Last year, I had a horrible time with garlic. Basically, nothing happened. This year, I thought the Spanish Red was doing the same thing, just fizzling out. But too my surprise it actually did produce some small bulbs before fizzling out. Well, since they are nothing to write home about, I figure I’ll just use them up quickly rather than trying to store them. But what to use them in?
One of my favorite ways to enjoy beef is Korean BBQ style or Bul-go-gi. The sweet/salty marinade utilizes a lot of garlic and seemed like a perfect meal for a warm summer’s eve. The marinade takes only minutes to prepare. Bul-go-gi can be grilled, broiled or even pan cooked. The trick is not to cook the meat too much. The meat is so thin you barely show it a hot grill and it’s done. Here’s my favorite marinade recipe.

Bul-go-gi

1 lb Top Sirloin, thinly sliced

6 cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 pear, minced (you can use canned for this)

4 T Soy Sauce

2 T Sugar

1 1/2 T Sesame Seed Oil

1 T Rice Wine or Brown Rice Vinegar

1 T Sesame Seed
(more for garnish)

1 T grated Ginger (I’m a ginger fan, if you aren’t, use less)

Ground Black Pepper to taste

Mix marinade ingredients together and add meat. I like to thoroughly mix the meat with the marinade with my fingers. Let it sit in the refrigerate for 3- 4 hours. Broil, grill or pan cook until just done. (meat should be brown, but not overcooked). Serve over rice sprinkled with sesame seeds, with grilled veggies or a salad.

Enjoy.

Can you keep a secret? I’m about to share one. I know where the berries grow. But you have to promise not to tell everyone. This is something you only share with really, really good friends. That’s why I’m only telling you. You know that open space next to the bay? That’s where you start. Park right next to the sign and take the trail to the left.

The birds are already busy chattering away in the trees. They love the early morning sunshine as much as I do. The slight breeze whistles through the pines and causes the eucalyptus to creek and groan.  Without even looking, I can tell the bay to the right is empty. When the tide is out, it gets a bit stinky. But it’s the good kind of stink. It smells of living things.

This is where the journey gets a bit tricky. The trail ends and there’s only that slight indentation in the grass to guide us. See it there, leading us slightly to the left? We’re almost there though, so let’s hurry along. Shall we?

Make a left and there it is. The secret berry patch. Doesn’t look like much, does it? But wait until you get a bit closer in.

The location of the berry patch is actually a pretty well known secret in these parts. Just look at how deeply the paths are cut between the plants from years of picking. It’s been several years since I’ve ventured out to my old stomping grounds and I did make one crucial error. I wore shorts. Don’t wear shorts.

It’s when you stop looking so hard that you find the berries. Just be still for a few moments and stand there. Close your eyes and listen to the birds and the wind. Take in the smell of the damp grass, the eucalyptus, the muddy bay. Now open your eyes. Suddenly, the berries are everywhere. It looks, however, that we are a bit too early for a big harvest. With the long, cool spring, everything has been delayed this year.

Although our timing isn’t perfect, we are still rewarded. Our trip yields enough tart berries to make a sauce or perhaps mix with something else in a preserve. Some years you make pies. Other years you have just enough to top your breakfast cereal. Either way, visiting the secret berry patch is never a waste of time. Much like fishing, it’s not about what you take home in your bucket, but what you leave behind. Things like stress, deadlines, and frustrations all seem to disappear out here. Spend even a little time out here and all that’s left is you, a bucket and some berries.

This post is in participation of the second annual “Gardeners Sustainable Living Project” hosted over at Thanks for Today.  Stop by the blog to see the wonderful collection of links to all the blogs that are participating in this project.

Yes, I’m much greener this year than last. And greener still than the year before that.  I would love to tell you that all of my choices were clearly based on my desire to make less of an impact on our planet, but that would be a lie. Many of my choices in the past year were based on finances too. Yep, our country’s economic slide hit pretty hard in my neck of the woods. And last year, my budget was pretty tight to say the least. More of my choices had to be careful ones and were based on finances. Not fun, but there is a bright side. Many of the choices I made for financial reasons are also some of the best choices I could have made for my life and the planet. Those are the choices I share with you here.

