We have Babies!

We have babies! Bewick’s Wren babies, that is.

We have a male wren that hangs around our yard every year, making nests. Apparently the male wren makes several nests each year to impress the female, and then she chooses where she wants to live. Well, the male has never attracted his female to our yard before, that I know of. I guess his nests were not good enough, or our yard not safe enough. But this year, I noticed a nest going in the Williamsburg jar house that we have on Adam’s train shed. And a little while later, I surprised Mama Wren by looking inside. She flew out, startled, and I was mad that I scared her. I took this picture of the nest, but I didn’t think she came back.

She did! And yesterday I noticed cheeping! So today I sat outside and filmed one of the birds coming back to the nest to feed the babies. It’s only 30 seconds long.

This makes me very happy, indeed. I hope I can see the babies fledge.

This weekend, we noticed a few things: One, the weather was going to be good for the next week (we were told HOT), and two, the tomatoes needed transplanting into bigger pots. I decided to go ahead and just plant them in the ground. It’s way too early. Here’s how I know: I just looked at the weather for the next week and it’s totally changed. It’s not going to be hot at all. Argh. Oh well, the tomatoes are in, and now it’s up to them to survive.

40 varieties. Oh, I used paint stirrers as my compostable plant labels, this time. They are quite large and stick up out of the ground beautifully, so I don’t have to squint to see them.

Next weekend we’ll hope to get basil and cilantro planted, plus beans and cucumbers. The peppers need a while longer in the greenhouse, which is good, since the shallots and garlic aren’t ready to come out yet. Although it’s getting closer to that time!

Soldier Beetles

Since I let all the brassicas bloom (that is, the cabbage, kale, mustard, broccoli, and cauliflower), I’ve been seeing a lot of beneficial insects in the garden. My kale is riddled with cabbage aphids, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before the predators started showing up.

Soldier beetles (or more accurately, leatherwing beetles) are an insect you want to invite into your garden. Less than an inch in length, and brightly colored (like a soldier wearing a uniform, hence the common name), these carnivorous bugs overwinter in leaf litter and debris, and lay their eggs in the soil. The larvae hatch underneath the soil and eat the tiny bugs they find there. As adults, they roam plants looking for eggs, or caterpillars, or aphids. They do not damage plant material. They will eat pollen and nectar, which also makes them excellent pollinators.

Soldier beetles (Pacificanthia consors) look a lot like lightening bugs, but they do not have light-producing organs. When I put this picture up on iNaturalist (and, are you a member yet? It’s such a great citizen-science site!), someone identified it as a Downy Leatherwing Beetle. Researching them online is difficult because they haven’t been studied extensively. I did find some advice on how to attract them to your garden: Choose flowers that bloom over a long season. Provide water, as they are known to frequent moist habitats. Provide undisturbed, mulched soil in which to pupate. Include permanent perennials in your planting scheme to help keep that area undisturbed. Do not till, but rather add organic matter to the top of your soil (good all-around advice, anyway). And let me know if you see them in your garden!

Here’s another beauty I found flitting about in the chard, today. A Painted Lady! I haven’t seen a painted lady (Vanessa cardui) in my garden in a long time. And it’s early in the season for butterflies. Favorite host food for the caterpillars includes hollyhocks (I’ve got those), legumes (I’ve got those), and thistles (the nearby open space has got those). I’m delighted to see this beautiful butterfly and hope this means I can look forward to lots more in the summer to come!

Louisiana

We spent spring break in Louisiana. My brother got married to a woman who was born and raised near Shreveport (Northern LA), so that’s where the wedding was this past weekend. First, we flew in to Southern LA to see New Orleans and the farming culture nearby. Tom and I (and the kids, of course) had never been there; my parents, who had, not only came with us but treated us to the entire trip. We had a fabulous time.

