I don't think I've posted on this forum for about 2 years but glad to be back! I did a big lasagna bed on top of my native clay 2.5 years ago. I was so careful about it I was funny. It was about 2 feet high to start, the following spring it was about 8" high and through that summer - 2 summers ago it sank a bit more. Today it is even with the sidewalk and now I'm adding compost back on top and mulching a bit to add organics back in and bulk. The thing I love the very most about it is I don't even need a tool to dig in there, I can stick my hands straight in and move soil around, but it still holds moisture. Great great stuff. I used giant bagas of shredded paper from the office as a big part of my bulk plus followed somebody's online recipe. The only thing I would not do again is put 4" of peat all in 1 layer. It caked up and was clumpy for the first 2 years. I might use peat again but I would spread it thinly between layers. Now I've started redoing every bed in my yard the same way, one or 2 a year. Gonna take a few to get thru this but the result is nice to work in. I built a straw bale garden last year and had a totally amazing experience. Just awesome. I will never plant tomatoes in soil again - no need. No weeding, no bending, no bugs or diseases. It was great. Currently I do what I believe is called in genteel circles 'sheet composting'. I bury my kitchen scraps directly in the garden here and there and just rotate which garden I'm using. During winter when its no fun to make the walk across the yard to get to the compost bin, I dump non-rodent attracting kitchen scraps directly on my gardens and let them freeze, thaw and decompose. Great source of nitrogen added right back on top of the soil. There is nothing left by spring but the plants have all gotten a percolated boost of newly decomposed food. You can tell the tops of the beds are all black and crumbly from the compost too. Coffee and filters are good for this. Part of my spring clean up is raking away the uncomposted filters and hauling them over to the compost pile. I haven't fertilized anything but bulbs in a couple years. I have never been scientific about my compost bins, sometimes they are all browns like in fall, sometimes they are all greens - like garden clean up or food scraps. It all breaks down in the end. I do make a point of throwing some sticks and branches in there which aerates for you. I pick out whats left and toss them back in the bin when I use the compost. I also got a stick compost pile going in one part of my yard. A tree had blown over and left a big hole in the ground. I started throwing my sticks in there and leaves in the fall got blown in. It began to sink as it slowly decomposed. I threw in about 40 lbs of horse manure on top to speed it up. Aha! Dirt is on the way. Someday a few years from now I will have the most amazing planting area for some special shrub or tree. I don't rake or blow leaves anymore, I set my mulching lawnmower at a high setting and mow the lawn about every 4 -5 days in the fall and spread a bit of lime on top. The leaves are gone so fast its amazing. The quality of our grass has gone from total thin sparse junk to thick green and healthy with no added chemical fertilizer - well I do have deep core aeration done a minimum of once a year and sometimes spring and fall. This year for the first time I had a few yards of Sweet Peet delivered and hand broadcast it over the aerated lawn. gone in about 2 weeks completely and the lawn looks good even in our drought. I have a few gripes and chief among them is the new (to me) practice of selling shredded, dyed pallets as hardwood mulch. I have gotten taken 2 times with this garbage and the next time I buy mulch I'm going to have to see a sample before I buy it, or they are going to get my credit card reversed. Our local garden center had nice 'hardwood' mulch in the sample bins indoors, then they delivered this c _ _ p to my house. Its fluffy at first, but it packs hard and crusty and sheds water. Lord knows what kinds of chemicals are in it. Nobody at the garden center can tell me if this is pine, or if it was treated wood. All I know is..... I used to not shop at the Home Despot, but they are selling bags of guaranteed shredded hardwood BARK for $2.99 and it will be worth my while to go get that instead of shredded pallets. If it is pine wood - whats that doing to my already acid soil pH ? ARRRHGG Ah well, back to feeding the worms

