October 15, 2007

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Book Review #6

It's a darn shame that it's a bazillion and fifty degrees outside, because this book made me want to make wonderful homemade bread! But it's far too hot to turn the oven on....

Bread Alone by Daniel Leader & Judith Blahnik combines storytelling of how the Bread Alone bakery came to be, with recipes grouped into categories, the method, and all about ingredients. Because bread making is all about the ingredients.

I appreciated how specific the instructions were, as well as the little tips and tricks the author threw in so folks like you and I can make good bread at home.

I bought this book on a whim after reading Farmgirl Fare's review of the newest book by Daniel Leader, Local Breads, and she said that her original copy of Bread Alone is falling apart because it is so well used loved (why else would it be in a bunch of pieces?!)

So, as the weather in NorCal cools, I look forward to making awesome homemade breads.

Grade: A-

Be careful what you wish for.

I previously mentioned that we had a cool summer. Well August has it in for us.

Temperature outside of my car when I got home today, via camera phone.



And it's supposed to last through Labor Day. Fun times!

So THAT'S why some of my plants are dying

I was cleaning up a little in the backyard last night, and turned around to see the dog peeing all over my potted hydrangea on the patio. This is after the smell of male dog urine nearly knocked me over as I was tidying up my dying-back-suddenly daylilies.

So THAT's why. No wonder. I guess we'll have to go on more walks since the dog is obviously pouting about something.

Fart head.

Tiny tomato game

As tribute to Carol at May Dreams Gardens, and Kylee at Our Little Acre, I wanted to share my tiny tomato and its story.

A few days ago, my wonderful husband trimmed the tomato monstrosities, because they no longer qualify as plants. I went out to check on the status of our resident Ukranian Digger Wasps this evening and noticed this tiny, glowing red orb hanging from the tree, tiny stem still attached. It must have ripened after it was cut from the mother ship, and landed, perching precariously on the branch.



Left - Right
1. On a standard Revlon nail polish (it's on the top)
2. In the only thimble I have
3. On a Lego toy
4. On my cat Chippy's belly
5. Sniffed by Travis
6. On Chippy cat's head
7. Travis is mesmerized by the tiny tomato
8. So is Chippy
9. She hates the camera flash, but it makes the tiny red orb glow
10. Next to a dime
11. On a dime
12. Next to a thumbtack

I should have taken one on a battery. Next year!

Classification...finally!

I browsed whatsthatbug.com while at home for lunch and came upon a recent posting of a Ukranian Digger Wasp. The big yellow eyes give it away. That is what we have in the garden beds!

Per WTB, "This is a Digger Wasp in the family Scoliidae. Scoliid Wasps are hairy, robust wasps that prey upon the ground dwelling grubs of Scarab Beetles. The adult wasps feed on nectar, and the beetle grubs are food for the larval wasps. There is a close enough resemblance to a North American species, Scolia dubia, that your specimen might be in the same genus."

yA little research indicates that females keep a few nests in the soil, lay eggs, and feed them. These larvae overwinter in the ground and emerge in the spring.

It does appear that we will be tilling the soil a little deeper than I originally thought. 3-4" may not be enough! Apparently deep tilling isn't good because it releases sequestered CO₂ into the air and disrupts worm and nematode habitats. Sorry guys, but these wasps have to go!

Brighter than yesterday

I sat on the couch all day yesterday. Combo too much drinkin' and not enough sleepin' while having fun in Reno I guess.

I sat on the couch tonight when Chris called from Illinois to say hi.

Chris: "You need to pick some tomatoes. And rip out the squash if you're feeling ambitious."
Me: "Whatever. I guess." (sitting on the couch again being tired lazy girl)

Like whoa. I couldn't even get any more because it was dark and I couldn't see. So I was picking these ridiculously fast. There's probably 3x this many I can't even get to in the back of the planter!

Maybe this gardening thing is pretty cool after all.

Tired

Maybe it's just because I'm overly tired from a fun weekend in Reno, but I'm a little depressed about my garden right now.

The eggplant fell over on Friday. Chris staked it back up and we're going to have to watch it.
Aphids or Whiteflies have infested nearly everything overnight it seems. They're killing all of the plants.

