Spring is Here
All past gardening sins are forgiven and gardener’s amnesia takes over once again. Take good notes, gardenerds, as you begin your spring garden planting.
Finished garden pops with color in front of the home's white background.
Design: Southern Hemisphere Garden
We recently completed a landscaping project for a homeowner from South Africa. He wanted a lush and colorful landscape that is drought tolerant and low maintenance. At the same time, he talked of turf grass and wispy foliage that reminded him of home. We brought his desires and needs together in this new landscape. Since we usually focus on edible gardens, we started with fruit trees in the front yard, then surrounded them with succulents and a combination of California…
The thick mixture lives up to its name. Hot and sour and delicious.
Recipe: Cabbage Hot and Sour Soup
The tail end of a winter garden is marked by an abundance of cabbage. We've got enough to feed a small country at the moment, so we're reaching for our stock of cabbage recipes. While others focus on kimchi, we prefer to focus on the immediate. This green cabbage hot and sour soup is ready in 30 minutes or fewer. It serves 8, so you'll have leftovers if your family is smaller than the Weasleys. Martha's Green Cabbage Hot and…
Cropdots App
You can sell or trade your own produce by uploading a photo, listing your asking price, registering a debit card for deposits, and that’s it.
Fungi growing on wood chips. Used for making fungal-dominant compost.
Fungal Wood Pile for Compost
If you have issues like powdery mildew and blight in your garden, chances are you need more good fungi in your soil to combat the bad fungi. Our latest YouTube video shows you one easy and free way to inoculate wood chips, which can be used later in your compost bin to create fungal-dominant compost for your garden. Fungal is good! Dr. Elaine Ingham, who coined the phrase, "Soil Food Web," recommended this trick, so we tested it out last…
Ask Gardenerd: Home Made Fertilizers
We don't get this kind of question very often, so we thought we'd feature it this week: "Hey there, I was wondering if you know any good homemade recipes of organic fertilizers used for vegetative and flowering growth? If you could also help me out with the dosage situation too... Thanks, this would be extremely helpful! --Paul" Paul, there are so many options to choose from when it comes to fertilizer ingredients. It can be complicated, because too much of…
March To-Dos
Give soil a boost before planting by adding compost and worm castings to your beds.
White Sonora wheat rises up for pollination.
Wordless Wednesday: Winter into Spring
March is a time of transition. Winter crops die, making room for spring seedlings. Volunteers poke through the soil and take a chance. We celebrate new life in the garden as the old fades away. We move from winter into spring. Start seeds, weed soils, add compost over bare soil, plan big and enjoy this transition from winter into spring!
SLOLA's collection is small, so we are all growing out seed to increase availability.
Growing Artichokes From Seed
Artichokes bring to mind the romantic rolling hills of Tuscany. In fact, during one of my trips to Italy, I photographed a box of baby purple artichokes (see below) at a Naples farmers market that captures the splendor and beauty of food in Italy. We have a Mediterranean climate here in Los Angeles, so artichokes grow as well here as they do in Italy. And while most people buy transplants at the nursery, growing artichokes from seed is not difficult.…
Invasive Species Week
An invasive species is categorized as a “non-native plant, animal or pathogen that causes economic or environmental harm or harm to human health,” according to the National Invasive Species Council.