We didn't come here for the grass...

All squashed up

2011-08-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

Over the years my experience as a volunteer - whether it be a girl-guide leader or a weed picker - has taught me that volunteers are happy in their work in even the harshest conditions, probably because they choose to be there and are there for no other reason than they want to be. This applies to plants too!

This year, I carefully planned out my raised beds, following scale drawings of where I would plant my warm season vegetables. I planted seeds and lovingly tended to them. Some grew and others well... struggled. Meanwhile, in a far distance corner of the garden, a host of squash plants germinated. They were ignored as I poured love and care over the plants I had in my raised beds. I didn't even water the volunteers. And now they have outgrown the chosen ones and look fantastic, and I can't claim any of the credit.

So what happened? Well, some of this is elementary, my dear Watson. The volunteers popped up where I had emptied the compost bins, before I spread mulch after removing lava rock, back in the spring. No mystery there. However, I know that I only had pumpkin seeds and seeds from butternut squash. And here's what has grown.

Pumpkins sure:

And something approximating a butternut squash:

Then we have a selection of different shaped, colored and sized squash - some that remind me of acorn squash and others I've never seen before.

So what's all this about? Well, still not a huge mystery - at least not to a gardener. Squash plants are, shall we say, promiscuous. The female flowers can be pollinated by lots of different varieties of squash, such that, unless you have those little ladies under wraps (a plastic bag will do) they will be pollinated by any squash pollen that a bee presents. The fruit is already genetically coded for so, if you know you have a butternut squash seed from a butternut plant that has only been subjected to butternut pollen (seed packets should guarantee this), then you will get a butternut squash fruit no matter what pollinates it. But if you seed save from a squash that has been open pollinated then you won't know what you may get. That is, the fruit does not guarantee what type of offspring you will get. So, in this case the butternut squash and the pumpkins seed I had thrown in the compost were obviously pollinated by pollen from a variety of different squashes.

The the real mystery is this - what happened to my carefully tended squash?

Here are the pumpkins I planted.

Not even fruiting!

And the sibley I had such high hopes for.

My candy roaster was a complete disaster.

Especially when you compare it with the volunteers.

The bottom line is that the soil in my raised beds is tired. It really needs some serious soil amendment before I put in the winter garden. I was still able to eat from the garden all summer, but I don't have much by way of surplus (except for pole beans!).

My friend Judy gave me a pumpkin seedling which I planted in an "overflow" bed - a small bed where I had cut out a shrub and instead of digging up its roots I covered it in compost and wood chips - and it has really taken off.

One huge pumpkin and the vine is 10-15 feet long.

Mystery solved - So with out any further BS it's time to break out the steer manure!

But another mystery alludes me - how will I know when to harvest my mystery squashes?

Byddi Lee

Something a little corny.

2011-08-19T10:37:00.000-07:00

Baby sweetcorn is vegetable I've had a hard time finding here. Typically used in Asian cuisine, especially stir-fries, it brings a delicate taste and interesting texture to a dish. While I lived in Ireland it was on my weekly shopping list. Usually Sainsburys sold it in combination packs with mange-touts peas or runner beans. It is an expensive vegetable but one we viewed as a healthy indulgence.

Last year, I had little luck growing its bigger relative, the standard sweet corn. I'd been warned that it is tricky. You need a large number of plants for pollination - It is wind pollinated so our garden helpers, the bees were of no use. I filled half of one of my 5'X8' raised beds with a stand of corn. It looked mighty impressive as it grew tall over the summer. (Though not as tall as Al's corn!) But for some reason, most likely poor pollination, only three ears matured, and they tasted horrible! Perhaps a different variety would give me a better experience, and one set of results does not make a sound scientific conclusion.

I vowed never to grow sweetcorn again, but when a packet of seeds for baby sweetcorn turned up at a Master Gardener seed swap, I thought, "Why not try this?" It was, after all, a long way to Sainsburys!

The seeds were nearly ten years old, and I didn't hold out much hope for any of them even germinating. I planted the entire packet - about 40 seeds. 12 germinated. I planted those out in a raised bed and they grew slowly, as if it were a great effort to do so, but they still did get bigger. Eventually, they produced the flowers that bear the pollen, and along the sides of the stalks the silks appeared - the hair-like female part of the edible cob. Best of all, each multi-stalked plant gave rise to, on average 3, cobs per stalk, and in theory can yield much more, according to seed supply companies.

The corn needs to be picked about 5 days after the silks appear. I found this hard to keep track off because they didn't all appear at once - really seeds ought to read the packet as well, so they know what is expected of them!

One harvest yielded about half a dozen finger length cobs - roughly what you'd get in a combo-pack from Sainburys, and enough for one stir-fry.

They are really fiddly to shuck and it took ages to get the little cobs out. Now I appreciate why they were so expensive to buy.

They should look a little under developed because you eat the entire thing not just the nibblets, so it needs to be tender. A few of ours were a little too old and you could hardy bite through it, but the others tasted great. I'd have had a greater yield if I'd harvested earlier and more often - like runner beans.

That is an average sized tea spoon in the photo to give you an idea of scale. They can be eaten raw or cooked - steamed or stir-fried. You can add them to stews or roast them also.

I didn't pull out the stalks as I harvested though some did break. Those that remained produced more silks, and I had a second harvest - so compared to the big corn, I had twice the yield, i.e. two dinners worth! And that was with old seeds - imagine how much better fresh seeds might be.

When I checked yesterday, I found one more silk developing - I don't think we'll get another dinner from it! Perhaps I should let it go to seed.

So which is best to grow in the home garden?
I garden to grow tasty, healthy food. As an added bonus it is usually cheaper than buying organic, locally grown food, so the bottom line is this - economics.

It costs more to grow the large sweetcorn than to buy it in season (and the bought stuff tastes great). The baby sweetcorn is cheaper to grow than to buy. Also I get a kick out of having a Sainsburys aisle in my back yard as I stop to pick runner beans from the next raised bed to complete my "combo-pack".

So for me its baby corn all the way! What say you?

Byddi Lee

The sad tale of the Black Widow and her babies

2011-08-12T18:16:00.000-07:00

Having waxed lyrical last week about all the beneficial insects my organic garden is attracting, it is with great irony that my post this week is all about finding a Black Widow spider in my shed. Not just in some deep dark furthest recess of the shed either but on a web spun right across the doorway.

I try not to kill spiders - they are extremely beneficial in the garden (and even around the home) killing pesky flies and gnats. Technically, the Black Widow doesn't harm the garden either - perhaps just the gardener! I've always tried to catch the spider and release it outside if I find one in my house. (Actually, I wail that a spider needs recused and my husband does the rest!) Since moving to California and subsequently finding out that there are poisonous spiders here, I've taken a greater interest in identifying spiders. In Australia, I had a policy of "kill now, ask questions later", but over there so many things bite and with poisonous bites too, I was a bit freaked out. I even got bitten by a pet bunny rabbit! Not poisonous but painful and totally unmerited - as I stood minding my own business, the deranged bunny just hopped over and sunk its two front teeth into my ankle. Ha! No wonder they brought in myxomatosis!

So this week, as I opened the door to the shed, a large black spider scampered along a silken thread. It was just about knee high, and I caught the movement out of the corner (or bottom) of my eye. When I looked down into the murky depths of the corner of the door, I could see a white egg sac and the spider crouching near it. I quickly ran back into the house and got a torch and the camera, stopping to put on the long lens - I didn't want to get too close to that Mama!

When I got back she was still there. I took this shot but its not great - the adrenalin was pumping because I was fairly sure she was a Black Widow just from the shiny blackness, She looks like polished ebony. No other spider is quite as dark or as shiny. And I was scared!

The egg sac was about 1.5 cm long and about 1 cm across. The spider's abdomen was also about 1cm across.

Still not wanting to kill an innocent spider, I had to check for the red hour-glass pattern on the underside of her abdomen. How do you ask a spider to turn over so you can check out its tummy? I got a stick, a very long stick, a very very long stick, (I was afraid she'd run up it!) and turned her over. I thought my heart would stop when I saw the red marking. It was a bonafide Black Widow Spider with a sac full of her babies.

I tried to kill her, but the extra long stick was not easy to manipulate and she escaped out under the door. I called the neighbors house. Dalton came over straight away. With teenage curiosity and lots of courage he cut open the egg sac - the nude translucent babies were busting out all over.

We killed them all. Sounds terrible, but I just didn't want a whole colony of them setting up house in my shed. Over the weekend I intend to clear the shed of all cobwebs and try to implement more regular house keeping. Dalton was very calm and said that he's seen a few and never gotten bitten.

Some facts about Black Widow Spiders:

Black Widow spiders will run away from you if they can. They are not aggressive but may try to protect their eggs.

Their venom is a neurotoxin and can kill but generally only if it bites children or the elderly. More information about bites can be found here.

Only the female can inject enough venom to actually do any harm, the males and the babies have such small amounts as to be considered not harmful to humans.

The Blue Mud Dauber wasp preys on Black Widow Spiders. Hope I find some of those in my yard.

The web is really sticky and feels extremely strong.

Good house keeping - keeping storage areas web free, vacuuming in the corners of rooms etc. and sealing up cracks in foundations can help prevent spiders from moving in. See the UC Davis IPM notes for more details.

Aternatively, you could follow the advice my sister gave me when I called her in Ireland to tell her of my find - "Go inside, lock the door and tuck your trousers into your socks!"

Since she'd been complaining bitterly earlier that day about the rain they'd been having, I hadn't the heart to tell her I haven't worn socks in months, and that anyways I have none long enough to reach my shorts! But then again - raindrops don't bite...

Byddi Lee

97% of insects do not harm the garden

2011-08-05T15:50:00.000-07:00

Next time you find a creepy-crawly in your garden that you've never seen before, think twice before reaching for the bug spray - in fact, try to never reach for bug spray at all. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) only uses chemicals as a last resort and uses those that are kindest to the environment first.

Only 3% of insects found in the garden are actually harmful to the garden. And the best news is that other bugs may actually kill those bad bugs for you. So why would anyone spend money on chemicals and go to the bother of spraying if they can have the job done by someone else for free and with no upset to the food chain? In fact, it strengthens the food chain and hence ups the wildlife fun in your garden.

The kingpin of IPM is to invite beneficial insects into your garden and the best way to do that is to do nothing! A frustrating approach when you are faced with a lemon tree full of soft brown scale and all you want to do is blast the blighters to kingdom come.

The tree also was heavily infested with all kinds of aphids - though I'd never seen woolly aphids in the flesh before.

Black sooty residue or sooty mold covered the leaves. The aphids and the scale produce honeydew - sticky sugary droplets upon which the black mold grows. Its presence is a sure sign you have an infestation.

This honey dew is highly prized by ants and they "farm" the aphids and scale to get it. They protect the pest insects from their natural predators, so that even if you have ladybugs (ladybirds in Ireland - but they do look more like bugs than birds, so I'm siding with the Americans on this one!) they can't get at their prey because of the ants.

