by Linda Carloni The calendar says it’s spring, but with our continuing atmospheric river-fueled storms, it often still feels a lot like winter, a wet chilly winter. Nevertheless, there are tasks in the garden to tackle when you can seize a dry day. Remember to avoid working the soil when […]
By Jillian Saxty, ABG Project Pick Coordinator I have been running ABG’s Project Pick, with the help of many wonderful volunteers and ABG members, for over a decade and it still amazes me just how many fruit trees we have in Alameda, especially lemon trees. During the winter months, January […]
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 […]
by Marla Koss By the time this newsletter reaches your inbox, Alameda will have accumulated over 600 chill hours* since November 1. This means all the following deciduous fruit trees should have their dormant (winter) pruning done by the next week or two (or ideally, already have had it), depending […]
by Margie Siegal I came back from a short trip and did a tour around the back yard. The Gala apple tree was drooping. I knew what it was – oak root fungus. I started soaking the tree with fungicide and clearing out the ground around the roots, but it […]
by Linda Carloni, Master Gardener and ABG Board Member The calendar is turned, and we’ve started turning the pages in our seed catalogs (or clicking online). January can be a busy month for the gardener. Two major tasks for food gardens are planning the spring and summer garden and selecting […]
by Birgitt Evans Master Gardener and ABG Board Member When we first moved to Alameda, we rented a house with a huge garden and I began my lifelong experiment with growing as much of our food as I possibly could. In those days, I was wildly experimental, growing six colors […]
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 […]
Contributed by Linda Carloni This recipe is adapted from the version handed down to me from my late mother-in-law, Lillian Carloni. Preheat oven to 375 F. Combine in large bowl and beat until creamy (hand mixer is good): ½ cup brown sugar ½ cup white sugar 3 eggs Add to […]
Contributed by Kristen Smeal This (plant based) recipe is adapted from the one my grandmother used to make, which she called “pigs in a blanket,” a Pennsylvania coal-country adaptation of a traditional Eastern European food, Halupki. They are commonly served around the holidays, at weddings, and at the county fair. […]
Contributed by Birgitt Evans Makes 12 – 15 buns This recipe comes from “Fika: The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break” by Anna Brones & Johanna Kindvall. The English have ‘tea time’ and we Swedes have our “Fika” (pronounced “fee-ka”) which is coffee plus a sweet treat and time to […]
Contributed by Margie Siegal (for 1 person, double or triple as needed) This is an inexpensive but tasty dinner or lunch, especially if you grow your own. Kale, chard and mustard greens grow year round in our climate, and are some of the easiest vegetables to grow. Kale is often […]
Contributed by Marla Koss (Adapted from Marion Cunningham’s WILLIE’S CRISP recipe from her long-ago San Francisco Chronicle column) Fruit Filling: 5 to 6 cups apples, peeled, in medium-sized chunks or slices 12-oz. package fresh or frozen cranberries 1 to 1 ½ cups sugar, depending on tartness of apples 4 tbsp. […]
A big shout out and thank you to Alameda Science and Technology Institute (ASTI) Garden Club students who organized picking apples from the orchard on their campus. They donated 100 lbs of delicious fruit that was delivered to the Alameda Food Bank. ABG appreciates the dedication of these students to […]
by Linda Carloni, Master Gardener and ABG Board Member Now that it’s autumn, gardening changes, but in our area it doesn’t end. Here’s a guide to resources from ABG and other excellent sources for some autumn gardening tasks: planting and cultivating fall and winter crops; improving your soil with cover […]
by Linda Carloni Tomatoes, peppers, green beans, zucchini – all well-known and glorious fruits of the summer garden. But while enjoying the bounty, it’s also time to give some thought to the fall and winter garden. Sometimes summer gardening takes all my garden energy and I take a break. But […]
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 […]
by Paige Benviniste September 20, 2022 The organic food label means more than the absence of pesticides and herbicides. When you buy organic, you’re buying food grown by farmers that are required to maintain and improve soil health. Soil health is not only important for the environment, it’s important for […]
by Margie Siegal Mulch can be a lot of different things, from straw to high tech plastics, but basically, it is anything you put on top of the soil your plants are growing in to help them along. There are almost as many reasons to mulch as there are kinds […]
by Stefani Leto If you garden in the Bay Area, you are either familiar with powdery mildew, or you soon will be. The fungus is ubiquitous and there’s a spore variety for seemingly every plant. Powdery mildew is a catchall name for a group of airborne fungi that reproduce on […]
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 […]
An Interview with Tom Bressan, Founder of the Urban Farmer Store by Margie Siegal Setting up a drip irrigation system for your vegetable garden is an excellent DIY project. It takes a minimum of tools, information is available, the components are not very expensive and there is even an item […]
by Stefanie Leto Consider the lawn. If well-maintained, it requires a lot of water, weeding, and mowing. It’s also usually a monoculture. You can free yourself from the lawn, and enjoy fresh produce from the same area. My current house presented me with three lawn areas. More fun, more work, […]
Pick up free compost for your gardens at Alameda Point. Big shout out to Farm2Market and Makerfarm for all their hard work in getting the compost hub started. Important information – please read everything below: Access to the Compost Hub is open on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 10 AM – […]
by Margie Siegal Bermuda grass, whose Latin name is Cynodon dactylon, is native to Europe, Africa, Australia and much of Asia and is found both world wide and all over my yard. The blades are a grey-green color and one to six inches long. The grass blades grow on erect […]
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 […]
by Sarah Miller, ABG Board Member February 10, 2022 Interested in regenerative agriculture? Working to end homelessness? Come out to our non-profit farm at the west end of Alameda to help prepare the land for Spring!
