the trees most days – aye, splits them but doesn’t prune them! This morning the hills were