The first step is to control the ant population. We took a two-pronged approach, laying down baits to kill the colony (there are so many ants on our hill I wasn't too worried about wiping out this layer of the food web - it's simply impossible) and preventing access up the tree by using tangle foot.

We strapped a piece of paper over the bark to prevent contact between the goop and the tree. In the photo above you can see that the ants are pretty stymied by the tangle foot - or perhaps repelled by a draft of some of my writing (beneath the goop) - who knows?

And very soon it became apparent who was winning the war as the ladybugs moved in for a feast.

But then we spotted two new(to us) beasties. One looked like a brown ladybug. A drab creature - very much the Melanie Wilkes* of the ladybug world. If it even was a ladybug. But I followed IPM protocol and did nothing.

Then, a few days later, I spotted this creature. It ambled purposefully around the leaves and though it did look alarming, I thought it rather cute in a "West-highland Terrier" kind of way.

I had to find out what these two creature were so I posted their photos to the Master Gardeners yahoo group and within minutes had some possible answers. One of the first suggestions was that the white one may be a mealybug but my picture looked slightly different. I was given great advice - check out the UC Davis IPM website. Now, why hadn't I thought of that?

With my curiosity now tweaked, I decided to find out what the Melanie Wilkes Ladybug really was. I was delighted to discover that it was a Mealybug Destroyer! Then I got another email from a Master Gardener to say, "Check out the mealybug destroyer's larva picture ." My photo of what I thought was a mealy bug, is actually a mealybug destroyer's larva, and these guys are even more voracious than the parents.

Good job I went with the IPM idea (do nothing), or I'd have been out there committing mealybug destroyer infanticide!

Byddi Lee

* Reference from Gone With the Wind - Melanie Wilkes was the drab wife of Ashley Wilkes, the man Scarlet O Hara was madly and somewhat secretly in love with.

Northern California Coast - Bodega Bay to Manchester

2011-07-28T16:07:00.000-07:00

Australia has the Gold Coast, Africa the Ivory Coast, and Northern California? I'd call it the Grey Coast. Having checked the weather forecast - which lied, saying it would be clear over the weekend - we headed for the coast, admittedly in the hopes for a little cool down, but got more than we had bargained for. The sky was grey, the sea was grey, even the sand was grey.

For some bizarre reason even the houses are painted grey!

California's North Coast is perpetually shrouded in sea fog, especially in the summer months. Two miles inland the sun will be splitting the trees As it was in Duncan Mills where we stopped for a cuppa as we followed th Russian River Inland on our way home.

As soon as you venture any closer to the edge of this great continent the fog roils and its wispy tendrils soon envelope the unwary traveler - such as us.

We had approached the trip as somewhat of a reconnaissance mission - a scouting trip to see what was there. Now we know - overpriced accommodation, limited (very limited) beach access and poor tourist facilities.

$150 a night for a small room (shower only, no bathtub) with an beautiful ocean view - of the fog!

I've been spoiled beyond repair by Ireland. I've always found it hard to beat the the coastline there, whether it be the ravaged western coast, battered by the Atlantic, the wide (and usually empty) beaches lying between the rugged cliffs and bluffs, beaches with fine white sand, some even with pink sand, and others covered in pebbles smooth as a babies skin; beaches where the tide goes out so far you'll think it's never going to come back, and where you can take advange of the hard, damp sand and learn to drive. Other beaches have sand so soft you can bury a beachball and never again find it. (If you find a beach ball on Ballybunion beach, it's mine!). There are stretches of coast with rocks so jagged and fierce it makes your heart beat faster just to watch the waves tear them selves into a fury of foam against them. Cliffs so high you get vertigo 100 yards from the edge. Sweeping estuarys, sand bars and dunes, strange rock formations that make you believe that giants could have once ruled this land and built these features, cliff-top castles that defy gravity - all this in a 100 mile stretch.

A hard act for any coastline to follow.

The trip from Bodega Bay(made famous by Hitchcock's movie - The Birds) to Manchester, California is 70 miles of fairly uniform cliff top driving. It's the utter repetition of the same scene that loses me. The land dips down where the Russian River meets the sea, but it's pretty much a straight line, as if God cut the edge with a hand saw and forgot to finish the job having left his jig-saw in Ireland or at the Fjords of Norway or Southern New Zealand.

Seals and pelicans lounging on a sand-bar at the mouth of the Russian River.

All along the road are sign posts that promise "Coastal Access" but many are closed - probably due to the parks closures. In another place that was open, we paid $6 to park the car - I don't mind supporting the parks, but I can't see where my money is going here. In Ireland, you park where you can and scramble over whatever is in the way to get to the sea. In the US the whole trespassing thing is a lot more ominous and what with the gun toting that goes on, I'm not sure I'd like to risk it! So after parking up and paying our fee, I was heartily annoyed to be shepherded along the one path available - all other paths sporting the following sign.

Why make a trail private? It is obviously there for someone to use (not for habitat preservation in this case). If you aren't going to damage anything, why be so selective? It's not like hoards of people are going to descend down this path in this Godforsaken place! It makes me mad to think people are so greedy that they'd keep a beautiful view or a pretty place away from the eyes of another.

The tourist facilities were simply limited. The locality didn't seem too keen to attract travellers - a fact that bemuses me in this economy. However, I was charmed by the tiny general stores that popped up by the occasional campground.

Gualala seemed the most welcoming of the towns we went through. The gas station there had the most beautiful mosaic that a local informed us cost $5000.

It was some kind of a memorial judging by the names on the plaque, and I though it was beautiful - a refreshing splash of color in a grey land.

We stayed overnight at Fort Ross Lodge. The room was expensive for what you got, but we realized that once here you had little choice - and no internet or cell phone reception. A bonus as far as I was concerned. A real switch off from life. And even my high tech husband didn't seem to suffer too much, though we did jump on and check our emails when we found a spot by a lighthouse that did have data connection! It reminded me of being a kid and my parents driving us to the seafront at Tramore Co. Waterford, parking the car overlooking the strand and then sitting in the car reading their newspapers as my sister and I fought with boredom in the backseat, listening to the rain pelting on the roof of the car.

Fort Ross actually had a fort.

It was a Russian settlement, and its inhabitants nearly wiped out the population of seas otters along that coast. The Fort was nicely restored. The chapel was cute.

The armory and some of the interiors of the barracks were well furnished too. If I were in charge, this would have had a mock up of life in its heyday with food tastings and people in costume and a wee coffee shop and possibly some vodka for sale! But the rangers talk was all that was on offer, and she seemed to have a good idea of what went on.

If you ever get the chance to travel in Ireland, go to Bunratty Castle, County Clare, or Cultra, County Down, to see what I mean about bringing history to life. In fairness, Columbia State historic park in California does this, so why not here?

Whilst I have been scathing in this report, I just feel that California can do better. And the coast line does have its moments - even if they are few and far between...

Byddi Lee

Charges dropped but the plot thickens - and not the veggie plot this time!

2011-07-15T10:30:00.000-07:00

I would love to say that the Oak Park case had a great Hollywood ending, with Julie Bass being carried on the shoulders of her neighbors as they paraded past her veggie beds after the city dismissed their charges against her. But alas, Hollywood only happens in, well, Hollywood Movies!

Julie's triumph over having the case against her vegetables dropped was short lived as the city slapped her with different charges - this time a re-dredging of an old case against her regarding her failure in the past to license her dogs. An oversight that she fully admitted to and took responsibility for by paying the fines at the time, and which she thought had been all sorted out and put to bed. Her disappointment and frustration is evident in her blog post.

It is just me, or does this sound like a petty vendetta?

I liked this video clip of a local TV report on the matter. It was nice to get to see Julie and her lawyer, to get a measure of the people behind the story - after all, the camera never lies!

Oak Park Drops Charges Against Julie Bass and Her Vegetable Garden: MyFoxDETROIT.com

She doesn't strike me as a big time trouble maker - just an ordinary gardener seeking an ordinary weed-pulling life. Unfortunately for Julie, the most toxic weeds she seems to be facing are at Oak Park City Hall.

Byddi Lee

Gardener threatened with jail for growing vegetables in her own front yard!

2011-07-13T10:38:00.000-07:00

The case of Julie Bass of Oak Park, Michigan planting vegetables on her own front lawn and being threatened with jail time has received world-wide attention and deservedly so. As a gardener, I’m appalled that such an innocent, healthy, environmentally friendly act can be punished like that. As a new immigrant to the USA, I’m worried at what this says about civil liberty in this, the “Land of the Free.”

Though one can’t deny that it is the “Home of the Brave” if Julie Bass is anything to go by. This ordinary woman is taking a stand. There is a great recap of events in her blog Oak Park Hates Veggies, but to summarize: – A city tree damaged sewer pipe running under her lawn. The Bass family had to dig up their lawn to fix it, at their own cost, and when they went to fix up their front yard they decided to put in raised vegetable beds. According to Julie Bass, she did check the ordinance and there was nothing that stated she couldn’t.

But when the code enforcer came out a couple of weeks later, he stated that the code says that all unpaved surfaces shall be covered with grass, shrubbery, or suitable live plant material. The furor is centered now on the word “suitable” which the code enforcer says means “common”. It has now become one of the most looked up word definitions on the internet!

As you can tell from the title of my blog, I am no fan of lawns. I recently heard Rosalind Creasy speak at a Master Garden talk on Edible Landscaping, and she raised some really good points in relation to growing vegetables - even in the front yard.

Like asking the question, "How can you complain about the price of veggies when you have a lawn?" I thought she made a great point, especially when you consider the money that goes into buying fertilizer and the chemicals many folk use to suppress weeds and pests on the lawn, and the fact that it is an environmental “black hole” being a monoculture. Not to mention the watering it needs…

She also pointed out that when you grow something that you eat, you save water. Take for example lettuce – A home gardener will pull off the leaves they need, leaving the rest of the lettuce to continue growing. The farmer has to pull the entire head of lettuce and keep the lettuces in huge vats of water to keep them from going limp until he gets them on supermarket shelves. Lots of water wasted per lettuce compared to the home garden.

If you grow your own food you save native plants elsewhere on the planet that would have been cleared for farming as farmers need to remove native habitat to grow food.

Vegetable gardens don’t have to be ugly. All vegetables have flowers, and it is also a good idea to grow flowers amongst the vegetables to encourage pollinators and beneficial insects.

So, how can Julie Bass be sent to jail for such an environmentally positive act?

Reading through all the reports, face book posts and her blog, I am impressed by two things:

1 - Her courage for taking a stand on this.

2 - I admire her fair mindedness and how she hasn’t let bitterness, or a sense of vengeance overtake her. I particularly like that she has urged people not to make personal (verbal or otherwise) attacks on the city officials who are hounding her. (“Hounding” being my word not hers.) And when people have suggested that she recruits her neighbours to plant veggies in their front yards as an act of solidarity alongside her, she has said she doesn’t want anyone else to get into trouble.

Julie – if I were your neighbor I’d plant veggies in my front yard – though I’d be totally embarrassed at how badly my tomatoes are doing!

