I’m so excited this week to see my daikon radishes coming up! These are old seeds. I bought these a few years ago and forgot them “stored” them in a closet after they didn’t produce any radishes. Planting these this time around was basically just something to do while I waited for more seeds to…
Author: Stefani Pellinen-Chavez
Silicon valley meets DIY meets too many hobbies and a prototyping mindset.
Lettuce patch! Dig vs. No-dig; 100% compost vs. 50% compost.
I got my lettuce seeds in the ground! I wanted to run a couple of little tests today, so I made up some wheat berry meal to use as slow release fertilizer and prepped four garden squares for lettuce seeds. I spread a little coconut coir on each of the squares after prepping them to…
Mini window greenhouse for starting seeds
It turns out that I have exactly one available sunny window to start my seeds in, and as luck would happen it’s a) not very big, and b) susceptible to toddler predation. The chia seeds the toddler pulled out are no big deal. They were from the murder compost, how killer is it? test and…
Back yard pea nitrification; how I found the right inoculant. Maybe.
Phew! I’ve been on a mission to use peas in the early season to add nitrogen to my soil, and it feels like every day I learn a new little tidbit that makes that dream drift a little farther away. Should be easy, you say! That’s what I thought too. Here’s where things have gone…
Seed packets arrived! It’s seed starting day!
I’m so frigging excited! I ordered my Back to the Roots Organic Garden Essentials Vegetable Seeds Variety, and Organic Flowers Seeds Variety on Christmas eve, and they’re finally here! 7 weeks from our last frost date in Livermore! I’m seeding everything out that wants up to 10 weeks before transplanting, so here’s the list: peppermint…
Thinking about how to store an abundance of seed packets
Now that I’m getting some seeds in the ground, I’ve been rounding up stray seed packets from all over the house. There are seeds in the tackle box I use for drip irrigation. There are seed packets in the junk drawer. Seeds in the office/guest room dresser drawer. Seeds on the kitchen counter. And I…
The pea sprouts are up!
The pea sprouts I put in the ground yesterday are up! Okay, the frost could still kill them off, but today is New Year’s Day, and I woke up to a little tiny peeping pea sprout of hope. Hopefully you all have your own tiny pea sprout of hope this year. Or a cocktail. Happy…
Planting (very) early pea sprouts
It’s the last day of December 2020, and in my part of California, the wild grasses are already an inch tall and bright green. Why shouldn’t my new veggie patch start showing some green too? The Old Farmer’s Almanac tells me there’s nothing I can plant outdoors until later in January, but ima risk it….
8:54 AM December 30, Livermore Ca. Frozen Soil
I spent yesterday mainly writing, researching a new recipe, reading novels, and painting garden makers, and I completely forgot to plant my test run early pea seeds yesterday. I finally had everything lined up to plant my peas this morning: garden makers to label the squares that are already planted pea sprouts pencil to make…
Testing the murder compost. How killer is it?
Over the summer, I made an enormous pile of compost out of eucalyptus waste and dog shit. I’ve talked a lot about why that might be a bad idea, TLDR: eucalyptus and dog poo can kill (plants or people, respectively) and why ima use it anyway. But I’d love to learn a little more about…
Outdoor Hedonist 