That 70s California style

Bell bottoms, flares, faded denim, floppy hats... all so 70s. In California, we did it a little bit different. We are in the wild West so we added moccasins, cowboy hats, and lots of leather and fringe with turquoise and silver. We loved and still love..... cool boho clothes from India.


New in the funkomavintage web store ...clicky the links to take you there...  70s denim high waist Seafarer sailor bell bottoms that are completely awesome,
and a patina vintage cowboy hat, very gaucho, in rustic brown wool felt,
and an embroidered Mexican cotton top that is completely hand sewn.

vintage Seafarer denim high waist sailor bell bottoms....  clicky

The rustic vintage cowboy hat...clicky

Made in India pink Peacock boho festival dress....clicky
and a vintage leather and suede boho backpack...  clicky

Pink Peacocks, full and floaty boho dress, with little tinkle bells on the cord ties....

Lovely Panties for Love

Valentines Day is a lovely time for lovely panties, but really,  when is it not a good time to look at sweet panties.

Here's a collection of some of the sweetest vintage panties for your eyeballs.


click the link under each pair, and choose your favorites.

40s Silky black tap panties of the softest nylon with a sheer ruffles on the legs. Delightful!

60s Glorious full cut high waist panties of black nylon with a nylon gusset. The classic vintage Pin Up Girl panties. 

Vintage 60s bikini panties with a tan, brown and black Leopard print. These are all
silky nylon with a double nylon crotch gusset.

  50s vintage Vanity Fair coral silky nylon vintage panties. Sexy and sweet, Little Bo Peep, made of all nylon. 

 High waist sexy vintage 60s Vanity Fair panties with their famous tan, brown and black Leopard print. 



Girdles, All-in-One, Garters, Baby dolls and Corsets.  clicky here to see more vintage panties, ready for love! 

The Sweet Peas are UP

It is, and should be, a post-Christmas holiday tradition, that Sweet Pea seeds should be planted in January. It's a beautiful and easy to grow vine or bush flower that blooms in earliest Spring, and can go on a-blooming until the early Summer when the garden makes way for the lush gardens of the summer heat.

Sweet Peas, Lathyrus odoratus, love a rich soil with lots of compost, lots of fertility, and aren't too fussy about soil, as long as it isn't too sandy or doesn't have too much clay.
Amend your soil where the vines will grow, and string up some sturdy hemp string, or attach a trellis to a board fence or on a wall, for the flowering vines. They can scamper up the branches of a shrub that leafs out late in Spring. I've had fun planting them in a sunny position at the foot of a large old lilac and they bloomed before the lilac blooms and the sweet peas were nearly done by the time the lilac leaves appeared.

There is also a bush Sweet Pea, and I've had good luck with that version also. So if you don't have room for a trellis or have a wire fence, just plant the shorter ones and you can still enjoy the delicious fragrance.

John Keats loved them so much he took a fountain pen to paper and wrote....

*********** 

Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight
With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white
And taper fingers clutching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings. 

**********
Soak the seeds overnight before you plant them and they'll sprout in about a week or so. After 9 days of waiting, here are my sprouts at 1 day old, 3 days old, 5 days old, and 7 days old!

You can see the little tendrils already, so these need some skinny little branches and twigs to help them get over to the trellis on my patio. It is gonna be fun watching them climb up!

Protect them from slugs, snails and birds and goats and chickens if you got 'em!
Keep them watered well, but don't drown them and if you get some sun on them, they will really take off growing rapidly and probably start blooming in April.
This is California gardening... for a colder climate like Washington, check this post I did in 2012.

Here's a few of the colors you can expect: All the lovely pastels, and dusky tones, almost black, and some are bi-colored, but they are working on the ever-elusive yellow. Blue is particularly charming in the Sweet Pea!
The fragrance is a bit of sweet Spring charm,  the flowers are gorgeous and complicated, and arrive on long slim stems. A bunch of them in a vase or Mason Jar, is a simple pleasure.

Bi-Colors!

Curly tendrils!

Always choose varieties that say on the package or catalog description, that they are fragrant. Sadly, in the quest for color variety or heat tolerance, a lot of fragrance power has been lost.
I always choose the old-fashioned, or heirloom seeds, but this year, I'm trying a New Zealand line,  Cheri Amour, from Renee's Garden.  This variety promises to be both fragrant and beautifully colored with solids and bi-colors, and  the petals are ruffled!

Don't eat these peas.... they are not the garden peas... Sweet Peas are mildly poisonous.
A few old fashioned Sweet Pea varieties are Old Spice which resists heat, Flora Norton, Miss Willmott, the Incense blend, and the Spencers, and here's a link to Swallowtail Garden with 33 delightful varieties. There is still time if you hurry! 

