So needless to say, the growing season is year-round here, and gardening in winter is a special kind of fun. It’s the time of year we get to grow all the yummy cool-weather crops that would otherwise wilt or bolt in the warm, waterless weather we experience for the entire rest of the year. Crucifers! Root veggies! Broccolis and cauliflowers and cabbages, oh my!

I love it, and even though the last quarter of grad school had me completely 100% neglecting my entire yard (hello, weed overgrowth from hell!), I did manage to get a good crop into the ground before the end of summer, and somehow this rain has kept things growing with my absolutely minimal involvement. It’s actually kind of amazing. I ignored it for 10 weeks, and now suddenly all these delicious foods are popping up every other day. Wahoo!

Here’s what’s been going on:

And that’s about it for my garden these days. But, now is the fun part of plotting and planning for springtime! I’ve been poring over the Rare Seed Catalogue from Baker Creek, and I can hardly help myself from ordering one of everything!

Tell me friends, what have you been growing? Or if it’s too cold where you are right nw, what are you planning for spring?

Happy gardening!

♥

I was born in the wrong century, man. I’m a farm girl at heart!

Anyway, here’s what’s been going on this summer. It’s all a work in progress this first year, still learning the layout and strengthening the soil, dealing with pests and diseases left by the previous tenants (powdery mildew is the bane of my existence!), and settling into this beautiful new space.

I have two main garden areas this year, and the first is this, along the side of the house. This is where I planted my first seeds of the season — corn and sunflowers along the fence. Then filled in the bottom with beets, calendula, chamomile, mustard greens, and a few volunteers showed up: tomatoes and squash.

Taken from the other direction. So much green! Happy happy tomatoes.

Around the back I’m still growing in wine boxes — I just can’t help myself. Mostly peppers (tabasco) and herbs. Oh, and a potato tower, of course.

And one volunteer cherry tomato plant that I just couldn’t bear to let go. Instead, I let it grow, and strung up some twine for it to trellis on.

Back to the side yard . . .

Around the front of the house is the main garden . . .

This little strip along the front of the house is maybe my very favorite. Strawberries, basil, bee balm, shallots, zinnias, mint, and bachelor’s buttons. It’s just bursting over with life!

But these guys. These guys always have my heart!

I have been gardening, in one way or another, for pretty much all of my adult life. But for some reason this space, this land I’m on right now, is the land I feel the most connected to, of any place I’ve ever lived. This little rental duplex in the middle of the city, on the “wrong side of town”, where I have no real roots or ties or anything to bind me — this is where I’m doing the most intimate gardening of my life. More than the home I owned in Portland. More than the house up in the foothills where I lived and learned to garden for 5 years during college.

Why here? Why now? I don’t know, but I’m loving it. In this difficult year, working this land has been my very best medicine.

♥

Anyone who’s followed my blog for more than a little while knows that I love my gardening season. LOVE. Nothing else in my life gives me quite the same feeling: anchors and elevates me all at the same time. Gardening is my soul food.

Back in Portland I grew green feasts in my raised beds every year; I relished the yard work and fancied myself an “Urban Gardener Extraordinaire!” Then after the move to Santa Barbara, I continued my green ambitions, growing all my precious plants in clay pots and wooden wine boxes, along with various other creative upcycled containers. In Portland I kept a Meyer Lemon tree in my living room, because the citrus wouldn’t withstand the Pacific Northwest winter, but I just couldn’t bear to live without it. And in Santa Barbara I began a love affair with tropical exotics like passion fruit and dragon fruit. It’s all been a grand adventure and now, moving into this brand new house right on the eve of Gardening Season 2016, it’s been nothing but PURE PLEASURE just diving on in to this next great fertile landscape.

Another blank canvas for me to lay my green garden paint upon. And already, it’s taking on such a beautiful shape!

Yeah, okay so it was a rough start. Lots of potential to be sure, but the yard that I inherited was pretty dang neglected, and I spent the first few weeks and months just cleaning, weeding, mulching, and salvaging what few plants I could (there was a mighty aphid infestation — that towering brassica you see in the foreground sadly couldn’t be saved — and powdery mildew covered much of the foliage throughout the front yard). It’s been a lot of work, but ultimately I was able to prepare a lovely new space, and I even uncovered a few real treasures!

