Come into the urban homestead’s kitchen this time of year and there’s blood splattered everywhere – pomegranate “blood”
Getting to their tangy delicious fruits sometimes causes some uncontrolled spurts (got a direct hit in my eye the other day, stung for a bit) – not to mention staining one’s hands a lovely red color (wonder if [...]
Now we are starting to see inklings of a summer harvest – finally! The weather is cool for this time of year – nights and mornings especially. Could it be the coolest August EVER?
Here’s some of the gorgeous goodies we harvested this week. The fruits of our labor are finally paying off with the earth’s [...]
Feels like Fall! No, kidding, it truly does!
August (so far) is turning out to be nice. In fact, it’s downright pleasant — very cool in the morning and evenings. Pleasant is such an odd word to describe the weather in August no doubt.
We can’t predict the weather and us mere mortals have really no clue [...]
Summer means hot temps and fruit, fruit, fruit.
Here on the urban homestead we are harvesting grapes, apples, peaches, blueberries (have a whole ziplock bagful!) and strawberries.
Ripening soon will be figs and elderberries.
For some reason, don’t know if it has to do with the weather but the clusters of grapes contain semi ripe, ripe and even [...]
It’s fruit season here on the urban homestead! Our dwarf trees are loaded with fruit. Coming up next– apple butter, apricot syrup and peach preserves…..
Oh and the blueberries are ripening as fast as we can pick em. We picked over 1 lb – which is a lot of little fruit! YUM.
The June gloom seemed [...]
While our other fruit trees have been loaded, this year the lack of flowers this year on our decade old 10′ high citrus has us concerned. Simply put very little flowers equals very little fruit. Our two orange trees haven’t really fully recovered from the freeze of January ‘07 (which hit the urban homestead hard) It takes [...]
Here on the urban homestead we’ve had our fair share of success and failures in the growing department.
Fellow gardeners, you know that certain plant that you just can’t get to grow worth beans? I mean you tried and tried, gave it lots of TLC and it just doesn’t seem to want to grow.
Well, that [...]
The first MAY PRIDE peaches of the season!
Strawberries, peaches and now honey! We are truly blessed with such a homegrown goodies. “We’re eatin’ good in the neighborhood!”
It’s certainly a challenge to mix fruit trees and sun loving vegetables all on one tiny plot. One can’t have fruit trees competing with vegetables, so [...]
Chris Kimball, left, and Harry Smith discuss solar cookers on The Early Show
Monday (CBS/The Early Show)
Q. …we’d like to do some solar cooking and are unsure of how/what to do. – Tia
A. Cooking with the sun is fun, easy and environmentally friendly. We made our first sun oven out of cardboard and aluminum foil over [...]
Going native
New Addition – Gold Currants
We have a new addition to the edible landscape – native gold currants (thanks Jamie for bringing them from the wonderfulTheodore Payne Nursery)
If you’ve never snacked on freshly plucked golden currants, you’re missing one of the joys of growing California native plants at home.The edible landscaping craze is gaining popularity [...]
Orange crush
Orange Harvest
I get the feeling that I know what I’ll be doing for a few days. Juicing!
New Year
“Thank you” to all of you, new readers and old, that have been constant readers of the PTF journal. As always, we are indeed very grateful for your continued support as there are many choices in journal’s [...]
Pomegranates
It’s been a busy past few days and looks to be shaping up to another busy week.
Tackling so many projects all at once have really disrupted our planting rhythms this year – it’s been weird year no thanks to the weather either. Six years ago when Jules decided take our “hobby gardening” and garden/farm “for [...]
Overcast day
Cool Down
A blanket of clouds brings relief to the Southland and none to soon. What a difference a week (actually, a day) makes . Friday was humid and hot. Last Saturday was the hottest day here in some 20 years. However, this Saturday, the clouds rolled in, the humidity dropped and there [...]
Going for a walk
How tall will they get?
Pygmies generally range from 16″ – 22″ at the withers. However, our African Pygmy’s (“Blackberry) mother was about 13″. Nigerian Dwarfs can range from “22 – 30″. The Nigerian dwarf (“Fairlight”) is estimated to be about 22″ at the shoulder.
Will they give milk?
Yes, they both can [...]
