Long-time readers of this blog know that our kitchen remodeling project was an epic undertaking. Dakota took everything down to the bare bones and then slowly and carefully rebuilt the entire space. It took a looooooong time, mostly because Dakota was building the kitchen on nights and weekends, but the project was completed several months ago. If you're wondering, it functions beautifully and looks amazing.

Click here, here and here for some "before" photos.

For some reason, the potatoes we get in our produce delivery box sprout a lot more quickly than the ones we get at the store. I'm guessing it has to do with their freshness and variety. The ones above started growing little stalks after a few days--or at least that's how it seemed.

Rather than chuck them in the compost bin, I decided to plant these taters and see what happened. I had a rather spectacular failure trying to grow potatoes in bags, so this time I just dug a deepish hole in the upper garden bed and buried them, with room to add more dirt and compost as they grew.

To my delight, they shot right up! What's nice about potatoes is that the stalks grow extremely quickly. I planted the sprouted potatoes in late March, and by mid-April they were in need of some more serious mounding. So, I built a little wood barrier around the plants and buried them a bit more. If I had more time, I'd build it even higher. But I think one level will have to do for this year.

Since I haven't grown potatoes successfully before, I did a little check last weekend to see if the plants were actually producing new tubers. I dug up two stalks on the edge of this patch, and, happily, found some teeny tiny baby potatoes growing deep down in the soil. So, I may actually get some homegrown potatoes this year, if I can keep curious chickens and evil skunks away.

I think they key in Southern California is to plant potatoes in the late Spring. Once summer really begins, the plants have difficulty in our dry heat. At least that's my experience.

Last month, we finally got around to fencing in the lower garden bed. In the past, I'd used some more half-assed barriers, including draping garden netting over the beds. But I have wanted to create a more permanent fence for a while, and Dakota was kind enough to oblige.

The garden now has three sides covered in chicken wire and one side hung with a large piece of garden netting, so that I can drop that side down to plant and weed. I feel confident that this setup will be successful in keeping out skunks, squirrels and, most importantly, my naughty chickens.

Unfortunately, all the wire fencing in the world can't keep out insects. I seem to have some kind of cutworm or other pest that's gobbling up my squash sprouts as soon as they emerge. I'm not really sure what to do, but I guess I might need to get some beneficial nematodes. If anyone has cutworm control tips, let me know, especially if they aren't too time consuming. I don't have a lot of time to spend in the garden these days.

So, things are not off to the smoothest start this Spring. But once I get the pest situation under control, I am hoping the new fencing, combined with a soaker hose, compost and lots of straw mulch, will ensure an excellent crop of squash, tomatoes and beans this summer.

Hope you enjoy a beautiful Spring day.

I apologize for all the gloomy chicken posts lately, but I'm afraid I have some distressing news: Peggy has passed on to that great chicken coop in the sky. We had some crazy times, me and the Peggster, and she will be missed.

I'm no chicken doctor, but I believe Peggy died of natural causes. Several weeks ago, I found her lying dead in a corner of the run when I went down to give the hens their morning scoop of food. There was no sign of foul play (ahem), and, honestly, it looked like she'd just keeled over while sitting on a perch. Hopefully, she died happy, clucking away with her sisters.

Peggy was one of my older chickens, at a little less than 3 years old. Tina, who is the same age, is still laying eggs and seems quite vigourous, but Peggy hadn't laid for a year or so, and seemed to have slowed down a little. She is my first chicken to die of old age. We gave her our traditional viking funeral.

My mom sent me a link to an interesting article a while ago, and it seems particularly relevant now that Spring is here and my garden is full of flowers and pollinators. It's actually a guide for "urban bee gardeners" from UC Berkeley's College of Natural Resources, and it points out a funny contradiction that conscientious gardeners should be aware of: mulch is not good for wild bees.

