I try my best to buy fruits and vegetables when they are in season.  I loved my time in Chile, but I prefer not to buy produce shipped from there.  I'm staying away from salad greens, only because we got spoiled last year when we grew our own salad greens:  my attempt at a winter crop was sabotaged by a posse of nut-burying squirrels.  I have become smitten though by one vegetable over the past year:  kale. (more...)

Activism.  Activist.  They are words that many people love to shout out.  To me, they often give me the creeps.

 

How many times have you heard someone say, "I don't eat THIS" or "I don't buy THAT" or "I don't do ALLOFTHEABOVE."

 

My response is:  it's always easier to NOT do something.  It takes a lot more commitment to actually do, or COUNTER, something to which you are opposed.

Well, Saturday night, as we returned home from dinner in Silver Lake, we saw a group of folks on a corner up to something that looked pretty good.  We pulled over, and we saw about 20 folks, of all ages, plowing, hacking, and digging away.  Some looked retired; others probably hadn't even started Kindergarten.  They all were having a blast. (more...)

This weekend, after feeling under the weather for a few days, I decided to start my fall planting.  I had been thinking about it for a while, and then I decided to just get off the sofa and do it.  It was sad in a way--I yanked out a bunch of tomato plants . . . I hated to see them go, but they really weren't producing much, and I had a feeling they were getting some kind of mildew . . . so I hacked them away and started all over.  The vines had also aged and what little yield left just was not ripening quite as well.

My elementary school in Cupertino was a great place to spend the K-6 years, come to think of it.  It was walking distance (unless you're an Angelino), and it was small enough to know everyone.  Best of all, there was a huge playground and field, big enough to serve as a city park.  Many school in Cupertino have that luxury.  Looking back, however, it would have been nice if there was a garden.  Back in the 70s and 80s, however, community and school gardens were not high on the list for parents and teachers.  Organic was not in our vocabulary, and if your family didn't garden, there was plenty of produce in the local Lucky or Safeway stores.  Gardens, however, are making a huge comeback.

(more...)

I have written a lot this year about the rewards I've found in gardening--with much help, of course.  Luckily there are great magazines out there, such as Sunset, to which I can refer for advice.  Nearby is also a fantastic nursery, also named Sunset, where I can ask my questions and treat myself to another bag of seeds.  Not all of us are fortunate to have a terraced yard facing south, but there is the options of pots if you have a balcony, as I did when I lived in Benicia.  You can grow herbs inside on a window sill, too.  But if none of these choices is viable, have I got a plan for you:  start a garden using Happy Harvest on Facebook. (more...)