Film crew
Sunday was a busy day! It ended up that the folks filming ‘Escape from Suburbia‘ didn’t show as expected. It was for the better, since we had our hands full with another film crew from USC taping the documentary ‘Ready or Not‘ ( premiers sometime in May). Even though it was a long and [...]
Fresh from the garden…
It’s been a good year for oranges. We are still harvesting the blood oranges off our trees. Blood oranges are juicy, sweet and have a dark red interior and are slightly less acidic than regular table oranges. The juice is (and quite expensive – over $10 for 1/2 gal) a treat. [...]
Simple beauties
The apple trees have started to bloom with their soft pinkish-white buds, a sure sign that spring is just around the corner. The bees are hovering around the blooming avocado and there are tiny flower buds readying to flower on the peaches and other stone fruits. Even a few of the strawberries are blooming [...]
Winter weather has finally arrived.
A huge rain storm is moving our way! Rain is expected to start on Friday with heavy rainfall on Saturday. They are even predicting 1-2″ of rain on Rose Parade day, Monday. When New Year’s Day falls on a Sunday, the tournament observes the tradition of moving the parade to [...]
Oranges ready for juicing
The orange harvest is a blessing at this time of year. We’ve been making refreshing and delicious OJ and drinking it throughout the day. The weather recently has been beautiful — blue skies and sunshine! The calendar says “winter” but it feels like summer!
Temperatures are a bit cooler today, but come the [...]
Backyard progress
A Farmer depends on himself, and the land and the weather. If you’re a farmer, you raise what you eat, you raise what you wear, and you keep warm with wood out of your own timber. You work hard, but you work as you please, and no man can tell you to go or [...]
Thanks for the warm ‘welcome home.’ It’s good to be back.
The story and many pics of our New Orleans trip are coming, it may take awhile since there’s a lot to tell (stay tuned).
In the meantime newsbytes from the homestead:
Veggie/fruit tales
Lots to do! Loads of veggies needed to be harvested, Justin harvested 18 pounds of [...]
Last post for October — long winded as it may be!
BATTLE OF THE MITES
There’s a serious battle going on right now in the garden, a battle against the spider mites. This year we experienced the worst infestation we have ever seen since we began gardening (due to the unusual wet winter). We are not [...]
Blackberries
These days if you drop by the homestead, you’re likely to find purple stains on our hands, under fingernails and teeth – blame, if you will, the blackberries for this! No one’s complaining, that’s for sure! Especially if blackberry cobbler is the culprit.
On Monday, we are planning a hiking “expedition” with a group of friends. [...]
Blueberries
Jules couldn’t pass up a chance to buy some low chill blueberries for a reasonable price at a local nursery. The blueberries that we have already aren’t doing too well even though they have been give hefty doses of caffeine (coffee grounds). We are going to put the new ones in another spot, perhaps that [...]
Operation Concrete Cont
On Monday Justin, a “Muscles from Brussels” in the making(hence our Belgian heritage and name of one of the “famous” Belgian actor), hauled and removed by hand (with the help from the rest of us) around 8 tons of concrete from the backyard.
Using a sledge hammer and crowbar (and muscle power), we were [...]
The weather has turn overcast once again and there’s a chance of showers this weekend.
On Sunday (which was a glorious spring day) we were joking with some City officials whether it was going to rain again for Pasadena’s ‘Greening the Earth Day’ this Saturday.
Seems like every event the City has put on for the past [...]
ULTIMATUM
Winter months here allow us to take stock of the previous year and modify the yard accordingly. A few plants are being moved to other spots in the yard with the hopes that their new spot will encourage them to fruit.
Goumi, Chilean guava, aronia and high bush cranberry have been disappointments. They’ve grown beautifully, but [...]
“Weapon cache” Creamy delights
Finally lured by the robust neon-green sweet basil plants in the yard, I decided to create some pesto for dinner using our hand cranked blender. I’m planning to make more batches and freezing them to preserve the large basil harvest.
On Friday, one of the landscape maintenance men doing their weekly [...]
Summer is definitely not wanting to leave anytime soon (not that it every REALLY does in So.CA). The season is giving its last hurrah and blanketing the southland with customary heat and not-so-familiar humidity.
Over the past few days we’ve had a drastic change from unseasonably cool last weeks in August to 100 plus [...]
GOOD LA FREECYCLE STORY
WANTED: I’m a single mom looking for a laptop for my mentally disabled 14 year old foster son to help him with learning activities.
