Two Tips for Spring
This week’s tip comes from avid gardeners who wrote into Organic Gardening Magazine.
Photos by Andrew Cheeseman
Oh Sweet Goodness: First Honey Harvest
We couldn't stand the suspense any longer. Our bees were filling up frame after frame of their hive with golden nectar and we wanted to share the experience. So we donned our suits and veils and harvested a single frame for ourselves. Oh, sweet goodness! The frame was heavy with precious cargo, with each hexagonal cell covered in wax capping to let us know that it's ready. Open cells of comb are not ready; bees wait until the moisture content…
Repair Café
Instead of throwing away that rusty or broken hand tool, why not bring it to a repair café and get it fixed?
Millet turning darker at the tips
Millet Update and Spring Colors
We planted millet in late February and planted it out last month and already we have an update! While many of the plants were destroyed by curious cats, the remainder have sent up impressive stalks of grain. This being our first time growing millet, we weren't sure what to expect. It's always fun to try something new and see what happens. Here's what we found in the garden yesterday: Millet apparently is a short crop, only reaching about 15" tall.…
Mint adds brightness to this delicious appetizer or side dish.
Recipe: Fava Bean Crostini
What do you do with all those fava beans from your winter cover crop? The possibilities are endless, but when you're in the mood for something sophisticated, try this fava bean crostini for a bright spring delight. It is based on a recipe from Susie Middleton's Eat Your Spring Veggies: Five Fresh Dishes in Oregon Live. Instead of shallots, we used some of our freshly harvested, young green garlic. Check out this satisfying treat: Ingredients - for 2 Kosher salt 1 pounds…
2013 Clean Fifteen
The Environmental Working Group’s 2013 Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen list you can choose organic where it matters most.
Raised Bed planter (getting 10 minutes of shade from the palm tree overhead)
Easy Patio Garden
One of my Santa Monica College students wanted to put in a starter garden to try out her new found skills on a small scale. She didn't want to invest in landscaping or permanent raised beds just yet. After a consultation and some thoughtful deliberation, we landed on a patio garden with a pre-fab raised bed. The patio was level concrete and brick, eliminating the need to level out uneven ground (saving on labor costs). There was no grass to…
Beans, squash, orach spinach, and herbs. Start these and more now.
LA Times Garden Chat – Spring Garden Tips
For those who missed it, I had the pleasure of chatting with Lisa Boone of the LA Times a couple weeks ago about spring planting. It was a chance to share some helpful gardening tips and answer viewer questions. It appears to be one of their more popular chats, receiving more than 27,000 views as of this writing. May it help you get your garden in shape this spring: You'll find tips on pest control, volunteers, composting and small space…
Earth Month
April is the chosen month to focus on conservation and protecting our Earth.
Asian Raw Cabbage and Tofu Salad
Here's another chance to cook (or not cook) with fresh ingredients from the garden with this great Raw Cabbage and Tofu Salad recipe. It's easy to make and uses your cabbage and carrot harvest from the cool-weather season. It happens; we grow things and then try to figure out what to do with the bounty. This recipe uses a whole head of cabbage, making room for more in the fridge. We used a few colorful carrots and green onions from…