Here's the recipe I use and my daughter too. Made in the crock pot. How to make apple butter - easily! Prepared this way, the jars have a shelf life of 18 months to 2 years, and require no special attention. A side benefit is that your house will smell wonderful while it is cooking - much better than potpourri! You can also skip the last canning steps, and just store it in your refrigerator (2 or 3 months) or freezer (indefinitely). Directions for Making Apple Butter Yields about 9 - 10 pints Ingredients and Equipment 9 quarts of Applesauce, fresh or canned (See step 1) 2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground cloves 1/2 teaspoon of allspice 4 cups sugar or Splenda, or an equivalent amount of sweetness to taste, from honey, Stevie or frozen concentrated apple or white grape juice. Jar grabber (to pick up the hot jars) Lid lifter (has a magnet to pick the lids out of the boiling water where you sanitize them. ($2 at Target, other big box stores, and often grocery stores; and available online - see this page) Jar funnel ($2 at Target, other big box stores, and often grocery stores; and available online - see this page) 1 Crock pot (slow cooker) 6 quart size (if your crock pot is smaller, just reduce the ingredients proportionately) Large spoons and ladles 1 Canner Ball jars quart jars including the lids and rings) Apple Butter Recipe and Directions Step 1 - Make unsweetened applesauce! That's right, apple butter starts with applesauce! You can use store bought applesauce, but the apple butter won't taste nearly as good. It's better with your own applesauce (either previously canned or fresh made). So if you haven't made some applesauce yet start here with how to make applesauce. Otherwise continue to step 2. Step 2 - Fill the crock pot Fill the crock pot to within an inch of full with applesauce, mine takes about 5.5 quarts. You will add the remaining applesauce later, in step 5. Now, you CAN do this using a regular large pot on very low heat on the stove, but the crock pot works much better, because its heat is very low. I've never had a batch burn in the crock pot. Step 3 -Add the spices Add: 2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground cloves 1/2 teaspoon of allspice 2 cups sugar (the other 2 cups are used in step 4) In place of sugar, you can use an equivalent amount of Splenda (sucrose) OR 1 twelve ounce can of frozen concentrated fruit juice (preferably a neutral juice, like white grape or apple). You could use honey or Stevena, also. The sweetener is present ONLY for your taste, not as a preservative, so you can use anything that is heat-stable, in quantities that suit your own tastes. You can skip the sweeteners entirely, too; but it loses a lot of the richness of flavor, in my opinion. 95% of folks seem to like using a total of 4 cups of sugar. Some folks prefer 3 cups of honey instead, and diabetics obviously like Splenda or Stevena. Step 4 - Cook down the Apple butter Set the crock pot on low or medium heat. Cover it loosely or use a large pot splatter-guard. It will spatter as it boils slowly, so I also cover nearby surfaces with towels. You don't want to seal it tightly because you want the steam to escape so it can reduce in volume and thicken. A visitor suggests, take a couple of butter knives, and lay them across the top of the crock pot. They are parallel and located about 2/3 of the way out from the center. Then put the lid on these supports, leaving it "covering" the pot and keeping the splatters under control, but, leaving a good gap for steam to escape. I just made a batch and tried this approach, but I used a pair of wooden chopsticks or bamboo kebab skewers - they worked great! Leave it to cook for 6 - 18 hours. How long depends on the size and power of your crock pot, and how thick you like it, If you want to stir it occasionally, that's fine but not necessary. I start mine around 8 pm on high for 1 hour, then on medium until I am ready for bed around midnight, then leave it on low overnight. But do be careful: if your crock pot does not heat evenly, and has hot spots; you can get localized burning. So once in a while, use a rubber or silicon spatula to scrape the sides and look for any burned apple butter. If it does burn: pour the apple butter out of the crock pot into a bowl. The burned apple butter will cling to the crock pot. Clean the crock pot, discard the burned bits and pour the unburned apple butter back in! Step 5 - Add the remaining applesauce It will reduce in volume by about half overnight. As it cooks down (the next morning), add the remaining applesauce (about 2 or 3 quarts) and 2 more cups of sugar. Then let it cook a couple of hours more to mix the flavors. Step 6 - Wash the jars and lids Now's a good time to get the jars ready, so you won't be rushed later. The dishwasher is fine for the jars; especially if it has a "sanitize" cycle, the water bath processing will sanitize them as well as the contents! If you don't have a dishwasher with a sanitize cycle, you can wash the containers in hot, soapy water and rinse, then sanitize the jars by boiling them 10 minutes, and keep the jars in hot water until they are used. Leave the jars in the dishwasher on "heated dry" until you are ready to use them. Keeping them hot will prevent the jars from breaking when you fill them with the hot apple butter. Put the lids into a pan of hot, but not quite boiling water (that's what the manufacturer's recommend) for 5 minutes, and use the magnetic "lid lifter wand" to pull them out. Step 7 - Blend the apple butter (optional) You want a smooth, creamy texture, right? The easiest way is to use a hand-held drink blender. It does a great job of making it smooth. You can also put it into a regular blender, but if you are going to do that, you