Giveaway: The New Sunset Western Garden Book

February 29, 2012

We’ve got five copies of the The New Sunset Western Garden Book to give away to lucky readers. All you have to do is leave a comment here telling us where you live (not your address, but your city or region) and name your favorite tomato variety. This way we’ll build a list of the best tomatoes to help everyone with their summer selections. Tuesday, March 6th we’ll announce the five winners here by the name they leave in the c...

Edible and Tasty Arugula Flowers

Mr. Homegrown

April 16, 2013

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

11 Comments

Our winter vegetable garden is just about finished. This week I’m going to tear out most of it and plant tomatoes and a few other summer veggies. I may keep some of the arugula that has gone to flower a little longer. Why? arugula flower taste great in salads bees love them arugula self seeds readily The flowers, which taste like the leaves, are a reminder of my favorite time of year: arugula season. Each year I curse myself for not pla...

A Bustle In Your Hedgerow: California Natives for your Vegetable Garden

Mr. Homegrown

February 4, 2011

Gardening, Native Plants, Pests

8 Comments

Coyote brush (Baccharis pilularis) photo by Art Shapiro I’ve always been suspicious of some of the popular companion planting advice of the sort dispensed in old books like Carrots Love Tomatoes. From what I understand research just hasn’t proven a lot of the relationships these sorts of books tout. What makes intuitive sense to me, however, is that biodiversity in in a garden can create habitat for beneficial insects and bi...

Growing Watermelons

Mr. Homegrown

September 4, 2008

Gardening

9 Comments

...t early varieties of most vegetables simply because there is less time for bad things to happen. 3. Watermelon is a living mulch. Watermelon, an enormous vine, makes an excellent living mulch, snaking, as it does, amongst our tomatoes and okra. I’ve laid down a layer of straw as mulch, but the watermelon adds a little more to the shade and water retention effort. 4. Irrigating watermelons. Watermelons have large root systems and if you use...

Poison in the Compost

Mr. Homegrown

April 19, 2010

Thoughtstylings

3 Comments

...lants or severely stunt their production, costing gardeners money and time. What do you need to know about contaminated compost? Affected plants show signs of curled, cupped leaves, wilting new growth and poor germination in tomatoes, peas, beans, lettuce and other garden crops. The chemical residues causing the problem can be present in grass clippings, in manure of livestock that has eaten sprayed plant matter or in compost made from contamina...

L’hamd markad – Preserved Salted Lemons

Mr. Homegrown

March 30, 2007

Fermentation, Food

2 Comments

...until it gets the consistency of mayonnaise. Moroccan cuisine makes a lot of sense in Los Angeles as the two places have similar climates and all the stuff that grows in Morocco also grows in Southern California–olives, tomatoes, fava beans, dates, and mint. The only thing we’re missing are the sheep . . ....