August Afternoons

The arbor in front of our door is covered with grape vines, creating a nice shady spot for an afternoon glass of wine. Our old neighbors used to comment that we looked like the epitome of Napa when they'd come out and find us sitting there, sipping, and reading Harper'. So civilized. I think about wineries sometimes and of the million things that I'd like to learn how to do. Like make good wine. Or good beer. But then I look at my grape vine and notice that the leaves are blotched with red spots that I have yet to identify (granted I have still not taken a sample to the nursery and just asked them). And my grapes! They are truly pathetic.

The Grapes of Wrath

Nothing at all like the dense clusters of giant globes I keep finding at the farmer's market.

At least my lime tree is producing. The happy green spheres found their way into a giant batch of guacamole last night. (Want my secret recipe? I'm embarrassed to share it. Avocados. Chopped Tomato. Purple Onion - not too much- lime juice and garlic salt. Pace Salsa. All to taste. Pathetic I know. Especially from someone always railing against corporate food. Sometimes I'll lose the salsa, but it's never as good.)

These babies are just waiting to be turned into margaritas.

So my little arbor area is producing nicely, or not as the case may be. Melba doesn't care. She's just happy to have a spot to lie in the sun and then a spot to lie in the shade. And sometimes, especially after a long bout of chewing her squirrel, she's happy to have a place to lie inside.

It's hard to be the dog, but even harder to be her toy.

Happiness is...

A bone to chew on.

Mel is happy to be back to her routine of hiking in the morning, napping in the afternoon and the occasional ride-around in the car.

I'm back to weeding the garden, and am making slow but steady progress. My tomatoes are coming in nicely. I think a few of them may be ready in the next few days (I've been saying that for a week).

I've been reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. Anyone reading this who has heard of this will say "finally!" because it came out last December and made a splash in places where books on where our food comes from (IOWA CORN) make splashes. By that I mean NPR. Anyway the book is as good as everyone claims it is. What's nice about it is that it's a fairly even look at the different choices one could make in selecting dinner. It's not shock journalism that just lists the atrocities of factory farming in America (of which there are tons) though he does describe some of what goes on. Just enough to make one question their choices, or so I hope. At the very least it's reaffirmed my vegetarian (plus a couple of specific kinds of fish) ethical stance.

If you haven't read it, you should. And since there's a good change that if you're reading this blog you're either a friend or, even more likely, a family member, I'll happily lend it to you. It makes me want to go start my organic farm/winery in Oregon like RIGHT NOW. But I suppose I should finish the movie with Bryan and sell my book first. Sigh. I hate it when practical consideration get in the way of dreams.

Slow Motion

I feel like I'm moving in slow motion these days. I think it has something to do with the movie and the fact that I had to so much in such a short amount of time that comparatively I now feel like a slug. Or maybe it's that I didn't have my typical crash-and-burn get-sick-and-stay-in-bed-for-three-days after a big job; instead I've been cruising along at about 40% capacity for the past couple of weeks. During the shoot I had all these big plans about my garden after we wrapped, but now I'm lucky to get a post up. And here's the current state of the garden:

Now this doesn't mean that I'm not going out there today to weed. Because I am. I had it all pulled together, but the thing about two months of neglect is that the grasses start to take over. But there's some there there.

Like these squash. They're just now entering the world. And the green tomatoes are starting to turn red. They're all just begging to be tied to their stakes.

And while there aren't any strawberries, my strawberry plant has gone nuts in my absence.

There are runners all over the path.

And so it is this that makes me take a deep breath and even in my 40% state, head out into the garden to week in the sun. Because sometimes all you need is a little dirt to make it ok to be moving in slow motion. It's not like the plants are in a big rush. And there's something beautiful and perfect about that.

I think the saying should not be stop and smell the roses, but rather, stop and weed the squash bed.

Lunchtime!

Today I glanced out the window and noticed these two little birds feasting on last season's figs. I'm glad someone is getting some use out of those old figs before I prune the tree. It makes me think my procrastination is really a form of bird-love. Maybe that's so.

