Two Tips for Spring
Special tips for your winter harvest and upcoming spring garden.
Changing of the Guard: Exit Winter, Enter Spring
Spring is just around the corner, and those who can grow fall crops are just starting to swap out winter's harvest for spring seedlings. Here's what we're harvesting this time of year: Lettuces Broccoli Romanesco Cavolo Broccolo a Getti di Napoli - Spigarello to many of you Spinach Arugula Kale Peas Root veggies - carrots, parsnips, beets, etc. There are a few nibbles here and there on lettuce leaves, and more aphids than we'd care to admit, but that's just…
Colorful watermelon radishes enliven this salad
Recipe: Watermelon Radish & Goat Cheese Salad
Just to be clear, it's not a watermelon and a radish in this salad, it's two Watermelon Radishes. If you haven't grown them, put them on your list of "musts" for this season. Watermelon radishes look boring on the outside; their whitish-green exterior doesn't lend much excitement to a dish. Cut them open, however, and you'll find jewel pink centers that make other vegetables jealous. There's a trick to growing watermelon radishes though: you have to let them get large--about…
Plan for the Drought
Water is becoming scarcer, and the battle to control what’s left is well underway.
The "thermal" in active batch thermal composting
Active Batch Composting
What the heck is "Active Batch Composting" anyway? You're about to find out, but first let's look at another term: Cold composting. Cold composting, though the name is a bit of a misnomer, is what most gardeners do. We have a compost bin or pile, and over time we add our kitchen scraps and garden waste, some leaves and shredded office paper, tissues, paper towels, etc. We water it and wait. The temperature may climb to 100-120°F but that's about…
Linda's husband, Richard's recording studio overlooks a slope of rosemary, fruit trees and artichokes.
Field Trip: Permaculture / Biodynamic Garden
Field trips are always fun because you get to see concepts in practice. Visiting Linda Gibbs' garden was no exception. I stopped by her Malibu home last week for a look at her Permaculture/biodynamic garden as she prepared for spring. Linda's property sits at the edge of a gulch and overlooks the ocean. Lush green views and ocean breezes lend themselves to a peaceful garden experience. Over winter, wild fennel, borage and grasses volunteer to cover the hillside to attract…
New bed, ready for compost and plants
Turning Cover Crops
Let us depart from conventional wisdom of turning cover crops into the soil beneath. Let us instead take a lesson from John Jeavons' GROW BIOINTENSIVE method and use the cover crops as compost materials elsewhere. Buy why, you cry? Why can't I just turn my cover crop over into the soil, cover it with finished compost or manure, water it and wait? It's that last part...the waiting. You've already waited for the cover crop to grow, then flower, so why…
Purple, orange and yellow carrots await you
Grow Rainbow Carrots
You can enjoy a rainbow of colors in your meals if you grow carrots. What? You mean they're not just orange? Let us explore. They may take awhile to grow, but carrots can be one of the most satisfying crops to harvest. That's mainly because you never know what you're really getting until you pull them out from the earth. But what if you discovered this when you did: Purple, orange and yellow carrots await you Funky shapes and colors…
New From Scratch
New magazines surface all the time, but this one is geared towards homesteaders with passion for all that they do.