Tomato Maladies
by Linda Carloni, Master Gardener and ABG Board Member Your full-size tomatoes have started to ripen. Your cherry tomatoes may be ready to eat now. Nothing tastes like a tomato from the garden! But while tomatoes are one of the most popular foods to grow in your garden, they are also prone to many maladies...Continue reading→
Greywater, Rainwater Catchment & Groundwater Systems Workshop
with Mano Tondre Owner and Designer, DIG Cooperative Tuesday, August 17, 2021 on Zoom Water conservation and water stewardship are vital now in our second year of severe drought. It is time to look for other sources of water to keep our gardens alive. Join us and learn about harvesting and using Greywater, Rainwater Catchment...Continue reading→
Learn About Shared Gardening Spaces in Alameda
Are you interested in gardening but don’t have the space, or would like a garden but don’t want to do the upkeep? Shared Earth is a website on which, whether you are a homeowner or a gardener, you can post your address, contact information, and details. You can note if, as a resident, you would...Continue reading→
Fall and Winter Gardening
by Margie Siegal Here it is, not even the Fourth of July. Isn’t it a mite early to be planning the fall and winter garden? Actually not. As the sun dips and the air chills, plants grow much more slowly. The trick to growing many vegetables for a winter harvest is to start them in...Continue reading→
The Intricate Dance of Aphids, Ladybugs and Ants
by Marla Koss, Alameda Backyard Growers Board member After gardening in the same backyard for years, I thought I’d seen everything I was ever going to see. I’ve had peanut plants come up in my garden thanks to a squirrel; I’ve been visited by the most beautiful bee – a large, fluffy, all-golden male carpenter...Continue reading→
Creating a Sustainable Ecosystem in Your Garden
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 going to focus on how...Continue reading→
Sensory Gardens Heighten Engagement with Nature
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 on every street of Alameda,...Continue reading→
Eight Ways to Save Water & Have a Fabulous Garden in a Drought
by Birgitt Evans, ABG Board member and Master Gardener You may not realize that California is in the second year of a fairly severe drought, well, because no one is talking about it. As of this writing, we have received 7.6 inches of rain, a fraction of the 20 inches we usually receive in a...Continue reading→
Irrigation Systems
by Margie Siegal If you travel on Interstate 5 through the Central Valley, you will see signs along the highway “IS GROWING FOOD WASTING WATER?” The answer is – it can be! If a farmer does not make the best use of the water that is available, the farmer is wasting water. The same is...Continue reading→
Gardening to Benefit Birds
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 coast to coast and in...Continue reading→