Want

Meet Nepenthes attenboroughii, a pitcher plant big enough to eat a rat. Found on the island of Palawan, in the Phillippines. A few of these in the vegetable garden would solve the gopher problem in a hurry.

Spring flowers at La Casa.

I'm always glad to see flowers make it through the winter.

The little purple irises bloom first.

The Japanese cherry is in full bloom this week.

Vegetable garden update

We're finally enjoying the fruits of my labor. Literally. The tomatoes are ripening, with plenty of fresh basil, oregano, thyme and rosemary for pasta sauce, and the strawberries are producing again. The snow peas have died off and the lettuce has slowed down; I think it's too hot. I'll plant them again when the rain starts up again. Elsewhere at the Haus we're still buried with plums and peaches. I pickled some of the plums and I'm attempting to dry the peaches.

The garden so far

The tomatoes are starting to fruit. I planted some more lettuce and cilantro. The basil I got is growing slowly but I can harvest from it now. I pick leaves of the lettuce for my workday lunch sandwiches. The peas are still producing, but not a lot. The shriveled potato I stuck in the ground is growing like crazy but I have no idea how or when I'm supposed to harvest it. I'm not using any fertilizer or pesticide other than snail bait.

It's not particularly impressive, but I'm learning.

Vegetable garden update

I spent most of the day on the garden. I planted the stuff that was ready to go in, like cilantro and lettuce, attached emitters for the drip line, added some snail bait and cocoa hull mulch. I would have had the pressure regulator and timer connected too but there's a drip line T-connector that leaks like crazy. I'll have to fix that tomorrow. I also need some basil plants since the seed didn't take and I'll add a flat of marigolds because they're supposed to keep the pests away.

So far I've got peas, volunteer tomatoes that sprouted up elsewhere in the yard, a potato that was sprouting in the refrigerator, an onion that survived the winter and a tarragon plant that did the same. I also have some strawberries that I got from Kathy Curley at work. I would have brought more home but it's hard to carry a flat on a bicycle.

As always, I do this work Karcher style, the soundtrack for the day starting with a Studio 1 ska compilation, a big band collection, another Studio 1 comp- dub this time, Jimmy Smith's House Party, a Dr. Nico/Roger/Tabu Ley Rochereau collection and finishing off with the Boards Of Canada.

Oog

Boy am I beat. I spent all weekend and most of my evenings last week digging up part of my backyard. My backyard is mostly shade, but there's a patch of grass that gets a fair amount of sun. With the crappy soil this patch immediately bakes and the sparse grass that's on it turns brown. I don't want to us the amount of water it would take to keep it green so I'm building a vegetable garden. I had grandiose plans for raised beds but I crashed into the fact that I don't want to spend the time on anything involving carpentry right now. Maybe later. Anyway I decided that I would take out six inches of soil in the bed areas and replace that with compost. Well, digging out half a foot of this soil when it has set for the summer is just a rung below breaking asphalt.

In addition, anthough the weather during the week was great for yard work- partly cloudy, lower 60's, it shot up into the mid eighties for the weekend. Took a big bite out of the Pellegrino stash. Right now, everything hurts but the worst is over.

Like A Rock

That's what the soil is like out here. I love it in California and don't miss much of the Illinois climate, but it did make for some damn good dirt. Soft, black, rich as fudge, you could grow anything in that. Throw in a little mica and it was a sponge. The adobe out here is good for nothing but bricks.

I had to set up my sprinklers already this year and the price of water is going up. I've already got a drip in the back so now I'm going to put raised beds in the patch of grass that gets cooked by the sun every summe no matter how much I water. I can easily run a drip line to it. and grow stuff that we can eat.

Planting Bug's Bit Me

I still wanted to do more cleanup in the yard before I planted but haven't finished yet. But I couldn't wait anymore. Last week I went to King's nursery and got some petunias for the window boxes, and some perennial shrub-y flower-y things and planted them around the cherry tree. Tomorrow I'm going back to Kings to plant some flowering sages in the front yard along the neighbors fence. The idea is to slowly encroach inward on the lawn. Since we're going to have the climate of L. A. or Baja pretty soon, I
should start planting drought-tolerant stuff now.