Gardening Guides & Tips
My Obsession with Growing Dried Heirloom Beans
Currently, I'm writing this after just harvesting the prettiest bowl of colorful, dried heirloom beans for Winter. Their unassuming browned pods are pried open to reveal what can only be described as treasure. No matter the size of your growing space, I hope you can...
Shade Cloth vs Row Cover ~ A Garden Update for Fall
To set the stage: it's mid-October 2021. The weather has been all over the place. In the last few weeks it was 100 degrees, followed by sudden rainstorms (and hail!), and has recently settled into "ideal" Fall gardening temperatures with chilly mornings and day temps...
Propagating Passion Fruit To Create More Vines
Some big transformations are about to happen in our backyard homestead. The passion fruit vines we have had for over four years overtook a weak trellis to the point that it is falling over---creating an unmanageable jungle---and need to be completely re-designed. To...
Fall Planted Flower Bulbs
Did you know ranunculus are my favorite flowers? Even before I started gardening, I've always loved them. In the Fall of 2020 I devoted a whole bed in my garden to fall-planted spring bloomers, like ranunculus, and I absolutely do not regret it. This blogpost is...
I Finally Grew Some Nice Beets! Here Are The Gardening Tips I Tried
Oh beets! Here's the thing: I think every gardener has an elusive crop, or nemesis, that year after year intimidates us. For me, that was beets. I could grow radishes, turnips, and carrots, but my beet growing game was always terrible. This year I tried some tips for...
Protecting Fruit in an Backyard Garden
It's the beginning of July, and the garden is rewarding me for months, arguably years, of planning and hard work. All the fruits we planted in the last few years are finally producing and giving us a taste of how our backyard homestead will be in the coming years. And...
Growing Celeriac ~ Tips From My Southern California Garden
To be honest, I can't quite remember how celeriac came onto my radar, but I definitely had never seen one in the farmer's markets here nor had I tasted one before. Celeriac's unique shape intrigued me, it's lack of popularity here in the US, and the fact that the...
Tips for Selecting & Planting California Native Plants
I'm thrilled to have you join me this year in learning about CA native plants and their importance in building a thriving home for local wildlife. Hopefully, you leave here with some California native garden ideas and inspiration. As a relatively new native plant...
Meet Randi