That awful large big huge nasty creature of a bug is back. I have no idea what it is, but I DON'T WANT IT NEAR MY GARDEN. When stinging bugs abound, I want nothing to do with my garden. Honeybees excluded from that statement, of course.

The squash needs to be taken out, even though it's still productive. Infested. Leaning. Not staked. Taking up lots of room. Other bad things too.






Watermelon is turning yellow, and I'm concerned for the 3 watermelons we have that actually got large enough to eat, but aren't ready to harvest yet. Sigh. I hope they don't shrivel.






The tomatoes are insane. I almost just want to call it quits this year and rip them all out. We have pruned them back twice, and within days they are once again nutso and ginormous. You can hardly walk by them at the moment, because they are so large. I need to take my own advice next year.

It was hot today.



I found where my neighbor's bamboo is growing through the fence, splitting a rail in the fence. Non-spreading bamboo my a$$. I'm going to have to go out there with a knife everyday until winter to cut it back, and hope they don't see me because they will freak out.





I think I just need some sleep. With daylight comes perspective. But only if the awful bug isn't out there...

Condensed

I have lots of blog entries, and limited computer time anymore, so I've condensed a bunch of entries into one.

Editing Pictures
I was asked to elaborate about the tips and tricks the wedding photographer gave me on my flight from Atlanta to Sacramento last week.

First, she said she shoots many pictures in a RAW file format. For more about the format, click here (yes, it's wikipedia). It will tell you much more than I ever could. I have a Sony A100 Digital SLR with a 2GB compact flash card. In the "Fine" format setting, I can get nearly 500 pictures on my card. With a RAW/JPEG format, I could only fit about 85. The pictures are much larger, and since they are truer to the picture you actually shot (from what I could gather on the wiki), you can manipulate them to get precisely the look you want. I use Picasa on my computer to store and edit my pictures, and occasionally use an ancient version of Photoshop to add funny orange taglines and sayings into my pictures. Programs like iPhoto or Picasa have features where you can edit a picture.

The two pictures below are identical, except I used the Soft Focus feature in Picasa to soften the edges of one. It took less than 5 seconds after I had Picasa open. Cool, huh?! You can also change the color of a picture to black and white or sephia using the tools in these programs, or saturate the color more towards one end of the scale. Photoshop is a little more technical and less user friendly, and that's probably why I use it to do like 5 things. Like add funny orange taglines to my pictures.

Ghetto Birdbath
A long time ago, I posted instructions on turning an old satellite dish into a bird bath. At first it sounds kind of ghetto, right? But it actually looks really cool and is about the right depth for birds to drink and bathe. Plus the hammered silver paint finish gives it some texture so the birds won't slip around.

Well some of my long time readers (months, if I may say so myself) may have noticed the lack or absence of pictures dealing with said birdbath. I have to admit, I never had any visitors. I religiously cleaned and refilled it, but I thought it was in the wrong location so I was waiting to put it on a post and move it somewhere else next year.

As part of the big garden plan we have going on (see below for blurb), Chris spent Sunday ripping out the photinia bushes in the backyard, revealing the wonderful fence we share with our court neighbors. And there sat the birdbath, in all of its naked exposed glory. I thought putting it near bushes would encourage birds, as they had a safe place to fly to if there was any problems, but apparently the bushes had the opposite effect and scared the birds off!

I saw a bird drinking from it for the first time yesterday. Happy me!

Big Plans
You know when you tackle one project, and then more projects seem to come into view, and by the time you realize it, you're knee deep in ideas and projects? Yeah, that's kind of where we are at the moment.

As part of our Landscape Re-do, we had phases. Well we've renumbered the phases and reorganized.

Phase 1a
Garage cabinets
Phase 1b
Garage epoxy flooring and finishing garage
Phase 2a
Pushing out side fence to give us more room in backyard
Phase 2b
Redo backyard
Phase 3
Redo front yard
Unnumbered future phase
Redo master bathroom

We figure that for as much as we use the back yard, we might as well have it the way we want it to look. The front yard's grass is manageable, doesn't require a whole ton of water, and by getting rid of the awful front side yard, I can live with the way our front yard is right now. Plus the plants out front don't look too ghetto.

