Grapes!

Was an EXCELLENT year for grapes!

Green beans in the garden

Beans and cucumbers

Peppers and cucumbers

Blushing "Anna Apples"

Celery

Squash blossoms - good stuffed with herb cream cheese, dipped in cornmeal batter and fried!

Cucumbers

Berrylicious!

Been waiting a whole year for these beauties!

Summer time!!!!

Eating with the fullest pleasure - pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance - is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend. - Wendell Berry

Blessings from the good earth and the fruits of our labor.

It's been a relatively cool summer so a few of our crops were taking their sweet time to ripen.   Usually, we'd be up to our eyeballs in tomatoes, cucumbers and even figs but the cooler weather has made the harvest come in trickles.  That is fine because I am up to my eye balls in other fruits and veggies.

This year was an exceptionally good grape year.  The vines were loaded!    A GREAT year for blueberries too!  Our best harvest yet.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have a counter top overflowing with goodies that need attention.

But, before I go, I want to say that we've heard from many readers about the extreme heat and drought  affecting our fellow homesteaders in the Mid West & Texas.    Gardens are withering and animals are dying.  Many people are going through some hard times and our hearts go out to you.

Upon hearing of such hardship, we are indeed (more so!) grateful for our blessings. Our family wants you to know that you are all in our prayers.

Jamboree!

Guess what sis & I been doing?   We kicked off the fruit season with a medley of jams - sweet grapefruit, strawberry rose, strawberry lemon verbena and just plain ol' strawberry.

With all the wonderfully fragrant roses and herbs growing in the garden, I pick a few hand fulls and infuse them in with the fruit preserves.    Turns ordinary jam into extraordinary!

What sorts of canning activity are you doing?  Do you like to go beyond the same old and experiment with adding herbs, flowers and spices?

Here's one of my favorite "outside the jar" canning blog

Sorry for such a short post, love to write more but we have a BIG produce (edible flowers, salad and lots of greens) order to fill this morning and major world news outlet coming at noon to do a story about our urban homestead.

More later!

With only a few weeks left till spring, winter isn’t over with us just yet.

After pretty dry & rather warm start to 2011, February ended with a few cold snaps and storms blowing in.    The last storm dumped over 2 inches of rain and brought snow to some parts of LA!  We did get a bit of slushy, mushy "hail like" stuff for a minute.  The mountains that form the dramatic backdrop to the LA basin were covered in snow and that was a majestic sight to behold.

The last few nights have been cold (26 degrees at “Lettuce Level”)  but so far all the greens and vegetables under the row covers are doing just fine.    Since the stone fruits flowered so early we a bit worried that the recent rains and cold will have an affected on the crop this year.   Not only affecting the flowering but the pollination.

This years eats are at the mercy of the weather so we are hoping for a good year and bountiful harvest

February 2011 Harvest Totals

Produce: 118 lbs

Eggs:  38 Chicken    127 Duck

Year to Date Tally

Produce: 411 lbs

Eggs: 46 Chicken    185 Duck

It rained over an inch this week.  The garden is drinking it the much needed watering after a dry January.   There's still more rain to come.  What a blessing!

The cabbage is growing nicely and I can't wait to use the gorgeous heads.

Thankfully,the rain wasn't hard, we were worried about the early blooms on the stone fruit and apple trees.

Looking forward to summer, Justin mixed up a big batch of soil and starting pulling out the summer vegetables like tomatoes, peppers and more!   Over the weekend we plan to have  soil blocking party to get a jump start on summer plantings.

Here's a bit of news, for those who care and aren't a victims of this recent rumor mill.

Our family hopes that level heads prevail and that people take time to step back, be informed about trademark policy, and search out the truth.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone,  and we hope that you continue to live the urban homestead lifestyle.

Misty morning peaches

Salad! Come 'n get at the 'Front Porch Farm Stand'

Snow peas

Apple blossoms

Snow peas are a tasty treat!

Peppers! Yes, that's right - peppers!