Here’s some progress pics of how my urban homestead has been coming along so far this year . . .

I started with the side yard, a simple strip of dirt all along the length of the house. But I saw the possibility it contained, and set about preparing the bed for planting. I’m so excited to finally be in a place where I can grow vegetables directly in the ground – sort of a first for me!

This year I’m growing a few varieties of tomatoes, and of course a few of each of my other favorite veggies. But, I still receive a local organic farm box each week, year round, so I often feel like I have enough fruits and veggies to keep us fed on the daily. Which is awesome, because it really frees me up! I can grow the stuff that I really love, like exotic fruits (passion and goji and pinapple, for example) and the stuff I like to have in abundance for preserving (tomatoes, strawberries, basil, etc), and the stuff I can’t get locally (like vegan protein – I grow a lot of beans for drying!). Plus this year I’m growing lots of flowers for cutting (fresh flowers around the house are just so joyful, don’t you think?), and I’m also really focused on herbs, both culinary and medicinal (like calendula, chamomile, echinacea, bee balm, mint, etc).

This is one of those treasures I was talking about! This is epazote, an herb that hails from Mexico and Central America, and that’s considered semi-native in southern California. It’s a wonderful culinary herb (cook it with beans to reduce gas!) and it’s also brewed medicinally as tea. One day I heard a quiet rapping on my door, and opened it to find a teeny tiny old Mexican woman who didn’t speak a word of English (not at all uncommon in my neighborhood). She was pointing at the giant epazote in my front yard, and pantomiming plucking, and it was pretty obvious she was asking if she could pick some. Of course I nodded, and she was so stoked!

When I first moved in here the epazote was huge, but completely covered in fungus which had shriveled the leaves and turned them black. It’s been such a pleasure to carefully prune this precious plant, and treat the infection, and slowly nurse it back to health. It’s so happy now!

Strawberries! Of course I had to plant a whole little strawberry patch for Waits, all along the front of the house. 3 dwarf varieties and 3 of the standard-sized ones. He picks a few every day when he comes home from summer camp. In the same little bed I’m growing marigolds and blue boys, plus lots of basil, a bee balm, and a lemon balm. Plus I’ve got some leeks and shallots ready to transplant. All of these plants (strawberries, basil, leeks/shallots) are considered “companions”, and the flowers are great for attracting beneficial insects and other pollinators.

Another most incredible discovery that came with the house — this is native American sacred tobacco. It’s different from the European tobacco they use in cigarettes, and it’s considered to be one of the four sacred medicines by local indigenous peoples. I’ve been reading about how to properly use sacred tobacco, or Semah, because it’s important to me to respect the spirit of this plant. Honestly, I feel honored to be able to tend it in my garden — it feels like a gift. Semah is a powerful plant, full of magick and medicine, and I intend to do right by it.

And that, my friends, is just about that . . . for now. Actually, my garden already looks completely different than it did in these pictures (taken a few weeks ago), and I’ll be updating again soon. But for now, YOU tell ME — what are you growing?? I want to see pics! Please leave a comment down below and if you can, post a link to your blog or a picture of your awesome 2016 garden, so that we can all share in your joy!

As gardeners, we all know the bliss of feeling our hands buried in cool soil; of plucking sun-warmed vegetables from the vine; of carefully tending our seedlings and watching them flourish. So please, share your bliss! We’re all dying to see it!

♥ ♥ ♥

Okay, so truth be told, I’ve already been playing out in the dirt for a few weeks now. I have a whole new yard to work with this year, so I could hardly contain my excitement. My hardier seedlings were sown outside in late March — my broccoli and mustard greens, cilantro and red lettuce, and of course my very most precious medicinal herbs: chamomile and calendula and echinacea. But I know that California is pretty much an anomaly, and I’m lucky to be able to begin so early. And now, the rest of the country is gearing up for garden season! Huzzah!

So I thought I’d share some of the gardening wisdom we’ve accumulated here on this site, over the years. Because man, I feel like we’ve done it all! From propagating strawberries into a proper patch, to saving our seeds (like sunflower and coriander and dill), and so many harvest projects in between.

