The late spring rains have brought some nice blossoms to the garden this April. Including...

The Royal Penstemon I got this winter from the nursery at the Theodore Payne Foundation.
The blossoms on the Royal Penstemon are really lovely, and butterflies and other pollinators seem really into them. I saw a butterfly just hanging out inside one of the blooms the other day, drinking in the awesomeness. I guess that's the benefit of planting natives.

Also currently blooming are one small lupine and a few pink Cosmos from the wildflower seed mix my sister gave me for Christmas. More Cosmos, scattered throughout the backyard, are on the way.

Plus these, whose name I can't currently remember.

Speaking of my sister, she has an amazing wildflower display in front of her house in San Antonio. Mine is pretty pitiful in comparison, but I'm still happy to see some pretty spots of color around the backyard.

The front yard is really bushy and overgrown, but in bloom as well, which is great. I am planning to prune it back soon and recover the paths with some wood chips we got from friends a couple of weeks ago. There are bees everywhere, to the point where I'm concerned about my son accidentally grabbing one when he picks lavender blossoms. But still, it's nice to see so many happy bees.

Despite some past failures, I have recently decided that I really enjoy growing potatoes. I don't even have to buy seed. I just accidentally leave potatoes from my produce delivery box in the pantry for too long, and I've got some starters almost ready to plant.

Last year, I grew potatoes in the ground, but this year I decided to use the potato bags again. I think I have it figured out this time. I planted earlier--in March--and I'm keeping them bags out of direct sun and being careful not to over-water. I think my last potato bag disaster was due to hot summer temperatures combined with overzealous watering (due to the hot temperatures). So far, things seem to be going well.

Here is the first bag I planted back on March 18, sitting next to my two blueberry bushes.

And here it is today, April 28. Potatoes grow so quickly!

Today I filled in dirt and compost around the stalks until it was almost to the top of the bag. Now, I just have to wait and try not to get to crazy with the watering. If I'm good, I should have some potatoes by June. What could be easier than that? (I hope I'm not jinxing myself by saying that.)

For my birthday last fall, Dakota gave me this nice olive tree. We finally planted it in the backyard last month. Originally, I was thinking I'd put it in the front yard in front of our bedroom window, but Dakota pointed out that the fruit might attract (loudly chirping) birds. Instead, it's on the slope just below the cactus planters and above the Pink Lady Apple and the peach tree.

I pruned it back pretty well when we planted it and tried to water it deeply. We're having a pretty dry rainy season, so I think I'll need to do some more deep watering soon to help it get established. Or, La Nina could get it together and send us some rain!

The tree is an olive variety called Arbequina, which is supposed to be good for both oil and eating. It's also self-fertile and fairly hardy, which makes it a good tree for a home orchard. Originally from Spain, the Arbequina apparently does well in Southern California.

From what I gather online, it might take a few years to get an olive harvest, although the tree had fruit on it when Dakota gave it to me. How fun would it be to press our own olive oil? I wonder how one does that. I guess I'll have to do a little research. Either way, I really love the look olive trees with their silvery-green leaves. So, if we get fruit I'll consider that a bonus.

Last Spring, a friend of mine posted a photo on Facebook of her daughter picking and eating blueberries in her backyard. I immediately got really excited. It had never occurred to me that I could grow blueberries in Los Angeles, but my friend lives in Glendale, so, obviously, I can.

A couple of weeks ago, my husband, son and I headed off to the San Gabriel Nursery. San Gabriel Nursery is sprawling and has a huge selection of plants, including lots of fruit trees and bushes. I'd done a little research beforehand, and found that you need two blueberry bushes to get fruit. Happily, they had three different southern highbush varieties, which are the blueberries best suited to our area. I picked out one Misty Blueberry and one Jubilee Blueberry.

Here they are potted up in some "half-barrel" planters in the back yard. I planted them in soil specially made for potting azaleas, because blueberries like their soil highly acidic. You can get azalea potting soil at most nurseries. I've had them out for a few weeks now, and they seem pretty happy. One bush has even put out some new leaves.

After we found the blueberry bushes, I couldn't resist doing a little browsing. It's hard when there are so many plants to look at. I noticed some good-looking and inexpensive strawberry plants. I always like growing fresh strawberries, so I grabbed a couple of those.

And then, I noticed something kind of cool sitting next to the strawberries and artichokes in what must have been the perennial fruit and vegetable section: rhubarb. Dakota's parents grow rhubarb in their garden in Iowa, but it never occurred to me to grow it here in Los Angeles. I'm a pretty big fan of perennials you can eat, especially now that my gardening time is pretty limited. So, I decided to go for it.