A pre-trial is scheduled for July 26^th. In support of Julie, I would urge anyone who feels the same way to spread the word, “like” the facebook page heading up the online campaign, Oak Park HatesVeggies, read her blog, and sign the petition.

Byddi Lee

Plum tuckered

2011-07-08T10:50:00.000-07:00

It's raining plums in our front yard right now. Big, purple, juicy, sweet, delicious plums. The kind that burst when they hit you, leaving a magenta splodge, so you look like you are in the middle of a paintball game. When you stand on the ones all over the ground, they squelch up the sides of your flip-flops, staining your feet red with a warm, sticky goo. I have now a designated pair of shoes for plum picking to avoid ruining any more. And yes, I suppose I should be picking them up, but there's just so many.

This is the tree that 18 months ago, I didn't even know we had. Not that it is small or tucked away in a corner, but because it was over-grown with giant privet, oleander bushes and ivy. As I chopped those bad boys away - one branch at time - I found this bedraggled plum tree. And, oh boy, is it happy to be standing alone with its toes all covered in mulch! I've never seen a tree with so much fruit.

My friend Mareese,who baked the wonderful graduation cake (and is generally brilliant at all things culinary), came over this week to teach me how to make plum jam. I cashed in on her expertise (and canning equipment) by digging out some recipes for plum chutney and plum sauce. The internet is a wonderful place to get recipes and ideas for using up produce you may have a glut of. It's fun to experiment too. In this case, I have more than enough plums if something doesn't work - I can throw it out and start again.

With the help of Mareese's wonderful kids Allison and David, and my lovely neighbor Laurie, we held a "catching sheet" below the tree while one of us shook the branches. In a matter of minutes we had a tub full of plums! And the tree looked as though nothing had been taken off it.

We washed the plums in the tub - that's why the photo has a weird sheeny look to it. The jam recipe we were following called for the plums to be peeled and stoned. This site gave great directions for the entire process. Click on the link for a total education in making plum jam.

We put the washed plums into boiling water for a few seconds...

then straight into iced water. The peels came off fairly easily but not quite as easy as when you do this with tomatoes.

Stoning and chopping all those plums is the most tedious part.

Not wanting to re-invent the wheel, I'll encourage you to click on the links to get the recipes and instructions for actually making the jam. Our first batch of jam was delicious - the sample toast didn't even last long enough to photograph.

We used 1/2 pint jars which were much easier to handle and needed less water in the canning bath. Horrified at how much sugar is in jam, we tried to lower the amount, with the result that our jam was a little on the runny side but still set enough to stay on the toast.

The second batch of jam, I kept the skins on and put in all the sugar. It had a nice texture, with the fruit holding together in nice chunks, and it set well. If I did it again, I'd forgo the peeling process!

We made the chutney next. It looks gorgeous, but it needs to sit for 6 weeks before we can get the full taste.

While it plopped and bubbled on the stove, we had a break for lunch. This time my own home made recipe. - Philadelphia cream cheese and sliced plums.

The kids scoffed them down and came back for more - result!

My favorite creation of the day was the Tangy Plum Sauce.

We changed two things in the recipe. first we used Chinese five spice because I didn't have allspice, and second, we put the sauce through a sieve before we canned it.

It was a good day's work - lots of jam, chutney and sauce, and even a couple of jars of pickles sneaked in there too.

It was exciting to get three distinctly different tastes from the plums. The plum sauce was my favorite but only makes a small amount, and I really wanted more of that taste. So that evening I went back out and pulled another basket load of plums.

I roughly followed the recipes for the plum sauce, but I cooked the onions and garlic first in a frying pan, then added sliced chicken breast. When the meat was cooked, I threw in the rest of the ingredients. It was so tasty!

Loaded with sugar though, so the next night I experimented.

I fried some salmon fillets in a pan. I then added a cup of coarsely chopped and stoned plums, 1 table spoon of brown sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla essence, scant 1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes, juice from 1/2 lemon and salt to taste. I let it all simmer together.

Talk about gourmet food - every thing on this plate is from my garden except the salmon.

Bon apetite!

Byddi Lee

What a Pickle!

2011-07-01T18:28:00.000-07:00

Summer has arrived, bringing with it my first crop of cucumbers. Two cukes to be exact! But that's enough for one jar of pickles. I'm hoping to get a glut so that I can pickle more than one jar at a time, but for now, this will have to do. Notice how the lettuce comes in all a once but the pickles in ones or twos!

This time last year the whole pickling process was a complete mystery to me. But isn't the internet wonderful? One afternoon of research brought me to the conclusion that I should at least try to make pickles. The important part seemed to be processing them in boiling water. This is to kill nasty germs - like botulism. I was nervous when I ate my first batch last year but no-one got sick and they tasted so much better than shop bought (of course!) I'd seen this process on the one other occasion I'd partaken in preserving food, namely watching someone else turn my pomegranates into pomegranate jam, or jelly or preserves, or whatever they call jam here.

Not wanting to buy too much fancy canning equipment, I tried to get by with as little new stuff as possible. I belief in reduce, reuse, recycle, and I'm a stingy git!

You do need the special jars and lids. I use wide mouthed quart (approximately 500ml or a pint) jars.

But the jars and the rims of the lids can be reused. Apparently the discs need to be replaced because they only make a good seal once, but these jars can be used in the freezer. I use the old discs with the rims in this case, since you are not relying on the seal as the freezing itself is what keeps the produce safe.

After nearly scalding my self a few times, I gave up trying to use BBQ tongs and sprung for the special "jar grabber" thingy-ma-jiggy. Good job I have a camera because I've no idea what these are called.

You can get big canning pots. A pot that can hold water deep enough to go over the lid of the jam jar will work. If I'm only doing one jar at a time, I use an asparagus steamer.

There are lots more recipes online. I chose this one because I have all the ingredients in my garden, and it is the simplest. It makes 8 quart jars, and if I only have enough cucumber for one jar, I scale it down acordingly.

Dill Pickles

8 pounds 3 to 4 inch long pickling cucumbers
4 cups white vinegar
12 cups water
2/3 cup pickling salt (i.e. table salt will do as long as it is non-iodised though I did use iodised salt last year and got away with it!)
16 cloves garlic, peeled and halved.
8 sprigs fresh dill weed
8 heads fresh dill weed (the seed bit)

1. Wash the cucumbers. I slice mine but the original recipe didn't mention it. I guess if you use more smaller pickles - like when that glut happens - then you don't have to slice them.

2. For really crunchy pickles, soak them first in iced water for at least 2 hours (I'm impatient and have gone a lot less time and it seems okay) but no more than 8 hours, refreshing the ice if it melts.

3. Sterilize 8 quart canning jars and lids in boiling water for at least 10 minutes. You can use this hot water again to process the jars, so don't throw it out.

4. Combine the vinegar, water and salt over medium heat and bring the brine to a rapid boil. Use it at this rapid boil to keep the pickles crisp.

5. Into each jar put 2 half-cloves of garlic, one head of dill, enough cucumbers to fill the jar, 2 more garlic halves and 1 spring of dill.

6. Fill the jars with hot brine and wipe the jar's rims of residue before sealing the jar.

7. Place the jars in a water bath so the water covers the jar and boil for 15 minutes.

8. Remove the jars from the water bath. As they cool and the air inside contracts the lids will depress. You can hear them pop. This is how you know you have a good seal.

9. Label the pickles with the date they were pickled and also the date they can be eaten - 8 week later.

10. After 8 weeks they are ready to eat. Refrigerate after opening. Unopened and stored in a cool dry place, pickles will keep for up to 2 years - but they taste sooo good they'll never last that long.

Be brave. Give it a go. You won't be sorry.

Byddi Lee

It's never that simple

2011-06-24T10:01:00.000-07:00

There are many challenges in gardening, especially when you are gardening in a climate that is different to what you are used to. I like to try growing new things. I managed to get a sweet potato from the supermarket to sprout and grow. I've kept it in a large pot to limit any possible damage that may arise from viruses and other diseases with the supermarket bought root.

First, I was surprised by the beautiful leaves, until I saw the flowers! They are lovely, but do I cut them off to send the energy to the root? I decided not to bother. I've given this project ornamental status. If I eat from it, then I eat!

In many cases, it is recommend that you cut off the flowers to strengthen root crops. This year I discovered Garlic scapes. These are the flowering shoots of the garlic and should be removed at an early stage. The good news is they are edible - great in a stir-fry. In fact, all parts of any of the Allium family are edible. Mine developed when I was in Ireland and were quite advanced when I got home. But chop it up and fry it in a wee pan and they are delicious.

The bulbs did suffer from being left with the flowers developing too long, but the only variety that had produced scapes was the Chinese purple. I think it was a fairly decent crop. I wish I'd planted more! Now, I've just got to let these dry out in a shady spot with the leaves on so they can take in that last wee bit of goodness.

Of course, another challenge is competing with the small furry natives. While we were in Ireland, the squirrels had themselves an almond party! Not a single one left on the tree, but lots of shells on the ground.

Timing is all important in the garden. Right now I'm waiting for my lettuce to set seed so that I can collect it for the next crop. It seems to take forever and it looks so unsightly, like I'm a lazy gardner who hasn't cleared away the rubbish!

But if anything has shown holes in my gardening prowess it has to be the tomatoes. They just are not growing. At least not compared to my neighbor Al's - who is the king of the giant tomato! Last year it was the same story. This year, my garden is doing better that it was last year. The mulching with compost helps, as does the fish emulsion, the bat guano and the Dr. Earth fertilizer. But still those tomatoes are not filling up those big cages I bought for them.

I was tempted to phone the Master Gardeners hotline. But wait a minute - I am a Master Gardener - I can figure this out myself.

As I sat out by my tomatoes, with my Master Gardener Handbook open on my knee, I had a serious pep-talk with my tomatoes.

"Listen up guys," I began. "What's going on? I bought you the best cages I could find - beautiful Texas tomato cages, the biggest I could get and you hardly fill them.

"I'm giving you the best of organic fertilizers.

"I've taken a magnifying glass to search for russet mite and found none.

"If you had nematode worms you'd probably be in worse shape than this and you aren't wilted.

"Sure you have a tiny amount of aphids but come on. Guys, I'm supposed to be a Master Gardener and you lot are making me look bad!"

I heard Al on the other side of the fence working in his yard. He's probably one of the few people who won't think it strange that I talk to my tomatoes. I asked him what he does with his. Perhaps he does amend his soil a little more than me. And his use of miracle grow will not cause that difference - nitrates are nitrates to the plants - they don't care about the source of the molecule. But then he asked was I watering them enough.

"Oh yes," I said, fairly confident that I had this one right. I see the damp soil every morning when I go out to say hi to my plants. It might be a dessert here, but my veggies are never denied water. So I replied, "thirty minutes, every morning."

"Hmmm," Al said, "I water mine for ten minutes every second day."

Mystery possibly solved! I researched it a little more on the internet and found the symptoms for overwatering exactly describing my tomatoes.

