EDH Gardens

04/05/2022

Wondering what to do with the last of the Nagami Kumquats still hanging on your tree? Got some early season strawberries just starting to ripen? How about making a batch of Strawberry-Kumquat preserves!? Our everbearing strawberries seem to do sooo much better when we harvest the fruit daily, so I decided to make some Strawberry-Kumquat preserves from the not-quite-sweet-yet strawberries coming in from the garden and the late ripening Nagami Kumquats, so plump and ready to harvest. Amazing! Strawberry-Kumquat preserves are delicious! What a great idea. It turns out gardeners and preserving enthusiasts have been here before. On page 134 of my Blue Chair Jam Cookbook by Rachel Saunders there it is: a recipe for Strawberry-Kumquat Jam! Wonderful!!

02/05/2022

Escallonia rubra (redclaws) headed into full blossom throughout our neighborhood! Very popular with the local bees❤️ I love the mini world of these blooms spread across the large green shrubs. Fun to get up close and see what’s happening within that world

01/05/2022

Homemade Echinacea tea!? All the echinacea plantings started last year are growing vigorously this spring, time to test out the homemade tea option. Herbal teas are really expensive, so why not try to make tea from homegrown herbs? I plan to add mint to the echinacea brew to attempt to match my favorite store bought tea. Fun to be giving it a try. Drying the echinacea leaves in a dehydrator couldn’t have been easier or faster. The mint leaves are taking a little longer😋

01/05/2022

Garden warrior at work on a peony blossom. Sooo happy to see the aphid feast on going in our garden. Lady bugs and many others have really made a dent in the nearly overwhelming wave of aphids we saw earlier this spring

30/04/2022

Love Gazanias in the garden! We planted some years ago and now they are spreading out to little unoccupied spots all around the garden. So wonderful when volunteers, seeded from an earlier planting, out complete w**ds for space in the sun.

Gazanias (Gazania rigens) are warm-weather perennials with brilliant colors that are commonly grown as annuals. They are very easy to grow.

25/04/2022

Nasturtiums growing on a rocky, uncultivated slope on the edge of the garden. I seeded nasturtiums on this slope 4 years ago and they’ve been popping up every spring since then. So interesting to see which phenotypes show up as the years progress.

22/04/2022

California Buckeye just opening its blossoms.

22/04/2022

Lots of birds and birdsong in your garden? Identifying and learning to recognize the wide variety of birds by their varied songs will completely transform your experience of your garden and the outside world. The Merlin App simply listens to birdsong and IDs the bird for you!❤️ Wonderful!

Songs and calls are often the best ways to identify birds—especially sparrows! This spring, let Merlin Bird ID be your guide to learning bird songs. As birds head north and fill up backyards again, have Merlin at the ready and find out who’s singing! https://hubs.la/Q017HHXT0

19/04/2022

Harvesting mason jar grown sprouts today. It takes about 4 days to grow these sprouts from seed - a very satisfying gardening project you can accomplish in the kitchen anytime of year!

18/04/2022

Time to start grooming the strawberries for spring fruit production. Our everbearing strawberry beds produce fruit all season long, but we have noticed that they tend to produce two big waves of fruit. The first comes in late spring, the second comes in late summer. By clipping off ALL ripening strawberries now, even the damaged or sub optimum fruits, we can remove the food and habitat that pests need to multiply among the strawberries. We’ll also removed w**ds as we find them. Rattlesnake season is also approaching; the date that we usually first see baby rattlesnakes in the garden. So strawberry grooming takes a bit of courage too as well as boots, gloves and a rattlesnake bite kit!

16/04/2022

16/04/2022

16/04/2022

After rain, the garden glows❤️ Peonies on the verge of blooming, succulent pomegranate blossoms drip drying, Kaffir lime leaves washed and ready for harvest, rosy pineapple guava flowers ready for golden-crowned sparrows to nibble their petals, multitudes of immature mulberries collecting strength, strawberries just days from ripening, immature peaches jostling one another along their too small branches, volunteer chervil pretending to be a w**d, and Cara Cara oranges just starting out on their months long journey to maturity❤️

12/04/2022

Nico­tiana alata 'Grand­iflora' blooming. Sooo many flowers! This 4 ft tall plant grew from seed produced by a parent plant at least three years ago. The seedling sprouted in the border between our herb garden and a walkway sometime last summer. I thought the leaves looked a lot like the nicotiana we had previously grown near that spot🤔, so when we replanted one of our perrenial beds, I moved it over to a sunny spot next to some rosemary and a ceonothus. Wow, it really took off! I love finding plants that thrive so enthusiastically in our garden❤️

12/04/2022

A Migrant Hover Fly resting on a Mission Olive blossom. Very pretty in the morning light. I thought it was a bee! In reading more about it on the Seek App, I see that its larva are avid aphid eaters! Yay! Insect is very welcome in our gardens! So glad it rested long enough for me to ID it💕