Potato pots. Self watering clay pot tubs

Young sprouts

After what appeared to be the start of a cold and wet winter, 2011 has started off pretty darn dry and warm.    So warm that the peach and apple trees are blooming.  Hate to break it to them but we still have ~2 months till the first day of spring.  Is that early or what?  The weirder thing is the apple trees never lost all of their leaves!  Go figure.... Wonder if that means we won't have much of a fruit harvest this year.  Oh yeah, Peppers n February!

What are you planting/harvesting these days?

For those of you who are keeping tabs on the fast and furious Food Issues these days there are some developments of concern:

The Organic Elite Surrenders to Monsanto: What Now?

Care to share what the "Future of Food" looks like?

If you've been following our harvest tally over the years here's a nifty little HARVEST GRAPH 2001-2009 to give you an idea how we've been at the fore front of urban agriculture food production.

These last few days, I too have been anxiously waiting the final harvest tally from Justin who's been going through the invoice books to tally the herbs and edible flower boxes that we harvested and sold (which came to 117 lbs for the year).

On a side note, we just couldn't figure out how to calculate the weight of 100 plus flats of wheat grass that we grew last year, so we just left them out of the final tally.  Oh well.

The extremely wet and cold December affected our harvest numbers, and of course there are still loads of oranges on the trees but it wouldn't be right to strip the trees clean just to bump up the tally.  We were tempted though!

So the numbers are in!

From our 1/10 acre growing grounds:  Jan 130 lbs, Feb 139 lbs, Mar 396 lbs, Apr 555 lbs, May 590 lbs, Jun 730 lbs, Jul 1110 lbs, Aug 1228 lbs, Sep 638 lbs, Oct 388 lbs, Nov 492 lbs plus 117# herb and flower sales

December 2010

517 lbs of produce

14 duck eggs

0 chicken eggs

2010 Year Total

Our previous harvest record of 6200  has been officially broken .....

Drum roll please!

7,030 lbs of produce (fruits, vegetables and herbs only)

131 lbs of honey

307 duck eggs

706 chicken eggs

Thanks to everyone who entered our contest!  Wow, you guys are good since there were certainly a lot of close guesses!  The prize winners of our "Guess the Harvest Contest"  are:

Anna @ 7010

Carrie @ 7015

Brian @ 7043

Congrats on winning a beautiful and inspirational Little Homestead in the City Calendar - mind, there are only a handful left so get them before they are all gone!

Oh, and you winners, please send us your mailing address.

We hope that you've been inspired to grow MORE of your own groceries.   May 2011 be a productive and a bountiful one for everyone!

Living in Southern California, there's not really much down time for us homesteaders-farmers.  Only one more month left in 2010 and already projects and plans are being hatched for 2011.

Jordanne & I are working on the middle bed room/turned craft room.  Trying to get a grip on organization and such (folks are always giving us fabrics and yarn... and books!).  Like to turn it into a music room too.

The other day we had another evening of music.  Sure wish I had taken pictures!  It was quite the quaint scene with two girls in the kitchen strumming away on banjo and guitar while apple butter bubbled on the stove top.  Oh, and not to mention chocolate cake!

Now that the whole backyard garden is protected in floating row cover the farming chores turn to pruning the fruit trees, finding places for some "homeless" edibles along with cleaning up dead underbrush and fallen leaves (turning that into next year's soil)

In the barnyard, we are looking forward to adding to our chicken flock next spring.   The hardest part is which heritage breed to choose.    Chooks are like cookies, you can't have just ONE!  We LIKE them all but, alas, can't happen.  Should we get more Belgian banties or cochins?  What about some Barred Rocks, Wyndottes or Orphington.   Jeez, we are going to have to pick - eeny, meeny, miney moe!

The feral bee hive we saved from the Arroyo Seco is thriving and feasting on the flowering perennial basil, avocado and citrus.