"Over watered tomato plants can not take up iron. The leaves will start coming in pale green or yellow. The lower leaves will fall off and the plants will grow and fruit poorly."

I'm so used to plants growing in the rain soaked soil of Irish gardens, that I panic a little at the scorching sun here and perhaps have overcompensated by giving too much water. I really hope that this is what is happening. The new watering regime kicks in today - fifteen minutes, three times a week. I'm happier to spend less on water, but I won't believe it grows bigger tomatoes until I see it!

Byddi

Did my garden miss me as much as I missed it?

2011-06-17T09:39:00.000-07:00

Judging by the growth spurt - no! Okay, so maybe it's an illusion. I go out every day and peer closely at my plants to see if they have grown any in the last few hours - seriously mad, I know, but I can't help myself. So you can imagine what joy it is to see my garden after three weeks. Things have really got growing out there.

I was greeted first by a profusion of flowers in the native garden. I arrived back after dark and they seemed white in the moonlight, but the next morning the Hookeri Evening Primrose (Oenothera Hookeri) flaunted her full glory.

Considering this was six inches tall when I bought it last October, it's simply stunning. And close up you can see how beautiful the blossoms really are.

The coyote mint ( Monardella villosa) has also blossomed. As well as having perfumed foliage, the purple blossoms are attracting the bees.

The old plum tree in the front yard, one of three non-natives spared in the conversion, is rewarding us for our mercy with bough breaking loads of fruit. Delicious! I see plum jam in my immediate future!

The pomegranate has blossomed. Hopefully, it will produce more fruit than it did last year -a grand total of three pomegranates! Perhaps that extreme pruning the year before last has paid off.

In the succulent garden, most of the plants are happy and some have even sent up blossoms. What a big turn around from the days when I seemed to kill every succulent I looked at!

Some funky things are going on with my vegetables. I have several squash volunteers. They sprung up in the mulch under the fruit trees. Before the mulch went down, I used everything in my compost bins to provide a layer of compost whether it had composted yet or not. My guess is that these are from a butternut squash we'd eaten a while ago.

Why is it that volunteers seem to grow better than the ones I carefully tend to?

While I was in Ireland it rained here. This patch of unseasonably (though I've yet to figure out just what seasonable means in California!) cool weather brought a few surprises. The late peas, that I had given up on and hadn't gotten around to pulling, took off. Back to having mange-tout and sugar snap peas for dinner again - yipee!

After reseeding my parsnips several times I eventually got them to germinate. And now look at them.

I'd tried and tried to get kolrabi, the space ship-like brassica, to grow. Again I'd given up, had noticed unidentified brassica leaves growing amonst the peppers and decided to leave it until I came home. I was astonished to see a beautiful apple-sized kolrabi - ready to harvest.

I sliced it and stir-fried it with the peas and carrots I've been harvesting.

I've also been harvesting French round carrots. These are excellent for stony ground or containers. I was growing them for fun and because I got a free packet of seeds. Now, I'd grow them for taste. They have a lovely aniseed aftertaste. I steamed these ones.

The pole beans are living up to their name and growing nicely up the poles.

In the foreground you can see potatoes that are ready to harvest, and which I actually have harvested since the picture was taken. I love the maths of gardening - I planted 3 potatoes here and dug up 16 of at least the same size, if not bigger. On the topic of potatoes - my bags of spuds have really taken off.

It won't be long before I'm harvesting them.

My last garden observation involves alcohol. I have sunflowers planted in two beds. One of the beds is orderly and quite regimented. I can watch as these little sun soldiers stand up tall and turn their faces to the sun, all facing the same way.

The other bed is the one where I carried out my beer experiment on the slugs. I did spill some, but oh boy, those sunflowers have really been partying! Can you tell which bed is which?

Byddi Lee

Parting is such sweet sorrow

2011-06-10T08:24:00.000-07:00

Bunbeg Strand, County Donegal

6.30 am and the sun was splitting the sky while I drove down the road to Dublin airport. Tears were still dripping off my chin as I approached Newry. I could still picture my sister standing in her driveway, waving to me. Sorrow bubbled up so violently in my chest, I thought I'd burst. I wondered why on earth I'd moved to the opposite side of the planet, away from my Mum, my sister, brother-in-law and nephews. Not to mention the scores of friends and other relatives I'd met with over the past three weeks.

My Dad always said that the best time to drive the road to Dublin was at daybreak. He was the ultimate morning person. With the sunlight reflecting emerald from the fields, against the azure backdrop of the sky, I felt that Ireland was giving me her very own send off with this rare glimpse of good weather.

I ran the events of the previous three weeks through my head, determined not to forget one slobbery kiss from my three year old nephew and committing the relatively saner conversations with his older (nearly-six-year-old) brother to memory. The image of my Mum's teary eyes, as we struggled to be strong in our farewells, seared my brain. Was living in California selfish? I know she misses me .

In order to cheer myself up, I rattled through the good memories - in-jokes between my sister and I about cows doing star-jumps to keep fit - a you-had-to-be-there moment when we spotted cows running around a field. When she wondered why they were doing that, I suggested that maybe they were working out. She looked out the window then piped up, "Oh look there's one doing star jumps." A mental image joke that highly amused us but baffled my mother.

I thought of the craic I'd had with Laura up in Belfast and how well she'd looked after us. I mourned the lack of time I'd had to spend with friends, yet loved the stories that started with, "Do you remember the time..."

After each reunion and parting there were at least private tears, if not public ones. I feel proud and fortunate to have all these people who love me, but bereft to not be able to see them everyday. Yet, somewhere in the back of my mind a voice whispers the old cliche, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." I reckon that is more the case that absence makes you appreciate what you may otherwise take for granted.

As I queued for immigration preclearance in Dublin, one line of a Bruce Springsteen song rolled around my head. Except this was the version that my nephew sings in his cute little three-year-old voice.

"My was," deep breath so next word can be blasted out, "BORN in the New S A. My was," breath, "Born in the New S A." (Repeat adinfinitum!)

By the time I reached New York, I'd gotten over being nearly engulfed in emotion at leaving them all behind. At the airport to greet me was my Godfather, my Dads brother, who had immigrated to the "New SA" many years ago. I spotted him waiting at the barrier for me and I realised that here was a kindred spirit, another pioneer who would understand what I was feeling.

With joy and gratitude in my heart, I welcomed the bear hug that reminded me home is were the heart is, and I looked forward to the next couple of days with him and my lovely Aunty, pushing away the thought that another round of goodbyes would follow before I'd be reunited with my lovely Husand in California. Good times roll on.

Byddi Lee

Believing in Belfast

2011-06-01T02:46:00.000-07:00

I think that when you leave a place you remember it in your minds eye the way it was not when you last saw it, but when you first got to know the place. I moved to Belfast in 1987. I spent the 1990's getting to know the city - especially the bars! Coming back to visit now, is like travelling forward in time from those days (well technically it is!) to see the futuristic Belfast. They used to have an advertisement on the telly for Belfast back in the day. The catch phrase was "Belfast is buzzing". I suppose they were limited - after all they didn't want to advertise that Belast was booming! But now, despite the past Troubles and the current recession it looks like it is doing both. And all in a good way.

As always the cityscape is peppered with castle like buildings nestled in amongst the modern buildings.

For years it seemed that Belfast never changed, other than lose the odd building here and there in a bomb blast, which usually served to irridicat urban decay! (In Belfast we alway had to look on the bright side.) But now it has some amazing new arcitecture...

And sculptures - What happened to the old band stand at cornmarket?

In Belfast the best architecture is often seen on the rooftops.

Walk around the city and look up.

I don't know much about architecture but I know these are pretty amazing.

And all found within an couple of blocks of the City Hall, the iconic heart of the city.

And even inside (you can go in for a look around) you need to look up too.

My parents always said that you never need a watch in Belfast. Just look up and there will be a clock on a building.

Interesting that the time on the clock is 3.10. I'll always rememeber watching the hands on that clock move from 3 o'clock to 3.15 the week after the Omagh bomb killed 29 people. Thousands of people gathered in the city center to hold what began as a minutes silence and became 15 minutes. In the errie silence of both sides of the city joined soundless in grief the seagulls wheeled about overhead, and we stood with the wee hairs tingling on the backs of our necks. A solemn occasion that stretched across the divide, and that I think went a big way to starting the healing process among the great people of this wonderful city who so deserve it.

As always Belfast is all about the irony. There are some bemusing new additions to Royal Avenue.

Suposedly to comemorate the 100th anniversary of the building of the Titanic, I wonder if these struts are meant to resemble the ribs of a ship. It seems strange to put so much effort into remembering the worst maritime disaster ever and bang on about how we made that ship - shussssh!

I came to Belfast from Armagh to go to University. Even now as I pass by the gates of Queen's University's Lanyon Building my heart squeezes in pride and nostalgia.

Belfast had not been my first choice. I had wanted to go to Trinity in Dublin, but we simply could not afford to go there. Instead, I went to Belfast where I learned that the people were the salt of the earth and the craic was ninety. I loved my time here - I had my heart broken and pieced together here. The city itself felt like a teenager to me - with all its Troubles, it never gave up - all it needed was someone to believe in it. And I did. I never felt like travelling and abandoning her until she was making her way to peace. She saw me through my adolescence and I through hers.

A small city, I always felt Belfast was the perfect size for a country gal like me.But even before I left it, three years ago, its variety of shops, bars, clubs and resturants - enough to suit a wide range of tastes - threatened to overwhelm me. Since the peace process has kicked in, the city has grown out of its akward teenager like stage into a gracefull young adult. I unfortunately have aged much faster!

For those who prefer a less hectic pace of life, why not explore the leafy suburbs of the Lisburn Road, an umbilical of trendiness following people out to Lisburn, now a very popular place to live.

Or stroll through one of Belfast many parks. Peace can be found in Belfast - Believe me. There is a lot to see in a visit to Belfast - don't lets its reputation put you off. Believe in Belfast and she won't let you down.

Byddi Lee

Gardening in the old country.

2011-05-26T14:35:00.000-07:00

It's been so wet this week in Ireland that even the stone statues in my Mum's garden are taking shelter! My Husband and I flew home last Friday, the day after the Master Gardener graduation. It's only rained twice in the week that we've been here so far - once for three days and then for four days. We've had all kinds of rain too - mizzle, drizzle, bucketing, pelting and even sideways rain - actually, mostly sideways rain. Gale force winds have kept it interesting in the garden.

Today was payback time. I helped my Mum in her garden - only fair after all the help she has given me in mine. The big difference is that here it was wet and windy, but surprisingly invigorating and after shoveling the contents of her compost bin into her new raised beds, I was even down to short sleeves - until I set the shovel down and quickly cooled down.

I was enamored with her PVC raised beds. I don't think they'd last too long in the Californian sun, but I liked how light they were and how easy it was to position them.

After filling two of them with compost, we finished them off with a finer grade potting soil, a birthday present from her neighbors - what would you do without neighbors? It looked just like chocolate cake and reminded me of the lovely cake Mareese made last week.

