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PressPress Releases Gardenerd News & Calendar Christy celebrated National Gardenerd Day on April 14, 2021 by sharing gardening tips on KTLA News. Watch the 4.5 minute segment here. Check out…

Services – Speaking

Christy is an enthusiastic garden speaker, teacher, and heirloom evangelist. She is available to wax rhapsodic about organic gardening on a number of topics at your garden club, next conference,…

I’m delighted to present a guest post from Mark Rainville, one of my fellow gardeners at Ocean View Farms, who has been experimenting with E.M.
Bokashi over the last year. This is the first installment to get you started down the fabulous road to fermented tea as fertilizer / soil conditioner. Take it away, Mark:

With all of the home composting options available, the bokashi food scrap fermentation system is one of the easiest and can be the
…

Fried Green Tomatoes – in Winter?

Yes, Dorothy, there still are tomatoes in February – if you live in Los Angeles. It’s one of the many oddities of living in a warm winter climate. Up until last week, we were
picking tomatoes from a volunteer tomato that had entwined itself through a giant Cecil Brunner rose, but with recent pruning, it all came to a delicious end.

The vine had …

Aquaponics: A Field Trip to EVO Farm (Now Ourfoods)

Aquaponics is a combination of hydroponics and aqua-culture. It is a closed-loop system that uses aquariums (or aquaria if we’re going to use proper Latin) of fish to produce the nutrient fertilizer
for plants to feed upon. The plants then grow in the water that is infused with fish droppings (and filtered for solids). It uses no soil. The water recycles back through the system to the fish and
the whole process starts all over again.

I paid a visit to EVO Farm, a local experimental site that combines yardsharing with aquaponics. …

Dream Center Garden Progress

In September 2009, I started working on a project for the Dream Center in
downtown Los Angeles. It’s been a long road, gathering grant money and donated supplies, but the Dream Garden is shaping up to be a fine reality for the residents of the Dream Center.

Today a team of about 15 people planted the first batch of transplants into the garden. The excitement was palpable as we placed plants in each bed, according to a diagram I made …

Ladybugs – Nature’s Aphid Brigade

For some unknown reason, my Swiss chard is covered – no, make that enveloped – with aphids. I have fed the plants with worm castings and compost and worm tea. I have sprayed them off with a strong
hose blast. I have squished the aphids with my bare fingers. I have pleaded and begged for them to go away, to no avail.

My next plan, as a last resort before pulling out the chard, would be to try laying down a layer of tin foil around the base of each plant, to reflect …

New Year’s Resolutions for the Gardenerd

I’m generally not a big fan of New Year’s Resolutions, but rather like to make “gentle intentions” instead. It just feels kinder and gentler, and less likely to fail. This
year, however, I’m feeling a little more assertive, at least where the garden is concerned. So without further adieu, here are a few New Year’s Resolutions for the garden in 2011:

Heal the Sick – I will diligently …

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