Magazines. How does a gardener give up her subscriptions to her favorite gardening inspiration? Well it wasn’t easy… at first. I loved pouring over the issues of my Fine Gardening, Horticulture and Garden Design. I thought that I could even qualify them as a necessity since I do work in the horticulture field. But cut them I did. Guess what? I lived. I found that I could get almost the same information online at the magazine’s own website just a few month’s later when they would post articles on their own blogs. I also found similar inspiring stories on other gardener’s blogs. The greener side of this is two-fold. Think about all the paper used in production of those magazines vs. how long you keep them. Also think about the energy used to ship them to everyone. Yes, my not having three subscriptions would not make a huge impact on the environment, but little things do add up. The biggest green reward, however,  in not having them was I became less of a consumer. Open any magazine these days and there is an ad on almost every page. If they are well done, they make us want and wanting makes us buy. I guarantee that if you cut back on those forms of media with tons of advertising dollars behind them, you will buy much, much less.

Composting/Recycling. I have been doing both for years, but casually. When I decided I wanted to cut down the size of my trash receptacle to the smallest one available to save some money both became a necessity. Now the challenge is almost fun. I’ve learned to think before I purchase about where the trash will end up. I have systems set up to make the chores much easier. I have not only a warm compost pile but also a nifty little worm bin where my wormy friends do their thing. I save money by not only having less to throw out, but free, awesome organic fertilizer. My garbage is certainly not the legacy I want to leave behind so this allows me to leave a whole lot less.

Thrift Shopping. I love the thrill of the hunt. You never know what you will find on any given day. I am able to make up about 75% of my entire wardrobe via second hand shopping and the savings are tremendous. In addition to clothing there are also all those great finds for the garden. On any given Saturday you can find awesome pots, plants and tools at garage sales around the country. Who needs a shiny new shovel when it’s only going to get dirty anyway? Reduce-Reuse-Recycle. What better way to do this than by being part of they thrift shopping cycle?

Better Plant Selection. I have finally learned to stop fighting my environment and work with it. I have stopped buying plants that will be fussy and needy in favor of those better suited to my climate and soil. I have stopped buying those that can be invasive. I have learned which cultivars attract certain pests and which attract beneficial insects. Doing a little research before planting rather than being tempted by something pretty at the nursery saves me a ton of frustration later. I also only occasional have to spray with Neem oil to handle any pest problem. My beneficial friends take care of the rest.

Growing & Eating Real Food. Michale Pollan’s book had a real impact on me two years ago. I decide to follow his rules of food selection and did find my initial food choices to be a bit pricier. But with a little effort in relearning how to cook and renewed interest in growing what I eat, the costs are starting to balance out. Selecting food that is sustainably or organically grown is not always easy, but I do it when I can. And I can’t say 100% that it’s been the food, but I haven’t had a cold in over a year.

Although some of these choices seemed difficult at first, they are all an old habit now. Just a year after incorporating these choices into my life, they have become what is my life. Little change over time do add up. In the past year I’ve learned that being greener doesn’t have to be expensive. In fact, I can save quite a bit.

Since the earthquake in Japan on March 11th, I’ve followed the news with great sadness. I first learned of the disaster early Saturday morning when a bout of insomnia had me up and browsing the internet at 2 a.m. By this time the tsunami had already struck and was on its way to Hawaii. Videos were already uploaded to YouTube and I watched the very surreal destruction of villages and towns along the coast.

Now almost two weeks later, the news updates are less frequent, but nonetheless they are still horrific. With a possible breach in the reactor at the Fukushima nuclear plant, the situation only becomes more grave. It is distressing enough to deal with this news as adults, the situation feels so hopeless. How does one even try to explain this to children? This thought reminded me of a skill I have taught many times to kids throughout the years, the skill of origami. Most specifically the crane. 千羽鶴, Senbazuru is a Thousand Paper Cranes. It is said that a wish will be granted to those who fold one thousand paper cranes. As I fold these cranes I would like to wish that everything would be alright for Japan, but how does something like this ever become alright? So my wish is that things will simply be better. Folding the cranes gives one a feeling of hope which is something I think we could all use right now.

