Querida Jardin: Plants for the Sunny Side

I love Los Angeles for her weather and her soil. While I was in Peru, my lovely subletters watered, so everything's blooming. In fact, they couldn't harvest fast enough, so a lot of my cabbage and all my lettuce bolted before they could use it. They uprooted it, and now I have an all but empty palette on one side of the yard.

Or I did.

Yesterday I spent less than $50 on plants for the sunny side. It's going to bring me a lot more joy than a night at the bars, for the same amount of money! I bought baby veggies and flowers, and I must say, since I have a green thumb like my sister Lisa, so I have great hope.

With luck and love, I'll have cayenne peppers, all sorts of herbs, snapdragons, more petunias (EASY), a creeping flowering vine/ground cover named "superbell," irises that my mom split from her own rhizomes (though I'm quite pissed - I left them for my landlady to plant, and she obviously left them outside all winter, because they're all shriveled up. It's going to take a miracle, friends. Keep your fingers crossed - they're lovely bearded heirloom varieties!), and pansies.

I also weeded, fertilized, and the works (I only use organic fertilizer). We got a lot of rain while I was gone, so the soil was super clay-ey and hard to work.

Tomorrow I will start butternut squash, beets, tomatoes, sweet peas, lettuces, cilantro, and sunflowers from seed. I've never been great at that skill, but I'm going to try. Here in LA we can generally plant all year 'round, so I suppose everything is conducive in the environmental arena.

I've decided I'm going to keep the house rather than moving, primarily for the yard. I'm getting a puppy soon, and hopefully my car will sell soon so I can get a convertible Mini Cooper. I love LaLaLand. I do.

What I'd really like to do is trade the garden food for art or maybe for other things, LA friends! There's no way I'm going to be able to eat all this come harvest time.

Off to make zucchini bread. Much love from Welcome Street.