4. August 2010 by admin.

You know you’ve “made it” when the LA Times prints your picture and an article about you! Wow! So for those of you who missed this past Saturday’s Home Section, here’s the link: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/home_blog/2010/07/tomato-pruning-techniques.html

I’m getting a lot of calls and emails, asking me to teach more classes. So I’m recommending folks visit this Meetup Group and sign up: http://www.meetup.com/Homegrown-Organic-Gardeners/

If you join, you’ll automatically get emails notifying you of the upcoming events and workshops. Right now, my friend and fellow Master Gardener, Carola, is running the Homegrown Organic Gardeners Meetup Group, but  I’m taking over for her because she wanted to step down. What a great way to share info and compare notes, yeah?

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2. August 2010 by admin.

There’s nothing quite like getting your name and picture in the paper. The hits on my website suddenly multiplied 24 fold! So for those of you who don’t read the LA Times, here’s the link:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/home_blog/2010/07/tomato-pruning-techniques.html

I’m holding a seed starting workshop on Sunday, August 8th for a couple of my clients, and if you’re interested in anything specific, please do send me an email. I’m suddenly getting a lot of requests for help setting up veggie gardens, or advising on fruit trees. I have two customers who currently need their fruit trees pruned and trained, and two customers currently putting in new gardens, and two more customers who just want classes and/or private workshops. It really helps having plants to show people how to prune or apply gardening principles. Would you know how to tell the difference between a male and female blossom, or why it’s important to know the difference?

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18. June 2010 by admin.

Hi lovers of homegrown foods! I’ve been away from the blog, but not the garden. I have too many potential customers, and always more people asking to belong to my CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) though I don’t have enough produce to have a CSA! It is always better to have more customers than product than the other way around, because if I can increase output, I can always find people who love really good food to purchase more.

So toward that end, I’ve finally gotten the snails and slugs under control and the fruit looks amazing, and it’s coming in furiously now. The strawberries are about 4 to 6 weeks later than usual because of huge climatic shifts (global warming?), which just means that you’ll be able to find in-season tomatoes all the way through January!

In addition to higher production, I am now offering my services as a fruit/veggie growing consultant. I have my first client now installing and filling their raised beds per my instructions. I offer the same services to you: to design and instruct or install (from beginning to end) your own home growing system. If you are interested, give me a call and we will see how to turn your back (or front!) yard into food.

The peaches are coming in right now, and they are delicious! Right now, Eva’s Pride (a yellow freestone peach) is producing well, but when the Mid Pride peaches (also yellow freestone) start coming in, there will be a huge cartload to sell or trade (see the Rancho Palos Verdes Fruit Exchange link on my homepage). Let me know if you want peaches via email or just drive over this Saturday, when I’ll be in the garden/on the farm.

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12. November 2009 by admin.

I’ve launched a full-scale war against snails and slugs, finally! I’m using beer traps and they actually WORK! I pour flat beer into shallow containers, the yeast attracts the snails and slug, they slide in for a drink and drown! Then more snails come to eat the dead ones and whoops, they’re drowning before they know what’s happened! Snails are notorious for being cannibalistic feeders: they love to eat each others’ dead.

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19. October 2009 by admin.

This Saturday, October 24th at 11:00 am, Russ Parsons, the LA Times Food Editor will be on hand at the Peninsula Library at 701 Silver Spur to give a lively talk and sign his books called How to Pick a Peach and How to Read a French Fry. I plan to show up and hand out Bay Laurel Nursery catalogs, trying to drum up interest in planting more peach and nectarine trees on our lovely Peninsula.

Russ will be joined by Frieda Caplan, founder of Frieda’s Specialty Produce Company. She specializes in selling rare and unusual fruit, produce, etc. at farmer’s markets and through her website:  http://www.friedas.com/

I don’t doubt that if I stand up and introduce myself as the founder of the RPV Fruit  Exchange, that it will get a little “off topic” from trying to find peaches at the local farmer’s markets. But you have to admit, nothing could be more local than your own back yard, so I guess they can’t complain about me if they’re truly interested in local and fresh fruit.

So if you want to meet me, and get a fruit tree catalog, come to Russ and Frieda’s talk, buy Russ’ book, and then set up an appointment to have me come to your house and recommend trees (for free!!!)

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15. September 2009 by admin.

I performed the summer pruning on my peach and nectarine trees. It took all of 45 minutes for 5 trees. Not bad. If anyone wants a quick primer, let me know and I’ll post it on this blog.

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15. September 2009 by admin.

