The Path Project - Urban Homestead Diary

The Path Project: Weekly Entries � JULY 2002

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:: To Do List ::

As time and funds permit...

grape arbor

raising ducks

grey water reed bed

solar shower

composting toilet

~~rabbits and hutch~~

rainwater collecting

growing mushrooms

dwarf fruit trees

trellis passion fruits

bicycle wheel trellises

grey water reclamation

solar panels

permeable paving

tear out driveway

tear out concrete patio

bio-diesel

:: Current Projects ::

Handmilled soap {crazy for the lavender oatmeal soap-mmm}, drying herbs, home and yard repairs, summer planting and transplanting, mulching and more mulching, some seed saving, making natural foliar sprays and fertilizers.

:: WIPs ::

Constructing more vertical growing spaces, trying to find room for two apple trees, bananas, two passion fruits, mango, strawberry and pineapple guavas.

:: Hobbies ::

Gardening, hiking, baking & cooking, knitting & crocheting, leather-working, a little bit of "carpentry" here and there,

:: Harvesting ::

Beans, squash, tomatoes, basil and herbs, cucumbers, lettuces and other summer greens, strawberries & blackberries, and some onions, plums, peaches, figs, peppers.

:: Favorite Dish ::

Would have to be fresh strawberry pie... yummy! Taking second would be an heirloom tomato sandwich.

:: Blogs ::

The Great Growing Experiment

Mairi Musings new

Eco Logical new

:: Daily Clicks ::

Guerrilla News Network

For your site...

From our readers...

Great site! Very organized, great pictures, lots of information and links....I really like the daily diary, it's like having a friend in California :-) You make this kind of life look obtainable. Truly Motivational! Thanks

~ Alikat ~

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~*~*~ PHOTO OF THE MONTH ~*~*~

Summer Garden

more pics

Words of Wisdom

Pray for a good harvest, but keep on plowing.

~ Nancy Otto ~w

URBAN HOMESTEAD SUMMER REPORT

July 31, 2002

Splash of sunshine

Well, well summer's just about over. Going to a craft store the other day, the store window paintings and displays were autumn leaves, pumpkins, and scarecrows. YIKES!!! Time to start thinking about what we will be planting in the fall.

The experts predict an El Nino winter, being how dry we have been this year it'll probably be a wetter than normal winter. *sigh*

The latest issue of our newsletter -- THE PATH has been published and we've uploaded some NEW PHOTOS of the yard. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done on this site as it is sill technically "under construction." We are hoping to compile some articles from the internet for our BACK TO BASICS section. Things have been quite hectic lately, so it's keeping us from putting our efforts into PTF.

!!!! ATTN !!!! We're looking for a few good articles for the BACK TO BASICS section on PTF. Check out the SUBMISSION FORUM if you have an article that you would like to share with our readers.

Weather Report: Much cooler, thankfully!!!! Quite pleasant actually -- cool mornings, warm afternoons and cool nights -- So Calif. weather sure spoils ya.

July 28, 2002

"Nature's candy in my hand or can

or pie..." ~ Peaches ~

Finally receive a load of oak mulch for the yard. The four loads of mulch from last year are almost gone -- decomposed into a wonderful rich, dark brown dirt. This year wasn't even a good year for oak mulch. Since there wasn't any ample precipitation this winter the oak trees didn't have their normal spring growth -- so there wasn't much oak tree trimming going on.

Some things in this year's garden are a real disappointment. Farming is much like gambling, some years you hit the jackpot and others, well you aren't so lucky. This was one of those not-

so-lucky years: The currant tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, peppers, plums, peaches, ground cherries so far are not producing well, if at all, compared to last year's harvest. We are now even having to turn down orders for beans and tomatoes due to the sporadic and inconsistent production of the plants.

We dream of rain...

This summer has been a real scorcher! During the day, it's brutal to be even out as the sun and heat is soooo intense--you just want to hole up somewhere in the shade and don't move or come out until about 5pm or so. So we don't blame the plants too much for not growing--wouldn't want to be out there ourselves.

So much for seeing if we could conserve water this summer. We had planned to mulch, mulch. mulch, but with the heat the plants start to wilt really bad and then, well you have to water or we could start to loose some. Last summer we got really spoiled, we figure that over the whole summer we had less than a months worth of temps in the 90's to 100's. And the experts say there is no such thing as global warming? Yeah right!

Already dreaming and looking forward to next year, perhaps it'll be a better one. It's an adventure... you'll never know.

Weather Report: Same, warm and sunny. Mornings and evenings are overcast and cool enough to require a flannel.

July 24, 2002

Our neighborhood nursery, Burkard's, is having a summer sale so we purchased some fruit trees and stuff: 'gala' espalier apple, pepino dulce, red tea hibiscus, 'grand nain' banana, red strawberry guava and semi-dwarf apricots. They didn't have any 'ice cream' bananas so we ordered one and hopefully it'll come in soon.

The grapes are full of fruit clusters. They are a bit small, not like the huge ones in grocery stores, but they are tasty! We are starting to harvest peaches and plums--though they are not as big and as much as previous years due to the dry rainy season we had.

The cucumbers are growing and producing exceptionally well due to our "secret" growing experiment. *Hint* trellising.

Miss Clementine looking aristocratic

Chickens are the "in" pet now {Chickens Becoming Popular Urban Pets} The girls {excuse me, I can't forget about the rooster} are really fun to watch, they each have their own personality and way of talking. They are quite easy to take care of--all you really have to do is make sure the have clean water and enough food and clean up the coup once and awhile, but otherwise they just spend their days scratching, digging and taking dirt baths.

