Ongoing research

By Janet Miller Photos by Greg Letts The summer season at Our Garden has been one of our busiest and most productive. The year started out with more challenges than we have ever experienced.

In the 2023 UC Master Gardener Photo Contest, the diverse talents of UC Master Gardeners from across the state were vividly displayed.

With the McKinney Fire creeping closer to Yreka in the summer of 2022, Emily Jackson and her mother potentially faced the enormous task of getting all their goats, chickens, dogs and cats to safety while Emily's father and twin sister Lindsay were away fighting the fires.

Question: Why is it not advised to use overripe tomatoes for home canning? Response: Using overripe tomatoes in home canning is not recommended for several important reasons, primarily related to safety and the quality of the canned product.

Did you know that disinfectants and sterilizers are pesticides? Any substance that claims to kill, destroy, prevent, or repel a pest, including germs, is considered a pesticide. So cleaning products that claim to sterilize or kill germs on surfaces or be effective against bacteria like E.

QUESTION: Is there any instrument that can be bought to measure the pH balance for home canning? What about a high quality litmus paper or a pH gauge?

To achieve groundwater sustainability under California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, or SGMA, demand management policies that encourage water conservation will be necessary, says Ellen Bruno, University of California Cooperative Extension specialist in quantitative policy analysis at U...

Summer is winding down and the produce from our gardens is starting to wane. I just cut down my Prairie Fire tomato that I had planted as part of our experiment with growing tomatoes in containers.

Happy Monday all, I have had the pleasure of visiting numerous Research Extension Centers (South Coast, Hopland, Sierra Foothills, Intermountain, West Side, Lindcove, and Kearney). I have also visited UC Irvine, UC Davis, and UC Berkeley. I soon will visit UC Merced and UC Santa Cruz.

I've had fun experimenting with growing smaller pepper varieties such as jalapeos, padrons, cherry peppers, and Japanese shishito peppers.