"It all started with a butternut squash," she said. About a year ago I got a call from Nina Girvetz asking for help on a garden project. She said that vacant
lot next door to her church was the perfect place for a garden, and when her friend Dru Hammer handed her a butternut squash, they knew it had to happen.
The residents of the Dream Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping inner cities, have taken refuge there ...
I'll admit it, I've never grown potatoes in the fall. It's always been a spring thing for me. When some scary looking potatoes greeted me in the pantry the other day, however, that all changed. Our
Test Garden is chock-full of fall crops already, so there's no room for potatoes, but where there's a will, there's a way. The Way of the Pot.
(Cue Zen Buddhist musical interlude)
Potatoes are well-known for being suitable for growing in containers. They can be grown in trash cans, burlap sacks, bags of ...
It's almost Halloween, which means it's time for roasted pumpkin seeds, pumpkin carving, pumpkin bread and bags and bags of Twix. Okay, maybe not that last part...
If you live in the Los Angeles area, and you want to venture out after the rain stops, head to the first ever Home Grown Culver City this
Saturday, October 23 from 9 a.m.- 5 p.m. at Media Park in Culver City. Gardenerd will be there offering discounts on all our Gardenerd Store products and we'll be standing by to answer your
gardening questions.
At the end of the LA Garden show earlier this spring, my booth neighbor and fellow Gardenerd, Nysha Dalgren of Ardenwoods Edibles let me choose a plant or two to take home. I couldn't resist the opportunity to try something new, and a the tiny tendrils of a Christmas Lima Bean plant were calling out to me.
When I got home, I tucked the plant in behind a ...
It might seem crazy to grow something in the garden specifically for one dish, but when it comes down to it, there's something to be said for seeing a meal
through from start - as in seedling - to finish. This is the case of our poblano peppers.
We grew poblanos for one reason and one reason only - to make chile rellenos. Not that I even knew how to make them, but it was about time to learn.
...
They look kind of funny, maybe even cute, but harlequin bugs are no laughing matter. If left to their own devices, they'll mutilate a plant
within an inch of its life. They like brassicas - a lot - and this year they found my kale.
The Harlequin Bug (murgantia histrionica) is a True bug, and a stink bug - which you only find out when you squish them. They are black and orange and are often ...
Now that summer has come to a close (not that you could tell with all the hot weather we've been having lately), harvest season is upon us.
As part of our harvest plan, we built a solar food dryer in order to alleviate some
congestion in the freezer.
We've over our heads in leeks right now. The fridge is full, and the freezer is already full of batches ...
You'll find them in Indian food, hearty soups, and as a ubiquitous staple of the salad bar at Soup Plantation, but you might not know how good they really are until you've cooked them yourself.
Garbanzo beans, also known as chick peas, are usually undercooked when you buy them canned, and certainly don't hold a lot of flavor on their own (kind of like tofu), but they are a great base for
many dishes and very satisfying to grow.
We experimented with growing garbanzo beans in our test ...
Okay, so you've got a ton of leeks and you've already made a gigantic batch of potato and leek soup that's completely filled up the freezer. Now what do you do with the rest of the leeks (about 10 pounds or so)? One options is to dehydrate them. Dried fruits and vegetables require no freezer space, no refrigerator space, and no electricity to keep them at the ready for use in the kitchen. In fact, it ...