The fall garden is our favorite here at Gardenerd. The cooler temperatures lend themselves to growing crops without pests, and with much less stress than summer months. If we ever get any rain, these crops will hardly need help from us to thrive through winter. So what's growin' on? Let's take a look at all the lush green goodies you have to look forward to if you live in a place where winter gardening is possible: We planted 3 varieties…
Bugs are part of gardening. It's a fact of life--you will have bugs. There are good bugs and bad bugs, and if you create the right environment, the good bugs can keep the bad bugs at bay. Today we discovered a few signs of a bug's life in the garden. We're hopeful that our garden ecosystem will be kept in check by these guys. It took a little searching to identify them, but we thought we'd share our findings here.…
Artisan House, a combination market and restaurant/bar on the corner of 6th and Main Street, serves delicious, fresh food all day long, offering organic produce, artisanal wines and small-farm dairy products. The restaurant menu sports all the eye-catching entrees, sandwiches, soups, and fresh salads you could wish for. There were plans for a roof-top garden, but when that fell through, the owners asked Gardenerd to transform their patio into an edible experience for customers. When we visited Artisan House, we…
Fall is the time of year to plant perennials. Why? Isn't the season winding down? It is, but it's the perfect time to put winter-hardy perennials in the ground because they will use winter to develop strong roots. When spring rolls around, those fall-planted perennials will be leaps and bounds ahead of spring-planted plants, and will produce flowers or fruit more quickly. We're taking these cooler days to plant California Natives in the front yard. Next spring they'll jump into…
This one is especially for anyone out there who thinks we're perfect here at Gardenerd. Hang on to your hats, it's gonna be great. Years ago, when traveling to Italy, we picked up this great cookbook from a vegetarian farm hotel in Umbria. We bought it mainly for one recipe: the sformatini di zucchine, a "soft creamy ricotta cheese and courgette flan with a hint of marjoram." It came to us in a cup/dish made from Pamagiano Reggiano cheese that…
Meet Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne, the Root Simple Team. They have spent years designing a homesteading lifestyle for themselves that is enviable among gardenerds. In the heart of Los Angeles, they keep chickens, grow food, preserve the harvest, make bread, and construct things from other things, all in hopes of living more lightly upon the planet. Their books, The Urban Homestead and Making it! are wonderful additions to any garden or self-sufficiency library, and they're really nice folks to boot!…
October 1st is National Kale Day. Who cares that the holiday is only observed in Canada? We deserve to celebrate here in the States as well. Needless to say, we're very excited about this at Gardenerd. Every day we tout the benefits of kale and growing your own. Now we have an excuse to wax rhapsodic about this glorious vegetable with an official day to back us up. We're not crazy, just crazy about kale. This season we're growing 6…
If you're looking for a good gardening book to curl up with this winter, Groundbreaking Food Gardens is my pick for 2014. Niki Jabbour, author of The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener, has collected an impressive series of vegetable garden designs from 72 (73 if you count her own design) renowned gardeners around the USA and Canada. Having read it from cover to cover, I can honestly say it "fills the well" for idea-strapped gardeners everywhere. Groundbreaking Food Gardens is chock-full of…
September 23rd marks the beginning of fall, the vernal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. It couldn't be more welcome after all the heat we've been having. It brings with it a hope of rain (here in drought-stricken California) and the chance to grow cool-weather crops. Here at Gardenerd our eyes are clouded with the promise of kale, broccoli, sugar snap peas and more. But before we can put our fall crops in the ground, before we pull the last of…
A fellow gardenerd up in Canada has a new podcast (okay, not so new. He's got 20 episodes already) called Back to My Garden. Dave Ledoux grows in northern climates, where snow and short growing seasons are a reality. He wanted to interview me about Gardening for Geeks and growing food in Southern California for a change of pace. Listen and subscribe to Dave's podcast, Back to My Garden on iTunes or Stitcher. His podcast is different from most gardening…