What's a girl to do when her plants look anemic and aren't growing like they should be, despite the mounds of compost and organic fertilizer that are lovingly applied each season? The mystery can only be solved one way: Get a soil test.
We have two sets of tomatoes - one in our test garden, and one at our community garden at Ocean View Farms. Both were grown from seed under grow lights, and both were ...
Find out how gardeners can get connected with land to make everyone happy.
I tried. I really tried. I followed the instructions, but something went terribly wrong.
After finishing my latest read - Cooking with Edible Flowers, by Miriam Jacobs - I felt inspired to make sorbet with the abundant lime geranium growing in a pot out in the garden. Miriam doesn't have a recipe for lime geranium sorbet, but the internet does, so I grabbed one from Susan Wittig Albert's All About Thyme website for scented geranium sorbet. It seemed easy enough, and I'm ...
Call me a control freak, but I like to know where my food comes from. I started growing my own food to get fresh, healthy produce, to use less water, fewer pesticides and harmful chemicals - but really, to know where my food comes from. That was great, but I thought, "What else can I do to close the loop here? To be more self-reliant?" Composting and
Find out a great way to share your surplus and fill in the gaps in your food supply.
A question came in this week about scale:
"I have two large tree mallows (grown as shrubs) with a very heavy scale infestation. A local nursery recommends using a petroleum oil spray. Is there another effective, greener solution?"
Yes, I can definitely suggest an alternative to petroleum sprays, but first - a little understanding about what scale is:
Scale is an insect, but it looks and behaves more like a mollusk. There are soft ...
Have you ever had a recipe lying around that you keep for years, just knowing that someday you'll make it? Year after year, I've flipped through my binder of torn-out recipes from magazines that I've collected over time. My eyes have landed on this one page a hundred times, and each time I've promised myself I'll make it. This week I finally made good on that promise - 15 years later.
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Leeks are easy to grow and great to cook with. This week's tip features a simple recipe for your summer harvest.
Our adventure in Ojai continue with the opening day of "u-pick" season at a local lavender farm. New Oak Ranch hung balloons out on the road sign, inviting folks to come and pick a handful of fresh lavender for $5 a bunch. The farm features 20 different varieties of lavender (mostly Grosso, Hidcote, Buena Vista, and Provence) but they also have Pixie tangerines, olives and walnuts.
The bees were hovering throughout ...
A quick weekend getaway was in order - some place warm and cozy, and filled with joyful memories. Ojai, CA fit the bill. It was the location of our destination wedding five years ago. Laden with orange groves, olive and avocado trees, and lavender fields, Ojai (pronounced Oh-Hi) combines the small town feeling of local farmers with the artist community of hippies. On a weekend with no plans, we found ourselves pretty busy.
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