Spring in February?

Today began simply with Bryan and I deciding to go out for breakfast. We haven't done this in a while because, well, it's just not that hard to make an omelet. But Eva had recently told us that Phillipe's (home of the French Dip sandwich that we can't eat) serves a mean breakfast and, even better, coffee that costs 9 cents. All it took was us discussing going out to breakfast for Melba to play opossum.

Mel Plays Dead

We eventually did make it out of the house and into a day that's turned out to be 87 degrees. What's up global warming!?!

So that led me out into the garden that I've been ignoring because it's been so cold.

And Weeded And Weeded...

Today I weeded. And weeded. And weeded.

Go Artichoke Baby! Go!

The good news is that the artichoke plant we planted last February is going strong. I think I need to feed it though, because I'm not seeing any flowers yet.

Tomorrow I'm going to plant some lettuce and spring veggies in my veggie patch. I have to say I'm looking forward to it.

I'm also going to start sending out my query letter to lit agents...so if any of you have a friend in the biz that's looking for teen mystery series...

I'll keep you posted on the garden.

Maybe the Path Wasn't Built That Well Afterall

I guess I should have piled more soil on the side of the brick path. The Halloween party did a number on it. That will be the next chore in the garden - fix the path, again.

Remember when I said that the freesias were beginning to bloom. I lied. They're actually paper whites. But they are in bloom. And how.

Happy Haunting

This is Chuck - your financial advisor - scary no?

The lack of a forensics team tearing up our yard tells us that that bone we found was in fact an animal bone. I think I'm glad. I think I'm really glad.

Everyone has Skeletons in their...Flower Bed?

OK so I just finished giving a statement to the police. Seriously. Two patrolmen and two detectives just left my house. I wish I had thought to take pictures. But I'm getting ahead of myself, let me go back to the beginning of this story.

As I've mentioned, I've been cleaning up the yard in anticipation of the big Halloween party on Tuesday. In the process of pulling all the weeds out of a particular flower bed on Polly's patio, I found some pots and bits of ceramics. There was also a jawbone of what I figured was a coyote or some animal. In one of the pots that was covered in weeds there was also a what turns out to be the bottom spinal bone. It's the piece that fits into the coccyx. I, of course, didn't know that then. I looked at it and thought - another creepy animal bone, I'll leave it for Polly in case she wants to add it to her decoration for the party - and then I immediately forgot all about it.

So this evening Charlie, Polly and her mom are all sitting on the patio and they call me down and ask me where I found this bone, which I tell them, and then Polly says that she's pretty sure it's human. We debate this for a minute and then Polly calls the police to let them know that we think we found a human bone.

A half hour later two patrolmen show up, look at it and say that they don't know but it could be human so they call it in.

Another half hour later two detectives show up. I tell them where I found it and they ask some questions about the house. The older one thought it was an animal but the younger wasn't sure so they booked it and bagged it as evidence.

I want to point out that the younger, female, detective was in fact wearing a low cut top under a stylish jacket with really cute slacks and boots with heals. Her hair was also done up in a loose curly style. I mention this only because she looked like she's walked off a CSI set and I had always found the outfits on that show to be unrealistic. Apparently I was wrong.

In the process of this, the older detective started chatting with us and we were talking about downtown and he mentioned that we should be extra careful for the next couple of nights because they'd just done a raid of skid row and when they do that people often wander to the outskirts of our neighborhood. I am thankful for Mel.

Then we started talking about OJ, and he said that he'd been partners with Mark Foreman. (!!!) Then he said that a lot of good came out of the trial because it was so embarrassing for the LAPD that they became the first police group to have their own forensics lab, even before the FBI. Also they started training their officers outside of the LAPD instead of doing everything internally. He said that now there's a whole new generation of officers and it's a very different and much better organization.

I think all of this (minus the info about Skid Row) is extremely comforting. And I'm glad I have Mel who always looks out the front doors looking tough.