Weather Report: Warm and sunny. Mornings and evenings are cool enough to require a flannel.

July 19, 2002

� Vivian Leigh & Laurence Olivier �

Today, a few members of the family helped a dear friend clean and organize her knitting books and yarn (50 years worth of collecting!). For our work, we bartered for her old sewing machine.

Now, some of us girls hope that we might get some sewing done. We had an old Singer machine that was given to us, but it never worked (something was wrong with the bobbin *darn*). No, we won't chuck the antique, old black Singer... it's quite old and maybe will get around to fixing it one day.

Talking about knitting... the lady that we helped today hosts a free class every Thursday at our local library (San Rafael Branch). So, if there are any knitters (or crochetters--is that how you spell it????) out there in the area, ya'll stop on by for a stich'in good time!

The tomato yields are starting to wind down... (though there are some that never even started to wind up. *sigh*) The 'mater plants are not giving us as much as the previous weeks. The restaurants and caterers love the varieties of tomatoes--we tried to grow every color of the rainbow. We are hoping for a good second flush in late summer.

We ate our first corn of the season yesterday, though it wasn't very big--but it sure was tasty and sweet. With fresh corn like that you really don't need any "fixings."

Weather Report: The humidity is gone--at last!!! We can once again enjoy typical Calif weather. No, wait--don't celebrate just yet... The weather man said temp will be in the triple digits next week and "possible" humidity also... Oh, no not again! I can feel the sweat already... drip, drip, drip...

July 13, 2002

We made some changes...

Woo Hoo!!!! The new, improved PTF {Read WHAT'S NEW} is ready to launch. We added some new sections, tidied up, and rebuilt the site from the ground up {which was quite a humongous task... thanks for everyone's help and hard work--all right guys, now you can pass out the soy ice cream for a well deserved treat}. It's going to be much easier and simpler for us to update--and I know a few family members are extremely thrilled with that!

We still have some work to do ( a little tweaking here and there), especially on the new sections like BACK TO BASICS & BOOKSHELF, installing our new DISCUSSION FORUM, and checking to make sure everything works correctly. But, first, I think we'll just catch our breathes for awhile (after all the corrections are made... which are a lot )--take a little break. In the meantime... We hope you enjoy our "new look."

Weather Report: Still muggy, but starting to cool down just a bit. We are in a heat wave, that's for sure!

July 10, 2002

Rainbow of color

Here's a photo of some of the heirloom tomatoes that we are growing {read complete heirloom listing}.

The flavor has improve considerably, but unfortunately the currant tomatoes, which usually grow like weeds, are growing very, very slow. It looks like, hate to say, that there will be little, if any, currant tomatoes harvested this year. This year has been quite strange to say the least!

While searching the internet recently, came across a really yummy zucchini bread recipe that is a hit with the family. It's a great way to use up all those extra zukes! {Recipe: Zucchini Bread }

Weather Report: HOT & MUGGY -- 100˚ plus! Yucky, sticky weather. There's been quite a few brush fires reported... is going to be a long, dry and dangerous summer.

July 1, 2002

Purchased some tropical fruit from the folks at Long Beach Organics and local nurseries {Burkard's & Armstrong's}. We are hoping to get more edible fruits incorporated in the yard. There is still (can you believe?) a lot of "dead space" and it will be challenging to fill every square inch of the yard.

The warm weather had helped improve the flavor of the heirloom tomatoes. We were a bit panicky when we tasted some bitter tomatoes. � read previous entry � Right now we are harvesting approximately 60+ lbs a week of tomatoes.

The heirloom, lemon cukes {pic} are starting to kick in. They're a favorite among our customers--well, can't forget about the heirloom tomatoes. They all say they are the best cukes they've ever had... and we agree!

We are still battling spider mites, but on the bright side... this year it looks like we've succeeding in controlling the aphid population. Woo Hoo! Last winter we planted a huge bed with mustard, allowing the ladybugs to over winter and set up their maternity ward. Well, they must have done their job because we notice that there are less of those pesky, lil' buggers.

With the bountiful summer harvest, we're not having to buy as much staples { monthly shopping bill for June was aprox. $290, which divides down to ~ $72 a week} items such as flour, rice and beans from Wild Oats or Trader Joes. We are eating a lot of veggie dishes and salads... it's too hot to cook anyhow.

Chow time!

We named the bantam chickens... and their names are... drum roll please...

Lizzie - character from the Dickens novel 'Our Mutual Friend'

Clara Peggoty (Known as 'Peggoty') - character from the Dickens' novel 'David Copperfield'

Betsy Trotwood - character from the Dickens' novel ' David Copperfield'

(By now you can correctly guess that we are big Dickens fans)

Scarlett O'Hara (Known as 'Scarlett') - character from Margaret Mitchell's novel 'Gone With the Wind' -- frankly my dear she doesn't give a 'cluck.'

Sir Felix Carbury (Known as 'Felix') - character from the Anthony Trollope novel ' The Way We Live Now.' The fact that we call him a 'wuss-ter' {Rooster} is pretty much self-explanatory.

Miss Clementine - well, she's just that. We consider her the southern belle of the flock.

Weather Report: Temps are in the 90's with cool mornings. Had a couple of humid days, but otherwise we're officially in the "dog days of summer."

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