Kevin West’s Saving the Season

...here’s also a few surprises. Did you know that you can pickle unripe stone fruit? West’s recipe for pickled green almonds doubles as a way to deal with fruit that needs to be thinned in the spring. And I now know what I can do with all that cardoon I have growing. Yes, you can pickle that. If that weren’t enough, West has weaved together his recipes with erudite musings. Plato’s theory of forms is contrasted with Buddhism in an essay on kitchen pr...

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Growing Strawberries in a Self Irrigating Gutter (SIG).

...ched into the growing medium and how much of it would be taken up into the fruit? I don’t have an answer to either. If you know of science-based information (i.e. not Livestrong articles) on PVC and growing food please leave a link. Generally, plants do not take up toxins into fruit so I’m not losing any sleep thinking about eating a few strawberries grown in my small PVC SIG. I might think twice about eating greens grown in PVC. The other issue i...

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Pomegranate Factoids

...granate tree. They’ll grow in more humid climates but may not produce much fruit. Ours took five years, from planting as a bare root tree, to get the modest crop you see in the picture. It’s one of my favorite trees–delicious fruit, a red flowers in the spring and a gorgeous display of yellow leaves in the fall–what more could you ask for? If you’ve been successful growing pomegranates outside of California (and worldwide) leave a comment letting...

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On the Many Frustrations of Gardening: Pierce’s Disease

...pectively, and eventually leaf margins dry or die in concentric zones; (2) fruit clusters shrivel or raisin; (3) dried leaves fall leaving the petiole (leaf stem) attached to the cane; and (4) wood on new canes matures irregularly, producing patches of green, surrounded by mature brown bark.” “Fruit clusters shrivel or raisin.” Turney described the life cycle of the sparpshooter, one of the main carriers of Pierce’s, who spread the diesase by feed...

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