25th Anniversary dinner at Lunada Garden Bistro, Cayucos

I am going to jump around with my posts and the timeline a bit...why? Because I can dammit.

Bert and I celebrated our 25th Anniversary this year and took a family road trip to the Central Coast.

Instead of doing sad ass takeout and eating it in our room out of styrofoam containers...

Astroboi's Birthday Crawl - Trimmed hedges + coffee stop #1 @ Modern Times Cafe

It was a belated birthday crawl for my good friend Astroboi..

we hit up our first photo stop this fanciful topiary garden...

Portland Day 3 - Elk Rock Garden at the Bishop's Close

After our morning coffee from Either/Or,

and headed back across the bridge...

Harper's Topiary Garden

Since we were already in Mission Hills...

I saw that we were pretty close to a hidden San Diego gem...

University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley

Cal has a world class botanical garden attached to it's name...

Of all the times we've visited Berkeley, we hadn't been here before...

and TC was excited to take photos of the different plants here...

Azalea Community Park

A few weeks ago I  was out about exploring on my own.

TC was at sports practice and Bert was at work. I would have preferred to not be alone but...

The Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens

We were fortunate to have received free tickets as gifts to The Huntington...

from Caren from the Velveteria who is a member and had extra passes...

Luther Burbank's Gold Ridge Experimental Farm

Bert thought it would be interesting to visit this place...

which was the Luther Burbank Gold Ridge Experimental Farm.  It was only a few minutes away from Ninja Star Coffee...

Strawberries

Last year we planted six strawberry plants.

After a few months, each plant started growing "runners"...

City Farmer's Nursery revisit

A few days ago we revisited City Farmer's Nursery...

Noticing that the sign was painted over...

Arlington Garden

I am a big proponent for costless fun.

For me, public gardens are a source of relaxing entertainment and wonder especially if one is interested in flowers, plants, trees and such...

I found out about Arlington Garden while doing an online search for "free gardens" in the area...

Dragonfruit from my parents

My parents started growing dragon fruit plants last summer but hardly any fruit was produced...

This year, their plants grew and multiplied like crazy and lo and behold...

Vegetable garden

After about four months, our bittermelon vines started to grow...

not as nice and lush as my parents but grow it did...

More of the garden...

The garden was doing quite well in the summer. These pics are from May...

The bittermelon was still alive which was a good thing since I normally have a black thumb...

Garden progression

Here are some photos from our garden that we started in late April...

The start of a young bittermelon plant and one of the six bunches of red chard we planted...

Return to North Park Nursery and City Farmer's Nursery

The same day we went to Chi Extraordinary Kitchen, Bert and I visited a couple of nurseries...

hoping to find some more herbs and vegetables for our garden...

*Can you see the Georgia Street Bridge in the distance?

It was a $%#@ hot day and I was worried that any plants we bought would wither and die in the car...

Dad's 76th plus my parents' garden

Earlier today we celebrated my dad's 76th birthday early...


It's really tomorrow but it was easier to gather the whole family during the weekend..

Return to the Mission Hills Nursery plus the new North Park Nursery

Last weekend Bert and I did a quick visit here...

He hadn't been before and I was curious to show him the vegetables and get his opinion on what to add to our garden...

Green Acre, Campus Pointe location

A few days after we got back from our trip, I had a lunch meet up with Dennis of A Radiused Corner

I'd bumped into him a few months ago while doing errands in Kearny Mesa.  Lunch was his choice and it turned out to be near his work.

Down the street is the second location of Green Acre, which has a lovely garden near the parking lot.

Mission Hills Nursery

As we were driving on Fort Stockton while looking for the coffee place, we saw the Mission Hills nursery and made a mental note to visit before driving back home...

I hadn't been here in a long time, as in before TC was born...