by Linda Carloni, Master Gardener and ABG Board Member For me the very best reason to plant asparagus is because it’s delicious. It also grows well here by the Bay, thriving in cool, humid summers. Asparagus is a perennial plant, so you plant it one year and with luck it […]
by Birgitt Evans, Master Gardener and ABG Board Member It’s the most wonderful time of the year! No, not the holidays, silly. Seed season. All your seed catalogs have arrived, the nurseries are chock-full of seeds and it’s time to get out some Post-its and start making your choices. This […]
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 […]
(via Food 52) Marla Koss suggested this recipe as well – it’s a revelation, as well as filled with Vitamin C! Ingredients: 2 sticks (225g) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for the pan 1 1/4 cups (250g) sugar 3 large eggs 2 oranges (about 1 pound/450g), ends trimmed, then cut […]
Marla Koss brings us this delicious twist on a holiday favorite. The recipe has a great depth of flavor from the fruit and is a great way to use up a ripe persimmon or two. Yields enough filling for a single-crust 10-inch pie or a 9-inch pie + 2 oven-safe […]
by Birgitt Evans A delicious beverage for a gathering, and a great start to a festive meal! Ingredients: 1 gallon Apple Juice Peel from 1/2 Orange or 1 Mandarin 10 Whole Cloves 6 Cardamom Pods 2 or 3 3 inch Pieces of Cinnamon Stick Add everything to a heavy bottomed […]
from Recipes by Love and Lemons Alison Limoges recommends this salad, which was a big success at her Thanksgiving feast. Ingredients: (Serves 2 as a main dish and 4 as a side dish) 1 delicata squash, washed, halved lengthwise, seeded and sliced into 1/2 inch segments 1 small red onion, […]
by Marla Koss Serves 4 A warming winter soup from Marla Koss, with both vegan and not vegan options! A cozy and yummy way to fit a lot of vegetables. Note: This is a vegan recipe, but to make it unvegan, you can toss a couple boneless, skinless frozen chicken […]
by Margie Siegal What a great idea – a savory main dish squash and greens pie! This pie keeps in the fridge for a week, so if there are only one or two of you, you can get several meals out of one pie. Many of the ingredients in this […]
by Linda Carloni, ABG Board Member Many experts recommend that broccoli and bok choy (as well as other cruciferous vegetables) be planted in the inner East Bay in February/March or from July through September. But I plant mine from seedlings in October. Planting in October risks slow growth if the […]
by Margie Siegal So there you are, poking through the seed racks at Ploughshares Nursery or Encinal Nursery, and trying to figure out what variety to buy, or scrolling around all the different seed companies on-line, reading through the descriptions and trying to figure out what variety to buy. Once […]
October 19, 2021 @ 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm on Zoom You can have a beautiful native plant garden that attracts amazing birds, butterflies and other wildlife. Learn about the benefits of local, native plants and some of the wonderful birds that are drawn to this place and to these […]
by Marla Koss, ABG Board member If the best part about having a fruit tree in your yard is enjoying the fruit itself, then the satisfaction of watching it thrive year after year has got to be a close second. Whether you have just one — or a half-dozen — […]
by Birgitt Evans, Master Gardener and ABG Board Member Last year I took a class from Master Gardener Guy Duran and finally perfected my onion growing technique. This year I grew big, fat onions, some weighing in at 15 ounces! Onions are biennial, producing bulbs in their first year to […]
by Linda Carloni, Master Gardener and ABG Board Member Plants that are native to California are becoming more and more popular, both as part of an established garden or as a replacement for a lawn. There are lots of good reasons for the increasing interest in native plants. Why Plant […]
Check out the beautifully crafted seed library installed by Alameda Backyard Growers in the Healing Garden, 1435 Webster Street last weekend. Many thanks to Jake Myers and Troop 1015, Ken Carvahlo, Jim Myers, and to WEAD board member Michael Towne, who heads up the team of garden volunteers in the […]
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. […]
by Birgitt Evans, Master Gardener and ABG Board Member Trees are the largest living organisms in the landscape and the most important. Trees take carbon out of the atmosphere and store it in their roots and tissues, they cool the ground and reduce the heat island effect, they slow, sink […]
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