Chicken gone Wild!

I felt like I was on a live shooting of Animal Planet! My chicken captured a flying grasshopper and banged it on the ground until it stopped moving and then swallowed it whole. It was amazing! I was able to capture a picture of the chicken just moments before it ate the grasshopper.

Ed's taco shack is getting serious upgrades! It has tile flooring and the grill is no longer stacked bricks, it's covered with cement and has side doors. Our neighbor Jose is welding it a custom grill top with a rotisserie turner.

The artichoke plants were also attacked by the chickens. The chickens stomped out the leaves and chopped on them. The ground is very moist with lots of bugs, all the right ingredients to attack chickes.

As much as we loved the sweat peas, it's time to let them bow out gracefully. The height of these beauties toppled over on top of my strawberries and onions. The strawberries began to wilt. So I pulled out as many seed pods as possible, then we pulled out the flowers. See you next year sweat peas!

Location, Location, Location

I went to purchase plants to get our salsa garden up and going. I had found an area that I thought would be convient and close to Ed's grill shack (I sketched out a plot plan with the water hose). However, I noticed that the area was covered with shade, not good for sun loving peppers and tomatoes. The next day, the boys and I went back outside and found another location. This site is directly in front of his grill shack, so as he's grilling, he can see his salsa ingredients. The boys and I set out tomatoe cages to make sure we had enough room for our plants. Hopefully on Friday, the neighbor will bring by the truck load of garden soil I need so I can start planting.

So WE went to the gardening class

The boys attended with me the Edible Garden Class. Thank goodness other kids were there and they all kinda played together. We learned about what to plant for summer and about companion planting (like the 3 sister: corn, peas, and squash). The pizza garden inspired me to create a salsa garden. I've been thinking of different locations and haven't quite decided where... The boys are such great garden helpers, I'm glad they are outdoorsie kids!

Busy bees at work!

Here are two of my favorite morning bees: Eli and Sole! (Max is my favorite past-9:30am bee) Sole and Eli got up just after the sunrise to go pick avocados and oranges.


















As I went to what was growing that was new, I came across our beloved abandoned plant, the cactus. This is just any cactus, it's the one that you can eat the "leaves" or the nopalitos. Our neighbor Don Natividad (Nati) and Tony (his son) gave us some of these cactus when we first moved into our home. Ed planted them way (way, way, way) in the back against a fence. About a year later, we decided to put the chicken coop back in that far away corner and we found that the cactus had thrived in that area! Ed cut some nopales off and we grilled them up that night. Since then we try not to forget about this edible delight- it's the perfect plant: we never water it and it semi-protects against coyotes.

















(While I know I mention Home Depot a lot in my blog, I will say Lowes is my favorite Hardware Store- the customer service and friendly staff and great prices are way better at Lowes! plus a lot of the plastic flower pots look real and they are made here in the USA! As far as plants go, I usually find the best quality at Local Nursery [gotta support small/family-own businesses]) Great finds: I went to Home Depot to see if they had a water hose thing that I needed, when I came across a rain barrel! Just last year, I had called around all the hardware stores (including this one) and no one had any in stock. It's nice to know that consumer requests add stuff to the stores. Although the barrel is smaller then the one I have, it's actually nice that the "safety-cone-orange" one that I own. For those that are not do-it-yourselfers, they also sell premade x4 raised beds.

When life hands you citrus...

We have an abundance of citrus (almost ready for picking). I'm hoping to make marmalade, candied citrus peel, citrus curd- so if you have good canning recipes, please share. If you like citrus, come on over and pick your own and help yourself.

The artichokes are coming! My plant had been infested with aphids and a few lady bugs came to the rescue, but it wasn't enough to save the plant, so I had to butcher all it's leaves off. Luckily this plant is very strong and it recovered well and began to grow new leaves- as if nothing happened. I saw some artichokes at Home Depot for less the 5 bucks, but this plant is so huge, I'm not sure where to plant it. As it is, the arti above is in a weird spot in our yard.

I had sown a ton of radish, carrot and beet seeds in this section of our yard. While I see a few emergers, the grass/weed ratio overwhelms root crop productions! It is very hard to pull weeds out around root crops, because they are so close to the root crps. I just throw daggers at the weeds with my "evil eye" stare and hope they die.

So I've know for a while that my kale leaves looked alot sunflower leaves, but today as the first flower bloomed, it made it offical. At least one plant is growing taller and faster than the weeds!

how to feed the worms...

I know it sounds gross, but feeding worms is not all that bad. I start by collecting kitchen scraps (ks), The parts of the fruit or veggies that gets cut of and usually thrown away. I also go through my fridge the night before trash gets picked up and I toss into my k.s. pile all the produce that's gotten soggy and won't get eatten by us. I place all these left over k.s. into the freeze in a gallon ziploc bag. When I fill up the bag (about a week or two), I go outside and I push all the worm bedding (looks like soil) into one side and then dump the food in and cover it again with the bedding. These worms don't eat food that is "above ground". It also helps prevent other critters and things feasting.

