by Greg Alder | Oct 22, 2021 | Vegetables |
Timing. There’s not much to growing onions successfully in Southern California beyond timing. If you sow the seed or plant the plant at the right time, you’re almost guaranteed a nice bulb to eat. So many times I’ve heard people say their onions didn’t grow...
by Greg Alder | Oct 9, 2021 | Soil, Vegetables |
Can I find a mix that grows vegetable starts better than my homemade compost? For years, I’ve been growing my vegetable seedlings in compost that I make at home, but I’ve desired to discover whether another mix might work better. I want to grow the...
by Greg Alder | Sep 17, 2021 | Vegetables |
At long last, I’ve made a single-page chart that shows the best planting months for the most common vegetables! My gardening calendar carries this information with slightly more detail; my posts about what to do in the garden each month carry even more detail...
by Greg Alder | Aug 27, 2021 | Vegetables |
The first way you succeed at tomatoes is by having realistic expectations, which was the main point of my previous post, “Failing at tomatoes.” The second way is by learning to manage the things that go wrong with your tomato plants and their fruit, and this is the...
by Greg Alder | Aug 13, 2021 | Vegetables |
Your tomatoes aren’t perfect like these of mine? Your plants don’t still have vivid green foliage in late summer? Mine do. You are failing. This is the message that some gardeners receive. This summer, I’ve heard from a number of first-time gardeners who feel like...
by Greg Alder | Jul 30, 2021 | Vegetables |
“Lettuce, a cool-season vegetable, is extremely sensitive to high temperatures,” it reads on page 385 of the California Master Gardener Handbook. Well, the average high temperature in the summer in my neighborhood of Southern California is the low 90’s . . . but let’s...
by Greg Alder | Jul 2, 2021 | Vegetables |
Because my back was sore this week, I employed the kids to do more garden work. For example, they sowed corn. Kids can do this. Corn is one of the easiest vegetables to grow from seed. This post explains why some vegetables are easier to start from seed than others,...
by Greg Alder | Jun 11, 2021 | Fruit, Vegetables |
My five-year-old son didn’t want to sit in front of a computer for another school session. “Can I do work for money?” he asked. “Sure. Let’s go harvest garlic.” With teamwork, I forked the dirt to loosen it around the bulbs and then Miles pulled the tops and shook the...
by Greg Alder | May 7, 2021 | Vegetables |
Over the past couple years I had fun growing carrots of all colors, but at some point I realized that the best tasting carrots were orange. Too often, carrots of other colors were fibrous or bitter. So this last winter I grew only orange carrots. More than that, I...
by Greg Alder | Apr 30, 2021 | Soil, Vegetables |
I start all of my vegetable seeds in homemade compost, as I wrote about last month. (“Can you start vegetable seeds in compost?”) The results are satisfactory. Still I wondered how my seeds would germinate and grow in other composts. Would different composts yield...
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