Happy Earth Day to YOU!

Well, today is Earth Day, and in San Diego, that means the San Diego Earth Fair in Balboa Park!  Check out one of San Diego's biggest public events, San Diego Earth Fair.  Today was awesome!  We got tips on everything from gopher control to seed swaps to workshops and classes and getting credits from the water department for rain collection systems like the one we built in our back yard!  Did you know that you can actually get a one time credit for up to $250 for installing a rain collection system in San Diego County?  How cool is that?!  For more information, check out San Diego Water Conservation.  In all, we came back with tons of great information and tips, and lots of great connections in the local community that we didn't know about before!  We are looking forward to putting some of this great networking to work in the Spring and Summer.

Our big project this week was replacing the peas and corn and building a bird defense system.  We took a week to sprout ahead with our peas and replant in the back garden.

With a little work and some more bird netting and other supplies, we successfully placed a barrier over the in ground garden to keep our winged freeloaders out.  Sorry guys, you have free run of the bird feeder, but the corn and pea seedlings are now off limits!  We also took time to plant a new crop of butterbean edamame which were just irresistable not to try growing!

For Earth Day, I just had to put to use a suggestion I read about recently from my gift subscription of Urban Farm Magazine (Thank you Joe McCarty, I absolutely LOVE this magazine!)... an herbal tea planter garden!  All of the herbs were purchased either at our local farmers market or our favorite local nursery, Walter Andersen.  Just completed getting everything in the planters by sun down.  We now have everything from Sweet Lavender and 4 kinds of Mint to German Chamomile and Lemon Verbena to Stevia and Bergamot!  Can't wait to get these to harvest and start making my own herbal tea blends here at home, so much fun!

Just for fun, check out what we saw growing in one of our neighbors front yards here in San Diego!  Those are Papaya folks!  How cool to find these growing in your neighborhood?  Can't wait to sign up for fruit and veggie trade with these neighbors!

That's all for this week folks!  Stay posted!  Those tomatoes will be ready to be placed in the ground in no time!  Happy Farming!