#BeInconvenient
With the recent release of Al Gore's The Inconvenient Sequel, and the recent news of America's exit from the Paris Climate Accord, it seems appropriate to focus on what we can do to reduce our carbon footprint once again. While companies like Tesla tackle the automobile industry and fossil fuel dependency, we gardeners and farmers can hone in on soil carbon sequestration. I had the pleasure of sitting 1 row away from Al Gore during an interview after a screening…
Review: Soil Summit 2.0 – Terroir
Last week I attended the Urban Soil Summit 2.0, a deeper look into soil and how to bring it back to life. This year's theme was Terroir, a sense of place. Terroir encompasses the environmental conditions (soil, terrain, water, climate) that effect the flavor of whatever is grown there. For the Urban Soil Summit 2.0 humans are very much included in terroir. Two days of mind-blowing, bigger-than-us discussion is difficult to summarize. For those not familiar with the Urban Soil…
Wordless Wednesday: The Waning Garden
August is a time of abandonment. We want to leave town, and our garden can look less than stellar as punishing heat dries up the soil. At least that's the case here in Los Angeles. Late planting (in late June/early July) brings some life to the garden as hot weather crops take off. The harvest is bountiful, and it is a time to watch nature's circle of life round the corner.
Recipe: Amaranth Torta from Qachuu Aloom
Gardening is as much about cultural connection as it is about sustainability and sustenance. Once per year, a group of Maya farmers come to The Learning Garden in Venice, CA, to share the seeds of their culture. This year, farmers from Qachuu Aloom Association in Guatemala brought more than seed, they brought recipes for how to cook with amaranth seed and leaves. In short, they made us an Amaranth Torta and showed us how to do it ourselves. It's fascinating…
Recipe: Penne with Poblano Chiles, Corn and Cilantro Cream
I love when a recipe drops in my lap that calls for ingredients readily available in the garden. It doesn't happen often, but when it does it's like grabbing the golden ring. This recipe for Penne with Poblano Chiles, Corn and Cilantro Cream highlights delicious summer flavors without spending too much time at the stove. We used the one successful Poblano chile we've harvested so far (even though the recipe calls for two), and the last of the cilantro just…
Review: The Garden Seed Savers Guide by Jill Henderson
If you like your books short and sweet then you'll love The Garden Seed Savers Guide: Easy Heirloom Seeds for the Home Gardener (Groundswell Books) by Jill Henderson. It's under 65 pages and gives you a basic guide to saving seeds for a range of crops, from lettuces to beans, from broccoli to squash. After lessons in seed nomenclature, pollination, and isolation distances, Henderson organizes the book into plant families to address specifics about saving seeds across a species. She…