October 20, 2010 Egg Shells-Calcium for Hens When our sweet Buff Orpington, Daisy, was sick last summer, I was given some very practical advice by Brigitte Kessler-lichtensteiger, a chicken rancher in…
October 19, 2010 Two Labradoodles in the Garden I’ve not had a moment to garden in the last six weeks since Matilda or “Tillie”, the chocolate Australian labradoodle, came to live with…
September 29, 2010 Harvesting and Preparing Beets Cool weather crops are dying down in my garden. The lettuce, arugula, and chard have “bit the dust”. But the beets and carrots (who…
September 18, 2010 A Dog Joins the Chickens I’ve not had time to sit down and write. Our new labradoodle has kept me running. We have become “guardians” of a pretty little female…
September 14, 2010 Garden Accessories That Work I’m not big on garden accessories. I believe that they detract from the plantings. I think that too many trinkets tend to make a…
August 22, 2010 Harvesting and Drying Apples Along the Coast It’s been too cool along the coast this summer to do much gardening. I’ve been sitting around watching the powdery mildew cover my zucchini…
August 17, 2010 Update on Daisy-Egg Breaks Inside Hen Several of you have written me concerned about Daisy the hen who had an egg break inside of her. Click here. I have been…
August 5, 2010 Green Spotted Beetle is Up to No Good! Everywhere that I’ve lived, there has been at least one insect that I find especially annoying. In Marin and Sonoma Counties I despised the…
August 3, 2010 Daisy is Ill-Egg Broke Inside Her Daisy had an egg break inside her and it has made her sick. It is hard to know what exactly caused this. Something has…
July 26, 2010 Shasta Daisies-Burbank’s Perfect Daisy Blooming now in my front garden are the Shasta daisies (Leucanthemum maximum) that I planted during the winter. A friend was thinning out her…
July 16, 2010 Snowpeas-Are They Worth Growing? . . I planted snowpeas in March and they are still producing. For the flat, edible pods, I choose the variety ‘Mammoth Melting Sugar’…
July 13, 2010 Saving Seeds for Mustard Spinach Tendergreen I can’t believe how easy “tendergreen” is to grow. It matures in about a month, when its tender leaves are ready to use in…
July 6, 2010 Fourth of July and Visits With Hens We had visitors over the Fourth of July weekend. On our agenda was playing in the sand and water at San Simeon Beach, peeking…
July 5, 2010 Pruning Spanish Lavender The Spanish Lavender (Lavandula stoechas ‘Otto Quast’) has finished blooming in my coastal garden and its flowers, a vivid purple in the spring (see…
June 24, 2010 English Lavenders and Lavandins in Bloom Just as the Spanish lavenders are ready for cutting back, the English lavenders are offering up their spiky color. There is a lot of…
