Welcome Back!

I hope you have had a wonderful break and are ready to tackle academic writing once again. One of the first things we will do this semester is to begin constructing group blogs; our first project -- "Project Web" -- will be an exploration of a topic in these small group blogs. You are also encouraged  to build your own individual blog site if you like. If you have never created one before, here is a site for the basics: Getting Started Guide. This is my own blog, with my own focus: gardening and cooking what we garden (except the chickens, of course! We do not eat them!)

This semester we will be focusing on the topic of food. We will examine that broad topic from a number of angles and use as our primary text, Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma.  The course syllabus will soon be posted on our Moodle site. Please print out and bring the syllabus to class on the first day.

For Week One, your first assignment is to read the first chapter of The Omnivore's Dilemma. Come to class prepared to discuss the chapter on Monday the 23rd. Our first Moodle post will be based on the chapter, and there will be a quiz on Wednesday of Week One.

I look forward to seeing you on January 23, 2012!

The Winter Garden

Taken today. Orange blossoms getting ready to bloom. This is a navel orange that usually has fruit by now, but the fruit didn't set last year. So we shall see.















This is the garden in the winter. We have a long growing season here, but we still have times when the days are too cold and too short for plants to grow very well. We have a wild flower in the back of this front bed that is quite determined to flower, along with a yellow tomato and eggplant that haven't given up either. Tomatoes go in the bed to the left - it's lying "fallow" right now, as the farmers say. Tomatoes can't be planted until the danger of frost is well behind us--they need lots of sunlight and warmth to do well.

The apricot tree has lost most, but not all, of its leaves. I'm not sure what role, if any, climate change is playing in my garden today. It seems to me the apricot tree should not have any leaves at all at this point. Here's the climate data for this part of the San Fernando Valley, which tells you about growing season (the time between last frost and first frost), and average temperatures and precipitation for the area. That helps us figure out which varieties of plants will grow well here and which will not.

 http://www.plantmaps.com/91605

As the Garden winds down for the winter...

Here are the chickens, grazing on the last of the swiss chard. Fading zinnias behind them. They can pick a garden clean in no time -- they love anything you would put in a salad. This was taken in November.

 Our first dozen eggs, in October. The greenish eggs are from the two red chickens, which are Aracunas. Other than that, I can't tell who lays what color eggs!