After an unusually damp and overcast June, I think we've finally entered prime line-drying season here in Southern California. I especially like drying sheets this way. While they take ages in the electric drier, sheets dry so quickly and smell so nice when hung in the sun. Plus, who doesn't enjoy saving money and electricity?

My sister sent me this New York Times piece and slide show about Wijlre Castle, in the Netherlands, which, besides having gorgeous grounds and an amazing art collection, sports a glass-walled, indoor/outdoor chicken coop.


According to the Times, when the couple renovated an old tool shed on their grounds, they asked their architecht to create "a space with room for a gallery, a henhouse, a greenhouse for orchids and a tool shed." He was a bit surprised at first, but, as a chicken-lover, he embraced the challenge. The result looks really cool: art on one side and ultra-modern chicken living on the other.

I feel like it would be so cool to be able to watch your hens scratch and cluck from the comfort of your own living room. Although, I do have one question: How often do they have to clean poop off the glass? (My guess: pretty often.)




photo credit:
sitting chicken and art
Originally uploaded by pierre swillens

While I'm lucky to have a pretty big backyard, the amount of open, sunny space is rather limited. This is a problem for a budding vegetable garden addict like me (pun intended). So, somewhat inspired by Food Not Lawns and Edible Estates, I planted some veggies in the front yard this year.

Since I spent years converting my small front yard from grass to drought-tolerant plants, and getting those plants established, I won't be removing any bushes to make room for veggies. Instead, I am growing some tomatoes and squash in the few open spaces between my grasses, cacti and shrubs.

Here's a nice tomato seedling planted between White Sage, Elephant Bush and Purple Fountain Grass.



All three of my front yard tomatoes are planted fairly far back from the street, in an attempt to shield them from neighborhood dogs and their pee. In addition, I am using Tomato Craters at the base of each plant. I actually bought these last year to help with my cut worm and water evaporation issues. This year, I'm hoping the Tomato Crater and tomato cage combination will also help keep neighborhood cats--and other animals--from digging around, pooping near or otherwise messing with the plants.

My other plan is to try growing sun-and-space-loving winter squash in the front. So far, I have one Potimarron Squash vine growing next to my aloe patch, and a couple more seedlings that will be ready to plant next weekend. The front yard seems like an especially good spot for spreading squash. They'll be able to curve and twist their vines wherever they please, and should get all the sunlight they could ever want in the unshaded left side of the yard. I'm optomistic that, if the plants can tolerate the front yard's poor soil, I'll have a nice crop of squash in a few months.



I really only have two concerns about my front yard crop:

1. Will I be able to protect my veggies from neighborhood pets and their excretions?
2. Will the soil be too poor for the plants to make fruit?

I am hoping the combination of nearby cacti, artifical barriers and the winter squash's thick skin will allay my first concern. The second issue is trickier. I made sure to add worm-filled compost and organic fertilizers to the soil around each of my seedlings, but I can only do so much when planting in between established plants with big root systems. The front yard soil is all rock and clay on one side and extremely sandy on the other. I guess it'll be an interesting experiment to see how the veggies do in inhospitable earth. Happily, I have plenty of tomatoes and squash growing in the back yard. So, even if all my front yard crops fail--and I don't think they will all fail--I'll still have plenty to harvest out back.

On Saturday, I picked the last of my winter garden (not counting the purple cabbage, which has decided to take forever to form a head). The final harvest from the seeds I planted last Fall included a nice bunch of chard and two healthy beets.



The beets were roasted and added to a salad last night. As always, they were delicious. The greens will be chopped, sauteed and eaten as a side this evening.



Happily, it looks like I won't have to wait long for more fresh veggies from the garden. My first summer harvest is imminent. Several of the tomato plants are sporting green baby fruit. Since I mostly planted small heirloom varieties this year, it shouldn't take them too long to reach maturity and ripen. Here are some baby Mexico Midgets, grown from seed.



Check out all those tiny hairs on the plant. I looked them up, and apparently they're called trichomes. It seems these hairs are responsible for the classic tomato-plant scent. So, there's an interesting factoid for all you garden nerds out there.

The rest of my summer crop probably won't be harvest-ready for at least another month. I have some peppers that might blossom in another week or two, and my squash, while big and bushy, have yet to make a single flower. Hopefully now that the weather is warming up they'll get down to business.

In the meantime, we'll just have to get by on cherry tomatoes. And by "we," I mean Dakota. I don't really like tomatoes that much. But I do love to grow them!

Last Sunday, during my weekly chicken-coop cleaning, Peggy decided to give me a front row seat to her egg-laying process. Ever the chicken documentarian, I immediately reached for my camera. (Clearly, I do not respect my hens' personal boundaries. Sorry girls!)

My attention was called to Peggy's private moment when I heard some angry clucking coming from the open coop. For some reason, Tina was annoyed that Peggy was using the nesting box and was trying to get her out. Tina's kind of a bully sometimes. Seeing that Peggy needed to lay, I picked up Tina and locked her in the run.

