11. October 2009 by admin.

There’s only two things I’m still harvesting in quantity at the “farm”: tomatoes and eggplant. I’d never made Eggplant Parm before, but you’d never know it: the recipe I found off the internet was excellent, and OMG, the results were fantastic!

I’ve been on a cooking kick lately. Here’s some of the recipes I’ve made over the past two months:

Banana Pancakes from scratch with blueberries

French Toast (Alton Brown’s recipe)

Lazy Man’s Beef Stew

Pork Medallions with a Plum ginger compote reduction

Spicy Mexican Tomato Soup with roasted homegrown Anaheim chilis

Linguine with Pecorino, homegrown tomatoes and homegrown arugula

Sauteed Tex-Mex homegrown Zucchini and Potatoes

Slow-roasted homegrown tomatoes with garlic and fresh thyme

Roasted homegrown Lemongrass Chicken

Curried homegrown Greenbeans (Indian)

Disappearing homegrown Zucchini Orzo

Orange-scented Chocolate homegrown Zucchini Cake

As you can see, I try to incorporate homegrown ingredients as much as possible, except for the French Toast. I used plantains instead of bananas for the pancakes, because Jill’s babysitter has a plantain tree. And I used curry leaves from my own curry tree for the Indian Green Beans.

If you want a recipe, let me know and I’ll make links.

Posted in Everyday life, Vegetables and Fruit | No Comments »

12. September 2009 by admin.

I’ve talked to quite a few people about tomatoes: how their plants are spent already, and what should be the height of the season hasn’t panned out. I’m certain that all the seasons have shifted later, so that summer didn’t really start until the end of August, so the tomatoes have just started feeling the right kind of weather to really produce.

That is why I’ve been doing successive plantings of all my summer vegetables and melons. Every month, I start more seeds, even though it’s really late in the year to be starting more tomatoes. I’ll bet that I can keep tomatoes coming in through January this way, so long as we have a week’s worth of hot weather in December or January that will get them to start ripening on the vine.

I’m still trying to get more production out of my garden, not only with successive planting, but also by fighting the snails! I’ve got a snail and slug problem that just won’t go away. I won’t give up and I won’t use chemicals, though.

I had to move the Falling in Love rosebush and Yves Piaget rosebush to new spots; they weren’t liking it under our biggest tree.

Since Jillian is in school and has regular taxi service, I’ve had more time to garden and it really shows! The garden is spiffy and clean now, cleaner than usual. The novel writing is coming along flowingly, if that’s a word. I get about 2 to 3 hours of writing in each weekday.

This is a dwarf banana tree that I finally planted outside after having it indoors for over a year. I can tell that it likes its new spot, because the leaf coming out of the center is growing fresh and green. Banana trees are rapid growers, but I don’t expect bananas for maybe another 2 years. And this type of tree never gets too big, and neither do the bananas. I planted it where it won’t feel a lot of wind, hopefully.

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23. August 2009 by admin.

Meet my new garden diva, April. She helps on Saturday mornings while her son Connor keeps my daughter occupied. Mother of two boys, producer and writer of cable programming, she seems like the kind of no-nonsense person who can do anything she puts her mind to. I can’t figure out how to rotate the second photo correctly! The 1&1 people (my web host) couldn’t help me on tech support either. But you can see how big my onions get!

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19. August 2009 by admin.

It’s August and we’re still having 66 degree weather in the morning? Does that make sense? I’m still planting new seeds for hot weather crops, because I have a strong feeling that we’re headed for hot weather all the way through December and into January. That means tomatoes in January, guys! If anybody will be doing it, I will!

Other news: a new IEP for Jillian coming up August 27th.  We still don’t know where she’s going to school Sept 1st. Talk about waiting til the last minute, PV Schools! She’s been doing Lindamood Bell all summer except this week, she’s taking a much-needed vacation by attending Camp Escapades, a special needs camp through Pediatric Therapy Network. She’s a Sky Blue Bear, grrrrrrowlll.

My novel is now 192 pages long, and I’m almost halfway. I think I’ll be writing through November.

If anybody wants to help me out in the garden, I could use a helper Monday mornings from 8:30 to about 11.

Posted in ADD and advocacy, Everyday life, Vegetables and Fruit | No Comments »

18. July 2009 by admin.

It took the past week to install, but we’re up and running already! A dream come true. We’re running A/C today, and yet our meter is running backwards. How about that sunshine?

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8. July 2009 by admin.

“Build it and they will come,” Phil Alden Robinson wrote in his movie “Field of Dreams”. That’s what I feel has happened in my garden, especially when Matt popped up from behind my fence and said “Wow, cool,” in his hippie Californian surfer dude way.

