Gardenerd Organic Gardening Series Weekend Intensive
Coming up next week, the Gardenerd Organic Gardening Series will be offered for the first time ever as a Weekend Intensive.
Pumpkin Mania 2009
For those who don't know, Gardenerd.com has partnered with School Nutrition Plus and the Woolly Pocket Company to install Woolly Pocket wall vegetable gardens in schools throughout Los Angeles and Arizona.
Drought Tolerant Design and Veggies
While I was co-teaching a workshop up at the Esalen Institute earlier this year, I met Jesse Carmichael and his mom. They were taking the class together and found it to be a bonding experience to learn about gardening together. When I got home, Jesse called me and asked if I could design a vegetable garden for him.
Interestingly enough, what started as a simple vegetable garden evolved into a full-fledged drought tolerant front and back yard landscaping project. Here's what it looked like before:
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Adventures at the Theodore Payne Foundation
We landscaped our front yard last year and, as with many things in life, not all the plants made it. We found the Convolvulus to be lacking in heartiness, so to speak. It fried and died basically. So after much research and advice we decided to go with Mimulus Aurantiacus as a replacement.
Now, mimulus may be a native California species and it may be drought tolerant, but it has proven to be almost impossible to find at nurseries, including my wholesale nursery sources. What's up with that?!
Enter the Theodore Payne Foundation. They specialize in ...
Climate Action Giveaway and Gardenerd.com
I usually keep my politics to myself, but I was given the opportunity to contribute a prize to the Climate Action Giveaway recently. So I'm spreading the word. Here's the scoop:
Want America to be a Climate Leader?
Need a little added inspiration to get involved?
Make history with us and be entered to win in the World’s Biggest
Green Sweepstakes! World leaders are meeting in Copenhagen in December to
hopefully come to an international agreement on the world-wide
reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. If America is going to truly ...
Planting Fall Gardens 2 – the Gardenerd Test Garden
In addition to helping others plant their fall gardens, I'm not ashamed to admit that I get the most joy out of planting my own. The Gardenerd Test Garden is being planted slowly but surely, and as of this writing there are a few things to report:
We planted sugar snap peas a few weeks ago and they are about 6 inches tall and starting to reach for the trellis. I used the Gardenerd-designed tomato cages from summer to support the peas - it might be a bit short, but we'll see how it goes.
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Gardenerd at Large – Planting Fall Gardens
It's been busy these last few months. It seems that everyone wants a garden, and I'm happy to help.
Today I helped a family in Corona Del Mar to plant a garden in a small space in their back yard. The space was occupied with a couple of recently planted fruit trees that weren't yet established, and some shrubs. After measuring the space and making some suggestions for plant removal, we were on our way....
Gardenerd on Vital Juice.com
I participated in an interview with Jamie Kiffel-Alcheh of Vital Juice.com recently. She wanted to know what were my healthy favorite things to do and see. Here is the published article on Vitaljuice.com:
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Harvesting Sunflower Seeds
Sometime in late spring, I planted a handful of sunflower seeds along with some cosmos in hopes that they would fill in the blanks spots as the Dog Days of summer set in. True to form, the cosmos took over an entire raised bed and the sunflowers sent up two huge stalks with glorious flowers bigger than dinner plates. I wondered if we'd be able to harvest the seeds for snacking or if the birds would get them all. I've never harvested sunflower seeds successfully before, and I was determined to change my track record. I ...