Another Amazing Happening At The Garden Tour This Weekend!

I met Laura a few months ago at a quarterly meeting of a progressive entrepreneurial group I am a part of. I love her organization, and we are so excited that she has agreed to come to the Garden Tour this Saturday, April 30, to speak about her work with creating edible schoolyard gardens in LA. She will be in our yard at 1pm to answer all of your questions and queries and let you know about her amazing work!

Los Angeles Garden Project was created in Autumn 2010 and our mission is to unite, inspire and empower Angelenos to build and nurture edible gardens in our schools and communities. Through our membership and volunteer program we will come together to teach and learn from each other in the garden. How to construct our gardens properly; how to grow our fruits, vegetables and herbs correctly; how to prepare our harvests deliciously; how to teach our children and community in these gardens, and to share in all the other inspirations the garden provides.

We will host monthly meetings in gardens throughout the city to come together to exchange ideas and effectively address recurring issues that the community may face as they start, revive, nurture and/or run an edible garden. We will have an online calendar that will be constantly updated with volunteer opportunities, workshops and meetings for members to attend. We will host a daily blog that will share events, photos, gardening tips, recipes and any other related material. We will produce a quarterly newsletter that will feature articles that are relevant, interesting and entertaining for our members. We aim to foster relationships with local and national corporate entities to partner on providing product and funds needed for our edible gardens.

Please visit our website for more information or contact Laura Villasenor at laura@lagardenproject.org. We look forward to coming together for each other as we teach and learn just how easy, fun, delicious, cost-effective and healthy it is to grow and eat our own fresh, locally grown, sustainable fruits, vegetables and herbs!

XOXO
Yvette

Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase #3...

Happy Monday!!!

We are so proud to have our garden featured in The 2011 Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase, on Saturday April 30th from 11:00 AM to 4 PM.

We will have a very special guest at the garden...Tom Folan from Solar City, the company we lease our panels from, will be onsite to answer all things sun-power! We will also have a copy of Ivette Soler's, amazing new book The Edible Front Yard (we are so lucky to be a featured garden in this book! So exciting!), for you to peruse...

About The Tour:
Think of it as a giant eco festival comprised of block parties throughout Mar Vista. With most people making it a walking or bike tour, there is a tremendous sense of community as residents throughout Southern California come to Mar Vista to celebrate our shared vision for a greener life.

This year the Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase expands to include tours within the tour to address even more aspects of sustainability. We will showcase drought resistant landscaping, edible gardens, composting techniques, water capture and even chickens!

To further our goal of achieving 100% clean electricity by 2018, the tour will host the American Solar Energy Society’s National Solar Tour and showcase Mar Vista locations that have gone solar. See those gardens here.

You can find the mapped walking tours
and a little history of Mar Vista here.
Click here to download the pdf of maps for
tours 1 - 4 and tours 5 & 6.

Read this article by Emily Green in the LA Times "The Dry Garden"
for tips on how to take the tour.
Preview garden 5N in this LA Times feature by Lisa Boone
Visit Fresh Dirt on Sunset Magazine to see the previews
on gardens 5F, and 5B and 5M, by Sharon Cohoon

We hope to see you there!!!!!

XOXO
Yvette

Holiday Gift Ideas For Gardeners Part Two: Beatrice Holiday Handlebar Bags

Okay, these have nothing to do with gardening, but I think that it's safe to say that MOST gardeners love bikes, and these bags are so adorable that I couldn't resist sharing them. I saw one on a bike the other day while hanging out in Venice with my friends Colette and Kaitlin, and I literally squealed...

Here is some info about the company, and the owner, Alisun Franson, who always cruises in style:

"The birth of Beatrice Holiday - Wheel Cute Couture came to be after countless mishaps on my cruiser bike. Fallen lipstick into a gutter, lost credit card that slipped out of my pocket while in transit, keys that slipped thru the crack of my basket into another gutter. Lots of cruiser roadkill left in my path! I can't be the only one right? So, I created a line of Cruiser Handlebar Bags, Cruiser Basket Liners and matching Cruiser Seat Covers crafted out of vintage upholstery fabrics that really make your cruiser stand out from the pack!!

