Blue oak, our most drought-tolerant native oak, grows throughout Solano and Yolo counties. In nature, blue oaks are mostly found on sunny, well-drained soils: “the wettest of the dry places and the driest of the wet places.” Nearby Rockville Hills Regional Park (Fairfield) and Lagoon Valley (Vacaville)…
Have you ever thought about creating your own native habitat garden? Have you heard the term, native habitat garden, and wondered what exactly it was and how you could create one? If so, you have come to the right place!A native habitat garden is a landscaped area that utilizes native plants to create a…
When I first got my city-subsidized $10 worm condo some years back (many years back), I got really excited about worm farming. Back then, we just called it worm composting. The only book of “authority” was “Worms Eat My Garbage” by Mary Appelhoff. I learned from the book the term “vermicomposting,” and most…
This past week I have seen up to four monarch caterpillars and yesterday, there were none. At the beginning of the week, I was doing my daily count and there was a good-sized lizard attempting to eat one of the larger caterpillars. Lizards are known predators. I came to the rescue on that day and scared them…
At the end of May, there were a few monarch butterflies fluttering among my milkweeds. Five narrowleaf milkweed plants and five years later, I now have two good-sized patches of them. Then we had heavy rains and gusty wind conditions in Fairfield, which was concerning for the eggs and larvae. The milkweeds…