Here’s a list of intro-gardening links that we’ve amassed, over 7 (!!!) years of micro-homesteading experimentation:

• How To Make Newspaper Seed Starter Pots
• How To Make TP Roll Seed Starter Pots

• How To Start Seeds Indoors
• Growing From Seed, Continued
• A Watering Can Hack For Seedlings
• Hardening Off
• Tips For Transplanting Seedlings
• A Tip For Transplanting Tomatoes
• Tips For Thinning Out Seedlings (don’t waste those babies!)

• How To Grow Potatoes In Tire Towers
• And The Tire Tower Follow-Up

• An Introduction To Container Gardening
• Small Space Gardening: Inverted Tomato Hanging Planters

• Veganic Gardening At Home
• Cheap And Easy Compost Bin System
• 65 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Compost

So are you guys as excited as I am??

In the past few weeks I’ve sown a fence border of sunflowers + snap peas + sweet corn. I’ve also started a few more seedlings outdoors, like basil and marigold and blue boys. And indoors I’ve managed to start a whole incredible collection of babies (despite two very curious kitties trying to thwart my plans), now ready to move outside: watermelon and loofah and tomatoes and bee balm and dill and peppers and pinto beans. Oh yeah! And purple cauliflower and fennel and onions and leeks. Whew!

So what are you growing, my friends? What are your big beautiful plans for our upcoming gardening season?

♥

But also, I wanted to give y’all a little life update. In my last Pictures Of Things + Le Love List, I mentioned that I was experiencing a lot of change right now. Which is true – there is so much change happening that sometimes it feels like my head is spinning round and round! And one of the biggest things, one of the best and saddest and most exciting and also sort of heartbreaking things, is that I’m moving . . .

. . . next door.

But, well, times is tough ’round here. And Harley’s recent hospitalization was a final straw in a pile of straws that was very, very over-final. And I know I don’t talk about my financial situation much here on the blog, but as I’m sure you can guess — I’m not like, rolling in the dough. You’re shocked, I know! But seriously, I’m a graduate student living primarily on grants and TA stipends, and Jeremy built (and continues to build) a small business entirely out of credit. So yeah, things are tight. I’m not complaining, of course — just trying to keep it real here. Authenticity, always.

I think it’s so important for bloggers, especially “lifestyle bloggers,” which I guess is what you’d call me, to be honest about their lives. Their real lives, behind the pretty facade. Because I work really, really hard to create a beautiful life, a happy life, a life that is uniquely mine. And the truth is that I don’t always have a lot to work with . . . but that’s okay by me. I am happy with all I have. It feels like a whole lot.

But with that said, we’ve decided to downsize. To consolidate. I’ll be subletting my wee little cottage, and Waits and I will be moving in with Jeremy. So far it’s been really fun combing our households! And Waits has been such a sweetheart about the whole thing. He’s all smiles.

Aahhh, my little garden. All repurposed pots and up-cycled wine box planters. With scavenged trellis and baking twine, it’s got hand-me-down charm and broken china beauty. I hate buying anything new at the garden supply center, and much prefer to piece together my garden from other people’s discarded treasures (I once used an old mattress frame to trellis my snow peas), so my garden tends to take on a certain “adventure playground” aesthetic.

I dig it.

Here’s what’s cooking, July 2015:

And that’s not even everything — I also have two dragon fruit plants, three wonderberry bushes, a whole hot pepper garden, the basil of course, and many more herbs as well. Plus the potted lemon tree. Plus the kale and chard. And I’m sure there’s more I’m forgetting!

Needless to say, I pack a lot of food inside my tiny urban homestead. It’s such a labor of love and I have so, so much fun with it. California is in a drought, so I’ve forgone all my flower-growing for the moment. But growing food at home is such an eco-friendly, water-saving practice. I do it because I love it, but it sure does feel good to know I’m making an environmental impact as well.

Okay! Now it’s your turn. I want to know what you’re growing this year, and if you’ve blogged about your garden or posted pictures somewhere, I’d LOVE to see it! So please please share in the comments below, so we can all revel in the summer glory together!

Cheers, and happy gardening!

♥ ♥ ♥

Oh I kid, I kid. Even here in SoCal we get to experience four distinct seasons. But our variation is much less variable, I guess you could say, and there’s never a time when the garden completely shuts down. So, I thought it might be fun to do a little guided tour of what’s going on, right now, during the “dead of winter” . . . and keeping in mind that it was 65 degrees yesterday. Brrrrr icy.

