Dirty Dozen 2014
Top 12 common produce items with the highest pesticide residues
A transplant from a relative's yard.
Loquat Season
Loquat. That word raises the brow of many non-gardeners everywhere, and even some gardeners. Aside from sounding like a short kumquat, loquats are unusual fruits because you don't often them at farmers' markets, and never see them in grocery stores. Why? They don't travel well. At all. The photo above shows loquats that traveled to a produce exchange in a box and home from that exchange on a bicycle. The total distance was under 5 miles. Imagine what 1,500 miles…
Founder of Linear City's rooftop garden
Rooftop Garden in L.A.
A lot of people don't have space to garden, and in many places the rooftop is the only option. If you live where it snows, the local architecture is built to support the weight of snow, so a hundred pounds of wet soil per square foot won't collapse a roof. Sadly in Los Angeles, many of our building roofs (or rooves, for those of an elder age) weren't built to hold weather. A light-weight like yours truly can make an…
White eggs dyed for Easter (with 1 of our colored eggs mixed in). Can you tell which one?
Dying Colored Easter Eggs
Dying colored Easter eggs. Isn't that redundant? Well, yes, but let me explain. We have chickens who lay colored eggs (peach, blue, green and chocolate brown). Most commercially available Easter egg coloring kits recommend using white eggs. As gardenerds, we needed to know what would happen if we tried dying our colored eggs. Let us explore the process. We had guests staying for the holiday and the 6 year old in the group was eager to experiment along with us.…
YouTube: How to Clean Pruning Shears
Our latest instructional video is live on YouTube. It walks you through the process of properly cleaning, oiling and sharpening your pruning shears. Taking care of your garden tools is as important as watering your plants. If cleaned and sharpened regularly, a good set of pruning shears will last for years. One of the best investments a gardener can make is on quality tools that last a lifetime. My own pruning shears (seen in the video) are 16 years old.…
Preparing for Blight
Every year blight can be an issue for your garden
Easter Traditions
Check out Easter traditions from around the world.
A volunteer tomato sprouted from under our compost storage tub.
Volunteers: Nature’s Helpers
This time of year, we have a lot of sprouts popping up in odd places. We didn't plant them, they are "volunteers." Volunteers are a godsend in filling in spaces around the yard with spring flowers, extra lettuces, and even the best tomatoes you'll ever grow. We call them "Nature's slap in the face" because they do better than most of the plants we've cultivated on purpose. They don't need much help from us, and so they tend to be…
A loquat tree with cages of cotton hanging about
Native Garden Tour- Part 2: The coolest thing ever
Plants are interesting. Birds are interesting. Put them together and you get a Xerces Society Certified Pollinator Habitat. Last week on the Theodore Payne Native Plant Garden Tour, we started off with a jaw dropping experience in Beverly Hills that was worthy of its own blog post. It was the coolest thing ever. For those who missed the first installment of this tour, read up and come back. Okay, now onward. The first stop on the tour lent mystery before…
Contaminated Soil?
Perform soil tests to check for contaminates where you grow