Alameda Sun, Thursday, March 9, 2023 by Holly Johnson Tomatoes are nearly everyone’s favorite food to grow for themselves. Here are some tips for successful tomatoes in Alameda, collected from Alameda Backyard Growers’ resources, local gardening experts, and notes from a past presentation by Evan Krokowski, the former farm coordinator […]
Alameda Sun, Friday, September 16, 2022 by Holly Johnson Alameda Backyard Growers (ABG) held their August educational program on site at Farm2Market, the social enterprise farm division of Alameda Point Collaborative (APC). The session, part of the group’s monthly education series, gave three dozen attendees a hands-on learning experience as […]
Alameda Sun – Thursday, December 8, 2022 by Holly Johnson When Senate Bill 1383 (SB 1383), which requires homes and businesses to separate food waste from trash, became law on the first of this year, Alamedans might not have noticed. The city’s waste management system has included curbside food waste […]
Alameda Sun, Wednesday, February 8, 2023 by Linda Carloni, Alameda Backyard Growers Alameda’s front and back yards contain many citrus trees. Selected lemon and mandarin orange varieties are particularly common here. Citrus trees are easy to care for, but they can be prone to insect damage on the leaves from […]
Alameda Sun – Wednesday, November 23, 2022 by Kristen Smeal, Co-President of Alameda Backyard Growers During World War I, school gardens materialized as an effort to utilize idle land on urban and suburban school properties. Food was grown at schools for local community food security, to increase nutritional awareness, and […]
Alameda Sun, Thursday, August 11, 2022 by Linda Carloni, Alameda Backyard Growers It’s a lovely warm summer day. The kale plants in the garden have looked lush and productive, ready for salads and sautés. The broccoli and chives have been doing well too. But suddenly — aphids! Aphids are small […]
Alameda Sun – Thursday, July 14, 2022 by Jillian Saxty, Co-President of Alameda Backyard Growers Community organizations in other cities now have a handy tool for setting up their own food recovery or gleaning groups thanks to the new booklet produced by StopWaste and Alameda Backyard Growers (ABG). The publication, […]
Alameda Sun, Thursday, May 12, 2022 by Ann Naffziger, Alameda Backyard Growers About 10 years ago, my next-door neighbor and I were commiserating that we didn’t have enough sunny space in our yards to grow as many tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant as we could eat. Privately, I was intensely jealous […]
Alameda Sun – Thursday, April 14, 2022 by MaryClaire James There was a time in my past when I had to concede that my home was a hospice for the unfortunate plants that caught my eye and came home with me. I never intended for them to have such a […]
Alameda Sun – Thursday, March 10, 2022 Alameda Backyard Growers (ABG) invited a youth at Farm2Market to share their perspective on gardening. Oliver Stouffer, a 17-year-old senior at Encinal High School, accepted their offer. My name is Oliver Stouffer. I am 17 years old and a Senior at Encinal High […]
Alameda Sun – Tuesday, February 8, 2022 by Alison Limoges, Board member of Alameda Backyard Growers and Master Gardener As humans, we all eat. Some of us grow our own food, but mostly we buy, prepare food, and then dispose of the leftovers. Unless we have pigs or goats to […]
Alameda Sun – Thursday, January 13 2022 by Linda Carloni, Board member of Alameda Backyard Growers and Master Gardener Fruit trees can be planted in fall, winter, or spring, but only in winter are bare root trees available. Back in the day, bare root fruit trees were the only way […]
Alameda Sun – December 9, 2021 by Alison Limoges, Board member of Alameda Backyard Growers, Master Gardener There are many ways to make attractive, decorative wreaths year-round. The variety of possible shapes, sizes, backings, decorations, and attachment methods allow for great creativity. Wreath making provides excellent opportunities to recycle and […]
Alameda Sun – Thursday, October 14, 2021 by Ron Limoges, President of the ABG Board of Directors Happy Autumn!! Alameda Backyard Growers (ABG) quietly moved into our 10th year of service last Spring, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of celebrating, we continued to search out new ways […]
Alameda Sun – Wednesday, September 8, 2021 by Kristen Smeal, Board member of Alameda Backyard Growers, Master Gardener and Garden Science teacher at St. Philip Neri School in Alameda Nestled in the vibrant Arts District of the West End of Alameda is a quaint, quiet garden called the Healing Garden. […]
Alameda Sun – Wednesday, August 11, 2021 by Alison Limoges, Board member of Alameda Backyard Growers and Master Gardener When I was growing up in New York state, my brothers and I spent more than a few summer hours picking hundreds of hungry, non-native beetles off of our few fruit […]
