How to Stake Tomatoes

...with a metal blade on it to cut off the bottom rung, so as to leave spiky wires with which to stick the reinforcing wire tubes into the ground, but this is not absolutely necessary. Once in place that’s it. According to So Cal gardening guru Pat Welsh, tomatoes surrounded by a reinforcing wire staking system need not be pruned nor will they need any additional staking. Over time the reinforcing wire rusts lending the garden a certain deconstructe...

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A Prickly Situation

...cides, no watering once established. And note that not all prickly pear varieties produce edible fruit so when you look for cuttings seek out plants that are productive and tasty. It’s the ideal plant for what we call “pirate” gardening, the act of taking over a vacant lot or otherwise abandoned public or semi-public space. Plant a bunch of prickly pear and come back to harvest the nopalitos and fruit. More info and recipes can be found here and h...

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Homegrown Evolution in the LA Times

...Today’s Los Angeles Times Home and Garden section has a story on Guerrilla gardening, “Guerrilla gardener movement takes root in L.A. area”. The article mentions our parkway vegetable garden, which consists of two 6-foot square raised beds with two wire obelisks to support beans and tomatoes. We constructed it in October of 2005 and have grown a few season’s worth of crops. Here’s our parkway garden just after putting it in. We installed raised be...

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Saturday Linkages: The Calm After the Storm

...of Altadena Makes and Uses the Ancient Atlatl: http://dirttime.com/?p=2741 Gardening What to do with storm damaged trees: http://www.treesaregood.org/pressrelease/press/firstaid.aspx … Check out The vegetable garden by M.M. Vilmorin-Andrieux, of Paris on Google Play! Old book recommended by John Jeavons: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Vilmorin_Andrieux_et_cie_The_vegetable_garden?id=YHQNAQAAMAAJ … Bikes ‘Getting Jerry Browned’ and oth...

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