Father's Day at Effie Yeaw Nature Center

Happy Father's Day to all of the awesome dads out there! How did you spend your special day? In our house it's not about gifts, but instead about quality time with the family doing whatever it is that dad wants to do. My husband chose to do a little hiking at Effie Yeaw Nature Center in Carmichael, CA.
The Effie Yeaw Nature Center is ran under the American River Natural History Association, who took over the center in 2010. A family membership to the ARNHA is a modest $40 (and includes parking at Ancil Hoffman Park), and not only helps preserve the Parkway, but supports the education programs at Effie Yeaw as well. You can also find Effie Yeaw and ARNHA on Facebook.

Effie Yeaw is a great place to introduce young kids to hiking. Most of their trails are about 3/4 of a mile, and they have lots of benches along the trails to catch a break when needed.


Western Redbud, a member of the pea family, is starting to show off its lovely red seed pods. In the spring their purple flowers are eye-catching....errr, trail-stopping?

You can't see her very well in this picture (because I have a horrible camera, and I follow the rules and stay on the path!), but Effie Yeaw has a wide variety of wildlife that call these 77 acres home. Besides the deer resting in the photo above, you'll often find turkeys, coyotes, rabbits, hawks, snakes, and many, many more. You'll also find a wide variety of BUGS here! Not just bee's, but the valley elderberry long-horned beetle, and about 86 varieties of butterflies call this place home.

A great place to sit and watch the bugs is at this swale pond. We grabbed a bench in the shade, and enjoyed the butterflies fluttering around us.

Housing seasonal overflow from the American River, in 1999 this pond was lined with over 200 tons of clay to help keep the water through the summer months.

Can you tell we're enjoying ourselves?

Effie Yeaw has a butterfly garden, but also includes signs along the pathways that talk about many of the native plants you'll find along your trip, like some of the ones mentioned here.

This meadow is a sea of flowers in the spring, full of star thistle, winter vetch, mallow, wild oats and foxtail fescue.

Here Alex is checking out a Valley Oak that is near the end of its life. Valley Oaks are the largest oaks in North America, and you can only find them here in California. Yet another reason to visit us :)

Oh, and while you're visiting, stop by the Discovery center and shop (open 9am-5pm during the summer) and visit Sophia, a saw-whet owl, who came to the center after being injured in the grill of a truck. Sophia is just one of the animals you can see at the vistor center.

Blooming Artichokes: Bee Crack

A few weeks ago I had a lady ring our door bell, with a bag in hand, saying "You're letting a lot of artichokes go to waste, I'm here to pick them." When I told her the rest of the artichokes were for the bee's, she got a little rude and stormed off, as she told us we were being "wasteful".
To me, being wasteful would be picking the artichokes and then not eating them. Allowing them to bloom is not letting them go to waste, it's just simply beautiful.

The above artichokes haven't started blooming yet, but they are getting close. This particular variety is a beautiful shade of purple inside, which you only see if you allow them to age this long on the plant.

And then once they bloom, it's like a pool party for bee's. Jumping, diving... if I could see their faces I'm sure they're plastered with artichoke-lovin' grins. How many bee's can you see in the picture above?

Consider this my thank you to them for all the hard work they do all year.

So, I'm sorry dear neighbors if we seem wasteful, but I welcome you to stop and check out the artichoke blooms. And don't take it personally if they moon you.

Garden Gifts

Last year I wrote a blog post about sprucing up my grandparents garden. My grandma was suffering from ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and spent most of her time indoors. I wanted to give her something pretty to look at through the window, but I also want to try and encourage her to go outside. Hummingbird and bird feeders made her backyard really popular with the local wildlife. I split up a lot of plants from my own yard to help keep the costs down, and Farmer Fred was also generous with plants from his own garden. I was able to fill in their entire backyard with a variety of plants all for under $50, with over half of that going towards an orange tree for my grandpa. One of the plants that I received from Farmer Fred was an alstroemeria. The chunk he gave me was rather large, and I was able to split it up into several plants and share with other family members (and I kept some for myself too).
This past weekend my mom brought over a bunch of bulbs. Most were bearded irises that had been split up from my grandma's garden many years ago, but some were bulbs that I had planted in my mom's garden several years ago when I didn't have a garden of my own. On her way to my house she had also dropped off some bearded irises for my great aunt and her cousin (I think everyone in my family now has bearded irises!). In return I went through my garden and split up a bunch of my plants for my mom. She took home various kinds of rudbeckia and echinacea, which have happily reseeded themselves all over my garden. She also took home coreopsis, liatris spicata, and I split up that alstroemeria that I got from Farmer Fred again.

