- Author: Pamela M. Geisel
Vegetable and fruit gardens are taking over American backyards and that is a really good thing. However, many gardeners are forgetting that their backyard should also be a place to enjoy in other ways and hence the food garden really should be a thing of beauty as well as productivity.
I was at a garden in downtown Oakland not too long ago and the garden, while productive for being on a vacant lot, still looked somewhat like a vacant lot. You could tell there were veggies growing, chickens ran around and there were also goats on the lot but it wasn’t really a place of beauty. It looked more like a weedy lot with intermittent plots of veggies.
A beautiful vegetable garden is not difficult but it does take some planning....
- Author: Cynthia Kintigh
To the rescue is a series of free, downloadable publications from the ANR Catalog. I've always noticed that these publications move to the top of our download charts each summer, so this year I decided to try one of the recipes.
This comes from the category, "What do I do with all of these peppers?" and is actually called Peppers: Safe Methods to...
- Author: Chris M. Webb
Rose Hayden-Smith, Ventura County Cooperative Extension director and U.S. historian is passionate about the power and possibilities inherent in gardening. She uses her extensive knowledge of homefront war efforts to help influence public policy in regards to local food systems.
Earlier this year Dr. Hayden-Smith gave a lecture, Victory Gardens: Join the Garden Revolution, at the San Diego Natural History Museum about this topic.
More about the lecture.
At no point in our lifetimes has the interest in gardening, urban...
- Author: Brenda Roche
“Fresh from the Garden” is a “vegetable education” program that was created several years ago by retired LA County Cooperative Extension employee and registered dietitian Susan Giordano. Giordano created lessons to reach home gardeners and their families living with limited resources. The lessons are designed to increase gardeners' knowledge of healthful eating habits, while emphasizing the health benefits associated with a vegetable-rich diet. The lessons also encourage gardeners to grow a greater variety of vegetables, more nutrient-dense vegetables, to cultivate vegetable crops throughout the year, and to prepare their harvest using delicious, nutritious recipes. In recent months, the lessons have been given a makeover...
- Author: Pamela M. Geisel
Blackberries and boysenberries are amazing fruits. The fleeting fruit bearing nature of these productive plants are to be truly appreciated by pie and jam connoisseurs alike. Berries are a very low glycemic index foods (low in sugar) and a great treat for nutritionally conscious eaters.
Every gardener can enjoy and/or hate a productive berry plant. The fruit production is confined to a very short season but the plant can take on enormous proportions if left unchecked. One must be ever diligent to keep the berry plants confined to the planting row and kept trellised to avoid the “overgrown” berry heap in the backyard. Nonetheless, if a person has a place in the sun for a four-foot-wide row of berries, the rewards are...