The Real Dirt

Is there an area in your garden where you are battling noxious weeds or other invasive plants? If so, soil solarization is a solution that avoids the use of herbicides and saves you from the on-going work of pulling up the invaders. Our hot summer months are the ideal time to employ this method.

If you seek a peaceful place to explore nature and local history on foot or by bicycle, it may be time to explore Verbena Fields. This 20-acre site was historically a floodplain for Lindo Channel and later became used as a gravel mine for road construction.

A virus can reduce a plant's growth, lower its yield, and result in inferior fruit, vegetables and flowers. Viruses are often very host specific. Recognizing symptoms can help you take appropriate action, where possible, to manage a virus and hopefully prevent its spread.

Most gardeners are aware of plant diseases that can wreak havoc in their gardens. If you grow fruit trees, you may be confronted with curled, reddened peach leaves (peach leaf curl fungus).

Record numbers of people are gardening this spring and victory gardens are rapidly sprouting across the nation. Now is a better time than ever to learn how to save seeds. People have saved plant seeds for millennia.