My favorite thing about New Orleans might have been the architecture. Such beautiful buildings with delicate iron work and lots of greenery. We also really appreciated the music culture. It’s hard to find all-ages shows, even on Frenchmen’s Street, but we were able to go to Preservation Hall and see the All-Stars which was really something. We ate some good food in New Orleans as well - fish, and shrimp, and crawfish, and oysters the size of my palm, sweet as butter. Grits, rice, sausage, beans, gumbo, and even some things like alligator, smoked rabbit, and goats-head cheese were also enjoyed. The kids tried beignets and liked them. Bread pudding also seemed to be a highlight.

a musician toting his stand-up bass behind his bike on Frenchmen’s Street in the Marigny

We also really enjoyed the Presbytere, a museum attached to St. Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter. They had a floor devoted to Katrina, and I think we all learned a lot. We spent a dollar to ride the ferry across the river to Algiers and get a beer. We spent $2 to ride the trolley to the Garden District and walk around Lafayette Cemetery as well as peer at the big houses. We spent our nights in an airbnb on the edge of the Garden District, and enjoyed French Truck Coffee every morning.

the beautiful Mississippi

We didn’t much like all the people drinking, and all the tourists (which, of course, we were too), or the hucksters near the river, or the smell of urine and other unknown things, so I can’t say we were 100% charmed. It’s a lot like San Francisco in that way - there are parts that are so wonderful, and parts that are so seedy. I guess it might be like that in all big cities.

Lafayette Cemetery

We left New Orleans and traveled west to the Whitney Plantation. Whitney is the only plantation dedicated to the slave experience. The ‘big house’ is original, as are the slave quarters and the outdoor kitchen. There are three specific memorial areas on the grounds with the names of slaves and some of their quotes. There are art installations all over the property; the one I found most affective was the statues of slave children dotting the plantation - sitting on the porch of a slave cabin, standing by the water, or a whole host of them inside the chapel.

The live oak trees that dotted the walks of the plantations were just extraordinary. You can image how cool it would be under this canopy on a hot summer day. Speaking of, we had cool temperatures, but a lot of humidity - more about that later.

We left the Whitney and traveled to the Nottoway Plantation, which celebrated the other side of plantation life - that of the owners of these grand old houses and the land that surrounds them. Nottoway was a sugar cane plantation, as were most of these extremely southern farms (though originally indigo; they switched to sugar cane in the mid-1700’s). It was sobering to remember that everything this family had and owned was because of slave labor. None of it would have been possible without that. And so it is a strange experience staying there and enjoying the beauty.

But - it was interesting to stay in such a historical place. Mom and Dad stayed in the mansion proper, in one of the daughter’s rooms; Tom and I stayed in the ‘Boys Wing’ which is where visiting young men would sleep; and Kate and Adam were in the Overseer’s cottage, which isn’t called that at all anymore, thank heavens. The plantation’s front door is maybe a football field away from the levee that holds the Mississippi. It wasn’t originally that close, but the Mississippi is what is called a ‘meander’ river, and has changed course many times. Everywhere we went we saw these levees. It is unnerving, to say the least. Also the river is quite full right now, dealing with the remains of what is happening upstream in the center of the plains.

While at Nottoway, we experienced our first extreme thunderstorm. Well, to us it was extreme, I don’t know if it was to the people who live here. We don’t get thunderstorms in the Bay Area, so it was delightful to sit out on the front porch (in rocking chairs, natch) and watch the show. However, this same storm changed our plans the following morning. We were to have a boat tour with a naturalist through the nearby swamp, Atchafalaya. He waited until the last possible moment to cancel. He said he could take us in rain, but not in lightening. This was a hard blow for me, because I really wanted to see the Bald Cypress trees (now protected) and all the swamp biology. But, of course, better safe than sorry. Instead of touring in a boat, we got back in our car and headed north for Shreveport.

