Little Chef

This evening Peyton surprised me by making dinner. 

She set the table complete with a lavender and potato vine flower center piece, 

tropical place mats (scrap-booking paper), a freshly picked rose at each seat, 

and served this delicious, home grown, hand made- completely by her - gourmet salad. 

Before we began to eat she explained how she picked the lettuce, purple podded pole beans, peas, 

Lemon Cucumber and Violet Jasper tomatoes from our  garden. 

She peeled and slice the tomato and cucumber and shelled the peas all by her self. 

She added some store bought artichoke hearts, carrots and dressing. 

The final touch was the poppy seeds (little black specks not to be mistaken for pepper), 

which she got from the Pepper Box poppy seed pods also growing in our back yard. 

I had to sneak away quickly and google to make sure Pepper Box poppy seeds were edible. 

Good news is, they are. :-)

What a lovely and delicious surprise. 

J.T.'s 5th Birthday

Camera Practice

I've been trying to learn how to control shutter speed, create depth of field etc. on my camera. So I took the kids over to Sonoma State and played around a bit. 

These are a few of the shots. I still need a lot of practice so I hope they don't end up running the other way when the see me pull out my camera. 

Speed Racer!

Casini Ranch

Our camping trip was a good time filled with lots of friends, river play, wagon rides a scavenger hunt, yummy food, games, campfire time and.........

the best of all, J.T. learned to ride without training wheels thanks to his friends Stella and Noah who let him borrow their bikes. 

Breakfast Is Ready!

Kale, Chard and Tree Collards for breakfast? Sounds like a meal from Mars to me.........

Bananna, orange, pineapple, mango and strawberries too.

It looks like a meal from Mars!
Just add a little whipped cream to make the green more appealing.

Straw Bale Garden

The bale (or in my case, 4 bales) is the garden bed.

Before:

My reason for using straw bales in this area of my yard was because when I began digging the area for the garden bed I was not able to dig down more than an inch before I hit gravel. I wasn't about to take on another labor intensive task. (Hauling dirt and building a chicken coop was enough hard work for me I wasn't about to dig through gravel and I'm sure Tom would have been less than thrilled if I recruited him for another project.) But the lawn was such a waste of potential edible space so I started checking into building more raised beds. That was getting pricey. Then I remembered learning about an easy, inexpensive alternative to dirt garden beds during a edible gardening class I took through Edible Yard Works. So began my Straw Bale Garden.

First, I started my seeds pumpkins, squash, zucchini and melons -and much more- indoors. Then I bought some bales, set them in place, covered them with chicken poop straight from the coop, and watered the bales every day for about a week. Then when my veggie starts were hardened off and ready to plant out side, I dug out some of the straw a couple inches deep and threw a hand full of compost and planted my start right in the hole and filled it in with another hand full of compost.

The straw bales need to be watered more frequently because they are very porous so they seem to dry out more quickly than the rest of the garden. I think that probably also means that they aren't holding the nutrients as well as soil so I've fertilized once already with E.B. Stone's Fish Emulsion which seems to have given them a good boost and I already got, zucchini, squash and tons of pumpkins well on their way.

One Month Ago

Today

Note: You must use straw bales -NOT hay.