March is a time of transition. Winter crops die, making room for spring seedlings. Volunteers poke through the soil and take a chance. We celebrate new life in the garden as the old fades away. We move from winter into spring. Start seeds, weed soils, add compost over bare soil, plan big and enjoy this transition from winter into spring!
Artichokes bring to mind the romantic rolling hills of Tuscany. In fact, during one of my trips to Italy, I photographed a box of baby purple artichokes (see below) at a Naples farmers market that captures the splendor and beauty of food in Italy. We have a Mediterranean climate here in Los Angeles, so artichokes grow as well here as they do in Italy. And while most people buy transplants at the nursery, growing artichokes from seed is not difficult.…
It's that time, gardenerds. Let seed-starting commence. You have your favorites, your tried and true varieties that you grow every year. So do we, but we get bored easily so we're always looking for new varieties to test out in our gardens. Each year we discover new heirloom and open pollinated varieties that we haven't grown before. 2015 was a year of generosity. Many seed companies gave away free seeds and we took full advantage. Here are our favorite seeds…
Spring is nearly here, and it's time to plant corn. Whether you like popcorn or sweet corn, it's fun and easy to grow. Just make sure you do it right. We're here to show you how. Watch our latest video on growing corn and you'll be off to a good start. Once you've watched our video on growing corn. Check out these blog posts for more information: Growing Popcorn The Birds & the Bees: Corn Sex Interplanting Corn We've also…
Our strawberry patch thrived for about 7 years. We ignored common lore that you have to replace your strawberry plants every couple of years and did something different instead: every year or so, we'd lift the plants by the root ball, set them aside, then add 2 inches of compost and soil, then replant our existing berry plants. It worked like a charm for years. Recently they've grown tired (or maybe we have). Production has dropped, we forgot to refresh…
We love our gardens. Much like we do with pets, many of us spend more money on gardening stuff than we do on essentials for ourselves (well, gardening stuff is essential, isn't it?). This year, whether you have someone to garden with or not, celebrate Valentine's Day in the garden. It falls on a Sunday, so there's no excuse. You don't have to buy a thing to celebrate Valentine's Day. Here are some of our favorite ideas for celebrating love…
I can't believe I haven't written about growing garlic before. Sure, we've covered harvesting garlic and even shown you how to make your own garlic braid, but we've never started from the beginning on this blog. Maybe it's because growing garlic is so easy. It's the first thing I ever grew on my own (aside from the carrots and peas I grew with my parents as a kid). My boyfriend and I didn't know a thing about gardening. We dug…
It's that half-eaten container of sour cream in the fridge that brought us to this recipe. You know the one: that lonely tub, brought over by a guest for a recent party, languishing all alone in the back of the fridge. We hate to let things go to waste here, so we scoured the interwebs for ways to use left over sour cream. We found a vegetarian recipe for Portobello Mushroom and Kale Stroganoff. It worked. Kale is abundant in…
As we prep for spring gardening, we enjoy the harvest from our winter garden. Soon it will be time to start seeds, but in the meanwhile, we add compost to existing crops and prune fruit trees, cane berries, and grasses. Rain pampers our plants and they reward us with a bountiful harvest. We're watering from rain barrels in between, and watching everything grow while we read through seed catalogs. Here's what's growin' on in this colorful (almost) Wordless Wednesday. For…
I've been making bread for 25 years, but I've always been afraid of sourdough starter. Pretty sure I would kill it from neglect, so I limited myself to packaged yeast...until yesterday. Maybe it's a New Year's Resolution. Maybe it's courage, or blissful ignorance, but yesterday I made my first loaf of sourdough bread and have left over starter in the fridge. It's a thing of beauty. With all the gluten intolerance in the world now, one can't help but question…