Miranda Beasley

“Five gallons of soup”, my Hubby Norm yelled, “five gallons of soup?…Colly this time you’ve gone too far!” he kept repeating as I lugged in twenty pounds   of Cremini mushrooms packed in five pound cartons.  Next came twenty-two quarts of chicken stock, cream and onions and finally, the bottle of sherry wine that it would take to create the Santa Cruz Mountains Gourmet Dinner Club’s Rustic Cream of Mushroom Soup.

Has the hot, dry, windy weather made your garden look like mid-summer? Our meager spring rains have all but disappeared from the soil and what hasn't evaporated the weeds have taken. The local water companies all have water conservation requirements that began last month. I'm getting lots of calls and emails asking for advice about the best way to use water efficiently so the garden doesn't look like the Sahara this summer. I'm helping others redesign their gardens with an eye towards ongoing water conservation.

I hike in the Bonny Doon Ecological reserve quite often but had never seen the waterfall. Since the Martin fire in 2008 I have written several columns about the remarkable comeback nature can make after a natural catastrophe. Each spring I eagerly await the new growth of manzanita, chinquapin, pine and the spring flower display. Recently I joined a group led by botanist and revegetation specialist Val Haley, who has been a volunteer at the reserve since 1993 and knows just about everything there is to know about this unique place on the planet.