06 Saturday Aug 2016
Posted in Garden, Odyssey Orchards, school gardens, Teaching
It has been over a year and a half since my last post. This site has been sitting on a bookshelf, so to speak, collecting dust. Sitting there while I created lesson plans, graded papers, met with parents, and managed a classroom of 25 fourth graders. Sitting there while my garden withered. No time. But, times change…. Continue reading
15 Sunday Feb 2015
Posted in Garden
09 Monday Feb 2015
It is not uncommon to hear, especially from folks who have moved here from other parts of the country, that Southern California has no winter. People laugh at us when we pull out our knitted caps when the thermometer dips to 60 degrees. And we definitely don’t know how to drive in the rain (I will give them that). But, as someone who was born and raised in Southern California, and maybe more so as a gardener, I would say, “Yes, indeed, California has a winter!” It is subtle and beautiful.
06 Tuesday Jan 2015
Posted in Garden
Tags
garden, gardening, heirloom seeds, heirlooms, summer garden, sustainable food, sustainable living, tomatoes
I used to start my tomatoes in late January or early February. Then I met someone who told me they started their tomatoes the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Ever since, I have been starting my tomatoes the first week of January for nice, good sized plants to transplant come March. 
28 Friday Nov 2014
Posted in Garden
Tags
Altadena Community Garden, Cinderella Pumpkin, garden, gardening, RIPE Altadena, sustainable food, sustainable living, winter squash
Last spring I picked up two Cinderella Pumpkin seedlings at one of RIPE’s monthly garden swaps we hold in our local park. I didn’t know anything about the squash except that the pumpkins resembled the pumpkin used to make Cinderella’s magical carriage. I thought they were of the decorative sort.
I planted them in a corner of my community garden plot, made sure they had water, and largely ignored them for a few months. Continue reading
02 Saturday Aug 2014
Posted in Garden, Odyssey Orchards, Teaching, Why I Garden
Late one afternoon I finally got to picking the dried black beans. As soon as I reached up to remove the first pods my daughter squealed and asked, “Are these different ones!? Don’t tell me what they look like!” She ran off holding a single dried pod like it was a present all wrapped up in pretty paper. Continue reading
30 Wednesday Jul 2014
Posted by Jessica Y | Filed under Garden, Wordless Wednesday
25 Friday Jul 2014
Posted in Garden, Recipe, Why I Garden
Those of you who grow several tomato plants every summer will be no stranger to the image below. It is that time of year in the northern hemisphere when the tomatoes keep coming, and coming, and coming. It is what we planned when we sowed all those seeds and said yes to the seedlings our friends didn’t have room for. This year I ended up with 18 plants. I am not sorry.
19 Saturday Jul 2014
I recently had to spend five days in Las Vegas. Five days and four nights too many. Despite living just a four hour drive away for most of my life, it was my first time there. I was attending a teacher’s math conference, which was great, but I could barely tolerate my surroundings. To me Vegas (the strip in particular) shows off some of the most despicable traits of our capitalist, sexist society. Its excess invokes strong feelings in me. I won’t go into all the reasons I despise Las Vegas, but I will say for one, it all sits in the middle of a desert, which just adds insult to injury. It is like giving the finger to Earth. Continue reading
16 Wednesday Jul 2014
Tags
Altadena Community Garden, Cinderella Squash, garden, gardening, photography, sustainable food, sustainable living, Wordless Wednesday
Posted by Jessica Y | Filed under Altadena, Garden, Why I Garden
Growing Up in the Garden 