It turns out, the majority of native California bees are actually ground-nesting. That means that, rather than building the classic hive hanging from a tree branch, they actually dig little holes in the soil and put their cells inside. So, if you mulch like crazy to suppress weeds and keep water from evaporating before it soaks into the soil, you might also be making it harder for bees to nest.

Since bees are also essential in a good organic garden--and, well, essential for life as we know it--I think it's important to know about their need for naked ground. That way, we can all leave a place in our yard that is both plant and mulch-free, so California bees can happily reproduce.

My backyard is still a bit of a wilderness in places, so I don't think the bees will have trouble finding bare ground to dig their little holes. But I'm glad I know about this, just in case I manage to tame the whole space someday.

In the meantime, the bees in my yard are busily buzzing around my lavender, native plants and, happily, my blooming fruit trees. Hopefully all that careful pollination will bring some tasty homegrown apples, peaches and oranges in the coming year.

Since my gardening strategy this year has been to keep it simple, I decided to focus on greens for my winter crops. Lettuce, spinach and other greens grow quickly, love containers and provide several harvests from the same plant. They're perfect for the lazy gardener.

I also wanted to try out a cool new container, made from Dakota's discarded art project: an extra-long tool box. After he drilled drainage holes in the bottom of each compartment, I filled them up with dirt and compost and planted my salad mixes. This year, I went with some lettuce mixes from Renee's Garden. They've all grown really nicely and the mixes provided a good variety of color and flavor in the salad bowl.

I also planted some baby romaine in the center of a large pot and surrounded it with baby carrots. That combination has worked out really well, with the romaine growing tall and healthy and the carrots happily growing downward around the rim of the pot.

I've also got a couple one small pot of chard and another pot of collards growing, although that's not really enough for a meal. I should have planted more.

Overall, though, I'm happy with my winter crop. I expended very little effort, and have already enjoyed many delicious salads fresh from the back patio. Hopefully the warm weather won't cause my greens to bolt too soon, and I'll get a few more cuttings off the plants this Spring.

Well, it's been almost a week since Rita the hen disappeared, and I think it's time to admit she's not coming back. It's hard to believe a chicken can just vanish into thin air, but I am pretty sure that's exactly what happened. Hawk attack just seems like the most likely scenario.

It's sad to think of Rita meeting her end in such a sudden and scary way. I just hope the hawk killed her quickly, and that her life in my backyard was a happy one. I think it was.

There is some good chicken news this week, though. Perhaps to cheer me up--or perhaps because they don't want to "disappear" like Rita did--three of my hens have started laying!

Tina was the first to start up again. She's the oldest and has already molted twice, but she's still laying big, nicely-shaped pink eggs. It must be her hearty mutt genetics. If you're looking for a consistent layer, Black Sex-links are the breed to choose. Tina was soon followed by Janice, laying dark brown eggs, and Betty (I think) laying green ones. It's possible the green eggs are from my other Easter Egger, Peggy, but I doubt it. Peggy's also an older girl, and she hasn't laid in ages.

Production has been excellent for the last week. I've even had a few 3-egg mornings. Hopefully the hens will keep up the good work, and I'll be back to gifting eggs to friends and neighbors in no time.

The flowers pictured above were grown in our back yard. It's been a great year for the iris patch. They're blooming like crazy, despite--or maybe because of--this winter's weird weather.

• Sprayer hose: You need a good, hard stream to spray the poop off any of your detachable coop parts (perches, removable floor, food and water containers)
• Metal dust pan: This is great for scooping up dirty straw and shavings (and dumping them on your compost pile)
• A cheap metal wall scraper: This tool is extremely handy for scraping off dried-on poop and gathering up shavings hidden in a corner
• An old metal barbecue brush: If you really need to scrub a dirty perch or coop floor clean, these can work great. Just make sure you mark it so no one accidentally uses it on your grill.

I went down to the chicken coop this morning to feed and water the girls, and when I opened the door to let them free range a little, only four hens emerged. Rita, my Silver-Laced Wyandotte, is missing! (That's her on the right in the photo below.)

