January 2020
Make your own Mustard
Making your own mustard is dead simple and delicious! Here's how to do it. (TL/DR: Click here to skip straight to the recipe) My wife loves mustard. Not the vinegary yellow liquid you get in packets at the hamburger joint, but the spicy, seedy brown stuff that’ll make your eyes water and sinuses clear along with the tongue tingling goodness. If we don’t have 10 different varieties on hand at all times, she’ll claim “we’re out of mustard!” and carry on like we’d run dry of one of life’s necessities like fresh water, oxygen or beer. Knowing how important mustard [keep reading...]
Sneaky Gopher Got My Aloe (Video)
As I was touring the yard yesterday, I noticed a large aloe vera tipped over on its side. I knew the dogs couldn't have done it, so I decided to take a closer look. Here's the video of what I found. I've seen gophers pull plants into their burrows, but I've never seen one burrow into a plant. Time to find the gopher traps.
Chinese Cabbage – “Minuet”
I picked up a packet of "Minuet" Chinese cabbage seed from @johnnyseeds last winter because they described as the "best mini variety." I didn't get a chance to plant it until this past fall and picked the first head yesterday for a stir fry dinner. My plants are closer to 15 inches tall rather than the 9 inches mentioned in the catalog, but they're very upright and grow quite comfortably just a foot apart. Nothing -- cold, rain, slugs, etc. -- seems to bother them, so they're all quite healthy and require almost no care. The outer leaves are deep [keep reading...]
Pozo Blue Sage in Early Bloom
This is Salvia Pozo Blue (Salvia clevelandii X leucophylla) a hybrid of two So Cal natives, Purple Sage and Cleveland Sage. I picked it up about two years ago from La Pilatas Nursery, a native plant specialist not too far from here. It's leaves resemble the Cleveland Sage's leaves, but they're spaced farther apart on leggy stems like the Purple Sage. The smell is a woodsy must akin to the Cleveland Sage. I like the plant because it makes a nice green shrub that requires no care other than a little water now and then. From mid-winter to mid-spring it's [keep reading...]
My Keyhole Garden is Amazing
Cool weather has turned it into a nutrient rich kitchen garden like no other! It's hard to overstate how awesome a keyhole garden is. If you’ve ever thought about building one, do it. I built one on a whim for about $100 early last spring and was amazed at how it pumped out vegetables and herbs from spring all the way into mid-autumn with basically no effort from me -- no weeding, very little watering, easy harvesting. Definitely $100 well invested. Turns out, that was just the start. I cleared the bed of spent summer plants and re-planted with winter [keep reading...]