by Greg Alder | Jul 24, 2020 | Pests, Vegetables |
I planted cucumbers on June 19 and expected them to take off in the warm weather and soil, but they kept wilting in the noonday sun. So I watered more. They continued to wilt every afternoon. When they weren’t wilting, they were barely growing. Finally, I yanked one...
by Greg Alder | Jun 19, 2020 | Vegetables |
After joining Roy Wilburn to harvest tomatoes in his garden last June, which I wrote about in the post, “Learning from the California Gardener of the Year,” I was spurred to try his method of supporting tomato vines. Roy uses a specific style of stake-and-string...
by Greg Alder | May 15, 2020 | Vegetables |
I didn’t much like cucumbers until I grew ‘Green Finger.’ I didn’t love to eat them, and I was frustrated while growing them. From my garden, too often they were bitter, and I never could figure out how to consistently prevent that. Insufficient or uneven watering...
by Greg Alder | Mar 6, 2020 | Vegetables |
My “reliable” gardening calendar for Southern California says to plant your first tomatoes after March 15. So why are these already in the ground in my garden, planted February 29? How early can you plant your first tomatoes? Do you realize how dry it has...
by Greg Alder | Feb 7, 2020 | Vegetables |
Cilantro is my favorite feral plant in the yard. It pops up in pathways, under fruit trees, over by the fence. And I do still plant some in my garden beds. Yearly routine I haven’t bought cilantro seed or plants for years because I’ve got a routine that keeps the...
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. Summer is not the best time to grow “brassicas” but it is a great time to sow them. You get the seeds started in summer (I’ve started as...
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