After confirming Rita wasn't inside the coop, I searched the whole yard, checking under every structure and bush and in the overgrown ivy where the chickens sometimes hide. Dakota and our son came down to look too, but there was no sign of her--and no sign of a struggle. No pile of feathers or blood trail. Nothing.

I looked over the neighbor's fences and into the no man's land below our back yard, and Rita wasn't there, either. To be honest, I highly doubt she jumped a fence or squeezed through a hole in the gate. The chickens have never shown any interest in leaving the yard or getting too far away from their coop, even when I've (stupidly) chased them.

The last time I saw Rita was last night just before sundown. She was with the other hens, scratching around in the dirt near my garden. My son and I even spent some quiet time watching the hens free range and shooing them away from the artichoke patch.

After dark, I went down to the coop and closed the door to the run. I didn't check to make sure everyone was inside, because the idea that one of the chickens would have stayed out after dark never occurred to me. Even now, I doubt that's what happened. There would be no reason for Rita to stay out when all her chicken sisters were already settling in for the night. Chickens do not have a taste for the nightlife.

My current theory is that Rita was carried off by a hawk sometime yesterday evening. This is hard to believe--Rita is a full-sized chicken--but I have seen hawks eyeing the girls before. Once, a hawk tried to swoop down and grab one while I was in the yard with them. That attempt was unsuccessful, but maybe this time the hawk got lucky. I hope not.

Has anyone lost a chicken to a hawk before? Would there really be no sign of a struggle? And wouldn't I have heard something? I was up in my son's room, which overlooks the back yard, at the time I suspect she disappeared. I feel like there would have been a screech or a loud cluck or something if a hawk suddenly grabbed Rita. Wouldn't the other girls have made a fuss--or been skittish this morning when I let them out? Still, a hawk attack seems like the most likely scenario.

The only other explanations I can think of are (1) escape and (2) theft. These both seem pretty unlikely. I keep hoping Rita will just suddenly show up, and I haven't ruled out posting a "Missing Chicken" sign or two. I guess she might have wandered off. Maybe? Poor Rita. She is/was so young.

In case you were still wondering, I thought I'd give the final update on my most recent pumpkin-growing effort. When last we discussed the pumpkin patch, I had one small pumpkin prospect still growing. In late November, I finally harvested the last of my summer garden, including that pumpkin. As you can see, it was still small and green. (Note the random beet I found growing in a hidden corner of the bed.)

With nothing to lose, I decided to put the pumpkin on the windowsill and see what happened. After several weeks, I was delighted to find the pumpkin turning a lovely bright orange. I kept it as a decorative accent in the kitchen for a while, but never made an attempt to cut into it or eat it.

So, I guess the 2010 pumpkin patch was not a complete failure. I am determined to to better this summer, though. I think I'll devote my currently-fallow lower bed completely to squash and use what I learned last year--use a soaker hose, fertilize often--to hopefully grow at least two, decent-sized pumpkins by Thanksgiving. Maybe my son will even get that homegrown jack-o-lantern this Halloween. You never know.

Close readers of this blog--and there are so many--may recall that I've long desired to grow my own okra, with little success. Last summer, I tried again. This time, I used Clemson Spineless Okra seeds ordered from Botanical Interests, and started them in small pots in late May. In July, I transferred one small plant into a 5 gallon container and planted two in the ground.

In a couple of weeks, the two in the ground were dead--brought down by a combination of wayward chickens and whatever it is that makes my garden bad for okra. But, the one in the container survived. I had the plant in a fairly sunny spot and watered it often, and it eventually grew big enough to produce some lovely blossoms. Like eggplant, okra has such pretty flowers you could almost grow it as an ornamental.

From this one blooming plant, I got a grand total of... four okra! Small victories, people. (That should be the official motto of my garden.) All four were a pretty good size--two to three inches--and very tasty. I love the flavor and crunch of fresh okra.

