Tragedy.

I love birds.  I do.  The 100+ pounds of birdseed in my garage, four seed feeders, two hummingbird feeders and one fruit feeder, plus the drip-fed bird bath should all be a testament to this.  AND YET. 

All of those seeds I planted last month?  I came home one day to find the rest of the pots dug through and all of the barely-there seedlings gone and potting soil strewn all over the table.  All except the bush beans, which apparently sprouted too quickly for the birds to catch on.  Dudes.  I provide food for you, for a reason.  I will gladly share any extra produce that results from these plants but FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, LET THEM GET TO THAT STAGE FIRST.  *sigh*  Luckily, the carrots, beets and bunching onions that were direct-sown seem to have been untouched.  Knock on wood. 

At this point, I don't know if I should bother re-starting these plants...it's already mid-March and even with our awesomely long growing season (yay Mediterranean climate!), I don't know if they'll have enough time to produce a decent crop of ripe fruit.  And, I'll need to devise a system to keep the birds out first.  I may have some free time this weekend...

I am a SLACKER

So apparently it's been almost 2 years since I started this blog with its sad, three little posts.  Dang.  I guess, like most things, this is going to take practice.  *sigh*

It's mid-February here on the Central Coast, which means milder temps going forward.  Which means...time to start some seeds!  I'm on a bit of a Japanese Heirloom vegetable kick this year, which is pretty obvious in my seed choices from this weekend.  So far, I've started:

• Bush Beans 'Royal Burgundy' (started 02/16)
• Tomatillos 'Purple De Milpa' (started 02/16)
• Shishito Peppers (started 02/16)
• Tomato 'Momotaro'
• Cucumber 'Yamato Sanjaku'
• Cucumber '
• Eggplant 'Kamo'
• Eggplant 'Konasu'
• Green Shiso
• Mizuna
• Colorful Beet Mix (direct sown)
• Carrot 'Red Cored Chantenay' (direct sown)
• Carrot 'New Kuroda' (direct sown)
• Green Onion 'Ishikura Improved' (direct sown)

I think I'm off to a pretty good start!  So far, the bush beans are the only ones that have shown signs of life (so predictable).  The birds have been pretty active in our yard lately so we're going to need to devise a system to keep them off of the young sprouts once they start to appear but I think we've got a few weeks before we really need to worry about that.  As soon as we start seeing some action, though, I'll post some photos.  We should be starting the bulk of our tomato seeds in the greenhouse in the next couple of weeks so I'll post an update then, at the very latest. 

Yay seeds! 

It Begins...

The beginning stages of our veggie box...

My Rubberband Ball

Let's think of this as "too many rubberbands" rather than "too much time."

Step 1...Create Blog

...I've been meaning to start this for a while now, but just haven't been able to think up a good solid topic.  From one day to the next, I can't seem to focus on one particular thing that I love more than anything else.  But variety is the spice of life, is it not? 

Over the course of however long I decide to keep this up, I hope this blog will evolve into something more structured, or themed or, most importantly, something people will actually want to read.  There will be photos.  There will be plants.  There will be food.  There will be photos of food and plants.  And, of course, there will be words.

It's been quite some time (again) since I've put pen to paper, or fingertip to keyboard in an attempt to write anything creative or thoughtful or even mildly amusing.  Hopefully having this blog will inspire me to do just that.  Step 1, check.