What's Growin' On Archives - Page 103 of 149

Raised Bed planter (getting 10 minutes of shade from the palm tree overhead)

Easy Patio Garden

One of my Santa Monica College students wanted to put in a starter garden to try out her new found skills on a small scale. She didn't want to invest in landscaping or permanent raised beds just yet. After a consultation and some thoughtful deliberation, we landed on a patio garden with a pre-fab raised bed. The patio was level concrete and brick, eliminating the need to level out uneven ground (saving on labor costs). There was no grass to…

Post author:Christy
Post published:May 1, 2013
Post category:Blog What's Growin' On
Post comments:3 Comments

Beans, squash, orach spinach, and herbs. Start these and more now.

LA Times Garden Chat – Spring Garden Tips

For those who missed it, I had the pleasure of chatting with Lisa Boone of the LA Times a couple weeks ago about spring planting. It was a chance to share some helpful gardening tips and answer viewer questions. It appears to be one of their more popular chats, receiving more than 27,000 views as of this writing. May it help you get your garden in shape this spring: You'll find tips on pest control, volunteers, composting and small space…

Post author:Christy
Post published:April 30, 2013
Post category:Blog What's Growin' On
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Asian Raw Cabbage and Tofu Salad

Here's another chance to cook (or not cook) with fresh ingredients from the garden with this great Raw Cabbage and Tofu Salad recipe. It's easy to make and uses your cabbage and carrot harvest from the cool-weather season. It happens; we grow things and then try to figure out what to do with the bounty. This recipe uses a whole head of cabbage, making room for more in the fridge. We used a few colorful carrots and green onions from…

Post author:Christy
Post published:April 24, 2013
Post category:Blog What's Growin' On
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It’s Garden Tour Time

April and May are remembered most for showers and flowers, but the best part of all that spring activity is the garden tours. Now's your chance to get out and see what's growin' on, to get ideas for your own garden, and to see how other gardeners are doing it. Garden tours lend great perspective and "fill the well" for those of us who do this for a living. They differ from flower shows and expos in one major way--they're…

Post author:Christy
Post published:April 17, 2013
Post category:Blog What's Growin' On
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Whitish clear eggs in small piles atop the soil

Mystery Eggs

Last week I was cleaning up my community garden plot to ready it for new crops and I came upon several small piles of mystery eggs. I had never seen anything like it before and didn't know whether they were from beneficial insects or not. So I left them. Here's what they looked like: Had I been diligent and done the research right away, I would have found out immediately (thank you Google images) that they were...ready for it? SLUG…

Post author:Christy
Post published:April 16, 2013
Post category:Blog What's Growin' On
Post comments:45 Comments

A small fountain pump is a great garden helper

Fountain Pump for Rainbarrels

Our rainy season appears to be coming to a close here in Los Angeles, but before we turn on the irrigation, there's still a little bit of water in our rain barrels. It's hard to get every last drop out from the bottom, so we've employed a little ingenuity to help us along. Fountain pumps come in handy to extract the last bit of water out from your rain barrels. They can also help pump water uphill to your plants.…

Post author:Christy
Post published:April 10, 2013
Post category:Blog What's Growin' On
Post comments:2 Comments

Preserving Cilantro (and other herbs)

Nature plays a mean trick on gardeners here in Southern California. By the time the tomatoes are ripe and the chiles are ready to pick, the salsa garden is missing an important ingredient: cilantro. Our delicate friend has long since bolted to seed, and like the hawk and wolf in Ladyhawke, never the twain shall meet. But now there is a simple way to preserve the fresh flavor of cilantro. It's like making pesto, but without the cheese and nuts.…

Post author:Christy
Post published:April 9, 2013
Post category:Blog What's Growin' On
Post comments:7 Comments

Corn and a mystery cucurbit -most likely cucumbers grow together this season.

Interplanting – It’s a Good Thing

You've most likely heard of companion planting, so interplanting won't be entirely unfamiliar to you. It's basically the idea of planting two or three different plants together to take advantage of available space, and to benefit the plants involved. For example - by alternating plantings of lettuces and kale in rows, you can take advantage of slow-growing kale by using the space in between to grow a quick crop of lettuces. Another example is radishes and artichokes or squash. You…

Post author:Christy
Post published:April 3, 2013
Post category:Blog What's Growin' On
Post comments:4 Comments

Finished dish awaiting devouring.

Recipe: Pasta al Cavolo Broccolo e Romanesco (Gluten-Free)

It's a mouthful of a title, but basically Pasta al Cavolo Broccolo e Romanesco is pasta with Romanesco broccoli and a delightful Italian sprouting broccoli otherwise known as Spigarello or Cavolo Broccolo a Getti di Napoli. I made up this recipe based on what was in the fridge. Spigarello is grown for the leaves more than for the heading flowers. You can use it as a substitute for kale, collards or spinach in cooked dishes like this. Our recipe starts…

Post author:Christy
Post published:April 2, 2013
Post category:Blog What's Growin' On
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Honey bees taking pollen and nectar from wisteria blossoms.

Wisteria (Wistaria) on My Mind

Wisteria blooms each March in Southern California, though last year it bloomed in February (well hello, climate change). Each year we look forward to fragrant blossoms hanging delicately from the pergola overhead and we don't seem to mind the beautiful mess they make as the purple petals fall to the ground. Bees love wisteria and dance around each dangling cluster of blossoms gathering nectar for this season's honey stores. But before we wax rhapsodic any further, let's get something straight:…

Post author:Christy
Post published:March 27, 2013
Post category:Blog What's Growin' On
Post comments:4 Comments

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