Why freeze? In my early years of worm composting, i'd get a lot of ants in the bin. So another worm composter recommended to freeze the food. This helped in several ways: 1. the food thaws out and moistens the bedding (it is very important for worms to have a moist environment) 2. The food as it thaws out, decomposes faster making it easier for worms to consume (also important since they don't have teeth) 3. The ants can't smell frozen food and don't like a freezing environment. (i've never seen ants walking in the snow). During supper hot days, I'll place ice cubes on the top of the bedding to help moisten the top and keep flying critters and things away.

A lot of worm composters keep the worms in a regular size storage bin under there kitchen sinks for easy feeding. The closest Ed alows me to keep the worms near the sink is out side by our trash bins (which is a lot closer than what I had then last year!). As long as the area is shaded ps: the best way to control worm population is on the amount you feed them. The more food, the more the worms... Where to get these adorable creatures? Master Gardeners near the red barn sells them during the OC fair. They also sells bins. Can't wait for summer to start worm composting? LA/OC county smart gardening program has workshops almost every weekend and they sell worms and supplies. PS: They have a raffle at the end of the workshop where you can win the supplies for free (that's how I got started)!

These pea pods are so fresh, we just pluck them and eat straight off the vine.

We bought a six pack of cilantro for 99 cents and know it's taken over my side of the house kitchen garden. We usually forget to buy cilantro when we're at the store, so it's kinda nice having it on hand when we need it. Since our cars are parked near it, we brush against it and a nice aroma fills the air!

Adding to our garden...

I pulled out some weeds under my raspberry canes. As I was standing up, I saw a red token or appreciation awaiting for me! Yay, there is a cluster of more about to change color!

Strawberries are known for having white flowers, so when I saw this Pretty in Pink Strawberry Plant, I knew I could make room for another strawberry plant. The yellow center is already forming into the edible delight! The tag indicates it's a perinial, so year after year, I'll have these pretty pink flowers to enjoy.

When we're in the backyard, this chicken (who still remains nameless) keeps following me, everywhere I go, and whenever possible, it like to be eye level with me. If I'm turning the soil, it's right there to catch whatever juicy creature pops out of the ground. This chick is truely my "Wing Man".

I love harvesting plants, and my future endevour is to harvest water following from my roof... I just hope it doesn't rain until I purchase and install it... These rain barrels cost about 199 at H&H nursery in Lakewood.

Max wants me to catch the butterfly that kept spiraling all around up. The butterfly reminded me I need to work on my butterfly garden...

We found aspargus plants, (For many years, I wasn't sure how I thought they grew, maybe from a tree, kinda like pineapples...) so since we like eating them, we got them.

What do football players do during the off season?

Fresh pickings: Grapefruits, oranges, passion fruits, limes, cherry/grape tomatoes (hint: the twins favorite, I didn't even see him take the tomato until after the photo came out. We also have avocados (i forgot to put them in the picture) and strawberries (we ate them on the spot- so sweet and juicy!)

A lot of weeds were growing between the strawberry/onion patch, so I covered the walking patch with the staw that was holding up my pumpkin display. The strawberries are where we had planted the zuci's last year. So this year, I'm planting the to the right of the strawberries, you can kind of see the bare land in the picture. To the bottom left of the picture, you can see my star jasmine, it didn't fill in the fence quite liked I'd hoped. I'm thinking of replacing it with a kiwi or passion fruit vine.

(still wondering what the answer is to my question?) The good ones usually prepare for the next season. And while most people are thinking of gifts, holidays and new year resolutions, gardeners are thinking of what to plant for spring. I received my burpee catalog and my Nichols Garden catalog back in early December. While I love shopping and am a strong believer in helping local shops, I really want to grow hops this year, and Nichols' seems to have several varieties. They also sell Cheese making kits (this sound like a great mom's club activity). I'm also hoping Ed finds his truck keys soon, so we can load up on free fertilizer from Norwalk Dairy (don't let the name fool you, it in Santa Fe Springs) 13101 Rosecrans Ave, Santa Fe Springs, Ca. Yes! they have over a hundred cows there and you'll never know it, even if you're intentionally looking for this place, it's easy to miss.

I've been scouting out place to buy to best fruit trees for cheap. So far, it's Costco (the bulk store- although they are selling the trees individually price) the rose are 2 in a box for 16.50. They have this year's one and only rose winner "Easy Does It." I'm not a huge fan of roses, but Ed likes them, and since I accidentally killed his Veterans of Honor roses last year when my worm bin fell and broke rose branches. Then I decided to move it while it was blooming to a better location. I uprooted it and place it in a temp pot until I'd get around to it later that day. Well a few minutes later, the boys and I got hungry and went inside the house for lunch... and forgot about the rose bush until a month or so later when I was looking for my flower pot.

Remember my pea/peacock/tool shed frame. My friend Ester came by a while back and helped me plant Aloe Vera on south facing part. The North side seems to be to shady to grow anything, until (hopefully) now. I planted so cabbage, bok choi, and broccoli there. I'm also going to sprinkle lettuce seeds and see if they bloom.

Even great atheletes make mistakes... and that holds true for novice gardeners- like myself. I used twisty ties to hold it to its support stick. Then a few months later the truck grew around the ties- I couldn't pull the ties out, it's like the tree ate them! What do we do with our mistakes? We learn from them and try not repeating them...