Happy 2018!! Sorry for not being around a whole lot more. I plan on being back in force at some point in the future. It will be slow in the meantime.. If I’m being honest, building my business has been taking most of my attention, and that will continue. Everything aside, how about a spring update?

This year has been full of surprises already. Tucson has seen maybe a month of winter weather. Some trees only turned half-yellow and stopped there. Others dropped it all. Tucson is awesome! Three or four hard freezes, and SO DRY. Finally, within two days we received 2 inches of rainfall, and that is all we will get, in my opinion, until April.

In February I smoked about 30,000 bees out of the huge Palo Verde in the back of my mothers house. If I only had a hive, but no time. On the 10th I shooed away six scout bees loitering around a compost bin (it IS in use, they didn’t know that). I didn’t shoo them really, I just made the bin less inhabitable by opening the lid. Bees like enclosed spaces with small holes for entrances. These homes are easy to defend and easy to cool/heat. Thanks to a few friends, my birthday gift of a bee suit continues to come in handy!

This is the last year for my blue bucket planters. The only reason they’re still around is because I don’t have the heart (OR THE POT, OR, AGAIN, THE TIME) to attempt a transplant. Is that a common problem? Speaking of problems, there are a few things I’m interested in writing about, and here they are!

• Part 2 of my post on Gastritis and Coeliac’s disease
• Drying Oregano
• Making dried chili flakes ✅
• My journey to finally successfully producing some fermented pickles!!!
• What blend of materials makes a great indoor potting soil?
• Continuing my series on planter materials

Here’s my garden currently. If you’re following me on instagram, you’ll be seeing these photos in the coming days. Website followers get these first!

^ Oregano, Ridgeline lettuce, and stringy garlic (it’s regular garlic only starved for light, not on purpose).

^ MORE garlic, and MORE dill? Yeah, get used to it.

^ B-E-A-Utiful purple kohlrabi. Photos of the stems coming up.

^ The ~12 foot tall giant opuntia on the side of my mothers fell over from the wind. What can you do. All of this probably weighed 500 pounds. That’s 400 pounds in the trunk and 100 in cactus pads.

If you’re interested in any of the upcoming posts, please follow along! And for those coming around to learn about pickling or growing things, I hope you find what you’re looking for. Questions and suggestions are welcome.

Happy Spring! Looking at you March 20th!