Bugs are part of gardening. It's a fact of life--you will have bugs. There are good bugs and bad bugs, and if you create the right environment, the good bugs can keep the bad bugs at bay. Today we discovered a few signs of a bug's life in the garden. We're hopeful that our garden ecosystem will be kept in check by these guys. It took a little searching to identify them, but we thought we'd share our findings here.…
Artisan House, a combination market and restaurant/bar on the corner of 6th and Main Street, serves delicious, fresh food all day long, offering organic produce, artisanal wines and small-farm dairy products. The restaurant menu sports all the eye-catching entrees, sandwiches, soups, and fresh salads you could wish for. There were plans for a roof-top garden, but when that fell through, the owners asked Gardenerd to transform their patio into an edible experience for customers. When we visited Artisan House, we…
What’s a bioswale? It’s basically a trench to capture water on site, instead of having it run off down the street.
A great question came into Ask Gardenerd this week: "Do you have any tips on getting rid of root rot nematodes? Thanks! - Max" There are natural ways to rid or drastically reduce your soil of pesky nematodes, Max. But first a clarifying question: when you say "root rot nematodes" did you mean "root knot nematodes?" Root rot is usually caused by something else, like a fungus or by critters like beetle grubs eating the roots. Root knot, on the…
Fall is the time of year to plant perennials. Why? Isn't the season winding down? It is, but it's the perfect time to put winter-hardy perennials in the ground because they will use winter to develop strong roots. When spring rolls around, those fall-planted perennials will be leaps and bounds ahead of spring-planted plants, and will produce flowers or fruit more quickly. We're taking these cooler days to plant California Natives in the front yard. Next spring they'll jump into…
Today we’re talking about hugelkultur, a permaculture design involving logs, compost and decomposition.
This one is especially for anyone out there who thinks we're perfect here at Gardenerd. Hang on to your hats, it's gonna be great. Years ago, when traveling to Italy, we picked up this great cookbook from a vegetarian farm hotel in Umbria. We bought it mainly for one recipe: the sformatini di zucchine, a "soft creamy ricotta cheese and courgette flan with a hint of marjoram." It came to us in a cup/dish made from Pamagiano Reggiano cheese that…
Meet Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne, the Root Simple Team. They have spent years designing a homesteading lifestyle for themselves that is enviable among gardenerds. In the heart of Los Angeles, they keep chickens, grow food, preserve the harvest, make bread, and construct things from other things, all in hopes of living more lightly upon the planet. Their books, The Urban Homestead and Making it! are wonderful additions to any garden or self-sufficiency library, and they're really nice folks to boot!…
In honor of National Kale Day we're featuring Colcannon, a new recipe that is perfect as fall sweeps across the country.
October 1st is National Kale Day. Who cares that the holiday is only observed in Canada? We deserve to celebrate here in the States as well. Needless to say, we're very excited about this at Gardenerd. Every day we tout the benefits of kale and growing your own. Now we have an excuse to wax rhapsodic about this glorious vegetable with an official day to back us up. We're not crazy, just crazy about kale. This season we're growing 6…