To be honest, the plant never really got very bushy and kind of struggled along. I think I might do better next year with more container plants and some careful tending. I am determined to get at least a double digit okra harvest this coming summer. I've been getting some great compost from my bin lately, so that should help.

One of the many ways Dakota and I attempt to be both frugal and healthy is by packing our own lunches as often as possible. I think Dakota manages it more often than I, although my job involves going out to lunch several times a week, so I have an excuse. Several years ago, I came across some reusable sandwich bags and thought they were a great idea. I purchased some, and we've used them instead of disposable plastic sacks ever since.

The first variety I picked up, which we still have, are called Wrap-n-Mats. They're basically a flat rectangle with the corners cut off. One side is cloth and they other side is plastic. You place your sandwich in the center, fold the mat around it and fasten with a strip of Velcro. They work quite well, and, when you open them up, they make a nice little surface to eat off at your desk.

Recently, I picked up two other varieties of reusable sandwich bags from a website I like called reuseit.com. One was their own store brand of bag, and the other is made by LunchSkins. They're both pouch-style bags, which means they work for sandwiches, but you can also fill them with crackers or cookies or carrots.

I don't have a strong preference for any particular type of reusable sandwich bag, but I do recommend them as a great way to stop using disposables. They're not cheap, but if you use them several times a week for years, then I think they'll cost a lot less than disposable bags. Or, if you're crafty, make them yourself with some oilcloth or other water-resistant material. I've seen some really cute snack bags on various craft sites that I'll probably make for my son when he starts taking his lunch to school. All you need is a little bit of cloth and some Velcro.

Another thing I'd like to do is start taking my own containers to take-out places. We don't get take-out food that often, but when we do I always feel bad about how much plastic and--horrors!--Styrofoam is involved in packaging the food.

In case anyone is wondering, I am not getting paid for talking about these products or the website. I sometimes get those offers, but haven't taken anyone up on them so far. If I ever do get a free product, I will be sure to mention that fact in the text of the post.

Due to the recent addition to our family--and all the time and attention he requires--I have let some parts of my garden languish. The larger lower raised bed, where I usually plant most of my vegetables, lay fallow last summer and continues to sit untended this winter. My neglect, combined with an unusually rainy November and December, has led to some interesting developments. Specifically, quite a few volunteer plants.

Pictured above are several volunteer fava beans, sprouted from seeds that fell from unpicked pods, and a couple of fennel plants that are growing new bulbs from the roots left behind after last year's hasty harvest. There are also a few peas growing in another part of the bed.

As you may have guessed from looking at the photos, I haven't watered, weeded or planted in this garden since last April. I have thrown in some dirty straw from the chicken coop from time to time, but that's the extent of my attention to this particular garden. Despite that, I think I may actually get a few peas this year, and it seems likely some favas will be harvested as well.

I've decided to keep neglecting this bed until this Spring, just to see what happens. Perhaps I have stumbled on a new kind of low-impact gardening for myself. Plant every two years and then ignore. Although, I have a feeling that if it weren't for this year's unusual rainstorms, many of these volunteers would not have appeared.

As you may remember, my new hens--Rita, Janice and Betty--have been somewhat disappointing in the egg-laying department. For a long time, none of them were laying. Then, Janice stepped up and spent a couple of months regularly laying lovely, dark brown eggs.

Unfortunately, after two months of good production, Janice suddenly stopped laying. Perhaps she was put off by the shortening of the days, although that never bothered any of my other chickens. My older Black sex-link hen, Tina, kept laying for a while, but then she started molting. This is Tina's second molt, so I think her egg-laying days may be over.

With Tina out of commission, that meant we had five chickens in the coop and zero (ZERO!) layers. Sigh. This situation went on for about a month, with no eggs from the younger girls, despite both treats of squash guts and chard stems and threats about chicken soup. Then, happily, Betty, the all-white Easter Egger, stepped up.

Dakota found a large, light green egg in the nesting box about three weeks ago, and Betty has been a good little layer ever since.