Cruising around the neighborhood is something that is second nature to me living in sunny Denver, Colorado. I love to cruise to the farmer's market, the park with my dog, meet up with friends that are also on their cruisers. It's just part of my everyday routine... so naturally I wanted to pimp out my ride a bit - and doing so with vintage fabrics and naming the line after my NANA makes it all that much better.

Beatrice Holiday products are designed and constructed out of vintage upholstery fabrics and made in Denver, COLORADO."


BUY THEM HERE (or, better yet, buy two and send me one!)


XOXO
Yvette

PS. All product photos were gratefully borrowed from the Beatrice Holiday website!

Chris Makes a New Friend

This is the coolest, most hilarious, enchanted creation ever. A perfect gift for someone who can sit still for a long time...

You can buy it HERE for $79.95!!!!
Happy Shopping!!!

XOXO
Yvette

BOO(k)!

The folks at Timber Press, sent me this wonderful little book to read a few weeks ago. Released just in time for Halloween, Black Plants, 75 Striking Choices For The Garden, showed up in the mail at just the right time.

Truth be told, I hate our backyard. I would love to just start tearing it to pieces, but I can't get a grip on what to do with it. This book has given me some great ideas for a color palate. In the plant world, black is not always black. "Black Plants" can be deep red, burgundy, brown, black, and dark purple. Just thumbing through the pages makes me dream of having these rich dark colors bordering our house! A little creepy? perhaps. Cheery? not so much. For me, this is perfection.

Here are a few of my favorites:

"Black Scallop" bugleweed
Black Hollyhock
Devil's Tongue
Chinese Cobra lily (*Extraordinary!)
Chocolate cosmos
"Karma Chocolate" dahlia
"Sooty" Sweet William (the name alone is worth having the plant!)
Persian fritillary
"Black Peony" Breadseed poppy (for your naughty garden!)
Black Bamboo (screen out your nasty neighbor, ahem)

Black Plants is the first book written by Paul Bonine, who is co-owner of the wholesale nursery Xera Plants, in Oregon. I love his descriptions of some of the more devilish plants - its like reading your favorite scary childhood book: up way past your bedtime, head under the covers, flashlight in hand.

Here are a few excerpts:

Devil's Tongue
(Amorphophallus konjac)

This sinister creature has enormous, thick stems clad in black blotches and stripes that can reach 5 feet in height. The dark brown spadix reaches a height of 3 feet and is surrounded by a glossy, chocolate-colored, rubber-textured, vaselike spathe. This fascinating plant requires patience and woodland conditions with average amounts of water during the winter months.

Vampire's Dracula Orchid
(Dracula vampire)

It is altogether fitting that this orchid is native to one tall, remote, and misty mountain in Peru. Dracula orchids are best known for their bizarre flowers. Three large petals or sepals are veined with black and white lines, each terminating in a long, midnight-black tail. The interior of the flowers is no less sinister with yellow stripes that radiate from a central white to light pink pouch, reminiscent of a small coffin.

Large Wild Ginger
(Asarum maximum)

Vigilance and curiosity are required to discover the glory of this small evergreen woodland perennial whose flowers are tucked unobtrusively at the base of its glossy heart-shaped leaves. Ornate tubular cups have a ring of white fur at the base of each petal and beyond the black throat. Each flower is so neat it's as if it was fashioned out of felt to decorate the brim of a hat. It can reach six inches tall and over time will form colonies.