We'll see if it turns out I dug up a human bone. What a weird Thursday night.

October Gardening - Part 2

I've spent the past couple of afternoons in the garden trying to get it presentable for the Halloween party on Tuesday. I spent most of that time in the patio below us pruning back plants that had threatened to overtake the yard. Specifically I took about 60% out of the marigold bush, and all the lower branches of the Pomagranate Tree that had been threatening to grab anyone who walked near it. Under the Marigolds I discovered about a dozen really cool pots that had been completely hidden. I'm thinking of planting more flowers now on my deck.

Finally, my repaired path - once again, not as hard a job as I'd expected - not unlike the irrigation repair

Then this afternoon I turned my attention to that path we destroyed last spring. I pulled out all the bricks, leveled the dirt as best I knew how and added about 90lbs of sand to the top. When I replaced the bricks I came up about 10 short. I'm not quite sure how I managed that. I filled the gaps between bricks with potting soil and the plan is that I'm going to sew Sweet Alyssum seeds to fill in the spaces with sturdy little leaves and flowers.

Isn't it great when you know a party is about to happen in your yard/house so you finally get motivated to clean up the stuff you've been wanting to forever? After nearly breaking my ankle on the path yesterday and then being told that this was the path the band would use to get to the stage, I was extra motivated. There's nothing like the potential to hurt someone else to make you level your path.

Meanwhile the bulbs that I so carefully avoided in my weeding last week have started to bloom.

Fall's First Blooms

I now remember that they're freesias. And apparently yellow at that.

Also, I noticed today some new bulbs making their way to the light.

Isn't Nature Cool?

I'm pretty sure these are going to be daffodils, but I could be lying.

And finally, the lavender I bought last week is waiting patiently to be planted. I'm thinking next week, after the party, so they don't get trampled by the band.

Lovely Lavender - the last belle at the ball

October Gardening - Part 1

This morning I ventured out to the nursery because I've discovered I'm much more motivated to clear weeds if I have fun new plants to put in their place. I decided to stretch a bit from my usual Sunset Nursery in Los Feliz so I drove to Pasadena and went to Burkard's.

Buckard's = disappointing

Burkard's is the kind of place that every gardening magazine mentions as the best nursery in Los Angeles. It's not. Well, that's not fair. It has an extensive selection, so much so that I ran into Amoeba's complex - too much selection. I'm sure if I were a professional landscaper I would love it. But I'm not, and I didn't. Also a lot of the plants seemed really stressed, like they hadn't been taken care of correctly. So I left and found a much smaller nursery in Pasadena called Bellefontaine. The guy working there was great and spent a lot of time telling me about the plants I was buying and making sure I had space for them. I do.

So today I cleared 3 beds and planted two of them, along with cleaning up some of the lower beds. The first one was filled with nasturciums, grass, two old zucchini plants and the beginning of some bulbs. Doing my best not to flatten the bulbs, which is tricky because man those suckers are delicate, I pulled out all the grass and left the nasturciums mostly intact.

Pretty in Orange

I covered the exposed bed with bark chips and filled in some snapdragons for color.

I swear this looked right when I took it

For some reason this picture looks sideways, but when I turn it, it looks just as weird. Sorry, but you get the idea.

I have not yet repaired the path. That's for another day.

How many times do I have to almost break my ankle before I fix this? A lot!

But if anyone knows a good way to get caked mud off the bricks, I'm all ears.

Bed #2 got a similar treatment in that the grass was removed and the bed covered in bark chips. In this case I left the lavender, sage and rosemary I planted in the early summer.

My herb and cutting garden

I was thinking I would make it all herbs, but then I didn't see many herbs that I thought were interesting so I filled in with poppies and more snapdragons (you'll see it's a theme). I'm thinking about adding some kind of low ground cover that flowers but would allow a rotating series of flowers to poke out of it.