After getting home and doing a little research online, I have found a mix of opinions about whether it's really possible to grow tasty rhubarb in Southern California. The plants like to get cold, although the variety I got--Cherry Red--is supposed to be the best for this part of the world. So, we'll see.

I planted the rhubarb next to the artichokes on the edge of the upper garden bed. That should keep it away from the hot midday sun once summer rolls around. Hopefully it will be happy there.

Once I planted everything, I realized that I have inadvertently created a pie garden. If all goes well, I could bake an awesome strawberry-blueberry-rhubarb pie from my own backyard. (To be honest, Dakota would bake that pie. He's the pie guy in our house.) Plus, I already have a peach tree and two apple trees. Imagine the pie possibilities! Because I am a huge gardening nerd, the idea of a pie garden is really exciting. I hope it works out.

Dakota got me this very cool book for Christmas called Home Made. It's got gorgeous pictures, and, most importantly, simple easy-to-follow recipes for making jams, biscuits, cheese and other basic but delicious fresh foods. In fact, the instructions for cheese-making seemed so simple that I decided to try making some for our New Year's Day party.

I made a soft, cow's milk cheese good for spreading called Labneh. The recipe is crazy easy, but I won't write it out here because I don't want to steal from the author of Home Made. I'm guessing you can find directions online pretty easily, although the book is worth purchasing. Basically, it involves yogurt, salt and garlic.

You put all that stuff in a clean dishcloth. And here's a tip: Use a dish cloth, not cheese cloth. Cheese cloth is too porous for this particular method. Then, you hang your bundle-o-yogurt over a big pot or bucket and walk away. I left mine hanging--which strains out the water--for about 24 hours.

Finally, you open up the dishcloth and put your cheese on a platter. Add fresh herbs and you're done.

I thought the cheese was very tasty, and I got many compliments from my party guests. In fact, they ate it all, so I know it must have been good. Home Made has a few other cheese recipes that I'm hoping to try, including a sweet breakfast cheese with vanilla bean. Yum.

So, it turns out soft cheese making is one of those awesome things that seems really fancy and time-consuming, but are actually easy-peasy. I love those things.

Dakota has been working on the bathroom floor for the last several weeks, and it's almost done. Pouring a cement floor is not an easy process, and there were some ups and downs, but I think it's going to end up looking great.

Here's the radiant floor heating that was laid down on top of the subfloor and covered with the first layer of cement. It has a thermostat with a timer attached, so, once it's all hooked up, we'll be able to set the timer for just before bath time or when we wake up in the morning, and then walk into an already-toasty room. This will be a nice change from our old, drafty, freezing one.

Dakota made the first cement layer fairly thick and added some pea gravel to make each bag of cement go a little farther (cement is expensive). Because he was mixing using a drill and a special mixing attachment, it was a bit difficult to get the consistency just right.

For a moment there, he thought he'd added too much water and that the first layer would never dry--especially since it was also cold and rainy outside. If cement doesn't set properly, the only solution is to break it up and start again. This was a scary thought considering we had a fairly expensive heating element hiding underneath that cement. Happily, it eventually dried.

Notice the toilet in the bathtub in the photo above. That was a little tricky since we only have one bathroom. Happily, we have some friends who live close by and, well, I don't mind peeing in the bushes in a pinch.

Next came two more thin layers. For the last layer, Dakota rented a better, stronger drill to mix the cement. This helped the consistency immensely, and I know if he did it again he'd have gotten the right mixing tools from the start.

Here's the last layer going down.

Now, the floor is dry and cured, and Dakota will do a little patching and add a seal and then it's done. There are already a few cracks and water spots on the floor, but we like it that way. It adds a nice patina to the surface. Perfect is boring.

This weekend, Dakota will hang the rest of the drywall and then start work on the cabinets. The floor was the most difficult part of the remodel--well, besides tile, which we're hiring professionals to do--so hopefully the rest of the work will go fairly quickly. I can't wait for the cabinets. Right now, all our bath products and cleaners are in boxes in the bedroom. It's a bit cramped.

Well, things are moving along slowly in the winter garden this year. But I do seem to have one bed that could provide a decent harvest. This is the uppermost bed, which I planted first--but still late--in October. So far, the turnips and collards look the most promising. The chard is a little small, but it could rally. I always seem to do well with chard.

The beets, unfortunately, are taking their time.
These guys are barely out of the seedling stage, and it's almost January. I added some compost to try to encourage them. We'll see what happens. I remember having beet issues last year, as well, Perhaps they don't like my soil. Hmmmm...

The lower bed is looking pretty pitiful, although I might get some peas out of it when all is said and done. Next winter, I pledge to plant early and tend carefully. Hopefully I'll have the time to make that happen.

