Garden Recipe: How to Build Roof Tile Raised Beds

When we moved into our house in September, we had a roughly square area of grass in the middle of our yard. I'm not a fan of grass in California gardens--still in a drought, despite El Nino--but I am a fan of edible gardens. Duh. So the plan to swap one for the other was obvious.

After having a mixed garden of perennials (artichokes and blackberries--yes, what was I thinking? O how much I've learned) and annuals at our last house, we wanted our annual edibles to be separate from our perennials. Annuals and perennials need different things (soil tilling, fertilizer, and watering schedule to name a few).

Hello 2016! New Year, New Goals

I started this blog way back in 2013 as a way to chronicle projects I was working on in the garden and in our house, mostly for myself and slightly for my parents so they could stay up to date from afar. As the years have gone by and as my garden projects have grown more ambitious, I want to do more with what I write on my blog. So with the new year now upon us--and the garden in its hibernation season--I have some goals for this year both for this blog and for our garden.

Introducing MeadeHouse Manor

When last I wrote, we were moving out of our Temescal home and I alluded to our finding our new home; well, here it is! I'm excited to give you a preview of our forever home: MeadeHouse Manor. 

Our new home is located in Alameda, a "man made" island between Oakland and San Francisco. While I'm never a fan of unnecessary quotes, calling the island man made is a bit of a misnomer. Let me explain. When people in the Bay Area hear Alameda, the man made island, they assume the whole island is landfill and will fall into the Bay when the next Big One comes. This belief isn't true, however. Alameda was once a part of the Oakland landmass but a canal was dredged in 1902 to provide better access to the expanding Port of Oakland. So yes, the island is "man made" but not in the way that people traditionally think.