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I have a small garden with three 4'x4' raised SFG beds in the front yard, as well as some other random food plants scattered around in pots or beds. Lots of heirloom seeds. Right now, in just those 3 4'x4' beds, we've got:
- White Icicle radishes
- Nantes carrots
- Cylindra beets
- Purple-and-white-striped Listada de Gandia eggplant
- Green and white pattypan squash
- Orange bell peppers
- Balloon chile peppers
- Basil
- Flatleaf parsley
- Cilantro
- Mesclun lettuce
- Bright Lights rainbow chard
- Three types of everbearing strawberries
- Mr. Big peas
- Broad beans
The strips by the sidewalk and front walk are mostly planted with a happy mixture of flowers. Right now by the sidewalk it's a gorgeous, wild mixture of red flax, pink linaria, pink and purple cosmos, brilliant orange California poppies, pink and white nemesia, wild heather, blue-purple cerinthe (shrimp plant), roses, freesias, irises, bachelor's buttons, and some exotic-looking hot pink wild clarkia. Along the front walk, there are also some happy healthy broad beans with black and white flowers, a pink penstemon, some pink and cream ranunculus, a small French thyme, curly and flat-leaf parsley, and some Vietnamese coriander which I've never used in the kitchen.
In the side yard, we have a crazily hybridized strip of nasturtiums--flowers single, double, and ruffled semidouble; colors ranging from cream and pale pink to deep, intense red, with every shade of yellow, orange, red, and brown in between. Many of them are streaked or spotted or blushed with different colors. Viva nasturtiums!
I have four talkative guinea pigs that eat some of the best produce from the garden as well as some of the things nobody else would eat--grass and prickly radish tops come to mind; they love both. They provide a plentiful supply of urine-soaked wood shavings, old hay, and manure for us to throw in the compost bin with our food scraps and yard trimmings. This makes the worms very happy.
I try to keep at least one fresh bouquet in the house every week. Right now we have a shallow blue ceramic bowl full of floated pink and white-striped camellia blossoms with frilly centers, and a small bouquet of pinks, purples, and blues of varied forms (in a small glass jam jar):
- Cerinthe major purpurescens (shrimp plant)
- Bachelor's buttons
- Hot pink wild clarkia
- Purple-and-white and purple-and-lavender freesias
- Hot pink and white ranunculus
- Bright pink and purple cosmos with yellow centers
I live in: United States
My zone is: Bay Area, CA
My favorite forum 1 is Soil.
My favorite forum 2 is Square Foot Gardening.
First registered on March 05,2004.



