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 […]
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 […]
My easy ratatouille! That’s what hit me when I studied my early morning harvest of Squash Lemon, Ping Tung Long eggplant, green beans, and tomatoes. I added a leek, garlic cloves (see my Growing Garlic episode of “Late Bloomer”), and purple basil, all of which I grew in my garden. In the mid-1970’s on a trip to California, I […]
Growing garlic in an urban garden is easy, but be prepared to wait! I grew garlic for the first time with great success. I chose soft-neck garlic for my warmer climate and bought Early Italian and Italian Late garlic from Seeds of Change. Click photo to watch on YouTube. Knowing when to harvest is the big […]
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