With another tomato season drifting into the past, it's time to clean up the cages and put them away for the winter. If you are one of the fortunate few whose tomatoes were not struck with blight and
plan on surviving into January, ignore this post. For the rest of us, here's what to do:
1) Pull off all plant debris
2) Set your tomato cages in the sun away from your growing area
3) Hose down the cages with water
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Just in the nick of time, our watermelons are ready to harvest before summer ends. How do you know they're ready? Consider this post to be a companion piece to our watermelon Tip of the Week Podcast, visual aid style, that illustrates the tell-tale sign that watermelon is
ready for harvest.
There are old wives tales about the sound that watermelons are supposed to make when ripe. You can also look at the underside of the melon to check whether ...
Peppers are ready to harvest. Now if only there were a few good recipes...
Peppers Spice Up Summer Menus
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Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company holds a place in the heart of many an organic vegetable gardener. Their gorgeous seed catalogs are the industry standard of "garden-porn", with beautiful pictures of
hundreds of varieties many eyes have never seen before.
While away on a writing retreat, I stopped by their West Coast store, the Seed Bank. It is aptly named because it is located inside an old bank. A corner building in the center of town proudly
displays Heirloom Seeds in the two-story bank windows. You can't miss it.
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As you pull out your tomato plants this fall, check the roots for galls. These are lumpy swellings that indicate that you might have nematodes living in your soil that are stunting the tomato plant's
growth. (You can learn more about it from our Got Nematodes podcast)
We had that problem last year so we planted Golden Guardian Marigolds, the roots of which contain a toxin that kills harmful nematodes. Now it's time to harvest the seeds and turn the crop under so
it can do its job.
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The latest post from Mar Vista's Bounty Hunter is ready for viewing. Find out great ways to use pomegranates in your daily cooking adventures:
http://marvista.patch.com/articles/skylake-ranchs-wonderful-pomegranates
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Sprouted foods are packets of dense nutrition ready for you to add to healthy meals. Check out the local sprout vendor at the Mar Vista Farmers' Market for ideas on how to use them:
Mar Vista Farmers' Market Sprouts Healthy Alternatives
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Ocean View Farms (OVF) organic community garden hosts a tomato tasting for its members and guests each year. I've never been able to attend in the past, but this year I was on site to sample over 65
tomato entries (such hard work!).
It's a blind taste test, and all varieties are places side by side, so this is strictly a "tasting" rather than an overall tomato competition. Prizes, however, are still given out for the tastiest
tomato.
Signs welcome visitors to the tasting
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Summer comes to an end each year, as does the warm season vegetable garden, but gardening magazines rarely, if ever, show what that looks like. Why don't we celebrate the end as much as we do the
bountiful beginning and mid-season garden? There is beauty in it as much as any garden when it is flourishing.
We took a walk through the end-of-summer garden to snap a few pictures to showcase the beauty of death and decay. It sounds corny, but there really is much to rejoice about the end of a ...
In the never ending quest to find new and tasty ways to consume zucchini, this week we're featuring another great recipe from Rose Elliot's Vegetarian Fast Food. It's the Summer Frittata, which uses
asparagus, zucchini, sun-dried tomatoes, eggs and Parmesan cheese.
Not only does this dish showcase zucchini, but it also gave us a chance to feature our home-grown asparagus. We've been collection spears each day through summer and although it's hard to resist the
urge to just serve home-grown asparagus plainly cooked, this frittata does a nice job of highlighting the produce. ...