We are pretty excited about the harvest totals this year.   Goes to show you that small spaces can be productive (and beautiful) if you grow the soil first!  I'm even amazed that after 10 years of intensive growing efforts continues to put out such high yields.  Sorta reminds me of the widow and the olive oil Bible story.    The earth gives back blessings with faith and hard work.

Here's another round of snapshots from the urban homestead - enjoy!

Kumquats, can't wait till these babies ripen!

Micro greens

Broccoli

Watercress growing in hanging basket aquaponics system

Snow peas and blue skies

Estella who acts more like Charlie Chaplin

Can we join you up there?

Sleeping duck

Enjoying the morning sunshine

Rinsing clothes

Hung out to dry (yep, those be bloomers)

Nothing like the smell of sun dried laundry on a winter's day

First off, like to thank all those who commented on the last post.   We value and appreciate the support.  Better yet, it was great to read how many of you are caring for our good earth - way to grow!

After 25 years of growing food here on our city plot in Pasadena, we’ve had to deal with a whole lot of yard issues (Check out our Photo Gallery and see shocking "before pics").  Many of you who have been following our decade old blog know that when moving here and starting our first city farm, we had to deal with lifeless soil and junk!  Lots of junk –  bricks, concrete, asphalt, weeds and other  junk.    The people who rented the house were in the junk collection business!   Basically, as a friend so aptly said recently “the place was a dump.”   But it did have a nice BIG yard and loads of potential.   Of course, we didn’t see it at the time.  All we saw that it needed a heck of a lot of work.    After the junk was cleared away and the first garden was planted in lifeless, hardpan soil, we weren't just growing food, but faith and hope, too.

Over the ¼ century, as we transformed our home into a homestead, we faced many obstacles and had our fair share of failures.   Thought it would be nice to share what obstacles we are facing now which has given us much to discuss at the dinner table.

• Neighbor’s Trees – 55’ ft pecan tree in the west and 20’ carrot woods running along the southeast and southwest.  Across the street, a bunch of TALL palm trees in the east cast a long shadow The good book says “love thy neighbor” but does that include their shade trees?  We love trees  but  have to admit that secretly we have deeply disturbing thoughts against that pecan tree (which gives NO pecans, btw).  In the fall, the wind blows all of the pecan tree leaves and buries the salad greens.
• What lies beneath – neighbor’s tree roots sucking water, sunlight and nutrients like a black hole.  Need I say why we have such evil thoughts?
• Don’t fence me in - 6’ high south east and south west facing concrete block wall.  One thing good about the wall is that it keeps the water on our property and moles out.
• House shade – we city folks who grow food have to deal with many shade obstacles and, more often than not, the house gets in the way of sunlight.  The shade is nice for growing lettuce  and blueberries in the summer but what we wouldn’t give for a 1/10 acre square plot with no shade obstacles because we'd hanker at doubling our harvest to 12,000 lbs.
• Not babies any more -- maturing fruit trees who taking the sun away from sun lovin’ veggies.  Can’t have all your fruit and vegetables too.
• Front yard farming.  With edible landscaping you sometimes sacrifice beauty for productivity and so it is with our front yard.  Check out our Four Practical P’s to growing food in the front yard.
• Global weirding.  Yep, you can forgot about "global warming"–  We are in for wacky weather & shifting food patterns " The weather anomalies that North American farmers and orchard keepers have experienced over this past growing season may be part of what journalist Thomas Friedman has dubbed global weirding, a far better catch-all term than global warming.... elsewhere, we may be entering an era where much of our current notions about memorable terroir -- the taste of place embedded in wines, fresh fruits, or even grass-fed meats -- will become geographically scrambled... the prevailing patterns of weather, soil moisture, and temperature --  are shifting more rapidly than we had ever imagined they could? What will these shifts mean in terms of food security for the rest of us? " that statement would make any sane farmer wave the white flag.
• Plagues - never in our years of growing food have we seen such infestation as in recent years:  spider mites, citrus leafminers, thrips, and the worst culprit is the hated harlequin bug and, so far no organic treatments that work, we've had to resort to killing the buggers with our hands. It's gotten so bad that we've had to change our yearly growing habits.  No longer can we try to extend the harvest of mustards, kales and brassicas.

