California: Year One

 Well, it's been a year here, and I've been busy observing and working to understand the environment that we've been moved into. So far, so good. I like it here, and I especially like that I have more space to experiment with plants I've been wanting to watch grow. 

It was maybe a week before we bought some new plants.

When we first arrived we were in temporary housing for 40 days. That was a literal 40 days, not the figurative 40 days from the Israelite tradition. Though I understand that figurative saying better now, because it did feel like forever. It ended anyway, as forever does, and we moved into our home which we will be in baring unseen circumstances for the next 4 years. While we were unattached and relatively unoccupied though we went to visit a garden nearby at the UC Davis campus. I took a lot of pictures.

Our next outing was to the beach, but the ones on the coast are 1 1/2 to 2 hours away for us, so we opted for one on the Sacramento river. It was lovely and just right for us. 

We were looking for a local nursery and went to El Rancho Nursery which has an incredible succulent collection.

We made it over to Annie's Annuals and Perennials which is a nursery I have known about for years and was so happy to get to visit, sadly it's a little far and there are tolls. Still, it's my favorite except that I want everything.

We also went to Larry's Produce. It's a grocery store with local produce and some U-Pick options.

Then we went to Morgan's of California which is an organic farm in Winters, CA.

Our last outing before moving in was to the Japanese Garden in the Golden Gate Park. We walked around more than just that, but our main purpose was that specific garden.

We also liked this pond.

The day came to move in. Here are some early pictures of the outside of our house.

It was pretty much a blank slate, which was exciting to me. I measured it all, and made a rough drawing of where I thought at that time I wanted to put the paths.

I did a jar test of the soil, planted some random annuals the girls had picked out, and got ready to rototill in some humus. I ordered three cubic yards of it from Sun Ray landscaping because that was only a little more than I calculated that I would need and then it was delivered for free. That was a fun day.

The preying mantis did not like all the movement from my initial rototilling.

There are geraniums planted on the west side of the house. As I was pulling out an old soaker hose from the bed, I ripped out this shoot. I put it in water, then planted it in the yard. It's doing great still and rooted easily.

I tried to figure out different placements for the chairs. I wanted them shaded during the time we would be outside and fairly accessible with a good view. I continued to struggle to find a good spot for everything until my mom came in November when I had my third baby and she arranged the chairs in a good way. I did move two of them later out into the garden to take advantage of some afternoon shade from the fence. Also, that ZZ plant lasted two days outside before I brought it back in. Turns out they don't like direct sunlight. It's happy again now.

I bought some plant labels to use as path markers since I wasn't committed to where the paths were going to be yet, but I wanted to know where I currently was planning on having them. I also got some bamboo stakes to trellis the sweet peas that I planted in the part of the yard I decided to dedicate to flowers.

Over here I had planted a lot of sunflower seeds to be my groundcover crop while I decided what I wanted to grow and started watering for that.

Things began to grow. Also, that is a snapdragon I got from Annies.

Meanwhile the rose in the front yard was looking like the rose from Alice in Wonderland. I know I should cut out the red rose which is below the graft, but I've been leaving it. I'm planning to do that eventually. I might take the whole thing out, it's not the healthiest rose. The other two shrubs in the front started growing new shoots and looking exciting.

Rena and I started some more seeds, mostly herbs and a couple of blue fescues. She liked watering her "babies".

Meanwhile, the native grasses were still dormant. This was when we found a tree in our church parking lot that the girls liked to play in every Sunday after church while we were getting in the car. 

We bought a swingy chair because I finally gave up on figuring out a way to put our hammock up. I tried the fence as you can see in the picture, but since we're renting, I didn't want to put too much stress on it. Same reason I didn't want to put in a post or a tree. For now, the hammock stays in its bag.

Our first of many, many ladybugs.

Church tree again.

It was so fun to watch the sunflowers get taller and taller. I didn't think they would bloom because I didn't get to planting them until August, but I was happy with what their roots were doing for the soil. 

Everything else was growing too.

We finally found my favorite nursery so far, Morning Sun Herb Farm, and potted up some succulents that Rena picked out in October.

The girls also picked out some bulbs and rhizomes at Costco, and I couldn't say no to that. It was a challenge getting them planted because I was about 8 months pregnant at this point. Jake was working a lot right then, and sometimes that's how the timing goes. I don't regret it though.

The girls helped a bit, but they did prefer to dig where the pathways were for some reason.

We needed a good break from the everyday at this point and decided it was time for another outing. We went to the pumpkin weigh off and harvest festival at Nut Tree. It was a joy to get to spend some time seeing new things with these girls. Jake was working pretty much all the time at this point because we had scheduled his busier rotation months to be before we had our baby, and this was before.

Another Sunday climbing our tree

Starting to get some bugs.

A beautiful morning

Jake had a rare day home, so we went to the beach for a bit to avoid sitting around all day which is what we all wanted to do.

This time they made me take a video too, and it was getting out of hand how obsessed they were with this tree, so I think we parked on the other side of the church for a couple weeks after that.

This is was the first time I had grown something that had gotten taller than me. I was excited.

It happened... October 21st, one of my sunflowers bloomed. I was surprised and pleased.

More blooms followed. I was thrilled.

This is Linnaria reticulata 'Flamenco" which I got with some others (Hosta, Clematis, Hellebore, Poppy, and an Agrostemma) in a shipment of plants from Annies a little after the first time we went, because I realized the toll was basically the same as paying for shipping and shopping online is easier sometime.

 

Meanwhile, it rained a few times and the locality was looking green and the places I wasn't watering were starting to grow things too.

Bachelor button

I had one last place to go before I couldn't go anywhere for awhile. I went to the Oakland temple and did a session there. I also enjoyed the garden, because that's something I'm always noticing.

I did some final tidying up work in the garden, and enjoyed it that last month as much as I could before our baby came. It was a difficult time, because the weeds were starting to come up with the rain, but I couldn't do a lot about that.

Rena took my phone and got some telling photos. There was a lot going on.

There's really no need to garden when you have such a sweet spirit to care for. Our first big outing for awhile after that was to Fairytale Town in Sacramento for Rena's 3rd birthday. We almost didn't go, but I'm glad we did. It is really hard to get out at the beginning of newborn life. We went on lots of progressively longer walks. On one of those we found mushrooms growing on a tree. Also meanwhile the garden was blooming. The anemones came up. They are my favorite. Jake bought me a daylily for Christmas, but other than that it was no new plants or seedlings for awhile.

And that's as far as my photos are currently backed up to my Google photos. I didn't do a lot of gardening for the first few months after having my baby, so the garden slowly decayed into disorder. It was still beautiful it it's own way, and especially when the spring bulbs came up, but that's for another post.