Here's Tina feeling left out.



With Tina out of the way, Peggy settled into the pine shavings and got comfy. Because the lid was up on the coop, I could see straight into the nesting box where Peggy sat, waiting for the magic to happen. But, if I got too close, Peggy would make a little cluck/hiss noise, as if to say, "Get out!" (If you've never heard a cluck/hiss before, it's a weird sound, but the intent is crystal clear. Peggy also cluck/purrs sometimes. Really!) So, I went away to let her do her thing.

About 10 minutes later, I heard Peg stand up and start moving around. I returned to the coop and caught her in this position.



Don't you love that expression? And the way she's standing cracks me up. It's so awkward.

Peggy hung out in the nesting box for a few more minutes, perhaps admiring her freshly-laid egg. Then, she hopped out into the yard, and the real show began.

Peggy's Post-Egg Cluck from Audrey on Vimeo.

This is how both of my hens announce that they've just laid an egg. It is loud and long and they do it every time. I guess it's good that Peggy and Tina take pride in their work, but still. Think of the neighbors!

These bright green grasshopper-esque insects looked so lovely on a wilted purple iris blossom yesterday that I just had to take their picture. And check out those crazy antennae. They must be at least three times as long as their bodies. Oddly enough, despite their sensitive head gear, they didn't seem the least bit annoyed when I got in their face with my camera.

So, what are they? Can one of my bug-loving readers help me identify them? I'm curious about their names and wondering if they're nice, beneficial insect friends or plant-devouring foes. Either way, I'll probably leave them alone.

They better be careful, though, because they're dangerously close to the coop and two hens who love gobbling up bugs.

Last weekend, we started painting the kitchen cabinets. As I mentioned before, we're using SafePaint, which is a variety of milk paint made by The Old Fashioned Milk Paint Company. Milk Paint is formulated from three, non-toxic ingredients: milk protein, lime and natural pigments. Regular milk paint tends to give a thinner, streakier finish, which would work in a room with a more "old fashioned" style. But since ours is a more modern kitchen (with Shaker influences), we went with SafePaint, which goes on thicker for more even coverage.

Milk paint can be a bit tricky, as we learned, because it comes as a powder that you mix with water. Our first batch was a little lumpy, possibly because we didn't use the right utensils to stir it. To smooth out the lumps, Dakota added more water. This didn't change the color at all, but the paint went on a little thin, as you can see on the cabinet doors above. Happily, that was just the first of two coats--after a coat of Dunn-Edwards Eco-Shield Primer--so it didn't matter too much.

He's Nigel helping Dakota paint the pantry.



Eventually, we found that mixing the paint using a whisk works well. The second batch of paint was thicker, had fewer blobs and went on in a more uniform manner. In addition, we found that SafePaint goes on much better with a brush than with a foam roller. I don't mind using a brush on the cabinets, but painting the walls or ceiling that way will be rough. So, I think we're going to try a different roller--perhaps a fluffier one--on the walls and see how that goes.

SafePaint has absolutely no odor, and drips wipe up easily with a wet rag. And I suspect that if your overly-curious dog should happen to accidentally lick some of it up, he'd be fine. So far, despite the minor lumpiness issue, we're pretty happy with the product.

After two coats, I think the cabinets look really great. As Dakota pointed out, we picked a very "masculine" green--like something you'd see on the wall of a British pub. (The color itself is called Lexington Green, which fits.) I am having a hard time imagining how things will look once the cabinet doors are on and everything else is installed and painted. But right now, the painted cabinets go nicely with the oak floors, so that's a good start.

The potato bags I wrote about last month are working out really well. The green shoots grew up from the seed potatoes incredibly quickly. In fact, they grew so fast that I barely had time to fill in the soil behind them. Now, the bags are completely full of a mixture of soil and compost, and I mixed in a little organic fertilizer for good measure.

From here on out, the potatoes should be pretty low-maintenance. They just need water, sun and perhaps a bit of liquid fertilizer from time to time. Apparently, I'll know they're ready for harvest when flowers appear. According to Seed Savers, my German Butterballs should take 100 to 120 days to reach maturity. I have my fingers crossed that I'll have some delicious, organic, home-grown potatoes to roast this Fall. Yum!

If you come here often, you'll notice that I'm trying out a new blog layout. There are so many cool ones out there just waiting to be downloaded, but I ended up going for something simple so I could try to customize with my very limited computer skills.

Let me know if anything on the blog is wonky or annoying. I'd rather have a site that's user-friendly than one with fancy features.

I was excited to hear on the radio the other day that, in addition to its strict new lawn sprinkler regulations, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power just unveiled a lawn-removal rebate program.

The official title is the Residential Drought Resistant Landscape Incentive Program, and the goal is to encourage Los Angeles residents to remove their lawns in favor of drought-tolerant landscaping, water-permeable hardscaping or mulch. They'll give you a dollar for every square foot of lawn you remove and replace, which is pretty great considering you'll already be saving a bunch on your water bill just by eliminating all that expensive grass-watering.

