a while back we dubbed this style of wall block as "too home depot" and decided we'd never use them. and then i found a pallet of them for super cheap. amazing how quickly a good deal can change your mind...my mother would be so proud.

before

after

taking out that tree a few weeks back really changed our front yard; not that we really need another area to attack with a project....in some ways i feel overwhelmed with all of the possibilities, but on the other hand i feel so lucky. sometimes we look at a tiny area in our backyard and think about how just that tiny corner is twice the size of so many people's entire yards. our front yard adds another entire dimension to that feeling... one of the things we've noticed about working in the front yard as opposed to the backyard is how it suddenly connects you to the neighborhood. it feels good to see our neighbors out walking their dogs, puttering outside and taking off for church (as we heathens play around in the dirt). we also spotted a turkey on the loose....there's a great little article in this month's sunset magazine about a family down in LA that "...started with their garden and transformed an inner-city neighborhood into an oasis". i'm ridiculously inspired by this sentiment regarding the money and time the family spent on their home: "...It was [also] a statement --an act of faith that the area was worth the investment." following a really rough week for our city, i needed to read something like that...it makes me feel like i'm not wrong for generally believing in the good of people and the ability to take some control of your future.

so that's what was running through my head as we dug and carried and leveled and finally planted our little front area. i don't even have photos of the true before. this area was completely overgrown with huge dark bushes that looked dangerous and scary. we ripped those out when we bought the place and the area had been sitting untouched since then.

C was a madman with cleaning and digging out the area and managed to build the wall and level it in pretty much 2 weekends. i carried the stones from our backyard to the front (and have the baby biceps to prove it) but he's the true muscle on this project. we went a little nuts at the nursery yesterday and bought pint-sized drought-friendly plants. we're keeping our fingers crossed that they'll all grow up to be big and strong and cover up our "home depot" wall.

before

after

oh, and there's a really great view of san francisco when you sit on the edge of the wall! we figure it will be where we'll sit and watch the neighbors (and the wild turkeys!) go by when we're old and grey...

it's springtime at the cabinhouse!

look at those tiny buds on our apricot tree. these photos were actually take a few weeks ago. the apricot tree is now already covered with bright green leaves and tiny fuzzy fruit.

if you look closely you can see the pink nectarine blossoms in the right hand corner. those big black containers? those would be our compost bins. we're moving things around in the backyard...making room for more fruit trees. while i was out of town one weekend, C. dug out and leveled a huge new area roughly the size of a large driveway. you can see it in this photo:we'll eventually add a nice wall to finish it off and level out the area above a bit more. we have plans to add more vegetable boxes (for growing tomatoes) to the upper level. the little shack up there will be torn down...

just for fun, here's a round-up of the fruit trees we have for as of now:

came with the house:
- rockin' orange tree
- sickly meyer lemon
- oodles of wild plums (not great for eating, super-tasty for jam and tarte making)
- fuyu persimmon

planted last year:
- mission fig
- meyer lemon
- pear (i forget what type...bosc?)
- sour cherry
- nectarine (hmmm. yellow fleshed variety)
- blenheim apricot
- 2 grapefruit trees (we couldn't decide what kind we wanted)

planted this year:
- flavor delight aprium (holy moly these are good. i heard about them on good food, found them at berkeley bowl, fell in love and then we spotted the tree at the nursery. very excited about this guy)
- pink lady apple (only my favorite apples ever. i eat one a day when they're in season)
- crazy cherry tree that was bred to put out a mixed crop. we discovered that many sweet cherry trees need another sweet cherry tree nearby for pollination. this baby combines 4 types (lapin, bing, black tartarian and van) so that they can help eachother out...

photos are back!
that professional job i mentioned a while back? here it is....
another lovely acacia tree growing at a bad bad angle. during these last few windstorms we'd lay in bed praying that it would last a few more days without toppling over in to the street...


we have a front yard, finally...and yards and yards of gorgeous acacia mulch.

this makes me so happy.
doing it right...

if you remember, last year we (C and Mr. L) built these amazing stairs that lead from our concrete patio to the nature trail.
we've planted a few things around the edges (a picture of one ridiculous plant as soon as the photos are back in order) including a meyer lemon tree and a pear tree.

it's nice to find out what will grow in our backyard (with minimal water), but that area has been a bit of a "testing zone". i'm ready for it to fill-in nicely...

here's my current favorite inspiration photo for how i'd like the stairs to look (minus the mini ivy, not a fan):

image: Martha Stewart Living, March 2009

we already know that lavender grows beautifully in our backyard, as do the grassy plants in the photo. i love the kangaroo paws and the euphorbia (both of which we have).

in the sidebar from the original magazine article, it talks about the plants showing off different textures and fragrant herbs. i love that idea. i might try to replace the ivy with trailing rosemary...

iphoto isn't playing nice these days.
having some computer issues and won't be able to upload my own photos for a while...

on a different note, i like these kitchens.
i found the top two images here and can't remember where i snagged the other two...

we have open shelving in our kitchen but somehow it looks a bit messier. i think one of the biggest problems is that we don't have a lot of other storage, so much of our food-stuffs ends up sitting in open view. must figure out good (cheap!) glass canisters.

trying to purge our small house of excess. whittled the plates down from 16 to 6...16 people wouldn't even fit in our home! no need to keep a matching set of white plates for our guests that can't come in...

this one was a long time coming....
finally, a job too big for us that required hiring actual professionals...
more photos later

(old photo, two of these are brimming with beets and radishes)

With all of this rain, we're aching to get outside and start planting again!

While we're busy planning some more drought-tolerant and native plantings, I would really really really love for our new planter boxes to be mega-producers and to start taking the place of my vegetable buying trips to the grocery store.

Here's the thing: I don't really know how to approach the vegetable garden. I have this book which is pretty straight forward and simple, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what to plant and when to plant it.

Right now our boxes are filled with beets and radishes and one broccoli plant. I just planted some leeks and green onions 'fore the rain went nuts. But I need some help. I know you're supposed to plant what you buy but the planning part is what's hard for me to figure out....

Is there a secret resource out there that I'm staring straight at? Anyone have a simple go-to calendar for the Oakland area? I want someone to tell me what to plant and when to plant it. I feel like this veggie garden is kind of like a recipe. The first time it's extremely helpful to have exact instructions to follow. After that, everything is up for tweaking.

Also, any great seed catalogs or online sites that are pretty local?