Because the backyard is now the main/first project to tackle, and since we were having a hard time keeping 1/2 of the lawn alive anyway, we decided to turn off the sprinklers on that side and let nature take its course. We left the green side for the dog to lay on. And poop on. The other side, as you can see, is straight-up crispy like.

It's interesting to see exactly where the sprinklers water. I suppose. We're going to level the two mounds of grass so they are more level. Water simply runs off of them and pools towards the edges, creating an inviting weed habitat anyway. Plus by letting 1/2 of the grass die, my hope is that we actually get in gear and do something.

Fall is here? Oh really. Is it?
After my recent post about how cool it has been here, Mother Nature decided to let one rip and we're in the middle of a heat wave. But it's 100-103^o, so it could be worse. Like last summer when it was 115-118^o! Oh well.

I'm off to clean the house and do about a zillion other things while Chris is at school. I'm going to Reno for the weekend (Bachelorette Party), so no posts from me.

Have a happy weekend all!

Book Review #5

On my trip to North Carolina, I read The Home Orchard by C. Ingels, P. Geisel, and M. Norton, and printed by the UC Regents.

This book is for the home gardener, or backyard orhcardist that wants to know as much as possible about selecting, planting, and caring for fruit and nut trees. Although we don't have anything that can be considered the size of an orchard, I wanted some information that might lead me to choose certain types of trees that do well in Folsom, as we want to produce as much of our own food as possible.

The book's layout is pleasing, and made it easy to read. The regional info was the most useful, as most books I read are written for a large audience, whereas this book is printed by the UC Regents (University of California Agricultural and Natural Resources dept.), so I knew for sure it wouldn't talk about things I would never experience.

The pictures and illustrations in this book were definitely worth the purchase price alone!

The book was organized into the following sections, my comment are italicized.

1. Climate and Soils (regional information - beyond useful)
2. Growth and Development (a horticultural lesson...)
3. Varieties and Rootstocks (interesting, also regionally organized)
4. Planting and Care of Young Fruit Trees and Nut Trees (great pictures and step by step uinstructions)
5. Irrigation (Did you know a standard full-grown peach tree can use up to 186.8 gallons of water PER DAY in the hot inland regions of California?!! I finally talked Chris into dwarf trees with that one tidbit of info...)
6. Fertilization (Eh, a little too synthetic for my tastes)
7. Training and Pruning (EXCELLENT discussion about pruning during the tree's years. Year 1 pruning, year 2 pruning, shaping, and espalliering, etc.)
8. Budding and Grafting (Interesting for those who aren't necessarily backyard orchardists)
9. Fruit Thinning (I had heard that you get better production with thinning, but the information was useful. Too bad I didn't know this a few weeks ago with the watermelon!)
10. Harvesting Fruits and Nuts (The best part of having a backyard orchard!)
11. Integrated Pest Management for Backyard Orchards
12. Failure to Bear and Abiotic Disorders
Appendix: Crop by Crop Calendars (VERY VERY COOL!)

I'm glad to have this book in our repertoire and bookcase. Chris thought it was a little defeating, in that "This doesn't do well here. Neither does this. Easily infected. Does poorly in hot inland areas." But I reminded him that we can always try and see what works and what doesn't!

And that's the beauty of backyard gardens!

Overall, the book earns a well-deserved place in my revolving list of reference titles. A-

The end of summer is near.

With a chill in the air last night after we harvested and took out some plants because they were at the end of their seasons, Chris and I fired up the chimnea and sat in front of the fire for a couple hours.


This signals that summer is nearing an end. Prematurely?

You see, Summer here in NorCal usually lasts through September, and often is warm still into October. But it has been getting rather chilly at night, and the days are around 90-93^o, which although average, is cooler than we are used to.

Looks like we can look forward to a cold winter.

We were actually relatively quiet because it was so peaceful in our neighborhood last night - no barking dogs, car noise, airplanes, or screaming kids. It was hard to form a thought because of this peace. I wish I had this feeling more often!