And here's some she made earlier:

Planted with onions and garlic. and another one with a bountiful crop of Bok choi.

And like mother, like daughter - Mum too, grows potatoes in anything she can find. Here she has a crop growing in used fish boxes that she found when she was beach combing. How's that for reduce, reuse, recycle?

The massive cherry tree that towers over her garden promises a load of cherries in July. Some of the fruit has already started to pinken. No problem with chill hours here.

And I'd love to be here for the strawberries ripening also.

There is a song that describes Ireland as being forty shades of green. In the next photo there also seems to be forty shapes of leaf!

Mums garden is full to the brim of lush vegetation and not a single irrigation pipe needed. It is the main advantage of gardening in Ireland.

When I was four years old, apparently I told my mum that Ireland was like TVs. When it rained it was like watching a black and white TV (of course, way back then there was plenty of those around!)

But when the sun came out it was like watching a color TV.

I caught this picture during a brief sunny spell (about 10 seconds long). As we worked away out side in the wind and the rain the most sensible member of the family was to be found curled up on the sofa.

Byddi Lee

Master Gardener Graduation - the icing on the cake!

2011-05-19T15:59:00.000-07:00

It struck the fear of God in me when my husband offered to carry the cake out to the car. Now, you may call that an overreaction, but you just have to see this cake! I'm not saying my husband is clumsy, but my collection of chipped cups and plates has dramatically increased since I met him. I sure wasn't taking any chances...

My friend, Mareese, designed and made this cake for the Master Gardener class of 2011's graduation (i.e. my Master Gardener graduation - yay!). I'm extremely proud to be able to say that I helped her. I'd like to think we had the perfect blend of expertise - hers, cake making, and mine, cake eating - oops - I meant gardening. Well, I did make the wee melons (after Mareese blended the colors for me... so I suppose that means I just rolled it into a wee ball),

the miniscule hook-neck squash,

the perfect little pumpkins,

the tiny tomatoes (Mareese did the basket - I kept messing it up!)

and the itty-bitty carrots, which can actually be pulled whole out of the soil. Mareese did the carrot tops.

In fact, Mareese did all the green stuff, oh, and everything else - like actually baking the cake, the frosting, doing the piping, the basket and spade, and the soil - I wish my soil looked (and tasted) that good!

Not to mention that she tutored me in the art of dying the icing fondant stuff and give me tips on how to roll it out and mold it. Her attention to detail is astonishing, from the tiny spade (notice the silver metal part) - sorry about the focus - it was extremely hard to photograph, it's so tiny,!

to the ridges on the carrots.

And just look at the grass and the wooden pattern on the fence post.

It's all edible. If I wasn't such a cake fiend, (especially for icing - yum yum yum) I'd declare it too good to eat. Though, all of Mareese's cakes are like that. You think, how can I possibly eat this gorgeous creation? Until you take the first bite and then OMG! Her cakes are the best I've ever tasted, and lets just say, I've tasted quite a few cakes in my day. She truly is a baking wizard.

And judging by the reaction of the other Master Gardeners (did I mention that includes me now?) and the lack of cake leftover after the Graduation party, I can honesty say that I'm not the only fan of Mareese's cakes. Thanks Mareese xoxo - it tasted even better than it looked!

Byddi Lee

Thyme for tea.

2011-05-13T21:25:00.000-07:00

Inspired by a Master Gardener talk at Guadalupe Gardens, I went home in a foraging frame of mind. Joan, the speaker and also my mentor during Master Gardener training, had mentioned making herbal tea and I was eager to experiment. It had never occurred to me to make tea from my own herbs.

There are a host of great reasons for drinking tea made from herbs in your garden. First off, they are easy to propagate and grow. Then, it is as simple as picking the leaves (and flowers in some cases), and after a quick wash, pouring boiling water over them and letting them seep for a time, which varies with the type of herb and strength of tea you want. There are fancy gizmos for separating out the leaves once the tea has brewed, but a simple sieve or piece of muslin will keep the leaves out of your cup, though leaves in the cup never killed anyone!

The second great reason is the sustainability of home herbal teas. The gas mileage in “conventional” tea and coffee is horrific if you consider where they are shipped from. Off-set your conscience by walking to your backyard and handpicking a few leaves from your favorite herbs.

Great tasting tea is an obvious reason for making your own. Joan recommended a Stevia and Lemongrass tea. I reckon Stevia would be great in any tea if you have a sweet tooth, and of course, without calories. My Stevia has only just germinated, so I combined lemongrass with Yeurba Beuna – yummy. My husband then suggested lemongrass and ginger – spicy and very interesting – yes; I’m still talking about the tea!

In fact, lemongrass was good even on its own and can even help with lowering cholesterol, which brings me to my final point. Herbal tea is so downright healthy it’s disgusting! Those fresh picked leaves are packed with all the good stuff – vitamins, antioxidants, chlorophyll and many other things which all attack a list of ailments and fortify our body systems. Experiment with combinations of herbs, but be careful never to include poisonous leaves like those from the tomato/potato family.

There are too many combinations to list here but google the herbs in your garden and you’ll get a plethora of ideas. Here are some to get you started.

Chamomile tea is great for relaxing. Use the flowers in this brew last thing at night if you have trouble getting to sleep.

For those of you lucky enough to have ginger growing, great, though shop bought roots will also work. Ginger is good for fighting nausea and upset tummies, and it also helps to ward off colds.

And if you missed nipping that cold in the bud, thyme is a remedy for colds and flus (and a ton of other things too).

After all the hard work done by Dalton and Parker last weekend, spreading mulch in the back garden, I can now sit back and admire the blooms for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day (below), and declare that it is now thyme for tea!

A rose by any other name!

Matilija poppy - you can see why it gets called the "fried egg plant."

Nigella "Bridal Veil"

Bush Mallow


Clarkia

Mariposa lily

Fence lizard saying' "Does my bum look big in this?"

Seen enough blooming flowers? Well, on yer bike then!

Byddi Lee

Some ideas are better than others!

2011-05-06T10:42:00.000-07:00

Yep, The hottest day of the year to date and of course what happens? My free wood chips arrived from my arborist pals at Andersons Tree Care. Thus, I arrived home today to a driveway full of aromatic, bug inviting organic matter. The Scrub jays are going be ecstatic - the neighbors, not so much!

After last Septembers shovel-a-thon, I've recruited Dalton (my neighbor's son) and his buddy Parker to help me spread all of what you see above, over what you see below. I call that a good idea!

We hope to get it done in one day (Sunday) - watch this space!

Another idea that is nearing fruition - I've been experimenting with growing potatoes in bags and pots.

As they grow, I just roll the bag up and add more compost. Potatoes don't like to get too hot, so I have covered the black pots in aluminum foil to reflect the sun's heat. Another alternative would be to paint the pots with white latex (emulsion) paint. I used the empty bags that the compost came in. They are white so won't get too hot. The taste will tell if its been a good idea or not.

It was a bad idea not to spray for peach leaf curl. My nectarine got heavily infested by peach leaf curl this spring. There was nothing I could do about it once the leaves broke bud. But it dropped all those deformed leaves and has put on a whole new coat of healthier looking leaves. It will have to be treated with a copper spray in the autumn. This is still considered organic practice, and I've no other choice but to do it even though I hate the idea of using any chemicals.

Still, it has set fruit, but the graft doesn't look like it will do much this year. I hope it comes back next year.

If you love something set it free - or so the saying goes. I had a Plectranthus 'Mona Lavendar' growing in a pot in the house that was threatening to take over my living room. After researching this hibrid and checking that it was not on the invasive list nor was likely to 'escape,' I planted it outside in a shady spot by the front door.

It was developed in South Africa, can do well in sun or shade - the plants in the sun are more compact - and needs well watered. I hydrozone my plants and have this is in with primulas and begonias. It's a small patch that I do water daily and don't feel guilty about, seeing as how I've given the rest of my front garden over to drought resistant natives.

The Mona Lavendar has gorgeous pale lavender bell shaped, one inch long flowers that blossom unpredictably.

And my last brilliant idea this week helped me deal with the glut of lettuce and scallions that my garden is now producing - Lettuce soup. It was delicious. I was able to find all the vegetables in the garden except the garlic - which was grown in Gliroy, just down the road. Here's the recipe:

Lettuce and scallion soup

2 cups scallions finely chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, smashed and chopped or minced
2 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 head of lettuce (or medium bowl of mixed leaves)
5 cups of stock (I used home made chicken stock but you could use vegetable stock or just water)
1/4 cup of coarsely chopped fresh basil
1/2 to 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar (or you could try lemon juice)
Salt and pepper to taste

1)   In a large pot, heat oil over medium high heat until hot.
2)   Add scallions and sprinkle with a little salt and saute for about two minutes.
3)   Add garlic and saute for another two minutes.
4)   Add stock, potatoes, and some salt and pepper.
5)   If the lettuce is older and tougher add it now. If you have tender leaves, simmer the soup for 10 minutes before addingthe lettuce.
6)   Simmer for another 7 minutes then add the basil.
7)   Simmer for another 7 minutes or until everything is soft, then add the vinegar.
8)   Blend in a blender or with a hand blender

With its rich green color you could have fun freaking out your kids and telling them it is frog soup. Perhaps not a great idea if you actually want them to eat it though!

Byddi Lee

Sweet surprises and possible massacres

2011-04-29T11:02:00.000-07:00

What's not to love about sweetpea? They have beautiful flowers in a variety of colors. They can be free standing (bush-type), though many are climbers, but as annuals they never get invasive or heavy enough to overwhelm a structure, and their flowers smell devine. This year, I have figured out that in California the seeds must be planted in the autumn and not, as many seed packets, suggest early spring. The ones above were planted in October. The ones below were planted in February! This year I'm planting all my sweetpea in September.

And peas (for eating) don't fair much better when planted in February - it simply gets too hot too quickly here.

Yet, the lettuce have been thriving this year. I have a forest of them in the raised beds, and I have some in pots at the backdoor as ornamentals! On Easter Sunday, I provided a mixed leaf salad for 14 dinner guests, had a pile left over and still there was not even a dent in the garden from where I'd harvested them.

There have been many garden related surprises this week. I won a prize in the Sustainable Living competition over at the Thanks for Today blog. Thanks to Jan for running the competition. I am very excited because I never seem to win anything - much appreciated!

Another fabulous surprise this week was the appearance of the Milkweed shoot in the native garden. I'd almost given up hope that this root would grow but on Easter Morning (appropriately enough!) it poked its shoots out of the soil and is still going strong. As I was out in the garden taking that photo (in my pjs) the garden was full of joyous birdsong. It was as if all of creation knew it was Easter Sunday!

Then another plant that I had given up on poked its shoots through the soil too - asparagus! It will be a couple of years before I can harvest this, but I really had thought that the crowns I'd planted had simply died.

I have beautiful show of the native plant chinese houses, and I was interested to see a color variation in the midst of the the purple and white flowers, one of the plants has completely white blossom!

