Quote of the Day

I have seen women looking at jewelry ads with a misty eye and one hand resting on the heart, and I only know what they’re feeling because that’s how I read the seed catalogs in January.

Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life)

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Lovely Sight

Yesterday morning when I went out to look around, I noticed that many of the plants were drooping low with the weight of the rain from the last 2 days. We really needed rain, so I’m glad they’re bending to the ground heavy laden with water than with wilt from lack of it. The asparagus fern was particularly beautiful since each of it’s feathery branches was covered in tiny drops. What a lovely sight.


I got 250 gallons of water in my rain barrels from the last system that moved through. Can I get a Hip Hip Hooray?

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Quote of the Day

I realized I wanted to save the world. Then I realized I couldn’t save the world, but I could change my own garden.

Then I though that maybe, just maybe, my neighbors and all their friends might take up the cause. Maybe, just maybe, we could weave together a network of poison-free, bio diverse, nature-friendly gardens that would, in the end, make a difference.

And this has become my quest.

-Liz Primeau (Front Yard Gardens: Growing more than Grass)

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More Volunteers Please!

This year I have volunteer petunias growing up throughout my flowerbeds. I don’t know if they’re coming from my compost or some that I bought. I don’t really mind them though, they are beautiful. Here are a few of the different colors I have popping up.


I may try to save some seeds from them for next year. I also have squash vines and tomatoes that sprout up throughout the gardens as well as this butterfly bush that sprouted in my driveway (when it’s finished blooming I plan on moving it).

I actually don’t mind the volunteers and usually leave them where they are or occasionally I transplant them somewhere better suited for them. What kinds of volunteers sprout up in your gardens?

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Is it Worth It?

It’s interesting to me that we all want to receive fair pay for the things we do, yet we want to buy things as cheaply as possible. We complain that food costs are rising and yet we don’t care that the people harvesting the food can’t afford to buy what they’re harvesting for their families.

I came across a great article on Slow Food Nation about the plight of the farm worker. Here’s a short quote from the article, to read it in full visit Slow Food Nation. The photos with the article are very moving, check it out. You can also see more of his images and more information at: The Farm Worker Project.

Rick Nahmias doesn’t equivocate when he talks about our cultural response to farm workers. “There’s something about our society…we don’t value or respect the people who are harvesting our food,” Nahmias told me over the phone recently from his studio in Los Angeles. “It’s not just that they’re sleeping on uncomfortable beds. These are people sleeping on cardboard mats under overpasses for three months at a go, and that’s so we can buy our grapes for 98 cents a pound. What are those grapes worth if that person has had to do that? I can’t see that. It doesn’t add up for me.”

This is one reason I try to buy a farmer’s markets, where I can talk to the people that grow & harvest the food. I’ll have to look into more fair trade items while shopping.

Are you willing to spend more on food so the farm workers can get better wages?

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