If you would like to join me in folding your own Senbazuru, you can find instructions here.  And you can find origami paper to download and print here.

This year I made it. I made it out to the Elfin Forest in Baywood to see the California Peony, Paeonia californica in bloom. Last year, I missed their bloom period (only a few weeks) by about two weeks. All that was left were green seed heads, although interesting in their own right, but not what I came to see. What I came to see was a peony. Most peonies don’t grow well here. Lacking the required hours of cold chill in the winter they fail to bloom and often stop returning at all. The California Peony, however, comes back every year. It’s emergence from it’s dormant state coincides with our late winter rains and this year, we’ve had quite a lot. You can find them  in many places along the California coast, but they can take a bit of searching. Preferring to grow in dry brushy places it can be lost amongst the shrubs. But in the Elfin Forest you’ll find them popping up right next to the boardwalk. I had pondered trying to locate seeds online to grow, but passed after reading about how difficult they were to cultivate. Instead I’ll let Mother Nature do the work and just marvel at her efforts. Beautiful, isn’t it?

Plants go in and out of fashion just like clothing.  I can remember being absolutely fascinated with Billbergia nutans  when I first saw one during the 1980′s. This Brazilian native seemed so exotic. Its graceful arching stems held the most delicate of flowers as if they were jewels. The vibrant shades of blue, yellow and pink all coming together in flowers that were reminiscent of a woman’s long dangling earrings and echoed the violently clashing color of the decade. That is was epiphytic, I thought, made it even more cool because it was about the same time that I had finally purchased a copy of Graf’s ‘Tropica’ with its  page after page of exotic plants from all over the world. These epiphytes, plants that grew in trees but were not parasitic, were all so unfamiliar. They needed no soil in which to rest their feet, but rather would cling to the bark of trees. Some had vase-like reservoirs that helped take advantage of the tropical rainfall and solve the problem of where to store the water if there was no soil to keep it in. Their leaves were often fleshy, waxy, stiff and often spikey. Some, like this Billbergia would have blooms that would last for over a month at a time from first blush to their final fade out. They were everything that marigolds and petunias were not and I loved them.

They were easy to grow in the Southern California garden, being able to withstand minimum low temperatures between 30-32 degrees. Their common name, “Friendship Plant’ was due to the fact that they gave off so many pups which could be given away to friends. They were very easy to root and almost as prolific as zucchini. It seemed like their prolific nature was as likely to endear friends as it was to make them run when they saw you coming. But then I moved up the coast and had to leave most of my plants behind. Tropical plants like bromeliads seemed to fall out of favor and cottage gardens hit the stage. The look was for plants that were flowing and softer in appearance. Borders were the craze. Then California went through several years of drought and we all learned what xeriscaping really meant. Drought tolerant plants and native plants held the spotlight for many years as we tried to continue to garden in the desert.

As with all trends, however, things come back. I’ve started seeing skinny leg jeans again and bright colored shirts. I’ve also started to see more tropicals. And wouldn’t you know it, just last week an order of Billberia nutans hit the shelves. It felt like old times. I was reminded of all the reasons I loved the plants in the first place. Perhaps it is time for a little garden reunion.

This post is in participation of a blog carnival of epiphytic plants hosted by Steve at The Rainforest Garden. Check out Steve’s blog for cool information on tropical plants and more entries in the carnival.

Pacific Tree Frog by thewakingdragon

Last night during a break in the storm, I heard them. At a distance at first, then in the backyard and soon right beneath my window. The rain had been deafening just minutes before, so it’s no surprise they waited. Now with just the whistling sound of the wind in the pines, they began their chorus. The frogs were croaking. Despite their small size (around an inch or so when seated) Pacific Tree Frogs can create quite a ruckus. They seem to really enjoy rain and it does seem to bring out their frisky side. Every year about this time, they begin their mating ritual. First they must find a partner. This seems to be no easy feat since they put quite a bit of effort into it. These tiny little creature try to get as much vocal range as possible. I often find them in buckets and empty pots where their voice gets amplified just ever so slightly. Once I even located one down the pipe of a chain link fence, each croak reverberating in the metal.

