Monster Tomato Sale

Monster Tomato Sale

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Fullerton Arboretum March 16-18, 2012 9AM-4PM About this time every year, I start marking my calendar with all my favorite plant sales around Southern California.  One of the earliest ones is the Monster Tomato Sale at the Fullerton Arboretum.  Each Spring, the Arboretum holds the largest tomato and pepper plant sale in Southern California, and it is among the largest in the country.  They expect to have over 250 varieties of tomato plants for sale this year, including every size…

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Blackberry Plants aka The Backyard Zombie

Blackberry Plants aka The Backyard Zombie

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It lives in our vegetable garden, trapped in a 2 x 16 foot area. It keeps attacking everything, and I battle it back.  Yes, I am talking about our thorny blackberry plant.   To me, blackberries sometimes seem as hard to kill off as a Zombie plague  in the movies.  Anyone who has ever lived with blackberry plants, probably knows what I am talking about. Just when I think a blackberry plant is dead and gone, it springs back to…

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Urban Homestead

Urban Homestead

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Depending on what garden resource I read or who I listen to, what I do around our property is referred to by a variety of names…urban homesteading, Permaculture, backyard orchard culture, edible landscaping, victory gardening, etc.  I really don’t care what it is called, except when my husband calls it an addiction.     This is a small sample of what’s growing around here, and more pictures can be found throughout my blog. We live on a 1/12th of an acre, smack…

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Urban Fruit Gleaning

Urban Fruit Gleaning

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This new video by a local film student features a few volunteers from SoCal Harvest. If you are local to the Greater Long Beach area, and if you don’t want backyard fruit to go to waste, SoCal Harvest has a team of volunteers that will come out, pick any fruit within reach of picking poles and small ladders, and box it all up for Food Finders to pass out to local food pantries.  Homeowners can even get a receipt for…

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A Messy Garden…

A Messy Garden…

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… isn’t all bad.  Okay, I have to admit, the veggie garden looked awful out there back in January with the broccoli going to seed and spilling all over the path and the blackberries rooting everywhere.  Even my daughter mentioned how bad it looked.   But I kept the mess for around for a good reason, it’s the bees.  The bees enjoyed the broccoli flowers for weeks, and I wanted them to stick around the yard to pollinate the fruit…

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Confession of a Serial Plant Killer

Confession of a Serial Plant Killer

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I am notorious for killing plants.  I admit it.  Occasionally I kill potted plants accidentally due to lack of watering.  Other times, I buy plants on an impulse and then neglect to get them in the ground in a timely fashion.  As a gardener, I should have learned by now.  However, after almost 18 years gardening, I still do it sometimes.  Aside from those accidental plant deaths, I sometimes actually plot my plant killing. Each year, I re-evaluate what is…

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Anna and Dorset Golden Apples

Anna and Dorset Golden Apples

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Part of my winter chores this time of year is caring for my semi-dwarf apple espaliers on the back of the garage.  The two varieties, Anna and Dorset Golden, never really go dormant in my yard.  They are both very low chill apple varieties, recommended by many gardeners as a couple of the easiest and most dependable to grow in Coastal Southern California.  Anna was originally from Israel and Dorset Golden came from the Bahamas.  They always seem to have…

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My hen that crows
Cock-a-doodle-do

Cock-a-doodle-do

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I love weekends.  Winter weekends especially, with the sun not coming up until 6:45.  On the weekends during this time of year, when the kids are between sports, our family sometimes actually gets to sleep in as late a 7 or 8 am.  Well, that is until recently… I know it sounds crazy, but around 5:30 AM, I have been woken up to crowing!  About 8 or 9 times, over the last month, I have been hearing this awful “gaw—gawk–gawk–gawk—gaaaawkkkkkk–,”…

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Almond Oatmeal Soap

Almond Oatmeal Soap

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I have been curious about making soap at home for a long time, but until this year, I had not gotten up the courage to try.  The main part that had been holding me back was working with lye.  As an organic gardener, I my initial instinct is to avoid strong dangerous chemicals.  And to make REAL soap, there is no getting around using Lye in the processing.  Lye is caustic and is a basic ingredient in most drain cleaners. …

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Kettle Corn

Kettle Corn

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About 15 years ago, my brother gave us a specialty stove top popcorn popper with a wooden hand crank.  It works simply with just a couple of parts, and no batteries or cords.  Therefore, there isn’t much to wear out or damage in washing.  It has seen regular, almost daily use since we first got it.  On my vintage Wedgewood gas stove, we can make a batch of popcorn in less than 3 minutes.  What’s great about the stove top…

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