I had read somewhere that bush anemone was great for brightening up a shady corner of the garden. Well, I have not been disappointed...

One of the best parts of the Master Gardeners program is the tremendous people you meet in the organization. One day while re-potting tomatoes at their research ranch, Nine Palms, I got chatting to the wonderful Nella. I happened to mentioned that I was in the process of putting in a succulent garden in the strip of land between my driveway and Karla and Al's yard. She invited me to come see her succulent garden (read vast, fabulous collection) and that she would give me some "pups" to help me along.

She followed up the verbal invite with an email and detailed directions to her house - many people issue invites but never follow it up. I was mega-impressed.

Well, she lives way up in the hills with a spectacular view of Santa Clara Valley. Nella's generosity, the over-cast day and green fields made me feel right at home - I could have been visiting any number of relatives in Ireland. Nella keeps bee's and chickens and had recently rescued three adorable kittens, which she kept in a pen with three equally adorable baby bunny rabbits. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven!

She sent me home with three boxes of succulents which have filled out that patch of land (with the help of my red lava stones!) beautifully.

She even gave me some quite mature/large succulents. And as if that wasn't enough, she arrived in to Initial Training with three variegated succulents that she had forgotten to give me on Monday. Thank you so much Nella. Every time I look at my succulent garden I will be reminded of your generosity and of the generosity of spirit that exists within the gardening community, especially Master Gardeners.

Then another surprise - Al came out to admire my work and informed me that my property stretched over another 2-3 feet - I'd assumed the decorative rocks on the left to be Al's property. I was another 14 square feet richer. Al did point out that the weeds there were also belonged to me!

But alas, I have to leave you on a less uplifting note. I found the bush tit nest slashed open. Inside was empty, bar the soft downy feathers the parents had lined this cozy wee nest with.

I am so hoping that someone will leave me a comment that says something like "So that's okay - when the young are old enough they just burst right thought the walls of that little 'ole nest!"

It was on the ground yesterday, and I saw a cat in the garden. I'm thinking cat, crow or even squirrels could be the culprits - unless the baby birds really did pull an Incredible Hulk style escape.

I suppose not all surprises can be good, and I've done well this week, but after we lost the baby bird last year I fear that I may never have the pleasure of watching little fledglings leave the nest healthy and happy.

Byddi Lee

Easter Bunny time!

2011-04-22T21:28:00.000-07:00

Did you know that the Easter Bunny poops Jelly Beans? So I am reliably informed by my four-year-old chum, David. He has it on high authority that the colors of each jelly bean are attributed to the food the Easter Bunny eats beforehand. If he eats bananas you get yellow ones, strawberries give you red ones and grapes, purple ones. His older sister, Allison (7), also confirms this and added that the green ones are a result from eating apples - but only green apples, of course!

As a religious holiday, I feel that Easter is a much more important holiday than Christmas even. Personally, I prefer it to Christmas, ironically, because it has less fuss and pressure than Christmas time and also because the Easter message is reflected in nature - a time of renewal, rebirth, re-growth. Of course, this is why the Church decided to place this festival at this particular time of year. It paralleled the pagan celebration of spring time and I suppose the early Christians reckoned, if you can beat 'em join 'em.

It is the ethos of hope that circulates at this time of year that I find so uplifting. Hope that the winter is over, hope that there is a light at the end of dark tunnels, hope that the struggle through hard times leads to triumph. And what better way to display this than by a big show of blossom!

Speaking of hope, it never fails to amaze me how the Irish look forward to summer. More often than not it doesn't come, yet every year, at this time, the shops are filled with skimpy clothes that make me shiver just to look at them. My friends and family repeat the mantra every year, "We're getting a heat wave this summer." Alas, usually the only heat wave is waving goodbye!

A late Easter means a better chance for warm weather over the holiday. So this year I'm praying that the weather back home is positively glorious. May they be bathed in sunshine for the whole week, and get completely lobstered! (Lobstered = the result of Irish people on a sunbathing binge!) In Ireland the measure of a good time on holiday is the depth of color your skin goes - be it brown or red. Here's how we sunbath in Ireland - its lovely until the sun goes behind a cloud - then it's Baltic! That's my sister and I trying to sunbathe in Donegal (of all places!) a couple of years ago.

Not that I'm wishing mm Irish friends and family skin damage. But no-where on this planet (not even California) is a beautiful as a sunny Irish day, with the gorse bush in full bloom, the coco-nutty scent wafting over the green fields amid a deafening birdsong soundtrack.

When I was a kid the Easter Bunny came on Sunday morning and left chocolate eggs. Biologically speaking that is a bit messed up...rabbits don't lay eggs, but in our chocolate dazed state we never argued the point. We'd also get eggs from our aunties and uncles, and we'd keep a tally of how many eggs we got. I loved coming down to the kitchen on Easter Sunday morning and see all the eggs laid out for us. It was like an Easter version of Santa.

We were told in school that the egg represented new life and also was told that it symbolised the tomb that Jesus arose from, but to be honest, I could never see the resemblane of a tomb with a chocolate egg, so that whole anology was lost on me. Life renewed is good enough for me, especially symbolized in chocolate!

Easter Sunday dinner will held at our house this year, and because we were having my young friends David and Allison over we decided we'd have an egg hunt in the garden. After trying five different shops I discovered that Americans do not, in fact, do the whole chocolate egg thing. After years of taking them for granted I sorely missed the aisle of eggs at home churned out by every confectionery bar - Maltesers eggs, marathon eggs, buttons eggs, galaxy eggs (oh stop me now - I think I'm drooling on my keyboard!) Each brand produces a hollow chocolate egg accompanied by cute miniatures of themselves, e.g. tiny wee mars bars inside the chocolate egg. But not here!

On the other hand the Americans are not short on confectionery (just short on good confectionary - sorry US guys but it hurts me more than it hurts you - at least you don't know what you're missing!) After some research - asking what do you do here - I discovered that you can buy plastic eggs to put candy in. That way they don't melt when you hide them in the garden - never a problem in Ireland! There is also an abundance of chocolate rabbits. Perhaps the Americans have it right - of course the Easter Bunny wouldn't lay eggs but rather have chocolate baby bunnies! I plundered the local supermarket and reckon I have enough for an egg hunt now...

The cashier asked me now many children I was catering for. She was a little taken aback when I informed her there were only two. I hastily added that there would be 12 grownups who would help them out. Personally I can't wait!

I'll leave you with this re-enactment of my favorite Easter Email joke. I cracks me up every year. I can't explain why it tickles me so much and my husband always says, "Yes, it's funny but not that funny." I actually bought these bunnies last year and bit the pieces out of them and carried on an adult version of our childhood tradition by leaving these at my husbands place at the kitchen table so he'd see them when he came down for breakfast.

Happy Easter everyone - I hope you feel your life renewed and at least your sweet tooth satisfied.

Byddi Lee

The only way is up, baby. (Think Yazz!)

2011-04-15T17:55:00.000-07:00

Here's what I did wrong last year:

I had no planting plan and shoved things in where ever I could find a space.
I planted my warm season veggies too early.
I forgot to label a lot of things after I put them into the raised beds.
I neglected to mulch the plants.
I gave my plants no support. (I mean the trellis kind not the cheer leading kind!)

This year is going to be oh-so different - I aim to have a tomato forest and a cucumber jungle! After making a couple of jars of pickles last year, I was determined to expand my pickling enterprise. I planted about 24 pickling cucumber seeds, 13 Parisian Pickling cucumbers and 7 De Bourban cucumbers -all carefully labeled, sprouted. I gave a couple away at a Master Gardener plant swap, but I intend to use most of the rest. I find it hard to not call them pickle plants, as technically they are cucumbers.

I decided that I would be a good little Master Gardener Trainee, and one wet Sunday afternoon, (it's California - there was only one wet Sunday afternoon where it was so wet it kept me out of the garden!) I sat down and drew out plans for all my seven raised beds. I worked out how many plants of each kind I could squeeze into the plots by using the guidelines given to me in the class on growing vegetables. I'm surprised at how much I can squeeze in there.

Here's how I plan to plant the ~~pickle~~ cucumber plants. (Each bed is 8 feet by 5 feet - coincidentally the same size as the rug on the living room floor!)

Each dot is the precise position of where I shall plant my seed/seedling. Here's another that I did for the pole beans, and you can see the scale is worked out on it.

I won't bore you with diagrams of the other five beds. I have one that is all tomatos and another that is all winter squash. I am dreaming big for this years summer garden.

The hardest part is not planting the stuff too early. My sunroom is my "holding" area, and I sense that the plants are as impatient as I am. Its hard too because to me the weather is gorgeous. Hot, sunny, whats not to love? But if you are a pepper plant you'd find it a bit chilly! (Pardon the pun!) Also my winter garden is tardy, and I'm waiting to harvest my potatoes to make room for my wonderful plan...

As for labels - I gave up trying to make them from old yogurt cartons and actually bought some in the garden center. Let's hope that helps keep me motivated.

I'm mulching like there's no tomorrow. I bought the compost, as I've still not mastered the alleged 4 weeks-if-you-turn-it-every-day technique in either of my compost bins. They're too slow for me to use all the time..

But my crowing glory this week is my trellis creations! ~~Pickles~~ cucumbers grow great on a trellis, so my husband and I went searching for something to support them and the pole beans. Ready made trellises in the garden center were too small for the job and cost $40 - $50 each. We estimated we needed 4 of them. Plus, we couldn't fit them in our car to take home, so we'd have to pay for delivery on top of that.

At home, I went on line to price them and came across a host of websites that suggested making them yourself. Some showed bamboo lashed together and then, wham - it hit me! As those years as a Girl Guide had not indeed been wasted. I still know my knots and lashings inside and out and back to front and round the big tree. I'd turn my geeky past into a cool gardening feature.

We sourced a pack of 50 bamboo poles, 8 feet long (perfect for the beds) and 3/4 inch wide for $70. I spent another $15 on special string for lashing bamboo and $15 on shipping - Ta da!

A clove hitch.

As I knelt on the lawn tying my first clove hitch, inhaling the smell of the grass and hearing the birds tweeting in the trees, I was transported back 30 20 okay 30 years (who am I trying to kid!) to summer camp when we would set up our tents for a week and construct our "gadgets" in the area around them. These ranged from simple tables to elaborate picnic table style affairs with built in benches.

Our leaders are amazing women who taught us mostly about how to be useful and good people in this world, how to laugh in the face of adversity and get on with things no matter how tedious the job. I'm thinking of all those times I've had to scrub with a Brillo pad those billy cans that had been blackened by the camp fire flames. Of course, after about five years of doing this, some bright spark came up with the great idea of smearing Fairy Liquid on the outside and the black stuff simply wiped off. Subsequently, all our food tasted of the green soap suds but, hey, it was better than scrubbing them in cold water after dinner!

Diagonal lashings - as opposed to square lashings - are my preference. I can still imagine one of the leaders popping up to inspect my lashing - making sure they are sturdy enough, neat enough and finished with a clove hitch. My husband did the QA instead, though he was only looking at the sturdiness.