I really appreciate the fact that the LADWP isn't just penalizing water wasting like leaky sprinklers and driveway washing, but is also incentivizing water conservation when it comes to yards. Xeriscaping is already pretty popular in my neighborhood, but hopefully now that you get a little cash back for doing it, even more people will rip out their grass and put in California natives. The bees will be so happy!

It's too late for me to cash in on the rebate, but if you're thinking about taking out your lawn and want to know more about the LADWP program (which requires pre-approval), go here.

And here are my posts about my xeriscaped front yard:
Water Wise
In Bloom

UPDATE: I've noticed quite a few people coming here using search terms like "LA DWP lawn removal," so I wanted to link to a resource that I think would be really helpful for people who want to get rid of their grass lawns. The Garden Punks blog has a couple of great, step-by-step posts about sheet mulching, and their most recent one is really informative (and well-illustrated). If I'd known about it at the time, I would have definitely used their technique when removing my lawn. So, if you're planning to take out some grass and cash in on the DWP rebate, I recommend you check it out.

Now that my seedlings are all coming up, I figured I should post about what exactly I've got growing in my vegetable garden right now. As usual, I'm focusing on the summer standards--tomatoes, peppers, squash--as well as mixing in some new crops I've never grown before. Specifically, I'm growing:

Fish Peppers
Maule's Red Hot Peppers
Wenk's Yellow Hot Peppers
Austin's Red Pear Tomatoes
Hartman's Yellow Gooseberry Tomatoes
Mexico Midget Tomatoes
Listada de Gandia Eggplants
Golden Zucchini Squash
Guatemalan Blue Squash
Small Shining Watermelon
Strawberries
Empress Beans (snap bean)
German Butterball Potatoes
Stowell's Evergreen Corn

I got all my seeds from Seed Savers Exchange, which has a mouth-watering selection of heirloom varieties. Man, I love a good seed catalog!

Last year, my corn grew fairly tall and produced a few ears, but none of them made it to the eating stage before mysteriously withering or being attacked by bugs. This year I've got them in a sunnier spot in the lower raised bed, and I planted more rows for easier pollination. Plus, I grew peas in that spot last winter, which theoretically enriched the soil with lots of lovely nitrogen. So, if my corn sprouts can avoid being scratched to death by certain chickens (ahem), I think they have a good shot at producing edible ears this year.



I've had some decent luck with eggplants in the past, although I've lost a few to blossom end rot, and some others when they suddenly got a yellow tint. I think it's because I left them on the plant too long. Is that right, gardeners out there? This year, I'm trying them in containers and in the ground. And I made sure to add a calcium-rich soil supplement to help avoid that evil blossom-end rot.



The new crops for 2009 are strawberries, watermelon and potatoes. The potatoes seem extremely happy in their grow bags, the strawberries are doing okay and the watermelon seedlings have come up and are making new leaves.

I've noticed my watermelon is growing more slowly than the other squash, which have been leafing out at a rapid rate. I'm not sure why. Hopefully it's because of the variety and not some issue with my soil. I'm really hoping to harvest some sweet, tasty watermelons in a couple of months. So, if you've got any tips for me, let me know.



As usual, I got way too many seeds for my small gardening operation. I just really enjoy growing new and interesting heirloom varieties. (How can you possibly choose just one kind of tomato when they offer 60?) I've already got an excess of seedlings growing in my little pots, so certain friends and neighbors of mine can expect to find a free Mexico Midget or Hartman's tomato plant on their doorstep any day now. Hope you like them!

Last weekend was all about putting finish on the new wood floor. At this moment, it's bright, shiny and clean... and almost done.

Four coats of finish were smoothed on over the course of the weekend, and I believe there are two coats left to apply. (Dakota decided to do extra coats since the kitchen is such a high-traffic area.) We ended up going with AFM Safecoat PolyureSeal BP, which I purchased at Architectural Coatings + Design Center in Tarzana. I found them to be very helpful and accommodating in terms of the finishes and amounts I needed.

After doing some online research, I decided that AFM Safecoat was the right choice for us. It's a water-based clear finish with very low VOC. It's also LEED qualified and contains no formaldehyde. I got a gallon of gloss and a quart of satin. Safecoat isn't cheap; the gallon ran me about $100 and the quart was about $30, but I think it's worth it to have a less toxic floor.



According to the directions, for a satin finish, you apply several coats of gloss first, followed by the satin. Here's an image of the first coat going down, after a thorough floor sanding by Dakota.



The smell from the Safecoat PolyureSeal BP was fairly strong, but dissipated after about an hour. I've never refinished a floor before, so I can't really speak to how the odor compares to other polyurethane finishes. I do appreciate that the odor doesn't linger after the finish dries.

So far, the new floor looks great. The finish is shiny and smooth, and the transition between the old floor and new floor is noticeable but not distracting. Predictably, I now want to refinish the floors in the whole house. But I think for now we'll have to focus on the kitchen. (One project at a time!)