We're getting about five eggs a week from Betty, which is nice, although I really wish at least one more hen would lay. Now that the weather has turned cold, it's baking season, and I've had to buy eggs at the store so we have enough to use in homemade brownies, cookies and cakes.

At the moment, my son really likes grabbing, pulling and licking fabric, and he has a commercially-made Taggies blanket that he plays with frequently. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to make some cute and simple baby tag blankets myself. I had some leftover fleece from my son's Halloween costume (he went as a cactus) and the sewing machine was already out, so it seemed like a perfect time.



The blankets are very simple to make. You cut out a square of fleece and a square of colorful fabric, choose some cute ribbon from your stash--I always save the cloth ribbon from gifts so I have lots of little pieces in different colors and patterns--and fold them over into tabs. Place the right sides of the fabic and fleece together, slip the tabs of ribbon (loop in) in between the fleece and fabric, and pin them in place. Then stitch around the edge using a simple stitch and leaving a small hole on one edge. Snip off the corners of the fabric and turn it right side out through the hole. Finally, I top-stitched the whole thing with a contrasting zig-zag stitch for extra strength and cuteness. And, done! Even a not-very-talented sewer like me can whip a bunch of these up in an afternoon.

For one of the blankets, I got fancy and added some crinkle. All you have to do is sew a layer of crinkly plastic into the interior of your blanket. Since it was Halloween, I used a candy bag. But you could also use a potato chip bag or an empty baby wipes bag. Really any thick cellophane would work. It's a bit trickier to sew, but since it's hidden inside your blanket, you don't have to get that pretty with it.



These tag blankets were really fun to sew, and the combination of colorful fabric and ribbon makes them really cute. All my blankets were handed out to new babies I know or mailed off to far-away baby friends. Hopefully they'll all enjoy them as much as my son likes his.

Well, I'm afraid I did not achieve my dream of a homegrown pumpkin patch for my son's first Halloween. Despite much babying, soil amending and mulching, I was unable to grow a nice orange pumpkin by October 31.

But all is not lost! I have two small, green pumpkins still holding on in my garden. Now, if I can only get them to grow just a bit bigger and ripen to a festive bright orange in time for Thanksgiving.



In the late summer, several young pumpkins were taken out by sudden heat waves. Now, I worry these two pumpkins will be done in by some unusual Fall rain. While one might think rain would be a great thing for a garden, the damp weather unfortunately allowed the powdery mildew to spread all over my pumpkin vines. At this point, there is barely an untouched leaf. Normally, I'd just pull out and throw away all the infected vines, but this year I really want to get some pumpkins, damn it!

Later today, I may try a water and milk solution I heard about online, so I can at least keep the fruit itself from getting infected. To be honest, though, I am worried that my pumpkins may not get enough nutrients to grow any bigger. Their vines have very few leaves. I guess I'll try heavy fertilizing and see what happens. (Let me know if you have any tips for saving these guys.)

On the bright side, I finally broke down and purchased a soaker hose for my upper garden plot back in September, and it's made everything much heartier and happier. My 2-year-old eggplants are big and leafy and making fruit, and, as I mentioned before, the artichokes are back in business.

Happy Halloween! I know I haven't been posting much lately, but don't give up on me just yet. I have a lot of post ideas stored up, and I'm hoping to find some time to write about them very soon. In the meantime, I hope you're having a fun Halloween.



Don't forget to give your pumpkin guts and seeds to the chickens, even if they are no-good, slacker chickens who still refuse to lay any eggs.*



*And keep those pumpkin seeds out of the compost bin, unless you want your garden over-run with vines next summer.

As I've mentioned before, I've been cloth diapering my son since he came home from the hospital. My last post about cloth diapers was two months ago, and I'm happy to say that I still find the process pretty easy, and my son is still comfortable and diaper-rash free.