But we did make a list for Home Depot so we could get the free six month financing deal. Haha! Of course. So this morning we purchased:

Black & Decker Alligator Loppers: "They worked better than I expected them to." - Chris. He made short work of the photinias in the back. Did I mention we have new big plans for the back? A new post upcoming!
Epoxy Flooring Paint: For the garage. Matches the cabinets.
Muriatic Acid: To etch the garage floor before the epoxy? I dunno, it's what the directions stated. Not to thrilled about buying something with "acid" in the name.
Scrubber head for end of roller pole: To scrub the garage floor clean. x2
Roller pole: So we can both scrub the floor at the same time. (We already have one)
Paint roller covers: So we can paint the epoxy on the floor.
Hand axe: Would have been helpful last night when Chris was chopping wood for the chimnea fire.
A couple metal files: For tools that need some renovating.
Cloth masks: For when you really want to cover your nose.

When we have time, we will do the floor. Not sure when that will be exactly.

Update on "assassin bug"

It's not an assassin bug, but instead a Katydid. We found an adult clinging to the screen as our cat tried to bat it around.

When we guessed it was a katydid and did a visual search on whatsthatbug.com, we found that what we thought was an assassin bug is actually a nymph katydid. After not finding anything online that would indicate that they are harmful in the small numbers we have, we let them live. Bird food? This adult was missing a leg. Perhaps.




Too bad the hummingbird that I fought with over the bee balm won't eat them. Then it could serve as food for something.

I heart Norcal

There is nothing in the world like being "home." I almost died on a plane yesterday (or at least I think I did -- diverted to Columbus, GA b/c we were running low on fuel and couldn't land in Hotlanta...). I am glad to be on the ground.

Anyhoo.

I've spent a lot of time over the last few days reading many garden blogs. I met a photographer on the flight from Atlanta to Sacramento, and she gave me some pointers on pictures and told me why so many pictures look so saturated with color (PhotoShop or iPhoto)... So that's the secret! She also told me to shoot RAW since that also seems to help. Larger files though....my Picasa is already swollen with 'em. This weekend we're moving our thousands of pictures to DVD.

World's perfect drink
1/2 grape juice
1/2 club soda

hey...It's a slow day today.




My "yellowjacket" trap caught a honeybee. At least I think that's a honeybee.








A watermelon is ripening and perched precariously on the fence. This is 'Crimson Sweet' and is ripe at 20-25 lbs, "when the rind dulls and bottom yellows." Great. Now we have to guess.





My assassin bug is still alive and well on the bee balm. I got into a fight with a hummingbird when I was trying to stake this plant to prevent it from flopping over before I went to NC, and it kept buzzing my head, chirping angrily at me. Dude, I was trying to help you! Unlike Robin's Nesting Place, I wasn't quick enough to snap a picture at all!




I love coreopsis! My amazing reseeding pink is blooming right now. It is contained in a pot until we can unleash it on the side of the yard and let it go wild.






Watermelons are growing large and fast.
Tomatoes are putting on a show.
Peppers are falling over with fruit.
More and more eggplants are ripening.
The last of my Sage 'purpurea' plants is dying suddenly.
Pumpkin vines are just beginning to set fruit...finally after 20'.
Sheared basil, oregano, italian parsley, and chives are regrowing.

That's all I have to update at the moment.

Long Distance Coveting

Once again, for the 3rd time in 5 weeks, I am not at home, but instead travelling our large country.

I am in Raleigh, North Carolina in a training for work.

In speaking with my husband on the phone this week, I am hearing such great things about my garden. The tomatoes are all pickable right now. He said he has almost filled the collection vessel we have been using with the shiny red orbs. Blink your eyes and eggplants are ready. Watermelons are growing larger each day. The weather is beautiful.

I am covetous. I can't wait to be home. Because as much fun as it is to travel, there is no place like home.

And I miss my camera.

Watermelon + Update

Yesterday Chris and I took on the task of cutting the Megatron Watermelon vines back, just a wee bit. About a week ago we cut the ends off of the vines, since they seemed to be growing 1' a day, but no fruit had set. Well, fruit has set my friends.

