by Greg Alder | Sep 21, 2018 | Misc |
“Did you see any kitties in the backyard?” my mother-in-law asked my son. “No, they were hiding in the avocado tree,” he said. They were. Only it wasn’t an avocado tree. This was a backyard in Oregon. But the leaves of the tree were...
by Greg Alder | Aug 31, 2018 | Misc, Soil |
It had been about a year since I’d replenished the wood chips throughout my yard and the mulch was wearing thin. I was having trouble finding a convenient source. I started to get anxious. Then a couple weeks ago my neighbor offered a pile that had been sitting...
by Greg Alder | Aug 24, 2018 | Misc |
Summer is on its last legs, I’ve bought my seeds for fall vegetables, but before we start talking about the next season let’s look back and update some stories about the remarkable past winter and passing summer. Click the title links below and...
by Greg Alder | Aug 3, 2018 | Misc |
I took this picture of a banana peel and an orange rind because they made me realize how weird I am, how weird we are as food gardeners. The banana peel and orange rind were lying on the floor mat of my truck; I was taking them home with me. There was a trash can in...
by Greg Alder | Jul 8, 2018 | Misc |
While I may know the names of all of the fruit trees in my yard, my wife and children don’t, and friends and family who visit certainly don’t. So I started drawing the names of my trees on pieces of wood that I then stuck into the ground with metal stakes....
by Greg Alder | Jun 29, 2018 | Misc, Soil |
A good book changes you. If you looked at my vegetable garden today and compared it to my vegetable garden a couple years ago, one difference you’d notice is the fullness of its beds. Nowadays, I aim to keep plants growing over every square inch of each bed at all...
by Greg Alder | May 18, 2018 | Misc |
Last summer, I was touring my grandmother’s yard when we came to her peach tree and she assessed, “It’s in OK shape. But I didn’t get around to spraying it this year.” We moved on to her macadamia, tangelo, tangerine, avocado, grapefruit, and then down to her apple...
by Greg Alder | Apr 6, 2018 | Misc |
Weeding the garden is not mindless work. This struck me the other day when my wife was helping in the garden and I saw her do what we all instinctively do to a weed: rip it out of the ground. That’s generally a fine thing to do with a small weed, but this was a...
by Greg Alder | Feb 16, 2018 | Misc |
I found myself doing the strangest thing in the yard the other day: planting flowers. A few years ago, I could not have predicted this day would come. Flowers were for girls. Or maybe for old men who like to prune roses. But no — I’ve since become enlightened:...
by Greg Alder | Jan 30, 2018 | Misc |
You are invited! Each spring, the Master Gardener program of San Diego County holds a day of classes and workshops, plus a marketplace. This year’s Spring Seminar is called “Garden Spaces: Growing Outside the Box.” It will be held on March 17, 2018...
Recent comments