Niki (my brother’s wife) grew up in a small town on the northern border called Springhill. We spent three days there, visiting with both our own extended family and Niki’s. We had some great meals, including a surprise 10-course dinner at a local place. We watched Stewart and Niki get married in a tiny church, the same one Niki grew up attending. And we had gumbo and rice and fried catfish at the reception, which was held in a tent in Niki’s folks’ back yard. It stormed the entire time, and despite everyone’s wet shoes, we had a glorious time. I am not going to share pictures of the occasion here because they are not mine to share!

On the way home, we were delayed in Shreveport because of storms, and again in Houston for a series of thunderstorms which were quite dramatic. All told, we were delayed about 7 hours, but we arrived home to the Bay Area late last night. As we flew over the Sierra Nevada, Adam took this picture:

No drought for us this year.

Louisiana is an interesting place. The people are super friendly and I, with my voice-over background, wanted to just sit and listen to all of them talk - they have such a lovely way of speaking. We were underdressed in nearly every restaurant we went in. Casual California does not fly in the south. We were astounded by the amount of water in the state, and by the water table that is nearly level with the top of the soil. Water was everywhere, either in swamps, or lakes, or rivers. Often the land was covered by mist - 100% humidity all the way through the air. The woods were delightful to look at, all along the roads, filled with flowering dogwood. Picturesque farms with horses dotting the unbelievably enormous lawns. Wildflowers blooming everywhere on the sides of the roads. Really lovely countryside. But also poverty - lots of economically depressed areas. Churches on every corner. Lots of fast food (and the portions everywhere we went, gargantuan). Burn piles in yards. Rust and decay. Closed businesses. It’s good to get out of our little ‘tech bubble’ and see the truth of a lot of people’s lives.

I arrived home to true spring.

apple

I vowed not to do a lick of homework. Instead I rushed through cleaning and laundry and trips to the store so that I could wander around in the garden and check out the changes.

clematis

Felicia

peas

tomato seedlings

forget-me-not

broccoli flowers

beautiful Asian pear leaves

fragrant sweet peas

The pollinator garden just about to burst. Redbud, lupine, borage, five spot, forget-me-not, and soon to be covered with phacelia.

My new asparagus crowns arrived while we were away, so before going to bed last night, I took them out of their box and soaked them in water. Today I planted them in the bed we had prepared for them. Luckily a neighbor had some extra soil leftover from a project, and I collected two wheelbarrows full to cover them. In three years, we’ll eat well.

Oh, I forgot to mention that our bees swarmed the first day we were gone. Another neighbor was nice enough to call us and let us know. Apparently they ended up super high in our pepper tree, so nobody could have reached them anyway.

It’s still not over 50 at night consistently, so I won’t be planting the tomatoes or peppers anytime soon. But there’s plenty of work to do in the meantime, getting ready for them. The great spring workload is just beginning.

I've Found It!

In a quest to lower our carbon footprint, we’ve made all sorts of changes around here. We wanted to use more cloth products and less paper, using only 100% recycled paper products where necessary. It just doesn’t make sense to use virgin trees for our paper needs, and we wanted to support the companies that try to make the world a better place. The biggest expense so far has come with recycled copy/printer paper - it costs quite a bit more than regular - but we feel it’s worth it, and we’re more careful about what we print. I’m happy to say that we’ve really made a dent in our own waste stream.

Speaking of waste streams, toilet paper is the one item on which we couldn’t seem to compromise. We have tried every kind of recycled toilet paper you can get at all the major stores, and they all suck. Thin, flimsy, and sometimes an off-putting grey color (I’m all for no bleach, but yuck), none of them made the grade.

We’ve finally found toilet paper we can feel good about and enjoy using! It comes from a company called ‘Who Gives a Crap’ and we love their toilet paper. 100% recycled and THREE-ply, no dyes, no inks, no scent, and the company donates 50% of their profits to help build sanitation systems in countries that need them. They don’t know I’m writing this, and I’ve received no compensation for writing about this product, I’m just thrilled to finally find a really good recycled toilet paper and I wanted to pass the information on. I ordered a case (48 rolls) and got free shipping. Plus, the rolls come in a cardboard box (compostable) and each roll is wrapped in recycled paper (recyclable) - there is zero plastic in the packaging. The rolls are big and last a long time. I also ordered paper towels, though we use very few now, and I’m happy about them too. Next time, I’m going to order recycled 3-ply tissues (3-ply is hard to find even in conventional tissues anymore) even though we don’t use a lot of tissue and I’m personally trying to remember to carry handkerchiefs everywhere.