Voodoo Lily
(Dracunculus vulgaris)

Also known as carrion flower, it first appears as a group of palmate leaves with irregular lobes, but it is the very large flower that steals the show. A rippling spathe with an interior the color of raw meat unfurls in a graceful shield that surrounds the jet black spadix, which can be as long as 30 inches. Pollinated by flies, the freshly opened flower casts a vile, powerful fragrance of rotten flesh, which thankfully disappears in several hours. It is best suited to a location where it may be appreciated but not smelled.

Schunke's Maxillaria
(Maxillaria schunkeana)

This small beauty from the coastal rain forests of Brazil is one of the most truly black orchids, and it blooms for an unusually extended period. Small half-inch flowers are waxy and glossy black with four rounded petals. Thriving in the mossy branches of jungle trees, in bloom it may be seen peering out like many small black eyes.

Bat Flower
(Tacca chantrieri)

What strange twist in evolutionary fate could have caused the formation of such a foreign and unlikely flower? The bat flower or cat's whiskers, as it is known, is not an invention of science fiction but a plant native to the jungles of Thailand. A long black chord of a stem suspends this flower, which is actually a group of flowers, in a rubbery black sepal. Protruding from the side of each flower are long, stringlike cords.


XOXO

Lunch With Corey, Part One

I was in beautiful Jackson Hole, Wyoming a couple of weeks ago, photographing an amazing wedding. I have never been to that part of the country, and I have to say that I was completely bowled over. It is utterly stunning, and filled with wildlife (we saw herds of buffalo, a moose, a fox, eagles...it was breathtaking).

I posted a while back about New West KnifeWorks - Corey Milligan, the owner of the company, which is based in Jackson, invited me and my pal Suzi (who helped me shoot the wedding) to lunch at his house. Corey has the most fantastic garden, and I just had to photograph it to show you...

The raised beds are made from recycled horse troughs. In real life, the rebar holds the hay...in this version, it functions as trellising...









This is Corey's modernist chicken coop...sad to say, a fox got in about a week before we got there...no more chickens :(



Our Host:



More To Come...our lunch menu with recipes, knife making, and mushroom foraging...
Also, be sure and check out Corey's Blog!

XOXOX
Happy Saturday!

Yvette

Favorite Thing #2: Ethel Gloves

From the moment the postman arrives with the package, (and there's no mistaking his arrival every day as Gracie, our German Shepherd's, number-one-self-imposed-job is to greet the mailman by barking at the inside mail slot so loud that it can be heard in Arizona), it's clear that Ethel Gloves are special. They should win design awards for their packaging. Just opening the box is the beginning of a spectacular experience! My favorite part of the packaging (besides the entirety of the packaging), is the little plastic flower shaped nut/bolt that holds the gloves together...I'm keeping that!







But wait, there's more: the gloves themselves are BEAUTIFUL, and again, so cleverly and gorgeously designed to be functional and great looking at the same time. The grippy parts of the gloves on the fingertips are designed to look like vines (LOVE)...the fabric of the gloves is great too, as is the elastic wrist band which grips just enough to not let dirt in, but not too much to be uncomfortable. The materials the gloves are made of protect the hands but allow you to feel what you're doing as well, which I think is really important.

They come in all sorts of fabulous colors too! Also, I LOVE the little buttonholes (see the last photo), so you can hang them on the wall. You can wash 'em too! I don't know if I'll be moving cactuses in them...there's a glove for every job, and you should have a heavy leather pair as well, but for all the everyday things I do, I use this type of glove most of the time, and why not have everything you wear be adorable?





Here's the thing - I always wear garden gloves. I'm not precious about my hands at all - I don't care if they get really dirty, and I cut my nails short and don't wear nail polish. However, I have run into my share of black and brown widow spiders, who nestle into the dark corners of the garden, and inside of watering cans, and everywhere I seem to want to reach but can't see. I have also been scraped, gotten splinters, and all kinds of tiny stickery things in my hands, not to mention grubs. Did I ever tell you that I am completely grossed out by grubs? Digging around in the soil, all of a sudden they'll just pop up into your hand, much like a potato, but far less welcome. UGH. GLOVES, PLEASE.





