Emily Murphy is known for her website Pass The Pistil, where she shares home-grown gardening tips and seasonal ideas for food and wellness. She's also a photographer who's work shines through in her new book Grow What You Love: 12 Food Plant Families to Change Your Life. In the interest of full disclosure, Emily and I are friends on social media, where we #FF each other regularly. I offered to write a review of her new book in a Twitter…
Well smack my fanny and call me Pearl! I just germinated tomato seeds that "expired" in 2000. What's the secret to prolonged seed vitality and successful germination? It's all about seed storage, baby. The truth is seeds don't expire. They lose viability if stored improperly. While most seed companies will tell you to replace seeds every 2-3 years, those seeds will keep for decades and will germinate when planted if kept in a cool, dark, and dry place. The germination…
The top requested subject on our New Year's survey was "What to Grow When." For those new to Gardenerd, we want you to know that every year--nay--every spring and fall, we publish our list of what to grow for the coming season. Often the information is buried in a Gardenerd Gazette, so here it is in easy-access form. It's spring, and for many climates that means it's time to plant cool season crops. If you live in an area where…
Learn about soil microorganisms and compost teas with Sheri Powell
Last year, during a heat wave, Meredith of Snuggly Toes sent me a free, unsolicited pair of her alpaca fur shoe inserts to test out. Meredith runs a small farm in Oregon, and calls herself the "head pooper scooper and alpaca lover at Springtime Farms." Ever since I wrote about FiberShed I've been keen on supporting local fiber. When the package arrived, my first thought was "when will I ever need these in California." But then I remembered that my…
Nothing grows outside in Iceland in the winter. The land is blanketed with snow and scarcely a twig is visible for miles. Lava rock punches through the landscape and geysers power the entire island. Iceland gets 100% of its energy from either wind, geothermal, or hydroelectric power sources. And you can swim in the runoff as a health benefit. It's another world. I'll bet you're wondering why I'm writing about Iceland. I was there last week for a scant 2…
People ask me about my community garden plot a lot, I guess because I don't post photos from it. Most of the pictures you see here on Gardenerd are from our Test Garden, but today I'm sharing what's growin' on at Ocean View Farms (OVF) Organic Community Garden. For those not familiar, OVF plots are 15'x15' so biointensive planting is a must. We cram as much as we can into that plot, and we get a lot out of it.…
Thank you to everyone who participated in our New Year's survey about what you want to learn in 2018. It's so helpful to know what you gardenerds want to explore this year. It's hard to limit the choices to just 3, but it does help narrow the field. Which Topic Won? Topping the list of topics to cover in 2018 were: What to Grow When? Organic Pest Control Garden Design Surprisingly, Garden Design rose to the top three from pretty…
We're like kids in a candy store when it comes to seeds, aren't we Gardenerds? As we do every year here at Gardenerd, it's time to pick our favorite seeds for the coming season. This year we're featuring the color purple (again- can't help it!), and a couple of unusual challenges for more advanced gardeners. Let's get to it: Black Nebula Carrot We're suckers for anything purple or black. We've grown Pusa Asita in the past, and the yield has…
Here's a cool question that came into Ask Gardenerd this week: "Hi Christy, When transplanting plants grown in pots, I usually find large sections of soil that are dry and hard, often near the bottom, but not always. I've tried pushing small sticks into the soil to create a channel for water to follow, but it hasn't helped significantly. Do you have any suggestions on how to keep soil in pots watered evenly? Thanks, Jeff Bremer" Solutions for Compacted Soil…