by Greg Alder | Nov 22, 2019 | Vegetables |
Having received our first rain of the season in Southern California, Charles Dowding is more relevant to us than he was a week ago. Dowding is a market gardener in England, rainy England. And he goes beyond growing and selling wonderful vegetables to writing,...
by Greg Alder | Oct 11, 2019 | Vegetables, Watering |
I wish that I could water all of my vegetables by hand all the time, but as my family has grown so necessarily has my vegetable garden, and I’ve decided to accept the costs and wastes of watering with sprinklers and driplines in order to save time. During a Southern...
by Greg Alder | Aug 30, 2019 | Vegetables |
It so happens that every tomato variety of the seven I’m growing this summer has done well and tastes good enough to justify planting again next year. They’re all a little different, and I’d be selfish not to tell you about them. Small-fruited types Blush...
by Greg Alder | Aug 16, 2019 | Fruit, Vegetables, Watering |
I haven’t watered this lime tree for three years now and yet it still gives us more limes than we can handle — and limes of high quality. I don’t know for certain why it no longer needs my irrigation, but I have a suspicion. Step back and take a look at the...
by Greg Alder | Aug 9, 2019 | Vegetables |
Growing good broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and brussels sprouts in Southern California is all about timing. August is a great time to sow these “brassicas.” You get the seeds started now and you’ll likely harvest some around Thanksgiving, certainly around Christmas....
by Greg Alder | Jun 21, 2019 | Misc, Vegetables |
Just when I thought my vegetable garden was humming, I visited Roy’s. Actually, before I visited Roy’s garden, he handed me three bags stuffed full of pickings. One contained heads of romaine lettuce. Another had zuchinni, yellow squash, spaghetti squash, and...
by Greg Alder | May 31, 2019 | Vegetables |
Tomorrow is June 1 and my peppers are still not planted, and I don’t feel late in the least. On the other hand, my sister-in-law had bad luck with vegetable seeds she sowed recently and now she feels rushed to buy plants and get them in the ground pronto, and she...
by Greg Alder | Apr 19, 2019 | Vegetables |
I brought this ‘Clarimore’ zucchini plant back from a tour of Brijette Peña’s urban farm, where she grows vegetables for seed and trials varieties for her San Diego Seed Company. Peña sold it to me as a seedling in a four-inch pot. But when I got home that...
by Greg Alder | Apr 12, 2019 | Vegetables |
More than any other vegetable, growing corn makes me feel like I’m farming — not gardening, but farming. It’s partly because corn is a big plant. It’s one of the few vegetables that stands taller than you. And corn is usually grown in some arrangement of...
by Greg Alder | Feb 22, 2019 | Vegetables |
This year, I happen to be growing all of my vegetables from seed, which is a throwback to when I started vegetable gardening. In the interim, there have been years where I grew entirely from plants purchased at a nursery. During most years though, my vegetable garden...
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