PS. They make the most perfect gift as well...
PPS. Thank you thank you Mr. Davis for taking the photos of me...

XOXOXO
Yvette

Favorite Things #1

Happy Friday!

I am so excited to be writing this post today. I have stumbled upon the most beautiful knives ever. We are so lucky to have two of them! The company who creates them, New West KnifeWorks, is in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It just so happens that I am photographing an incredible wedding in Jackson Hole next week, and I get to have lunch with Corey Milligan, who designs the knives. I hope to be able to photograph their place and put it on the blog.

These knives are spectacular - they are completely gorgeous, perfectly balanced, and cut like nobody's business. We have the requisite Henckles knives at home, and one Wustoff, which up until now I have thought were pretty great, but really, I had no idea what I was missing.

Here they are. They come beautifully packaged in leather sheaths:





The high carbon stainless steel blades are made in Japan by The Hitachi Company, and sent to blacksmiths in Seki, Japan to be ground and hand-finished:



The handles are just amazing. They were, up until this year, created in their shop in Jackson Hole, but recently, they have moved their handle finishing to Seki as well. The knives I am showing here are from the Fusionwood Chef Knives line. The photos simply do not do justice to these knives. They are truly works of art....

Santoku:


Chef 8:


We will also be posting more about these amazing tools on the Meals At Home Blog, in the coming weeks. Celeste and I are going to do some knife skills demos, so be sure and watch for that! Meanwhile, sans any official knife skills, here is Fred putting the knives to the ultimate test: The Cutting Of The Tomato...

Heirloom Black Krim Tomato from the garden (YUM - my favorite of the year!):



Slicing Like BUTTAH!



XOXOXO
Yvette

Some Great Links!!!!

Have You Read The Omnivore's Dilemma?
If so, do you just not know WHAT TO EAT ANYMORE?
Here's a great website for you that is a resource for grass-fed beef, lamb, goats, poultry, dairy, and wild edibles. It lists farms and markets by region that carry pasture based food:

Eatwild


Eco Friendly, Reusable Dry-Cleaning Bags Anyone?
Our Mar Vista Green Committee is teaming up with some dry cleaners in the area who will allow us to bring our own bags, leave them there, and pick them up later with our clean laundry. Did you know that 350 million pounds of single-use plastic bags end up in landfills every year??? Green Garamento, who sells the bags, will send one free bag to you (you pay the shipping). All the info is on their website...click on "get free bags" in the consumer section of their website to learn more!!!

LINK!!

FYI, here is a dry cleaner in Venice who will accept reusable bags:

Del Mar Natural Cleaners
701 Washington Blvd.
Marina Del Rey, CA 90292
310-482-0060
Cross Street: Oxford St


And, last but not least, journalist Emily Green has started an incredible blog about water conservation in the West. She writes for the Los Angeles Times, and many other newspapers, primarily about dry gardening and urban water usage. Check out this site - it is packed with science and information, and is beautifully written to boot:

Chance of Rain

XOXO
Yvette

Freedom Seeds

Freedom Seeds is Path To Freedom's newest venture. Their tiny family farm is in Pasadena, California, and yields about 6,000 pounds of produce a year on 1/5 of an acre. AND the property is gorgeous. I plan to shop with them to help support their incredible project, as well as insure the purity of the seeds we plant in the garden!

Here is info about their mission, and their products:

“We have neglected to preserve the diversity of our food. Today, we have more brands of shoes than we have of carrots or broccoli.”
—Jules Dervaes

There’s no question that the diversity of our food sources has suffered a drastic reduction that is unprecedented in human history. As consumers are losing the freedom to choose what they will buy and grow, thousands of varieties of garden seed are walking the plank, straight into the abyss of extinction.

In 1981 there were approximately 5,000 vegetable seed varieties available in U.S. catalogs. Today there are less than 500, a 90 percent reduction.

