A Giant Pile of Worm Poop

Worms are really hearty creatures.  I have to admit that I sort of neglected them in the last few months.  I watered and fed them with kitchen scraps maybe once every couple of weeks.  When we had the cold spell, I forgot to cover them the first few nights.  And during the garage renovation I temporarily lost the pile of newspaper clippings which I had been using to cover the scraps (which they use as bedding), so I gave them cardboard as bedding -- which they apparently did not care for.  (I can tell because they didn't break it down at all.)

I'm telling you, if there was a CPS for worms, someone would have called them on me.  But notwithstanding my neglect, they seem to be doing relatively well.  We flipped over the contents of the Worm Inn onto a tarp and I began the lengthy and tedious task of separating castings from worms and other grody partially decomposed stuff.  Fed the castings to all the veggies around the garden and then re-assembled the Worm Inn -- which I promise to be more mindful of.

More than Rad-ish!

Even though we're coming up on new years this week, the garden is still churning out some lovely treats.  Here's lettuce, a few kinds of kale and two radishes -- one the size of a tennis ball.  The big one was so spectacular.  It was tender and not too spicy or bitter.  I enjoyed it with a little sprinkling of truffled salt!

Max had 3 helpings of it, though Ginger wasn't a fan.  This is about the last of our radish crop. As you can see from the previous pictures we had some sort of variety pack -- so I don't even know what type of radish seed yielded this behemoth.  

The kale got juiced along with oranges, apples, persian cukes, ginger and celery.

Then there's some crunchy bib lettuce that I will eat with some turkey leftovers.

Even though we have this great harvest, I am greedy and can't wait for spring.  I even have a two plants under grow lights -- bright lights swiss chard and arugula!

Cold-ma-gedon: California Style

Last week it was really cold.  I'll pause while people from real winter places laugh at me.  But for California, it was cold.  It got down to the twenties at night and I had a lot of small tender plants just trying to get established.  

So, J. ran out and bought some plastic coverings.  While the plants did look pretty droopy and sad in the mornings ... they seem to have come out of the cold streak mostly unharmed.   I wish I could say the same for poor J.  He slipped on ice and had a nasty spill on the pavers. :(

One of the nice things to come out of this freeze is that since I assumed most of the plants would die in the cold, every day that they are still around feels like bonus time!  It makes salads taste better, and it's not a bad way to live life.  Every day is a bonus.

Also, since the potato plant totally died, I got to dig up some yummy new potatoes.

The hunt for a tree

The year I was pregnant with Ginger we started a fun little tradition of going to the Santa Cruz Mountains and cutting down our own tree.  Sure, part of it seems silly as there is a christmas tree lot down the street from our house.  But I don't care.  It's fun to get up there, arbitrarily pick a tree that looks "perfect," support a local sustainable business, and catch up with my father-in-law, who always come to help.

This year we are in the middle of a freeze.  Not the fun kind with snow, but it is in the 30s.  This brings into focus the fact that my kids are not well acclimated to cold weather.  I packed mittens and Max cried: "But mama, now I can't point at anything!!!"  Who knew pointing was that important to kids?

So we brought a tree home, decorated it with love, and then heard it crash at 2 a.m. when it tipped over.   Yay!