Five Things Friday

The five little things that made my week…

1. Rain, rain, glorious rain. We’ve had more rain in the last couple of weeks than we’ve had in the last couple of years combined. It’s amazing for California on so many levels: putting a dent in our five-year drought, bringing much-needed snow to the mountains and setting up for a great kayak season. Here in my thirsty garden, the sight of everything drenched in rain is pure delight. Keep the storms coming!

2. I’ll never tire of seeing Swarovski-like gems of raindrops dancing across nasturtium leaves. For a fun read, here’s a post I wrote about the superhydrophobic properties of nasturtiums.

3. Almost every winter, we have a strange bumper crop of figs. There are a couple dozen of them, growing on the tips of branches even as the leaves are falling off the tree. We’ve harvested a few handfuls already, with more to come this month. Such a sweet bonus!

4. In zone 10b, pepper plants are perennial but our serrano always looks a little spindly this time of year in our coastal microclimate. Being the scrappy survivor that it is, it’s still putting out an impressive yield of peppers this season!

5. Speaking of scrappy survivors… If you’ve ever wondered what a 16-month-old brassica looks like, here you go. These are kales and broccoli that I never got around to pulling out, and they’re still giving us new leaves that are surprisingly tender and mild. If I didn’t need the space in my garden bed this spring, I’d be tempted to keep them and try to grow them like perennial tree collards.