Winter Garden

It’s been raining here, practically a miracle. My romaine is very happy. Winter lettuce in the garden is pretty and eliminates those nasty surprises you forget about in your crisper—you simply nip off as many leaves as you need for each meal. Both my kids eat salad, and like to dress it themselves with Euro oils and vinegars a friend brought me.


And if you were wondering, my worms not only lived through the hot summer days, but are thriving! Yes, Kloe hearts worms.

Worm Palace

As you may remember if you’re following my soil-making attempts, I had a beehive in my trashcan composter, so had to throw it away (bee residue would only attract more.)
In California there’s a movement to make composting mandatory, which totally makes me laugh—you can’t even find composters at most garden shops, let alone Home Depot or Lowes. You can order them online, but they cost around $200 plus a hefty shipping fee.
So my specialty nursery (City Farmers, it’s amazing) convinced me to try worms. (His first suggestion was a horse, haha). I’m keeping a small, regular hot compost in addition.
Think worms are easy? The instruction booklet is about 20 pages long! I’m hoping the little guys are OK, they are hiding right now.

Bills and Bees

Did you ever notice, when you have no money coming in, bills seem to mushroom? Like WATER bills in my town have gushed through the roof? Like cars break down, teeth need cleaning, and kids seem to eat everything you put in front of them and ask for more? Like a swarm of bees decides to move into your compost and take up residence? (Funny how that works: bees are valuable, but it costs almost $200 to have a beekeeper take them away to a new home.) Now my trashcan compost has bee pheromones all over it, and I have to buy a new one… argh!
The hot months and fire season are just around the corner. Calmate tia.

Let Me Tell You My Story, Again

Install finished. It looks so different in it's second, much more natural, setting. See more photos at Art of Kloe.
Read a review here.

Re-Install

A friend and I created a public sculpture that was temporarily installed on the waterfront. But it’s been in storage for years now. It was supposed to go into a new library, but the first shovelful on that project has yet to be turned.
And so we found another place to put it up, a peace garden, and it’s going to be beautiful!

Green Plague

I now understand running bamboo for what it is: the major menace of the 21st century.
There is almost no way to kill it. Or remove it. Or poison it unless you want to permanently decimate the entire yard. If I were to get a backhoe and dig out the dirt six feet down, throw it all in the dump, refill with good top soil, the bamboo would come back. Because it has gone into the neighbor’s yard, and boy, are they grumpy about that fact.
Never, EVER, plant running bamboo, and I don’t recommend the clumping kind either (may be mis-labeled).
The American Bamboo Society advises to simply cut it down. And cut it down, and cut it down again. For years. Til the rhizomes (horizontal roots) are dead.
Meanwhile can I plant the bougainvillea I want in their place? Stay tuned.

Progress

Today I could finally envision how the house will look done, and I’m VERY happy. We cleaned up enough to see through the junk and debris (dump runs), and this little bungalow is beautiful—it was just waiting to be simplified/unified.
I planted the first tree, a Meyer lemon, and a few drought tolerant shrubs. The front will be bougainvillea and bamboo. No lawn anywhere. Two large trees unfortunately have to go: one is a ficus, the other, possibly a bottle tree, is leaning dangerously.
Here’s the front entry before any work was done. The black and white checkerboard will be sprayed off. By next week most of the major work will be finished!

May Day

Colors of SoCal now.

Spring Garden

Planted tomatoes and a bunch of seeds.
Transferred my compost. I just love making it, it’s like magic: fill a trashcan for 6 months with food scraps, coffee grounds, dead plants and hamster droppings, then transfer it to a smaller container for the next 6 months, then—wha-lah—rich, black soil!
Only bad thing was I saw, or I think I saw, a huge spider in my yard. A really HUGE one. Or was it a dream?

Don’t Hate Us

This is what our urban community garden looks like now.
In my own little garden I’m growing arugula, romaine, parsley, anise, beans, and radishes. Flowers are out because of the rains, but the snowpack still isn’t up to normal, so the California drought continues. Hard to appreciate when the weather is so utterly beautiful.