What obstacles or problems are you facing in your attempt in growing food?  What failures are you attempting to overcome?

I can't believe it's already a year since our family visited India as urban homestead ambassadors.  It was truly an amazing trip, made even more special by the fact that we got to stay with wonderful families. (read our India adventures)

On Sunday, one of the families we stayed with in Udaipur was visiting relatives here in So Cal and we were able to return the hospitality.  Unfortunately, we couldn't give them the wonderful Cal sunshine as  it was dreary and rainy all day.

We were surprised by Manish Jain's phone call informing us that his family and in-laws were in town and would like to visit us.  Not expecting visitors ( and SEVEN to be exact) and, with such short notice, I panicked!  Oh dear, there's no food in the house!  Well, there is food, just not prepared.

Lucky for us, we had some fresh food and fruit on hand.  Farmer Sergio had brought us boxes of jujubes and so we whipped up a jujube rice pudding that was delicious and received good reviews from our visitors.   Pulling from the pantry, I brought out some of the jalapeno jelly to slather on crackers. That jalapeno jelly knocked their socks off!

I was worried, knowing how much food and hospitality mean (aka Monsoon Wedding) in their culture.   Happy to report, we pulled off a pretty decent spread in the nick of time.

Over food, the conversation was lively and sometimes serious.  We caught up on the latest Bollywood movies,especially the one  (Peepli Live)  which deals with the horrific epidemic "farmer suicides" (thanks to the likes of Monsanto) and the anti GMO protests.  Also, brought up was the new  "Feed the Future Initiative" - a partnership between the US Government, Monsanto and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Have you ever been surprised by drop-in visitors?

What's your favorite "go-to" dish or food?


You know that old saying "Self sufficient is as self sufficient does." Ok, not really old but a new take on Gumpisms.

How can we be "self sufficient" on only 1/10 of an acre (if an acre is $1.00 we are growing our groceries on 10 cents)? Yeah, pretty amazing, huh?

Although we grow 99% of our fruits and veggies, we still are in need of the basic staples. As I say in our short film Homegrown Revolution "we are directly and indirectly self sufficient" The surplus veggies, herbs, honey, fruit, eggs that we sell go to buy staples that we need like flour, grains and oil (Check at "Eating Down the List"). In essence ,we are living off the land here on our tiny plot in the city. Both the majority of our food and sustenance comes from just under 4,000 sq ft of garden. We are city farmers that care for and tend to this patch of earth.

One reader had a question:

I would really be interested in your blogging on your blog about how your family manages the homestead finances. How the bills are paid, if there are any; do all of you get a paycheck for your own personal spending; what is the cost for all of your seeds; do you keep your sales of your produce separate from your honey; etc. I, myself, would like to be more self-sufficient and I am just interested in how you manage. Thank you for your consideration in this question - CW

Good question!

Our front porch farm stand keeps our till full of bills. Thanks to extensive energy and water conservation practices our utility bills are quite low

• Water is $600 a year
• Electricity $7 a month / Gas averages about $15
• View updated Stats and Graphs from the Urban Homestead

We prefer to pay cash for groceries that we don't grow.

We work for our food, so no we don't actually get a paycheck but we do get paid in the most amazing tasting produce on this planet (ok, so I am a little biased).

Justin is chief financial officer and does a good job at keeping track of all the business expenditures. As for personal spending, each spends at his/her own will and discretion. Not that we need much "personal stuff" because we are pretty simple folks (Justin has only TWO pairs of shoes - boot and utility sandal); but what we do like to spend our money on are things for the urban homestead and sometimes we do get carried away!

I wrote a lengthy post a few years back answering a reader's question about our family budget (if you follow each hyperlink there are certainly some gems written in this here blog !)

Check it out at

Urban Pioneering Lifestyle

The post's ending sums our lifestyle up the best : ""We are happy!"