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False Garlic – you lie, you lie, you lie.

I don’t know where it comes from, but it shows up in the strangest places. Unannounced, just after the rain, it pokes its slender leaves up through the soil to bring
terror to the fastidious gardener. I’m talking about false garlic.

False garlic (Nothoscordum borbonicum Kunth) is found primarily in California, Oregon and the Southeastern states, as well as some warmer parts of Europe. It’s pretty, but
don’t be deceived. This little bugger will infest a garden and is …

Kohlrabi – the Alien Vegetable

As most brassicas go, broccoli is pretty attractive, and cabbage conjures comforting thoughts of Irish stews and Asian stir-fry dishes. There’s one brassica, however, that
makes people double-take when they see it on the shelves of the produce aisle: kohlrabi.

Kohlrabi looks something like a broccoli stem that had its molecules reorganized in the transporter (sorry, couldn’t avoid the Trekkie reference). It has leaves like broccoli, but instead of the
long stalk, it has a bulb at the base of …

Harvesting Garlic

Growing your own garlic is such a joy, and harvesting it can be even more fun. Each October we plant what turns out to be a year’s supply of
garlic in about 7 or 8 square feet (using the Square Foot Gardening method). Then we nurture the bulbs through winter and into spring. In late spring, which is May or June here in Los Angeles,
the foliage starts to turn brown and die back. We cut …

Adventures at the Theodore Payne Foundation

We landscaped our front yard last year and, as with many things in life, not all the plants made it. We found the Convolvulus to be lacking in heartiness, so to speak. It fried and died basically. So after much research and advice we decided to go with Mimulus Aurantiacus as a replacement.

Now, mimulus may be a native California species and it may be drought tolerant, but it has proven to be almost impossible to find at nurseries, including my wholesale nursery sources. What’s up with that?!

Enter the Theodore Payne Foundation. They specialize in …

Flowers for Fall

I used to think that there were flower gardeners and there were vegetable gardeners. Now, I don’t like to appear biased against flowers (even though veggies are my preferred garden variety), so I was happy to get this question in at Ask Gardenerd this week:

“Just got done reading your newsletter for recommended Fall veggies and
herbs. What kinds of annual flowers do you recommend for warmer
climates in the Fall (I am in zone 8/9, Rancho Cucamonga) that can be
companion planted with these crops? Thanks!”

My favorite flowers to recommend are also beneficial insectaries, meaning they attract beneficial …

How to Grow Shallots

We received a question this week on Ask Gardenerd that we wanted to share: “I’m wondering when the best time to plant shallots is in SoCal.”

Mega Garlic

Garlic was one of the very first things I planted when I started gardening 16 years ago. There’s something about the magic of putting a clove in the ground and getting a bulb back at the end of the season that made me want to try it immediately. That first year, my boyfriend and I planted garlic cloves in unamended clay soil (clearly we didn’t know anything about compost at the time). We watered it every day and watched it grow. 7 months later, we harvested what has become the best garlic I’ve ever grown in my life. …

Do or Die Daffodils

A question came in this week from a concerned gardener:

“I bought a potted daffodil plant which originally had 3 beautiful
daffodils in bloom. They are not gone with no new potential blooms.
What should I do with the bulbs. Plant them outside now or ?? Thank you.”

Daffodils are the kind of bulb that come back year after year, but like most bulbs, they send up one flush of flowers and then they are done for the season. Many people transplant bulbs into their garden after the foliage has died away. Some bulbs that are sold for holidays …