It's beautiful up here at the Heirloom Expo 2016. There is so much to see, so I'll just leave it to the photos to explain. And we have to finish with the squash tower, a mainstay of the Heirloom Expo:
I fell in love with Silver Edge pumpkin seeds the moment I laid eyes on them. This Mexico native squash wins every beauty contest when it comes to seeds. They're enormous, they're exotic and they have a shiny SILVER EDGE! What could be better? Well...this: they taste delicious. Silver Edge pumpkins are not grown for the flesh, which is allegedly unpalatable, they are grown for the seeds. Traditionally used in pipian sauce, a green mole-type sauce without the chocolate, Silver…
The moment of truth has arrived. We just harvested the Glass Gem Popping Corn we grew this summer. Between the rats and corn worms, we lost at least half the harvest, but what was left was substantial enough to be proud of. Glass Gem is an open pollinated seed "bred from a number of Native varieties by Carl 'White Eagle' Barnes, the famous Cherokee corn collector to whom we owe our gratitude for his life's work of collecting, preserving and…
It's here, in Mar Vista, in our backyard. The Asian citrus psyllid (ACP) has been in found in Los Angeles, but just last week we discovered it on a weak lime tree in the back corner of Gardenerd HQ. Here's what it looks like in real life. At first we didn't see the pest, just evidence that it arrived. Squiggly, white threads were sprinkled over the leaf surfaces and dangled off flower buds. It's like a horror film where the…
I had the good fortune of being a speaker at the first ever Natural Beekeeping Conference that took place this weekend in Pasadena, CA. Honeylove.org organized the event. They gathered top experts in treatment-free beekeeping from around the continent, and welcomed guests from all over the world. Yours truly taught Gardening for Beekeepers. Most of my beekeeping colleagues have attended regular beekeeping conferences, only to find themselves flabbergasted by the amount of attention given to chemicals: miticides, fungicides, artificial food…
If there's one thing the English do well, it's gardening. Many of our traditions and ideals about what a proper garden should look like come from the English. As a resident of a drought-stricken area, I've had to peel these ideals away from my brain over the years, to embrace a different aesthetic. Now and again, though, it's nice to see a lush garden where it rains more than 9 inches a year. During our stay in York recently, we…
Gardening is about life cycles, we deal with life and death every day. When someone prized is taken too soon, however, it is a tragedy. I write today to honor a friend and colleague, the carpenter who took my visions and built them into realities, who was taken from us two weeks ago: Josh Hover. Josh came to Gardenerd by way of Daniel Mayorga, my landscape professional who installs my garden designs. Josh and Daniel knew each other since Kindergarten,…
Today's infograph comes from Fix.com, where they've assembled a quick and easy guide for using your kitchen scraps in your garden without a compost bin. It's an simple way to turn garden waste into garden gold without much effort through small batch composting. Don't have enough space for a bin (or two)? Try trench composting. Small amounts of kitchen waste is buried in trenches around the garden. Over time it breaks down to create rich soil for planting a few…
We're growing Glass Gem popping corn this year, but we may not get to see the results because we've got rats again. They're more aggressive than ever this year, probably because we gave them an in. In dealing with the corn worms that burrowed into each ear, we went digging for each one, found them, and destroyed them. But that left behind an opening: loose husks to entice rats. By pulling open each ear, we undid nature's protection and exposed…
I was in town for the 4th of July this year. Usually I'm celebrating our freedom by backpacking at around 9,000 feet in the pristine silence of the Sierras over the 4th of July holiday. I had no idea Los Angeles turned into a war zone in my absence. We celebrate with fireworks. The literal sound of bombs bursting in air is the sign of our celebration. It's a beautiful sight, but a few things occurred to me as I…