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Read more about the article Essential Plants for a Great Butterfly Garden
A swallowtail butterfly on a ‘Red Riding Hood’ Penstemon.

Essential Plants for a Great Butterfly Garden

Continue ReadingEssential Plants for a Great Butterfly Garden

Today's post is from guest blogger Randy Schultz from American Meadows. Butterflies need our help and in this article he suggests plants that provide habitat for these beautiful creatures. Take it away Randy: Essential Plants for a Great Butterfly Garden Everyone loves butterflies. These delightful insects are like flying flowers, adding color and movement everywhere they go. Unfortunately, these beautiful insects are in trouble. The populations of many species, including the monarch butterfly, are dwindling due to shrinking habitat. But…

400+ Tips for Organic Gardening Success

New 400+ Tips Gardening Book for Summer!

Continue ReadingNew 400+ Tips Gardening Book for Summer!

We're pleased to announce the arrival of 400+ Tips for Organic Gardening Success: A Decade of Tricks, Tools, Recipes, and Resources from Gardenerd.com. It's been ten years in the making and we're launching it on June 20th, just in time for Summer Solstice. Many of you have read our Tip of the Week on the website, and listened to the Gardenerd Tip of the Week Podcast. Each week we list a helpful link to more information about that week's tip.…

Read more about the article Recipe: Blackberry Jam
The recipe makes about 2 pints

Recipe: Blackberry Jam

Continue ReadingRecipe: Blackberry Jam

Blackberry season comes on strong, and if you don't embrace it, your garden will have an understory of rotten blackberries within a month. We've already frozen 3 pints of berries, and made blackberry ice cream. We're still picking 2 cups a day. Next up: jam. This recipe we found on The Easy Homestead uses no pectin and no cane sugar. It uses  honey (which we have in abundance at the moment, thank you, bees) and half an apple instead. I…

Read more about the article Wordless Wednesday: Gardening for a Healthy Planet
Let artichokes go to flower. We'll save seeds from this Winnetka Purple artichoke for the Seed Library of Los Angeles.

Wordless Wednesday: Gardening for a Healthy Planet

Continue ReadingWordless Wednesday: Gardening for a Healthy Planet

I can't believe I have to refer back to this article I wrote in February, but it's more appropriate than ever now. While it's comforting to see the rest of the world stand up for the planet in the absence of US participation in the Paris Climate Accord, as gardeners we have our work cut out for us. Here are some images to help inspire your spring and summer garden endeavors this month. Gardening makes a difference. Let's garden for…

Read more about the article Guess What! Tree Kale Does Go to Seed
Flowers appear at the tip-top of our tree kale plant.

Guess What! Tree Kale Does Go to Seed

Continue ReadingGuess What! Tree Kale Does Go to Seed

I've heard colleagues say that tree kale never goes to seed, that it can only be propagated by cuttings. Well, my 10-foot tree kale would beg to differ. It's gone to seed after falling over in a wind storm (probably stress-induced) while it continues to produce tasty leaves. Tree kale is a perennial vegetable lauded by the permaculture community because it forms deep roots (obviously deep enough to withstand falling over in a wind storm). We propped that baby back…

Read more about the article Being Prepared
Food grade barrels are best for use in vegetable gardens.

Being Prepared

Continue ReadingBeing Prepared

A building caught fire in our neighborhood recently, leading to a power outage for two hours. The lack of internet and electricity, even for a short time, reminds us how dependent we are upon these modern conveniences. A recent article in the LA Times about Dr. Lucy Jones and her research of earthquakes and the San Andreas Fault brought even more clarity to the fact that we are SO not prepared for a natural disaster. Sure, we've got camping equipment…

Read more about the article Design: Vertical Patio Garden Delight
The vertical garden is planted with spring and summer crops.

Design: Vertical Patio Garden Delight

Continue ReadingDesign: Vertical Patio Garden Delight

We recently created a tidy vertical garden for a busy business woman in Marina del Rey. Her condominium patio didn't allow room for a full-sized garden, and tight quarters limited her sun exposure to one wall. Her patio housed a collection of random containers, some with leggy plants long overdue for re-potting. We took steps to unify the patio to enhance her new vertical garden. Our first step was to re-do the patio to remove infiltrating tree roots. The client…

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