I'll admit, I have never ever liked watermelon. Everyone else seems to enjoy it; I feel so left out sometimes. But Chris likes it, so we grew it for him. Since this is my first real year gardening, I've tried to read and learn as much as possible about the things I am growing and how to maintain them. Next year, I will take seriously how much room watermelons take up, and how to prune them judiciously to a) keep their size under control, and b) get them to set fruit sooner (and not take over my whole garden!).

And I'm just waiting for the day that Jake the dog discovers it, for watermelon is his favorite snack. Really.

Chris will buy the small seedless watermelons, and when he's done, give the carcass with a little flesh left to the dog. He will eat everything but the hard end. So watermelon never makes it to the compost bin!



Here are some earlier pics of Jake and the melon.

Chow down dude!














Other than that, the only other things going on in the garden are gobs of cherry and grape tomatoes ripening...









and we a massive flea beetle infestation, noted by holes in the leaves of the tomato and eggplants...

I sprayed Pyola from Gardens Alive! on them this morning (mixed on my new workbench!), and hopefully that will work in getting their population under control. They haven't yet affected fruit quality, so I'm crossing my fingers.

Looking in my books, it sounds like these little critters lay eggs in the soil, making it difficult to be able to get them really under control. Like all the pests this year, we are again late to the game!

Phase 1a

Phase 1a completed. Garage cabinets installed.

We bit the bullet and finally bought the garage cabinets that we've been eying this last year from We're Organized here in Folsom (they have locations throughout the West Coast).

We chose gray for the cabinets, and they are black trimmed. They look awesome! We got a sweet deal because they were having a sale and we saved a whole bundle. If you're looking at these cabinets for your own use, I would DEFINITELY wait for a sale.

Everyone from the sales rep, garage designer, and installers were all really nice. If the time comes and we need more storage, I would absolutely get more from them. (Plus then everything would match.) 100% satisfied!

1) These two cabinets are for Chris' car stuff and our non-garden related tools, and other stuff.







2) This workbench is my garden area. I haven't had a chance to really "unpack" and put stuff in it, but I have the day off tomorrow, and boy will it be on!






3) Jake the wonderdog checking out the cabinets to make sure they're safe. The running joke in our house because our dog is so serious is, "Do you guys have a permit for this?"






4) Aren't they beautiful?!







And the dog thing with Jake all stems from this joke:

How many dogs does it take to change a lightbulb?
German Shepherd: "I'll change it as soon as I lead these people from the dark, check to make sure I haven't missed any, and make just one more perimeter patrol to see that no one has tried to take advantage of the situation." (Click the link for more dog stereotypes...)


The cabinet install is phase 1a of the landscape redesign because I putter around in the garage so much that I needed a permanent garden station. Not just buckets to keep stuff in. That isn't really working anymore.

So another thing I get to do on my DAY OFF tomorrow!

Book Review #4. More books.

Me and my many book reviews. What can I say, I've been traveling. Alot. I love to read and learn!

I read Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza on my trip back to LA in late July. The main premise is basically making a square compost bin without sides, letting it "season", and then planting it. Interesting, if not particularly useful in my raised bed situation.

I don't have enough stuff to compost. We recycle our grass clippings back into the front lawn, and the back lawn is chalked full of really really invasive weeds that I want nowhere near my garden! I would have a mess on my hands before I knew it.

However, I like the part of the book where the author profiles plants, including info on when to plant, harvest, and little tidbits of helpful info.

Overall review (I know it wasn't too helpful) B
------------------------------------------------
Anyhoo...

From last Saturday's Harvest Fair, Chris and I both received bags full of goodies and info. Some of that info was of books printed by UC California -- Home Orchards and Master Gardener's Handbook. Well, I bought both online. And then in the same internet session here at home, I bought two other books that came highly recommended by Susan at Farmgirl Fare: Bread Alone by Daniel Leader, and his newest book, Local Breads.

Chris and I love the artisan breads at Safeway. My particular favorite is the Asiago Cheese bread. I have actually hurt my jaw by eating so much of this chewy bread in one day. Yes, it's true. We have a bread machine, but what comes from it is so disappointing that I put it away again. Bread machines suck!

And then I came across the blog above and read Susan's review of the newest book. It sounded like exactly what Chris and I have been wanting! I received all four books in one day, so it will take me a while to read though 'em, but you can be sure I'll post reviews when I'm done!