If you’d like to read more about this company (started by millennials, natch), you can go HERE. One of the things we are studying in my Ecology class is these one-use products and how much energy they take to actually make. It’s not just the end of the waste stream that’s impactful, it’s also all the energy that goes into the production. It still takes energy to make toilet paper, whether it’s being made with fresh trees or with recycled paper, but at least we can cut the tree part out of the equation. As I’ve said before, there’s always a payoff somewhere. You’ve just got to find the area in which you feel like you are doing the most good with as little harm as possible. We’re not gonna stop using toilet paper, right? So we have to figure out the way to use it that works best.

The payoff for this particular company is where production takes place. The founders are in Australia, and the product is made in China, which isn’t ideal. It is the one place they could find that wouldn’t use plastic packaging. Since China takes a lot of recyclables from other countries, they had the most supply of paper to recycle to make the products. Even the boxes they ship in are recycled.

But again, this isn’t ideal. Here’s what the company says about this: “For our North American launch, we’ve sea freighted containers of stock into both the east and west coast, and are distributing from there. Don’t worry, we’re not flying your toilet paper orders over from Australia! It's still early days of our international growth, and selling in the US opens up a lot of new opportunities in terms of supply chain and partnering with more local producers. This is something we'll keep exploring as we grow our volumes and have better leverage on pricing.”

In other news, the bees are looking crowded despite the extra room we gave them, and I think a swarm might be imminent. I already have a person lined up who wants to take a swarm if we can catch it. I haven’t seen a huge amount of native bees out yet, it might still be too cold, but I have seen a couple of black-tailed bumblebees in the borage and lupine. We’re still getting lots of rain (amazing!) and chilly nights. But the days are starting to warm into the low 60’s, and it won’t be long until everything bursts into bloom.

Blooming Shallots

You see those onions in the picture there? Those are shallots, freshly picked from the garden. It’s not time to pick shallots; but earlier this week I noticed some of them blooming. Sigh.

There’s a lot of differing information about flowering shallots - whether or not they can stay in the ground or need to be harvested immediately, whether they store well or not after developing a flower, and whether shallots should even flower at all, given that we never plant them from true seed, only from clones.

Shallots come in two types, French Red or French Grey. We’ve only grown French Grey once, as they are hard to source. However they were the best shallots we have ever had, hands down. French Red are more common and more easy to find, and that’s what we planted this year. I have two 4x8 beds of them. I over-planted, wanting a lot for storage, since last year our crop failed and we had to buy them all year (maddening). They’ve been doing great. But we have had a VERY wet and chilly March, and apparently that can make shallots flower. I dunno, my local land-grant college, UC Davis, has zero information about that. But other sources online say that wet and cold springs can trick shallots into flowering. And we have had an incredibly wet and cold spring. I shouldn’t be harvesting these shallots until May or even June; they don’t even form bulbs until late spring.

UC says if they flower, just cut off those stalks and let the shallot stay in ground longer. Other sources say you must pull those shallots and eat them immediately. So, I’ll do a little experiment. The ones that have flowered already, I pulled and have curing above the chicken coop (except for the ones we’ll eat tonight). If more flower in the next couple of weeks, I’ll just cut the flower stalk off and leave them in the ground. And we’ll see how they do. I mean, it makes sense to me. With hardneck garlic, you just cut the flower stalks off (and eat them, they are ‘scapes’ and considered a delicacy) and leave the bulbs in the ground for another month or so to grow big.

With more rain in the forecast (unbelievable, really) I expect more flowering shallots.