Right now California is in the middle of a horrible, multi-year drought. Last winter was abysmally dry, but this year has been a bit better. Better as in wetter. And this past weekend, we even had a little rain storm pass through (thank goodness!)

So on Sunday, during a break in the downpour, I scurried outside to capture a few photos from around my yard and garden. Here’s what it looks like, right now: a happy mix of fruit, flowers, fresh veggies, and in-progress preparation for the coming spring.

And that’s about it for me and my winter garden. So what about you? What’s growing right now, where you live? Anything at all? Under cloche or in greenhouse? Indoors only?

I’d love to hear from everyone out there – it’s so fun to compare the experiences of people across the country, as well as around the world. Icy cold in the northern hemisphere, sunny bright in the southern. Let’s share our gardens!

I’ll leave you with some of the absolutely beautiful bougainvillea, which basically blankets all of Santa Barbara (seriously, it’s everywhere). I remember growing up here and taking it all for granted, thinking that bougainvillea was so boring, so common. Like a magenta weed.

Of course, I was crazy! It’s an incredible plant, sprawling and vining with parchment paper buds perched in clusters like origami on the branches. And I love this stuff, now.



I’ll never take it for granted again.

♥ ♥ ♥

Like so:

Oh yeah wait, it could!




Don’t forget to save the seeds for next year!

Growing my own luffa sponges is definitely something I’ll be doing annually, forevermore. And I hope you’ll consider doing it too. If you want to order your own luffa seeds, I highly recommend the fine folks over at Baker Creek – keepers of heirloom seed strains. They’re good people and very much worth supporting.

♥ Cheers! ♥

Believe it or not, it can be pretty difficult growing vegetables without using animals. Which seems silly, if you ask me, but what do I know? That’s just the way it is, making the garden one more place that vegans and eco-conscious folks need to be a bit mindful.

Veganic Gardening is a gardening philosophy that incorporates organic gardening techniques while also eschewing all animal products and byproducts. And unfortunately, these days, that can be kind of tricky. But it’s doable! Definitely doable.

The three main considerations when planning a veganic garden are soil, soil amendments, and fertilizer.





1. Soil
I’ve investigated every nursery and hardware store in my town, and I’ve only found two types of animal-free soil/potting soil. Actually, and surprisingly, I think finding appropriate soil may be the biggest hurdle for people wanting to practice veganic gardening (although this will depend on where you live and thus, what kind of access you have to various brands of soil). Because most commercial soil and potting soil mixes contain at least one or more of the following: manure, chicken manure, feather meal, fish, fish bone meal, shrimp meal, blood meal, bat guano, oyster shell, vermiculture compost, and earthworm castings, to name a few.

As far as veganic soil goes, the brand I favor is called Gardener’s, and the only ingredients are aged forest compost, perlite, and washed horticulture sand. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how widely available this brand is (it’s not on Amazon).

The other vegan soil I found in my area was by Miracle Grow, and although it contained no animal products, it was also full of the nasty chemical fertilizers that I avoid. So that was a no-go for veganic gardening.

My best suggestion, as far as finding veganic soil in your area, is to call around and ask for the Gardener’s brand. If you can’t find it you’ll have to do what I did: go to every single nursery and read the back of every single bag. Which is really not as bad as it sounds. I mean, at least you get a trip to the nursery out of it. Buy yourself a pretty new plant!




2. Amendments
Depending on your soil quality, you may want to add “boosters”, or amendments, to your garden. Many of these are not vegan – but some of them are! Vegan friendly amendments include:

• Sphagnum Peat (Mountain Peat is very unsustainable and should be avoided)
• Limestone
• Dolomite Lime
• Alfalfa/Alfalfa Meal
• Coffee Grounds
• Greensand
• Phosphate Rock
• Potash Rock
• and finally my favorite, Compost! (from vegan homes, of course)

These are the non-vegan soil amendments that should always be avoided:

• Manure
• Compost Manure
• Blood Meal
• Bone Meal
• Fish Meal/Fish Fertilizer

These may or may not be vegan, and should be investigated by brand before you purchase:

• Humus
• Soil or Topsoil
• Mushroom compost (this is intended for mushrooms, not made from mushrooms)

3. Fertilizer
Fertilizers are food for plants, offering a wide spectrum of necessary nutrients. The most common commercial veganic fertilizer is concentrated seaweed, which is positively brimming with vitamins and minerals. There are many brands of seaweed (sometimes just called kelp) fertilizers and these are widely available. I’ve used the Growmore brand for years, and recently Jeremy picked up this Organix Rx on super sale. Both are awesome.




