-
Get Christy's Top 5 Successful Organic Gardening Tips FREE!
-
Calendar
June 2026 M T W T F S S « Nov 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Archives
Tags
Ask Gardenerd Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds beekeeping Bees Bounty Hunter chicken keeping compost design Edible gardening event events Fall Field Trip flowers garden garden design Gardenerd Gardening Garden nerd garlic Harvest harvesting Harvesting Tips kale Mar Vista's Bounty Hunter Mar Vista Farmers' Market Monarch butterflies pest control pollinators pumpkin recipe Recipes Review saving seeds soil spring garden Tips tomatoes Tools Tour Veggies Winter Wordless Wednesday YouTubeSubscribe
-
Recent Posts
-
-
Category Archives: What’s Growin’ On
Grow BioIntensive Workshop
At the beginning of November I attended the 3-day Grow BioIntensive workshop in Willits, CA. It blew my mind. In fact, it took my brain out of
my
head, turned it inside out and put it back in. What is Grow BioIntensive, you ask? Well, let me attempt to explain it in less than three days:
Grow BioIntensive is a method of gardening/farming that combines French Intensive, which useshexagonal plant spacing“2”>as well as double-digging …
Continue reading Continue reading
A Visit to the Solar Living Institute
Back in my early college years, all I wanted to do was make bread and swing in a hammock all day. I dove head-first into environmental issues and
chose
recycling as my personal passion. Along with the strong desire to sort trash came an awareness of solar power and all its benefits. It was then that I discovered Real Goods.
Real Goods had not yet been bought by Gaiam.com when …
Continue reading Continue reading
Woolly Pocket School Garden Project on Dwell Magazine Website
I just got word today that we’ve been mentioned in an online article for Dwell Magazine.
Miguel Nelson brought me in as the garden expert for the project and we partnered with School Nutrition Plus to create the Woolly Pocket School Garden Program back in early Summer 2009. So far, we’ve installed 5 school gardens and we’re about to venture into Arizona to reach other schools.
Here’s a chance to see what goes on in Miguel’s head when he invents these great ideas for our participating schools:
Gardenerd Organic Gardening Series Weekend Intensive
Coming up next week, the Gardenerd Organic Gardening Series will be offered for the first time ever as a Weekend Intensive. Get all your gardening know-how packed into one short weekend course. Check out the details for these organic gardening classes being held in Los Angeles:
Registration is now open!
Take a class. Take the whole series (it’s a better deal anyway!) Become the green thumb you always wanted …
Continue reading Continue reading
Posted in What's Growin' On
Leave a comment
Pumpkin Mania 2009
For those who don’t know, Gardenerd.com has partnered with School Nutrition Plus and the Woolly Pocket Company to install Woolly Pocket wall vegetable gardens in schools throughout Los Angeles and Arizona. We were fortunate to get Kellogg Gardens as a sponsor to donate organic soil amendments for the school garden projects. Each year, Kellogg also hosts Pumpkinmania – a giant pumpkin weigh-off with cash prizes for the largest pumpkin and other categories. This year, I was invited to attend Pumpkinmania 2009 by Ty Hall of Kellogg Gardens. How could I resist?
…
Continue reading Continue reading
Drought Tolerant Design and Veggies
While I was co-teaching a workshop up at the Esalen Institute earlier this year, I met Jesse Carmichael and his mom. They were taking the class together and found it to be a bonding experience to learn about gardening together. When I got home, Jesse called me and asked if I could design a vegetable garden for him.
Interestingly enough, what started as a simple vegetable garden evolved into a full-fledged drought tolerant front and back yard landscaping project. Here’s what it looked like before:
Adventures at the Theodore Payne Foundation
We landscaped our front yard last year and, as with many things in life, not all the plants made it. We found the Convolvulus to be lacking in heartiness, so to speak. It fried and died basically. So after much research and advice we decided to go with Mimulus Aurantiacus as a replacement.
Now, mimulus may be a native California species and it may be drought tolerant, but it has proven to be almost impossible to find at nurseries, including my wholesale nursery sources. What’s up with that?!
Enter the Theodore Payne Foundation. They specialize in …
Continue reading Continue reading
Climate Action Giveaway and Gardenerd.com
I usually keep my politics to myself, but I was given the opportunity to contribute a prize to the Climate Action Giveaway recently. So I’m spreading the word. Here’s the scoop:
Want America to be a Climate Leader?
Need a little added inspiration to get involved?
Make history with us and be entered to win in the World’s Biggest
Green Sweepstakes! World leaders are meeting in Copenhagen in December to
hopefully come to an international agreement on the world-wide
reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. If America is going to truly …
Continue reading Continue reading
Posted in What's Growin' On
Leave a comment
Rain Barrel – 3 Ways
During the spring we had our rain gutters re-done so that we would be rain barrel-ready when ever the day arrives that it might rain again in Los Angeles. The only thing missing, now that we have the gutters with downspouts pointing in the right direction at the right height, is a bunch of barrels. We need 5 for our property – one for each corner of the house and one for the office in the back yard.
Last time I checked, rain barrels were pretty expensive, ranging from $125-300 a piece for the nicer looking …
Continue reading Continue reading
Planting Fall Gardens 2 – the Gardenerd Test Garden
In addition to helping others plant their fall gardens, I’m not ashamed to admit that I get the most joy out of planting my own. The Gardenerd Test Garden is being planted slowly but surely, and as of this writing there are a few things to report:
We planted sugar snap peas a few weeks ago and they are about 6 inches tall and starting to reach for the trellis. I used the Gardenerd-designed tomato cages from summer to support the peas – it might be a bit short, but we’ll see how it goes.