After we were done splitting up plants, we went around my garden with my 4 year old and we made a large bouquet of flowers to bring to my grandma. In that large bouquet was a lot of alstroemeria. My grandma never got to see hers bloom.

We brought the bouquet to where she's buried at St. Mary's Cemetery.

2010 was a difficult year for my family as we had to say goodbye to several family members who passed away long before they should have.

I took some a few flowers out of my grandma's bouquet to share with my cousin Harold, who also passed away this fall and is buried nearby.

The rest of the day ended up being an emotional garden day for me. As I planted the bearded irises that I got from my mom, I was noticing all of the plants in my garden that I've received from family and friends over the years. I have some hen and chicks that I dug out of my grandma's yard a year ago that my grandpa said she had got gotten from my great uncle Leonard, who we lost to cancer last August. I also cut back foliage from my dutch irises and daffodils yesterday that were bulbs that I planted in my mom's garden 9 years ago to use in my wedding (the dutch iris was my husband's favorite flower, daffodils were mine). A few years ago my mom dug up most of those bulbs (which have continuously multiplied over the years so she gave me several hundred of them), and since I didn't have room for all of them myself I happily shared them with other family and friends. We also have a gingko tree that my father-in-law got us when we first moved into this house. When he passed away a couple of years ago, our neighbor across the street brought us a white azalea. That azalea is planted next to the hydrangea that our good friend Patricia gave us when we first moved into this house, back in the summer of 2004.

So, as you can imagine, I cried. I cried because somehow I had forgotten about how connected my garden is to all of our family and friends, and how thankful I am that so many people have contributed to the beauty that we wake up to every morning. The alstroemeria that I received from Farmer Fred just a year ago is now in four different gardens in my family, and I'm sure it will continue to be divided and planted every time a family member buys a new house (along with bearded irises, of course!). The flowers will continue to make their way to St. Mary's Cemetery where my grandma, great-grandparents, cousins, and great aunts and uncles are buried. Last night before I went to sleep I made sure to send Fred an email to thank him, and to let him now how heavily that plant has become rooted in my family in just a short period of time. I hope I get to make that impact on someone someday.

Do you have a plant in your garden that is extra special to you? How about one that has been passed down through generations? I'd love to hear your stories!

Garden Inspiration: Mickey Mouse

Recently we were lucky enough to meet with one of the most inspirational gardeners of all time, Mickey Mouse.


I have to say, this is the first garden tour I've been on that I've been eager to get the home-owners autograph. Out of embarrassment, I made my daughter ask instead.

Happy to see no sign of Miracle Grow here, but I do question the contents of Petoonia's Pellets.

Hmmm... I must get Mickey's secret to growing his turnips that large.

And here's where the magic starts, his modest potting bench. I LOVE his watering can and wish I had it for my own garden!

And oh my goodness, how jealous am I that he has chickens too? I keep begging my husband for chickens, but he keeps saying no. Hmmm... maybe this is why Mickey and Minnie never married?

A busy lifestyle leaves Mickey Mouse no time for mowing his lawn. He's opted for a low maintenance dichondra .

Dichondra is a popular lawn alternative in Southern California. Here in Northern California, most of us consider it a weed.

Every good gardener must have a workbench for tackling all of those DIY projects, and at Disneyland I hear that Mickey is their go-to guy for just about everything. When you have neighbors like Donald Duck (who seems a little careless with his property in my opinion), it's important to keep a well organized workbench to keep track of anything you might loan out to friends, etc.

It's great to see that Mickey also cares about the environment. He seems pretty into being "green", whether he's recycling glass, cans, or gloves. Wait...gloves?!

Okay, okay, okay.... so we didn't have a private tour of Mickey's garden. We bought our ticket just like everyone else, so I don't have to do one of those *blogger disclaimers* at the end of this post. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised at how inspirational Disneyland was for me as a gardener- and I wish that someday I COULD get a private behind-the-scenes garden tour. There are edibles tucked here and there and most of the food is actually used there at Disneyland. The picture above is various sages, rosemary, dill and cilantro located near the Astro Orbitor in Tomorrowland.

Well, we'll let you know if we ever do get that tour. I snuck a few hints in with the Fairy Godmother, but I think she has her hands full with Cinderella.

