Rainwater harvesting: Infiltration features
One category of rainwater harvesting uses Mother Earth as your “storage device.” You design your landscape, including choices on surface materials and making decisions about the grading (land sculpting), with the goal of making water soak into the ground. Up until fairly…
Tis the season to be planning!
In Martha Stewart’s book Gardening, she described her gardening January as a time to curl up in a favorite chair with all her catalogs and dream about spring. Not so in Southern California! Here in So Cal, January should be…
Rainwater harvesting: Capture and Store devices
I’ve written before about rain barrels. At the Community Garden at Holy Nativity, we have rain tanks. TreePeople has a massive cistern up on Mulholland. All of these devices — rain barrels, rain tanks, cisterns — are what are considered…
Water waste or water savings – which are you planning for?
If the most current forecasts prove true, we in drought-wracked Southern California could be in for a very wet winter. Weather analysts are predicting a Godzilla El Niño, with once-in-a-generation levels of rainfall. Rainwater harvesting is the word of the…
What vegetables to plant when in Southern California
Here in Southern California, we can grow and harvest vegetables year-round. That doesn’t mean we can harvest tomatoes every month of the year; it means different crops will grow well here in different months of the year. The trick is…
Exposing the False Prophets of Transformation
Nicole Ashcoff has posted an excellent article on what comes after capitalism — or more precisely, what DOESN’T come after capitalism. She writes: “While elite storytellers [like Ophrah Winfrey, Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, John Mackey of Whole Foods, and the…
What benefits does your drought-tolerant garden provide?
A California Natives garden can be a beautiful haven for bees, pollinators, butterflies, beneficial insects, birds, and urban wildlife. An edible garden can feed you and your family, perhaps with extra to share with your neighbors and the food pantry…
Some of my favorite books
Q: Do you remember the first story you ever read, and the impact it had on you? A: One of the first books I remember loving was Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White. My forever take-away was that there are many…
Garden’s Edge / Qachuu Aloom – Sept 3
We are delighted to co-host a very special Guatemalan farming and seed saving group on September 3. In New Mexico they are known as Garden’s Edge, and their Guatemalan name is Qachuu Aloom (“Mother Earth Association”). When aid organizations brought only hybrid and…
Soil pH in Southern California
I’ve been thinking about soil pH lately – particularly since the oven project at the Garden will be creating an ongoing supply of wood ash. pH is a measurement of the acidity or alkalinity of your soil. “Soil pH influences…
