Remember to Label Those Jars!

Label, label, label!” This was one of the most important lessons I learned in my Master Food Preserver training. You’ll note, from the jars above, that I’m not very good about this. When were those jars canned and what’s in them? I have no idea. They were probably the result of some late night canning frenzy two years ago. At the time I probably thought to myself, “I’ll label them in the morning.”...

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Upcoming Classes: Edible Gardening and Vermicomposting

A reminder: we have two very talented speakers and educators coming to the Root Simple compound to teach a series of classes. Sign up soon–they are selling out fast. The first is Darren Butler teaching his Beginning Vegetable Gardening series, starting Oct. 4, and his Intermediate series starting Oct. 18th. The second is Nancy Klehm’s teaching an in-depth Vermicomposting class on October 23rd.  Details below: Consulting Arborist...

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Edible Landscaping and Gardening Classes With Darren Butler

...o say it’s amazing is an understatement. If you’re interested in taking either of these two classes email Darren at [email protected] Will be great to meet you all! Sign up soon as room is limited. GROW LA VICTORY GARDENING BEGINNING CLASSES In partnership with the LA County Master Gardener Program In Silver Lake: hosted by Root SimpleTuesday and Thursday evenings, Oct 4, 6, 11, 13, 6:00 to 9:00pm$85 early registration for payments r...

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Warning: This Blog is Based in a Mediterranean Climate

A fresco from Pompeii depicting many familiar plants. I’ve been meaning to do this for a long time: write up a sort of this-blog-is-in-a-Mediterranean-climate disclaimer. There’s a certain amount of awkwardness when discussing vegetable gardening in the Northern Hemisphere’s winter months. I imagine that most of the readers of this blog are either taking some time off from gardening or gardening under a hoop house. But for us h...

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Rooftop Garden Classes

ct, an old seafood warehouse rooftop has been turned into a gourmet garden atop the home of artisan food purveyor Cube Marketplace. Full disclosure: I’m the lucky gardener. And this weekend I’ll be teaching a Fall Gardening Class and a class on new ways to use common garden herbs. For more information or to sign up for the classes click here. The classes are part of a quarterly pop-up marketplace. Even if you don’t want to take...

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More on our gardening disasters

...rden. Sometimes Erik gets a little melodramatic when it comes to the crop failure (e.g. the Squash Baby adventure) but the truth is we’ve never, ever had such a sorry string off disasters and non-starters since we began gardening. And I think that’s something to keep in mind. This is unusual. When things are going wrong, it’s easy to forget how often they go right. That’s why it’s good to keep a garden journal, or a...

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Adventures in Gardening Series: Wrap up on the Hippie Heart: Growing lentils and flax

The Hippie Heart got a crew cut We’re clearing out our cool season crops for the warm season ones, so it’s time for some reporting on the new beds we’ve been profiling under the “Advances in Gardening” series. We’ll start with the Hippie Heart. The Hippie Heart is a heart-shaped bed where I was intending to experiment with planting seeds straight out of the pantry, ill-advised as that might seem,...

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Lasagna Gardening Simplified

First popularized back in the 1970s, “lasagna gardening” involves piling up thick layers of cardboard and uncomposted kitchen scraps on top of (sometimes) double-dug soil. The practice is touted as a way of removing lawns and improving soil with little work. Linda Chalker-Scott, Extension Urban Horticulturist at Washington State University, proposes a vastly simpler version of lasagna gardening.  Chalker-Scott suggests skipping th...

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Edible Rooftop Gardens

Homegrown Neighbor here: As long as we are asking our readers for ideas, I have a few projects I could use your help on as well. I am looking for an edible rooftop garden to visit. Ideally it would be in Southern California, but I may also visit Austin, Texas. So either L.A. or Austin gardens would work. I’d love to hear from anyone who knows of a great rooftop edible garden, but I’d really like to find ones that I can visit. The...

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Rooftop SIP Garden in LA

Got to visit John Zapf’s vertiginous LA compound yesterday. He’s got an amazing rooftop vegetable garden using self irrigating pots. John has little sun in the yard so the roof is only option for veggies. He uses drip line to refill the reservoirs. Reminds me of the Green Roof Growers of Chicago (minus the extreme weather). His two cents on what to grow: chard good, zucchini good, corn in pots not so good. For more info on self ir...

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