making mud pies

i'm not gonna just post tons of pics showing you all of the dirt that i tilled this weekend.  well.  the dirt that matt tilled anyway... i wasn't allowed to use the rototiller by myself.  i think that he thought i would get hurt.  anyways, everything got tilled so quickly!  the side yard, the two existing raised beds, the area that is being built into a raised bed and the bean/pea zone:  all of it got tilled in about 45 minutes.  when i was talking about tearing it up, i had a friend tell me to do it by hand and mash cardboard into it but why do all of that when you have an amazing rototiller available?  its all so much easier, so even though the more responsibly, ecological thing to do would be to do it all by hand... i'm really hoping that mother nature will forgive me for taking the easy way out this one time...?????

it all got done.  that was the point.  we tried to spread some hay out and till it in but it was too wet, so matt just ended it up raking it up and setting it behind the compost fence so that as it decomposes, i can use it then.

both of our brassicas seed varieties sprouted already with these cute little clover leaf-ish sprouts.  also.

wait for it...

wait for it...

wait for it...

two more of our pepper varieties also popped up!  we now have "picante calabrese (hot)"and "bolivian rainbow (hot)" sprouts.  it's been a great couple of days here.  we have two more types of pepper seeds waiting to pop up... hopefully.

i took some time off of work, just the rest of the week, so i'm going to put in the rock pathways and get some greens started.  this weekend, many of the flower seeds are going to get started. hopefully it stays warm... cause i have stuff to do!

beautiful blue hungarians

yesterday morning as i was leaving for work, i did a cursory sweep of the seedlings.  i just wanted to check in, make sure they were feeling good before i was gone for ten-ish hours.  i almost shrieked at the top of my lungs, i was so happy, so delighted, so... grateful!  two tiny seedlings were popping up in the pepper tray, the one that i had thought i ruined with mold.  both of the seeds coming up were from the same pocket: the one i had labeled blue hungarian (hot).

i tried to just fly casual... you know... play it cool in the event that i got home from work and they would some how have disintegrated. or maybe i was sleepwalking at seven in the morning and dreamt the entire thing up?  but i got home from work and they were still there, like little beacons reflecting some hope back to me that i hadn't done something ghastly! they definitely seemed tougher and heartier somehow than the other seedlings. they are definitely the bruisers out of my "kids" here, doling out damage and taking names for later.  or... at least that's how i imagine them.

so, a lesson to all of you soon to be farmers out there just learning to take a risk with seeds, these delicate yet hard, magical beings:  don't over think it.  do your research because every seed may have it's own preferences.  in fact, i was just reading today that my bean seeds like to be pre-fertilized; or that all my lettuce/green seeds like to be chilled before planted.  they do NOT like it hot, quite the opposite of the peppers.  keep your peppers as warm as can be, my heating pad is on them at all times until i see more sprouts.  hopefully i will see some action in the next few days since, now, i am expecting all the other peppers to jump on the sprouting bandwagon.  keep your fingers crossed for us!

on another note:  brassica seeds were started yesterday.  both romanesca broccoli as well as a standard broccoli version.  they are in the window and getting some sun.  i can't wait to work out in the yard tomorrow, getting the ground tilled and amended... more tomorrow from out in the sunshine...

one man's trash is this girls rich compost.

today it is so sunny here.  i already have a notion of what our beautiful spring could be like.  this was the perfect day to do some yard work.  i put a tube top on... i hate tan lines... got out my ipod and got to work.

the people who had this house before me, took the trouble to build some raised beds along the perimeter of the yard, along the fence.  in the big one, along the back fence, they planted a few trees and then promptly filled the rest in with rock.  now, my trees are stunted, not to mention the heinous waste of space i see.  my mission the past few weeks has been to clear out the rocks so matt has been helping.  now that the rocks are cleared, the soil is gonna get tilled and then my sister and i are going to try our hands at a really extensive herbal bed. we are looking to plant not only kitchen favorites like oregano, parsley, cilantro and basil; but i am looking to have an extensive floral herb bed as well.  i want rue, st. john's wort, achillia, peonies, lavender, etc... etc... etc...

my history of illness is as follows;  i was diagnosed at 22 with graves disease.  it's a thyroid condition that floods your cells with too much thyroxin.  thyroxin regulates how hard the systems in your body are working.  when you have too much, as i did, everything works too hard.  at one point, i was taking 14 pills a day.  finally i felt enough was enough so i began my journey to be healthy.  i had my thyroid radiated and jump started, i quit eating most junk food... except for some taco bell as a guilty pleasure now and again... i also started exercising again and decided that i wasn't gonna take pills if i didn't have to.  i feel great.  i lost 60lbs and am trying to tone and a lot of my success has been because of the choice i made to cut out all of the chemicals that have invaded our life.

