Harvesting Sweet Potatoes
Learn how to roast and prepare squashes this fall
Salad Leaf Basil
Recipe: Almond or Hemp Seed Pesto (Vegan)
It's wonderful to return from Italy to find the garden bursting with basil. This is cause for celebration! It's time to make more pesto to freeze for later use. Since one does not return from Italy thinner than one was before one left, we opted to make a vegan version of pesto using almonds or hemp seeds as the "cheese." We found a recipe from the Cafe Gratitude cookbook and whipped up a few batches. It's pretty easy, all you…
Fresh olives ready to be picked next week.
Field Trip: Villa Vignamaggio, Italy
We took a little break from gardening here in the states to visit the Chianti region in Italy for a friend's wedding last week. Little did we know we would be staying in a magnificent villa complete with organic vegetable garden. Meet Villa Vignamaggio. Villa Vignamaggio is everything a hopeless romantic could wish for: stately mansion, spectacular hilltop views, olive trees and grape vines everywhere, manicured gardens suitable for royalty. But while everyone else was busy fawning over all that…
Some home grown, some pilfered. All beautiful.
Wordless Wednesday: Harvest 2015
These are never really wordless, but you get the idea. Today is a celebration of a season passing, and a season's passion. Harvest time is satisfying, beautiful and temporary. Next we start fall crops. Here is a little of both. And what's next? Fall! What are you pulling from your garden these days? Post your haul / stash / treasures here.
One of several Pomegranate trees on the property.
Field Trip: Arlington Gardens, Pasadena
During the Garden Writers Association Symposium in September, bus loads of eager gardenerds stepped off to visit Arlington Gardens, an historic site in Pasadena, CA. It is "Pasadena's only designated public garden designed to demonstrate sustainable water-wise gardening in a Mediterranean climate." Boy, did it live up to that claim. In the middle of our drought, this garden was lush and thriving. Enjoy these photos, and then plan your visit. Walking around to the different "rooms" in the garden, we…
Ask Gardenerd: Preventing Bugs Next Year
As we start over with a fall garden in warm-winter climates, or put the garden away in more temperate regions, the question arises once again: "How can I prevent bugs that were problematic this year in my fruit and vegetable garden ie. aphids, sawflies, stink bugs from overwintering and becoming a problem next year?" - Fern Fried Well, Fern, it's all about interrupting the life cycle and creating competition when it comes to pests. It's also about boosting the vitality…
Renee's Purple Opal basil
Basil Trial: Our Favorite Basils
This summer we tested four new basil varieties against four of our favorites. That was a lot of basil! It was a grueling process (ha-ha) and as a result, we have many pints of pesto in the freezer for winter use. Basil is a hot weather crop, so its planting season is over, but you can use this trial to help guide you as seed catalogs begin to fill you mailbox. So many choices, here's what worked for us: Tested…
Grasshoppers bite chunks out of the sides of leaves, but can consume entire leaves over time.
Ask Gardenerd: Are Grasshoppers Bad?
We love it when people ask about bugs before killing them. Better safe than sorry. You may be killing a beneficial insect, so please ask before taking action. Like Dora here: "Are grasshoppers bad for my garden? If so how can I get rid of [them] naturally?" Dora, we used to let grasshoppers wander the garden thinking they were good, until they eat one of our hibiscus plants down to a stick. Then they attacked our lemon tree and ate…