The other day, I was talking with my mom and sister about adventure playgrounds. Specifically, the playgrounds full of scaffolding, piles of wood, old tires and rusty tools that were popular in England in the 1960s through 80s. (If you've ever seen the awesome documentary series 7 Up, they use the kids playing at an adventure playground as a framing device.) My mom, sister and I were laughing about how those playgrounds were weirdly dangerous but also extremely fun. I never really played at one, but apparently my sister really loved to use the saw at the adventure playground she went to when we briefly lived in London as children.

These days, most playgrounds are super-safe and rusty-tool-free, which is good, I guess. But I also think kids need to be able to scramble around and fall down and have "adventures" when they can. Happily, I think our backyard is turning out to be a private adventure playground for my son--and possibly his more rough-and-tumble friends.

As my son gets older, he's starting to really love backyard playtime. In fact, today he ran right to the back door as soon as I suggested it. And why wouldn't he love it? There are rocks and pebbles to collect, stairs to climb, sticks to swing, buckets of dirt to dig in, plants to smell and hills to scramble up (and occasionally fall down). And, of course, chickens!

Yesterday, my son made his way around the yard while I tried to clear our some weeds so I can plant the awesome wildflower seeds my sister gave me for Christmas. It was really fun to watch him explore, and when he's just a little bit older we'll be able to spend even more time out there digging, playing and learning. I can't wait.

Back in October, we had to have another one of our big pine trees cut down. It was leaning down the hill in a pretty dangerous manner, and we decided we'd better remove it before it tumbled down the hill and caused a major traffic accident. (Thank goodness we did before that crazy windstorm at the end of November!) Here's the view before we took out the precariously leaning tree on the right.

And here's the view after. It's kind of nice to see more of the hillside across the way, but the yard feels pretty exposed now. We spend so much time back there, and I'd prefer a little more privacy--and shade.

To fill the hole, we decided to get a native California tree. This provided a perfect opportunity to visit the Theodore Payne Foundation. Do you know that I have never been there? I know, it's crazy. Theodore Payne is basically my dream nursery, and it's only 20 minutes or so away from my house. I have been meaning to visit for ages, but just never got around to it. So, I was pretty excited to go last month.

The nursery had a lot of great-looking native trees: oaks, pines, maples and sycamores. We went for a California Sycamore, because Dakota wanted a deciduous tree and we love the pretty white trunks and big, broad leaves. Our friends have a huge one in the back yard of their new house, and I am hopeful that this little guy will look that great someday.

While we were there, I couldn't resist purchasing a few native plants to plant in the backyard. I went for a variety of flowering bushes that are supposed to attract lots of butterflies and birds. I planted three along the side of the stairs. On the left side I put an Otay Mountain Lotus and a Red Fairy Duster.

And on the right, a Royal Penstemon. It likes well-drained, rocky soil and will produce showy purple flowers.

I planted this Rocky Point Pitcher Sage near the California Sycamore. It's supposed to produce large white flowers with a "lavender blush."

My hope is that the bushes and Sycamore will get established during the winter rainy season and really take off once Spring arrives. I can't wait to see all their flowers.

The bathroom remodel continues to progress, although I don't think it will be done by Christmas. I'm guessing the finish date will be sometime in late January. Still, much work has been done.

Dakota finished demolishing the floor and added several layers of subfloor, plus insulation. We have an open crawl space/basement below the bathroom, so quite a bit of cold air seeps in from below.

Then, he ripped down all the bathroom walls and added denim insulation in between the studs on the exterior wall. Unlike the last time we insulated the walls, I did not have to drive down to Los Alamitos to get a roll of eco-friendly UltraTouch denim insulation. These days, you can pick some up at your local Home Depot.

And, he removed the ugly metal window and installed the attractive wood one with a little transom at the top. Made by Dakota, of course.

As with everything, there are a lot of steps and small details that will make everything take more time than we'd like. Plus, all the work has to be done on weekends. But, overall, the remodel is progressing nicely. Next up, cement floor!

I saw this spider with her egg sac in the backyard last weekend.
I hope they survived the rains.

It's official. The bathroom remodel has begun!

For a little back story, let me just say that I really hate our current bathroom. It's a decent size, but there are many problems. My main issue is that it's got a separate shower and bathtub. Our house is very small (945 ft2), and we have barely any closet space, so to waste even a little space on a shower stall seems silly. Plus, the stall is badly vented so it gets mildewy and gross very easily. Then there's the cracked tile floor, shoddy cabinets and grubby, poorly caulked sink. Oh, and we haven't had knobs on the bathtub for about a year, which means we use vice grips instead. Classy! When you add it all up, it means that our bathroom never really looks clean, even after a good scrubbing.