Local Woes

In the final week before the election two bombshells were dropped here in California, but they were barely noticed by the general public.
1st. Arnie Baby said he’ll have to cut two to four billion, BILLION, dollars more from education.
2nd. One of the water governing boards said it will deliver only 15% of what was requested by municipalities next year. 15%.
I know these issues have complicated politics, but still, if cuts to our kids and our yards don’t shake California to it’s core, we’re all asleep or drugged out of our sun-addled minds.

Urban Garden Sans Water

To continue my theme from yesterday, there’s another amazing garden on my urban campus. It’s a couple years old now, tucked against a formerly ghastly orange wall. It’s just a little south-facing strip of land between a parking lot and the cafeteria, but the gardeners really know their stuff. They planted small succulents and cacti, and now it’s a full blown desertscape, complete with ocotillo and palo verde, which normally don’t even grow here on the coast. You have to have perfect drainage for these plants.
There’s a problem for the average gardener and these beauties: very hard to weed. You have to wear thick gloves to protect yourself from the thorns. Of course, weed-wackers can’t be used. We need to be taught how to care for these types of landscapes, cause this is what we should be growing instead of grass.

Urban Garden

My most urban school, right downtown among the skyscrapers and expensive condos, is pretty progressive. And we’re being pushed to be green.
Six months ago volunteers covered a patch of grass, unused by loungers, between the library and the theater/arts building, with mulch. By end of summer it was plowed and seeded. It is now my city’s first urban garden, and as you can see, a wonder.
We have pretty bad soil, and no water here (I don’t think it’s rained in a year). The red flowering stalks are some kind of soil enhancer with deep roots, to break up the clay. Fava beans are planted to put nutrients back in, along with herbs, corn, and flowers. Fruit trees will be terraced on the hillside soon.
There are no gates around this garden, anyone can come in and take what they want. It’s an enchanted place.

Harvest Time in CA

An urban garden, unfortunately not mine…

Summer Garden

Tomatoes, of course. Also cucumbers, onions, chard, strawberries, chilis, herbs. Arugula seeded on its own, I’m psyched.
Best thing, however, is the compost I cooked. Rich black soil from a smelly mess of kitchen scraps and dried bougainvillea flowers. It can almost be eaten with a large spoon.

The Compost Saga

So you may remember I had a bit of a problem with my compost. In that it wasn’t properly cooking and so gathering lots of small flies. I closed it up in a black trashbag a month ago and started a new compost trashcan (still awaiting my worm bin).
A few days ago I dared to open up compost #1 to turn it, and wow, it’s turning into black soil already. I’m thrilled. I just love getting something out of the scraps I would have had to throw away.
But…
Now compost #2 is also gathering flies. I just pulled out all my flowering herbs and greens, threw them back into my compost, and will get some new starts. Have already put in my first tomatoes (photo is toms from last season). But the flies, ugh. Am getting screens in two weeks…

Early Spring Garden

Radishes and carrots
Last lettuce
New tomato starts
Radicchio (my fav),
Broccoli (didn’t do great with this)
Chives
Parsley (need to replace)

Kitchen Garden

One of my winter beds. This is why we pay so much to live here.

My Quest for a Worm Composter

Because I am a green fur-wearing girl, I need a small composter/worm bin that looks tidy and not like a plastic trashcan. You can order such a thing on line, but they are expensive. My NoCal compatriots say, trying not to sound condescending, doesn’t your city have a plan for low cost composters for the citizenry? I look on websites and yes, there is something run by the County. I go to several of the garden supply outlets where said item can be purchased, and get laughed off the premises. No composters for any price.
So I’m back to building my own, which will look, sigh, like the plastic bin it is with holes drilled in it. Composting garden and kitchen waste is such a no-brainer, but we in SoCal apparently don’t have a clue.