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...
by Greg Alder | Mar 3, 2017 | Vegetables |
I love hummus, so when I saw a garbanzo bean plant at the nursery last April I bought it. Rookie mistake. Just because you see a plant at the nursery doesn’t mean that now is a good time to buy and plant it. Different vegetable plants prefer to grow in different...
by Greg Alder | Feb 26, 2017 | Vegetables |
You have eaten a part of this plant a million times, and you’ve almost certainly grown it in your vegetable garden, but you may have never let it live long enough to blossom. Poof. I’ll post the answer in the comments section in a couple days. Share Share...
by Greg Alder | Dec 9, 2016 | Vegetables |
Even though I refer to my notes from past seasons for precise planting times, for a glance at which vegetables I can plant at any given time I always go to Vince Lazaneo’s “Vegetable Planting Guide.” Vince is a retired farm advisor for San Diego...
by Greg Alder | Nov 24, 2016 | Vegetables |
I try to grow some of our fall decorations each year, and this year, instead of squash, I focused on colorful corn. Doesn’t get much more vibrant than Glass Gem. A variety from Oklahoma that has a hopeful history, it is available from Baker Creek for about $5 a...
by Greg Alder | Nov 22, 2016 | Vegetables |
Here’s what I do: Buy a sweet potato at the grocery store, dig a shallow hole somewhere in the yard, and bury the tuber. Then I forget about it. I don’t even remember exactly where I buried it. It doesn’t matter. In the spring it will send up a bunch...
by Greg Alder | Nov 19, 2016 | Vegetables |
Did a little experiment with mixes for starting seeds. The “Stone” medium on the left is an E.B. Stone “Seed Starter” Mix that I purchased. The bag says it contains primarily peat moss and perlite. The “Alder” medium on the right is...
by Greg Alder | Nov 12, 2016 | Vegetables |
What’s wrong with this picture, besides the fact that it’s not well composed? If we lived in Oregon, nothing. If we lived in Missouri, nothing. But in Southern California, you don’t usually pick both tomatoes and broccoli from the garden at the same...
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