We've been wanting to redo the whole thing for ages, and now that the deck is complete, Dakota is tackling the bathroom in earnest. Here's a "before"-ish picture. He's already removed the sink fixtures, drawers and cabinet doors, trim and part of the wall.


The wall has actually been out for months after Dakota pulled a chunk down to see what he was up against. Here's the accursed shower stall.

And the area around the toilet.

The plan is...

• New cabinets and cement counter top/sink
• Remove the shower and make it into a hall closet
• Tile around tub and make into shower/tub combo
• Add radiant floor heating
• Put in cement floors
• New light and quiet vent fan
• New window
• New dual-flush toilet

We're keeping the tub and using inexpensive white hexagonal tile from Home Depot, so it shouldn't be too expensive when all is said and done (I hope).

Dakota took out the cabinets and floor yesterday. I guess the masonry underneath the tile was pretty weak and crumbly, so he took it all the way down to the subfloor.



The hope is to have it all completed in a little over a month. Since we only have the one bathroom, we need to have access to at least the bathtub and toilet most of the time. Hopefully that remains possible. At least one of us is in diapers and can be bathed in the sink in a pinch.

I am really excited about the prospect of a clean, well-organized bathroom and a hall closet. If it's done by Christmas, I won't need to ask Santa for a single thing.

My winter garden went in late this year. I got distracted by other projects and chores, but managed to get some seeds in over a couple of weekends in mid-October. I decided to use seeds left over from last season, and they seem to be sprouting well so far.
In the upper bed, I planted chard, mustard greens, beets and turnips. Here they are covered by chicken wire to protect them from mischievous hens and annoying squirrels and skunks. They've grown a bit bigger, now, and I thinned them out last weekend between rain storms.


The greens should grow fairly quickly, I hope, especially since I managed to work in quite a bit of compost from our bin. With the mix of kitchen scraps, chicken poop, leaves and straw, that compost should be full of nutrients.

I also planted pretty much the same mix of greens and root vegetables in the lower bed, plus peas, and some salad mixes in pots and planters.


Oh, and my artichokes came back up for the Fall.



Those logs are there to protect them from the previously-mentioned chickens. I really hope they work. I would so love to have some homegrown artichokes in a few months. Ramshackle Solid finally did it, so maybe I can, too.

It was a lot of hard work and heavy lifting (by Dakota), but our family now has a great-looking, comfortable deck. We've actually had it for a couple of months, but, as you may have noticed, I'm having a hard time juggling working motherhood and blogging these days. In my completely unbiased opinion, it's one of the nicest decks I've ever seen.

Here's the Ipe decking going down. It looks really great, and I'm excited that it doesn't need any stain or seal. Dakota used this installation system that means all the screws go in on the underside of the boards. So there are no nails or screws on the deck surface. As he says, it's like an interior floor.


Here's the fencing clamped and ready to be screwed in. We had custom galvanized panels made with 2x2 inch wire squares. They let light and cool breezes through, but keep little ones safe.


Dakota installed a corrugated metal roof over about 2/3 of the deck to provide shade and shelter from rain. I think it looks really great, and it's kept the deck dry through some recent storms.


We don't have a table out there yet, but we will soon. For the moment, we just have a couple of chairs and a lot of open space. It makes a great outdoor play area for our son.

As you might imagine, we have plants all over our house. I like the way they look, and some think they help with indoor air quality. So, when we were putting together my son's room, plants were part of the plan. I even got some cute vintage hanging planters off eBay But, as my son got older, I realized that, even if the plants were up high and safe from little hands, their falling leaves were not.

Like most babies, mine likes to put everything in his mouth. So, I did a little research and switched out some of the house plants in his room with less dangerous alternatives. I was happy to read that both Christmas cactus and polka dot plants both appear to be non-toxic. Both are attractive and easy to find, so I picked them up at my local nursery. (Of course, all these lists are really confusing, but I managed to find both listed on a couple of "safe" plant lists.)

My other idea was to pot some herbs, since, obviously, those are okay to eat. I don't have a photo, but I got a nice little thyme plant that's working out nicely. Pictured below are the polka dot plant and a little succulent that grows in a compact way that means it won't drop leaves.

I'm glad I was able to figure out a way to have plants in my baby's room. Growing things is such a big part of my life, and hopefully my son will feel the same way when he's older. For now, they add interest to his room decorations and he has fun helping me water them. Of course, I plan to prevent him from eating any dropped leaves or flowers, but hopefully if one sneaks past me, it won't make him sick.

