Without Merit: poison in your compost

...wn on land sprayed with aminopyralid I could lose my veggies, particularly tomatoes, lettuce and legumes which are highly susceptible to this chemical. So what can we do? First the practical: test your compost. Washington State University has instructions for performing a simple test here (pdf). Basically, you plant three pea seeds in a 50/50 blend of compost and potting mix and compare their growth against a control group of three pea seeds grown...

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The Perfect Crisis Vegetable: Prickly Pear Cactus

...h onions. You can also just chop the pads and eat them raw in a salsa with tomatoes, onions and hot peppers. Some other resources from our blog for what to do with prickly pear fruit: A prickly pear fruit cocktail Juicing prickly pear fruit Prickly pear jam recipe If you’re not in our warm and dry-ish region a good resource for other edible perennials is Eric Toensmeier’s book Edible Perennial Vegetable Gardening. Can’t grow prickly pear? Tell us...

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Homegrown Evolution in Chicago

...our own SIP. Leave with everything you need for a summer of fresh heirloom tomatoes–all you add is about 6 hours of good sun per day in your yard, balcony, or roof and enough water to keep the reservoir full. No weeding, no mulching, no worries. You’ll go home with: –Plant-ready two-bucket sub-irrigated planter (SIP). –Enough potting mix, organic fertilizer, and powdered lime to plant your tomato. –An organic heirloom tomato plant, from the Green...

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Introducing Lora Hall

...e seedlings and fruit trees at the Highland Park farmer’s market (map) where she runs a booth with Trisha Mazure every Tuesday from 3 to 8 pm. When we visited her at the market last week Lora had a bunch of interesting plants including purslane, tomatoes, tomatillos as well as a selection of fruit trees appropriate for our warm climate. In the LA area and want some fruit trees for your backyard? Some gardening advice? Contact Lora at fullcirclegar...

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