First impressions
Bread Alone: Awesome true story and cookbook
Local Breads: Continuation of good bread recipes
Master Gardener's Handbook: Like a textbook for people with absolutely no knowledge base. Will take a bit of slogging through this one...
Home Orchard: Absolutely gorgeous book chalked full of info. Looking forward to Chris being done with it, and me being done with Bread Alone so we can swap.

Post with pictures of all the cute little baby watermelons tomorrow! And update!

Soybeans, Ants

Let me say that I can see why some people are hesitant about the whole biodiesel using soy thing. It takes a lot of plants to get a respectable number of beans!

Case in point:

I planted about a dozen soybean seeds in March, of which only about 10 survived to produce beans. I didn't sow any more seeds after this point, which certainly would have continued my harvest. The yeild of those 10 plants is contained in one Ziploc quart sized baggie. (You know the kind you have to have for airport security...)

I harvested these soybeans over the course of about 3 weeks, washing them and putting them in the bag at each harvest point.

We eat sushi occasionally, and I have a newfound respect for how many plants must be planted just so folks like us can have edamame appetizers!

I originally planted soybeans from Burpee, but they never germinated. I purchased Renee's Garden seeds from my local OSH, and the germination rate was 100%. I only lost plants to my clumsiness or by way of the dog getting into the garden beds.

I would grow them again, and next time plant them a few inches closer together. The reason our harvest is done is because I had been waiting on a few plants to finish their soybeans, but the patch was invaded by flea beetles or aphids. So there were a few more that likely would have never finished because the plants were beginning to lose their vigor.

One thing I've learned this year is that as annoying as they may be sometimes, Ants are really a great thing to have in the garden. They eat yellow jacket and caterpillar carcasses, cleaning debris from the garden. They also serve as a great warning sign that your compost bin needs water just by their presence in it (ants won't take up residence in a properly-wetted compost pile). I should have realized when the top of the soybean leaves began to dry up and there were ants on them to look at the underside of the leaves and spot the offending critters. Now said critters are starting in on the eggplant and squash. And it's too windy to spray Pyola spray today, but at least it's not 104^o.

However, ants in my cat's food dishes in the house is another story entirely.

Thanks to Organic Gardening magazine for my new ant killing elixer:

2 cups water
6 tablespoons sugar
1 tsp boric acid

Combine and soak cotton balls in mixture. Take a small container and poke/drill a few holes in one side, large enough for ants to get in and out. Put on the lid so it doesn't dry out. Place where ants are coming in the house, and hide container from dog (I have a couple containers set around it, just in case)...

Certified Farmer's Market

Chris and I went to the Certified Farmer's Market in Old Town Folsom this morning. I was going to take a picture, but Chris put everything away before I could.

For $24, we got the following produce:

1 bunch Baby Bok Choy
1 bunch cilantro
1 bunch green onions
2 ears corn
1 pint blueberries
1 bunch grapes (purple seedless)
5 peaches
2 Asian pears
2 Bartlett pears
2 tomatoes (since our large ones aren't producing)
2 containers of raspberries

And we spend $10 on cookies. They better be damn good for that money!

Harvest + Dinner

Chris made a wonderful grilled zucchini, eggplant, grape/cherry tomato + lentil salad with vinaigrette tonight. He's such a great cook that he knows what works well together! I'm

Grilled Vegetable and Lentil Salad

Slice veggies in 1/2" thick slices lengthwise
Brush on marinade mix:
Juice of one lemon
Equal part olive oil
Salt + Pepper

Vinaigrette
1/8 cup white wine vinegar
1/8 cup rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
A touch of lemon juice
1 tsp. dijon mustard
Salt + Pepper to taste
Dash of dried Bouquet Garni

1 cup cooked lentils

Here's a pic of the first eggplant we harvested from our plants. It was so symmetrical and shiny, I hardly wanted to eat it. But we did. And it was yummy!


I though it would be funny to take a picture of the eggplant in front of the eggplant colored wall...

................................................

And when I was cleaning up after dinner tonight, I opened the fridge to find this fine example of organization:

Zucchini in the beer carrier to save room is classic, yet not surprising in our house...

