The Casa de Kitty Life

This post is coming a little late - but here it is. 

On Thursday of week before last I got a surprise call from Jack Richter, a previous owner, asking if he and his wife could stop by on Saturday.  They were going to be in the area (American Canyon) and wanted to see the house again. 

It was great to have a chance to talk about the house and get to know more about how they found things.  They were really miffed that the rought iron gate that they had put in front of the house was missing.  This is something that had been stolen after the bank took possession.

They also brought some pictures they had of the place (gate and all) from when they owned it.  The best picture showed the Japanese Magnolia in full bloom.  Chris was really wowed by that. 

Here’s a couple scans of the pictures they had.

That Saturday I had also scheduled a consultation with Mandy, our newly hired color consultant for the outside of the house.  She’s got some great ideas.  As soon as we have some designs from here we’ll be moving ahead with the painting.  

To   finish out the weekend, on Sunday I picked some tomaotes - actually a LOT of tomatoes.  Of course I had to take somes photos of the pretties…

We’re also getting lots of figs.   And they are really big!  I made a fresh fig tart with them on Sunday and we had Michelle over for a taste.  This is a recipe I made last year and we loved it.  Here’s a few pics.  I’ll be posting the recipe for it later.

This year, as in years past, Chris and I decided (ok more a me thing) to put in a vegetable garden.  In years past at the house on Amador we’ve had a big garden (for a city, not for a country house).   That was always fun. 

This year, after talking to our lovely neighbor Salli, we decided to go in together for the garden.  She didn’t have space in her bungalow garden for a new tomato & pepper patch.  Her previous spots had played out.  So we set out planning what we would do.

After looking at the way the Sun hit the backyard, we decided to put the Garden on the east side of the back garden.   This gives it full sun (’cept for very late evening)and was in an area basically unused.  So, the weekend after the party, we decided to rent a rototiller from a local rental shop and bust up some earth. 

Funny thing was, that both Salli and I weren’t men enough for the thing at first.  At one point I almost went through the fence on the Monterey street side of the property.  That would not have been funny.

After completing the tilling of the earth, we planted veggies.  I had bought some, and started some from seed.  Salli had gotten her favorite as well.  All told, we put down

• 30 tomatoes
• a 12 ft row of basil
• 4 hills of early crookneck squash
• 6 Eggplants (5 florida hibrid and 1 Ichiban)
• 6 Okra plants (hey - I’m southern)
• 12 Bell Pepper (mostly green, but some red and yellow too)
• 15 other pepper plants (mix of hot and sweet)
• 4 Cucumber vines
• 1 Cantalope
• 3 pumpkins
• 4.5 rows of corn (Oaxcan Green, Old Hickory Hominy, Strawberry, Indian, and sweet hybrid)

So we planted it the second weekend of May, and I spent the next two weekends hooking it all up to drip irrigation.  I’m not a fan of broadcast watering - all you do is water weeds and plants.  

Also, I’m introducing a new continuing feature, the Casa de Kitty 2008 Garden Log.  This will be a place where I’ll document what Chris and I are doing in the gardens around the house.  Also this will have lots of pictures and related information about our garden.

So after it all - Salli and I enjoyed a nice glass of lemonade made from Casa de Kitty lemon tree.