As for more a traditional fertilizer, I’ve been using this Dr. Earth Vega animal-free mix to make a fertilizer tea, and it’s been fantastic! This stuff is amazing and I highly recommend it. You should be able to find it in your local nursery, but if you can’t get it locally there’s always Amazon.

And to all you amazing veganic home gardeners out there reading (I know you’re there!), please share your best tips and favorite products in the comments below, so we can all learn from each other. Sharing is caring, y’all!

That is, until my godfather upgraded his own composting system (he built a beautiful wood and wire bin system – maybe I’ll photograph it some time) and offered me his old bins.

Yes! I was in business.

I’ve been composting for a little over a year now, which means I’m churning out batches of black-gold-plant-power at pretty regular intervals. It’s gold, I tell you! Garden gold.




After my recent gardening posts (one and two), readers began asking about easy composting systems. And guys, it doesn’t get much easier (and cheaper!) than this. Bin composting.

The idea behind bin composting is simple. You move your compost through a series of containers, slowly over time, thereby mixing it and aerating it along the way. Compost needs to turn over in order to break down into dirt (as opposed to just rotting), and transferring a batch from one bin to another is a perfect way to achieve this effect.

Like so:




So it goes like this, when bin 1 (far left) is full and ready to transfer, remove all the finished product — now fully composted pure garden gold — from bin 4 (far right). I put my finished compost in a 5-gallon bucket so I can carry it around my yard, feeding my plants along the way.

With bin 4 now empty, you can transfer the contents of bin 3 (second from right) into bin 4. Use a shovel or pitchfork and make sure you get it good and tossed.

Now bin 3 will be empty, so move the contents of bin 2 (second from left) to bin 3, using the same “toss and aerate” technique. You’ll also want to add “browns” here. In the diagram above I said hay because that’s what I use, but any “browns” (dry matter – see my comprehensive composting article for more on that) will do. You need to add in “browns” along the way in order to keep the correct ratio of nitrogen (“greens”, ie kitchen scraps) to carbon (“browns”, ie hay, dried leaves, etc). Make sense?

With bin 2 empty you can now transfer the contents of bin 1 over to bin 2. Don’t forget to add in some “browns”!

And finally, that leaves an empty bin 1, ready to start collecting all of your kitchen scraps and yard waste, once again.

All said and done, a single complete transfer will go from this:

If you’re concerned about composting in plastic (obviously I’m not, but I understand if you are), you can achieve the same effect with wood or metal. Like I said, my godfather built some wood and wire bins that are quite lovely, and some day I hope to do the same.

And that, my friends, is that.

So, do you compost at home? Do you use a bin composting system, or something else entirely? Let’s talk compost down below!

♥

And in other news, I’m growing herbs. LOTS of herbs:



A few of my herbs – oregano, marjoram, cilantro, and mint. I’m also growing parsley, savory, stevia, rosemary, thyme, and this:




Homegrown lemongrass! I’ve had some trouble keeping this plant happy, but I’m really excited to finally use it in my cooking this summer.

I’m also growing some flowers out in the front, and they’re juuuust starting to bloom. I love a bud just before it opens – cinched up tight and full of potential, unable to hide the hint of color that’s just about to burst forth. I love the blooms, but the buds . . . the sweet promise carried in those buds . . . that might be my favorite part of all.




Let’s see, what else? I’m growing a second round of tomatoes out front! They’re so cute when they’re small.




And finally, the most exciting prospective project in my own yard and garden. These two:




These may look unassuming, but they are anything but. They are, in fact, the pièce de résistance in my 2014 garden. And you’ll just have to wait to see if they turn out . . . just like I will.

So now it’s your turn!

What are you growing, and how’s it going? Please share, and if you can, link to your garden updates and photos. We’re all dying to see!! (well, at least I know I am)

Happy gardening everyone!

♥