Well, it's that time again. Time to get on your walking shoes or bicycle and head out to see some fantastic, clever landscaping in west side Los Angeles. The
Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase is just a month away, and will be featuring 80 houses (impossible to see them all, but you can sure try) that focus on either native plants and drought tolerant
landscapes, edible gardens, or energy efficient features like solar power or rain barrels.
...
For those who didn't catch it, Miguel Nelson, the inventor of Woolly Pocket Gardens and our collaborator on the Woolly Pocket School Garden Program, was on
Martha Stewart in early March. They've posted the clip on the MS website for all to see. If you wait until the page loads, you'll see the words, "watch video" appear at the bottom of the
photograph.
And for a moment of shameless self-promotion, when Miguel ...
Every fall I grow several heads of cabbage to enjoy in winter and spring as the rest of the garden gets going. But year after year, I find myself wondering
what to do with the cabbage I've grown. Sound familiar? Well, I've found a few great ways to use cabbage that I thought I'd share here.
Cabbage, chard, broccoli, green onions, cilantro, arugula and mustard greens make up the winter harvest
Aside from ...
Perhaps you've seen it in the news lately, or perhaps you've been seeing it in the news for a decade. I'm talking about sewage sludge. Time and time again, we are challenged with the task of finding out what's really in the stuff we eat, or in this case, what's in the stuff we use to grow the stuff we eat. I've always been a big proponent of knowing where my garden supplies come from, and I've done ...
It must be that time of year again... here come the questions about aphids:
"The leaves on Russian kale plants have a gray aphid looking bug on them. They cluster on the leaves. How to get rid of them and keep them off. Water doesn't seem to do much."
First of all I have to say that if you planted your kale in fall, the plants are probably just finished for the season and should be pulled. My kale plants bit ...
A fun question came in this week to Ask Gardenerd:
"I am growing a pretty decent size garden in Santa Monica, and I very much appreciate your tips and help! (i.e. Mulch Pit in Culver City). We are culinary people who have
found a true love in gardening. We had great success last year in most of our endeavors (38 tomato plants thanks to your fabulous cradle structures) but one category we fell short in was our
peppers. We tried to grow several types ...
As a birthday present to myself, I purchased some redwood seed flats from Bountiful Gardens, the home of Ecology Action in Willits, CA. These redwood seed flats allow gardeners to start seeds very close together without the occasionally tedious limitation of trays with cells. These open "half flats" (which I purchased instead of the full size flats that are twice as large and twice as heavy) can hold up to 87 seedlings in the same amount of space ...
A great question came in this week:
"Hi, I started a 8x10 garden in my backyard full of veggies and herbs this past summer, yet everything has died except for a few herbs because I did nothing when it froze here in Dallas...What
should I have done if anything to have saved it and how can I start growing things now and what is best to plant. Thanx from newbie gardener.... "
You're not alone this winter. In fact, unless ...
Several years ago, when I started getting serious about Gardenerd, I met Billy Goodnick. Billy is a fellow gardenerd in Santa Barbara with... well, let's just
say a lot of experience in the realm of landscaping and gardening. He was so supportive of me branching out of my own, and we kept in touch ever since.
Now, Billy has scored the coolest job writing for Fine Gardening Magazine's blog. Get this - Fine Gardening hired him because they saw ...
In an attempt to attend more garden-related events and workshops this year (call it a New Year's resolution, but with more pleasure involved), I set out on
Saturday for a Hypertufa workshop with Steve Garischer of Larkspur Garden Designs at the Theodore Paine Foundation.
Hyper-who-huh?
Let me e'splain: Tufa is a sedimentary rock similar to travertine that can be carved into paving stones, planters, urns and such. it is very expensive and very heavy. ...