Orta Kitchen Garden Newsletter

Frogs and Enchilada Sauce

I fell off a roof when I was 14, trying to capture just the right moody, black and white, nighttime scene. Oh the angst of a teenage “artist” in the ‘90’s. I was fine, BTW. There was a lot of blood from a scrape on my head, which was scary, but no lasting damage. AND I caught the camera, saving those masterpieces. (They weren’t masterpieces.) There was a certain look we were all after in those days: gritty, dark, “real.” Friends, I finally captured it: This is the yard behind the Orta shop....

about 2 months ago • 3 min read

I get it, but I don't like it.

Hypothetically, if you bought something online as a “pre-order” that said it would ship the week of December 2nd, but actually arrived on January 8th, do you think the company should relax its 14-day money-back return policy? If they get to be a month late, should the customer also be given the grace to be a little late as well, and get money back instead of store credit? Also, what if this isn’t actually hypothetical? 🤔🤣 I made the non-hypothetical return in person to avoid return shipping...

about 2 months ago • 5 min read

A “Dry January” joke?

This was going to be a punny post about “dry january” and how around here that has meant dry gardening. Like, almost no rain for the whole month, during what should be our rainy season. February 1st is the end of “Dry January” (the alcohol trend) and also water dry January here in Northern CA, because as I write and send this email to you, rain is arriving! Halleluja! Here's a story about water in gardens: I met a friendly young gardener from Belgium last week who shared something interesting...

about 2 months ago • 4 min read

Seed Class Recording + Slides

Here's the link to view the recording of the same seed starting class (but the version I taught last week - this evening's recording didn't record the sound . . .) Passcode: o!PepE38 Here is the link to the slides themselves. And here is the link to the planner we used during the class. Finally, the discount code is now active: POTS2025 gets you 20% off everything through March 6th. Thank you to those of you who came live this evening! I ❤️ all the seed starting energy! Please just reply to...

2 months ago • 1 min read

The exception to “don’t grow fruit from seed”

Seed Starting Class is this evening at 5:30 Pacific / 8:30 Eastern! Click here to sign up and get the zoom link! Last week, Vitelia received some lemons from a friend, but they’re not regular lemons. They’re sweet! As in, as sweet as an orange, but they look like lemons, and have lemon flavor. Weird, and yum! I’m pretty sure this is them: Citrus Limetta Here’s a fun fact about propagating lemons: Unlike most fruit trees, where growing from seed will give you all sorts of weird...