With our small-ish three-bedroom house and the pandemic bringing grown kids home for longer visits, we found we needed a little extra room. Santia wondered about buying a shed and converting it to sleeping space, like a “she-shed.” But sheds are surprisingly expensive! We like DIY-ing as much as possible (and saving money), and her…
Have I mentioned that this is how I got started gardening, about 42 years ago? So, I was 14 and we moved into a new house with no front garden. My mom asked if I’d like to help her design and plant grass, flowers, and trees to make our new front yard. I suggested a…
One of the reasons for moving back to northern California was to garden through the winter, and it hasn’t disappointed. This is the first winter with our new, large flowerbed in the front and our raised veggie beds, and we took advantage of those spaces to grow more winter flowers and a few vegetables. We…
See the update at the end! Did you know you can compost your shredded paper? It’s great with used coffee grounds! You probably already know that coffee grounds are a valuable addition to your compost bin, but learning about using shredded paper was like an epiphany for me! It feeds my garden, helps avoid adding…
Do you ever go the entire workday without getting outside or seeing any plants, trees, flowers, and birds? A new study says that just getting outside for a few minutes among some elements of nature will improve your mental well-being and can last for hours. Gardens make you happy! I saw this article about the…
We all love the changes that springtime brings. This year, spring is bringing a renewed commitment to our garden blog! We’re turning over a new leaf, so to speak. :) I had let the blog go mostly idle for the past four years or so, needing to regroup after divorce, leaving my “half acre of…
If you’ve followed this blog in the past year, you know that my gardening life (and my blog activity) has slowed considerably since all the changes in my life took me away from that piece of ground I cultivated and loved for eight years. Well, on October 10th, 2010 (10.10.10!) my sweet Santia and I…
I’m catching up on some cool photos from the past month. This was a nice rainbow in early June, when we were having quite a bit of rain storms. It also shows the cool playhouse/swingset I built for the kids. It was a kit from Toys R Us. Man, that thing was a lot of…