In areas closer to the coast, small spring ponds and mud puddles would fill up with these tiny little Romeos and their song would be almost deafening. That is until a neighborhood dog or cat wandered into their little party. Then it was lights out! No one’s home. But soon they would begin again. Since there is only a small water feature in my backyard, I don’t draw nearly the crowd. But it has been enough at times to have roommates complain about the noise. Noise? How could they complain about such a wonderful sound? Didn’t they know what it meant? I did.

For me the croaking of the frogs in late winter signifies that the season is about to change. Spring is almost here. As a gardener, even in mild California, winter always seems a bit too long. Anything that even hints that warmth is on its way is well received. The frogs announcement of the change in seasons is also my queue to start my tomato seeds. With a recommended indoor starting date of 6-8 weeks before the last frost, my little amphibian friends have never failed to remind me of what I need to do. And they are never wrong.

So last night when I was lying awake listening to the frogs, I pondered the coming veggie season. Would this be a good tomato year? Would we have another cold summer with lack luster results? What about early or late blights? Who knew? I don’t think the frogs do. Or if they do, they don’t care. They go about their mating season the same way each year. With the joy that comes with a new season, a new start and undefined potential. The season would be whatever it would be. All they cared about is the very next step. So like the frogs, I stopped worrying about the entire season and focused on the next step. What seeds would I sow tomorrow.

Last November I paid a visit to the Los Angeles County Arboretum. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect and I could not have enjoyed a more pleasant day. One of the highlights of my visit was the orchid house. It has been a while since I’ve been in a greenhouse of any kind so stepping into the orchid house was a real treat. I immediately recognized that delightful earthy smell. That wonderful aroma of damp soil and peat. The temperature was comfortable and when the misters came on, you really did get the feeling you were in a jungle. Because most of the plants featured in the orchid house are only placed there, not planted, the effect of seeing all the flowers bloom at once was amazing.

In this first photo you can see the pot down in the center that someone forgot to properly hide. Perhaps it was meant to be tucked in above behind some rocks, but the worker was called away and there it sits with its plastic pot completely in view. It’s almost like seeing the little man behind the screen in “The Wizard of Oz.” So this is how they keep everything looking just perfect all the time. I think I can forgive them for their trickery, however. Blooms really are what the public comes to see in an orchid house.

The diffused light must be just perfect for the Spanish moss and tillandsia. Look how happy they both look. I’ve always been fascinated by the way Spanish moss changes color when wet. It can go from something gray and almost lifeless in appearance to this luscious, vibrant beauty in minutes when you dip it in some water.

Epiphytes are non-parasitic, but when you see roots hugging a tree like this you do wonder if it doesn’t hurt a tiny bit. Look how the one root is pulling that bit of bark away from the tree. I forget now what plant they were attached to. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I even looked. Just these roots, clinging tightly and following every nook and curve in the bark was fascinating enough to be recorded.

One of the truly amazing things about the Arboretum is just how close you are to the plants. You really could reach out and touch most of them and yet everything is in amazing shape. The only real damage I saw on the entire grounds was where someone had scratched their initials into some of the bamboo. For the amount of visitors this garden gets each year, I would say that’s pretty amazing.

As you wind down the pathways around the trees like the one you see above, you are greeted (at almost eye level) by numerous tillandsias and orchids growing off the trees. This guy was just getting ready to put on quite a show.

These slipper orchids are actually terrestrial, but they were too cute not to share. (And why can’t my Bird’s Nest Fern look like that? So perfectly perky and green?)

They truly do save the best for last in the orchid house and that’s saying something. It isn’t easy, after all, to top bloom after brilliant bloom. But when you reach the end of the path, the ground in front of you drops down a bit so that you are slightly above, looking down on the bromelaids and tropicals below giving you the perfect angle from which to view them. Stunning isn’t it? Imagine having all that in your greenhouse.

This blog is posted in support of the monthly Epiphyte Club started by Steve Asbell over at The Rainforest Garden. Steve does a fantastic job in sharing his passion about all things tropical. If you would like to participate in Epiphyte Club, follow the instructions located at the above link. If you would like to visit the orchid house, you can find all the information you’ll need on the Los Angeles County Arboretum website.

Orchid house, Los Angeles County Arboretum. Love that greenhouse smell.