Garden Fun With Kids: Worm Bins

A couple of years ago we put together some worm bins in our back yard with my daughter and her cousins. I had followed the instructions on The Germinatrix's website, and bought two Rubbermaid bins for each worm "house", some window screen scraps, and a few containers of red wiggler worms from my local fishing store. The project was super easy for kids, and here we are a few years later still pulling tons of worm castings out of them and making worm tea.
Here in Sacramento we're able to keep our bins outside year round in a nice shady location. My daughter loves "feeding" them our fruit and vegetable scraps and grossing out her friends with her pet worms.

"It's the biggest brownie ever!" Sadly, no, that's just worm poop. Last weekend it was time to give them fresh new bedding and split up our single winter bin into two bins. During the winter time we don't produce enough food for them to support two bins, so I usually consolidate into one bin late Fall. For you backyard gardeners, worm composting is a much easier and faster way to produce compost than your standard compost bins.

At four years old (ahem, okay, she says "almost five"), she has a much bigger appreciation for earthworms than most adults I know do. You should see the heart ache she has when she finds a dried up one on the sidewalk. And yes, I have found several in the pockets of her laundry. But her little fingers are useful for separating them from the castings, and putting them into their fresh new digs. Although, she does sneak a few into the planter beds, especially the ones that look "pregnant" to her ("Run mommy worm! Go have your babies! Be free!").

This is what we use for bedding. Finally there is a positive use for junk mail! We shred most of the mail we receive (just not the glossy kind) to add to the bins. We also add napkins from dinner time, newspaper, egg cartons, grocery shopping bags, even pizza boxes. The bedding is added to the bins and sprayed with water to make a nice moist environment for them (but not too wet, or they will drown). In addition to bedding they get fed regularly with fruits and vegetable scraps. Banana peels are always popular for them, as are coffee grounds. Avoid onions, too much citrus, meats, and dairy.

Separating the worm castings is kind of like a treasure hunt. We come across a lot of stuff that simply won't break down since a worm bin lacks the heat that your standard compost bins has. Items like food labels (as shown above), staples, tape, and seeds won't break down. Pick these out if you can. Although, last year we had a fantastic cantaloupe plant grow in our garden that was started from worm castings that had cantaloupe seeds in it.

Another item that won't break down is egg shells. These also seem to attract Black Soldier Fly Larvae more, which is actually not a bad thing.

Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL) is that disgusting looking grub thing pictured above. It used to creep me out when I'd find them in the bins, but now I've learned that they are also beneficial composters. They do put off heat, which helps keep the worms happy and warm during the winter time, but you'll want to keep the population down in the summer time so that you don't cook the worms. Lots of extra bedding during summer will also help the worms and BSFL live happily together in the bins. The larvae is great to use for fishing (instead of worms), and are a yummy snack for chickens if you have them on your property.

Above is a mature Black Soldier Fly. They are rather clumsy and creepy looking, but they are suppose to help control housefly populations, so they can't be all that bad.

The end result of the worm castings (aka vermicast)and worm tea that you will produce in your bins will lead to happy plants (and a happy kid). A tablespoon of worm castings can feed a plant for up to two months. I use worm castings every time I put a new plant in the ground to get it off to a healthy start. Since worm castings don't burn your plants (like manure can), it can be used all year long in the garden. Consider adding a bin to your garden this summer and start reaping the benefits!

Garden Inspiration on a Rainy Day: Green Acre's Nursery

It's June 4th and we've got weather like it's March. My skin is pale, my tomato plants are catching diseases, and the weeds have taken over my garden. We spent this morning looking for a reminder that Summer is coming, and found it at Green Acre's Nursery here in Sacramento. Rubber boots on, and umbrellas in hand; it will take more than rain to keep this family indoors.
A little water doesn't hurt anyone, and the plants here seem to be enjoying this weather quite a bit.

These mushrooms are now on my wish list. Super adorable! I love the colors! They remind me of Alice in Wonderland, and can really brighten up a shady area that doesn't have much color.

You don't need a lot of space to create a beautiful garden room. Green Acre's is full of ideas for small gardens.

This is where my daughter said she's getting married. Once she finds her Prince Charming, of course.....

I love this little section of the nursery. They often have some teak chairs over here that we like to sit on to enjoy the sounds of the fountains. I would love to have a space like this in my backyard someday.

Enough playing for now... back to the reason we came here: plants! Have a nice weekend everyone! Good luck staying dry :)