Today I made bread from scratch.

Yesterday, mushrooms popped up in our front yard. They are still there today.

Tonight, Gavin roasted coffee beans.

Here are roasted and unroasted beans together on a plate:

Each pile has the same number of beans. The beans get bigger when you roast them.

One of Andrea’s orchids.

Ollas are unglazed clay jars with wide bodies and thin necks.

They help conserve water in the garden. I learned about them from the Dervaes family here in Pasadena. They sell them in their online store.

You bury the ollas in dirt up to their necks.

Then you fill them up with water. The water slowly seeps out directly into the soil.

I found a rock that exactly fits the top of this olla to help keep mosquitoes and curious wasps out.

I’m just starting out with ollas, but for more information about their history and use, check out these resources from the Dervaes family:

• Little Homestead in the City: Using Ollas – An article about ollas and a series of photos showing ollas going into the ground and in use.
• Little Homestead in the City: Ollas – Olla instructions and F.A.Q.s.
• YouTube: Path to Freedom – Water Wise gardening – A video showing how to install and plant around an olla.
• Peddler’s Wagon: Olla – Ollas for sale in the Dervaes family’s online store.

We got a blueberry bush at the farmers’ market.

I’m going to try growing them in our yard.

One of my family members told me that my great aunt used to bury kitchen scraps in her garden between her rows of vegetables, and that her vegetables grew terrifically. I have a compost bin, but it was getting full, so a few months ago, I buried a few kitchen scraps under a tree.

I wasn’t expecting them to, but sprouts started to grow out of a few of the spots where I’d buried my scraps.

Look at what this one is:

Potatoes!