Cali East LLC

06/18/2026

First garden flowers of the season!
Can anyone name the flowers?

06/18/2026

Vogue is doing a photoshoot of one of the gardens I manage for my regular job.
Stoked and I can't wait to see it in publication.

06/18/2026

Sometimes giant Blackish thumbs are green. This is 2 hours of tomato pruning and training at work.
My regular job is fun. If you want to turn your black thumbs green hit me up. You have to start somewhere and I can help!

04/20/2026

Brilliant.

Stop throwing away your broken patio umbrellas and turn that metal frame into a free vertical garden tower that gives you twice as much food in a tiny space. Ripped or faded umbrellas are a common sight after a big summer storm, and most people think they are just bulky trash that needs to be hauled to the curb. Buying a heavy-duty metal trellis at a garden center can cost a lot of money, and many plastic versions are just too weak to hold up heavy vegetable vines. Letting a broken umbrella sit in the garage just takes up valuable room and leaves you with a mess you eventually have to deal with anyway.

Repurposing the metal ribs of an umbrella creates a rock-solid skeleton for climbing plants that will never blow over or snap under pressure. This vertical shape allows you to grow massive amounts of cucumbers or beans in a small corner of a raised bed, which keeps the rest of your soil open for other crops. You get a professional-looking garden feature for zero dollars while keeping bulky trash out of the landfill. It turns a frustrating household break into a creative win that makes your backyard look smart and incredibly productive.

To build your own garden tower, start by using a pair of sharp scissors to strip every bit of the old, ripped fabric off the metal ribs until you are left with just the clean frame. Dig a deep hole in the center of your garden bed and sink the main umbrella pole at least twelve inches into the dirt so it stays perfectly upright. Open the umbrella frame halfway to create a wide "teepee" shape and tighten the locking mechanism to hold it in place. You can even use small metal tent stakes to anchor the ends of the ribs into the soil for extra stability during high winds.

Fill the area around the base with a rich mix of organic compost and dark topsoil to give your seeds plenty of energy to climb. Fast-growing vegetables like Marketmore 76 cucumbers or Kentucky Wonder pole beans are perfect for this setup because they love to wrap their tendrils around the thin metal arms. You can also plant Sugar Snap Peas in the early spring for a wall of sweet green pods that are very easy to pick at eye level. Tuck in some Yellow Marigolds at the feet of the trellis to add a splash of color and help keep garden pests away from your young vines.

Lay down a layer of plain brown cardboard around the base of the pole before adding your wood mulch to keep the weeds from stealing water from your climbing plants. If your vines are having trouble grabbing the smooth metal, you can wrap a bit of rough twine around the ribs to give the tiny tendrils something to hold onto. Wipe the metal frame down with a damp cloth every spring to keep it looking fresh and prevent any old dirt from touching your new vegetables. This simple hack ensures your garden stays organized and gives a second life to something that would have otherwise been wasted.

04/15/2026

Quick update — I’ve got 10 spots filled and I’m locking in final numbers tomorrow for the workshop.
If you’ve been thinking about coming, this is the time to decide — I won’t be adding more spots after I finalize.
This is a small, beginner-focused session on outdoor cannabis growing, keeping things simple and practical.
Before You Buy a Grow Tent
Sunday April 19 @ 10 AM
📍 Fantastic Gardens, Patchogue
Send me a message if you want to grab one of the remaining spots 👍

04/08/2026

Hosting a small beginner workshop on Long Island (April 19 in Patchogue at Fantastic Gardens) focused specifically on outdoor cannabis growing.
A lot of first-time growers get pulled into complicated indoor setups and expensive equipment, when there’s often a much simpler way to get started.
This session is geared toward beginners who want a clear, practical path without overcomplicating things.
Keeping it small — 20 people max.
If you’re interested, send me a message and I’ll get back to you later today with details.

04/07/2026

You're putting the same fertilizer on every plant in your garden. The lettuce that needs nitrogen for leaves is getting the same feed as the tomato that needs phosphorus for fruit.

Different crops are doing different jobs. The fertilizer should match the job, not the calendar.

🌱 The simple version:

- Growing leaves (lettuce, spinach, kale) → blood meal. Nearly pure nitrogen. Drives green growth

- Growing fruit (tomatoes, peppers, squash) → bone meal. Phosphorus triggers flowers and fruit. Mix into the planting hole at transplant

- Building toughness (peppers, fruit trees, anything stressed) → kelp meal. Potassium strengthens cell walls against heat, cold, and disease

- Starting anything (seedlings, transplants) → fish emulsion. Balanced, gentle, liquid. Smells terrible for a day

- Building soil long-term (containers, new beds, depleted soil) → worm castings. Can't overapply. Feeds the soil that feeds the plant

- Rebuilding dead soil (sterile bagged mix, years of synthetic-only feeding) → compost tea. Not a fertilizer — a biological delivery system that restocks the microbes

One thing to avoid: high nitrogen on fruiting crops during bloom. The plant grows gorgeous leaves and sets zero fruit. Save the blood meal for the lettuce row.

Match the fertilizer to what the plant is doing right now, not to a schedule 🌿

01/19/2026

Lol "not h**p"

06/02/2024

2024 Garden tour! Hit me up if you need garden tips or want me to help you accomplish this in YOUR yard!

06/02/2024

Hey Y'all. Here's some Tomato tips!