Living off the Land
With our warm climate in Monrovia, it seems natural to grow lots of tasty things here, which I am doing more and more of. I’m taking out grass and planting fruits and vegetables. Click on the image above to watch an inspiring video about urban homesteaders in Pasadena. I’ve recently found a great website for getting “low chill” varieties of things that nomally don’t do well here, such as raspberries and blackberries. Visit Sperling Nursery to get started. Monrovia has an average of 380 chill hours per year, which means that when you are looking for varieties of fruits that require chilling to produce well (like apple trees), it’s esssential to purchase a variety that requires fewer than 400 chill hours.
I don’t know about you, but the supermakets just aren’t cutting it with fruit anymore. The last several times I’ve purchased pears and peaches and watermelon, they rotted before getting ripe!
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Hooray for the return of the Victory Garden! How great would it be to step into your front yard and gather fresh raspberries for breakfast? If there’s produce that you want, but can’t get it to grow here, there’s always Dogwood’s on Foothill. (I like your photo of the sign, btw). You have to pick and choose and use the produce quickly, but you can get a great deal of fresh produce for very little money.
Here is a picture of what $1.59 will buy you:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/anne_bonney/744216601/