In December Gardenerd participated in the Eco-Gift Festival. The founder of Eco-Gift, Tommy Rosen, and his lovely wife Kia asked me to build them the vegetable garden of their dreams. After some discussion, we decided what that dream should look like and then we began.
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I know this one won't sit well with those in the floral industry, but I had to share this video that came across my desk. Ben at Windowbox.com sent it my way. It offers an alternative to the traditional Valentine's gift. Please enjoy the True Story of Cut Flowers:
The True Story of Cut Flowers
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We took a trip up the coast, our California Adventure we called it, through San Luis Obispo, Big Sur, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, and then we visited Napa before heading down Interstate 5 to get home. We were blessed with the most beautiful weather, the kind, as my husband says, that explains the reason for high real estate prices.
We saw monarch butterflies fluttering in the trees and elephant seals basking in the sunshine along the shore. It seemed to be a good time for all things natural. The gardens were no exception. We spent 3 days at ...
After being gone for 10 days up the coast of California during what could be called the most beautiful summer-like winter weather Northern California has ever seen, my husband and I have returned to find the gardens thriving. Some veggies are just coming into fullness, while others - like the Osaka Purple Mustard - are finishing up. We came home to find a bright yellow flower shooting out the top of overgrown mustard greens (we couldn't possibly have kept up with the production of those giant leaves). We also found tiny, bright white, waxy cauliflower heads starting to ...
For those like me who don't get the paper, here is the recent article by Mary MacVean on the resurgence of Victory Gardens in Los Angeles. It appeared in the Saturday, January 10th edition of the Home and Garden section of the Times. Enjoy!
http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-victory10-2009jan10,0,7167635.story ...
And now for a moment of shameless self-promotion:
http://www.smmirror.com/MainPages/DisplayArticleDetails.asp?eid=9299
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For those who have been tracking our landscaping project, you might recall there are 5 spaces for fruit trees in the front yard, and only 4 trees. On Christmas Eve, the final addition arrived via FedEx (upside-down, despite the multiple appearances of "up" arrows all over the box, thank you very much). Our Fantasia semi-dwarf nectarine arrived virtually safe and sound, with only a couple of broken branches. Admittedly, I had never planted a bare root fruit tree before. I've killed a couple bare root roses in the past, so ...
In the middle of writing this month's newsletter, I was struck with hunger and a craving for soup. Could it be that I've been subsisting on gingerbread cookies all morning (made fresh last night)? They are a complete protein, aren't they?
Anywho - the need to eat right away was overshadowed by the idea of having something really nice to eat that could be assembled with minimal time. I cracked open my handy dandy binder of torn out recipes from magazines and leafed through to find something that used chickpeas and diced tomatoes - because that's what's in the fridge. I fell upon a ...
There's been a bit of a lapse on blog entries in the past week. Reason being, I was at the Eco-Gift Festival for 4 days, and the workload leading up to it was tremendous. Now that it's over, and after a little much-needed rest, blogging can resume as regularly scheduled.
For those who couldn't attend, here is a little taste of what it was like at the Festival. First of all, we had a great location - the first booth you saw upon entering the tent. You couldn't possibly miss our banner, which was wonderfully designed by Lenore ...
I was out in the garden the other day and noticed that my parsnips, which I had planted from seeds that I had saved last year, were sprouted and very happy. In fact, they were in need of thinning. See, I had planted several seeds on each hole because I didn't know if my saved seeds would actually be viable. Turns out, they are extremely potent.
So instead of following my own advice to snip off the extra sprouts with scissors, I opted to gently pull them out and put them to use in the kitchen. I was already ...