brightmillion blog

so i’ve been a bit under the weather this week… so have been TRYING to take it easy, but that is very hard for me… i dont think i know how to sit still.. so even when i am resting off a cold in bed,,, i find myself on the internet.. booking shows, browsing seed catalogs, calculating how much new soil i need for garden expansion 2.0………!!!!
today i just couldnt help it, it was sooo nice out i had to take a walk in the garden,, i told myself just a short wander to get a breath of fresh air, then back to bed,, well, that somehow turned into a few hrs of gardening chores, transplanting some lettuce and kale from inside out into the front yard beds, as well as starting to chop away at the chicory forest that has completely taken over the front yard..!!!

we eat alot of chicory, but even so, there is waaay too much for even that.. my plan is to reclaim most of the chicory beds to plant a larger variety of things.. i’ll keep maybe 1/8th of what is growing and i bet that will be plenty to have a non-stop chicory supply… (i hope!) i never realized how huge the plants would get and how fast they grow back after cutting into them. they started off slow from seed,, so i figured i’d cut some back then it would be a longer cycle of starting new plants while cutting the mature ones, etc.. but turns out, they just keep growing and growing and i dont think i’ll ever have to reseed…!

so,,, soo many options of what i COULD plant in the new space..been trying to get practical and plant more of what we use on a daily basis.. hmmmm well, i;ve pretty much ruled out fruit trees ,, cuz they take at least a few yrs to mature and give fruit, and i;m too impatient!!  sooo,,, that leaves berries and more veggies… i have been browsing the web and think i found a nursery supply place that i am going to get wholesale raspberry, boysenberry and blueberry plants from. they wont go in place of the chicory, prob more around the perimeters of the front and back yards. can’t wait for more fresh fruit- the backyard strawberry patch has just started to give a few ripe berries, with a lot of green ones and flowers on the way. i think we’ll have a good crop this year, since the plants are nice and established.  I picked up 8 grape vines from my fav home depot, on sale for 2.49 each they will go along the outside of the studio, hopefully covering the studio with grapey goodness.

sooo, back to the chicory beds.. i pulled a small part of 1 bed, about 2.5′ worth and even in that small area there was sooo much chicory !!! at least 30lbs i bet i tried to pull the entire plant, roots and all,, and put a post up on CL seeing if anyone wants to grow some chicory! why let the plants go to waste (or compost) ive already had one taker come over and grab about 5 plants so only like 30 more to go!

as you can see they have huge long carrot-esque roots if no-one comes for them, im just gonna dry the roots to make tea/ coffee with em.

i did get a few stragglers out of the ground to dry ,,,, i have no idea how to make it into coffee.. but thats what coffee alternatives are made of.. so i guess a google search will clear that up.

well, in that clear space i planted CARROTS. we go thru at least 24 carrots a day in our juicing, so seems right to plant a bunch  we do a carrot/romaine lettuce juice every day – about 8 carrots to 1 head of lettuce juiced and it tastes almost like chocolate milk.. really, its kinda strange, but yummy. i have a few carrots going in planters in the back, but i’ve never had a big carrot crop before, so time to try for it! would be nice to have a large fresh carrot stock to pull from. the raised beds should be perfect for carrots, and we get lots of sun up there, so check and check. in the back boxes, i ran into having areal hard time evenly spreading the seeds, and then had to do a ton of thinning to get proper spacing of the carrots, even so, i think some got growing too close and got sort of out of control… i hear carrots wont develop if they are too close to one another,, lots of greens, but no actual carrots, soo…. what to do??? then, aha! i was at the old HD and saw these ‘planting strips’  … i’ve always passed them up thinking they were for gardening sissies, ,,,  but for carrots it seems to make perfect sense! there are little toilet-paper type strips that have evenly spaced seeds in them,, you just dig a little trench and put the strip down. geniuous! they are a bit more expensive than a seed pack, one pack was 2.99, as opposed to 1.19 or so for a reed pack,, but that extra 1.70 is gonna be worth it im sure. and still, 570 carrots for 2.99 is pretty good  !  =)

i was able to plant 1.5 packs in the newly cleared space, so thats about 750 carrots woohoo! cant wait.

now we wait,, i guess its store bought carrots til then.  on to step 2 of carrot/romaine juice- more romaine!!

i seeded 72 in a seed tray, so hopefully that will be enough! @ 2 per day, that will last  about a month… wow, gotta plant more already!

next on the plant more stuff agenda is juicing component #3 – CELERY!! we use at least 2-4 heads of celery a day, so out with the chicory, in with the celery. its a little late to be planting celery in los angeles, they take 120 days to be ready, and do not like heat, so we’re pushing it to have enough time before it gets to toasty here… but gotta try right? even if they only get half size, we can still juice em, i dont care how big they get thats a nice thing about non-commercial farming, it doesnt have to look store ready, just edible!

hmmm what else,, oh,, at the ol HD i picked up the seasons first tomato plants and a few golden bell peppers.

i started 2 trays of 96 plugs each of celery seeds, so hopefully they get started quick cuz we need them yesterday for our juice.

well, i guess i really should get some rest… since my short breath of air turned into a day’s work in the garden….   next up,, getting 8 cubic yards of soil delivered to start more raised beds… cant wait.. my dream come true, a huge mound of compost on the driveway. the neighbors will love that im sure

looks like brightmillion will have shows in april – 10th and 24th – still waiting on confirmation on some march gigs. i’ll let you know as soon as i do. the new demos are coming along nicely, i am knee deep in lyric writing this past week. for all the new material.  we are also starting planning on a small west coast tour for May! so if anyone has recommendations on where to play, let us know- also if you have a couch to sleep on, we’ll need that too… !!

thanks to everyone who came out to last sat’s show at the kibitz room, we had a great time, and will be back there april 24th. we live webcast the show on our ustream channel and it was a success!  we are gonna try to stream all of our live shows in the future, so tune in to ustream.tv/channel/brightmillion anytime we have a show and watch for free =)  there is a recording of sat’s show on the ustream site right now, so go check it out. i’ll be uploading higher rez clips to our youtube channel. head over to youtube.com/brightmillion and subscribe to our channel and you’ll get emailed whenever we upload a new vid. so you dont have to wait!

ok, off to bed with me for real this time….  later!