New Tools – Christmas in…April

The tell-tale credit card statement reveals that yours truly has been shopping for gardening tools. It's spring - can you blame me? 

While up north at the San Francisco Garden Show I stumbled upon the Lee Valley Tools booth. Oh dear, be still my heart. Before I knew it, my hands were wrapped around a Clarington Forge digging fork. Sturdy, rugged, hand-made, and for those of us who appreciate a good tool when we see one, beautiful. It was the easiest sale of the day. It ...

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Gardenerd is Mar Vista’s Bounty Hunter

Gardenerd's Christy Wilhelmi became a columnist for Mar Vista Patch.com this week writing the weekly Farmer's Market report, Mar Vista's Bounty Hunter. If you love the Mar Vista Farmer's Market like we do, you can sign up on Patch.com to get the latest news about what's fresh at the Farmer's Market delivered right to your inbox.

This week's story is all about the strawberries. Even if you don't live in the Los Angeles area, you'll find some great tips about ...

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Growing Kale – Ironman of the Garden

There's a thing that happens when someone discovers kale for the first time. They become addicted to it. Well, maybe not addicted, but if their experience is anything like mine was, they can't get enough of it. My intro to kale was with Esalen's Raw Kale Salad  and I've been growing kale ever since.

What kind of kale is best?  It depends upon your preference. Many people like the color and texture of Italian kale, also known as Lacinato (laa-chee-nah-toe) or Dinosaur kale, and because it is not ...

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The Truth about Seed Balls

You've seen the news clips about seed balls being dispensed from gum ball machines and tossed lazily amongst the weeds in vacant lots, but what ever happens to them?  Do they indeed sprout and blossom into beautiful wildflowers?  Do they spruce up a desolate parkway in the midst of bustling city life? 

I needed to find out for myself. So I bought two packages of seed balls for the Test Garden.


One set of seed balls was designed for hummingbirds, with larkspur, ...

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Field Trip – San Francisco Garden Show

Question: What's more fun than planting your spring garden? 

Answer: Going to a garden show filled with gardeners and garden gear to get new ideas about what to plant in your spring garden.

I ventured up to San Francisco last week to take in a convention-center-full of ideas and gardening joys. To my delight, there was a clear focus on edible landscaping and home food-gardening that offered fresh insight for home growers. A few favorites jumped out, so let's get right to it:

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Romantic Notions of Roasted Vegetables

In my early years of cooking, I found that my attempts at roasting vegetables ended with deflated, soggy lumps that once resembled fresh veggies. Perhaps that is why I still hold romantic notions about serving amazingly caramelized, oven-roasted, Mediterranean fare cooked to perfection at elegant parties.

Well, it may not have been an elegant party - just a thrown-together dinner for two based on this romantic notion - but success was finally achieved in the roasted vegetable department.

First, the old stand-by - baked/roasted home grown potatoes: ...

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Keeping Cucurbits “Cloche” By

Maybe I'm a little anxious. Maybe I'm just ahead of the game. Really, though, I think I'm just excited about the coming of spring to the point that I can't hold it in any longer. See, I planted squash and cucumbers - I KNOW, I know... it's early... I can't help it. It may still be blustery and chilly out there, but I've got a plan to make everything alright:

Cloches - home made cloches - will keep my cucurbits happy until the weather warms up.

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Dream Center Garden Progress

In September 2009, I started working on a project for the Dream Center in downtown Los Angeles. It's been a long road, gathering grant money and donated supplies, but the Dream Garden is shaping up to be a fine reality for the residents of the Dream Center.

Today a team of about 15 people planted the first batch of transplants into the garden. The excitement was palpable as we placed plants in each bed, according to a diagram I made ...

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Phytoremediation Update – Sad News

I'm supposed to be a garden guru with a bountiful garden year-round, right?  When crops fail or disease sets in, my husband is thoughtful enough to remind me that a true gardener's approach to gardening is experimentation, and more specifically trial and error. So in the spirit of true gardening, I present my latest error.

You may remember that I spent the winter growing milk thistle and chicory in my community garden plot to remove some excess zinc from the soil. Included in the results from the initial soil ...

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Cabbage Moths – Pretty but Dastardly

They're coming. In fact, they're already here. The seemingly beautiful white butterflies that hover delicately over your kale plants might appear to be innocent, but in reality they can wreak havoc on your brassicas if left unchecked.

They'll flutter around looking for a nice place to land, then disappear underneath the leaves of your treasured broccoli and cabbages. When they emerge, they will have laid dozens of eggs on the underside of the leaves that are so tiny they are almost invisible to the human eye. Almost, but not to the trained ...

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