might want to blend the apple sauce before you put it in the crock pot (it will be much thicker afterwards and won't move in a regular blender). Another visitor says running it through a food mill with a fine screen or through a sieve works, too. Tips: Too thick? if the apple butter cooks down too much or is too thick for your liking, just add a little bit of apple juice and blend it in. Not thick enough? Just let it cook some more, with the lid off so the steam can escape! Step 8 - Fill and seal the jars home canning jars, lids and rings If the crock pot isn't keeping the apple butter boiling hot, you will need to briefly return the butter to the stove to get it hotter. It varies from crock pot to crock pot. I find that if I set my crock pot on high for the 15 minutes before I fill the jars and stir frequently, it gets it boiling. Fill the jars to within 1-inch of the top, wipe any spilled apple butter of the top, seat the lid and tighten the ring around them. Step 9 Process the jars Process means put them in the canner and keep them covered with at least 1 inch of water and boiling. if you are at sea level (up to 1,000 ft) boil pint jars for 5 minutes and quart jars for 10 min. If you are at an altitude of 1,000 feet or more, see the chart below. Even though these times are right from the USDA, I usually tend to err on the side of safety and let mine go for 15 minutes; there's no harm in going longer. Recommended process time for Apple Butter in a boiling-water canner. Jar Size Process Time at Altitudes of 0- 1,000 ft 1,001 - 6,000 ft Above 6,000 ft Half-pints or Pints 5 min 10 15 Quarts 10 15 20 Step 10 - Done Lift the jars out of the water and let them cool without touching or bumping them in a draft-free place (usually takes overnight) You can then remove the rings if you like, but if you leave them on, at least loosen them quite a bit, so they don't rust in place due to trapped moisture. Once the jars are cool, you can check that they are sealed verifying that the lid has been sucked down. Just press in the center, gently, with your finger. If it pops up and down (often making a popping sound), it is not sealed. If you put the jar in the refrigerator right away, you can still use it. Some people replace the lid and reprocess the jar, then that's a bit iffy. If you heat the contents back up, re-jar them (with a new lid) and the full time in the canner, it's usually ok. Linda

I prefer Disney to Knotts. We usually get the Park Hopper passes so that we can go to both Disneyland and California Adventure (which is just across from Disneyland). It is also whale watching season until the end of May in LA. They are seeing record sightings of humpbacks, fins and migrating gray whales this year in the South Bay of LA -- anywhere from 25-40 per day. There have also been quite a few pods of orcas. The hub of all the whale watching is the Pt. Vicente lighthouse in Palos Verdes, where you can watch the whales amongst the observers who are there from dawn to dusk counting the whales and observing their behavior. Or, you can charter a sailboat out of Redondo Beach for some up close action. The whales don't usually make it up toward Santa Monica -- too far into the SM bay. Just a few days ago, there were a group of humpback whales breeching and fluking at Redondo Beach while surfers and beachgoers gawked. If you are looking for a place to stay down there, I like Terranea -- it's on the water near the whale watching action and they have a nice spa and excellent French restaurant, Mar'sel. Here is a link that might be useful: Whales in the south bay This post was edited by pipdog on Fri, Jan 23, 15 at 0:46

My work horses are Poliomintha longiflora , salvia greggii, Salvia madrensis, Ageratina havanense, Echeandia texensis. wandering Jew. I can not do without my agaves, yuccas, nolina's, and cylindropuntas. @ Camp , I think we are living in parallel hells of the same making. Add in a empaled scrotum, broken ribs, sprained toe to the severely broken wrist. My husband had a spinal fusion in January and then a really bad gout outbreak . The day he got back on his feet, he was high on the new gout meds and tripped on a log on the way to the compost heap and fell. He ended up with 3 stitches in his scrotum and a a plate in his wrist and all the rest.. I am doing most of his work ( a 12' wenge table , a mitered bar top, two shelves on a deadline). I have had my share of the belt tightening. Unfortunately , I do have a part in his accident. He went out in the dark without a flashlight and High . But I trimmed a bed with a log. Usually the sago palm fronds hang over it and keep people far away but the cold snap this year killed the fronds so I had cut them off. I don't know if sharing blame makes it better orr worse. I'm not angry but a tad guilty. It has been a really tough year. My garden has dried up in the drought and my lack of attention. I have killed many things that I planted last year. I failed at getting things established. We have had no rain this winter , spring and until now. We are flirting with rain this weekend but I will believe it when I see it.