Purple Solarum to hide tha gaps

To the left of the giant climbing rose that I have no great love for but my landlord does so I can't remove it, I planted a Solanum xanti 'Salmon Creek'. It will grow to about 2' and spread out about the same. The fellow at the nursery said it stays smaller than most Solanums so I'm hoping it'll just cover the ugly part of the wall that's now exposed. It's draught resistant, which is perfect because that little spot doesn't get hit very much by the sprinklers. Also the Flowers are way more purple than they look like they are here.

I then realized I was feeling light headed and figured it was from the physical work, until I realized that it was 3 o'clock and I hadn't eaten since an early breakfast. So I fixed that and got back to the garden. I replaced the petunias that were looking really leggy and sickly with three of the deep red snapdragons.

Snap, snap, snapdragon

Clearly I need to fill in the front of the container with something else. I'd like to have something that wants to spill down the front, or I'll turn it and have those be the low front and something else taller in the back. Any ideas?

Ready for veggies - or a party

Finally I decided that the way the sun works in the yard, it's really best if I only use the middle bed for vegetables. This is a little sad because it limits my veggie capacity but it also may help me to focus, so I'm not complaining. I pulled out the dead tomatoes, lettuce and peppers and cleared out all the weeds, even under the new growth of artichokes. I was so surprised when these came back, I was certain I'd killed them over the summer. It turns out they were just dormant. They're supposed to look dead, according to my friend at the nursery. He said most people drown them in the summer thinking they've not gotten enough water. Lucky for me my irrigation didn't work over the summer so most of the garden wasn't watered enough. No drowning here.

I'm waiting until after the Halloween party and Polly's decision of whether or not she's going to have a platform built on this bed for the band to play before I plant it with veggies.

Tomorrow my plan is to attack the bed under the fig tree and maybe plant one or two of the fern-leaf lavender plants I bought today there. I think they'll have enough sun if I plant them in the front of the bed, of course then the rest of the bed is blocked, so I'm still debating. They may go over in the bed by the peach tree.

October Garden - Before

I noticed that Mel had found a nice spot in the sun this morning and went out to take a picture for the blog.

Mel has made a nice bed of weeds in the sun

While I was out standing in the garden I decided to check out the pathetic state of neglected affairs. Much to my surprise I found the artichoke plants had come back. During the summer they had died down to brown dead leaves with no sign of life.

The Great Artichoke Comeback!
(note the remaining dead one from last season)

I'm assuming it's the regular watering and cooling temperatures that have brought them back. The thing about fixing the irrigation is that now all the weeds are green. And that's mostly a good thing. At least it means the irrigation is working.

Now all my weeds are green

Polly is throwing a big Halloween party at her house (the front house) and is having a band play. She and I decided the only logical place for them to play would be on a platform over the garden. That means people are going to be in the garden. That means it's time for my fall cleanup/planting. So that picture above of all the green weeds, that's the before picture. Hopefully after this weekend there will be some after photos as well.

The nasturciums have taken over my squash patch, but that's okay because the squash didn't get enough water or sun and so didn't do very well anyway. I need a bigger yard, but that will come soon enough.

They always come back.

The limes are ripening much to my pleasure. I've been soaking the tree to bring it back from it's stressed out place of non-production.

Lime Heaven

That's it for now. More adventures in beginner gardening will follow. I'm thinking lettuce. And lavender. Maybe some succulents by the back where the irrigation doesn't quite reach. Also more herbs for cooking.

Irrigation Works!

Back in February when Bryan and I first attempted to tame the garden, there were several incidents of shovel and irrigation PVC pipe meeting and shovel winning over plastic. Needless to say, we've been hand-watering the garden ever since, much to the distress of some of the plants.

At one point I thought I'd take it upon myself to repair our blunders, only to almost throw out my back trying to pull off the broken coupling from the PVC pipe. Later I leaned about the cement used to keep them attached.

The good news is that last weekend my mom and dad visited and while they were here, my dad helped us repair the damage. So now we have sprinklers that work. Like this one:


In other garden news, my white potted flowers, whose name I've already forgotten, are on their third bloom for the season.


The zucchini are chugging along nicely, happy in their new found regular watering.