Local Events

As an avid reader of Sunset Magazine my whole life (since I've been able to read, really), I was pleased to learn about a local event happening this month -- the Fair Oaks Horticultural Center's Harvest Day event. Today!

We went the short trip this morning: free garden swag, nurseries with plants for sale, info booths, demonstration gardens, a community garden, Master Gardeners loitering around giving advice and info, and Horticultural Center, made up this event. Chris and I had a good time looking at their demonstration orchard and getting ideas about how large different types of fruit trees grow. That was very useful info! We also taste tested cherry tomatoes and grapes, and noted our favorites to look for next year:

'Campbell Early' Grape (seeded): although it had enormous seeds, I could just imagine juicing these grapes for their concord grape juice taste! MMMMM!
'Summer Royal' Grape: Sweet for eating
'Beauty Seedless' Grape: Citric acidy taste, more bite than sweeter grapes
'Diamond Muscat' Grape: Reminded me of sweet muscat wine
'Perlette' Grape: Good sour green grape

Chris' picks:
"All of 'em were really good."
'Sun Sugar' Tomato
'Fiesta Seedless' Grape
'Flame Seedless' Grape

As part of our backyard re-do, we want a pergola over the back of our house, because on days like today where it is 1pm and 98^o with 42% humidity, an East-facing location makes it unbearable to be outside! (At least there is almost always a slight breeze because of our foothills location...) They had examples of fruits trained over such pergolas: grapes, kiwis (!), and I believe I also saw figs... Kiwis:
I took pictures and noted how things were trellised. This trellis had wires strung across to posts on either side. Thusly noted!

We also came across a small hop vine tied with thick twine to a large trellis. I've seen this done with tomatoes. The hop vines were very small, but looking at how large the trellis was built makes me think that these are baby plants! Another idea thusly noted!

Hops is a vine that does well in Northern California, and another contender for the pergola. This is so we can make homemade beer. Mmmmm...beer! Then our friends might not think the 20 minute drive to our house is so bad!

My Father-In-Law and Boss who are both the same age and Sacramento natives talk about how Watt Avenue through the middle of Sacramento used to be entirely bordered by Hops vines on both sides. Local trivia I suppose...








I was stunned when I came across monster zinnias! I've talked before about how they have won over my heart this year with their profusion of blooms and good nature with heat, but today I learned about double zinnias, my friends, and I am in love! These plants are at least 3' tall and around. I can't wait to plant them next year!







We also received info about books published by University of California: California Master Gardener's Guide (700 pages about CALIFORNIA!!) and The Home Orchard. We plan on purchasing both. Yay -- more learny things!










And coming into the City of Folsom driving home, the local events board read:
Certified Farmer's Market
Historic Sutter Street
Through 10/7
Sundays 8am-Noon

This is IN ADDITION to the Thursday Night Market I wrote about a few weeks back! Chris and I are excited to go tomorrow and will report back afterwards.

Good weekend so far, except for the heat.... Uuhhhhhhh

Book Review #3

As usual, I picked up a couple books for airplane reading, but with A Slice of the Organic Life, I found myself engrossed to the point that it only took me about 2 hours to read it cover to cover. But I would also consider it a coffee table book.

It's a beautiful book with interesting and informative information, but it isn't without its criticisms.

First, I felt it to be poorly organized. Perhaps coming on the heels of reading Grow Organic, Cook Organic which is meticulously organized, I found Organic Life to be incredibly odd. It's organized into sections such as apartment living for folks with no usable yard space, and addresses organic changes we can make all the way up to homestead size. The problem with addressing each kind of home differently is that many areas are kind of repeated. It jumps from jams and canning to chickens and back to apple trees and then to wind farms. I found it a little hard to follow in this respect.

With that said, it's a gorgeous book full of beautiful pictures of every interesting thing it talks about. The book is a little beginner for those of us striving to really live an organic life, but I'm of course not holding that against anyone! Every person who tries to live this kind of life is helping! I'm not hoity toity, remember?!

Overall, it's a nice coffee table book to keep out when our non-organic friends come over. That way we can proselytize! (Joking!) B-