Matt’s doing a work-exchange-for-food deal with me. And so far, he’s been an amazing help, spraying seaweed/fish emulsion, taking out old plants and planting new ones, removing weeds, and tying up tomato plants. I couldn’t have asked for a better helper. Two days ago, he helped me and my neighbor, Lynn, clean up her peach tree and pick its fruit. We’ve been using the Fruit Exchange and plain ol’ neighborliness to get rid of the surplus. Sweet white peaches!

Here’s a photo of my new protege (although I think he’s teaching me more than I’m teaching him):

Matt will be a junior at Humboldt State next year if he doesn’t take the year off. He also works at the Rolling Hills Methodist Church Kid Zone camp during the week, teaching music to the kids. He plays mandoline and knows a lot of Greatful Dead tunes.

Posted in Gardening classes and opportunities to learn, Everyday life, Vegetables and Fruit | No Comments »

4. July 2009 by admin.

I entered the Palos Verdes Estates Fourth of July Apple Pie Contest and –believe it or not– I won first place! Out of a field of 20 pies, my crumble crust topped stunner was the winner. I humbly submit the following photos:(okay, maybe not so humbly):The first place prize was this Golden Dorsett Apple Tree, pictured above. I also won a certificate good for a Marie Callender’s apple pie, since they were the ones who sponsored the event along with Bennett Landscaping and the PVE Homes Association. Thank you, sponsors!

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20. June 2009 by admin.

I harvested some huge peaches today (see photo) and I don’t know whether to share them or sell them, or just make a pie!

We just returned from a visit to San Francisco to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary.  It was an amazing trip; we went to Haight Ashbury and bought tie dye shirts. We soaked up the hippie vibe and had a great time relaxing and being with each other.

Life is a bowl of peaches, I guess!

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30. May 2009 by admin.

On Saturday, June 6th, I’m attending a fruit tasting hosted by Dave Wilson Nursery in San Luis Obispo to obtain my “Master Fruit Taster Certificate”! I have wanted to be on their tasting panel for many years, but this is the first year I’ve had all my ducks in a row to participate.Dave Wilson Nursery is the premiere hybridizer and grafter of trees in California. They breed Zaiger Genetics trees, and they provide nursery stock to all the best nurseries on the West Coast. If you see a Dave Wilson tag on a tree, you know that tree got its start there, usually being grafted onto a rootstock that works well for our area or helps dwarf the tree, or produces a lot more fruit than a tree on its own roots.On another note, my Spanish teacher says that learning a new language or a new musical instrument reduces your chances for Altzheimer’s because it exercises the part of the brain most affected by Altheimer’s.

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23. May 2009 by admin.

Hi friends! I had a great time in Needham, visiting families that knew Jillian through her Kindergarten class, and visiting friends and neighbors I hadn’t seen in nearly 2 years since I moved from the Boston area.

I also wanted to see my babies: all the peach trees, lilac bushes and peonies that I planted in my previous house’s front yard.

Well… It’s just like they say: you can’t go back. The new owners don’t care much for gardening or fruit or flowers, apparently. One of my neighbors put it nicely: “they didn’t know what they had”… Because they ripped everything that I was looking for OUT! And to give you some appreciation for what they killed or removed, these were peach trees that were lovingly chosen for their superior fruit quality, for their ripening season (the season was spread out by choosing different trees that ripened at different times) and they were now over 3 years old, or would have been, if they hadn’t been removed. That means they were finally getting productive.

Those peach trees also had one other amazing feature: they had been trained and pruned properly their first three years, which means the scaffolds of these trees would have produced the healthiest, most sweetest crop every year thereafter. Yes, there is a way to train a tree to make the peaches even sweeter.

Luckily, I ran into a neighbor across the street who knew that the lilac bushes and peonies were worth saving. Thank you, Martha!!! The lilac bushes were chosen with the same attention to specific characteristics that I looked for when I bought the peach trees. Except where lilacs are concerned, I bought varieties that had unusual colored flowers, or what most interested me: their incredibly scent. Not all lilac bushes smell alike. They also grow with different habitats: some get tall, some stay shorter and get bushy. I purposely placed the shorter-growing ones in the front of my property and hope Martha did the same.

Seeing my old house and visiting friends was kind of like living that movie: It’s a Wonderful Life. You don’t realize how much impact you have on a place until you remove yourself from that place.

To show you just a sampling of the difference, I produce these exhibits: One picture of my house when I was living there, the second of our house with the new owners. Okay, it’s not fair because they aren’t gardeners. But you get the idea.

Before (May 2006)

After (May 2009)

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