Ongoing research

Understanding the ins and outs of fertilizing your garden can sometimes feel overwhelming. The shelves of colorful products at the local shop, sometimes with confusing labels, promise magical results. By keeping in mind some basic facts about fertilizers and fertilizing, you may approach the task with much…

By – Sherida Phibbs Meet Linda Driver – One Jar at a TimeIf you’ve ever attended a UC Master Food Preserver class on jellies and jams, chances are you’ve crossed paths with Linda Driver—a longtime volunteer whose passion for preserving is only matched by her generosity and sense of humor.Linda became a…

Michele Jones UC Master Food Preserver Online Program VolunteerCounty of residence: Placer Image credit: Maria Giovanni, 2025 Hi, my name is Michele Jones, and I am proud to be a recent graduate of the UC Master Food Preserver Program, graduating in June 2025. I grew up watching my mother and…

Paige Weisskirch, UC Master Food Preserver Online Program Volunteer Freezing fruit at home is one of the simplest and most effective ways to preserve your harvest, or that great farmers-market haul, so nothing goes to waste. It gives you the convenience of having high-quality, ready-to-use fruit at your…

Henry Shaw, UC Master Food Preserver Online Program Volunteer If you've done any pressure canning, you've probably noticed something curious: the jars often keep boiling long after you remove them from the canner and place them on your counter (Fig.1). This bubbling can go on for minutes — or even hours…

Monica Gross, UC Master Food Preserver Online Program Volunteer There are a surprising number of uses for tomato skin! This article will explain how to make a powder out of tomato skins and what to do with that powder (Fig.1). Prior to canning tomatoes, it’s necessary to remove the tomato skin. This is…

A 2025 study in the Current Developments in Nutrition, revealed that participation in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, commonly known as WIC, may modestly decrease the risk for low gestational weight gain and slow gestational weight gain rate. Notably,…

 What a tiny moth!Jeff Smith, volunteer curator of the Lepidoptera collection at the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, for three decades, has just spread the wings of a micro-moth with a wingspan (both wings open) measured at about 1 centimeter.And it is not only tiny,…