The tomatoes alas, are dead.


The tomatoes are dead. Long live the zucchini!

It's not all that great...

Last night we were at the Marat/Sade fundraising party for the play that Maria is producing and Patrick Adams is directing. (on a sidenote, I think it's going to be a fabulous production and if you want to get on a list for email updates email Patrick at patjadams@hotmail.com)

Anyway, while we were at the party a friend came up to me and told me that she'd been hearing all about my fabulous garden. Now I won't deny that I do have a butternut squash growing that looks like this...


the truth is that there is a significant portion of the garden that hasn't been touched yet. Or, since I'm on a truth binge, I did clear it all out of weeds last November but neglected to compost or plant and so the weeds came back with the spring (surprise, surprise). The pictures of the garden that I've been posting really only account for about a third of the square footage.

There's also this...


which is about 8 ft by 20 ft of weeds with some struggling and neglected roses in the middle.

And this...


which was filled with calla lilies but now lies filled with ugly weeds and a very invasive plant that needs to come out lest it take over the yard and turn into a tree.

So it's not all amazing over here. I still have a lot of work to do and with the weather getting hotter, 92 right now, it only makes me less motivated.

Something's Ripening...

...in the garden.

So my first Brandywine Tomato is almost ripe. And it looks like the buggies think it looks as delicious as I do.


Any ideas for organic ways to get rid of the friends that are eating my tomatoes?

I've figured out the identity of one of my four pepper plants!


This guy started turning red so I'm now convinced that he's a red bell pepper plant. One mystery down, three to go.

All in all I'm excited that my garden is beginning to produce food I can eat (the broccoli crop of spring was a disaster). Yesterday I had a salad with lettuce and cherry tomatoes from the garden. So rad!


Mel doesn't even care.

Garden Update

iIn an effort to keep a log of what's happening in the garden, here are some pictures of where we're at.


The artichokes are clearly chugging along nicely. These two look like they're just about ready to be picked. Oh, and I found out that you're supposed to pick artichokes before their leaves/petals open too much.

The strawberries are also coming along nicely.


I did have one of the four plants croak on me but the other three seem very happy and healthy. They produce about 1 strawberry every couple of days, which is immediately popped into my mouth. Good times.

The peppers are going strong.


This is one of the two original pepper plants I put in the ground about a month ago (the other bit the dust). I had to move this plant into a sunnier spot when the fig tree filled out and I thought this pepper would be stalled, but it's started growing again. I'm not sure if this is a jalapeno or a bell pepper though. Any ideas?


This plant has at least a dozen peppers growing. I can't remember if it's a jalapeno or cayenne plant. I think I'll start keeping better planting records in the future.

The cucumber plants are definitely growing but they, along with some of the squash plants, seem to be plagued by this.


It's making some of the leaves chalky and white and crisp. Is this a disease or a pest?

The herb pot is happily filling with oregano.


Those little sprouts in the back are cilantro. The first thing I've ever grown from seed, thankyouverymuch.

The last time I did a big planting in February (or Jan - can't remember) I planted about 3 dozen lettuce plants. Needless to say I couldn't keep up with their production and they all bolted.


This time around I'm sticking to 6 lettuce plants, which is a far more manageable number.

I figure about the same time the lettuce gets ready to start harvesting, the tomatoes will be ripe.


These babies are on their way..,.


...to my tummy.

And I'm so glad I heeded my mother's advice and planted some cherry tomatoes! These heirloom orange cherry tomatoes are already really productive, and delicious.


Finally this plant is growing next to my hose spigot.


I thought it was a weed, but now that it's in bloom I'm not so sure.


Can anyone identify it for me?

I promised Bryan I'd work on our most recent script while he's away, but I'm struggling because it's gorgeous out and I just want to dig. I think I'll write a bit and the head out there this afternoon.

Oh, before I forget, my piece on How To Save a Peach Tree is in the blog carnival Festival of Trees at Via Negativa. This carnival spotlights writings about trees. Check it out.