The result - A Super Trellis. Okay, it's a weird shape, because I couldn't bear to cut my lovely bamboo poles in half, and if they reach higher than three feet even better - it's an extend-able trellis!

The pole beans trellis is two tripods(constructed with a tripod lashing) supporting a cross bar. I attached the vertical bamboos using a modified snake lashing.

You could just use string too but I was showing off! I bought tomato cages and have some more support stuff from last year, so I'll get as much vertical gardening done this year as possible.

Byddi Lee

This one's for you Daddy xo

2011-04-07T20:21:00.000-07:00

Flowers always make me smile, especially when they remind me of loved ones. The last present my Daddy gave me before he died was a bunch of pink tulips. He apologized that his birthday present that year was so simple. He was battling cancer, and losing, and I cherished them as if they were made of gold. Sadly, he passed before they dropped their last petal. His third anniversary is on Sunday, and I still think about him every day. I wish he was here to talk to, at least on the other end of the phone. He never saw my new life in California. He'd love the weather but hate the social life - Silicon Valley - bedtime by 11pm!

I think he'd be proud of the work I've done in the garden. Well, I'm proud of the work I've done in this garden. No false modesty here.

Daddy's favorite flower was a daffodil. It's the only flower that I ever recall seeing him plant. Shorty before he died, he told me that it lifted his heart to see them blossom.

"The summer's nearly here, things are always easier in the warmer days and bright evenings," he told me. He never saw that summer.

Mummy is the gardener in our house. While she grew vegetables and beautiful flower beds, Daddy built a cacophony of sheds on the property surrounding our new house, from building materials he had salvaged from the old house before they demolished it. Each shed had a name that bore testimony to the family's sense of humor.

There was the "Tenko" house - built from green corrugated tin (and not to be confused with the greenhouse), one really hot summer that saw us all wearing bikinis and sunburn (except Daddy - he was in shorts and sunburn!) so that we looked like the cast from the TV drama about British women taken prisoner by the Japanese during the second world war.

There was the "IC3620" hut - just a shed with the number plate of Daddy's first ever car nailed to the door.

We had the best tree house ever - built so high up an old elm tree that Mummy was afraid to go up the wobbly ladder to it. Kids these days would never be allowed in such a precarious structure - but we loved it.

But my favorite was the "Pavillion." he actually bought new materials for this one. It was a wooden structure with a glass front and a porch.

There was the barn (it was there already - he didn't build it) and the storeroom and the boy's kitchen(don't ask!) and a couple of plain old sheds - from aerial pictures we must have looked like a small city!

When I bought my first house in Belfast, Daddy came and fashioned a lean-to shed onto the back door. After several leaky years, we had to take it down again!

However, I did learn some valuable gardening tips from him. It wasn't that he actually said the words, "Never leave your rake lying with the prongs sticking up." Instead, he told the story (he was an excellent story teller) about a guy who worked for him who stood on the prongs of the rake. Not only did the rake go through the poor guy's foot, but the shaft shot up and hit him in the face, busting his nose. When the hapless fellow saw the blood, he fainted, landing in the wheel barrow that was sitting behind him. His co-workers simply wheeled him to the office in the barrow, to tell Daddy what had happened. I'm very careful how about how and where I set my rake.

All very good advice when you consider all the raking of red lava rock I've been doing lately. Finally, it is all gone thanks to a few Master Gardeners taking it for potting up their succulents.

I think making little paths is to me what building sheds was to Daddy. I couldn't help myself here. Now, I'm ready for the compost and the wood chips. Oh great - another giant heap of woodchips in the driveway... my muscles ache at the thought.

Hopefully, once I have the wood chip mulch down, I won't need to buy in so much fertilizer for the orchard. Even if it is organic fertilizer, the compost and mulch make this project much more sustainable. For more sustainable gardening ideas and a chance to win some gardening prizes have a look at Jan's Thanks for Today gardener's sustainable living project 2011. Always lots of great ideas there.

The native shade garden at the other side of the house is coming into its own.

Coral Island Bells (Heuchera Maxima)

California wood straberry (Fragaria californica)

California Huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum)

One last thing - I noticed whilst raking the red lava rock that there was a lot of junk amid the stone. It certainly reinforces what I always say - gardening ruins your nails!

Byddi Lee

Going nuts in the garden

2011-04-01T22:10:00.000-07:00

Our two year old almond tree has reacted very well to the removal of the red lava rock and the underlying black plastic by pushing out a promising harvest. Of course, we will have to arm-wrestle the squirrels for these almonds, but it's good to know that there is a remote possibility of us getting to taste our own home grown almonds - if I can figure out how and when to harvest any that are left!

The week of wet weather followed by this weeks glorious summer like weather has stimulated a burst of growth, blossom and scent for the garden. The orange tree, heavy now with blossom, grows outside our bathroom window, and we get free scented air by simply opening the window. I've never before noticed how gorgeous the smell of orange blossom is.

At the front door we are welcomed by the perfume of jasmine from a clipping I started just last summer.

I wish there was a way to let you smell them!

Out in the native garden there has been good news and bad! Thankfully, more good than bad - of the twenty-seven native plants that we bought and planted, only three didn't make it!

The showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa) never grew from the dormant tuber/root that we purchased, but we hold on to hope that some day we will see green shoots above it's planted spot.

The desert lavender (Hyptis emoryi) blossomed during the winter but then seems to have died. Again - you never know - it may still come back.

But the Silver bush lupine (Lupinus albifrons) will sadly never come back having been eaten by slugs. All that is left is the plant tag!

I mourned the passing of the California sword fern (Polystichum munitum) until I discovered what may be a prothallus -a lifecycle stage, from which it may regenerate... or that may just be a weed! We'll see...

The desert willow (Chilopisis linearis) also worried me, but I think this little tree is going to make it.

And speaking of little trees, my dwarf California buckeye (Aesculus californica) is looking great, and so cute at only 18 inches high.

Last month, the Manzanita (Aectostaphylos bakeri) sported its beautiful bell shaped blossoms, and is still looking happy, though the blossoms have now finished.

I'm looking forward to my clarkia blooming - I have a wall of it.

One or two have blossomed - if these are anything to go by it should be quite the show!

Right now the Californian poppy (Eschscholzia californica) steals the show.

Closely followed by these gorgeous Chinese houses (Collinsia heterophylla).

The Bush Monkeyflower (Mimulus aurantiacus) has started to blossom too, you can just make out the flowers in the bottom left of the picture.

And here is the blue-eye grass (Sisyrinchium bellum) which is not a grass, but an iris, and if you look closely you'll see it does not have blue eyes, rather it has yellow ones.

The following plants are making promising progress and I hope to see them bloom this year too. I feel like I have the canvas, the paint and the outline drawn - now all I have to do it let it all grow up and fill in.

Chapparal Clematis (Clematis lasiantha)

A tiny but healthy Redbud Cercis occidentalis

California evening primrose (Oenthra Californica)

Scarlet Penstemon (Penstemon centranthifolia)

And even if these never blossom their foliage smells great. I have them near the path so you can smell them as you walk by. This one is known as "Cowboy cologne."

California Sagebrush (Artemisia californica)

Coyote Mint (Monardela villosa)

I have a ton more photos but I decided to post them when they are in bloom. Hopefully, I'll be posting year round!

And if you are wondering why I'm posting this so late this week - blame Master Gardeners! Tomorrow is the highly anticipated Spring Garden Market. I'm on the welcome table at the south gate - if you are in the neighborhood drop by and say hi!

Byddi Lee

Stopping by woods on a snowy evening

2011-03-24T23:17:00.000-07:00

Even after a fifteen and a half hour car journey from hell, I have to say that I still think snow is beautiful, especially when you can drive out of it to the warmer weather. Not so the case for the ill fated Donner Party in the winter of 1846/1947. But more about that in a minute...

This winter has been epic in terms of snowfall in the Sierras, and happily it coincided with the first year that we bit the bullet and bought a season pass. The pass covered us for Heavenly, Sierra-At-Tahoe and Northstar. It's hard not to compare resorts, and it's even harder to compare resorts with Heavenly and find them to be better. This past weekend we traveled north of Lake Tahoe and skied Northstar, having been to the other two a few times this season already, and basically, because we could!

So how did Northstar compare to Heavenly? Comparing it to Sierra-At-Tahoe doesn't happen - the latter is far smaller, much less polished and also much less expensive if you are buying day tickets. A day ticket at Northstar costs roughly the same as one at Heavenly (this year $88).

Northstar is fabulous if you have buckets of money and stay in the über-expensive Village at Northstar. Here you can get ski-in/ski-out accommodations at a hefty price. The village is purpose built and as such lacks soul, though it does make up for that in expensive shops and eateries. There is an ice rink and fire-pits at the base of the gondola.

The thing I hate about Northstar is that you have to drive to a car park then take a shuttle from the car park to the village where the shuttle drops you at the furthermost end of the village form the ski-lifts, so you have to carry your skis all the way through the village. For a price of $49 you can get valet parking at Northstar ... reinforcing the theme "A great place of you can pay for it"!

At Heavenly you have a choice of four places to access the mountain, three of which have free parking right at the lifts. In South Lake Tahoe there is a wider price range of accommodations and restaurants to choose from too, so overall, easier on the pocket.

Northstar doesn't have the views that you get with Heavenly. There is a peek of the lake, but it does have plenty of great runs. When we were there, the snow was amazing. It began to snow on Friday as we were skiing, and it hasn't stopped yet - a week later and counting!

On Saturday morning we had to dig the car out of the snow. I've never seen so much snow fall so quickly! I was worried that we had forgotten where we had parked, (I do that often!) and that we'd end up digging out the wrong car.

That day's skiing was just fantastic - powder snow up to my waist. A hilarious face-plant lay testimony to my continued inability to ski powder properly! Sunday morning we had to dig the car out again. This is the view from our hotel room. (Sorry, phone camera = poor quality shot!)

More worryingly was the news that Interstate 80 was closed due to heavy snow and zero viability. We both had engagements the next day and had to get home - plus the snow was on for the week so postponing our homeward trip was not really an option.

Thus started a day of bad decisions...We decided to head for South Lake Tahoe and try to get out on route 50. Highway 89 was closed just north west of South Lake, so we took route 28 down the eastern side of Lake Tahoe. Traffic conditions were scary.

It took us an hour and a half to get to South Lake, where we stopped for lunch. Bad decision number 2!

The service at lunch was slow, but after an hour we were back on the road. We decided to take Pioneer Trail out of the ski town and get onto Route 50 from there. It's a short cut, of sorts. Already, the Sunday exodus traffic was backing up from the lights at the intersection. As we sat watching the snow fill up the landscape we kept checking the road conditions via my husbands laptop and the magic of technology supplied by his aircard that linked us to the internet.

I wouldn't want to be digging out this guy's driveway!

