Sprout It!
There's a new gardening app to help you as you garden and it's gardenerd friendly.
Hot weather crops get the sunniest part of the garden
Tiny But Mighty Venice Garden Makeover
Those who are familiar with Venice Beach, CA know that it's a great place to live, but the lots are tiny. Finding a place to garden is challenging and finding adequate sunlight can be even more of a challenge. Last month, Gardenerd helped one couple find the perfect solution to both issues. The homeowners were excited to take back control over their food sources, and wanted to grow as much as possible. The front yard was the only place that…
Bee on a cardoon
Field Trip: Edible Garden at Natural History Museum
Amongst the dinosaur bones, fossils, and taxidermy, there is a beautiful reason to step outside at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, CA: the Edible Garden (or Home Garden as they like to call it). You can see the expanse of fragrant and colorful roses from across the fence, but only in the Edible garden can you catch, marvel, and release insects of all sorts as you browse tasty heirlooms growing in abundance. Each plant is carefully marked to…
Propagating Lavender
Want lavender growing in your yard? Save money by propagating lavendar.
Zucchini 500
Annual zucchini-based racing event that gives kids permission to play with their food.
Tassels can appear to be many shades, from purple to white
The Birds and the Bees: Corn Sex
It happens every day. Plants send up flowers, bees pollinate them and vegetables are born. But corn has its own way to doing things, bees not included. So how exactly does corn come to be? Let's explore: It all starts with a seed...but we'll skip that part and get to the juicy stuff. Jump ahead to when corn stalks are several feet high. Tassels start poking out from the top of the plant. The tassel floret - the male part…
Poona Kheera cucumbers start out green and spiky.
Growing Poona Kheera Cucumbers
With Monsanto's renegade GMO wheat in the news, the importance of growing and preserving heirloom and open pollinated seed is even more evident. Every year we plant and heirloom we've never grown, and this year it was the Poona Kheera cucumber. The Poona Kheera is an heirloom cucumber from India, where the fruit's heritage finds its origins. It's a light colored cucumber with skin that darkens to resemble a russet potato when ripe. How could any gardenerd resist something that…
Puckered Pepper Leaves
Last week in the garden I noticed that some of the newer leaves on my tomatoes and peppers were puckering and misshapen. At first glance I thought maybe spider mites, but there were no signs of infestation. Maybe it could have been a mosaic virus, but no, the leaves weren't curled or discolored in any way – just puckered. Only one way to find out – research!
Finished product - shelf stable green onions
Preserving Green Onions
No matter how we try to use up green onions from the garden, we always end up either with too many in the fridge or overgrown, leek-sized onions taking up space in the garden. This week we did something about it. Now that the days are longer, we hauled out our trusty solar food dryer to put it to work for the season. In addition to making delicious flax chips again, we've christened the solar dryer this year with our…
Gardenerds Evan Kleiman and Christy Wilhelmi
Gardenerd on Good Food
And now for a moment of shameless self-promotion... For those who missed it, I was a guest on 89.9 KCRW's Good Food with Evan Kleiman on June 1, 2013. It was a dream come true to sit across from Evan and chat about gardening and soil testing. There was more to the interview than what aired, of course, including a moment where I revealed that I'd never baked a fruit pie because my mother is so good at it, there's…