FullCircle Florals Gardening

Reduce! Reuse! Recycle! (Repurpose!) Three words that speak volumes.   Around the farm, these concepts have been applied for decades. My husband, Eric, has an impressive local family history. According to the land deeds recovered while organizing paperwork from the other house on the property, his ancestors purchased this particular plot in the 1930’s.    The family was in the area for quite some time before that, however, and are rumored to have been numbered in the Stevens Party who came over via none other than the Stevens Trail. Frances Lenninger, a local Vina historian and author wrote in her book, Vina’s History in Photos and Stories, that Eric’s great-great-great-great grandmother, Matilda Foster, came over the trail from Iowa in 1848. This photo (Left) of Sam Henry Stephens, Eric’s great-great grandfather was taken in front of the Vina Hotel circa 1910. As locals during the time period prior to the great depression of the 1...

When I first started gardening organically I was armed only with books and magazines that swore it was not only possible but beneficial to garden with out chemicals and pesticides. As a gardener for many years using what it thought were the conveniences of chemicals it was hard to convince even myself that this was even remotely possible. However, now that I have been hard at it for the last 6 years I feel like I have a pretty good handle on what I believe to be the 3 keys to organic gardening. Attracting beneficials: I have found this to be my favorite thing about organic gardening because it give me a perfectly legitimate excuse to justify buying flowers that don't produce veggies that we can consume. The right ones, however, do attract the "good" bugs that an organic garden SO needs. It is common knowledge that lady bugs are good for the garden but the why of it is not always clear to everyone. Lady bugs are very effective "bad" bug predators. Aphids are th...

It dawned on me today while I munched on a tasty fruit leather strip I bought in a bulk pack at Costco that we should make our own! I have been attempting to empty the freezer of all its contents via creative diners, meals and smoothies for the last month and I have a HUGE amount of blackberries and strawberries from last years crop staring at me every time I open the door. So...Forrest, my oldest son at 8 years of age and I are going to attempt strawberry and blackberry fruit leather. Below is the recipe I choose out of a million to make our tasty treats. Looks simple enough...let's see! I have a feeling that this will be one of many fruit leather making sessions since my boys LOVE them. We do have some pears on the trees this year and we have high hopes that the apple tree will produce this year. Not to mention Pomegranate in November after our annual pomegranate jelly/syrup party. Let me know if you are interested in attending this year, its growing and growing! Fruit Leath...

Welcome to my blog. My mother has been telling for years to write a book about the funny farm we live on. So this is me following her advice, in blog form! My husband and I and our two Kids live on a 60 acre ranch in Northern California. No where near the "California" that made the zip code 90210 famous in the 90's. On the contrary, we live in the sticks! We are just far enough our here that we have to drive to town and plan out groceries in advance to avoid disasters like no onions on Fajita night! This area was historically covered in wild grape vines. For which parts still are. This is where the full circle idea started. Our ideal for our little niche is to create an atmosphere that is definitely country and ALL GREEN! We currently house chickens for eggs and meat, goats weed mowers and Lots of plants! We are surrounded by cattle fields which make for very interesting stories from time to time! We would like to bring all full circle and create an area where biodivers...