What’s Growing in Your Garden?

Posted on June 1, 2009 by Christy

I’ve been getting some feedback from fellow gardenerds lately about what’s growin’ on in their gardens this spring.  I thought I’d post it and invite you to share what’s working or not working in your garden this year as well.

“Our garden is really blooming.  My mom
gave Ronnie an upside-down tomato plant for Christmas.  He planted that
about 2 months ago.  One day it all of a sudden exploded.  The plant
grows out the bottom and up around the ‘cage’.  Within a few hours it
had grown almost to the top of that cage.  There are several flowers on
it now …
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Gardenerd on Good Food Blog

Posted on May 28, 2009 by Christy

I’ve been a fan of Good Food, a weekend radio show on KCRW, for years.  In fact, I’m a lazy podcaster – I only download two podcasts and one of them is Good Food.  Imagine my delight when I was asked to write an article for the Good Food Blog!  Here is the May 21, 2009 post:

FYI – the pictures included with the blog are from our asparagus patch in the Gardenerd Teaching Garden. 

Enjoy!
…
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Tomato Seedling Sale in El Camino

Posted on May 28, 2009 by Christy

This just came to me via one of my clients.  If you happen to still need tomato seedlings now is your chance to get them cheap in the Los Angeles area:

Hi All,


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Houston, We Have Some Squash

Posted on May 20, 2009 by Christy

I admit it, I went a little crazy.  I was determined to have a successful squash crop in the wake of last year’s squash catastrophe.  So I planned for extra, you might say.  This season, at Ocean View Farms, I planted Delicata and Butternut Squashes.  While at the Gardenerd Teaching Garden, we planted zucchini, patty pan, yellow crookneck and pumpkin. 

The First round of zucchini and patty pan squash were eaten by birds.  So were the second round.  So then we planted seeds indoors to make sure nothing went wrong.  That did the trick.  Meanwhile, the pumpkins and …
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Mega Garlic

Posted on May 20, 2009 by Christy

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.  …
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Rabbit Retribution

Posted on May 13, 2009 by Christy

Gardens are springing up everywhere – providing snack bars for woodland creatures all over the globe.  Here’s a question that came in last week:

“Dear Gardenerd, I am starting a garden in my back yard.  I would LOVE to
convert my useless front lawn into an edible estate but can’t spend
thousand of dollars on a fence to keep out the wild rabbits.  Do you
have a simpler suggestion to keep the rabbits at bay? Thanks, Caroline”

I can make a few suggestions, but honestly a fence is the best answer. 
Rabbits burrow, so any fence you put in needs to go down at …
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Zucchini Mishaps

Posted on May 13, 2009 by Christy

An intriguing question came in last week:

“Dear Gardenerd,  I just planted my garden and am looking forward to summer
harvests, but wanted your advice on my zucchini.  Last year, in the
middle of summer, the leaves turned gray and the plants eventually
died.  None of my other veggies were effected, but this also happened
the year before last as well. Is there anything I can do to avoid this
transpiring? thanks so much, Pascal“

Not that this is an answer to your question, but I have to commiserate and say that last year was a rotten year for squash in my …
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Where the Recycling Goes

Posted on May 12, 2009 by Christy


A while back, I met Kathleen Jacecko of Teaching Green, and have since been on her mailing list of newletters filled with ideas for sustainable living.  Last month, she published an entry about a field trip she made to the Materials Recovery Facility – a.k.a. where the recycling goes.  I have always been fascinated with recycling (my first environmental passion after gardening).  I thought the …
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Japanese / Vegetable Garden in Sierra Madre

Posted on May 7, 2009 by Christy

This spring, Gardenerd has helped many new gardeners get on their way.  Whether it be through classes, consulting or food garden design, it’s been a delight to watch people get bitten by the gardening bug and begin growing their own food.

One such delight came last month, when we finished installing a new garden in Sierra Madre.  At first it was going to be a simple, straight forward garden with a few raised beds to maximize growing space.  But as the process went on, the home owners realized that they really wanted to incorporate their dream garden – a …
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Ants on My Artichoke!

Posted on May 7, 2009 by Christy

Here’s a new question that came in this week:

“Dear Gardenerd, How do I keep the pesky ants off of my precious
artichokes? I soaked the ones I harvested and still found some. . .
ugh! Please help!     –  No Ants On My Tree”

Ants are, in and of themselves, not harmful to a garden.  That said, they are the harbinger of bad things because they have a symbiotic relationship with aphids.  They consume the sticky sweet sap that aphids excrete and in exchange they will take the aphids from place to place.  It’s the ultimate dealer-junkie relationship.

There are …
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