by Greg Alder | Oct 19, 2018 | Fruit, Vegetables |
Melon vines take up too much garden space. This past summer, we grew all of ours away from the vegetable beds. I planted them under fruit trees where they had room to roam. In the photo above, a Sweet Crimson watermelon is growing “under” a young Hellen avocado tree....
by Greg Alder | Oct 6, 2018 | Vegetables |
Broccoli and cauliflower are a couple of my favorite vegetables to grow if only to watch my uncivilized children eat them. Aren’t kids not even supposed to like broccoli? Mine eat the heads straight off the growing plant. Planting broccoli and cauliflower in Southern...
by Greg Alder | Jul 27, 2018 | Vegetables, Watering |
Drip irrigation supplemented by occasional overhead watering is the best way to water a vegetable garden. The best? That’s right. That’s my claim. This method gives you all of the advantages of drip irrigation while compensating for its few disadvantages. Here’s...
by Greg Alder | Jun 15, 2018 | Vegetables |
The change I’d like to see in my corner of the world is that more people grow a little of their own food. It doesn’t require a lot of space, many tools, much physical effort or time or money. Here I’ve gathered the five most useful things that I wish I had known...
by Greg Alder | Mar 30, 2018 | Vegetables |
Gardening as sport: This year, I took the challenge of growing more lettuce than my brother’s family could eat. He and my sister-in-law fuel their family of six with a quasi paleo diet, which includes a lot of lettuce, and they would be spending a week at our house in...
by Greg Alder | Feb 2, 2018 | Pests, Vegetables |
Aphids in many Southern California vegetable gardens are particularly bad this winter. What a good opportunity to test some control methods and make observations about aphid behavior. Brevicoryne brassicae, that’s the scientific name for the particular aphid I’m...
by Greg Alder | Aug 18, 2017 | Vegetables |
Are heirloom tomatoes big or small? Are they red or orange or yellow? Are they wrinkly? Are they meaty? What do they taste like? What the heck does heirloom mean? Of course, heirloom has nothing to do with size or color or rugosity or taste. It has most to do with...
by Greg Alder | May 26, 2017 | Vegetables |
A couple years ago I planted a Sungold cherry tomato that grew into a jungle: ten feet wide, taller than me, I wanted a machete to hack into the middle to grasp those golden fruits. I supported the plant in no manner. That’s an option for tomato growers, no...
by Greg Alder | May 19, 2017 | Vegetables |
Transplanting vegetable seedlings is such a simple act, and yet there are better and worse ways to do it. There’s even an artfulness and fluidity to the process. Here are photos with captions describing the five motions that I go through. It’s about...
by Greg Alder | Mar 15, 2017 | Vegetables |
It’s nearly spring, the time of year when many people think of planting a vegetable garden. If this will be your first one, or if you’ve moved into a new house, or if your past vegetable gardens struggled, here are what I consider the two most important...
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