Renee's Garden seeds are here.

Beloved for centuries, this farm in Southern California celebrates an April Sweet Pea day!

A little winter gardening in California

It's time to start the garden year for 2015! I'm so happy I wet my plants. ;-)

It's true, that tomatoes and marigolds will come later in year, there are so many seeds to plant now, for growing your own food. Whether you garden in pots like me, or have a 1/4 acre plot, a big big backyard and front yard, there is simply no greater joy in life than to grow your own food.
You feel strong, you feel smart, you feel a connection with the humans from centuries past, and since you are what you eat......
doncha wanna eat good and healthy? Yes, you do!
Even if you can't grow everything, I can't certainly, but I can grow a lot of food in a few dozen pots and planters.
Follow along with me this year, because we are gonna see some miracles of life, and some of the best food any human has ever eaten!

 Oh yes you can!  if you live in a climate that has a few easy frosts in the winter, say below 32 degrees only a few times during winter, you can plant so many seeds.

Here's a short list of what you can plant, and what I planted mid January here in Northern Cali.

Spinach, beets, radish, lettuce, pak choi, broccoli, mustard, parsnips, rutabaga, and kale.  I always check the back of the package to be sure it says, NO GMO.
Why in the hell would you trust a for-profit corporation that specialized in pesticides to sell you seeds to plant for food?
GMO's are not safe for you. I don't plant them, and I sure don't eat them when I buy food at the supermarket. I have been buying organic, which is 100% NON-GMO, and I read all the labels to be sure it isn't GMO.

See, it will say on the package.  Here is a list of NON GMO seed companies.
The saddest news I have to report after almost 60 years of gardening, that MONSANTO now owns about 40% of the seeds sold in the US and worldwide, where GMO's are allowed, which is almost nowhere!!
They also own some HEIRLOOM names of very old seed varieties. How's that for Evil!!
Monsanto bought Seminis, "Seminis Vegetable Seeds, Inc. (“Seminis”) has grown to be the world’s largest developer, grower and marketer of vegetable seeds. Monsanto Company purchased the Seminis business in 2005. Seminis offers seed for commercial farmers and home gardeners. For the home garden market, Seminis offers bean, broccoli, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, cucumber, eggplant, lettuce, melons, onion, peas, peppers, spinach, sweet corn, tomato and watermelon seed."

Beware! What home garden seed sellers are OK? Here is a link and a list.
Good Seeds........ 

This link to the Wayback Machine, the Internet Archive, has an article, a long long list, and it will take time to read, if you want to avoid Monsanto. And I know you do!

What seed companies took the Safe Seed Pledge?  Here is a list.
You can depend on these, and many others.
Renee’s Garden , Seeds of Change, TomatoFest Organic Heirloom Tomato Seeds, Lake Valley Seed,  Select Seeds Company, The Pepper Gal , Henry Field's Seed & Nursery Co., Seed Savers Exchange,  Ferry Morse Seed Company,  Johnny's Selected Seeds , Annie's Heirloom Seeds,  Nichol's Garden Nursery ,  Territorial Seed Company, Cooks Garden,  Ed Hume Seeds, Jung Seed Co. , and many many more.

2005, Monsanto grabbed approximately 40% of the US vegetable seed market - See more at: http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/the-four-steps-required-to-keep-monsanto-out-of-your-garden/#sthash.QlvfHe2a.dpuf

2005, Monsanto grabbed approximately 40% of the US vegetable seed market - See more at: http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/the-four-steps-required-to-keep-monsanto-out-of-your-garden/#sthash.QlvfHe2a.dpuf

first I had to pull all the dead plants from the frost last month, and here are the last blighty tomatoes. This year, I'm gonna start tomatoes that are blight-resistant.

Then in all my pots, I stirred in some organic compost, some chicken poop and stirred it up.
I made little indentations, and dropped in some seed according to the package instructions and gently covered them up, and watered with a gentle stream from my watering can with a rose.

A few weeks ago I bought a few pansies to brighten up the winter garden, and I trimmed back the alyssum, and gave the garden a general clean-up.

The potted garden is a little bleak, I'll admit, but it is nice to see what survived the frosts:
Alyssum, nasturtium (with a few damaged leaves), and all the perennials, that I just cut back to half, or some, to their stems leaving about an inch.

I also tossed in some winter flowers to bloom ASAP! These all have tiny seeds, so only cover them just slightly.... about 1/16" to 1/4".
Godetia, Evening Stock, Garden stock, calendula, more alyssum,  all are reliable early Spring bloomers.
I have some sprouts... so next bloggy post, I'll show pics of what some of the first ones up look like.