Alameda Sun – Wednesday, June 9, 2021 by Birgitt Evans, Board member of Alameda Backyard Growers and Master Gardener It’s June now and the garden is planted and beginning to take off. Also taking off are those organisms people identify as “pests.” Contrary to most articles, this one is not […]
Alameda Sun – Wednesday, May 12, 2021 by Kristen Smeal, Board member of Alameda Backyard Growers, Master Gardener and Garden Science teacher at St. Philip Neri School in Alameda The past few weeks of Spring enthusiasm have certainly activated the sense of sight. Bright, bold, blooming flowers and trees present […]
Part One Alameda Sun – Thursday, April 8, 2021 by Linda Carloni, ABG Board member and Master Gardener The birds of North America are disappearing. A 2019 study led by Cornell Lab of Ornithology found that since 1970, we’ve lost 2.9 billion breeding adult birds throughout North America, spread from […]
Alameda Sun – Wednesday, March 10, 2021 by Holly Johnson, ABG Board member In addition to growing vegetables from seeds or plant starts, there is a fun, easy method to try without needing to buy or acquire anything extra. Many types of food are very easy to grow from scraps […]
Alameda Sun – Tuesday, March 2, 2021 by Kristen Smeal, ABG Board member When Girl Scout Leader Jill Proffitt learned of the Alameda Backyard Growers (ABG) Free Seed Library, she saw an opportunity for the Girl Scouts to help. Girl Scout Troop #33373 of Alameda, which includes eighth-graders Jennifer Proffitt, […]
Alameda Sun, Thursday, February 11, 2021 by Marla Koss, ABG Board member As 2020 marked a resurgence in gardening, let 2021 be the year for upping one’s game. Now is an ideal time to think about what to plant in this year’s vegetable garden. First on the list: tomatoes! Spending […]
Alameda Sun, Thursday, January 14, 2021 by Birgitt Evans, ABG Board member and Master Gardener Butterflies are perennial favorites for young and old alike. People love to watch them flutter past and feed from flowers. With the near total collapse of the Western Monarch Migration, many people want to know […]
Alameda Sun, Thursday, December 10, 2020 by Marla Koss, ABG Board member When the first day of winter is not long off, gardeners in harsh-winter areas may get a guilt-free pass to ignore the yard in favor of the cozy indoors, but those who grow backyard vegetables and fruit in […]
Alameda Sun, Thursday, November 12, 2020 by Jillian Saxty, ABG Board member Like every other community organization in Alameda, Alameda Backyard Growers’ (ABG) Project Pick faced a dilemma when COVID-19 shut down the Bay Area back in March. How could volunteers continue to meet in large groups to pick backyard […]
Alameda Sun, Thursday, October 8, 2020 by Alison Limoges, ABG Board member and Master Gardener It’s officially autumn now and while some people persist in blowing away the falling leaves, it’s so much healthier to use, not remove, them. In addition to the annoying and unhealthy noise, dust, and air […]
Alameda Sun, Thursday, September 10, 2020 by Dena Andersen Harvest. In our supermarket-surrounded and 24-hour mini-mart available lives, many of us have lost the concept of what this word once meant. My grandfather, however, was thrilled when as a teenager a century ago he and his brother worked with a […]
Alameda Sun, Thursday, August 13, 2020 by Birgitt Evans Alameda Backyard Growers (ABG) was founded 10 years ago by Amanda MacLean Bruemmer and Janice Edwards in response to the economic meltdown as a way to build community, learn about growing food and give back to those in the community in […]
Alameda Sun, Thursday, July 9, 2020 by Kristen Smeal Just like humans, plants have friends and foes and can thrive or fail when planted in close proximity to one another. By definition, planting one or more types of plants together in a beneficial relationship is called companion planting. The companion […]
Alameda Sun, Thursday, June 11, 2020 by Birgitt Evans As if there isn’t enough to worry about in 2020, the Bay Area is in the grip of another drought year, having received only 40 percent of the average annual rainfall. Wait! Don’t run away. There is actually something gardeners can […]
Alameda Sun, Thursday, May 14, 2020 by Marla Koss In a time of food insecurity, what could be more inviting than a tree covered in fruit? The again, sometimes the gods can be too kind. Overly generous fruit loads have a way of breaking branches and yielding small, poor-quality fruit […]
Alameda Sun, Thursday, April 9, 2020 by Birgitt Evans In March 2010, Alameda Backyard Growers (ABG) held its first meeting. Formed in response to the financial crisis in 2008, we created educational programming and set up Project Pick to help our community grow and donate food. Exactly 10 years later, […]
Alameda Sun, Thursday, March 12, 2020 by Kristen Smeal The history of school gardens dates back to the late 19th century in the United States. When the U.S. entered World War I, Americans were encouraged to utilize land for the sake of food security on a community and national level. […]
Alameda Sun, Thursday, February 13, 2020 by Dena Andersen People move to the Bay Area for many reasons, among them: work, its unique social life and the fantastic natural beauty of California. But for gardeners who find themselves living here a greater secret awaits, for Alameda has not two, but […]