I planted three of the four trees today. I decided not to plant the Java Plum “Duhat” based on a review at http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/57324/ that said the tree is a big problem, and the fruit’s not that great. Decide for yourself, or email me to let me know your thoughts on this tree.

Here’s what I found about the other three trees and how to plant them:

Papaya: like a palm, just one main trunk. Plant in dry location (south-facing). No frost. Grows 10-12 feet high. Likes being planted near the house to receive reflected heat. Plant in a mound, to prevent water logging. It doesn’t like to sit in damp soil. FYI: http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/papaya.html

Cherimoya: Likes sun, south-facing. Grows leaves only in April. Evergreen, to 30 feet tall, but can easily be restrained. Stake the young tree. Do not plant near a radiant wall or on a hot hillside, next to the slope. Protect from Santa Ana winds. Only water in April, non-soggy soil the rest of the year. FYI: http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/cherimoya.html

Mango: Self-fruitful. Grows to 30 feet. Shade tree. Does best at the top of middle of a slope. Needs staking. Plant at the north side of a house in the desert; it likes shade. On the coast, plant against a south wall, near pavement to provide maximum heat. Avoid wet soils. FYI: http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/mango.html

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8. July 2009 by admin.

“Build it and they will come,” Phil Alden Robinson wrote in his movie “Field of Dreams”. That’s what I feel has happened in my garden, especially when Matt popped up from behind my fence and said “Wow, cool,” in his hippie Californian surfer dude way.

Matt’s doing a work-exchange-for-food deal with me. And so far, he’s been an amazing help, spraying seaweed/fish emulsion, taking out old plants and planting new ones, removing weeds, and tying up tomato plants. I couldn’t have asked for a better helper. Two days ago, he helped me and my neighbor, Lynn, clean up her peach tree and pick its fruit. We’ve been using the Fruit Exchange and plain ol’ neighborliness to get rid of the surplus. Sweet white peaches!

Here’s a photo of my new protege (although I think he’s teaching me more than I’m teaching him):

Matt will be a junior at Humboldt State next year if he doesn’t take the year off. He also works at the Rolling Hills Methodist Church Kid Zone camp during the week, teaching music to the kids. He plays mandoline and knows a lot of Greatful Dead tunes.

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25. March 2009 by admin.

This morning, at the gym I saw a headline that ran “Killings up among Drug Dealers” or something of that sort. I tried to imagine why the killings have gone UP. As opposed to staying level, I guess.

Which got me thinking: if the classes are shifting, more people moving into challenging financial times, what are they more likely to do: drugs or whatever they were doing before this challenging time?

If the youth of today were planting gardens instead of doing drugs, maybe they’d avoid all the gun-related activity as well.

If food is a drug, and my drug of choice is veggies, then really: I’m a drug pusher myself. I espouse healthy food as a way to do drugs to feel good.

Everybody knows that if you eat well, you feel good in body mind and soul. Except how do you treat these veggies to make them taste good? Keep it simple, is what I say: just steam the kohlrabi and put some salt and/or butter on it. That should keep the kids off the street and in the garden.

I’m reading about teenagers, specifically boys, becoming men by going through a process called “initiation.” What our culture lacks is an initiation process for men so that boys know how they fit into society, their role as men: the responsibility it requires, and the spiritual path that beckons.

In a book called “The Secret Life of Men,” Steve Biddulph writes about Ecology as a Spiritual Path: “Many people are attracted to a more natural life, not just from ’save the earth’ concerns but because they are pulled to it by the wildness in their own nature. Indeed there are many who would claim not to be religious at all, yet the wilderness and the ocean are already their spiritual homes. Surfer, mountaineers, hikers, are responding to this call. Even an old person growing roses is seeking the spiritual. The thirst for wildness is with us every day. The more artifical life gets, the more people strive to redress the balance. Nature always offers the happiest way for humans. The closer modern man gets to inner and outer wildness, the better things will go.”

So the daughter of my friend in Spanish class LOVED my script. Now I just have to find out what she’s made of, to see if she’s willing to take a few risks to get it read in Hollywood, the “People-Discouraging Machine.” Only the strong willed survive.

Posted in Roses, Gardening classes and opportunities to learn, Everyday life, Vegetables and Fruit | 1 Comment »

23. March 2009 by admin.

My friend, Sarojni, helped write an article for her blog which you can find at: http://longbeachgreenguidearticles.blogspot.com/

In it, I describe how to prepare your soil if you’ve never started a garden before, or even if you just want to know what goes into creating excellent soil.

So check it out!

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