Gardenerd Archives - Page 2 of 15

First blackberries of the season

Spring Gardens are Waking Up

A friend up north in Canada, Niki Jabbour, posted on Twitter this morning that she's expecting 2 feet of snow tonight. Here in Southern California our spring gardens are waking up and we're planting warm season crops already. Take heart, northern gardeners, this is what you can expect in your own gardens soon: A container lemon tree props up nicotiana with a background of trumpet vine. Flowers are blooming and bees are buzzing at Gardenerd HQ. Some fruit trees are…

Post author:Christy
Post published:March 26, 2014
Post category:Blog What's Growin' On
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Hearty lentil soup with collard greens

Recipe: Lentil Soup with Collard Greens

We cook from the garden around here. Whatever is coming in from "out there" determines the meal of the day. Since collard greens are finishing up, we needed to find a recipe to showcase them. Enter Sandy's Great Lentil Soup with Collard Greens. The recipe comes from a cookbook that's been in my collection for many years: Simply Natural: All-time Favorite Recipes from Kitchens of North America's Best Natural Foods Restaurants, by Les Sussman and Sally Bordwell. (BTW - it's…

Post author:Christy
Post published:March 25, 2014
Post category:Blog What's Growin' On
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Fresh Christmas Limas are incredibly delicious.

Recipe: Garlicky Fresh Christmas Lima Beans with Thyme

I've grown Christmas Lima Beans for several years and have come to love this prolific plant. The first time, we planted in spring and it grew and produced for a year and a half (and it would have kept going if we didn't have to pull it out). This time, after a year of constant production, we had to make way for new crops. Sad but true. After harvesting all the dried pods, the plant was still full of green…

Post author:Christy
Post published:March 12, 2014
Post category:Blog What's Growin' On
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Blueberries (dwarf varieties) with strawberries and herbs around a tree.

Mini Orchard & Garden for Mom and Dog

Spring is just around the corner, but in the Valley it's already here. Southern California continues to have unseasonably high temperatures and one new gardener wanted to take advantage of it with a new mini orchard and garden for her Sherman Oaks home. The homeowner wanted to grow what she eats: mostly fruit and veggies. So we set her up with a mini orchard of 6 fruit trees and two raised beds, plus a few planters for herbs and berries.…

Post author:Christy
Post published:March 11, 2014
Post category:Blog What's Growin' On
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Inspire! Excite! Educate!

Let’s Go to Seed School – Part 3

In this, our last installment about Seed School we explore the economic and political makeup of seeds in our world. For me, this is the real reason we need to save seed and preserve species. On our final day, we were asked to brainstorm about how to solve problems on a local level, as well as a global one. As gardeners we know that local action is sometimes the only thing that makes a difference. Community gardens, for example, have…

Post author:Christy
Post published:March 5, 2014
Post category:Blog What's Growin' On
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Emerson Avenue Community Garden

I am Planting a Garden, by Heidi Rose

I ran across this poem a friend wrote several years ago. I read it through again and felt it went right to the heart of what every gardener must be feeling in anticipation of spring. The excitement of new journeys, the fear of failure (yet again), and the burning desire to get out there in the garden right now; all of these feelings are swirling about. This poem reminds us that patience, trial and error, and suspense are all part of…

Post author:Christy
Post published:March 4, 2014
Post category:Blog What's Growin' On
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Cat Grass for a Happy Mittens

Cats love chewing on grass. And corn seedlings, apparently (ugh!). And young cover crops (double ugh.) In order to keep Mittens out of the raised beds, we've planted a flat of cat grass just for her. She's enthralled. The convergence of two things brought this on: free Cat Treats, Mixed Gourmet Greens grass seeds arriving from Renee's Garden Seeds (thanks, Renee's Media Kit 2014), and some freshly germinated Sonora White Wheat from our germination test at Seed School. Renee's Cat…

Post author:Christy
Post published:February 26, 2014
Post category:Blog What's Growin' On
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Step 2: Pour seeds into a screen that allows the seeds to fall through, but keeps the chaff.

Let’s Go to Seed School – Part 2

We're back with more about our week in Seed School. (In case you missed the first post, click here.) Later in the week, we delved more into the wonders of seeds with dissection, genetics and seed cleaning. So...let's go to seed school again. Plants are marvelous things, all very different. We were given the charge to look closely at the male and female parts of flowers in order to understand the process of pollination. Once again, when the hand-outs landed…

Post author:Christy
Post published:February 25, 2014
Post category:Blog What's Growin' On
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Silver Edged pumpkin seeds

Let’s Go to Seed School – Part 1

I had the pleasure of participating in a 6-day workshop all about seeds, presented by the folks at Native Seeds/Search. More than 30 gardenerds gathered to learn as much as we could, and we were not disappointed. We covered everything from plant genetics (for breeding and plant purity) and plant sex (plant parts), to saving seeds (stomping and screens included) and starting seed libraries. What a ride! So here's a quick review of Part 1 - let's go to seed…

Post author:Christy
Post published:February 19, 2014
Post category:Blog What's Growin' On
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Make meals from the garden with a little planning ahead.

Shopping from your Garden

Today we are joined by Jeriann Watkins, our guest blogger. Jeriann is a writer and self-proclaimed chronic procrastinator who is trying to make her life more intentional by focusing on vegetable gardening, making her own cleaning products, and other frugal living tactics. She's come to Gardenerd to share her strategy for eating and shopping from the garden. Take it away Jeriann! Shopping from Your Garden This year I’ve decided to focus on living frugally and paying off my student loan…

Post author:Christy
Post published:February 19, 2014
Post category:Blog What's Growin' On
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