Resources for Mid-Spring Garden in Alameda
by Linda Carloni April is plant sale month! Specifically, pop-up sales of veggie seedlings for spring and summer harvest. ABG’s annual spring plant sale is Saturday, April 20, 2024 at Alameda’s Spring Shindig. Basics of planting those seedlings Prep your soil, be it in pots, in raised beds or the good old dirt in your... Continue reading→
Three Perennial Cooking Herbs
by Linda Carloni Herbs serve us in wonderful ways – they can help with our health, make our food taste better, provide food for insects, and provide lovely scents and beautiful flowers. This post focuses on three commonly used and delicious perennial herbs for cooking. I grow these, and other herbs, because I like fresh... Continue reading→
Growing Peaches and Nectarines in Alameda
by Marla Koss The best peach I ever tasted actually came from my own backyard. In Alameda. On a tree I had planted myself, not some consecrated tree grown by a wise old soul before we lived here. It was a Bonita peach, a yellow-fleshed freestone, one of the few peach varieties at the time... Continue reading→
Helping Our Friends
by Marla Koss January 31, 2024 The Edible Schoolyard in North Berkeley is a magical place. Twenty-five years ago Alice Waters and friends broke ground next to Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School, intent on giving students hands-on experience in the wonders of growing food and being nourished by it. Today it has a large,... Continue reading→
Pruning Fruit Trees in the Winter
by Margie Siegal People have grown fruit trees for thousands of years. In that time, careful farmers have developed techniques to help each tree be the best tree it can be. That means appropriate watering, control of bad bugs and plant diseases, adding fertilizer as appropriate, and – pruning. Pruning is important: it removes diseased... Continue reading→
Can I Start Veggies in February?
by Linda Carloni February can seem like a pretty dismal month for the gardener. Sometimes (thank goodness) it rains a lot, and the ground is really soaked. Sometimes it’s very chilly. And always, the days are short, at least at the beginning of the month. But for the flexible gardener, you can still plant! Indoors... Continue reading→
Early Winter Garden Tasks
by Linda Carloni January can be such a rainy month (if we’re fortunate), as well as dark and chilly. But when you can find a dry day, there are many garden tasks to be done outdoors. Peach leaf curl – Dormant spraying Last spring and summer, peach leaf curl was a major issue; for a... Continue reading→
What To Do With Green Tomatoes
by Margie Siegal At the end of the summer, gardeners and farmers from many different cultures faced a similar problem: tomatoes that got started too late and never ripened. Gardeners and farmers around the world share two traits: first, they never throw anything away if they can help it and second, they are ingenious people.... Continue reading→
Apple Quiz
Can You Identify These Apple Pests, Diseases or Conditions? by Marla Koss, October 26, 2023 Let’s take a quiz! (Answers are listed at the bottom of this quiz.) 1. A tell-tale sign of this serious disease afflicting many rose family trees and plants – including pome fruits – is the “shepherd’s crook.” The Callery Pear... Continue reading→
Succession Planting
by Margie Siegal We had a cold start to the year, and the fava beans were loving it, as were the radishes. The squash and tomatoes were cowering and shivering. By the middle of June, the favas and radishes were finally done, and I was going through my seed packets, figuring out what to plant... Continue reading→