When I was researching cloth diaper options, I decided on prefolds pretty quicky. But then, I discovered there are many, many different types of prefolds! Some common choices are Chinese prefolds, Indian prefolds, organic cotton, hemp, bleached and unbleached. Then, there are different thicknesses. Typical diaper thicknesses are 4x6x4 or 4x8x4, meaning that each side of the prefold is has four layers and the strip in the middle has six or eight layers, respectively. After discovering all these different types of prefolds, I was a bit overwhelmed. So, I basically just registered for a few different kinds in the "infant" size so I could see which ones I liked best.

Let me just say, to any soon-to-be parent reading this, all of the prefold diapers work--even the much-maligned regular old Gerber diapers. But, I definitely found some diapers I liked better than others, so I though I'd share my thoughts.

Different brands and types of diapers have slightly different shapes, particularly after washing. Pictured below with the purple edge are Diaper Rite Prefolds, size small, and Bummis Organic Prefolds, also size small. As you can see, the Diaper Rite diapers are significantly wider than the Bummis, which are slightly longer. Both look kind of bumpy, which is what they should look like after washing. Diapers come unwashed and will shrink and become more absorbent after a thorough pre-washing in hot water.



Next up is a BabyKicks Hemp Prefold in size small. This one has been washed several times, and you can kind of see how tight the knit is. This diaper is about as wide as the Bummis diaper, but much thinner. That's the big plus of hemp: it's very absorbent but thinner, and therefore less bulky when folded. The downside, in my opinion, is that my hemp diapers got quite rough after a couple of wash/dry cycles. Now, I'm reluctant to put these rough diapers directly against my son's tender nether region--although I do still use them when I'm layering two diapers at night.



Not pictured are the Kushies Prefold Diapers, which I also own. These diapers are thinner, 2x4x2, and longer than the other cotton diapers we use. To be honest, they're a bit too long for my needs, but I do use them when I'm layering diapers for nighttime, as mentioned above. I guess I might use them more when my son gets older.

Also shown in the photo above are the two types of reusable flannel wipes we've been using. They both work well and are just thin pieces of unbleached cotton flannel that have been hemmed with a serger or zig-zag stitch. If you have the patience and sewing skills, you could make them yourself. Otherwise, go for the cheapest ones--although I guess the ones done with a serger will likely last a little longer than the zig-zag ones, a few of which have started to lose some hem stitches.

Thus far, my favorite diapers are the Diaper Rites, which can be found online at Diaper Junction. I like the extra width, because, at the moment, my son is chubby for his age, but of average height. If you want to Snappi your diapers before you cover them, then the Diaper Rites are a good choice because you can get them all the way around fat baby thighs. If you plan to just close up the diapers inside your diaper covers, then either one will work for you--as will the even cheaper and just as effective Chinese Prefolds. So, if you don't plan to Snappi and are on a budget, go with Chinese Prefolds. At less than $2 a diaper, they're pretty cost-effective. Diaper Rites are slightly more expensive, but quite high-quality, so if you're planning to use diapers for more than one kid, they might be a good bet.

This is by no means a complete review of cloth prefolds, but I wanted to share my experience with the hope that it will help another mother or father out there trying to sift through all the options. Feel free to leave your own thoughts on cloth diapering in the comments.

Coming soon... cloth diaper washing! (Thrilling, I know.)

Although I'm bummed about my pumpkin failure, there has been some good news in the garden recently: my artichokes have come back from the dead!

A couple of months ago, both artichoke plants withered up and disappeared. Neither one had ever gotten particularly big, but I was surprised to lose them both, especially since I had been dutifully watering them throughout the summer. I've never grown artichokes before, but I know they are perennials, so I assumed there would always be some leaves showing while the plant was alive.

Perhaps I was wrong, because, a couple of weeks ago, new leaves sprouted up from the ground where one of my two artichokes had been. Then, last week, leaves appeared at the other location. Both plants have suddenly revived themselves and started growing again.

I'm not sure if this is part of the typical growing cycle of an artichoke, or if I just got lucky and the plants decided to give me a second chance. Either way, I'm hopeful they'll keep growing this time and that we'll be eating homegrown artichokes this Spring.