Here I am in Southern California

Camellia Espalier on the Front Patio

Much progress has been made around the homestead since my last entry: we finished Dan's studio; the three bedrooms were divested of their mold and two of them got new flooring; we installed new interior doors and some crown molding, and most of the painting is done. I also started a small garden in the back corner of the yard that I see from my office window.

We still have a couple of good-sized projects ahead of us - new sinks and counters in the large bathroom and kitchen, lots of yard cleanup, and eventually some new landscaping in the back yard. And while I'm on sabbatical, I'm working on some of the smaller projects: finishing up the painting inside, a couple of refinishing projects, sorting and decluttering of the last of the garage contents, and organizing our kitchen and garage storage.

I've got my work cut out for me! While i get going on that, here's a photo of a recently completed project.

For some time now, we have wanted to have something on the back wall of the patio as a focal point. It's what we look out on from our kitchen table, so it really affects the feel indoors as well. I hit upon the idea of a small tree on an espalier a while ago, and the plan has finally come together. I found the right camellia variety at a local nursery late last winter, then had to find a planter that worked. That took a while, and we had just about given up on the container we had special ordered when we got the call that it had come in.

It was worth the wait. The planter is a great fit for the space, and the look of it is just what I wanted Once we had it in place, transplanting the camellia and starting the espalier was pretty easy. It's pretty young now, but should fill this space nicely when it's mature.

Best Before...

Radio silence on this blog has not been due to lack of goings-on about the house. In fact, there has been much activity around here, and I have been having trouble keeping up with documentation.

The main thing going on now is a massive clear-out of the garage to make way for a new studio for Dan. My brother has been out here helping us tremendously in getting it cleared, and also in planning the new space.

The mess is still too embarrassing to photograph, but this was too good to miss. Found in a tackle box in a remote corner:

And the best part is:

Dude. These are *several years* older than my sister.

Finally, a Flower Bed

All that digging in the side yard is finally paying off. I love being out there now!

I got three pony packs of zinnias at Island Seed and Feed, and this is the first bloom. It's filled out a little bit since I took this, ans is a very pretty light lemon yellow color.

Another recent find from La Sumida, a Blue & Black Sage. Dan loves the colors of these flowers, and so do I.

I was thrilled to find this one at Island Seed & Feed. It's a perfect addition to my perennial bed. Dan thinks they should just be called "whites." :)

It makes me so happy to see the bees on them. There are always bees all over the side yard.

Here's a view of the mostly-perennial section:

This is a little further down on the same bed. Still a few holes, but the cosmos are starting to fill them in.

I'm planning to put some Icelandic and Oriental poppies in this section this fall.

Figlet

My poor little Panache fig tree... It's now survived a whole year with me, during which time it has dried out too much and lost all its leaves twice, dropped them for the winter once - causing me to think I had killed it dead, and put out new shoots several times.

Frankly, at this point I am thrilled that I haven't killed it. The fact that there is one, lonely, adorable figlet on it is just icing on the cake. As my niece Sophia says, it can be friends with the six blueberries I got this year.

Garlic, Squash & Peppers

Oh dear, fallen behind in my posting again! I started this next series of posts two weeks ago, and between the construction and Grandma Kitty's 100th birthday, I did not get back to them. Looking at our slate of projects for the next six months, I expect this will be par for the course.

I took this weekend (mostly) off from work around the house, and actually just spent a couple of hours on a quilting project. That's been quite a rarity this year!

Anyhow, here are the belated  garden posts, just in time for me to need to do a new round of them!

Don gave me some garlic last Christmas, which I planted in the early spring and have been harvesting. We've already used most of what's already out of the ground, but there are a few more to pull and I've also reserved some for planting in the fall.

They're beauties; Don tells me the variety is "German Hardneck."

And here are the flowers on my Kabocha squash. At least one of them is now well on its way to mature squashood.

And last, my first Marconi Red roasting pepper. It was a gorgeous deep red this week, and we just ate it last night. There are more coming, but much smaller. I'm not sure why this one matured so early.

Yellow Eye Beans

I had such good luck with the runner beans last year, that I decided to branch out to another variety this year: yellow-eye beans. These are a bush variety, so I planted them really densely in the far end of the raised bed.

These were the first few that I harvested from this years bean  patch.

