Thank You ASTI Garden Club Students!
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 helping to create a better... Continue reading→
Autumn Resource Roundup
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 crops and other techniques; and... Continue reading→
Cool Season – Time to Start Planting
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 when I can summon myself... Continue reading→
Aphids in Summer
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 insects that have soft, pear-shaped... Continue reading→
Behind the Organic Food Label
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 human health. Scientists are finding... Continue reading→
Mulch – A Primer
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 of mulch. Your aim in... Continue reading→
Powdery Mildew
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 plant tissues. Most often you’ll... Continue reading→
Guerilla Gardening with Neighbors
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 of our neighbor on the... Continue reading→
DIY Drip Irrigation System
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 known as a “goof plug”... Continue reading→
Transforming a Lawn into an Edible Paradise
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, more opportunity. I also found... Continue reading→