October blooms both ethereal and lusty grace my garden this first week of October, and feed Monarchs, other butterflies, hummingbirds and bees. I thought I’d take a close look around, now that the summer garden is mostly finished, and see what’s blooming and providing pollen for the pollinators. After the huge squash blooms of summer […]
Growing heirloom tomatoes part 1 covers heirloom seeds, seeding, planting, and managing to care for many more seedlings than ever imagined. Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3! Click through to YouTube for highest resolution. I planted over 200 seeds this year, 150 of them tomato! Nine varieties were from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and the […]
The only advantage of our recent heatwave, it pushes summer veggies into fall. I thought I would return from Tennessee and my garden would be burnt to a crisp in the record heatwave of mid-September. Rather, my summer veggies got a boost from the 90+° heat. After pulling all but one tomato vine, the very prolific red cherry […]
Bonnie is so bonny: No Neonics! When you go to a nursery to buy plants, do you ever imagine what goes into the effort of getting those plants on the shelves? Last March, I found out when I visited a Bonnie Plants regional nursery. On a cold, grey, snow-threatening day, my brother and sister-in-law were showing my […]
Summer Garden Update, the latest episode of “Late Bloomer” reveals a front yard that’s loaded with food plants. The parkway exploded from “Planting a Parkway Food Forest.” From corn and quinoa, to tomatoes, Kabocha squash, tomatillo and beans, there’s lots going on in early July. Don’t have room for a back yard food garden? Use your […]
My tomato cooking, or how I got around the canning thing, is, well, I cheated. You can’t cheat with canning, I know, I know. That’s why I’ve been procrastinating learning to can since I started growing food in my Los Angeles front yard three years ago! After a 42 pound tomato harvest two days ago, I was […]
My experience growing True Comfrey has been checkered. Last year, I was perusing the Horizon Herbs website, and became determined to buy a live root of something fabulous. I read about True Comfrey and it had so many positive health benefits, I settled on that. Plus this line really caught my eye. Herbaceous perennial native to Europe. […]
“Grow a Native Meadow in Your Yard” is the latest and 50th episode of “Late Bloomer!” Kaye shows the growth of her parkway native mini-meadow over the course of a year. Soil health, biodiversity (providing food for wildlife) and water conservation are three reasons to create a meadow in your urban garden. And the best reason, if you […]
Southern Fried Okra, SoCal Style! I planted okra seed in May, but it got overshadowed by squash leaves, so I bought nursery plants in late June and just yesterday harvested a handful of okra. Growing up in the South, we always had fresh-frozen okra in the freezer from my grandmother’s garden in Alabama. Mother would fry […]
Brown Widows for Breakfast? As I contemplated the hunger pangs in my stomach yearning for a late breakfast, and armed with encouragement from online gardeners +Learn to Grow, +CragfireGardening, +Double Dog Farm +Cheryl Krause and others, and a can of Raid®, I ventured out to face the enemy, a spider. Late yesterday, my new, young garden helper […]
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