After sitting in traffic for about two more hours the road condition information changed to "Traffic held" on route 50 due to avalanche danger. Traffic held? What did that mean? Was the road closed, and if so why didn't they just say closed? I scanned twitter but couldn't find anything helpful. And of course the highway information was now telling us that Interstate 80, an hour and a half away, where we'd first started, was now open - arrrrrrrrrrrgh!

We hoped that they were relying on bigger machines than this one to clear the road!

We sat on for another hour. It was now 6.30pm and we'd set off at 11.30am. The car hadn't moved an inch. So bad decision number 3 - we decided to head back up to Interstate 80.

We pulled out of the traffic cue and drove the other direction - i.e. to the back of the queue. After traveling for not more than five minutes, I checked the road conditions again - Route 50 was now OPEN! So we rejoined the traffic at back of the line. After four hours we were back where we'd been before we had pulled out of the line. The traffic sped up to about five miles an hour.

It was getting too dark to take many more photos.

I'd often heard mention of the Donner Party who had been stranded in the Donner Pass - where Interstate 80 is built. So as we sat in the car, I googled it, reading aloud to my husband as he "drove."

Sitting looking at the storm from the car it was easy to imagine the scenario of a group of people being stranded by a huge fall of snow in this region.

What was more disturbing was the accounts of how they resorted to cannibalism to survive. Morbid fascination kept me reading, but it was very disturbing. Not that I have a problem with the fact that they ate human flesh - if the other people were already dead then, sure, it was the most sensible thing to do - just like the plane that went down in the Andes, and they ate the dead passengers as told in the Movie Alive. That's what I think I would do rather than choose death. But what really chilled (pardon the pun!) me was that some accounts reported that people were overheard to be plotting to kill others to eat them! In another description of events a man was said to have a preference for tender flesh from children and was accused of killing kids for food!

In our car, I reckon I had the raw end of the deal. There is considerably more meat on me than there is on my husband - in fact I had a chew bar in my handbag with more calories in it than I figured I would glean from my better half!

Fortunately, the traffic began to move more quickly, and hungry as we were, we survived on chew bars until we made it home at 4am.

But the whole episode left me thinking....
Wouldn't the Donner Party have been been better to keep moving rather than stop even if it was just a mile a day? They were so close to help.

And more importantly - what is really in a Donner Kebab?

Byddi Lee

Drowning the Shamrock

2011-03-16T10:29:00.000-07:00

Saint Patrick's Cathedral in Armagh, Ireland.

Last year, I posted about who St. Patrick was for the 17th March. Seeing as it’s St. Patricks day this week, and this is a gardening blog, I decided to tell you all about our national symbol – the Shamrock. What a devastating afternoon of research it’s been!

First of all I wanted to be able to tell you what the scientific name of shamrock was. I was horrified to discover that we don’t really know. Seemingly it’s any of the following plants:

Medicago lupulina – Nope, I’m not convinced – the leaves look too crowded in the picture I found on Wikipedia and it’s altogether too big and stringy. I’m just going to ignore this one – management decision!

Oxalis acetosella – now this looks very like the shamrocks I learned to draw in school - three little hearts joined together, but when we were kids we used to eat this. Not for dinner, as such, but my Mum showed us how we could nibble on the leaves and let the sour, yet appealing taste of the plant she called cuckoo sorrel, twang our taste buds. Every St Patrick’s Day, the Irish Cardinal would say a solemn blessing over the shamrocks, outside the Cathedral, as we Girl Guides stood shivering in our uniforms having paraded through the city to Mass. These shamrocks were handed out to us to wear, but they weren’t anything remotely edible.

Clover (Trifolium repens ) – even though I’ve spent my entire life telling non-Irish people that shamrock is different to clover, this looks more like the one we had pinned to our lapels with straight pins that jagged you in the chest every time you moved. Clover has different shaped leaves to the Sorrel (Oxalis). I want it to be the clover because clover is much more gardener friendly, and I hate the noxious oxalis they have here. Here’s a diagram of the different shape of the leaves.

Also the word Shamrock (seamróg in Irish) is derived from the word seamair which means clover. So I’m pronouncing the Trifolium repens as Shamrock – that’s what it was in our house (I think!). And it is backed up by a study The Shamrock : A Further attempt to fix its species by Nathaniel Colgan published in the Irish Naturalist 1893.

Last week a kind of spooky thing happened. A patch of clover sprang up on our lawn in the shape of the map of Ireland! Here's a map of Ireland taken from Google maps for reference.

Admittedly, its not the Trifolium repens, - it’s the hateful bur clover that is a horrible weed, and I spent Saturday weeding it out. St Patrick’s Day or no, I didn’t want those buggers putting out seed, and the flowers were about to blossom.

That said – what’s the deal with Shamrocks and Ireland? Well, it’s all St Patrick’s doing. He picked up the Shamrock to teach the pagans about the Holy Trinity, saying how it was one leaf, yet three. His botany didn’t seem to be up to much because really it has three leaflets and one leaf – but obviously he studied Religious Education more than Biology!

Then, shock, horror! The Wikipedia entry on “Shamrock” says that there’s no evidence to support that St Patrick really did do this. As if millions of Irishmen stating it all down the millennium wasn’t enough… Good job I didn’t rely solely on Wikipedia to write this post!

Also, it seems that the Irish Government has registered the symbol of the shamrock as a trademark. I not sure how that works – it’s not as if they copywrited a leaf! I guess it means that no other country can muscle in on some Shamrock action!

Though there is probably no need for that, if you consider how the Shamrock has always been associated with Irish Nationalism down the ages. Interestingly though, a four leafed shamrock, aka clover, is an extremely rare mutation and is considered very lucky. Luck and Irish Nationalism centered around the same plant – now that’s an oxymoran if ever I heard one!

And so you drown your shamrock on St Patrick’s Day with a big pint of Guinness and toast to the man himself. Even though a crappy botanist, he sure did plenty of other good stuff for the nation, and for that we applaud him. Here's to you St Patrick, thanks for coming back and giving us the wee shamrock-clover-oxalis thingy!

And if you are drowning your shamrock (and of course you are) remember to drink irresponsibly; it is St Patrick’s Day after all!

Byddi Lee

Get the rock out of here!

2011-03-10T17:23:00.000-08:00

I inherited about five tons of red lava rock. It’s everywhere around our back yard. It works great between the raised beds, but when I tried to remove some to make the bulb garden I found a thick layer of black plastic beneath it. Great for keeping the weeds down this past 25 years, but now the leaf litter and humus has accumulated above the plastic and between the rocks, and the weeds love, love, love it.

The area along the side of the house has been given the very grandiose name of “The Orchard”. It does have more than ten trees, even if all but four of them are between knee height and shoulder height. The ground between all these trees is covered in – guess what – yep, a thick layer of plastic and 4 inch deep, red lava rock. The problem (apart from weeds growing there despite the hostile environment) is that the roots of the trees will find it hard to get water and oxygen. Soil nutrients and minerals won’t seep through plastic, and worms and beneficial bacteria can’t survive under the plastic either. All in all, the plastic has got to go!

Getting rid of the plastic is fairly easy. It’s brittle and breaks easily, but I can kind of roll the stones off it. Sadly, past recycling, it goes in the black bin. But what do I do with the tons of stones left behind?

I put an ad in Craigslist for “Free Red Lava Rock,” telling folk that they had to come get it, load it themselves and that they could take as much as they liked. The first week, I got a bunch of emails and dealt with them in order that they emailed, letting one person come. Then if there was any left I’d go on to the next person. That was my first mistake!

The first girl (a really nice girl – we chatted for ages about gardens) only took about three bucketfuls! She hardly made a dent in it, but by that stage it was halfway through Saturday and the rest of the “interested parties” had decided to get on with their weekend. No-one else showed up! One other guy did come during the week but again he only took a minuscule amount. It still looked as though no-one had touched it.

The following weekend I decided no more Mrs Nice-Guy. I posted another add that basically said the same, except to mention that it was first come first served on Saturday between 10 am and 3 pm, and to call or text me for the address. About twenty minutes after posting the ad a guy called. He seemed very excited about the amount of rock I had and proceeded to tell me in great detail (during a critical part of CSI, I might add!) how he planned to come collect ALL of it the next morning at 10am. I was thrilled and nicely replied to the next five texts saying, “Sorry all gone.” – so much for ditching Mrs Nice-Guy, seems like she was butting in where she wasn’t wanted!

Next morning, at 10 am no sign of Yer Man. At 10.30 I rang him and asked him if he was still coming.

“Oh yes,” said he. “I’m just running a bit behind. I’ve to go collect the liner for the truck then swing by and pick up blah blah blah blah.” And so on.

“Okay,” I said interrupting him. “See you soon.” And still I dreamed of a lovely clean yard, free from red lava rock. I imagined myself ringing the tree company and asking them for more mulch, and pictured a steaming heap of wood chips in my driveway for the next two weeks. This time I’d hire help…

At 12.20pm still no sign of Yer Man. I rang his number, but no answer. How could someone be so inconsiderate? Maybe he’d had a terrible car accident or something. My husband and Al, my neighbor, both gently pointed out that that’s what people do. Incredulous, I left Yer Man a message telling him I was answering the other texts and letting others have the stones. I didn’t want everyone turning up for the stones and fighting over them (as if!) and my other neighbor Ray said that if that happened could I ring him so he could come over and watch – At least I kept the neighborhood entertained!

Of course none of the other previously-interested parties even replied. Back to the drawing board, or rather, the ad in Craigslist to be precise.

I kept it basically the same but changed the collection window to Sunday 10 am -12 noon. A very nice man came and again took an amount of stones, more than the others but still not enough. He was a bit of a bird watcher and identified the nest in the orange tree from last weeks post as that of a bushtit. (This concurs with a comment left last week by Lisa and Rob.) The nice man taking the rocks said that the female bushtit has pale cream eyes and the male has brown eyes.

At 12.15 my phone rang. It was Yer Man! He apologized for not turning up, saying that something had come up and that he should have rang. I mumbled something along the line of, “That’s okay – no harm done.” (I just hate Mrs Nice-Guy!) He asked me all the same questions he’d asked me two days before-hand, told me all the same details of what he’d to organize, and he said he’d be there in an hour. I postponed my soak in the tub (after a morning raking the damn stones).

Two hours later, yes, two hours, Yer Man called again. He asked me what our address was. He told me (again) he had the truck, the liner, the helper and just needed to goggle-map the address and he’d be all set. What was with this guy? Did he just need someone to talk too?

When it got dark, three hours and three batches of cookies (baked, not eaten – I wasn’t feeling that bad!) later, I went for my soak. He still had not shown up and I, hardly able to believe that people can be such eejits, (I’m talking about him not me, though I probably qualify too) retrieved his number from the call register of my phone and got my revenge by saving it as a very nasty name. Really – a very very nasty name – too nasty to print here. If he calls back I won’t be answering – ha – that will show him… though, I really hope he hasn’t had an accident on the way over or something!

So, that said, em… does anyone want some free red lava rock? I’ve still got plenty!

Byddi Lee