Someone responded to her “wanted ad” and she posted:
FOUND: Special thanks to the person who not only offered a laptop AND a super desktop AND software, but drove 30 [...]
Avocados dropped quite a few decent golf ball sized fruit this month — now it looks like we’ll have only a couple handfuls of avocados instead of the buckets we’ve been envisioning (drats!) Doing a bit of research we found out that this annual drop has it’s own ag term called “June drop.”
The gloom has [...]
Tasty treats are ripening in the garden — plump black blackberries and luscious red
strawberries. JM & I plan to whip up some tasty treats over the weekend.
REPRIEVE
Thankfully, we’ve got a teensy break from the heat – one expects it in summer, but this early?
Should continue to be cooler for the next few days.
SOLAR DISARRAY
The guys [...]
Guavas, oranges, grapefruit
It rained again yesterday and it was a blessing for the garden. This morning there’s a thin layer of frost all around. Luckily, the guys covered the sensitive plants last night with some tarps as a precaution.
Everything’s looking a bit stark now in the yard as some of the plants have gone into [...]
An interesting tidbit, from the July 03 issue ofSunset Magazine, page 140:
Those tiny stickers on the loose fruits and vegetables at the market have a worthy purpose. Besides telling the store’s computer database at checkout what the time is and how much it costs, the price lookup code (PLU) tells you how it was grown.
Conventionally [...]
BON VIVANT
Been quite busy over the past couple days. The guys are re-roofing the garage so we’ll be able to install the solar panels soon. Unfortunately, they had to cut down all the grapes and temporarily take down the redwood arbor that was attached to the side of the garage. So everything’s a [...]
Since the peach crop is quite small this year, fresh fruit is pretty scarce in the yard. Fortunately, there’s a huge fig tree nearby which nobody cares about and is loaded with the delicious black fruit.
We gals are thinking of makingFig Bars or Newtons and there’s a recipe forChocolate Fig Pecan Bars – mmmm. Perhaps [...]
Raspberry Strawberry Almost ripe blackberries
The guys have started tearing off the old garage roof and will be replacing it with an entire new roof for the installation of solar panels. It’s quite a job due to the fact that the garage is nearly 90 years old — it’s a messy job, but [...]
First Anna apples
The first juicy & delicious Anna apples have ripened to a blushing pink and are ready to crunch on! They are smaller than store bought, but hey, who cares? –they are thousand times tastier!
As for the other fruit, the figs and peaches should be ready soon. The other week we harvested a pretty [...]
We harvested our FIRST blueberries of the season… Well, two actually! Hmmm, what on earth can we possibly do with TWO blueberries? They do make lovely blue eyes don’t you think? Oh yeah, I suppose you’ve already figured by now that we don’t have cable television. *grin* Anyhow, the blueberry plants are starting to perk [...]
Mockingbird nest
There’s a mockingbird couple busy building a nest right outside the window here, in the chilacayote vine. Pretty soon, there should be some eggs–maybe… Our two cats watch these goings on with utter fascination.
Yesterday, we picked up some Ollallieberry’s from Armstrong Nursery. Don’t know how they’ll do here… yet!
Weather Report: Sunny and cool, [...]
As you can see, the strawberries are starting to slowly trickle in! Berry Time!!!! Fresh fruit is certainly a tremendous blessing–not to mention a tasty one.
We’ve already started another batch of tomatoes, for a mid-summer harvest and soon will start another batch of basil, cukes and squashes.
This year we received a bit above [...]
Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth;without rain, there would be no life. ~ John Updike ~
I know, we Southern Californians make a big deal when it rains here, full news coverage — Storm Watch, Storm Team and so on. But, we desperately need it, one can water the garden with [...]
The past couple days have been busy ones!
Made some granola, peanut butter, large batch of vegetable soup and handmilled soaps yesterday.
We purchased some semi-dwarf fruit trees and cut them down to 30″ to make bush fruit trees as described by the space saving method:Backyard Orchard Culture Growing Fruit Trees in Limited Space.
After reading an article [...]
Pink Lady Apple
Think you have no room for fruit trees? Think again, check outBackyard Orchard Culture Growing Fruit Trees in Limited Space. When we get back, will be going out to purchase some bare-root trees and implement this space-saving concept. The guy at our local nursery tried this method with a plum and said it [...]