Some  pods, before they were quite all the way dry.

I just think these are so pretty...

Another beauty shot.

I think I'm going to plant another crop,  since they grow so fast and we have plenty of time before it gets cold here.

Jam

This is my total haul of jam from June & July's canning frenzy. Nearly nine dozen jars in all!

That was an intense couple of weeks, while the apricot crop came in. I got a lot of plums and peaches from a friend's tree at about the same time. I had about a week straight where all I was doing, besides working and sleeping, was washing, and sorting fruit, cooking down puree (so it would hold a little longer) and then making batch after batch of jam.

The main goal was to lay in a large store of apricot butter: Dan's favorite, and our house specialty. I put up a LOT of this, mostly in full pint jars. We know we'll go through it quickly enough, so the big jars are OK.

This - the apricot/blackberry - seems to be the favorite among the people who have sampled the jams. I love that, since it seems so particular to our neighborhood: the apricots from our yard, the blackberries from our neighbor across the sheet.

After a few batches of the butter and the apricot/blackberry, I was feeling confident enough to improvise some new flavors: Ginger Peach, Plum/Cardamom, and Plum/Cardamom/Ginger Some new flavors I tried out this year. They were all pretty successful, but the ginger peach is my favorite.

I also made a large batch of the Brandied Apricot Preserves I made last year. It would be good on almost anything, but it's a pretty much perfect crepe filling right out of the jar. Dan's been having fun making crepes as dessert for our family and friends lately. We have a good division of labor in our kitchen. :)

Black Tartarian Cherries

We first had these cherries from the market last year, and were despondent when we went back for more the next week and they were gone. We vowed to buy all we could get our hands on this year, and can them so we could savor them over time.

Dan saw the farmer last week, and implored him to bring his cherries to market even though his harvest was very small this year. He offered to buy his whole crop, and even to go to Visalia and pick them off his trees.

Well, the farmer came through this past Saturday, and Dan came home with 15 pounds of these beauties.

After a warm afternoon of canning, I have 10 pints of these little lovelies, plus one and a half that we didn't seal. Shucks, we'll have to eat those in the next week or so.

The canned ones account for about 10 pounds. We've got another 3 pounds soaking in brandy a la Alice Waters, and the rest we ate with ice cream!

Flowers and Veggies Coming Along

Oooh boy. I started this post two weeks ago and forgot to finish it. Now I need to get out and take some more photos since the side garden has been coming along.

Some perennials: salvia chiapensis and a couple of lavenders.

California poppies just starting to come out:

Garlic, Brussels sprouts, and lacinato kale are getting started:

And the side yard from the other side. I've got alyssum along the foot of the raised bed, to keep down the weeds and also for the lovely fragrance:

And finally, the blueberries. Two bushes were planted last year, and two more back in March. I think I will actually get a handful or two of blueberries this year, and the plants are starting to put on some good growth.

Front Yard in Bloom

Dan's Mom had our front yard redone before we moved in. This is the third year it's been in, and it's really coming into it's own. It was designed to use mainly perennial, native or drought-tolerant plants. There are some plants and aspects of the design that don't quite work, but overall it's a nice, low-water, low-maintenance alternative to a traditional lawn.

And at this time of year, it's really pretty spectacular with everything in bloom.

This shot is taken at the foot of the driveway, looking across the main part of the yard. The shrub all the way to the right, with the white flowers is a rockrose (cistus). We have a lot of these in the front yard. They did not bloom at all last spring, but this year they have been covered with lovely white flowers. In front of the rockrose is a lavender (Goodwin Creek, I think) that we put in to replace a failing penstemon. To the left of the rockrose is a mound of Santa Barbara daisies (erigeron).

The second shot is on the other side of the driveway, looking at the narrow strip under the magnolia tree. You can see more of the rockroses and the daisies.

And this last shot is from the other corner of the front yard, looking over the main part of. Eventually, we'll probably take out the two ceanothus (in the let corner) that are too big to be at the front of the yard, and the line of scraggly jade plants right up next to the house. I'd like to add another smallish tree on this side of the yard, maybe a Western redbud or a coffeeberry, to add some balance to the overall effect. But that's a plan for this fall, I think. We'll be focusing on a new deck and the back yard this summer.