Category Archives: gardening

The Urban Homestead

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many hands at the speakeasy

Oh, boy this was fun. Christine Louise Berry organizes a series she calls The Speakeasy, and I’ll tell you below about the really great one that took place on Sunday. You’ll remember my mentioning Christine’s work earlier. She (the main force behind SmartGals) did that marvellous McArthur Park event with the fragments of plays to be found all over the park, and had the excellent taste to combine it with Mama’s Hot Tamales. A couple of months ago, at a party of hers (to celebrate car-independence in LA!), I met Erik Knutzen, with whom I ended up talking a great deal about lots of things because we seem to be on the same page on many things with regards biking and public transport (he’s part of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition), gardening and sustainability (he’s involved in a lot of land use issues for his day job). So we talked about lots of topics, from composting to the Velib system (and why Los Angeles has essentially already decided not to take that wonderful route, sadly).

Erik, with his partner Kelly Coyne, write a really great blog called Homegrown Evolution (excellent title), which is all about urban gardening, and they are passionate about getting more people to do gardening (as am I, you might have gathered). You’ve probably read my posts on gardening from time to time and thought that it isn’t for you since you’re in a big city in an apartment on the nth floor (where n is some integer greater than one or zero) with no access to garden space. I’ve […] Click to continue reading this post →

First Fig Fun

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figs and cheeseWell, for some of this time I’ve been away I’ve been a bit worried about the fig tree. Why? Well, as I was leaving town, it was hugely laden with fruit that looked rather like they were going to peak while I was away. I certainly did not want that to happen since the squirrels and other critters would have a field day (or several!), and get used to the idea that they had full access to the tree with no dissent from me.

Well, it turns out that the tree held out longer than it seemed that it would, so while the peak came while I was away, it was only for a week or so.

So I lost several figs, and had to deal with the sticky, frenzied-ant-infused mess left […] Click to continue reading this post →

Wild Irony

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The universe likes laughing at me. In so many creative ways. (See earlier.) Here’s another. Of all the tomato plants I’ve ever grown, the ones that have done best -spectacularly well, in fact- have not been the ones I intentionally planted and red cherry tomatoes that came from a wild plant in the gardennurtured but the ones that have grown up in random places. I then take care of them and they end up bursting with fruit. Meanwhile the others produce some fruit, but nothing to write home about, after a great amount of care and worry about how suited the ground is to their needs. You will recall another example: the cherry tomato plant that appeared in a crack in the steps that I was sure could not make it (but lasted for two years, almost constantly producing fruit) – see posts here and here about it.

Well, at some point during the Winter (yeah, yeah, I know) I noticed a new tomato plant […] Click to continue reading this post →

Purple Grand Opening

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buddleia (budlea) opening up - first of the season!

I’m repeating myself, I’ve noticed, but it’s ok. Turns out that after I decided today that it was time to post a photo of this lovely flower (click for larger view), I noticed that I’d done exactly the same thing last year, on the same day. It’s the first of the buddleia (budlea) flowers to bloom in the garden, and it’s always a welcome sight. It takes a […] Click to continue reading this post →

All in a Weekend’s Work and Play

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I’ve been distracted by several things recently, and so (even more than is usually the case) there’s far more to report than there is time to report it. Among the highlights are, as already mentioned in the comments, a Saturday visit to MOCA (Geffen Contemporary) to see the Takashi Murakami exhibition. (Coinciding nicely with me about to embark upon reading “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” by the other very well known Murakami: Haruki Murakami.)

murakami flower ball
His simplest motif – which he reuses again and again in many pieces – is the smiling flowers in various colours. The 2D version of the 3D flower box is one of my favourites, and here it is in a room that is wallpapered with the motif. There’s a more solemn one with a range of expressions on the flowers’ faces in an entire field of them (“Kawaii – Vacances”) (including one shedding a tear), but I could not find a good web reproduction of it. The below is a rather small version:

murakami: kawaii - vacances

It’s only the second weekend since it opened here in LA and it is hugely popular, with tons of people in the exhibit spaces walking around excitedly and pointing at things. (This being LA, this included a lot of activity in the special Louis Vuitton room, which […] Click to continue reading this post →