Happy first day of summer, everyone!  Today is the longest day of the year.  Glorious sunlight will stream in on us, plants will be happy, shorts and flip-flops will be dusted off, glaringly pale legs will see the light of day for quite possibly the first time all year.  Break open the watermelon, catch some fire files, run through the sprinklers and mix up some lemonade - summer is her to stay (at least for the next 3 months). As…

Today I treated myself to a trip to one of my favorite nurseries, The Marina Garden Center, and bought a few more herbs to add to my culinary herb garden in the backyard.  In fact, it has turned from being just a culinary herb garden into a combination medicinal / culinary/ it-smells-good herb garden.  The new additions include: Tuscan Upright Blue Rosemary Sweet Lavender Bergamot English Thyme Purple Sage Variegated Sage (it has yellow edges around the gray-green leaves) and French Tarragon I…

Last Sunday was one of the most perfect days this Gardenerd has ever had.  Why, you ask?  Simply put, I transplanted.  I took cuttings (some with roots, some without) from my community garden plot and brought them home to my back yard and transplanted them.  This is the start of something big - an herb garden that is steps away from my kitchen instead of a 10 minute drive.  Here's what I brought home: Oregano Chives Mexican Sage Lime Geranium Munstead…

My husband and I ventured out this past weekend to the Santa Monica Sustainable Garden Tour.  Given that we are finishing up the house renovation and will shortly be starting to focus on the front and back yards, we wanted to learn as much as possible about responsible landscaping. Now admittedly, when I think of xeriscape (defined as a landscaping method developed especially for arid and semiarid climates that utilizes water-conserving techniques (as the use of drought-tolerant plants, mulch, and…

The massive lull in blogging can be explained by two things: 1) The pile of boxes in my living room.  My new living room, that is. Two weeks ago, on April 3, 2007, my husband and I moved into the house we've been renovating for 8 months.  The work is not yet complete, and as a result, the cat and the computer remain at the apartment, with frequent daily visits to check in on both of them.  At some point, the…

A little behind schedule here with our moving date fast approaching, but as promised, here is a list of what to plant in the vegetable patch this spring: Asparagus – start once, enjoy for a decade or so Brassicas- Cabbages, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussel Sprouts, Turnips, Kohlrabi, Rapini (note – if it gets hot early in your area, you may want to have shade cloth handy to keep them from bolting. These veggies grow best in fall in Southern California because…

Well, it's official.  Yesterday, on Feb. 14, 2007, the New and Improved Gardenerd.com officially went live.  We're up and running, and we're ready and waiting for your participation in this new gardening community.  If you haven't already seen it, check out www.gardenerd.com for loads of cool gardening links, planting and seasonal information, and just plain fun stuff (like the Tip of the Week, Ask Gardenerd and more).  I look forward to sharing this site with fellow garden friends all over the…

We're very near the end of our website-building journey here at Gardenerd.com.  My dream is to have the site launched in time for my birthday (February 11th).  We'll see how close to that we get.  February also marks the 2 year anniversary of the beginning of Gardenerd.com.  I launched the shop on CafePress.com in February of 2005 and have been working on the next phase ever since.  (In between selling a house, buying a house, moving twice, beginning a renovation and, well...…

So here we are at our new blog!  This is more exciting then I can say (or write, as the case may be). There is so much planned for Gardenerd.com and this is just the beginning.  Actually, it's sort of the middle.  The beginning was setting up shop at CafePress.com.  The middle is "going live" with the all new Gardenerd.com and creating a space for Gardenerds all over to co-habitate. So make yourselves comfortable.  There's plenty to share here. This is…