Recipe: Garlicky Fresh Christmas Lima Beans with Thyme
I've grown Christmas Lima Beans for several years and have come to love this prolific plant. The first time, we planted in spring and it grew and produced for a year and a half (and it would have kept going if we didn't have to pull it out). This time, after a year of constant production, we had to make way for new crops. Sad but true. After harvesting all the dried pods, the plant was still full of green…
Mini Orchard & Garden for Mom and Dog
Spring is just around the corner, but in the Valley it's already here. Southern California continues to have unseasonably high temperatures and one new gardener wanted to take advantage of it with a new mini orchard and garden for her Sherman Oaks home. The homeowner wanted to grow what she eats: mostly fruit and veggies. So we set her up with a mini orchard of 6 fruit trees and two raised beds, plus a few planters for herbs and berries.…
Brussels Sprouts and Aphids
How to keep aphids off your brussels sprouts
Let’s Go to Seed School – Part 3
In this, our last installment about Seed School we explore the economic and political makeup of seeds in our world. For me, this is the real reason we need to save seed and preserve species. On our final day, we were asked to brainstorm about how to solve problems on a local level, as well as a global one. As gardeners we know that local action is sometimes the only thing that makes a difference. Community gardens, for example, have…
I am Planting a Garden, by Heidi Rose
I ran across this poem a friend wrote several years ago. I read it through again and felt it went right to the heart of what every gardener must be feeling in anticipation of spring. The excitement of new journeys, the fear of failure (yet again), and the burning desire to get out there in the garden right now; all of these feelings are swirling about. This poem reminds us that patience, trial and error, and suspense are all part of…
Recipes for Winter Harvests
How to make good use out of your Winter harvest
Cat Grass for a Happy Mittens
Cats love chewing on grass. And corn seedlings, apparently (ugh!). And young cover crops (double ugh.) In order to keep Mittens out of the raised beds, we've planted a flat of cat grass just for her. She's enthralled. The convergence of two things brought this on: free Cat Treats, Mixed Gourmet Greens grass seeds arriving from Renee's Garden Seeds (thanks, Renee's Media Kit 2014), and some freshly germinated Sonora White Wheat from our germination test at Seed School. Renee's Cat…
Let’s Go to Seed School – Part 2
We're back with more about our week in Seed School. (In case you missed the first post, click here.) Later in the week, we delved more into the wonders of seeds with dissection, genetics and seed cleaning. So...let's go to seed school again. Plants are marvelous things, all very different. We were given the charge to look closely at the male and female parts of flowers in order to understand the process of pollination. Once again, when the hand-outs landed…
Tips from Seed School
Save locally adapted seeds for better results