i am humbled by nature.  there are so many natural remedies for almost every ache and pain you will have.  so i have purchased some tea trees and in a year or two, after my herb garden is under way and my tea trees are mature, i can get to making herbal teas and home remedies for those of us who feel like getting back to basics.

today was also about clearing out my compost cage.  this year, i'm committing to two different boxes: one for just egg shells and calcium rich food waste, and the other is gonna be for everything else.  i have had a compost bin going for about 6 or 7 months now but never really took care of it before.  this year, i need to take advantage of my own food waste that is missing it's opportunity to natural fertilize and enrich it's successors in the garden, but to also give back to this earth as i keep asking it to give me more and more.  i opened the worm box today, hoping for some signs of life and was so pleasantly surprised to see healthy compost being farmed in there and some big, fat, happy worms, working away at the box:

if you look closely, you can see some big ol' fat worms in there!!!

the rest of this week, i'm going to start building these guys a bigger home from recycled pallets.  the worm lady, who i purchased my lovelies from, told me that wood is better. more natural, organic, nicer for them.  i'll post a pic as soon as it's complete!

lastly, i would love to welcome the newest darlings to the front yard, tulips!!! 

beautiful bud, popping out, hopefully soon to bloom!

starting from scratch.

today, my sister found mold on the pepper seed starters.  wait for it, wait for it.  ok now!  panic ensues.

do i start the seeds from scratch?  isn't mold natural?  will they recover and still be able to sprout?

let me start at the beginning.  i am 30 years old.  two years ago i started a tiny, tiny garden in four wine barrels on the back porch of my condo.  i did this because two years before that, i discovered purely by accident just how much in love with nature i am.  we began a yard rehab project at my boyfriend, matt's, grandmother's house.  everything was torn out, and all new landscaping had to be put in.  matt's family is full of people who just do it themselves. always.  they are contractors who began with the inside of the house and than, after that was finished, deftly and seamlessly moved out of doors.

i fell in love.  i learned plants, i learned scientific and common names, i learned how to build raised beds, build fountains, install drip line... it goes on and on.  mostly i learned love.  i learned that ecosystem is brilliant, and to me the wonder of a natural, earthly ecosystem is the most beautiful.  the project was eventually finished but i was hooked. i tried and failed a lot at many indoor gardens from my tiny condo without a porch, and soon realized that just like me, my little orchids and ferns and herbs really needed the sun.  so we moved. enter the wine barrels.

i still cant really believe just how much i grew out of four wine barrels.  but here... see for yourself.

my tomatoes were most impressive. but there were white beans, lemon cucs, kale, cauliflower and more.

then we moved again.  this time into a house...with a yard.  the possibilities were suddenly endless!  we moved here less than a year ago and most of what i bought was already started for me as it was a test garden. whats gonna grow where? again.  my tomatos flourished as did the peppers, the lettuce, the corn, the collards and the cucumbers. there were some failures last season, but i think that happened mostly where the soil was not turned over and prepped well.  we didn't have a lot of time before it was too late, to have anything.  it was so rushed and experimental that there were bound to be a few casualties, but all in all, it was a great starter season.  this year...  i can do better...

so now some of the seeds are started.  the soil is getting tilled and fueled up. and...

my pepper seeds got moldy.

some of your seeds will have a greater chance of survival if they are started in doors, especially when it is super frosty and cold, like it has been here in northern california.  so a week an a half ago, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, strawberries and ground cherries started their germination process in my living room window.  the tomatoes were the first to start:

then... slowly... everything else has popped up over the past week.  cute little strawberries, elegant eggplants, tomatillos and a few straggly ground cherry sprouts.  not the peppers though, they need to be hot and while i had them close to a heater vent, it still was too cold for them.  pepper seeds love to sprout in temperatures between 75 and 85 degrees and my house varies between 65 and 70.  i was assured that after 25 days or so, they would start to sprout, but then the paranoia began to set in.  if worse came to worse, i could simply get some starters somewhere when it was time to plant outside (approx 7 weeks), but i just couldn't leave well enough alone and decided to tamper with them. i ended up reading a few solutions via the web, and opted to put them in a plastic baggie to keep them warmer with some humidity, since many people suggested it with good results.  what they didn't warn me about was excess moisture.  enter the mold. again, i turned to the internet.

today i got them a heating pad after learning that death is not certain for these tiny seeds who have yet to sprout. mold is a very natural thing and as long as the soil gets dried out, it will die on it's own and supposedly the mold will not harm any sprouts that get over the bog.  i'm dying with anticipation.  i can't wait to see if they can recover and sprout despite me, getting in their way, over thinking things as i often tend to do. nature is wider than me.  i know.  i learned my lesson and hopefully not tooooooo late!

today i also, just in case, started a fresh pan of pepper seeds. i delicately placed them on the heating pad as well, with their firm, only slightly damp soil. hope is sprouting inside me despite the lack of actual sprouts in the pan. it's always better to have a plan b. right?