Freedom Seeds is on the front lines of the battle to preserve open pollinated seeds. With an initial launch of 75 vegetable seeds from arugula and beans to kale, peas, turnips and much more, gardeners can be confident that the seeds they buy from Freedom Seeds have been carefully screened for genetic manipulation. The worth of these seeds has been proven by compatibility with their environment, instead of being made tougher and more durable by genetic engineering. They possess the nutritive properties of old and locally developed strains, based on eatability instead of portability.

Food You Can Depend On—Right Outside Your Door.

With this access to unaltered, unpatented seeds, Freedom Seeds gives you the power to create your own gardens—and research the crops that will grow in your specific environments. With different terrains come different abilities, regional tendencies, local food, and local challenges. In partnership with FreedomGardens.org, Freedom Seeds points you towards the information, resources, and research access you need to plan your gardens. It empowers you to research your options, and shows you the way to make the most of your growing season.

The Latest Information On The State Of Our Seeds

By following our Blog and Campaign links on the Freedom Seeds site, you’ll have access to the latest information the “Gene Giant” seed industries such as Monsanto, their influence in political lobbies, on scientific research, and on the food you eat. You’ll also get information on safe seeds, healthy food, and resources you can trust in the fight for sustainable, healthful, and real food.

To all of you, from all of us at Freedom Seeds. Happy planting!

Jules Dervaes & Family


XXO
Yvette

Fall Planting...

I'm contenting myself by looking at photos of the changing leaves that my dear Celeste has been sending me from her cell phone while vacationing in Vermont...nonetheless, our rather unpronounced version of fall has definitely arrived, and suddenly, the light has changed from summer softness to a sharper orange. Warm days with a cold wind, a sweater at night, and the down comforter back on the bed.

Here are some fall planting ideas if you're in So Cal - I've included links to some of my favorite varieties!!! Many can be started at home. We start most of our seeds using EB Stone Seed Starting Mix, plant them in plastic 6-pack trays recycled from seedlings we have bought, and grow them in our kitchen window, which gets direct morning sun, and filtered light for the rest of the day. Or, you can just buy seedlings at the local nursery. The nurseries are just filled with veggie starts right now. My all time favorite LA nurseries are Marina Garden Center, and Burkard's ....

Snap Peas
Snow Peas
Sweet Peas (flowers)
Lettuces
Cabbages
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Arugula
Edible Pansies And Violas
Carrots
Beets
Turnips
Onions
Garlic
Potatoes
Swiss Chard

Be sure to add lots of organic material to your soil!!!


XXX
Yvette

Tangled Up In Blue

It's time to start ordering fall and winter seeds! Last year, we planted a bunch of sweet peas on a bamboo trellis. We ordered the seeds from The Fragrant Garden, which has the most incredible colors of sweet peas to choose from. They are easy to grow - the seeds should be soaked for 24 hours by floating them in a little dish of water or wrapping in a wet paper towel before planting as they have a tough skin that must be broken through to germinate. Follow the planting instructions on the packets, and you'll be in bouquets all winter. Sweet peas thrive in colder weather, so for us in So Cal, it's a winter flower. For really cold places, it's a fall - spring plant. The flowers should be cut daily, as the plants are quick to start producing seeds and die if they're not picked often. Cutting will inspire tons and tons of flowers to be produced!

Another great favorite to order now are onions and garlic. We get our garlic from The Garlic Store. They have really interesting varieties, as well as "packages" that contain 4-5 different kinds, all with great growing instructions, and excellent customer service for weird questions (I've asked!)!!! Garlic and onions are easy but glacial to grow, so be PATIENT. The garlic and onions we grew last year took about nine months from planting to harvest...


One more blue thing, just cause it's so pretty and getting lots of attention from the bees and hummingbirds as well, our beloved butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii 'Black Knight').






XOXO
Yvette