Alameda Sun, Thursday, January 9, 2020 by Marla Koss Communities all over the world have love and pride for where they live and Californians are no different. There are places here for everyone: mountains and coastlines, grasslands and forests, even a backyard garden or a city park. No matter the […]
Alameda Sun, Friday, December 20, 2019 by Marla Koss Alameda’s garden soil may be tops for cultivating and planting in, but it does have a significant drawback: it harbors oak root fungus Armillaria mellea. Do not confuse this with “sudden oak death” Phytopthora ramorum. Armillaria is a serious forest pathogen […]
Alameda Sun, Thursday, October 10, 2019 by Birgitt Evans In response to the November 2018 New York Times article entitled “The Insect Apocalypse is Here,” which reported sharp declines in insect numbers, many gardeners set out to remedy the problem by planting bee- and butterfly-friendly gardens. But some plants in […]
Pulling Together a 2019 Summer Garden Wrap-Up When we went hunting for input from local gardeners for this article (September 12, 2019, Alameda Sun – see below), not only did our respondents give us good feedback on this year’s successes and disappointments in their yards, they also talked about ingenious […]
Alameda Sun, Thursday, August 8, 2019 by Birgitt Evans It’s August. The weather is warm and the kids are playing in the pool. So that makes this the perfect time to think about the fall garden, right? Right! In order to take advantage of the long growing season in Alameda, […]
Last Thanksgiving, only 28,429 monarchs were counted in their wintering colonies compared to a historic population of about 10 million in the Western Monarch Migration. Today’s monarchs face several challenges, the most intractable being a lack of Milkweed (Asclepias spp.), where females typically lay their eggs, as well as a […]
Alameda Sun, Thursday, June 13, 2019 by Holly Johnson Should developers be required to provide space and other necessities for community gardens in new projects? That is a question for cities to consider as neighborhoods of single-family residences give way to multi-family housing. Community gardens are plots of land of […]
Alameda Sun, Thursday, May 9, 2019 by Margie Siegal Since the growing season in Alameda is 365 days long, it is possible to grow something tasty during every season of the year. Although most Alamedans have small spaces in which to cultivate, practicing succession planting (replacing harvested crops with a […]
by Margie Siegal, Alameda Backyard Growers Originally published in the Alameda Sun, April 11, 2019 Many people don’t think too often about the dirt beneath their feet, but the dirt that covers most of the Earth’s dry land makes growing things possible. For those of us who want to have […]
by Birgitt Evans President of Alameda Backyard Growers Alameda Sun, February 14, 2019 Artificial lawns — usually installed to save water and reduce yard maintenance — are popping up all across Alameda. Unfortunately, there are many serious environmental drawbacks to artificial turf, and they are not a good solution for […]
Linda Carloni of Alameda Backyard Growers Alameda Sun, Thursday, January 10, 2019 Majestic stands of Live Oak trees once thrived on Alameda, along with willows and other species. Development and the passage of time have taken many historic trees, but some remain and many have been replaced, as Alameda values […]
by Holly Johnson, Alameda Backyard Growers Alameda Sun, Thursday, November 8, 2018 While several varieties of peach trees can do well in Alameda, these fruit trees are also susceptible to a fungal disease that makes them look unhealthy and, in fact, weakens their ability to thrive. The disease, peach leaf […]
by Mary Sotelo, Alameda Backyard Growers Alameda Sun – Thursday, October 11, 2018 Sadly, the monarch butterfly population is declining. One of the primary reasons is the loss of open space where the monarchs’ host plants, milkweeds, grow. Alameda gardeners can help increase the monarchs’ numbers by building habitats in […]
by Alison Limoges Alameda Sun – Thursday, September 13, 2018 According to “The Super Bowl of Beekeeping” an article by Jaime Lowe in the Aug. 9, New York Times Magazine, “About one in every three mouthfuls of food we eat wouldn’t exist without bee pollination.” While local gardeners may not […]
by Linda Carloni, Alameda Backyard Growers Alameda Sun, Thursday, August 9, 2018 Summer is an especially wonderful time to enjoy fresh produce. Tomatoes, green beans, peaches and berries all beckon us to enjoy them. But fresh produce spoils more quickly than other food. So summer is a good time to […]
by Linda Carloni, Alameda Backyard Growers Alameda Sun, Thursday, June 14, 2018 Powdery mildew may well win the race for “most common problem in Alameda food gardens.” Here’s what happens. It’s June or July, and the vegetable plants in the garden are getting big. They look lush and green and […]