September kind of snuck up on me, and I really need to get my winter seeds planted soon. In the past, I've had better success in my winter garden than in the summer. Los Angeles summers are so dry that it's hard for veggies to thrive. But winter is wetter, and greens seem to love the cool-but-not-freezing nights. Some of my favorite winter crops include turnips, arugula and, the best of all, chard. Oh how I love tasty, hearty and easy-to-grow chard.

In the past, I have posted about my troubles rounding up chickens. If your hens don't want to go back in their coop after a session of free ranging, it can be pretty damn hard to convince them to do so. Chickens are fast and they can be surprisingly sneaky.
It's almost always a bad idea to chase an uncooperative hen, particularly for me, since my backyard is on a hillside. I'm more likely to fall on my butt than I am to actually nab one of my hens. But I don't want to have to keep the girls cooped up because they can't be trusted to return to the safety of their fenced-in run when I need to go to work. Luckily, I have come up with a new technique to herd them that I wanted to share.



All you need to execute my newly discovered Hose Technique (patent pending) is a good, long outdoor house and a spray nozzle. With these tools, you too can herd your hens right back into their run in a manner of minutes. Here's how it works:

Stand in a location that allows you to see your chickens and their run. Then, start spraying short bursts of water behind them. This will startle them a bit, but it won't hurt them, even if you accidentally hit them in the butt with a little water. Basically, the water will annoy them, so they'll run in the other direction. Using their desire to avoid getting wet, you can herd the hens with water the way a dog would herd sheep. It takes a little practice, but it works really well for me, because I can spray a stream of water much more quickly than I can run back and forth shooing my hens.

In fact, now that I've used Hose Technique a couple of times, my hens start to head back towards their run as soon as the first spray hits nearby. They know that as soon as they get in the run, that weird water will stop showing up.

I know some folks may not enjoy startling their pet chickens, and this technique is not for everyone. But for me, if it's a choice between very rarely letting my girls free range and using the Hose Technique, the hose wins.

I have exactly seven figs growing on my little fig tree this year. They looking pretty good and my tree is having its happiest and healthiest year yet. So, I'm hoping to taste some fresh figs in another month or so.

I'm considering tying some shiny ribbon to the tree or using some other anti-bird technique to protect those seven fruits. But I don't think ribbon is going to keep squirrels away, and I suspect they're the biggest threat to my figgy dreams. Any suggestion?

I've been cloth diapering my son for a little over a year now, so I thought this might be a good time to share  my diaper-washing method, in case other prospective parents stumble across this blog. First, let me say that, despite what you might have heard, cloth diapering is not difficult or expensive. Whenever I tell people my son wears cloth, they say, "Wow." Honestly, they shouldn't be impressed. Now, if I was doing EC, then they should say, "Wow," because that takes some serious commitment. But cloth diapering is no big deal.

Anyway, enough proselytizing. As I mentioned in a previous post, my son wears cloth pre-folds with waterproof covers. It seems like everyone has their own washing method, but here's what's kept my son's diapers clean and sturdy for the past year:

Note: I have a front-loading, high-efficiency washer.

Regular wash
1) Put dirty diapers, flannel wipes, covers and diaper pail liner into washer and run a "rinse/spin" cycle on COLD, no detergent. This is basically just to rinse off the, ahem, debris and keep stains from setting.
2) Add roughly 2 Tbl Sp of Planet 2x Ultra Laundry Detergent* and 1/2 cup of vinegar to the fabric softener section. Run the "heavy duty" cycle on HOT.
3) OPTIONAL: If the diapers are particularly dirty or stinky, I sometimes run an additional "quick wash" cycle on HOT with just Borax
4) Remove from washer. Hang cloth pre-folds and wipes on the clothesline, preferably in the bright sun. Hang the covers and diaper pail liner on an indoor line or drying rack, because the sun can degrade the plastic.
5) OPTIONAL: After the pre-folds are dry, put them in the drier for 10 mins just to soften them up a bit.

Stink removal
- For stinky pre-folds, I usually fill up a big bucket with cold water and about 2 cups of Biokleen Bac-Out, and soak the pre-folds in this mixture overnight.
- For stinky covers, Thirsties recommends that you run a wash with a small amount of chlorine-free bleach powder, like OXO-Brite. This method has worked for me.

And that's it! Honestly, if you use pre-folds, you can purchase enough so you only have to wash diapers every 3 days or so. Dakota and I both have full-time jobs, and don't find diaper-washing to be a major time suck.

And now for a baby photo, just because. This is my son watching his dad build the deck.



* Planet is one of the recommended detergents on this cloth diaper detergent chart, and it's both cheap and wildly available.